“Aunt Rose, I could take Billy to see the fish or something if you’ll tell me the way.”
“That’s what I figured on when I brought her,” said O’More, greatly relieved, and quickly following the lead; “I knew you’d often spoke of gettin’ a girl from the Sisters, and that’s why I brought Bird instead of leavin’ her to slave fer strangers,” he stammered.
“Humph,” answered Mrs. O’More, at least somewhat pacified, “Billy’s fastened in his chair on the fire-escape; she’d better go there and sit with him a while until it’s supper-time. It’s too late for them to go traipsing around the streets to-night. Can you do anything useful?” she said, fixing her sharp, greenish eyes on Bird, who tried to gather her wits together as she answered, “I can make coffee, and toast, and little biscuits, and two kinds of cake, and—” then she hesitated and stopped, for she was going to say “do fractions, write, read French a little, and draw and paint,” but she felt as if these last items would count against her.
“Humph,” said her aunt again, this time more emphatically, “I guess you done well to bring her, Johnny. Turned thirteen, you say. Of course she’ll have to make a show of goin’ to school for another year on account of the law, but they can’t ask it before the fall term. I suppose she’ll have to sleep on this parlour lounge, though; there’s no other place.”
John O’More was now beaming as he led Bird through a couple of dark bedrooms toward the kitchen, where the mysterious “fire-escape” seemed to be located.
Going to an open back window he looked out, motioning Bird to follow. What she saw was a small platform, about three feet wide and ten feet long, surrounded by an iron railing; one end was heaped with a litter of boxes and broken flowerpots that partly hid a trap door from which a ladder led to the balcony belonging to the floor below. At the other end, fastened in a baby’s chair by the tray in front, sat a dear little fellow with great blue eyes and a curved, sensitive mouth, while tears were making rivers of mud on his pale cheeks as he sobbed softly to himself, “I want to go; oh, I want to get out and see the fishes.”
“So you shall,” said O’More, undoing the barrier and lifting the child on his strong arm while he tried awkwardly to wipe his face.
“Let me,” said Bird, wetting her handkerchief at the kitchen sink and gently bathing eyes, nose, and mouth carefully, as Mrs. Lane had bathed hers—only a day ago, was it? It seemed a lifetime.