May Iverson's Career Part 16

"Fine-kine-rady," she murmured, anxiously, and this time her lips quivered.

"She's Eye-talian," decided Casey, sagely, "an' 'tis a sure thing she lives somewhere near. Hasn't _anny_ of yez set eyes on her before?

Think, now."

Hopefully he and I gazed at the station employees, but both heads shook a solemn negative. The light of a sudden inspiration illumined the Celtic features of Casey.

"I'll tell ye what we'll do," he announced. "'Tis plain she's strayed from home. I c'u'd take her t' th' station an' let her folks come fur her--but that's the long way t' do ut. There's a shorter wan. 'Tis this."

He tried to draw me to one side, but the little manoeuver was not successful. Tightening her grasp on my fingers, the object of our solicitude promptly accompanied us. Casey lowered his voice to a whisper which was like the buzzing of a giant bee.

"I'll take her back to the fut of th' stairs an' _lave_ her," he p.r.o.nounced. "She'll start home, an' she'll find her way like a burrd.

Av course," he added, hastily, apparently observing a lack of response in my expression, "I'll folly her an' watch her. Av she don't find th'

place, I'll take her t' th' station. But she _will_. Lave it to her."

I hesitated. "I suppose that's the best plan," I unwillingly agreed, at last. "Probably her mother is half frightened to death already.

But--couldn't we lead her home?"

Casey shook his head. "Not an inch w'u'd she budge, that wan," he declared, "unless she was on her own. But lave her be, an' she'll find her way. They're wise, thim young Eye-talians. Come, now."

He took the child's free hand and tried to draw her away. A pathetic wail burst from her. Frantically, with both arms she clasped my knee.

Her poise, so perfect until now, deserted her wholly, as if she had finally decided to admit to an unfeeling world that after all there was a limit to the self-control of one of her tender age.

"Fine-kine-rady," she sobbed, while great tears formed and fell from the brown eyes she still kept fixed on my face, a look of incredulous horror dawning in them.

"I simply cannot send her away," I confessed to Casey, desperately.

"It seems so heartless. I'll go with her."

Officer Casey was a patient man, but he was also a firm one. "Now, see here, Miss Iverson," he urged. "You've got sinse. Use ut. 'Tis just a fancy she's takin' t' ye, an' sure I'm th' last t' blame her," he added, gallantly. "But think av th' child's good. Ain't her mother raisin' th' roof over her head somewhere this minute?" he added, with deep craft. "Wud ye be killin' th' poor woman wid anxiety?"

"Well--" Again I gave way. "But you won't lose sight of her for one second, will you?" I demanded. "You know if you did, in this fog--"

Casey turned upon me the look of one who suffers and forbears. "W'u'd ye think ut?" he asked, coldly. "An' me wit' kids o' me own? But I'll make her _think_ I've left her," he added. "I'll have to."

There seemed nothing to do but try his plan. Holding fast to the mental picture of the anxious mother "raising the roof" somewhere in the neighborhood, I gently pried loose the child's convulsively clinging fingers and turned away. The wail and then the sobs that followed wrung my heart. Casey picked up the frightened, almost frantic baby and started down the stairs, while I followed at a safe distance to watch their descent. As they went I heard him talking to and coaxing the small burden he carried, his rich Irish voice full of friendly cajolery, while, as if in sole but eloquent reb.u.t.tal of all he said, the shrill treble refrain, "Fine-kine-rady," came back to me sobbingly from the mist.

At the foot of the steps he set the child on her feet, told her to "go home now like a good wan," and disappeared under the stairway. I crept down the steps as far as I dared, and watched. The forlorn little wanderer, left alone in a fog that was alarming many grown-ups that night, stood still for a moment staring around her, as if trying to get her bearings. A final sob or two came from her. Then in another instant she had turned and trotted away, moving so fast that, though I immediately ran down the remaining steps and followed her, I could hardly keep her in sight. A little ahead of me I saw Casey hurriedly cross the street and shadow the tiny figure. I pursued them both, keeping my eyes on the child. I trusted Casey--indeed, my respect for his judgment had increased enormously during the last two minutes--but I felt that I must see for myself what happened to that baby.

Like wraiths the two figures in front of me hurried through the fog, so close now that they almost touched, Casey unaware of my presence, the child unconscious of us both. Not once, from the time she started, had the little thing looked back. She made her way swiftly and surely along the dingy tenement street that stretched off to the right; and at a certain door she stopped, hesitated a moment, and finally entered. Casey promptly followed her.

For a moment I stood hesitating, tempted to return to the station and resume my interrupted journey home. The little episode had already delayed me half an hour, and it seemed clear that the child was now safe. Surely nothing more could be done. Yet even as these logical reflections occurred to me I entered the door, impelled by an impulse which I did not stop to a.n.a.lyze, but which I never afterward ceased to bless. The heavy, typical smell of a tenement building rose to meet me, intensified by the dampness of the night. It seemed incredible that anything so exquisite as that baby could belong to such a place; but, looking up, I saw her already near the head of a long flight of dirty steps that rose from the dimly lighted hall. Casey, moving as quietly as his heavy boots permitted, was at the bottom. I waited until he, too, had climbed the uneven staircase. Then I followed them both.

At the right of the stairs, off a miserable hall lit by one dim, blinking gas-jet, was an open door, which the child had evidently just entered. As I paused for breath on the top step I caught a glimpse of Casey's rubber coat also vanis.h.i.+ng across the threshold. I slipped back into the shadow of the hall and waited. What I wanted was to hear the rea.s.suring tones of human voices, and I found myself listening for these with suspended breath and straining ears; but for a long moment I heard nothing at all. I realized now that there was no light in the room, and this suddenly seemed odd to me. Then I heard Casey's voice, speaking to the child with a new note in it--a note of tense excitement that made my heart-beats quicken. The next instant I, too, was in the room.

Casey stood under the single gas-bracket, striking a match. As I went toward him, the light flickered up, dimly revealing a clean, bleak room, whose only furniture was a bed, a broken chair, and a small gas-stove. On the chair lay an empty tin cup and a spoon. The child, her back to both her visitors, stood beside the bed. Characteristically, though Casey had spoken to her, she ignored his presence. She was whimpering a little under her breath, and pulling with both hands at something that lay before her, rigid and unresponsive.

With a rush I crossed the room, and the desolate mite of humanity at the bed turned to stare at me, blinking in the sudden light. For an instant her wet brown eyes failed to recognize me. In the next, with an ecstatic, indescribably pathetic little cry, she lurched into the arms I opened to her. I could not speak, but I sat down on the floor and held her close, my tears falling on her curly head with its brave red bow. For a moment more the silence held. Then the child drew a long, quivering breath and patiently uttered again her parrot-like refrain.

"Fine-kine-rady," she murmured, brokenly.

Casey, his cap in his hand, stood looking down upon the silent figure on the bed. "Starvation, most likely," he hazarded. "She's bin dead fur an hour, maybe more," he mused aloud. "An' she's laid herself out, d'ye mind. Whin she found death comin' she drew her feet together, an'

crost her hands on her breast, an' shut her eyes. They do ut sometimes, whin they know they's no wan to do ut for thim. But first she washed an' dressed her child in uts best an' sint ut out--so ut w'u'dn't be scairt. D'ye know th' woman?" he added. "Have ye ivir seen her? It seems t' me _I_ have!"

Holding the baby tight, her head against my shoulder, that she might not see what I did, I went forward and looked at the wasted face.

There was something vaguely familiar about the black hair-line on the broad, Madonna-like brow, about the exquisitely shaped nose, the sunken cheeks, the pointed chin. For a long moment I looked at them while memory stirred in me and then awoke.

"Yes," I said, at last. "I remember her now. Many evenings last month I saw her standing at the foot of the elevated stairs when I was going home. She wore a little shawl over her head--that's why I didn't recognize her at once. She never begged, but she took what one gave her. I always gave her something. She was evidently very poor. I remember vaguely that she had a child with her--this one, of course. I hardly noticed either of them as I swept by. One's always in a rush, you know, to get home, and, unfortunately, there are so many beggars!"

"That's it," said Casey. "I remember her now, too."

"If only I had realized how ill she was," I reflected aloud, miserably, "or stopped to think of the child. She called me 'kind lady.' Oh, Casey! And I let her starve!"

"Hush now," said Casey, consolingly. "Sure how could ye know? Some of thim that's beggin' has more than you have!"

"But she called me 'kind lady,'" I repeated. "And I let her--"

"Fine-kine-rady," murmured the child, drowsily, as if hearing and responding to a cue. She was quiet and well content, again playing with a coat-b.u.t.ton; but she piped out her three words as if they were part of a daily drill and the word of command had been uttered. Casey and I looked at each other, then dropped our eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "D'YE KNOW THE WOMAN?" HE SAID]

"_Find kind lady_," I translated at last. Then I broke down, in the bitterest storm of tears that I have ever known. Beside me Casey stood guard, silent and unhappy. It was the whimper of the child that recalled me to myself and her. She was growing frightened.

"Oh, Casey," I said again, when I had soothed her, "do you realize that the poor woman sent this baby out into New York to-night on the one chance in a million that she might see me at the station and that I would remember her?"

"What else c'u'd the poor creature do?" muttered Casey. "I guess she wasn't dependin' on her neighbors much. 'Tis easy to see that ivery stick o' furniture an' st.i.tch o' clothes, ixcept th' child's, was p.a.w.ned. Besides, thim tiniment kids is wise," he repeated. His blue eyes dwelt on the baby with a brooding speculation in their depths.

"She's sleepy," he muttered, "but she's not starved. Th' mother fed her t' th' last, an' wint without herself; an' she kep' her warm. They do that sometimes, too."

With quick decision he put on his cap and started for the door. "I'll telephone me report," he said, briskly. "Will ye be waitin' here till I come back? Thin we'll take th' mother t' th' morgue an' the child t'

th' station."

"Oh no, we won't," I told him, gently. "We'll see that the mother has proper burial. As for this baby, I'm going to take care of her until I find an ideal home for her. I know women who will thank G.o.d for her. I wish," I added, absently--"I wish I could keep her myself."

Casey turned on me a face that was like a smiling full moon. "'Tis lucky th' child is to have ye for a friend. But she'll be a raysponsibil'ty," he reminded me, "and an expinse."

I kissed the tiny hand that clung to mine. "That won't worry me," I declared. "Why, do you know, Casey"--I drew the soft little body closer to me--"I feel that if I worked for her a thousand years I could never make up to this baby for that horrible moment when I turned her adrift again--after she had found me."

Two hours later my waif of the fog, having been fed and tubbed and tucked into one of my nightgowns, reposed in my bed, and, still beatifically clutching a cookie, sank into a restful slumber. My maid, a "settled" Norwegian who had been with me for two years, had welcomed her with hospitable rapture. A doctor had p.r.o.nounced her in excellent physical condition. A trained nurse, hastily summoned to supervise her bath, her supper, and her general welfare, had already drawn up an impressive plan indicating the broad highway of hygienic infant living. Now, for the dozenth time, we were examining a sc.r.a.p of paper which I had found in a tiny bag around the child's neck when I undressed her. It bore a brief message written in a wavering, foreign hand:

Maria Annunciata Zamati 3 years old

Parents dead. No relations. Be good to her and G.o.d will be good to you.

Besides this in the little bag was a narrow gold band, wrapped in a bit of paper that read:

Her mother's wedding-ring.

Broodingly I hung over the short but poignant record. "Maria Annunciata," I repeated. "What a beautiful name! Three and a half years old! What an adorable age! No relations. No one can ever take her from us! I shall be her G.o.dmother and her best friend, whoever adopts her. And I'll keep her till the right mother comes for her, if it takes the rest of my life."