She lost herself in her day dreams for a little and awoke from them with a start, to find the twilight altered to real night, while the electric gleams from the lamps overhead were brighter than ever and their shadows more like ink upon the pavement. Mary Jane had never seen such brilliancy as this, and again she forgot herself in studying her surroundings and enjoying the vivid green of the grass and shrubs.
A certain clump of flowers, glowing in the radiance, attracted her especially and she felt that she must put her face down on them, to smell them, before she lost sight of them forever.
“For I don’t s’pose I’ll ever come this way again. I couldn’t expect it. Mother couldn’t spare the money even if she could me and—even if I ever get back to her again!” she concluded, with a frightened sigh. But the beautiful blossoms enticed her, and in her own down town park, which had been thrown open to whoever of the poor would enjoy them, there were few “Keep off” signs and the few quite disregarded. This she had explained to Bonny-Gay; and what was true of one park in the city should be true of all.
So she hopped nimbly over the velvet lawn to where the flowers gleamed scarlet and white and wonderful, and bending above them thrust her face deep down into their loveliness. Oh! how sweet they were! and so crisp and almost caressing in their touch upon her cheek.
“Dear flowers! I wouldn’t hurt you, you know that, don’t you! I wouldn’t break a single one of you, no, not for anything. Seems like you’d feel it if your stems were broken, poor things. But I’ll not harm you. No, indeedy. Only I wish—I wish I could just take one tiny, tiny piece home to mother. But I wouldn’t break you, even for her!”
“Well, I guess you’d better not! What are you doing here? How dare you come on this grass? Can’t you read the signs?”
Mary Jane looked up, and was immediately terrified. It was a policeman who held her arm, and all the wild stories she had heard of arrests and imprisonment flashed into her mind.
In Dingy street there was, also, a policeman; but a friendly soul whom all the children loved, and whose own home was close to theirs. It was he who had saved many a baby’s life, from careless passing vehicles, when busy mothers had not the time to watch them as they should; and his blue uniform represented to Mary Jane’s mind an all-powerful guardian, to whom appeal was never made in vain.
But this six-foot officer, with his glitter and dignity, his harsh voice and vise-like clutch—this was the majesty of law outraged.
“Oh! what have I done! I didn’t mean it—I didn’t—” gasped the frightened child, and wrenching herself loose swung away upon her crutches, faster even than the officer could have pursued her, even if he had been so minded.