Calvary Alley Part 24

"Everybody's getting on," cried Nance bitterly, "but me! You and Ike and Birdie! I work just as hard as you all do, and I haven't got a blooming thing to show for it. What I make sewing pants don't pay for what I eat.

Sometimes I think I'll have to go back to the finis.h.i.+ng room."

"Not if I can help it!" said Dan, emphatically. "There must be decent jobs somewhere for girls. Suppose I take you out to Mrs. Purdy's on Sunday, and see if she knows of anything. She's all the time asking me about you."

The proposition met with little enthusiasm on Nance's part. It was Mrs.

Purdy who had got Dan into the church and persuaded him not to go to the theater or learn how to dance. It was Mrs. Purdy who took him home with her to dinner every Sunday after church and absorbed the time that used to be hers. But the need for a job was too pressing for Nance to harbor prejudices. Instead of sewing for the Lavinskis that night, she sewed for herself, trying to achieve a costume from the old finery bequeathed her by Birdie Smelts.

You would scarcely have recognized Dan that next Sunday in his best suit, with his hair plastered down, and a very red tie encircling a very high collar. To be sure Dan's best was over a year old, and the brown-striped s.h.i.+rt-front was not what it seemed, but his skin was clean and clear, and there was a look in his earnest eyes that bespoke an untroubled conscience.

Mrs. Purdy received them in her cozy fire-lit sitting-room and made Nance sit beside her on the sofa, while she held her hand and looked with mild surprise at her flaring hat and cheap lace collar.

"Dan didn't tell me," she said, "how big you had grown or--or how pretty."

Nance blushed and smiled and glanced consciously at Dan. She had felt dubious about her costume, but now that she was rea.s.sured, she began to imitate Birdie's tone and manner as she explained to Mrs. Purdy the object of her visit.

"Deary me!" said Mrs. Purdy, "Dan's quite right. We can't allow a nice little girl like you to work in a gla.s.s factory! We must find some nice genteel place for you. Let me see."

In order to see Mrs. Purdy shut her eyes, and the next moment she opened them and announced that she had the very thing.

"It's Cousin Lucretia Bobinet!" she beamed. "She is looking for a companion."

"What's that?" asked Nance.

"Some one to wait on her and read to her and amuse her. She's quite advanced in years and deaf and, I'm afraid, just a little peculiar."

"I'm awful good at taking care of sick people," said Nance complacently.

"Cousin Lucretia isn't ill. She's the most wonderfully preserved woman for her years. But her maid, that she's had for so long, is getting old too. Why, Susan must be seventy. She can't see to read any more, and she makes mistakes over cards. By the way, I wonder if you know how to play card games."

"Sure," said Nance. "Poker? seven-up?"

"Isn't there another game called penuchle?" Mrs. Purdy ventured, evidently treading unfamiliar ground.

"Yes!" cried Nance. "That's Uncle Jed's game. We used to play it heaps before Rosy cut up the queens for paper dolls."

"Now isn't it too wonderful that you should happen to know that particular game?" said Mrs. Purdy, with the gentle amazement of one who sees the finger of Providence in everything. "Not that I approve of playing cards, but Cousin Lucretia was always a bit worldly minded, and playing penuchle seems to be the chief diversion of her declining years.

How old are you, my child?"

"I'm seventeen. And I ain't a bit afraid of work, am I, Dan?"

"I am sure you are not," said Mrs. Purdy. "Dan often tells me what a fine girl you are. Only we wish you would come to some of our services. Dan is getting to be one of our star members. So conscientious and regular! We call him our model young man."

"I expect it's time we was going," said Dan, greatly embarra.s.sed. But owing to the fact that he wanted very much to be a gentleman, and didn't quite know how, he stayed on and on, until Nance informed him it was eleven o'clock.

At the door Mrs. Purdy gave final instructions about the new position, adding in an undertone:

"It might be just as well, dearie, for you to wear a plainer dress when you apply for the place, and I believe--in fact I am quite sure--Cousin Lucretia would rather you left off the ear-rings."

"Ain't ear-rings stylish?" asked Nance, feeling that she had been misinformed.

"Not on a little companion," said Mrs. Purdy gently.

Nance's elation over the prospect of a job was slightly dashed by the idea of returning to the wornout childish garb in which she had left the home.

"Say, Dan," she said, as they made their way out of b.u.t.ternut Lane, "do you think I've changed so much--like Mrs. Purdy said?"

"You always look just the same to me," Dan said, as he helped her on with her coat and adjusted the collar with gentle, painstaking deference.

She sighed. The remark to a person who ardently desired to look different was crus.h.i.+ng.

"I think Mrs. Purdy's an awful old fogey!" she said petulantly by way of venting her pique.

Dan looked at her in surprise, and the scowl that rarely came now darkened his face.

"Mrs. Purdy is the best Christian that ever lived," he said shortly.

"Well, she ain't going to be a Christian offen me!" said Nance.

The next morning, in a clean, faded print, and a thin jacket, much too small for her, Nance went forth to find Miss Lucretia Bobinet in Cemetery Street. It was a staid, elderly street, full of staid, elderly houses, and at its far end were visible the tall white shafts which gave it its name. At the number corresponding to that on Nance's card, she rang the bell. The door was opened by a squinting person who held one hand behind her ear and with the other grasped the door k.n.o.b as if she feared it might be stolen.

"Who do you want to see?" she wheezed.

"Miss Bobinet."

"Who?"

"Miss Bobinet!" said Nance, lifting her voice.

"Stop that hollering at me!" said the old woman. "Who sent you here?"

"Mrs. Purdy."

"What for?"

Nance explained her mission at the top of her voice and was grudgingly admitted into the hall.

"You ain't going to suit her. I can tell you that," said the squint-eyed one mournfully, "but I guess you might as well go in and wait until she wakes up. Mind you don't b.u.mp into things."

Nance felt her way into the room indicated and cautiously let herself down into the nearest chair. Sitting facing her was an imposing old lady, with eyes closed and mouth open, making the most alarming noises in her throat. She began with a guttural inhalation that increased in ferocity until it broke in a violent snort, then trailed away in a prolonged and somewhat plaintive whistle. Nance watched her with amazement. It seemed that each recurrent snort must surely send the old wrinkled head, with its elaborately crimped gray wig, rolling away under the stiff horse-hair sofa.

The room was almost dark, but the light that managed to creep in showed a gloomy black mantelpiece, with vases of immortelles, and somber walnut chairs with crocheted tidies that made little white patches here and there in the dusk. Everything smelled of camphor, and from one of the corners came the slow, solemn tick of a clock.

After Nance had recovered from her suspense about Miss Bobinet's head, and had taken sufficient note of the vocal gymnastics to be able to reproduce them later for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the Snawdors, she began to experience great difficulty in keeping still. First one foot went to sleep, then the other. The minutes stretched to an hour. She had hurried off that morning without her breakfast, leaving everything at sixes and sevens, and she wanted to get back and clean up before Mrs. Snawdor got up. She stirred restlessly, and her chair creaked.

The old lady opened one eye and regarded her suspiciously.

"I am Nance Molloy," ventured the applicant, hopefully. "Mrs.

Purdy sent me."