Once more she put out a shaking hand.
"Wait," she commanded huskily. "Remember! Don't either of you say a word about—about his being possibly the boy I'm looking for. I must see for myself first, and—question him."
"Of course!" agreed Pollyanna.
"Sure! I'm on," nodded the boy. "I gotta go right off anyhow, so I won't bother ye none. Now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. There's always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep somewheres. An' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed cheerfully. "We gotta go ter the top, too!"
Mrs. Carew found the "holes"—broken boards that creaked and bent fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"—a two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. On all sides doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces. Somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. Somewhere else a man was cursing. Everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and unwashed humanity.
At the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause before a closed door.
"I'm just a-thinkin' what Sir James'll say when he's wise ter the prize package I'm bringin' him," he whispered in a throaty voice. "I know what mumsey'll do—she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see Jamie so tickled." The next moment he threw wide the door with a gay: "Here we be—an' we come in a buzz-wagon! Ain't that goin' some, Sir James?"
It was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but scrupulously neat. There were here no tousled heads, no peering children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. There were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough to heat even that tiny room. On one of the beds lay a lad with flushed cheeks and fever-bright eyes. Near him sat a thin, white-faced woman, bent and twisted with rheumatism.
Mrs. Carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused a minute with her back to the wall. Pollyanna hurried forward with a low cry just as Jerry, with an apologetic "I gotta go now; good-by!" dashed through the door.
"Oh, Jamie, I'm so glad I've found you," cried Pollyanna. "You don't know how I've looked and looked for you every day. But I'm so sorry you're sick!"