Adrift in New York: Tom and Florence Braving the World. Alger Horatio Jr.Читать онлайн книгу.
warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described.
“You won’t die of consumption, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Dodger. “It’ll take a good while for you to fade away.”
“Hear him now,” said the apple-woman, laughing. “He will have his joke, Miss Florence, but he’s a good bye for all that, and I’m glad he’s goin’ to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld.”
“Now, Mrs. O’Keefe, you know you’d marry Tim if he’d only ask you.”
“Marry him, is it? I’d lay my broom over his head if he had the impudence to ask me. When Maggie O’Keefe marries ag’in, she won’t marry a man wid a red nose.”
“Break it gently to him, Mrs. O’Keefe. Tim is just the man to break his heart for love of you.”
Mrs. O’Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name, and skillfully evaded it.
“I must be goin’,” he said. “I’ve got to work, or I can’t pay room rent when the week comes round.”
“What are you going to do, Dodger?” asked Florence.
“It isn’t time for the evenin’ papers yet, so I shall go ’round to the piers and see if I can’t get a job at smashin’ baggage.”
“But I shouldn’t think any one would want to do that,” said Florence, puzzled.
“It’s what we boys call it. It’s just carryin’ valises and bundles. Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a gentleman, he was. I’d like to meet him ag’in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I’ll be back some time this afternoon.”
“And I must be goin’, too,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “I can’t depend on that Kitty; she’s a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I’ll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won’t feel lonely, my dear.”
“I think I will lie down a while,” said Florence. “I have a headache.”
She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her.
Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle’s love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.
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