The Rosie World. Fillmore Parker
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all right again."
Rosie looked at him in scorn, but made no comment. She resolved one thing: George Riley should have no more moments alone with Jack. When the time came, she made him go downstairs for the flour-shaker, then curtly dismissed him.
"I guess you can go now, Jarge. Jackie wants to go to sleep. Now, Jackie dear, just lie on your stummick and you'll be asleep in two minutes."
George hesitated a moment. "Didn't you say you wanted to see me about something, Rosie?"
Rosie looked at him steadily. "If ever I said that it was before I knew you as well as I know you now. Now they isn't anything I want to say to you."
George gasped helplessly and departed, and Rosie, after settling Jack comfortably, blew out the candle… So even George Riley had joined the conspiracy against her! Well, she was not done fighting yet.
She insisted upon making an invalid of Jack the next morning, keeping him in bed and carrying up his breakfast to him. All day long, she waited on him, hand and foot, loved, amused, coaxed, threatened, bribed him, until by evening she had him weak and helpless, ready to agree to anything she might suggest.
At supper Mrs. O'Brien beamed on him sympathetically and remarked to Ellen, who was just home from business college: "Ellen dear, do you know the awful back o' sunburn poor wee Jack's got on him? Rosie's been nursing him all day."
Ellen glanced at Terry and laughed. "Do you remember, Terry, how you used to come home after your first swim every summer?"
Jack looked up eagerly. "Oh, Terry, did you used to get sunburned, too?"
Terry nodded. "Sure I did. Every fella does."
Jack's face took on an expression of heavenly content.
"Is it peeling yet?" Terry asked.
"No, but it's cracking." Jack's tone was hopeful.
Rosie moved uneasily. "Terence O'Brien, I just wish you'd look out what you're saying, and you too, Ellen! It's dangerous to go in swimming, and Jackie's never going again, are you, Jackie?"
Jack hesitated a moment, then murmured a weak little "No."
Mrs. O'Brien nodded approvingly. "Ah, now, ain't Jack the good b'y to promise sister Rosie never to go in swimmin' again!"
Ellen chuckled. "At least until his back's well!"
Rosie flew at her sister like an angry little clucking hen. "Ellen O'Brien, you just mind your own business! Come on, Jackie, we're through. We're going out in front by ourselves, aren't we?"
Jack, apparently, wanted to remain where he was; but when Rosie whispered, "And I've got another penny for you," he slipped quietly down from his chair.
When you know that this was Jack's fifth penny for that day, you have some idea of what the struggle was costing Rosie. A week's wages seemed in a fair way of being eaten up in a few days. It was a fearful drain on her resources, but anything, Rosie told herself, to keep him out of the clutches of the Slattery gang!
By the third day his back was dry and peeling. After dinner, as Rosie was coming home from the grocery, she found him at the front gate boasting about it to Joe Slattery.
Rosie interrupted politely: "Jackie, will you come into the house a minute? I got something to ask you."
Jack looked at her kindly. "All right, Rosie. You go on in and I'll be in in a minute."
The dismissal was so friendly that Rosie could not gainsay it. She hurried around to the back door and then rushed through the house to the front door, which she slipped open wide enough to see and to hear what was going on at the gate. Joe Slattery's voice carried distinctly.
"Say, Jack, what do you say to goin' down now? Aw, come on! Let's."
Rosie did not have to ask herself what Joe Slattery was proposing; she knew only too well. Breathless, she awaited Jack's answer. It came with scarcely an instant's hesitation.
"All right. Let's."
Jack was out of the gate and off before Rosie could push open the front door.
"Jackie! Jackie! Where you going? Wait for Rosie!"
"Me and Joe got to go down and see a fella. We'll be back soon, won't we, Joe?"
"Sure we will, Rosie. We'll be back in ten minutes."
Rosie shook her head reproachfully. "Jackie, Jackie, you're telling Rosie a story, you know you are! You're going swimming and you promised me you wouldn't! Oh, Jackie, how can you, after the nickel I gave you this morning, and the seven cents yesterday, and the nickel the day before, and the nickel of the first day you went with Joe? Oh, Jackie, how can you take poor Rosie's money and then act that way?"
Jack had nothing to say, but Joe Slattery was able to answer for him.
"Aw, go on, Rosie O'Brien – Jack's goin' in swimmin' if he wants to! I guess you ain't his boss! Come on, Jack!"
Joe threw his arm about Jack's shoulder and together they marched off.
Rosie put forth one last effort: "Jackie O'Brien, you listen here: If you go swimming with Joe Slattery, I – " She searched about frantically for some threat sufficiently terrifying. She paused a moment, then hit upon something which, a few months earlier, would have worked like magic. "If you do, I'll never button your shoes again! Never again!"
Jack glanced back insolently over Joe's shoulder. "Aw, go on! What do I care? Anyway, it's summer-time and I'm goin' barefoot!"
CHAPTER VIII
A LITTLE MOTHER HEN
For Rosie this was the end. This was defeat and she accepted it as such. Slowly and tearfully she dragged herself into the house.
"Ma, Ma, after all I've done, there he's gone!"
Mrs. O'Brien looked up in concern. "Who did you say was gone, Rosie?"
"Jackie! He's gone off swimming again with that old Joe Slattery!"
"Is that all it is, Rosie?" Mrs. O'Brien seemed much relieved. "You gave me quite a turn."
"But, Ma, what am I going to do?"
"Well, Rosie dear, what do you want to do?"
"I want to save Jackie from those old Slatterys."
Mrs. O'Brien sighed sympathetically. "Ah, I'm afeared you can't do that, Rosie. Jack's a b'y and you know how it is: b'ys do like to run around with other b'ys."
"But what if he gets all sunburnt again and maybe drownd-ed?"
"Ah, now, but maybe he won't."
There were times when, to Rosie, her mother's easy-going optimism was maddening. Today it seemed to her the very sort of thing you might expect to find in a hot, untidy kitchen cluttered up with clothes-horses and steaming with fresh ironing. The rickety old baby-carriage, draped in mosquito-netting, stood near the ironing board, and Mrs. O'Brien, as she changed irons, would give it a push or two. Geraldine was whimpering miserably, and little wonder, Rosie felt.
Mrs. O'Brien, on the other hand, seemed surprised and grieved that she was not cooing herself comfortably to sleep. "Ah, now, baby, what can be ailin' ye? Can't you see your poor ma is working herself to death to get your nice clean clothes all ready for you? Now stop your cryin', darlint, or your poor ma won't be able to iron right, and then what'll sister Ellen say when she comes in? Ho, ho, Ellen's a Tartar, dear, she is that! Now you wouldn't want your poor ma to be scolded by Ellen, would you? Indeed and you wouldn't! So hush now like a good baby, and don't be always cryin'…"
Rosie stood it as long as she could, then her heart overflowed in indignant speech: "Of course she's crying in this horrible hot kitchen! Why wouldn't she? And they's flies in her mosquito-netting, too!"
Mrs. O'Brien paused in her ironing to shake her head in mournful reproach. "Why, Rosie, how you talk! Where else can I put the poor child but right here? Upstairs in Ellen's room and in my room it's just like an oven. Jarge's room, downstairs here, is cool enough, but I can't use that, for Jarge pays good money for it and besides lets Terry sleep with him. No, no, Rosie, I can't impose on Jarge."
Rosie's