He took the child's free hand and tried to draw her away. A pathetic wail burst from her. Frantically, with both arms she clasped my knee. Her poise, so perfect until now, deserted her wholly, as if she had finally decided to admit to an unfeeling world that after all there was a limit to the self-control of one of her tender age.
"Fine-kine-rady," she sobbed, while great tears formed and fell from the brown eyes she still kept fixed on my face, a look of incredulous horror dawning in them.
"I simply cannot send her away," I confessed to Casey, desperately. "It seems so heartless. I'll go with her."
Officer Casey was a patient man, but he was also a firm one. "Now, see here, Miss Iverson," he urged. "You've got sinse. Use ut. 'Tis just a fancy she's takin' t' ye, an' sure I'm th' last t' blame her," he added, gallantly. "But think av th' child's good. Ain't her mother raisin' th' roof over her head somewhere this minute?" he added, with deep craft. "Wud ye be killin' th' poor woman wid anxiety?"
"Well—" Again I gave way. "But you won't lose sight of her for one second, will you?" I demanded. "You know if you did, in this fog—"
Casey turned upon me the look of one who suffers and forbears. "W'u'd ye think ut?" he asked, coldly. "An' me wit' kids o' me own? But I'll make her think I've left her," he added. "I'll have to."
There seemed nothing to do but try his plan. Holding fast to the mental picture of the anxious mother "raising the roof" somewhere in the neighborhood, I gently pried loose the child's convulsively clinging fingers and turned away. The wail and then the sobs that followed wrung my heart. Casey picked up the frightened, almost frantic baby and started down the stairs, while I followed at a safe distance to watch their descent. As they went I heard him talking to and coaxing the small burden he carried, his rich Irish voice full of friendly cajolery, while, as if in sole but eloquent rebuttal of all he said, the shrill treble refrain, "Fine-kine-rady," came back to me sobbingly from the mist.
At the foot of the steps he set the child on her feet, told her to "go home now like a good wan," and disappeared under the stairway. I crept down the steps as far as I dared, and watched. The forlorn little wanderer, left alone in a fog that was alarming many grown-ups that night, stood still for a moment staring around her, as if trying to get her bearings. A final sob or two came from her. Then in another instant she had turned and trotted away, moving so fast that, though I immediately ran down the remaining steps and followed her, I could hardly keep her in sight. A little ahead of me I saw Casey hurriedly cross the street and shadow the tiny figure. I pursued them both, keeping my eyes on the child. I trusted Casey—indeed, my respect for his judgment had increased enormously during the last two minutes—but I felt that I must see for myself what happened to that baby.
Like wraiths the two figures in front of me hurried through the fog, so close now that they almost touched, Casey unaware of my presence, the child unconscious of us both. Not once, from the time she started, had the little thing looked back. She made her way swiftly and surely along the dingy tenement street that stretched off to the right; and at a certain door she stopped, hesitated a moment, and finally entered. Casey promptly followed her.
For a moment I stood hesitating, tempted to return to the station and resume my interrupted journey home. The little episode had already delayed me half an hour, and it seemed clear that the child was now safe. Surely nothing more could be done. Yet even as these logical reflections occurred to me I entered the door, impelled by an impulse which I did not stop to analyze, but which I never afterward ceased to bless. The heavy, typical smell of a tenement building rose to meet me, intensified by the dampness of the night. It seemed incredible that anything so exquisite as that baby could belong to such a place; but, looking up, I saw her already near the head of a long flight of dirty steps that rose from the dimly lighted hall. Casey, moving as quietly as his heavy boots permitted, was at the bottom. I waited until he, too, had climbed the uneven staircase. Then I followed them both.