CHAPTER VI.
MOLLY'S STORY.
THEY had been writing a long time, when the Little Colonel looked upwith a mischievous smile. "Joyce will think that this is a wondahfulplace," she said. "I've told her all about my bein' chased by aBarley-bright witch, and how ugly she was, and what Davy said about hergoin' through keyholes. It sounds so real when I read it ovah that Icould half-way make myself believe that she is one. I'm goin' to slipacross into her room now, and see if I can't find the broomstick thatshe rides around on at night. If there'd just be a black cat sittin' onher pillow, I could almost believe what Davy said about her hoodoo word.Wouldn't she be mad if she knew what was in this letter? I told Joycehow mean she'd acted about the fishin'-worms too, and how she's scowledat us evah since we came."
Betty looked up with a preoccupied smile, for she had long ago finishedher letter to Eugenia and was busy with some verses that she was tryingto write about the rain. The rhymes were falling into place almost aseasily and musically as the rain-drops tinkling down the eaves, and herface was flushed with the pleasure of it. She was so wrapped up in herown thoughts that she did not understand what Lloyd was saying, andsmiled a reply without the faintest idea of what it was that sheproposed to do.
Lloyd laid down her pen, and, tiptoeing across the narrow passage thatdivided Betty's room from Molly's, opened the door and looked in. Shehad thought that the parlour bedroom down-stairs was queer, and thatBetty's room was pitifully bare and common, but such cheerlessness asthis she had certainly never seen before, and scarcely imagined.
It was an attic-like room over the kitchen, with such a low slopingceiling that she could touch it with her hand, except when she stood inthe middle of the room. There was a rough, unpainted floor, a cot, adry-goods box covered with newspaper, on which stood a tin basin and abroken-nosed water-pitcher. Some nails, driven along the wall, held arow of clothes, and a chair with both rockers broken off was proppedagainst the wall. Lloyd looked around her with a shiver. The only brightspot in the room was a bunch of golden-rod in a bottle, and the onlypicture, a page torn from an illustrated newspaper, and pinned to thewall.
Wondering what kind of a picture such a creature as the Barley-brightwitch would choose to decorate her room, Lloyd walked across to examineit. It was the front page from an old _Harper's Weekly_. The date caughther eye first: December 25, 1897. And then she found herself lookinginto a room still more pitiful than the one in which she stood, for thepictured room was part of an old New York tenement, and sobbing in thecorner was a ragged, half-starved little waif, heartbroken because SantaClaus had passed her by, and she had found an empty stocking onChristmas morning.
Lloyd could not see the face hidden in the tattered apron, which thedisappointed little hands held up. She could not hear the sobs that sheknew were shaking the thin little shoulders, but she felt the misery ofthe scene as forcibly as if the real child stood before her. As shestood and looked, she knew that if all the troubles and disappointmentsof her whole life could be put together, they would be as only a dropcompared to the grief of the poor little creature in the picture.
"Oh, Betty!" she called. "Come heah quick! I want to show yousomething."
The distress in Lloyd's voice made Betty hurry across the passage withher pen in her hand, wondering what could be the matter.
"Look!" exclaimed Lloyd, pointing to the picture. "How can Molly keepsuch a thing in her room? Do you s'pose she was evah like that? It'senough to make her cry every time she looks at it."
"Maybe she used to be like that," said Betty, examining the picturecarefully, "and maybe she keeps it here to remind her how much betteroff she is now than she used to be."
"I can't see that her room is much nicer," said Lloyd, looking aroundwith an expression of disgust.
"It always has been used as a sort of storeroom," explained Betty. "Thisis the first time I've been in here since I came back, and I didn't knowhow it had been fixed for Molly. Cousin Hetty hasn't any time or moneyto spend making it look nice. Besides, she is only in here for a littlewhile. She is to have my room when I go away. If I'm abroad all winter,and with Joyce next summer, and at Locust going to school the yearafter, as godmother has planned, I suppose I'll never be back here againto really live. I'm going to make a new pincushion and a cover for mybureau, and put a white curtain at the window before I leave. Maybe itwill look as fine to Molly as my white and gold room did to me at theHouse Beautiful. It isn't any wonder she feels jealous of us, when shehasn't a single nice thing in the whole world."
"Maybe I oughtn't to have written such spiteful things about her toJoyce," said Lloyd, whose heart began to soften and whose consciencepricked as she turned again to the picture.
But even while they were planning the changes they would make in thegable room for Molly, there was a stealthy step on the stairs, and Mollyherself stood in the door, glaring at them like an angry tigress.
"How _dare_ you!" she cried, stamping her foot in a furious rage. "Howdare you come in here spying on me and making fun of my things andlooking at my picture! You sha'n't look at my little Dot when she is somiserable. You sha'n't put eyes on her again!"
With a white angry face she dashed past them, tore the picture from thewall, and with it held tightly against her threw herself face downwardon the cot.
"We were not spying on you," began Lloyd, indignantly. "We were notmaking fun of your things!"
"I know better. Get out of this room, both of you! This minute!" criedMolly, lifting her white face in which her angry eyes burned likeflames. Then she buried her head in her pillow, sobbing bitterly: "Ify-you were an or-orphan--and hadn't but one thing in the world, youwouldn't want p-people to come sp-spying on _you_, that way."
Puzzled and almost frightened at such an outburst, the girls retreatedto the doorway, and then as she continued to storm at them they wentback to Betty's room. They could hear her sobbing even with the doorshut. Presently Betty said: "I'm going in there again, and see if I canfind out what's the matter. I am an orphan, too, and maybe I can coaxher to tell me, when she knows how sorry I am for her."
People wondered sometimes at Betty's way of walking into their hearts;but sympathy is an open sesame to nearly all gates, and sympathy wasBetty's unfailing key. It was always ready in her loving little hand.
Presently, when Molly's wild burst of angry sobbing had subsidedsomewhat, Betty ventured back to her. Lloyd heard a low murmuring ofvoices, first Betty's and then Molly's, as one little orphan poured outher story to the other. It was nearly an hour before Betty came back toher room. Lloyd had written another letter while she waited, and nowsat leaning against the window-sill, listening to the monotonousdrip-drop-drip-drop from a leaky spout above the window.
"Well, what was it?" she asked, eagerly, as Betty opened the door.
"Oh, you never heard anything so pitiful," exclaimed Betty, sitting downon her bed and drawing her feet up under her comfortably before shebegan. "It is just like a story in a book.
"Molly says that when she was little her father was a railroadconductor, and she and her mother and grandmother and baby sister livedin a little house at the edge of town. It was near enough the railroadtrack for them to wave to her father, from the front door, whenever histrain passed. He could come home only once a week. She and Dot thoughthe was the best father anybody ever had, for he never came home withoutsomething in his pockets for them, and he rode them around on hisshoulders and played with them all the time he was in the house. He wasalways bringing things to their mother, too, a pretty cup and saucer ora pot of flowers, or something to wear; and as for the old grandmother,she spent her time telling the neighbours how good her son was to her.
"But Molly says one summer they moved away from the house by therailroad track and took a smaller one in town, where there wasn't anygarden and trees, and where there wasn't even any grass, except a narrowstrip in the front yard. Her father had lost his place as a conductor,and was out of work for a long time. By and by they sold their piano andthe carpets
and the nicest chairs. Then they moved again. This time itwas to a cottage without even a strip of grass. The front door openedout on the pavement and there was no place for them to play except onthe streets. Their father never brought anything home to them any more,and never played with them. They couldn't understand what made him socross, or what made their mother cry so much, until one day she heardsome of their neighbours talking.
"She and Dot were waiting in the corner grocery for a loaf of bread, andshe heard one woman say to another, in a low tone, 'Those are JimConner's children, poor little kids. My man says he used to be one ofthe best conductors on the road, but he lost his job when he took togetting drunk every Saturday night. He's going down-hill now, fast as aman can go. Heaven only knows what'll become of his family if he doesn'tput on the brakes soon.'
"Then Molly knew what was the matter, and she didn't make her mothercry by asking any more questions when they moved again the next week.That time they had only two rooms up-stairs over a barber shop, andMolly's mother died that summer. Then her father drank harder than ever,and never brought any money home, and by fall they had sold nearlyeverything that was left, and moved into one room in an oldtenement-house, up two flights of stairs.
"Their grandmother had to go away every morning to look for work. Shewas too old to wash, or she might have had plenty to do. Sometimes shegot odd jobs of cleaning, and sometimes she made buttonholes for a pantsfactory. It took nearly all the money she could make to pay the rent ofthat room, and often and often, Molly said, there were days when theyhad nothing but scraps of stale bread to eat. Sometimes there wasn'teven that, and she and Dot would be so cold and hungry that they wouldhuddle together in a corner and cry. She said it made her feel so awfulto hear poor little Dot sobbing for something to eat, that she wouldhave gone out on the streets and begged, but their grandmother alwayslocked them up when she went away."
"What for?" interrupted Lloyd, who was listening with breathlessattention.
"She was afraid that their father would come home drunk and find themalone. He didn't live with them any more, but several times, before shebegan locking them up, he staggered in, and frightened them dreadfully.Their ragged clothes and their half-starved looks seemed to make himfurious. It hurt his conscience, I suppose, and that made him want tohurt somebody. Molly says he beat them sometimes till the neighboursinterfered. More than once he shut them up in a dark closet, trying tomake them tell where their grandmother kept her money. They couldn'ttell him, for she didn't have any money, but he kept them shut up in thedark, hours at a time.
"One night he came in crosser than they had ever seen him, and threwthings around dreadfully. He struck his old mother in the face, beatMolly, and threw a stick of wood at little Dot. It just missed puttingout her right eye, and made such a deep cut over it that they had tosend for a doctor to sew it up. He said she would carry the scar all herlife, and he could not see how the blow had missed killing her.
"It nearly broke the old grandmother's heart. She sat up all night, andMolly says she remembers that time like a dreadful dream. Half the timethe old woman was rocking Dot in her arms, crying over her, and half thetime she was walking the floor.
"Molly says that now, when she shuts her eyes at night, she can hear hersaying, over and over, 'Oh, my Jimmy! My Jimmy! To think that my onlychild should come to this! Oh, my Jimmy! The baby boy that was mysunshine, how can it be that _you've_ become the sorrow of my life!'Then she'd walk up and down the room as if she were crazy, calling out,'But it's the drink that did it! It's the drink, and a curse be oneverything that helps to bring it into the world.'
"Molly says that she looked so terrible, with her white hair streamingover her shoulders, and her eyes staring, that she hid her face in thebedclothes. But she couldn't shut out the words. She shouted them soloud that the family in the next room couldn't sleep, and knocked on thewall for her to stop. But she only went on walking and wringing herhands and calling, 'A curse on all who buy and all who brew! A curse onevery distiller! On every saloon-keeper! On every man who has so much asa finger in this business of death! May all the shame and the sin andthe sorrow they have sown in other homes be reaped a hundredfold intheir own!'
"I suppose it made such a strong impression on Molly, hearing hergrandmother take on so terribly, that she remembered every word, andwill as long as she lives. She said the rain poured that night till itleaked down on the bed, and she and Dot had to snuggle up together atthe foot, to keep dry. Her grandmother walked the floor till daylight.The neighbours complained of her, and said that her troubles hadunsettled her mind, and that she would have to be sent some place to betaken care of. All she could talk about was the drink that had ruinedher Jimmy, and the awful things she prayed would happen to anybody whohad anything to do with making or selling whiskey.
"She couldn't work any longer, and they were almost starving. One dayshe was taken to the almshouse, and the family in the next room tookcare of Molly and Dot until arrangements could be made to send them toan orphan asylum. It was hard to get them into one, you know, becausetheir father was living.
"They stayed several weeks with those people, and Molly helped take careof the baby, for she was a big girl, eleven years old, then. Dot wasseven, but so little and starved that she looked scarcely half that old.She couldn't do much to help, but they sent her on errands sometimes.
"One day she went to the meat-shop around the corner, and _she nevercame back_. Molly hunted in all the alleys and courtyards for her, untilsome one brought her a message from her father, that he had taken Dotaway to another town. He didn't care what became of Molly, he said. Shehad been saucy to him, but no orphan asylum should have his baby. He'dhide her where she wouldn't be found in a hurry.
"Molly says she would have liked it at the asylum if Dot could have beenwith her, but because she couldn't it made her hate everything andeverybody in the world. There was a big distillery in sight of herwindow. She could see the roof the first thing in the morning, when sheopened her eyes, and the last thing at night. Many a time before she gotout of bed she'd think of her grandmother's words and repeat them justlike it was her prayers. She'd think 'It's drink that put me here, andit's what separated me from Dot,' and then she'd say, 'A curse on thosewho sell, and those who make it, and on every hand that helps to bringit into the world! Amen.'"
"How dreadful!" exclaimed the Little Colonel, with a shudder. "She is asbad as a heathen."
"But you can't wonder at it," said Betty. "We would have felt the sameway in her place. Suppose it was your Papa Jack that had been made adrunkard, and that he'd begin to be mean to you, and make so muchtrouble that godmother would die, and you'd have to leave the HouseBeautiful and be sent to an asylum, and all on account of the saloons.Wouldn't _you_ hate them and everything that helped keep them going?"
Lloyd only shivered at the thought, without answering. It was notpossible for her to suppose such a horrible thing about her belovedfather, but she felt the justice of Betty's view.
"While she was at the asylum," continued Betty, "some one sent a pile ofold magazines, and among them she found the picture that we saw. Shesays that it looks exactly like Dot, and that is the way she used tostand and cry sometimes when she was cold and hungry, and there wasn'tanything in the house to eat. It makes her perfectly miserable whenevershe looks at it, but it is so much like Dot that she can't bear to giveit up. Now you see why she didn't like us. It didn't seem fair to herthat we should have so much to make us happy, when she has so little.She has had a hard enough time to spoil anybody's disposition, I think."
Lloyd was in tears by this time, and reaching across the table for theletter she had written about the Barley-bright witch, she began tearingit into pieces.
"Oh, if I'd only known," she said, "I never would have written thosethings about her. I'll write another one this afternoon, and tell Joyceall about her. Is she still crying in there, Betty?"
"No, she stopped before I left. I told her we would all try to find herlittle sister, and that I
was sure godmother could do it, even ifeverybody else failed. But she didn't seem to think that there was muchhope."
"Did you tell her about Fairchance?" asked Lloyd, "or Joyce's findingJules's great-aunt Desire, that time she went to the Little Sisters ofthe Poor?"
"No," said Betty.
"Then let me tell her," cried the Little Colonel, starting up eagerly.
She ran on into Molly's room, while thoughtful Betty slipped down-stairsto offer her services in Molly's place, that she might listenundisturbed to Lloyd's tale of comfort,--all about Jonesy and hisbrother, and the bear, who had found a fair chance to begin life again,in the home that the two little knights built for them, in their effortsto "right the wrong and follow the king." All about old great-auntDesire, who had been found in a pauper's home and brought back to herown again, through the Gate of the Giant Scissors, on Christmas Day inthe morning.
"It is too good to be true," sighed Molly, when Lloyd had finished. "Itmight happen to some people, but it's too good to happen to me. Itsounds like something out of a story-book."
"Most of the things in story-books had to happen first before they werewritten about," answered the Little Colonel. "You've got so many friendsnow that surely some of them will be able to do something to find her."
Presently Molly looked up, saying, in a hesitating way, "Several peoplehave been good to me before, but I never thought about them doing itbecause they were my _friends_. I thought they treated me kindly justbecause they pitied me, and that made me cross."
Lloyd was turning the little ring that Eugenia had given her around onher finger, and something in the touch of the little lover's knot ofgold recalled all that she had resolved about the "Road of the LovingHeart." It was the ring that made her say, gently, "You mustn't thinkthat about Betty and me. We'll be your really truly friends just as weare Joyce's and Eugenia's."
Then to Molly's great surprise the Little Colonel's pretty face leanedover hers an instant, and she felt a quick kiss on her forehead. She laythere a moment longer without speaking, and then sat up, a bright smileflashing across her tear-swollen face. "Somehow the whole world seemsdifferent," she cried. "It seems so queer to think I've really got_friends_ like other people."
There was a warm glow in the Little Colonel's heart when she went backto Betty's room. The consciousness that she had carried comfort andsunshine into another's life brightened the rainy day until it no longerseemed dark and dreary. That comfortable consciousness was still withher in the afternoon, when she sat down to write another letter toJoyce,--a letter, not filled this time with her own mishaps andmisfortunes, but so full of sympathy for Molly's troubles that no onewho read it could fail to be touched and interested.