In the instant of her slipping from the carriage step, the child had realized her own peril and would most certainly have been trampled under the crowding, iron-shod hoofs, had not the officer been on the very spot, trying to prevent accidents, and to keep clear from each other the two lines of vehicles, one moving north, the other south.
Glory was so rejoiced to find herself free and unhurt that she minded neither the shaking nor the term “dunce,” but instantly caught the rescuer’s hand and kissed it rapturously, crying, “Oh, thank you, thank you! Grandpa would have felt so bad if I’d been hurt like that poor blind man. Oh, I wish I could do somethin’ for you, you dear, splendid p’liceman!”
“Well, you can. You can remember that a young one’s place is at home, not in the middle of the street. There, that will do. Be off with you and never cut up such a caper again, long’s you live. It would have been ‘all day’ with you, if I hadn’t been just where I was, and two accidents within five minutes is more’n I bargain for. Be off!”
Releasing his hand, he returned to his task among the wagons but carried with him a pleasant memory of a smile that was so grateful and so gay; while Glory, subdued by what she had gone through, slowly resumed her search for her missing grandfather. Away down to the South ferry she paced, looking and listening everywhere. Then back again on the other side of the long street till she had reached the point nearest to Elbow Lane and still no sign of a blue-coated old man or a little dog with a stub of a tail and but one good ear.
“Well, it’s nigh night now, an’ he’ll be comin’ home. Most the folks what gives him pennies or buys his frames has left Broadway so I might as well go myself. Come to think, I guess I better not tell grandpa ’bout that poor hurted man. Might make him ’fraid to go round himself with nobody ’cept Bo’sn to take care of him an’ him a dog. An’ oh, dear! Whatever shall I do for sewin’ things, now I didn’t get no goober money? Well, anyway, there’s that nickel o’ Jane’s will buy a chop for his supper an’ I best hurry get it ready. He’s always so terrible hungry when he comes off his ‘beat.’ An’ me–why, I b’lieve I hain’t eat a thing to-day, save my breakfast porridge an’ Jane’s banana, an’ two er three goobers. Never mind, likely grandpa’ll bring in somethin’ an’ I can eat to-morrow.”
Back to the littlest house she ran, singing to forget her appetite, and whisked out the key of the tiny door from its hiding-place beneath the worn threshold, yet wondering a little that grandpa should not already have arrived.
“Never mind, I’ll have everything done ’fore. Then when he does get here all he’ll have to do’ll be to eat an’ go to bed,” she said to herself. Glory was such a little chatterbox that when she had no other listener she made one of herself.
The corner-grocer was just taking his own supper of bread and herrings on the rear end of his small counter when she entered, demanding, “The very best an’ biggest chop you’ve got for a nickel, Mister Grocer; or if you could make it a four-center an’ leave me a cent’s worth o’ bread to go along it, ’t would be tastier for grandpa.”
“Sure enough, queeny, sure enough. ’Pears like I brought myself fortune when I give you that pint o’ milk. I’ve had a reg’lar string o’ customers sence, I have. An’ here, what you lookin’ so sharp at that one chop for? Didn’t you know I was goin’ to make it two, an’ loaf accordin’?”
Glory swallowed fast. This was almost too tempting for resistance, but she had been trained to a horror of debt and had resolved upon that slight one, earlier in the day, only because she could not see her grandfather distressed. Her own distress—Huh! That was an indifferent matter.