“Yes, they’ve gone; mother wouldn’t leave them behind ’cause of Mis’ Slocum,” and he began to tell her about his Aunt Jimmy’s ill turn and of his delay in getting back with the flowers.
Bird listened quietly, and as they stood before the door of the silent, empty house, a strange look crossed the girl’s face that frightened poor gentle Lammy, as she gazed straight before her and said: “Now I know that I was not asleep this afternoon, only dull and faint, and that what I thought was a dream was partly true. Terry did owe rent to Mrs. Slocum, and that was what he tried to tell me and couldn’t when he said there was only a little bit of money in the Centre bank to pay for things, so that I must be sure and keep his paint-box and the pictures in the big portfolio. The Slocums might try to take them. That’s why your mother made the people go and locked the door. Oh, Lammy, I haven’t any home or anything of my very own but Twinkle, but I could work and learn to paint. Terry said I could and if everything gave out, I can open the keepsake bag. See, I’ve got it now,” and Bird pulled out a small, flat, leather case, strongly sewed together, that hung close around her neck on a thin gold chain.
“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Lammy, fingering it curiously.
“No, but I think it’s a piece of gold money; for it’s round, though one side is thicker than the other. Mother wore it, and then father put it about my neck for me to keep, and he said his mother gave it to him when he came away from home long ago.”
As Bird stood looking at the house, the afternoon shadows began to fall and a change came over her. That morning the thought of leaving the place frightened her, but now the thing she most wanted was to get away. “Lammy,” she cried presently, “we must get those pictures and the paint-box now; to-morrow the people may come back.”
“But mother’s taken the key.”
“That doesn’t matter, the cellar-door flap doesn’t fasten—it never has since I can remember—we can go in that way,” and then Lammy, quaking mightily, though he didn’t know why, followed Bird into the house.
Love lights up many a dark, shabby room, and Bird had never been lonely with her father for a companion, and in spite of his own shiftlessness and poverty he had taught her much that she never would forget; but now love had gone, and as she crept down the rickety stairs hugging the box, Lammy stumbling after with the portfolio, her only desire was to go somewhere, anywhere to get away, lingering only a moment in the kitchen to collect some scraps of food for the dog. When they reached the porch, they stopped to fasten the things together with some twine from Lammy’s pocket. The portfolio was full of flower pictures and some designs such as wall-papers are made from. Bird turned them over lovingly, explaining as she did so that a man in New York had written to Terry that if he could do these well, he could earn money, and that he was only waiting for spring flowers to begin. The letter was still in the portfolio.