“An’ we’ve none of us ony over to be lendin’ her,” another woman put in. “The times is that bad, an’ all.”
“How much does it cost to go to County Cork?”
“A pound an’ six from Derry.”
“How much is that, and how do you get to ‘Derry’?” asked Betty in bewilderment.
“Oh, the boat lets you off at Derry, if you’re for the ould country,” explained her interlocutress, “and a pound an’ six is $6.50 in the States money, miss. But she’d need a bite an’ a sup on the way for her an’ the babe.”
The girl had apparently paid no attention at all to this colloquy. But now she lifted her tear-stained face to Betty’s and held out the baby. “It’s only for her I’m carin’,” she said. “I had ten dollars saved over my passage back an’ the train ticket, an’ that goes a long way in Ireland. The old folks are poor, too, but I thought they’d take her in for that, and what I could be sendin’ them later. I couldn’t tend her an’ work, too, but whatever shall I do over here? There’s no work at all in Ireland.”
“IT’S ONLY FOR HER I’M CARIN’”
“What a darling baby!” cried Betty, as the blue eyes opened and the little red face crumpled itself into a tremendous yawn. “Why, I never saw such big blue eyes!” The little mother smiled faintly at this praise, and Betty wanted to add that big blue eyes evidently ran in the family. Instead she said, “Please don’t feel so unhappy. I’ll see that you have the money for the ticket to your friends, and perhaps——” Betty stopped, not wishing to promise anything for the others, though she was sure that if Babbie saw the baby’s eyes she would reduce the number of dresses she meant to buy in Paris to three without a murmur.
“An’ she ain’t the worst off, ayther, ma’am,” put in Betty’s voluble informant. “There’s an English gyrul that’s sick, pore dear, in her bunk, wid an awful rackin’ cough and a face as pale as death, an’ it’s tin cints she do be havin’ to take her home to her mither that’s a coster-woman in London town, an’ wants to see her daughter before she dies.”