The young lady shuddered, and seizing the hand which she imagined to have had least to do with the refuse, she led Ardelia away—the first stage of her journey to Arcady.
Ardelia’s origin, like that of the civilization of ancient Egypt, was shrouded in mystery. At the age of two months she had been handed to a policeman by a scared-looking boy, who said vaguely that he found her in the park under a bench. The policeman had added her to the other foundling waiting that day at headquarters, and carried them to the matron of the institution devoted to their interest. Around the other baby’s neck was a medal of the Blessed Virgin, and a slip of paper pinned to her flannel petticoat labeled her Mary Katharine. The impartial order of the institution therefore delivered Ardelia, who was wholly unlabeled, to the Protestant fold, and one of the scrubbing-women named her.
Later she had taken up her residence with Mrs. Michael Fahey, who had consented to add to her precarious income by this means, and at the age of four she became the official nurse of Master John Sullivan Fahey. A terribly hot August, unlimited cold tea, and a habit of playing in the gutter in the noon glare proved too much for her charge, and he died on his third birthday. The ride to the funeral was the most exciting event of Ardelia’s life. For years she dated from it. Mrs. Fahey had so long regarded her as one of the family, that though her occupation was gone, and her board was no longer paid, she was whipped as regularly and cursed as comprehensively, in her foster-mother’s periodical sprees, as if they had been closely related.
What time she could spare from helping Mrs. Fahey in her somewhat casual household labor, and running errands to tell that lady’s perennially hopeful employers that her mother wasn’t feeling well to-day, but would it do if she came to-morrow, Ardelia spent in playing up and down the street with a band of little girls, or, in the very hottest days, sitting drowsy and vindictive at the head of a flight of stone steps that led into a down-stairs saloon. The damp, flat, beer-sweetened air that rushed out as the men pushed open the swing-doors was cool and refreshing to her; she was in a position to observe any possible customers at the three push-carts in her line of vision, and could rouse a flagging interest in life by listening to any one of the altercations that resounded from the tenements night and day. Drays clattered incessantly over the pavement, peddlers shouted, sharp gongs punctuated the steadier din. A policeman was almost always in sight, and one of them, Mr. Halloran, had more than once given her a penny for lemonade. In the room above her head an Italian band practised every evening, and then Ardelia was perfectly happy, for she loved music. Often before the band began, a hurdy-gurdy would station itself at the corner, and Ardelia and the other little girls would dance about, singly and in pairs, shouting the tunes they knew, rejoicing in the comparative coolness and the generally care-free atmosphere. Ardelia was the lightest-footed of them all; her hands held her skirts out almost gracefully, her thin little legs flew highest. Sometimes the saloon-keeper—they called him “Old Dutchy”—would nod approval as Ardelia skipped and pranced, and beckon her to him mysteriously.
“You trow your legs goot,” he would say. “We shall see you already dancing, no? Here is an olluf; eat her.”
And Ardelia, who loved olives to distraction, would nibble off small, sour, salty mouthfuls and suck the pit luxuriously while she listened to the Italian band.
Except for Mrs. Fahey’s errands, which never carried her far off the street, Ardelia had never left it in her life, and her journey to the Settlement-house was one of interest to her. She was a silent child, but for occasional fits of gabbling and chattering with the little girls in the street; and though she did not understand why the young lady from the Settlement should cry when she introduced her to two other ladies, nor why so many messages should be left for her mother, and so many local and general baths administered, she said very little. She was not accustomed to question fate, and when it sent her two fried eggs—she refused to eat them boiled—for her breakfast, she quietly placed them in the credit column as opposed to the baths, and held her peace.
Later, arrayed in starched and creaking garments which had been made for a slightly smaller child, she was transported to the station, and for the first time introduced to a railroad car. She sat stiffly on the red plush seat with furtive eyes and sucked-in lips, while the young lady talked reassuringly of daisies and cows and green grass. As Ardelia had never seen any of these things, it is hardly surprising that she was somewhat unenthusiastic; but the young lady was disappointed by this lack of ardor. She was so thoroughly convinced of the essential right of every child to a healthy country life, that she was almost disposed to blame Ardelia for not sharing her eminently creditable conviction.
“You can roll in the daisies, my dear, and pick all you want—all!” she urged eagerly. But no answering gleam woke in Ardelia’s eyes.
“Aw right,” she answered guardedly, and stared into her lap.