“Attic! do you hear her?” mocked the aunt, “and a fine slop there’d be in me kitchen, and a nice place for folks to eat breakfast, with the bath.”
“If the things were taken out of the bath-tub we could use that,” continued Bird, waxing bold at the prospects, “and I’m sure, Aunt Rose, it would be much nicer for you to have the parlour to yourself, and not have to make me a bed there every night.”
“That last is true; I’ve been greatly put out these days when company called,” the company being the slipshod factory girls for whom she did sewing, but, as often happened, Bird had unconsciously said the one thing that could have appeased her aunt, for only when something was suggested that would benefit herself was she willing to have others considered.
“The tub is full of holes, and the agent he won’t mend it, saying that I made them with the ice-pick, when for convenience I used that same tub for an ice-box, me own givin’ out.”
“If that’s all, a bit o’ solder is cheap,” said O’More, springing to his feet, and preparing to take action.
“I’ve the day on me hands, and a few extry dollars in me pocket, and if something can’t be worked out o’ this, ’twon’t be my fault; and while I recommember it, I think you’d be the better of a new hat, Rosie, and while yer out buyin’ it, jest step in the store, round on Third Avenue and get two o’ them light-lookin’, white iron beds; they’re cheap, for I saw yesterday when passin’ that they be havin’ a bargain sale of them,” and John, with the quick-witted diplomacy of his race, handed his wife some money which she took, and, half mollified, at once prepared to go out, instructing Bird to “do up the rooms” while she was gone.
The door had not fairly closed when O’More gave a shout that almost frightened Bird, and said: “Now we’ll do some hustlin’; there’s no attic, me girl, but there’s the coal-closet in the cellar which is empty, now that we use gas in the range. Half the stuff is but fit for the ashman, and the rest I’ll bundle down there quick as I get a man from the stable to help. Now watch sharp whilst I put the truck out and see if there’s aught yer can use.”
When the room was finally cleared, a mirror, a chair, and a small chest of drawers were the only useful assets, and these Bird pulled into the kitchen, while she dusted and wiped away at them until they looked clean, even if somewhat shabby.
Returning from the cellar O’More (in his youth a handy man in a stable) attacked the dust in the little room with broom, mop, and finally a scrubbing-brush to such good purpose that in an hour it was quite another place, for the walls fortunately had been painted a light cream and were in fairly good condition.
If John O’More had been asked to go down on his knees and scrub a room, he would have resented the work as an insult to his manhood, but love had set the task. Little Billy, sitting there in his chair, his face all eagerness, needed the room, and so he did the work as nonchalantly as he would have stepped into the stable and curried a horse in a hurry time. It was only when Bird clapped her hands in admiration and said, “Why, uncle, how nice and quick you did that; Dinah Lucky would have taken a whole day,” that he became embarrassed, and, giving her an apologetic wink, said with lowered voice, “It’s a job well done, but whist! ’tis not for the good of my health to be repeated,” and Bird understood and wondered, as she did a hundred times during that long summer, why she always understood her uncle and he her, while life with her aunt seemed one long misunderstanding.