Two Prisoners

by Thomas Nelson Page

V.

Molly's day had been very dark. It was dark without and within. She had suffered a great deal. She had seen the little girl on the gallery playing with her puppy and running about, and her own life had seemed very wretched. Mrs. O'Meath was drunk and had threatened her with the Poorhouse, and she had not got any breakfast; she was very unhappy.

It seemed to her that she and the bird in the cage outside the window were the most wretched things in the world. She thought of her mother, and wondered if she should go to Heaven if she would know her. Perhaps, she would not want her. She lay back and looked around her little dark room, and then shut her eyes and began to pray very hard. It was not much of a prayer, just a fragment, beginning, "Our Father, who art in Heaven"—which had somehow stuck in her memory, and which she always used when she wanted anything. Just then she heard a noise outside on the steps. It came pulling up step by step, and Roy trotted in at the open door and came bouncing and twisting over toward the bed. In an instant she had him on the bed, and he was licking her face and walking over her. She heard a noise at the door and was aware that some one was there, and, looking up, she saw standing in the door the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld—a little girl with brown curls and big brown eyes. She was bareheaded and beautifully dressed, and her eyes were wide open with surprise. In her hand she held a small green bough, with a wonderful red thing on the end. Molly thought she must be a fairy or an angel.

Mildred had stopped for a moment and was looking at Molly.

In her sympathy for the poor little thing lying there she forgot all about Roy. Her eyes were full of pity.

"How do you do?" she said, coming softly to the bedside.

"Oh, very well, thank you," said Molly. "My dog has come back."

"Why, is he your dog, too? He's my dog," said Mildred.

The face of the crippled child fell.

"Is he? I thought he was mine. I hoped he was. He came in one day, and I didn't know he belonged to anybody but me. I had been lying here so long I hoped he would always stay with me."

The face looked so sad. The large eyes looked wistful, and Mildred was sorry that she had claimed the dog. She thought for a moment.

"I will give him to you," she said, eagerly.

Molly's eyes lit up.

"Oh, will you? Thank you so much."

"Have you got anything to feed him on?" asked Mildred.

"Yes, some bones I put away for him." She pulled from under the side of the bed two bones wrapt in paper, and Roy at once seized them and began to gnaw at them.

"I have a roll here I will give him," said Mildred. "I shall have my lunch when I get back."

She held out her roll. Molly's eyes glistened.

"Can I have a little piece of it?" she asked timidly; "I haven't had any breakfast."

Mildred's eyes opened wide.

"Haven't had any breakfast, and nearly lunch time! Are you going to wait till luncheon?"

"'Luncheon?' What's that?" said Molly. "I get dinner generally; but I am afraid I mayn't get any to-day. Mrs. O'Meath is drunk."

She spoke of it as if it were a matter of course. Mildred's face was a study. The idea of such a thing as not getting enough to eat had never crossed her mind. She could not take it in.

"Here, take this; eat all of it. I will get my mother to send you some dinner right away, and every day." She took hold of Molly's thin hand and stroked it in a caressing, motherly sort of way. "What is your name?" She leaned over her and stroked her little dry brow, as her mother did hers when she had a headache.

"Molly."

"Molly what?"

"I don't believe I've got any other name," said Molly. "My mother was named Mary."

"Where is she?" asked Mildred.

"She's dead."

"And your father?"

"Kilt!" said Molly. "'T least I reckon he was. Mrs. O'Meath says he was. I don't know whether he's dead or not."

Mildred's eyes opened wide. The idea of any one not knowing whether or not her father was living!

"Who is Mrs. O'Meath?" she asked.

"She's the lady 't takes care of me."

"Your nurse?"

"N—I don't know. She ain't my mother."

"Well, she don't take very good care of you, I think," said Mildred, looking around with an air of disapproval.

"Oh! she's drunk to-day," explained Molly, busily eating her bread.

"Drunk!" Mildred's eyes opened with horror.

"Yes. She'll be all right to-morrow." Her eyes, over the fragment of roll yet left, were fastened on the rose which Mildred, in her chase after Roy, had forgotten all about and still held in her hand.

"What is that?" she asked, presently.

"What? This rose?" Mildred held it out to her.

"A rose!" The girl's eyes opened wide with wonder, and she took it in her thin hands as carefully as if it had been of fragile glass. "Oh! I never saw one before."

"Never saw a rose before! Why, our garden and yard are full of them. I break them all the time."

"Are you a princess?" asked Molly, gazing at her.

"'ARE YOU A PRINCESS?' ASKED MOLLY"

Mildred burst out into a clear, ringing laugh.

"No. A princess!"

Molly was perhaps a little disappointed, or perhaps she did not wholly believe her. She stroked the rose tenderly, and then held it out to Mildred, though her eyes were still fastened on it hungrily.

"You can have it," said Mildred, "for your own."

"Oh! For my own? My very own?" exclaimed the cripple, her whole face lit up. Mildred nodded.

"Oh! I never thought I should have a rose for my own, for my very own," she declared, holding it against her cheek, looking at it, smelling it and caressing it all at once, whilst Mildred looked on with open-eyed wonder and enjoyment.

Mildred asked a great many questions, and Molly told her all she knew about herself. She had been lying there in that little room for years without ever going out, and she had never seen the country. Mildred learned all about her life there; about the birds outside and the bird in the cage. Mildred could see it from the window when she climbed upon the bed. She thought of the roses in her garden and of the birds that sang around her home, flying about among the trees, and to think that Molly had never seen them! Her heart ached. It dawned upon her that maybe she could arrange to have her see it. She asked what she would rather have than anything in the world.

"In the whole world?" asked Molly.

"Yes, in the whole world."

Molly thought profoundly. "I would rather have that bird out there in the cage," she said.

Mildred was surprised and a little disappointed.

"Would you?" she asked, almost in a whisper. "Well, I will ask my mamma to give me some money to buy it for you. I've got to go now."

Roy, who had been asleep, suddenly opened his eyes and looked lazily at her. He crawled a little closer up to Molly and went asleep again.

"Here," said Molly, "take this."

She pulled out of her little store inside the bed where she kept her treasures concealed a little bundle. It was her doll's wardrobe. Mildred opened it.

"Why, how beautiful! Where did you get it? It would just fit one of my new dolls."

"I made it," said Molly.

"You did? I wish I could make anything like that," said Mildred, admiring the beautiful work.

"Would you mind something?" Molly asked, timidly. "Would you let me kiss you?" She looked at her pathetically.

Mildred leaned over and kissed the poor little pale lips.

"Thank you," said Molly, with a flush on her pale cheeks.

"Good-bye. I will come again," said Mildred, gravely. The eyes of the crippled girl brightened.

"Oh! will you! Thank you."

Mildred leaned over and kissed her again.

As she walked down the dark stairs and out of the narrow damp street into the sunlight she seemed to enter a new world. It came to her how different her lot was, not only from that of the poor little crippled girl lying in that dark prison up that rickety stair, but from many and many others who wanted nearly everything she had in such abundance. She almost trembled to think how ungrateful and complaining she had been, and a new feeling seemed to take possession of her.