"Well now,—if them ain't lovely," declared Mrs. Hennesy, as Miss Billy began culling with a generous hand. "An' thim ould fashioned hollyhocks, as sassy as you plaze. Another summer an' I'll be havin' some fer mesilf."
"You may have slips and seeds from all my plants," responded Miss Billy generously, "and John Thomas could easily bring the dirt."
Mrs. Hennesy shook her head doubtfully. "It's wades I'd be after raisin'," she protested. "Sure an' flowers don't be growin' fer ivery wan loike they do fer you."
"Weeds!" Miss Billy took up the words dolefully. "Mrs. Hennesy, weeds are making my existence miserable. Look at my hands from keeping the weeds down. But it's no use,—look there!" She pointed as she spoke, up and down Cherry Street, and Mrs. Hennesy's following glance took in a long vista of rank vegetation flanking every sidewalk and dooryard, weeds great and small, broad and feathery, tall and diminutive, flaunting their rank growth in the hot sunshine.
"Well, thim's not all yours," said Mrs. Hennesy consolingly. "There's none in your yard, so ye needn't care."
"Oh, but I see them, and I hate them so!" said Miss Billy despairingly. "And the seeds are beginning to blow over here. The plantain and dandelions are killing my new grass already."
"Well, wheriver there's good, there's bad," said Mrs. Hennesy philosophically: "An' if the good stopped tryin' an' quit what w'ud become of the world, I'd loike to know? Hould fast to yer flowers, Miss Billy, an' remimber whereiver wan of thim grows a weed can't," with which comforting advice the kind-hearted Mrs. Hennesy, holding fast to Marie Jean's bouquet and the borrowed cup of tea, took her departure.
The setting of the sun brought relief to Cherry Street. Every tiny porch held its household group, and the clear moonlight and cool breeze brought recompense for the glare and toil of the day. By degrees the noisy laughter and outcries of children waned and ceased, the murmured talk of their elders died away, and the street was wrapped in slumber.
It was then Miss Billy came softly from her room, clad in a flowing wrapper. She listened longest at Theodore's door, till, satisfied by his heavy breathing that he slept, she descended the stairs and stepped out into the moonlight.
Mingled with the perfume of her roses came the rank breath of the weeds, bringing malarial poisons to the sleepers of Cherry Street. Mrs. Hennesy's words came uppermost in her mind. "Wherever there's good, there's bad,—and if the good stopped trying, what would become of the world?" "Well, I'm going to help all I can, and I'm going to commence on Mr. Schultzsky's premises." She caught up a sickle, crossed the sidewalk jubilantly, and bumped into another pale wraith, sickle in hand, who straightened himself suddenly from the O'Brien weeds.