TIMOTHY'S QUEST (Children's Book). Kate Douglas Wiggin
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but she had never learned, in all that time, to know her Mother, Nature, her Father, God, nor her brothers and sisters, the children of the world. She had lived friendless and unfriendly, keeping none of the ten commandments, nor yet the eleventh, which is the greatest of all; and now there was no human being to slip a flower into the still hand, to kiss the clay-cold lips at the remembrance of some sweet word that had fallen from them, or drop a tear and say, “I loved her!”
Apparently, the two watchers did not regard Flossy Morrison even in the light of “the dear remains,” as they are sometimes called at country funerals. They were in the best of spirits (there was an abundance of beer), and their gruesome task would be over in a few hours; for it was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and the body was to be taken away at ten.
“I tell you one thing, Ettie, Flossy hasn’t left any bother for her friends,” remarked Mrs. Nancy Simmons, settling herself back in her rocking-chair. “As she didn’t own anything but the clothes on her back, there won’t be any quarreling over the property!” and she chuckled at her delicate humor.
“No,” answered her companion, who, whatever her sponsors in baptism had christened her, called herself Ethel Montmorency. “I s’pose the furniture, poor as it is, will pay the funeral expenses; and if she’s got any debts, why, folks will have to whistle for their money, that’s all.”
“The only thing that worries me is the children,” said Mrs. Simmons.
“You must be hard up for something to worry about, to take those young ones on your mind. They ain’t yours nor mine, and what’s more, nobody knows who they do belong to, and nobody cares. Soon as breakfast’s over we’ll pack ‘em off to some institution or other, and that’ll be the end of it. What did Flossy say about ‘em, when you spoke to her yesterday?”
“I asked her what she wanted done with the young ones, and she said, ‘Do what you like with ‘em, drat ‘em,—it don’t make no odds to me!’ and then she turned over and died. Those was the last words she spoke, dear soul; but, Lor’, she wasn’t more’n half sober, and hadn’t been for a week.”
“She was sober enough to keep her own counsel, I can tell you that,” said the gentle Ethel. “I don’t believe there’s a living soul that knows where those children came from;—not that anybody cares, now that there ain’t any money in ‘em.”
“Well, as for that, I only know that when Flossy was seeing better days and lived in the upper part of the city, she used to have money come every month for taking care of the boy. Where it come from I don’t know; but I kind of surmise it was a long distance off. Then she took to drinking, and got lower and lower down until she came here, six months ago. I don’t suppose the boy’s folks, or whoever it was sent the money, knew the way she was living, though they couldn’t have cared much, for they never came to see how things were; and he was in an asylum before Flossy took him, I found that out; but, anyhow, the money stopped coming three months ago. Flossy wrote twice to the folks, whoever they were, but didn’t get no answer to her letters; and she told me that she should turn the boy out in a week or two if some cash didn’t turn up in that time. She wouldn’t have kept him so long as this if he hadn’t been so handy taking care of the baby.”
“Well, who does the baby belong to?”
“You ask me too much,” replied Nancy, taking another deep draught from the pitcher. “Help yourself, Ettie; there’s plenty more where that came from. Flossy never liked the boy, and always wanted to get rid of him, but couldn’t afford to. He’s a dreadful queer, old-fashioned little kid, and so smart that he’s gettin’ to be a reg’lar nuisance round the house. But you see he and the baby,—Gabrielle’s her name, but they call her Lady Gay, or some such trash, after that actress that comes here so much,—well, they are so in love with one another that wild horses couldn’t drag ‘em apart; and I think Flossy had a kind of a likin’ for Gay, as much as she ever had for anything. I guess she never abused either of ‘em; she was too careless for that. And so what was I talkin’ about? Oh, yes. Well, I don’t know who the baby is, nor who paid for her keep; but she’s goin’ to be one o’ your high-steppers, and no mistake. She might be Queen Victory’s daughter by the airs she puts on; I’d like to keep her myself if she was a little older, and I wasn’t goin’ away from here.”
“I s’pose they’ll make an awful row at being separated, won’t they?” asked the younger woman.
“Oh, like as not; but they’ll have to have their row and get over it,” said Mrs. Simmons easily. “You can take Timothy to the Orphan Asylum first, and then come back, and I’ll carry the baby to the Home of the Ladies’ Relief and Protection Society; and if they yell they can yell, and take it out in yellin’; they won’t get the best of Nancy Simmons.”
“Don’t talk so loud, Nancy, for mercy’s sake. If the boy hears you, he’ll begin to take on, and we sha’n’t get a wink of sleep. Don’t let ‘em know what you’re goin’ to do with ‘em till the last minute, or you’ll have trouble as sure as we sit here.”
“Oh, they are sound asleep,” responded Mrs. Simmons, with an uneasy look at the half-open door. “I went in and dragged a pillow out from under Timothy’s head, and he never budged. He was sleepin’ like a log, and so was Gay. Now, shut up, Et, and let me get three winks myself. You take the lounge, and I’ll stretch out in two chairs. Wake me up at eight o’clock, if I don’t wake myself; for I’m clean tired out with all this fussin’ and plannin’, and I feel stupid enough to sleep till kingdom come.”
Scene II.
Number Three, Minerva Court
(First Floor Back)
LITTLE TIMOTHY JESSUP ASSUMES PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
When the snores of the two watchers fell on the stillness of the death-chamber, with that cheerful regularity that betokens the sleep of the truly good, a little figure crept out of the bed in the adjoining room and closed the door noiselessly, but with trembling fingers; stealing then to the window to look out at the dirty street and the gray sky over which the first faint streaks of dawn were beginning to creep.
It was little Timothy Jessup (God alone knows whether he had any right to that special patronymic), but not the very same Tim Jessup who had kissed the baby Gay in her little crib, and gone to sleep on his own hard bed in that room, a few hours before. As he stood shivering at the window, one thin hand hard pressed upon his heart to still its beating, there was a light of sudden resolve in his eyes, a new-born look of anxiety on his unchildlike face.
“I will not have Gay protectioned and reliefed, and I will not be taken away from her and sent to a ‘sylum, where I can never find her again!” and with these defiant words trembling, half spoken, on his lips, he glanced from the unconscious form in the crib to the terrible door, which might open at any moment and divide him from his heart’s delight, his darling, his treasure, his only joy, his own, own baby Gay.
But what should he do? Run away: that was the only solution of the matter, and no very difficult one either. The cruel women were asleep; the awful Thing that had been Flossy would never speak again; and no one else in Minerva Court cared enough for them to pursue them very far or very long.
“And so,” thought Timothy swiftly, “I will get things ready, take Gay, and steal softly out of the back door, and run away to the ‘truly’ country, where none of these bad people ever can find us, and where I can get a mother for Gay; somebody to ‘dopt her and love her till I grow up a man and take her to live with me.”
The moment this thought darted into Timothy’s mind, it began to shape itself in definite action.
Gabrielle, or Lady Gay, as Flossy called her, in honor of her favorite stage heroine, had been tumbled into her crib half dressed the night before. The only vehicle kept for her use in the family stables was a clothes-basket,