Patsey had written her name and address on a slip of paper, several of them indeed, so as not to raise any suspicion. He laughed, and said she “was very toney, wantin’ kerds.” She saw the policeman, and was relieved that she had not missed Travis, yet strangely disappointed that he had not come.
The boys just adored her, and certainly they were a jolly lot. Sometimes they had streaks of luck, at others they were hard up. But every Saturday night the rent money was counted out to make sure, and the agent was soon greatly interested in her. She was a wonderful little market woman, and she found so much entertainment going out to do errands. She used to linger about the flower stands, and thrill with emotions that seemed strange indeed to her. She took great pleasure in watching the little flower bed a thin, delicate looking woman used to tend, that belonged to the front house.
One day Patsey brought her home a rose.
“Oh,” she cried, “if Bess was only here to see!” and tears overflowed her eyes. “O Patsey, do you mind them wild roses the lady gev you an’ you brought to us? They’re always keepin’ in my mind with Bess.”
“I wisht I knew where they growed, I’d go fer some. But ain’t this a stunner?”
“It’s jes’ splendid, an’ you’re so good, Patsey.”
“I wisht yer cheeks cud be red as that,” the boy said earnestly.
Mrs. Brian went out now and then to do a bit of washing, “unbeknownst to her man,” who thought he earned enough for both of them. She came and sat on the little stoop with Dil occasionally, and had a “bit of a talk.” Patsey had advised that she should let folks think both her parents were dead—he had said so in the first instance to make her coming with them seem reasonable.
But one day she told Mrs. Brian about little Bess, “who was hurted by a bad fall, and died last winter.” Then she ventured on a wonder about heaven, hoping for some tangible explanation.
“I s’pose it’s a good thing to go to heaven when you’re sick, or old an’ all tired out, but I ain’t in any hurry. I want a good bit o’ fun an’ pleasure first. My man sez if you’re honest an’ do the fair thing, it’s as good a religion as he wants, an’ he’ll trust it to take any one there. My ’pinion is that some of them that talks about it don’t appear to know, when you pin ’em down to the pint. My man thinks most everybody who ain’t awful bad’ll go. There’s some folks so dreadful you know, that the devil really ought to have ’em for firewood.”