By this time the small, dingy houses bordering the narrow unpaved street had given place to open lots and weedy patches, where the sun lay warmly and a fresh breeze blew. To the right of the open space was a railway embankment, and on the left there was the cling-clanging of a mighty steel structure, in process of building. The railway and the monster “sheds” belonged to the same company for which William Bump had toiled—when he felt inclined—and by which he had just been discharged.
Mary Jane had been accustomed to look for him, either along the rails, with the gang that seemed always to be replacing old “ties” by new ones; or else serving the skilled workmen, who hammered, hammered, all day long upon the great metal girders. As she now caught the echo of these strokes a pang shot through her loving heart and for a moment her sunny face clouded. She need look no more, to either right or left, for the blue-shirted figure, which had been wont to wave a salutation to her as she passed with her brood of nurselings.
Fortunately, the baby was on hand to banish the cloud, which he promptly did in his accustomed manner—with a slight variation. For his small charioteer had not observed a big stone in the path, though the loose ricketty wheel of the wagon found and struck it squarely. This raised the soap-box in front and its occupant performed a backward somersault.
“Oh! my sake! Mary Jane—Mary Jane!” shrieked several small voices in wild reproach.
Mary Jane picked up the little one, who smiled, unhurt; and the others helped her shake him back to a normal condition and pose. After which, the park lying just before them, between the railway and the buildings, they scurried into it, and over the slope, and around to a sunny spot where scores of other little people were hard at work or play.
“Hi! Mary Jane! Oh, Mary Jane!” shouted one and another; and the kind-faced “teachers” who guided the wee ones, also nodded their friendly welcome. For well they knew that there was no “assistant” in the whole city who could be as useful to them as this same humble little girl from Dingy street.
“Thirteen, Mary Jane! I’m thirteen! Come see. Cucumbers!” cried Bobby Saunders, dragging her forward so eagerly that the soap-box strap slipped up across her throat and choked her. But she quickly released herself now from her burden, certain that in the midst of so many friends no harm could befall her darling; and once freed from this incubus, she outstripped Bobby in reaching the long rows of well-prepared garden plots, wherein as yet was never a sign of any growing thing.
But oh! how soft and rich and brown the earth did look! How sweet the fragrance of it in Mary Jane’s nature-loving nostrils! And how, for once, she longed to be a boy! As straight-limbed, as strong, as unhindered at her toil, as any of these happy little lads who clustered about, each interrupting his neighbor in his eagerness for her sympathy and interest.
“Fifty-one, Mary Jane!” cried Joe Stebbins, pointing proudly to the numbered stick at the foot of his plot. “Cabbages—cabbages! The gardener’s bringing a box of plants this minute. I’ll give you one to bile when they get growed. Like that?”
“Prime!” answered the girl, her own face aglow.