Mabel Osgood Wright

“ Meanwhile as Bird disappeared around the house a tall boy, carrying a big bunch of red peonies, came up the track in the grass that served as a path. It was Sammy, or Lammy Lane, as he was usually called, clad in his best clothes and red with running, having only come to a full stop as he reached the kitchen door, where he stood looking anxiously in, the flowers clutched nervously in both hands. ”

“ Bird stood quite still in the little open space by a side door back of the pews; it was the first really peaceful time she had known since the day that she and Lammy carried the red peonies to the hillside graveyard, and as she thought of it, she seemed to smell the sweet spruce fragrance of those runaway Christmas trees that watched where her parents slept. ”

“ Lane set out on a tour of inspection. The half dozen outbuildings were quickly explored, for, with the exception of the barn, they were quite open to the weather and as rickety as card houses. Tall weeds struggled with the straggling sweet-william and fiery, hardy poppies in the strip before the lilac bushes that Bird had called her garden, and the rusty [95] wire of the henyard fence enclosed a crowd of nettles that stretched toward the light like ill-favoured prisoners in a pen. ”

“ On the night of Bird’s arrival in New York Jack and Larry O’More were late for supper. In fact they did not come in until she had gone to bed on the “extension” lounge in the parlour, where she was lying with her teeth clenched in an effort to keep her eyes shut and to choke down the nervousness to which crying would have brought the quickest relief. If Bird could only have been alone in the dark and quiet for a few hours, it would have been much easier for her to have overcome her great disappointment. ”

“ Jedd was the only one who suspected in the right direction; for soon after the Lanes had moved into their new home, and curiosity had subsided, he was looking on the parlour mantel-shelf for the matches, and discovered the chopped remains of the pewter tea-pot reposing in a handsome china jar that was bought in New York. But Dr. Jedd only chuckled as the whole thing flashed across him, and he said to himself, “Surely enough, man proposes and woman disposes, and there’s a various lot of human nature in woman, especially Aunt Jimmy, who was a blessed, good, spunky, old fool.” ”

“ Lane collected, in a valise, the few clothes that made up Bird’s wardrobe, she felt broken-hearted indeed, but she could not but realize that if the little girl must go, the quicker the better, and who knew what might turn up, for Mrs. Lane was always hopeful. But Lammy, poor boy, could not see one bright spot in the darkness. It was with difficulty that his father could keep the child, usually so gentle, from flying at O’More; he stormed and begged and finally, completely exhausted, fled to the stuffy attic where he fell asleep, pillowed by some hard ears of seed corn. ”

“ The back yards were full of firemen, and excited people hung from the windows of opposite buildings. Bird tried to raise the trap in the floor door, but the boxes of frozen earth that had held the morning-glories bore it down, making it useless, and the one below was hopelessly heaped with litter.
Would nobody see her? Billy clung to her, sobbing pitifully, for he was lightly covered, and shivered with cold as well as fear. The window-frame inside was catching, and heat also came up from below. Was this the end? Must the wild bird die in her cage? ”

“ The car they boarded went through another short tunnel, and on every side could be heard the noise of hammers or drilling in the rock.
“Is this a stone quarry?” asked Bird, innocently, not understanding, and wondering why the near-by passengers smiled as her uncle replied: “Lord bless yer! no; it’s the subway, a road below ground they’re building to let out folks from where they work to where there’s room to live; there’s such push here below town there’s little room for sitting, let alone sleeping. ”

“ To be poor, in the sense of having little to spend and plain food, she was accustomed,—in fact, she had much more to eat now, and through her uncle’s careless kindness she was seldom without dimes for the trolley rides to Battery Park “where the fishes lived,” or Central Park with the swan-boats that were to “make a man” of Billy. But to be shut away from the woods, the sky, the beauty of the sunsets, to have no flowers to gather and love, and to be brought face to face daily with all the ugliness of the life that is merely of the body, was almost too much for her courage. ”

“ Before she had gone a block, two little girls had begged her for flowers, one rosy and sturdy chose red and yellow zenias; the other, who, like Billy, had a “bad leg” and hopped, chose delicate-hued sweet peas. Bird had never seen a lame child in Laurelville, but now she met them daily, for such little cripples are one of the frequent sights of poorer New York. ”

“ The next afternoon five tired but happy people arrived at the Centre and electrified the neighbourhood by hiring a hack to take them to Laurelville, Joshua having only been persuaded to stay two days of the proposed week’s excursion.
“I’m goin’ to have Hope Snippin up to-morrow morning to shorten my gown,” was Mrs. Lane’s greeting to the minister’s wife when she opened the door in alarm at the unexpected return, while Twinkle leaped into Bird’s arms, fairly screaming with dog joy. ”

“ But if Bird recognized Marion, the memory was on one side, as it is apt to be where one sees but few faces and the other many. This however did not prevent Marion from holding out her free hand to the younger girl, as she made room for her to pass between the boxes, saying, in a charming voice, low-keyed and softly modulated, yet without a touch of affectation: “If you are fond of flowers and can spare the time, perhaps you would help us this morning; so many of our friends have left the city that we are short-handed. ”

“ In September school began, but this brought further disappointment, for Bird had hoped to find a friend at least in the teacher. She was, however, graded according to her size and age, not ability, as if she had been a wooden box, and found herself in an overcrowded room, a weak-eyed little Italian, with brass earrings, seated on one side of her, and the Polish sausage-seller’s daughter on the other, her dirty hands heavy with glass rings, which caused her to keep whispering behind Bird’s back as to her lack of jewellery and style ”

“ At this Bird’s heart sunk still farther, for in the prim New England town where she was born and bred a Puritan, a horse-dealer meant either some oversharp farmer who could outwit his neighbours or a roving fellow, half gypsy, half tramp, of very ill repute, who went about from town to town buying and selling animals who mostly had something the matter with them that had to be concealed by lying. ”

“ At the first corner a blind woman, selling the mats she herself crocheted, begged for “a posy that she could tell by the smell was passing.” To her Bird gave the bunch of mignonette. A burly truckman, who thought she was selling the flowers, threw her a dime and asked for a “good-smellin’ bokay for the missis who was done up with the heat,” so she tossed him back the coin and a bouquet of spicy garden pinks and roses together, while Billy called in his piping voice, “We’re a Flower Mission—we gives ’em away,” so that the man drove off laughing, his fat face buried in the flowers. ”

“ I’ll give her some schooling until she’s fit age to choose her trade, or if she’s tasty looking, get in some good shop, and she can ease her way along meantime in minding little Billy or helping the woman out. For I’d have you know that though I’ve a good job, and there’s always meat in the pot, we’re plain people of no pretence. I’ve money in a land company, though, that’ll soon give us our own home and not so far out either but what a gun would shoot into the Bowery.”
John O’More’s speech poured out so rapidly that it almost stunned Joshua Lane. ”

“ Lane looked puzzled, then much to that fat aunty’s astonishment popped the batch of six plump loaves into the oven and, leaving Dinah to tend the baking,—a thing that save for illness she had never trusted to other hands in her twenty years of housekeeping,—she took a small basket, a knife, and her crisp gingham sunbonnet, and muttering something about trying to get one more mess of dandelion greens, even if it was counted late, disappeared through the woodshed door. ”

“ When the room was finally cleared, a mirror, a chair, and a small chest of drawers were the only useful assets, and these Bird pulled into the kitchen, while she dusted and wiped away at them until they looked clean, even if somewhat shabby.
Returning from the cellar O’More (in his youth a handy man in a stable) attacked the dust in the little room with broom, mop, and finally a scrubbing-brush to such good purpose that in an hour it was quite another place, for the walls fortunately had been painted a light cream and were in fairly good condition. ”

“ Joshua Lane had come from Aunt Jimmy’s to take O’More over to the judge’s house to sign some papers. A man had followed him up to say Dr. Jedd felt the old lady was worse. Mrs. Lane was giving Bird a thousand directions and warnings that she couldn’t possibly remember, and in the middle of it all Lammy, looking straight before him and dumb as an owl, his eyes nearly closed from last night’s crying, drove around in the business wagon to take the travellers to the station, four good miles away. ”

“ If the fruit farm could ever be hers, she would adopt Bird without hesitation, for the little lady-child had crept into the empty spot that Janey had left in her big mother heart and filled it in a way that greatly astonished her. ”

“ Prompted by Lauretta Ann,—for Joshua was too hard-headed and practical to have learned anything about flowers, except that they must be fed and watered like other stock, whether animal or vegetable,—he regulated the various borders, dividing and resetting the roots of hardy plants under his wife’s direction, as Aunt Jimmy had done each autumn, while Lammy stood by, eagerly waiting for the “weedings,” which he carried home with great [173] care and set out in a corner south of the barn, “to make,” as he said, “a little garden for Bird, in case we don’t get the fruit farm.” ”

“ After Bird had seen her pretty room and coaxed Billy, who was nodding drowsily, to eat his bread and milk and go to bed before the real supper, she came down to the living-room, where the table was spread for the first time instead of in the kitchen, for Dinah Lucky came in a few hours every day now to do the heavy work and give Mrs. Lane more leisure. A stranger was sitting by the fire. He rose and took Bird by the hand very gently and drew her to the lounge beside him, at the same time handing her a letter. ”

“ A pail of water stood on the table, from which Bird filled the pitcher, and set it on a chair by Tessie that she might herself arrange the flowers. [160] Then, remembering that the policeman and Billy were waiting, she picked up her basket and her own flowers, and, promising to come the next week, groped her way downstairs again.
Bird did not see the tired mother, when she returned from her day’s scrubbing, enter the dark room and drawing a quick breath say, in an awe-struck voice, “I smell them—I smell the wallflowers! Sure, am I dreaming or dying?” ”

“ Abiram Slocum seemed bewildered, and glancing at his wife, failed to read her signal aright, and resorted to a hoarse whispering in the middle of which she shook him off and shouted with an air of triumph, “Five thousand dollars!”
Mrs. Lane was seen to moisten her lips nervously, and the colour in her cheeks deepened, but then by this time the wood-stove was sending forth red-hot [222] air as only a sheet-iron stove working full blast knows how.
“Five thousand two hundred and fifty,” bid the lawyer. Then followed an altercation between Mr. and Mrs. Slocum. ”

“ I do wish people would tie up their flowers before they send them, they would keep so much better; but as they do not, we have to manage as best we may.
“Oh, how nicely you do it,” she continued, as Bird held up her first effort for approval,—a dainty bouquet of mignonette, a white rose, and some pink sweet-william, with a curved spray of honeysuckle to break the stiffness. ”

“ Lane remembered O’More’s conditional [177] promise only too well, and the possibility of fulfilling her part of adopting the little girl within the year seemed to grow more and more remote.
Silently Lammy finished his work, picking up every dead leaf that lay on the mounds, and then taking his spade and basket, turned to go home, but there stood his tormentor by the gate.
If anything angers a bully, it is silence. If Lammy had engaged in a war of words, the chances are that ’Ram would have gone away, having had, as he considered it, his fun out. ”

“ Lane—stout, thick of foot and nearer fifty than forty—it was a terrible exertion, and she paused between every step she took to catch her breath, muttering, “Lauretta Ann Lane, you are a fool if ever there was one. Suppose folks should pass by and see you creepin’ up here like a squawkin’ pigeon woodpecker hanging to a tree?”
She, however, did not in the least resemble even that heavy-bodied bird. Did you ever see a woodchuck mount a low tree when cornered by dogs? That was what Mrs. Lane looked like as she climbed. ”

“ Slocum, [50] angrily, drawing in her head suddenly from the third fruitless inspection of the road that she had made in fifteen minutes and giving it a smart bump against the sash as she did so. “Either the folks is late, or they’re gone around the back road, and if so, why? I’d just like you to tell me,” she snapped at Hope Snippin, the meek little village dressmaker who, drawn over as if she had a perpetual stitch in her side, was remaking a skirt for the lady of the house and felt very much discouraged, as it had been turned once before, at the possibility of making it look startlingly new. ”

“ Love lights up many a dark, shabby room, and Bird had never been lonely with her father for a companion, and in spite of his own shiftlessness and poverty he had taught her much that she never would forget; but now love had gone, and as she crept down the rickety stairs hugging the box, Lammy stumbling after with the portfolio, her only desire was to go somewhere, anywhere to get away, lingering only a [17] moment in the kitchen to collect some scraps of food for the dog. ”

“ Oh, but it’s a fine city is New York, all the same.”
Next a broad avenue with a jumble of old, low shops and fine new buildings side by side; still Bird looked anxiously out for some place where it seemed possible that people might live and found none.
“Here’s 2—th Street where we land,” said O’More, presently looking up, and when the car had stopped, Bird found herself walking along a sidewalk between another wall of buildings without gardens, while the heat of the first warm day rising from the pavement made her dizzy, and she asked, “Is it far from here to where you live, Uncle John?” ”

“ True it was Saturday and Dinah Lucky was still pounding the ironing board, but that was because she had “disappointed” on the two first week-days sacred to such work, and not through any slackness on Mrs. Lane’s part.
The weekly mending was always a knotty bit of business, and to-day doubly so, for now that Lammy [99] was working at the fruit farm, it seemed as if he fairly moulted buttons and shed the knees and seats of his trousers as crabs do their shells. ”

“ Now Bird, being a perfectly healthy child, even though overwrought and tired, was hungry and gladly climbed up on one of the high stools that flanked the lunch counter, while her uncle gathered a sandwich, two enormous doughnuts, and a quarter [61] of a mince pie on one plate and pushed it toward her saying: “Tea or coffee? You’d better fill up snug, for we won’t be home until well after dinnertime,” then John O’More proceeded to cool his own coffee by pouring it from cup to saucer and back again with much noise and slopping. ”