We went up and up three flights of long, shaky steps to a little room under the eaves. It was very dark there,—so dark that at first I did not notice a bed in a dim corner, and a child lying on it looking at us with a pair of beautiful large eyes. She did not say a word, but just lay and looked and looked.
The woman sat down on the bed, and gathered the child to her tenderly.
"See what I've brought you," she said, almost in a whisper, her cheek pressed close against the cheek of the child. "See the nice little lady and gentleman come to play with you. Come to play with my own little Amy. Ain't you pleased with your mama, Amy? Ain't they nice?"
The child lay and looked at us, and, at last, very slowly, she smiled. Dick and I were both very bashful, but we smiled back at her from where we stood by the side of the bed. The mother seemed greatly relieved. She hunted about under her faded shawl, and brought out some sticks of candy, the kind that taste of peppermint, and have beautiful red streaks that run zigzag around them. She generously gave each of us one, and one to the child. We all sucked in happy unison. But the child soon tired. The stick of candy rolled out of her hand, unregarded, and she lay back upon her mother with a faint, wailing cry.
"Maybe she could play a game, if you know one," the mother urged, anxiously. "Oh, for the love of heaven, think of a game!"
"I know 'Little Sallie Waters,'" Dick declared, speaking for the first time.
So Dick and I played "Little Sallie Waters" together. It was hard work, there being only two of us, but we went around and around in a solemn circle, and sang the words earnestly, and when we came to the lines,
"Rise, Sallie, rise,
Wipe out your eyes,
Fly to the East,
Fly to the West,
Fly to the very one
That you love best,"
we both kissed little Amy Dean, and she smiled at us again from her mother's arms, where she had been watching us with her great, mysterious, melancholy eyes.
"Sure she's better," the woman cried, in a tone between laughter and tears. "My own darlint! She's better! She's better already! They've done her more good than the doctor. Sure, she was lonesome for the likes of her own!"