“Oh, yes,” Bird answered excitedly, “it was smooth and fair, and he had very blue eyes with a long scar over one, and his hair was quite red.” Glancing at her aunt, she saw that she had turned deadly pale, and a certain resemblance struck her for the first time.
“God help us,—it’s Tom come back to rob his own mother,” gasped poor John O’More.
“But you’ll not appear against him, John,” cried his wife, throwing her arms around him as he seized his hat and turned to go out.
“I can’t, woman, I can’t; but maybe it’ll do no good. I must go round to the station and get the wallet and see to this, anyway.”
And Bird, after laying Billy on the lounge for a nap, sat by her aunt,—who, while waiting to hear the outcome, had collapsed and was crying noisily,—and tried to take off her tight waist and bathe her face, and she realized that there were even worse griefs than leaving one’s home and father, for surely dear Terry was safe beyond all harm now.
[VII]
SUMMER IN NEW YORK
The arrest of Tom O’More threw the matter of little Billy’s leg into the background for a time. When the father had gone to the court where his son was arraigned, he found that not only was there another charge against him, but that all unknown to his family he had committed petty thefts in other places, and had already what the police call “a record,” so that he had to go to the penitentiary for a year, and John O’More, feeling his disgrace keenly, for though he was a rough man and coarse in many ways he was as honest as the day, turned doubly to little Billy, and could not bear to have him out of his sight when he was at home.
The doctor’s orders concerning Billy had been short and clear, but it was fully a week after the visit before his mother could pull herself together or even think of carrying them out, and then when O’More took a day at home and had leisure to ask for details, she began by saying that what the doctor had ordered to get the child in condition for treatment was nonsense, and only to be had by rich folks.