In Wild Rose Time

Dil sighed, and shuddered too. We suppose the conscious tie of nature begets love, but it had not in Dil’s case. And she had a curious feeling that she should drop dead if her mother should clutch her.

“I don’t want to see her, Patsey, never agen. Poor Bess is gone – ”

“Jes’ don’t you mind. My eyes is peeled fer de old woman! An’ where I’m goin’ to take you’s so far off. But we’ll jes’ go an’ hev some grub. We’ll take de car. I’m out ’n a lark, I am!”

Patsey laughed, a wholesome, inspiriting sound. Dil was very, very tired, and it was so good to sit down. She felt so grateful, so befriended, so at rest, as if her anxieties had suddenly ended.

It was indeed a long distance, – a part of the city Dil knew nothing about, – across town and down town, in the old part, given over to business and the commonest of living. A few blocks after they left the car they came to a restaurant, and Patsey ordered some clam-chowder. It tasted so good to the poor little girl, and was so warming, that her cheeks flushed a trifle.

Patsey amused her with their ups and downs, the scrapes Owny had been in, and some of his virtues as well. Patsey might have adorned some other walk in life, from the possibilities of fairness and justice in his character.

Dil began to feel as if she belonged to the old life again. Her hospital experience, with the large, clean rooms, the neatness, the flowers, the visitors, and her kindly nurse, seemed something altogether outside of her own life.

They trudged along, and stopped at the end of a row of old-fashioned brick houses, two stories, with dormer windows. A wide alley-way went up by the last one. There was a building in the rear that had once been a shop, but now housed four families. Up-stairs lived some Polish tailors; at the lower end, a youngish married couple.

It was quite dusk now, but a lamp was lighted in the room. Two fellows were skylarking, but they stopped suddenly at the unusual sight of a “gal.”

“Why it ain’t never Dil!”

Owny was an immense exclamation point in supreme amazement.

“Didn’t I tell yous! I was a-layin’ fer her. An’ she’s jes’ come out o’ the ’ospital.”

“Dil, you look nawful white.”

“We’ll make her hev red cheeks in a little, jes’ you wait. This feller’s Tom Dillon.”

Dilsey took a survey of her new home, and for the first moment her heart failed her. It looked so dreadfully dirty and untidy. The room was quite large, with an old lounge, a kitchen table, a trunk, and some chairs; a stove in the fireplace, and a cupboard with the door swinging open, but the dishes seemed to be mostly on the table.

“We sleep here,” explained Patsey, ushering her into the adjoining apartment. There was an iron bedstead in the centre of the room, and four bunks in two stories ranged against the side. “Ye see, we ain’t much at housekeepin’, but youse c’n soon git things straight,” and Patsey laughed to hide a certain shame and embarrassment. “We’ll clean house to-morrer, an’ hev things shinin’. An’ here’s a place – ”

It was a little corner taken off the other room, and partly shut in by the closet. “Th’ ould woman used to sleep here – say, Dil, yous wouldn’t be afraid – tell ye, a feller offered me a lot o’ paper – wall paper, an’ we’ll make it purty as a pink.”

Dil had never seen “th’ ould woman,” and had no fear of her.

“It’ll be nice when we get it fixed,” she said cheerily.

Then Sandy Fossett came in, and was “introjuced.” He, too, had heard the fame of the ’lickin’ good stews,’ but he was surprised to find such a very little body.

Dil lay on the lounge that night, but did not sleep much, it was all so strange. Any other body would have felt disheartened in the morning, but Patsey was “so good.” He “hustled” the few things out of the little room, asked the woman in the other part about making paste, and ran off for his paper. Dil found a scrubbing-brush, and had the closet partly cleaned when he returned. Mrs. Brian came in and “gave them a hand.” She was a short, stout, cheery body, with just enough Irish to take warmly to Dil.

If the poor child had small aptitude for book-learning, she had the wonderful art of housekeeping at her very finger ends. In a week the boys hardly knew the place. Dil’s little room was really pretty, with its paper of grasses and field flowers on the lightest gray ground. She scalded and scrubbed her cot, and drove out any ghost that might have lingered about; she made a new “bureau” out of grocery boxes, not that she had any clothes at present, but she might have. She was so thankful for a home that work was a pleasure to her, though she did get very, very tired, and a pain would settle in the place where the ribs were broken.

The living room took on a delightful aspect. The chairs were scrubbed and painted, the table was cleaned up and covered with enamelled cloth. And such coffee as Dil made; such stews of meat and potatoes and onions, and a carrot or a bit of parsley; and oh, such soups and chowders! When she made griddlecakes the boys went out and stood on their heads – there was no other way to express their delight. Fin came back in a jiffy, and another lad, named Shorty by his peers. Indeed, there could have been ten if there had been room.

Owen was very much improved. He was shooting up into a tall boy, and had his mother’s black eyes and fresh complexion. When the two boys talked about Bess, Dil could almost imagine her coming back. She sometimes tried to make believe that little Bess had gone to the hospital to get her poor hurted legs mended, and would surely return to them.

There was quite a pretty yard between the two houses. It really belonged to the “front” people. There was a grass-plot and some flowers, and an old honeysuckle climbing the porch. The air was much better than in Barker’s Court, and altogether it was a more humanizing kind of living. And though the people up-stairs ran a sewing-machine in the evening, there were no rows. Mr. Brian did some kind of work on the docks, and went away early, coming back at half-past six or so. He was a nice, steady sort of fellow; and though he had protested vigorously against a “raft of boys” keeping house, after Dil came he was very friendly.

Patsey also “laid out” for Mrs. Quinn. When she came down from the “Island,” she heard that her furniture had been set in the street, and then taken in by some of the neighbors. Dan was in a Home, Owen had not been seen, neither had Dilsey. Then the woman drank again and raged round like a tiger, was arrested, but pleaded so hard, and promised amendment so earnestly, that sentence was suspended.

It was well that Owen and Dilsey kept out of her way, for if she had found either of them she would have wreaked a full measure of vengeance upon them. There had never been a great deal of tenderness in her nature, and her experiences of the last ten years had not only hardened but brutalized her. The habit of steady drinking had blunted her natural feelings more than occasional outbreaks with weeks of soberness. She had no belief in a future state and no regard for it. Still, she had not reached that last stage of demoralization – she was willing to work; and when she had money to spend, Mrs. MacBride made her welcome again.

After Dil had her house a little in order, and had made herself a new gingham gown, she took her way one lovely afternoon over to Madison Square. She had meant to tell Patsey about John Travis, but an inexplicable feeling held her back. How she was coming to reach after higher things, or that they were really higher, she did not understand. Heaven was still a great mystery to her. With the boys Bess was simply dead, gone out of life, and sometime everybody seemed to go out of life. Why they did was the inscrutable mystery?

It was curious, but now she had no desire to finish Christiana, although she devoted some time every day to reading. The old things that had been such a pleasure seemed sacred to Bess, laid away, awaiting a mysterious solution. For she knew John Travis could tell her all about it.

Patsey had written her name and address on a slip of paper, several of them indeed, so as not to raise any suspicion. He laughed, and said she “was very toney, wantin’ kerds.” She saw the policeman, and was relieved that she had not missed Travis, yet strangely disappointed that he had not come.

The boys just adored her, and certainly they were a jolly lot. Sometimes they had streaks of luck, at others they were hard up. But every Saturday night the rent money was counted out to make sure, and the agent was soon greatly interested in her. She was a wonderful little market woman, and she found so much entertainment going out to do errands. She used to linger about the flower stands, and thrill with emotions that seemed strange indeed to her. She took great pleasure in watching the little flower bed a thin, delicate looking woman used to tend, that belonged to the front house.

One day Patsey brought her home a rose.

“Oh,” she cried, “if Bess was only here to see!” and tears overflowed her eyes. “O Patsey, do you mind them wild roses the lady gev you an’ you brought to us? They’re always keepin’ in my mind with Bess.”

“I wisht I knew where they growed, I’d go fer some. But ain’t this a stunner?”

“It’s jes’ splendid, an’ you’re so good, Patsey.”

“I wisht yer cheeks cud be red as that,” the boy said earnestly.

Mrs. Brian went out now and then to do a bit of washing, “unbeknownst to her man,” who thought he earned enough for both of them. She came and sat on the little stoop with Dil occasionally, and had a “bit of a talk.” Patsey had advised that she should let folks think both her parents were dead – he had said so in the first instance to make her coming with them seem reasonable.

But one day she told Mrs. Brian about little Bess, “who was hurted by a bad fall, and died last winter.” Then she ventured on a wonder about heaven, hoping for some tangible explanation.

“I s’pose it’s a good thing to go to heaven when you’re sick, or old an’ all tired out, but I ain’t in any hurry. I want a good bit o’ fun an’ pleasure first. My man sez if you’re honest an’ do the fair thing, it’s as good a religion as he wants, an’ he’ll trust it to take any one there. My ’pinion is that some of them that talks about it don’t appear to know, when you pin ’em down to the pint. My man thinks most everybody who ain’t awful bad’ll go. There’s some folks so dreadful you know, that the devil really ought to have ’em for firewood.”

No one seemed in any hurry to go. It was a great mystery to Dil. And now Barker’s Court seemed as if it must have been the City of Destruction. If only her mother had been like Christiana! It was all such a puzzle. She was so lonely, and longed for some satisfying comfort.

The weather was so lovely again. Ah! if Bess had not died, they would have started by themselves, she felt quite sure. And as the days passed with no John Travis, Dil sometimes grew cold and sick at heart. In spite of the boys’ merriment and kindliness, she could not get down to the real hold on life. It seemed to her as if she was wandering off in some strange land, when she used to sit alone and wonder; it could hardly be called thinking, it was so intangible.

XII – THE RESPONSE OF PINING EYES

The boys chipped in one evening and took Dil to the theatre. They were fond of the rather coarse fun and stage heroics. Dil was simply bewildered with the lights, the blare of the second-rate orchestra, and the crowds of people. She was a little afraid too. What if they should meet some one who knew her mother?

A curious thought came to her unappeased soul. Some one was singing a song, one of the rather pathetic ballads just then a favorite. She did not see the stage nor the young man, but like a distinct vision the little room in Barker’s Court was before her eyes. Bess in her old wagon, Mrs. Murphy with her baby in her arms, old Mrs. Bolan, and the group of listening women. The wonderful rapture in Bess’s face was distinct. It was the sweet old hymn that she was listening to, the voice that stilled her longing soul, that filled her with content unutterable.

There was a round of applause that brought her back to the present life. They were rather noisy here. She liked the dreamland best.

“That takes the cake jist!” declared Patsey, looking down in the bewildered face. “What’s the matter? Youse look nawful pale!”

“My head aches,” she said. “It’s so warm here. And it’s all very nice, but will it be over soon, Patsey?”

The boy was disappointed; but the next morning Dil evinced such a cordial interest in all the points that had amused them, that Patsey decided that it must have been the headache, and not lack of appreciation.

But he hung around after the others were gone, with a curious sense of responsibility.

“Youse don’t git reel well any more, Dil,” he said, his voice full of solicitude. “Kin I do anythin’ – ”

“O Patsey!” The quick tears came to her eyes. “Why, I am well, an’ everything’s so nice now, an’ Mrs. Brian jes’ lovely. Mebbe I ain’t quite so strong sence I was sick. An’ sometimes I get lonesome with you away all day.”

“I wish youse knowed some gals – ”

“Patsey,” a soft, tender light came to her brown eyes, “I think I miss the babies. They’re so cunnin’ an’ sweet, an’ put their arms round your neck an’ say such pritty little words. An’ if I could have some babies I wouldn’t wash any more. That puts me out o’ breath like, an’ hurts my side. ’Twas that tired me for last night.”

“Youse jist sha’n’t wash no more, then. But babies is such a bother!”

“I love thim so. An’ only two, maybe. Curis there ain’t a baby in this house, nor in the front, neither. Babies would seem like old times, when I had Bess.”

There was such a wistful look in her pale, tender face. Patsey thought she had grown a great deal prettier, but he wished she had red cheeks. And he was moved to go out at once and hunt up the babies.

Other girls might have made friends in the neighborhood; but Dil had never acquired friendly arts, and now she shrank from companionship. But she liked Mrs. Brian; and that very afternoon as they sat together Dil ventured to state her desires.

“You don’t look fit to bother with ’em. You ought to be out pleasurin’ a bit.”

“But I’m strong, though; an’ I used to be such a fat little chunk! I was stunted like; but I think I look better not to be so fat,” she said with quaint self-appreciation.

“There’s one baby I could get for you easy. The mother’s a nice body – you see, the man went off. She’s waitress in a restaurant, an’ her little girl’s pretty as a pink, with a head full of yellow curls, an’ big blue eyes. She pays a dollar for her keep, ’ceptin’ nights an’ Sundays. An’ you’d be so good, which the woman ain’t. You couldn’t hurt a fly if you tried.”

“Oh, if I could have her!” cried Dil eagerly. A little girl with golden hair, curly hair. And a dollar would pay for the washing and ironing. The boys had been so good about fixing up things and buying her clothes that she had felt she must do all she could in return.

“I’ll see about it this very evenin’, dear.”

“Oh, thank you! thank you!”

The mother, a slim young thing, came to visit Dil on Sunday, with pretty, chubby, two-year-old Nelly, who was not shy at all, and came and hugged Dil at once. Her prettiness was not of the spirituelle order, as Bess’s would have been under any circumstances. The eyes were merry and wondering, the voice a gay little ripple, and comforted Dil curiously.

And through the course of the week several “incidental” ones came. It was like old times.

“Seems to me it’s nawful tough to be nussin’ kids,” said Patsey; “but, Dil, you’ve chirked up an’ grown reel jolly. You’re hankerin’ arter Bess, an’ can’t forgit. An’ ef the babies make ye chipper, let ’em come. I only hope they won’t take any fat offen yer bones, fer youse most a skiliton now. But sounds good to hear youse laugh agen.”

“I’d like just a little fat in my cheeks,” she made answer.

Patsey brought her home a white dress one day, and said they would all go down to Coney Island some Sunday.

“I wouldn’t dast to,” she said. “I’d be that afeared o’ meetin’ mother. She used to go las’ summer. An’ if she should find me – ”

“Yer cudden’t find anybody, les’ yer looked sharp. An’ youse er that changed an’ sollumn lookin’ an’ big-eyed, no one’d know yer.”

“But you knew me,” with a grateful little smile.

Patsey grinned and rolled his eyes.

“I was a-layin’ fer ye.”

“You can take me up to Cent’l Park, Patsey. I’d like to go so much.”

“That’s the talk, now! So I will. We’ll all go. We’ll have a reg’lar persesh, a stunner, an’ take our lunch, like the ’ristocrockery!”

Dil did brighten up a good deal. Baby kisses helped. She was starving for love, such as boys did not know how to give. She used to take Nelly out walking, and imagine her her very own. The mother instinct was strong in Dil.

Having the washing done did ease up the work; though one would have considered it no sinecure to feed five hungry boys. Now and then her head would ache, and occasionally something inside of her would flutter up in her throat, as it had when Bess died, and she would stretch out her hands to clasp some warm human support, her whole body in a shiver of vague terror.

If John Travis would only come. She could not disbelieve in him. Last autumn in the moment of desperate despair he had come, bringing such a waft of joy and satisfaction. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. She began to hope, in a vague way, that the Lord had come for Bess, for she wanted her in that beautiful heaven. But the mystery was too great for her untrained mind. And there intruded upon her thought, the horror of that moment when she knew Bess was dead.

The hot weather was very trying. Hemmed in on all sides by tall buildings, her own room so small, with a window on a narrow space hardly six inches from the brick wall of the next house, there was little chance for air. The boys seemed to sleep through anything.

So the weeks passed on with various small delights and events. The boys would go off and spend their money when they needed clothes, and then would follow heroic efforts at economizing. Dil had such shrewd good sense, and they did listen to her gentle advice. They were a gay, rollicking lot, but their very spirits seemed to be of a world she had passed by. It was as if she was on the way to some unknown land, not quite a stranger, but a sojourner.

Owen was a really tolerable boy, and bade fair to keep out of the reform school. They all mended of their swearing; they were ready to wait on her at a word.

The white frock was a beauty. Shorty brought her some pink ribbons that made her look less pale, and she had a wreath of wild roses on her hat that Mrs. Brian gave her.

They made ready for their excursion one beautiful Sunday morning in July. There had been a tremendous shower the night before, and all nature was fresh and glowing. The very sky was full of suggestions in its clear, soft blue, with here and there a white drift.

Oh, how lovely the park looked! Dil had to pause in a strange awe, as if she was hardly prepared to enter. It was like the hymn that was always floating intangibly through her mind – the fields and rivers of delight, the fragrant air, the waving trees and beds of flowers, the beautiful nooks, the bridges, the winding paths that seemed leading into delicious mysteries.

The boys were wild over the animals. They were irrepressible, and soon tired out poor Dil. She had to sit down and press her hand on her heart. There was a strange sinking, as if she was floating off, like the fleecy white drifts above her.

“Youse air nawful white!” cried Patsey in alarm. “An’ ther’s sich a queer blue streak acrost yer lip. Air ye sick?”

She drew a long breath, and the world seemed to settle again, as she raised her soft eyes with a smile all about them.

“No, Patsey – I’m only a bit tired. Let me sit an’ get rested.”

She took the sunbrowned hand in hers with a mute little caress that brought a strange flush to the lad’s face.

“Youse jist work too hard wid dem babies an’ all.”

“I’m only going to have Nelly next week, an’ the Leary baby is to go in the country with his mother to live. ’Twasn’t nothin’ but a queer flutt’rin’ like, an’ it comes sometimes in the night when I can’t be tired. It’s all over now;” and she looked bright and happy, if still pale.

Patsey seemed hardly satisfied.

“I think it’s the hot weather. It’s been so hot, you know. An’ to-day’s splendid! I’ll get better when cool weather comes, I’m most sure. You an’ the boys take a good long walk, an’ I’ll stay here with the lunch, an’ get all rested up. An’ I’ll make b’leve it’s heaven; it’s so beautiful.”

“See here, Dil, don’t yer go an’ be thinkin’ ’bout – ’bout heaven an’ sich – ”

Patsey swallowed over a big lump in his throat, and winked vigorously.

“Bess an’ I used to talk about it,” she said in a soft, disarming fashion. “We thought ’twas some-wers over the river there,” nodding her head. “But I’ll jes’ sit still in some shady place, an’ I won’t go to-day,” with a soft, comforting laugh.

The boys protested at first. But Dil had a way of persuading them that was quite irresistible. They were boys to the full, and to sit still would have half killed them. They found a lovely nook, where she could see the lake and the boats, and the people passing to and fro in their Sunday attire. There were merry voices of little ones that touched her like music.

She sat very still, with the lunch-basket at her feet. Occasionally some one cast a glance at the pale little girl in her white gown, with the wild roses drooping over the brim of her hat. A friendly policeman had seen the pantomime and the departure of the boys, and meant to keep guard that no one molested her.

Dil could understand being ill from some specific disease; but she did not feel ill, only tired. It was a different kind of fatigue from that back in Barker’s Court, for then she could fall asleep in a moment. Now the nights were curiously wakeful. And the babies were heavy, even if there were only two of them.

The refreshing atmosphere and the tranquil, beautiful pictures all about her intensified the thought of the heaven she was going to “make b’leve” about. She could picture it out, up and up, through country ways and flowers, wild roses maybe. Houses where they took you in and fed you, and put you to bed in such soft, clean beds. Queer people too, who couldn’t understand, and were wanting to turn back, – people who were afraid of lions and Giant Grim. She called up all the pictures she could remember, and they floated before her like a panorama.

“Though I can’t get it out straight myself,” and she sighed in helpless confusion. “I ain’t smart as little Bess was, an’ can’t see into things. But I could push Bess along, an’ Mr. Travis would be Mr. Greatheart for us, an’ he’d know the way on ’count of his being book learned. An’ we’d just be kerful an’ not get into briars and bad places.”

Was that Bess laughing softly, as she did sometimes when her poor back didn’t hurt, and her head didn’t ache. The sweet, lingering sound seemed to pervade the summer air. She could see the time-worn wagon, the rug made of odds and ends, that they had both considered such a great achievement. There was the sweet, pallid face, not quite as it had looked in those last days, but resembling more the beautiful picture that had gone to the flames, the crown of golden hair, the mysterious, fathomless eyes, with a new knowledge in them, that Dil felt had not been garnered in that old, pinched life.

Her own soul was suddenly informed with a mysterious rapture. She knew nothing of the Incarnation, of the love that came down and tasted pain and anguish, that others, in the suffering laid upon them, might also know of the joy of redemption. At that moment Dilsey Quinn was not far from the kingdom.

“O Bess! can’t you come back?” she cried in a breathless, entreating manner, her eyes luminous with the rare insight of faith, the evidence of things unseen. “O Bess, you must be somewhere! I don’t b’leve you died jes’ like other folks! Can’t you come back an’ tell me how it happened, ’cause I know you wouldn’t have gone and leaved me free of your own will?”

A tremendous longing surged at Dil’s heart, and almost swept her away. Her breath came in gasps, her heart beat in great bounds, and then well nigh stopped. She was suddenly attuned to spiritual influences in that sweet, solemn solitude. Was it really Bess’s voice in the softly penetrative summer air – was the strange, shadowy presence, so near that she could reach out and touch it – almost – that of the child?

She sat there rapt, motionless, seeing nothing with her mortal eyes; but in that finer illumination Bess moved slowly toward her, not walking, but floating, veiled in a soft, cloud-like drapery, stretching out her small, white hands. Dil took them, and they were not cold. She glanced into the starry eyes, and for moments that was enough.

“O Bess!” in the softest, tenderest whisper, “if you was in heaven I couldn’t touch you, you’d be so far away. An’ it’s so sweet. But how did it all happen?”

“When he comes, an’ I ’most know now that he will come soon, Bess, dear, he c’n tell me how to go to where you are – waitin’, an’ we’ll start. There’s somethin’ I don’t know ’bout, an’ can’t get straight. I never was real smart at ketchin’ hold; but it’s so beautiful to remember that his Lord Jesus took little children in his arms. An’ mebbe he’s took you up out o’ the place they buried you, an’ is keepin’ you safe. You ain’t there in the ground – you must be ris’ up some way – ”

The very birds sang of an unknown land in their songs; the wind murmuring gently through the trees thrilled her with an unutterable certainty. Her slow-moving eyes seemed to penetrate the very sky. Clear over the edge of the horizon it almost opened in its glory, as when Christiana was entering in; and she felt certain now that she should walk through its starry gates with Bess’s little hand held tight in hers.

“O Bess, I c’n hardly wait for him to come! Seems as if I must fly away to where you be, but Patsey an’ all the boys are so good to me. Seems if I never had such lovely quiet, an’ no one to scold ner bang my poor head. But I want you so, Bess – ”

She stretched out her hands, but the sweet form seemed to float farther off.

“O Bess, don’t go away,” she pleaded.

If the seers and the prophets saw heaven in their rapt visions, why not this poor starved little one whose angel always beheld the face of the Father in heaven. She was too ignorant to seize upon the truths of immortal life, but they thrilled through every pulse. She had no power of grasping any but the simplest beliefs, but she knew some love and care had sheltered Bess. The dawning of a knowledge that held in its ineffable beauty and sacredness the truths of resurrection penetrated her in a mysterious sense, aroused a faith that she could not yet comprehend; but it gave her a strange peace.

Her life had been a little machine out of which so much work must be steadily ground. It had needed all her attention. And Bess had taken all her love. But in the solitude and sense of loss she was learning to think.

Dil was startled when she saw the boys straggling along irregularly. How large and strong Patsey was growing! And how nice Owen looked in his clean summer suit! Oh, where was little Dan? She hoped he was happy, and had enough to eat and some time to play.

They were a hungry lot. The great pile of sandwiches disappeared in a trice. And the cake that an artist in cook-books might have disdained, the boys believed beat anything the best baker could turn out. There had never been any treat quite up to the cake. Of course the stew was more “fillin’” when one was tearing hungry, and cake was a luxury to their small income, but, oh, what a delight!

“You don’t eat nothin,” said Patsey, studying Dil anxiously.

“But I’ve rested so much. And I feel so happy.”

There was a divine light shining in her eyes, and it touched the boy’s soul.

“Dil, ef it wosn’t fer them ere freckles right acrost yer nose, an’ you wos a little fatter, you’d be jes’ as pooty as they make ’em. Youse growed real han’some, only you want some red cheeks.”

Dil colored at the praise. Did a light shine in her face because she had seen Bess? She would like to tell Patsey all about it. Yes, she had really seen her, but it was all infolded in mystery. How could she make it plain?

The boys ate up every crumb, and seasoned their repast with much merry jesting. Then they wanted to go on again. Wasn’t Dil rested enough to go to the Museum?

It was a long walk, and after they entered Dil was glad to sit down. She looked at the curious white marble people, and asked Patsey if “they was truly people or dead folks.” Shorty said “it was the mummies who were dead folks;” but Dil shuddered at the thought of Bess being like that. There were so many curious things, beautiful things, that the child was bewildered.

“’Tain’t so nice as out o’ doors,” said Fin. “There’s somethin’ in the trees an’ flowers, an’ them places that are so still an’ quiet like, that stirs a feller all up.”

Rough and unlearned as they were, nature appealed to them powerfully. Ah, what a day it was!

“I’ve never had but just one time in my life that was so lovely,” said Dil with sweet gratefulness: “an’ that wasn’t so beautiful, only strange. If anybody was so runnin’ over full o’ happiness all the time, ’pears to me it would kinder choke them all round the heart, so’s they couldn’t live.”

“Don’t know ’bout that,” and Patsey chuckled. “Happy people ain’t dyin’ off no faster’n other people, an’ don’t commit suicide so easy. But, golly! ’twould take a good deal to fill a feller up chock full o’ happiness, ’cause it’s suthin’ like ice-cream, keeps meltin’ down all the time, ’n’ youse can pack in some more.”

“I jes’ wish we had some now!” cried Owen, referring to the cream.

“It’s been – well – super splacious! There ain’t no word long ernuff to hold all’s been crowded in this ere day,” cried Fin enthusiastically. “Say, boys, why don’t we come agin? Only ther’s music days – an golly! I jes’ wish I had lots of money an’ a vacation. Vacations ain’t no good when you don’t have money.”