[XIV]
THE FIRE-ESCAPE
What had Bird O’More been doing these many days? It did not need the skill of a magician to tell why even her notes to her Laurelville friends had been brief at best and then finally ceased. A single peep at her surroundings would have told the tale, and the more completely she became merged in them, the more hopeless she felt them to be.
Her weekly work in distributing the flowers was a bright spot indeed, as well as her visits to Tessie; but as she looked forward to the time when frost would kill the blossoms, the Flower Mission be closed, and the liberty of streets and parks cut off for confinement in the dark flat, her heart sank indeed.
All her hopes were centred about going to school, and the possibilities of meeting teachers who would understand her desire to learn, and help her with sympathy. Meanwhile, the city summer had told upon her country-bred body even more than on her sensitive temperament, and she grew thinner every day, until finally her aunt was compelled to see it in spite of herself, and promised to take her down to Coney Island or Rockaway Beach “some day” when she was not busy, to freshen her up a bit; but that day never came, and as little Billy was constantly improving, her uncle had eyes only for him. In fact, the change in the little cripple was little short of marvellous. Of course his lameness remained, but his cheeks were round, his lips had lost their blue tint, and to hear him cry or complain was a rare sound indeed. That all this came of Bird’s devoted care her uncle was quite convinced; for it was she who gave Billy his morning bath, and managed,—no easy task,—that the battered tub should not again be used for a cupboard. It was Bird who took his food into the fire-escape bower, and coaxed and tempted him until he had eaten sufficient, and it was she who put him nightly into the little bed opposite her own and taught him to say, as a little prayer, the verse of the hymn her own mother had sung to her in the misty long ago:—
“Jesus, gentle Shepherd, hear me;
Bless thy little lamb to-night:
Through the darkness be thou near me;
Keep me safe till morning light.”
But for Billy, Bird could not have endured through that dreadful summer. As it was, she often fingered her “keepsake,” still hanging about her neck, the thought comforting her that with the mysterious coin in it she could get back once more to the little village that seemed like heaven to her, no matter what happened after. Often, in fact, the only thing that kept her from running away was the belief that if her good friends could take her permanently, they would have sent for her, and pride, heroic pride, born of Old and New England, was still strong in Ladybird.
“She’ll perk up when school begins and she gets acquainted with girls her own age,” said O’More, cheerfully, as his attention was called to her pale cheeks by his wife. “I’m owin’ her good will for what she’s done for Billy, else I most wish I’d left her up there with those hayseeds that wanted her. Somehow she don’t fit in here, for all that she never complains. She’s different from us, and she makes me uncomfortable, lookin’ so solemn at me if I chance to take off my coat and collar of a night at supper to ease up a bit. Terence was different from us, too, and it’s bred in the bone.”
“Let well enough alone,” said Mrs. O’More, glad to have Billy so completely taken off her hands; “folks can’t afford to be different to their own, unless they’ve got the price. I’ve made her a good dress out of a remnant of bright plaid I bought, so next week she can shell off them shabby black duds that give me the shivers every time I see them. Maybe fixin’ up like other girls ’ll bring her to and liven her. She’s queer though, sure enough, don’t give no sass, and it ain’t natural; I never seen a girl her age before that didn’t talk back, and sometimes it riles me to see her keep so close shet when I up and let fly.”
In September school began, but this brought further disappointment, for Bird had hoped to find a friend at least in the teacher. She was, however, graded according to her size and age, not ability, as if she had been a wooden box, and found herself in an overcrowded room, a weak-eyed little Italian, with brass earrings, seated on one side of her, and the Polish sausage-seller’s daughter on the other, her dirty hands heavy with glass rings, which caused her to keep whispering behind Bird’s back as to her lack of jewellery and style; while at the first recess this little Slav told the astonished Bird, “If yer tink to get in vid us, you’ll got to pomp you ’air; dis crowt, we’s stylish barticular—ve iss.”