Dil sat in awful fear when the door had closed behind their neighbor. She took up Owen’s trousers—the rent was sufficient to send any boy early to bed.
That recalled her mother. She threw the bundle towards Dil.
“There’s some clo’es ye kin be fixin’ up for Dan, whin ye’ve so much time as to be spindin’ it on Moody and Sankey men, drat ’em! foolin’ ’round an’ wastin’ valyble time. Next I’ll hear that ye’ve ast in the organ man an’ the monkey, and I’ll come home to find ye givin’ a pairty. An’ ye’ll hev yer head broke for it, that ye will!”
So long as it was not broken now, Dil gave secret thanks. Did God help any? Then, why didn’t he help other times when things were very bad? She examined the suit, and found it a nice one, rather large for Dan, who was not growing like a weed, although he ran the streets.
Her mother began to snore. She would be good for some hours’ sound sleep. So Dil stole into the little room, and began to prepare Bess for bed, though she trembled with a half fear.
“O Dil, I didn’t hardly dast to breathe! An’ if she’d known he come in here an’ sung, she’d murdered us! An’ it made me feel glad like that he was goin’ away, for mammy might happen to be home when he come—though don’t you b’lieve he’d take us away right then? An’—an’ wasn’t it lucky you didn’t have to tell about the—”
Bess held the bill up in her hand.
“Le’s put it in the book, an’ hide the book in the bottom of the wagon. An’, Dil, I can’t help feeling light like, as if I was goin’ to float. Think of that splendid place, an’ no night, an’ no winter, an’ all beautiful things. Oh, I wisht he’d gev us the words too; I’m most sure I could sing ’em. An’ the best of all is that mammy won’t be there, cause, you see, ’twouldn’t please her any, and I’d be awful feared. She’d ruther stay here an’ drink gin.”
They had not gone far enough in the Christian life, poor ignorant little souls, to have much missionary spirit. But they kissed, and kissed softly, in the half-dark, and cried a little—tender tears touched with a sadness that was as sweet as joy.
Dil stepped about cautiously, emptied the grate, and did up her night-work. There seemed a certainty about heaven that she had not experienced before, a confidence in John Travis that gave her a stubborn faith. He would surely return in the spring. They would go out some day and never, never come back to Barker’s Court.