Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and others Part 10

Alanna came briskly up, and beamed at her. The little girl was driving about on all sorts of errands for her mother, and had come in to report.

"Mother, I went home," she said, in a breathless rush, "and told Alma four extra were coming to lunch, and here are your big scissors, and I told the boys you wanted them to go out to Uncle Dan's for greens, they took the buckboard, and I went to Keyser's for the cheese-cloth, and he had only eighteen yards of pink, but he thinks Kelley's have more, and there are the tacks, and they don't keep spool-wire, and the electrician will be here in ten minutes."

"Alanna, you're the pride of me life," said her mother, kissing her.

"That's all now, dearie. Sit down and rest."

"Oh, but I'd rather go round and see things," said Alanna, and off she went.

The immense hall was filled with the noise of voices, hammers, and laughter. Groups of distracted women were forming and dissolving everywhere around chaotic ma.s.ses of boards and bunting. Whenever a carpenter started for the door, or entered it, he was waylaid, bribed, and bullied by the frantic superintendents of the various booths.

Messengers came and went, staggering under ma.s.ses of evergreen, carrying screens, rope, suit-cases, baskets, boxes, j.a.panese lanterns, freezers, rugs, ladders, and tables.

Alanna found the stage fascinating. Lunch and dinner were to be served there, for the five days of the fair, and it had been set with many chairs and tables, fenced with ferns and bamboo. Alanna was charmed to arrange knives and forks, to unpack oily hams and sticky cakes, and great bowls of salad, and to store them neatly away in a green room.

The grand piano had been moved down to the floor. Now and then an audacious boy or two banged on it for the few moments that it took his mother's voice or hands to reach him. Little girls gently played The Carnival of Venice or Echoes of the Ball, with their scared eyes alert for reproof. And once two of the "big" Sodality girls came up, a.s.sured and laughing and dusty, and boldly performed one of their convent duets. Some of the tired women in the booths straightened up and clapped, and called "encore!"

Teresa was not one of these girls. Her instrument was the violin; moreover, she was busy and absorbed at the Children of Mary's booth, which by four o'clock began to blossom all over its white-draped pillars and tables with ribbons and embroidery and tissue paper, and cus.h.i.+ons and ap.r.o.ns and collars, and all sorts of perfumed prettiness.

The two priests were constantly in evidence, their ca.s.socks and hands showing unaccustomed dust.

And over all the confusion, Mrs. Costello shone supreme. Her brisk, big figure, with skirts turned back, and a blue ap.r.o.n still further protecting them, was everywhere at once; laughter and encouragement marked her path. She wore a paper of pins on the breast of her silk dress, she had a tack hammer thrust in her belt. In her ap.r.o.n pockets were string, and wire, and tacks. A big pair of scissors hung at her side, and a pencil was thrust through her smooth black hair. She advised and consulted and directed; even with the priests it was to be observed that her mild, "Well, Father, it seems to me," always won the day. She led the electricians a life of it; she became the terror of the carpenters' lives.

Where was the young lady that played the violin going to stay? Send her up to Mrs. Costello's.--Heavens! We were short a tablecloth! Oh, but Mrs. Costello had just sent Dan home for one.--How on earth could the Male Quartette from Tower Town find its way to the hall? Mrs. Costello had promised to tell Mr. C. to send a carriage for them.

She came up to the Children of Mary's booth about five o'clock.

"Well, if you girls ain't the wonders!" she said to the tired little Sodalists, in a tone of unbounded admiration and surprise. "You make me ashamed of me own booth. This is beautiful."

"Oh, do you think so, mother?" said Teresa, wistfully, clinging to her mother's arm.

"I think it's grand!" said Mrs. Costello, with conviction. There was a delighted laugh. "I'm going to bring all the ladies up to see it."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said all the girls together, reviving visibly.

"An' the pretty things you got!" went on the cheering matron. "You'll clear eight hundred if you'll clear a cent. And now put me down for a chance or two; don't be scared, Mary Riordan; four or five! I'm goin'

to bring Mr. Costeller over here to-night, and don't you let him off too easy."

Every one laughed joyously.

"Did you hear of Alanna's luck?" said Mrs. Costello. "When the Bishop got here he took her all around the hall with him, and between this one and that, every last one of her chances is gone. She couldn't keep her feet on the floor for joy. The lucky girl! They're waitin' for you, Tess, darlin', with the buckboard. Go home and lay down awhile before dinner."

"Aren't you lucky!" said Teresa, as she climbed a few minutes later into the back seat with Jim, and Dan pulled out the whip.

Alanna, swinging her legs, gave a joyful a.s.sent. She was too happy to talk, but the other three had much to say.

"Mother thinks we'll make eight hundred dollars," said Teresa.

"GEE!" said the twins together, and Dan added, "If only Mrs. Church wins that desk now."

"Who's going to do the drawing of numbers?" Jimmy wondered.

"Bishop," said Dan, "and he'll call down from the platform, 'Number twenty-six wins the desk.' And then Alanna'll look in her book, and pipe up and say, 'Daniel Ignatius Costello, the handsomest fellow in the parish, wins the desk.'"

"Twenty-six is Harry Plummer," said Alanna, seriously, looking up from her chance book, at which they all laughed.

"But take care of that book," warned Teresa, as she climbed down. "Oh, I will!" responded Alanna, fervently.

And through the next four happy days she did, and took the precaution of tying it by a stout cord to her arm.

Then on Sat.u.r.day, the last afternoon, quite late, when her mother had suggested that she go home with Leo and Jack and Frank and Gertrude and the nurses, Alanna felt the cord hanging loose against her hand, and looking down, saw that the book was gone.

She was holding out her arms for her coat when this took place, and she went cold all over. But she did not move, and Minnie b.u.t.toned her in snugly, and tied the ribbons of her hat with cold, hard knuckles, without suspecting anything.

Then Alanna disappeared and Mrs. Costello sent the maids and babies on without her. It was getting dark and cold for the small Costellos.

But the hour was darker and colder for Alanna. She searched and she hoped and she prayed in vain. She stood up, after a long hands-and-knees expedition under the tables where she had been earlier, and pressed her right hand over her eyes, and said aloud in her misery, "Oh, I CAN'T have lost it! I CAN'T have. Oh, don't let me have lost it!"

She went here and there as if propelled by some mechanical force, a wretched, restless little figure. And when the dreadful moment came when she must give up searching, she crept in beside her mother in the carriage, and longed only for some honorable death.

When they all went back at eight o'clock, she recommenced her search feverishly, with that cruel alternation of hope and despair and weariness that every one knows. The crowds, the lights, the music, the laughter, and the noise, and the pervading odor of pop-corn were not real, when a shabby, brown little book was her whole world, and she could not find it.

"The drawing will begin," said Alanna, "and the Bishop will call out the number! And what'll I say? Every one will look at me; and HOW can I say I've lost it! Oh, what a baby they'll call me!"

"Father'll pay the money back," she said, in sudden relief. But the impossibility of that swiftly occurred to her, and she began hunting again with fresh terror.

"But he can't! How can he? Two hundred names; and I don't know them, or half of them."

Then she felt the tears coming, and she crept in under some benches, and cried.

She lay there a long time, listening to the curious hum and buzz above her. And at last it occurred to her to go to the Bishop, and tell this old, kind friend the truth.

But she was too late. As she got to her feet, she heard her own name called from the platform, in the Bishop's voice.

"Where's Alanna Costello? Ask her who has number eighty-three on the desk. Eighty-three wins the desk! Find little Alanna Costello!"

Alanna had no time for thought. Only one course of action occurred to her. She cleared her throat.

"Mrs. Will Church has that number, Bishop," she said.

The crowd about her gave way, and the Bishop saw her, rosy, embarra.s.sed, and breathless.

"Ah, there you are!" said the Bishop. "Who has it?"

"Mrs. Church, your Grace," said Alanna, calmly this time.

"Well, did you EVER," said Mrs. Costello to the Bishop. She had gone up to claim a mirror she had won, a mirror with a gold frame, and lilacs and roses painted lavishly on its surface.

"Gee, I bet Alanna was pleased about the desk!" said Dan in the carriage.

"Mrs. Church nearly cried," Teresa said. "But where'd Alanna go to? I couldn't find her until just a few minutes ago, and then she was so queer!"