The Turn of the Tide. Eleanor H. PorterЧитать онлайн книгу.
“Of course you did, sweetheart,” choked Mrs. Kendall, tremulously. “And didn’t she ever stay? When was it you saw her—first?”
Margaret frowned.
“I—don’t—seem—to know,” she answered. She was thinking of what Dr. Spencer had told her, and of what she herself remembered of those four years of her life. “You see first I was lost, and Bobby McGinnis found me. Anyhow, Dr. Spencer says he did, but I don’t seem to remember. Things was all mixed up. There didn’t seem to be anybody that wanted me, but there wouldn’t anybody let me go. And they made me sew all the time on things that was big and homely, and then another man took me and made me paste up bags. Say, did you ever paste bags?”
“No, dear.” Mrs. Kendall shivered.
“Well, you don’t want to,” volunteered Margaret; and to her thin little face came the look that her mother had already seen on it once or twice that afternoon—the look of a child who knows what it means to fight for life itself in the slums of a great city. “They ain’t a mite nice—bags ain’t; and the paste sticks horrid, and smells.”
“Margaret, dearest!—how could you bear it?” shuddered Mrs. Kendall, her eyes brimming with tears.
Margaret saw the tears, and understood—this tender, new-found mother of hers was grieved; she must be comforted. To the best of her ability, therefore, Margaret promptly proceeded to administer that comfort.
“Pooh! ‘twa’n’t nothin’,” she asserted stoutly; “besides, I runned away, and then I had a tiptop place—a whole corner of Mis’ Whalen’s kitchen, and jest me and Patty and the twins to stay in it. We divvied up everythin’, and some days we had heaps to eat—truly we did—heaps! And I went to Mont-Lawn two times, and of course there I had everythin’, even beds with sheets, you know; and——”
“Margaret, Margaret, don’t, dear!” interrupted her mother. “I can’t bear even to think of it.”
Margaret’s eyes grew puzzled.
“But that was bang-up—all of it,” she protested earnestly. “Why, I didn’t paste bags nor sew buttons, and nobody didn’t strike me for not doin’ ’em, neither; and Mis’ Whalen was good and showed me how to make flowers—for pay, too! And——”
“Yes, dear, I know,” interposed Mrs. Kendall again; “but suppose we don’t think any more of all that, sweetheart. You are home now, darling, right here with mother. Come, we will go out into the garden.” To Mrs. Kendall it seemed at the moment that only God’s blessed out-of-doors was wide enough and beautiful enough to clear from her eyes the pictures Margaret’s words had painted.
Out in the garden Margaret drew a long breath.
“Oh!” she cooed softly, caressing with her cheek a great red rose. “I knew flowers smelled good, but I didn’t find it out for sure till I went to Mont-Lawn that first time. You see the kind we made was cloth and stiff, and they didn’t smell good a mite—oh, you’ve picked it!” she broke off, half-rapturously, half-regretfully, as Mrs. Kendall placed in her hands the great red rose.
“Yes, pick all you like, dear,” smiled Mrs. Kendall, reaching for another flower.
“But they’ll die,” stammered Margaret, “and then the others won’t see them.”
“The—‘others’? What others, dear?”
“Why, the other folks that live here, you know, and walk out here, too.”
Mrs. Kendall laughed merrily.
“But there aren’t any others, dear. The flowers are all ours. No one else lives here.”
Margaret stopped short in the garden path and faced her mother.
“What, not any one? in all that big house?”
“Why, no, dear, of course not. There is no one except old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett who keep the house and grounds in order. We have it all to ourselves.”
Margaret was silent. She turned and walked slowly along the path at her mother’s side. On her face was a puzzled questioning. To her eyes was gradually coming a frightened doubt.
Alone?—just they two, with the little old man and the little old woman in the kitchen who did not take up any room at all? Why, back in the Alley there were Patty, the twins, and all the Whalens—and they had only one room! It was like that, too, everywhere, all through the Alley—so many, many people, so little room for them. Yet here—here was this great house all windows and doors and soft carpets and pretty pictures, and only two, three, four people to enjoy it all. Why had not her mother asked——
Even to herself Margaret could not say the words. She shut her lips tight and threw a hurried look into the face of the woman at her side. This dear dream-lady, this beautiful new mother—as if there could be any question of her goodness and kindness! Very likely, anyway, there were not any poor——
Margaret’s eyes cleared suddenly. She turned a radiant face on her mother.
“Oh, I know,” she cried in triumph. “There ain’t any poor folks here, and so you couldn’t do it!”
Mrs. Kendall looked puzzled.
“‘Poor folks’? ‘Couldn’t do it’?” she questioned.
“Yes; poor folks like Patty and the Whalens, and so you couldn’t ask ’em to live with you.”
Mrs. Kendall sat down abruptly. Near her was a garden settee. She felt particularly glad of its support just then.
“And of course you didn’t know about the Whalens and Patty,” went on Margaret, eagerly, “and so you couldn’t ask them, neither. But you do now, and they’d just love to come, I know!”
“Love to—to come?” stammered Mrs. Kendall, gazing blankly into the glowing young face before her.
“Of course they would!” nodded Margaret, dancing up and down and clapping her hands. “Wouldn’t you if you didn’t have nothin’ but a room right down under the sidewalk, and there was such a heap of folks in it? Why, here there’s everythin’—everythin’ for ’em, and oh, I’m so glad, ’cause they was good to me—so good! First Mis’ Whalen took in Patty and the twins when the rent man dumped ’em out on the sidewalk, and she gave ’em a whole corner of her kitchen. And then when I runned away from the bag-pasting, Patty and the twins took me in. And now I can pay ’em back for it all—I can pay ’em back. I’m so glad!”
Mrs. Kendall fell back limply against the garden seat. Twice she opened her lips—and closed them again. Her face flushed, then paled, and her hands grew cold in her lap.
This dancing little maid with the sunlit hair and the astounding proposition to adopt into their home two whole families from the slums of New York, was Margaret, her own little Margaret, lost so long ago, and now so miraculously restored to her. As if she could refuse any request, however wild, from Margaret! But this—!
“But, sweetheart, perhaps they—they wouldn’t want to go away forever and leave their home,” she remonstrated at last, feebly.
The child frowned, her finger to her lips.
“Well, anyhow, we can ask them,” she declared, after a minute, her face clearing.
“Suppose we—we make it a visit, first,” suggested Mrs. Kendall, feverishly. “By and by, after I’ve had you all to myself for a little while, you shall ask them to—to visit you.”
“O bully!” agreed Margaret in swift delight. “That will be nicest; won’t it? Then they can see how they like it—but there! they’ll like it all right. They couldn’t help it.”
“And how—how many are there?” questioned Mrs. Kendall, moistening her dry lips, and feeling