“Yes, I hear, mate. But the folks, the neighbors. A slum, deary, I guess a slum is only where wicked people live. I don’t know, really, for we had no such places on the broad high sea. Are our folks in the Lane wicked, daughter?”
“Grandpa!” she cried, indignantly. “When there’s such a good, good woman, Jane’s sister Meg-Laundress, what washes for us just ’cause I mend her things. An’ tailor-Jake who showed me to do a buttonhole an’ him all doubled up with coughin’; an’ Billy Buttons who gives us a paper sometimes, only neither of us can read it; an’ Nick, the parson, who helps me sort my goobers; an’ Posy Jane, that’s a kind o’ mother to everybody goin’. Don’t the hull kerboodle of ’em treat you like you was a prince in a storybook, as I’ve heard Billy tell about? Huh! Nice folks? I should think they was. Couldn’t be any nicer in the hull city. Couldn’t, for sure, an’ I say so, I, Glory Beck.”
“And all very poor, mate, terrible, desperate poor; an’ ragged an’ dirty an’ swearers, an’ not fit for my pet to mix with. Never go to church nor Sunday-school, nor—Eh, little mate?” persisted the old man, determined to get at the facts of the case at last.
Glory was troubled. In what words could she best defend her friends and convince her strangely anxious guardian that Elbow folks were wholly what they should be? Since she could remember she had known no other people, and if all were not good as she had fancied them, at least all were good to her. With all her honest loyal heart she loved them, and saw virtues in them which others, maybe, would not have seen. With a gesture of perplexity, she tossed her head and clasped her hands, demanding:
“An’ what’s poor? Why, I’ve heard you say that we’re poor, too, lots o’ times. But is any of us beggars? No, siree. Is any of us thievers? No, Grandpa Beck, not a one. An’ if some is ragged or dirty, that’s ’cause they don’t have clothes an’ spigots handy, an’ some’s afraid o’ takin’ cold, like the tailor man. Some of us lives two er three families in a room, but–but that’s them. Me an’ you don’t. We have a hull house. Why, me an’ you is sort of rich, seems if, and—It’s that big shiny-hatted man makes you talk so queer, grandpa darlin’, an’ I hate him. I wish he’d stayed to his house an’ not come near the Lane.”
“No, no, mate, hate nobody, nobody. He meant it kind. He didn’t know how kindness might hurt us, deary. He is Colonel Bonnicastle, who owned the ship I mastered, an’ many another that sails the sea this day. He’s got a lot to do with the ‘Harbor’ an’ never dreamed how’t we’d known about it long ago. A good ship it was an’ many a voyage she made, with me layin’ dollars away out of my wage, till the sudden blindness struck me an’ I crept down here where nobody knew me to get over it. That’s a long while since, deary, and the dollars have gone, I always hopin’ to get sight again and believin’ I’d done a fine thing for my orphan grandchild, keepin’ so snug a place over her head. So far, I’ve paid the rent reg’lar, and we’ve had our rations, too. Now, mate, fetch me the bag and count what’s in it.”
The little canvas bag which Glory took from the tiny wall-cupboard seemed very light and empty, and when she had untied the string and held it upside down not a coin fell from it. The old man listened for the clink of silver but there was none to hear and he sighed deeply as he asked, “Empty, Glory?”
“Empty, grandpa. Never mind, we’ll soon put somethin’ back in it. You must get your throat cleared and go out early an’ sing your loudest. I’ll get Toni to let me have a fifty-bagger, an’ I’ll sell every single one. You might make as much as a hull quarter, you might, an’ me–I’ll have a nickel. A nickel buys lots o’ meal, an’ we can do without milk on our porridge quite a spell. That way we can put by somethin’ toward the rent, an’ we’ll be all right.
“Maybe,” little Glory went on, “that old colonel don’t have all to say ’bout the ‘Harbor.’ Maybe he don’t like little girls an’ that’s why. I’ll get Cap’n Gray to find out an’ tell. He likes ’em. He always gives me a cent to put in the bag–if he has one. He’s poor, too, though, but he’s got a daughter growed up ’at keeps him. When I get growed I’ll earn. Why, darlin’ grandpa, I’ll earn such a lot we can have everything we want. I will so and I’ll give you all I get. If–if so be, we don’t go to the ‘Harbor’ after all.”
The captain stroked his darling’s head and felt himself cheered by her hopefulness. Though they were penniless just now, they would not be for long if both set their minds to money getting; and, as for going to “Snug Harbor” without Glory, he would never do that, never.