"Oh, son, how careless!" Martha was just exclaiming when a call in Jacob's sharp voice interrupted her.
"Martha, grocery!" it commanded her and I was not sure whether he was ignorant of the fact that I was still her caller or was interrupting her on purpose. I think Martha shared the same uncertainty; she blushed and looked both ashamed and frightened.
"I'll go now, Martha, out this door that leads onto the street," I hastened to say to relieve her of the dilemma. "But I'm coming back to you," I added with determination, as I made ready to slip out the side door of the Last Chance in regular underworld style.
"Please don't, Miss Charlotte," she called, as she was passing through the other door into the world from which I was escaping. The sad significance of our two exits struck me so forcibly that I was two blocks away before I really became conscious of things around me, and then I was brought back to the squalid street of the Settlement and its surroundings by feeling a damp little hand slipped into mine as I strode along.
"Please take me with you, Miss Lady," the Stray pleaded, as he ran along beside me, trying to keep up with my long steps. "I've got me a dog now to keep off turkles from me and you." And the slinking brindle bunch of ears and tail and very little else, at our heels, regarded me with the same brave entreaty. He and the Stray, indeed, presented a picture of chivalrous attention as they stood regarding me.
"But what will your mother say?" I asked of my small human attendant with conscientious contention against my desire to take them both with me on out of the dirt and heat and flies and other swarming young humans up into the coolness and shade and—loneliness—of my own life.
"She groceries all day and has to forget me," he answered calmly. "You can bring me back to bed when she is through." And to this plea was added a pathetic wag of the brindle tail.
"Well, I'll take you up as far as Mother Spurlock's and give you both a tea cake," I capitulated as I started again up the street of the Settlement towards the haven of the Town.
And as my escort and I progressed through the Settlement I could see the most violent signs of interest being manifested in all of us. Dirty, sweaty women, with their sleeves rolled up, came to the doors to look at us, and as I greeted them one and all with a nod they smiled back with pleased astonishment. I had never been down in the Settlement before, but most of them spoke to me by name and one toothless old woman hastily broke off a bloom from a struggling geranium, came to her rickety gate and offered it to me with an admiring smile.
"Bless my soul, Miss Charlotte, be you a-kidnappin' Martha's Stray?" she asked, as I accepted it with enthusiasm.