III.
"Where's Nora?" Young Johnny O'Callahan was asking the question; the express had stopped for water, and he seemed to be the only passenger; this was his day off.
Mrs. Ryan was sitting on her doorstep to rest in the early evening; her husband had been promoted from switch-tender to boss of the great water-tank which was just beginning to be used, and there was talk of further improvements and promotions at Birch Plains; but the good-natured wife sensibly declared that the better off a woman was, the harder she always had to work.
She took a long look at Johnny, who was dressed even more carefully than if it were a pleasant Sunday.
"This don't be your train, annyway," she answered, in a meditative tone. "How come you here now all so fine, I 'd like to know, riding in the cars like a lord; ain't you brakeman yet on old twinty-four?"
"'Deed I am, Mrs. Ryan; you would n't be afther grudging a boy his day off? Where's Nora?"
"She's gone up the road a bitteen," said Mrs. Ryan, as if she suddenly turned to practical affairs. "She 's worked hard the day, poor shild! and she took the cool of the evening, and the last bun she had left, and wint away with herself. I kep' the taypot on the stove for her, but she 'd have none at all, at all!"
The young man turned away, and Mrs. Ryan looked after him with an indulgent smile. "He's a pritty b'y," she said. "I 'd like well if he 'd give a look at one o' me own gerrls; Julia, now, would look well walking with him, she 's so dark. He's got money saved. I saw the first day he come after the cakeens 't was the one that baked them was in his mind. She's lucky, is Nora; well, I'm glad of it."
It was fast growing dark, and Johnny's eyes were still dazzled by the bright lights of the train as he stepped briskly along the narrow country road. The more he had seen Nora and the better he liked her, the less she would have to say to him, and tonight he meant to find her and have a talk. He had only succeeded in getting half a dozen words at a time since the night of their first meeting on the slow train, when she had gladly recognized the peculiar brogue of her own country-side, as Johnny called the names of the stations, and Johnny's quick eyes had seen the tired-looking, uncertain, yet cheerful little greenhorn in the corner of the car, and asked if she were not the niece that was coming out to Mrs. Duffy. He had watched the growth of her business with delight, and heard praises of the cakes and buns with willing ears; was it not his own suggestion that had laid the foundation of Nora's prosperity? Since their first meeting they had always greeted each other like old friends, but Nora grew more and more willing to talk with any of her breathless customers who hurried up the steep bank from the trains than with him. She would never take any pay for her wares from him, and for a week he had stopped coming himself and sent by a friend his money for the cakes; but one day poor Johnny's heart could not resist the temptation of going with the rest, and Nora had given him a happy look, straightforward and significant. There was no time for a word, but she picked out a crusty bun, and he took it and ran back without offering to pay. It was the best bun that a man ever ate. Nora was two months out now, and he had never walked with her an evening yet.
The shadows were thick under a long row of willows; there was a new moon, and a faint glow in the west still lit the sky. Johnny walked on the grassy roadside with his ears keen to hear the noise of a betraying pebble under Nora's light foot. Presently his heart beat loud and all out of time as a young voice began to sing a little way beyond.
Nora was walking slowly away, but Johnny stopped still to listen. She was singing "A Blacksmith Courted Me," one of the quaintest and sweetest of the old-country songs, as she strolled along in the soft-aired summer night. By the time she came to "My love 's gone along the fields," Johnny hurried on to overtake her; he could hear the other verses some other time,—the bird was even sweeter than the voice.
Nora was startled for a moment, and stopped singing, as if she were truly a bird in a bush, but she did not flutter away. "Is it yourself, Mister Johnny?" she asked soberly, as if the frank affection of the song had not been assumed.
"It's meself," answered Johnny, with equal discretion. "I come out for a mout'ful of air; it's very hot inside in the town. Days off are well enough in winter, but in summer you get a fine air on the train. 'T was well we both took the same direction. How is the business? All the b'ys are saying they'd be lost without it; sure there ain't a stomach of them but wants its bun, and they cried the length of the Road that day the thunder spoiled the baking."
"Take this," said Nora, as if she spoke to a child; "there's a fine crust of sugar on the top. 'T is one I brought out for me little supper, but I 'm so pleased wit' bein' rich that I 've no need at all for 'ating. An' I 'm as tired as I 'm rich," she added, with a sigh; "'t is few can say the same in this lazy land."
"Sure, let's ate it together; 'tis a big little cakeen," urged Johnny, breaking the bun and anxiously offering Nora the larger piece. "I can like the taste of anything better by halves, if I 've got company. You ought to have a good supper of tay and a piece of steak and some potaties rather than this! Don't be giving yourself nothing but the saved cakes, an' you working so hard!"
"'T is plenty days I 'd a poorer supper when I was at home," said Nora sadly; "me father dying so young, and all of us begging at me mother's skirts. It's all me thought how will I get rich and give me mother all the fine things that's in the world. I wish I 'd come over sooner, but it broke my heart whinever I 'd think of being out of sight of her face. She looks old now, me mother does."
Nora may have been touched by Johnny's affectionate interest in her supper; she forgot all her shyness and drew nearer to him as they walked along, and he drew a little closer to her.
"My mother is dead these two years," he said simply. "It makes a man be very lonesome when his mother 's dead. I board with my sister that's married; I 'm not much there at all. I do be thinking I 'd like a house of my own. I 've plinty saved for it."
"I said in the first of coming out that I 'd go home again when I had fifty pounds," said Nora hastily, and taking the other side of the narrow road. "I 've got a piece of it already, and I 've sent back more beside. I thought I 'd be gone two years, but some days I think I won't be so long as that."
"Why don't you be afther getting your mother out? 'T is so warm in the winter in a good house, and no dampness like there does be at home; and her brother and her sister both being here." There was deep anxiety in Johnny's voice.
"Oh, I don't know indeed!" said Nora. "She's very wake-hearted, is me mother; she 'd die coming away from the old place and going to sea. No, I 'm going to work meself and go home; I 'll have presents, too, for everybody along the road, and the children 'll be running and skrieghing afther me, and they 'll all get sweeties from me. 'T is a very poor neighborhood where we live, but a lovely sight of the say. It ain't often annybody comes home to it, but 't will be a great day then, and the poor old folks 'll all be calling afther me: 'Where's Nora?' 'Show me Nora!' 'Nora, sure, what have you got for me?' I 'ont forget one of them aither, God helping me!" said Nora, in a passion of tenderness and pity. "And, oh, Johnny, then afther that I 'll see me mother in the door!"
Johnny was so close at her side that she slipped her hand into his, and neither of them stopped to think about so sweet and natural a pleasure. "I 'd like well to help you, me darlin'," said Johnny.
"Sure, an' was n't it yourself gave me all me good fortune?" exclaimed Nora. "I 'd be hard-hearted an' I forgot that so soon and you a Kerry boy, and me mother often spaking of your mother's folks before ever I thought of coming out!"
"Sure and would n't you spake the good word to your mother about me sometime, dear?" pleaded Johnny, openly taking the part of lover. Nora's hand was still in his; they were walking slowly in the summer night. "I loved you the first word I heard out of your mouth,—'twas like a thrush from home singing to me there in the train. I said when I got home that night, I 'd think of no other girl till the day I died."
"Oh!" said Nora, frightened with the change of his voice. "Oh, Johnny, 't is too soon. We never walked out this way before; you 'll have to wait for me; perhaps you 'd soon be tired of poor Nora, and the likes of one that's all for saving and going home! You 'll marry a prittier girl than me some day," she faltered, and let go his hand.
"Indeed, I won't, then," insisted Johnny O'Callahan stoutly.
"Will you let me go home to see me mother?" said Nora soberly. "I 'm afther being very homesick, 't is the truth for me. I 'd lose all me courage if it wa'n't for the hope of that."
"I will, indeed," said Johnny honestly.
Nora put out her hand again, of her own accord. "I 'll not say no, then," she whispered in the dark. "I can't work long unless I do be happy, and—well, leave me free till the month's end, and maybe then I 'll say yes. Stop, stop!" she let go Johnny's hand, and hurried along by herself in the road, Johnny, in a transport of happiness, walking very fast to keep up. She reached a knoll where he could see her slender shape against the dim western sky. "Wait till I tell you; whisper!" said Nora eagerly. "You know there were some of the managers of the road, the superintendents and all those big ones, came to Birch Plains yesterday?"
"I did be hearing something," said Johnny, wondering.
"There was a quiet-spoken, nice old gentleman came asking me at the door for something to eat, and I being there baking; 't is my time in the morning whin the early trains does be gone, and I 've a fine stretch till the expresses are beginnin' to screech,—the tin, and the tin-thirty-two, and the Flying Aigle. I was in a great hurry with word of an excursion coming in the afternoon and me stock very low; I 'd been baking since four o'clock. He 'd no coat on him, 't was very warm; and I thought 't was some tramp. Lucky for me I looked again and I said, 'What are you wanting, sir?' and then I saw he 'd a beautiful shirt on him, and was very quiet and pleasant.
"'I came away wit'out me breakfast,' says he. 'Can you give me something without too much throuble?' says he. 'Do you have anny of those buns there that I hear the men talking about?'
"'There's buns there, sir,' says I, 'and I 'll make you a cup of tay or a cup of coffee as quick as I can,' says I, being pleased at the b'ys giving me buns a good name to the likes of him. He was very hungry, too, poor man, an' I ran to Mrs. Ryan to see if she 'd a piece of beefsteak, and my luck ran before me. He sat down in me little place and enjoyed himself well.
"'I had no such breakfast in tin years, me dear,' said he at the last, very quiet and thankful; and he l'aned back in the chair to rest him, and I cleared away, being in the great hurry, and he asking me how I come there, and I tolt him, and how long I 'd been out, and I said it was two months and a piece, and she being always in me heart, I spoke of me mother, and all me great hopes.
"Then he sat and thought as if his mind wint to his own business, and I wint on wit' me baking. Says he to me after a while, 'We 're going to build a branch road across country to connect with the great mountain-roads,' says he; 'the junction 's going to be right here; 't will give you a big market for your buns. There 'll be a lunch-counter in the new station; do you think you could run it?' says he, spaking very sober.
"'I 'd do my best, sir, annyway,' says I. 'I 'd look out for the best of help. Do you know Patrick Quin, sir, that was hurt on the Road and gets a pinsion, sir?'
"'I do,' says he. 'One of the best men that ever worked for this company,' says he.
"'He 's me mother's own brother, then, an' he 'll stand by me,' says I; and he asked me me name and wrote it down in a book he got out of the pocket of him. 'You shall have the place if you want it,' says he; 'I won't forget,' and off he wint as quiet as he came."
"Tell me who was it?" said Johnny O'Callahan, listening eagerly.
"Mr. Ryan come tumbling in the next minute, spattered with water from the tank. 'Well, then,' says he, 'is your fine company gone?'
"'He is,' says I. 'I don't know is it some superintendent? He 's a nice man, Mr. Ryan, whoiver he is,' says I.
"''T is the Gineral Manager of the Road,' says he; 'that's who he is, sure!'
"My apron was all flour, and I was in a great rage wit' so much to do, but I did the best I could for him. I 'd do the same for anny one so hungry," concluded Nora modestly.
"Ain't you got the Queen's luck!" exclaimed Johnny admiringly. "Your fortune 's made, me dear. I 'll have to come off the road to help you."
"Oh, two good trades 'll be better than one!" answered Nora gayly, "and the big station nor the branch road are n't building yet."
"What a fine little head you 've got," said Johnny, as they reached the house where the Ryans lived, and the train was whistling that he meant to take back to town. "Good-night, annyway, Nora; nobody 'd know from the size of your head there could be so much inside in it!"
"I'm lucky, too," announced Nora serenely. "No, I won't give you me word till the ind of the month. You may be seeing another gerrl before that, and calling me the red-headed sparrow. No, I 'll wait a good while, and see if the two of us can't do better. Come, run away, Johnny. I 'll drop asleep in the road; I 'm up since four o'clock making me cakes for plinty b'ys like you."
The Ryans were all abed and asleep, but there was a lamp burning in the kitchen. Nora blew it out as she stole into her hot little room. She had waited, talking eagerly with Johnny, until they saw the headlight of the express like a star, far down the long line of double track.