“Going out in society!”
And her reputation endangered by taking up with trashy folks, especially Nicky and Vicky who sold junk candlesticks and new-laid eggs!
In his study Dr. Hale did not at once turn to the unfinished experiment that lay in the tubes before him. He was thinking that Dora was right, in spite of her brusque way of stating the case. There had been very unpleasant rumors current all over Sea Cosset upon more than one occasion, when suspicious fires brought out the volunteer fireman and when daring thefts called for action from the limited police force.
The “Eytalians”, as Dora and others called all the foreigners who were huddled in a few old barracks over by the tracks, were not only suspected but openly blamed, and the Marcusi family, to which Nickolas and Victoria belonged, were doubly charged with the crimes, because their father was known to be in prison. He had belonged to a gang, it was said, and he couldn’t get away because he was almost a cripple. For years he had tended the railroad gates, and one day he dashed under the gates to let a horse out before the train hit him. That was what happened to Nick’s father’s leg.
But at his shanty alongside the track some men plotted one night, and whether he was to blame or not, when the midnight train jumped the track because it couldn’t escape the ties that had been piled up to derail it, Nickolas Marcusi was found guilty of aiding the plotters. He had protested his innocence, of course, but to have the railroad’s property damaged and many lives endangered by a plot actually planned on the railroad itself, seemed too daring to countenance. So Nick Marcusi went to prison and was still there when little Nick and his smaller sister sold Barbara Hale three fresh eggs for her father’s dinner.
Dr. Hale was pondering all of this now. He had been sorry for the one-legged gateman; had even tried to intervene for him at court, but people about the sea-coast town were bitter. They despised foreigners, although none of their own class would have tended a railroad gate and risked a life to save a fractious horse.
It was this daring deed that had so enthused Barbara, and she was determined never to turn from her door little Nicky and Vicky—not for Dora nor for a dozen like her! She would buy every egg they brought; she couldn’t often buy the junk the children uncovered at the dump, but she had given them fifty cents once for an old pewter mug.
“Heigh-o!” sighed Dr. Hale, turning finally to his test tubes. “It’s a hard road for the poor to travel, but harder still for the more unfortunate.”
He was seeing little Victoria’s face “all eyes” as he spoke harshly about the eggs. He was remembering little Nicky’s flying feet as the children scurried off, and he was not blaming Barbara for her interest in the picturesque youngsters.
“There’s something fascinating about the genuine,” the doctor pursued secretly, “and even a genuine ragamuffin has charm.”