“What do you mean?” inquired Adelaide.
“My father was a rubber—a massage man for the Earl of Cairngorm.”
“Oh!” said Adelaide, a light beginning to dawn upon her mind. “I meant rubber overshoes, not a bath woman.”
“We call those galoshes,” said the girl, as Milly produced a pair which were not mates. “I’m sure you’ve given me a fine setting out, young ladies. I’ll do as much for you if I ever has the chance. Who knowses? Maybe some day I’ll be a swell and you poor. Then you just call on me, and don’t you forget it.” With which cheerful suggestion she left us, grateful and happy. I took her down to the main entrance, and, showing the card to Cerberus, explained that she had been engaged by Professor Waite, and was to be allowed to enter every morning. He granted a grudging consent, not at all approving of her appearance without the waterproof, and I flew back to the Amen Corner to join in the general conference. She had told Adelaide that her name was Pauline Terwilliger. Her father had been English, her mother Swiss. They had knocked about the world as foot-balls of fortune, but had lived longest in London, where her father had died. Her brother had come to New York some years previous, and her mother had brought the family over on his insistence. But this brother had failed to meet them, as he had promised to do, on their landing at Castle Garden. Their mother had lost his address, and they were stranded in a strange city. They had advertised in the papers, and had left their own address at the Barge Office, but her brother had never appeared. They had taken a room in a tenement house, and the mother had obtained some work, scrubbing offices and cleaning windows. But she had taken cold and was now in a hospital, and Polo was trying to support the two younger children.
“They are living in one of the worst tenement houses in Mulberry Bend,” said Adelaide. “I would like to give them a room in my house, but it is full; and cheap as the rent is, they could never pay it.”
“The younger children ought to go to the Home,” I suggested.
“The Home is full,” Winnie replied. “I called there to-day. Emma Jane says it just breaks her heart to look at the list of applications waiting for a vacancy. Our dear Princess[2] has in mind a little old-fashioned house which fronts on a side street, whose yard backs against ours. She would like to have it rented as an annex. She says the Home ought to have a nursery for very little babies. You know it does not now take children under two years of age, on account of the expense of nurses; but this would be such a charming place for them, and we could call it the ‘Manger,’ and have it connected with the main building with a long glass piazza. The scheme is a perfect one. All it needs is money to carry it out. Unfortunately, that is lacking. I have corresponded with all our out-of-town circles of King’s Daughters. They are doing all they can, and have pledged enough, with our other subscriptions, to carry the Home through the coming year on its old basis; but there isn’t a cent to spare for a ‘manger.’”
“Would all of the new house be taken up by the nursery?” Adelaide asked.
“No; the Princess proposed that the upper story, which consists of four little bedrooms, should be used as ‘guest chambers’ for emergency cases, convalescent children returned from hospitals, and children who, on account of peculiar distress,—like Polo’s sisters,—it seemed best to receive for a short time entirely free. The Princess thought that we might like to club together and pay for one such room, and then we could designate at any time the persons we would like to have occupy it. There is always a list of applicants, which would be submitted to us to choose from, in case we had no candidates of our own to suggest. The occupants of such a room would then be as truly our guests as if we entertained them in our own home. It would come in very nicely now in Polo’s case.”
Milly gave a deep sigh. “I wish I could help you, girls, but you know just how I am situated.”