dorothy dale was delighted with the little one; but she pitied her so, too! covertly the schoolgirl wiped her eyes, while the child prattled on.
“sometime i know tom moran will come for me. oh, yes! he mus’ be very smart, for he builds bridges and things. my auntie what died told the findling asylum matron so. but somehow the letters the matron wrote to tom moran never bringed him back.
“of course, he didn’t get ’em. if he had, he’d come for me. and he’ll come for me anyway, and find me—even if mrs. ann hogan has got me.
“you see, all us morans is jes’ as smart! somebody said i was jes’ the cutest little thing they ever see,” and celia looked up again, slily, at her new friend.
“i really believe you are—you little dear!” cried dorothy, suddenly hugging her.
“i’m glad you like me so much,” said celia,20 quite placidly. “for then you’ll do something for me, i know.”
“of course i will, my dear,” agreed the older girl.
“thank you,” said celia, demurely. “what i want is that you should find tom moran for me. if i could jes’ find him once i know i wouldn’t have to stay with mrs. hogan. for i jes’ know,” concluded the old-fashioned little thing, shaking her head, “that she’s goin’ to have a—nawful job bringing me up strict—i jes’ know she is!”
“you poor, motherless little thing!” choked dorothy. “i’ll try my best to find your brother. i really will, dear.”
“that’ll be nice,” confided celia. “for i think i shall like better bein’ with him than with mrs. hogan.”
“and where is mrs. hogan going to take you, dear?” asked dorothy.
“to her farm. a farm is a nawful nice place,” said celia, gravely. “was you ever at a farm?”
“oh, yes.”
“and where is mrs. hogan going to take you, dear?”
dorothy dale’s promise. page 20.
“so was i,” confided celia. “last summer. they sends a bunch of us kids from the findling to a farm—o-o-o, ever so far away from the findling. and an old lady got me at the station, an’ we drove—o-o-o, ever so far to where there wasn’t any houses, or streets, or wagons, or music machines, or saloons, or delicatessen stores.
21 “there was just one house where the old lady lived. and it was kinder lonesome; but the grass was there and bushes all flowered out like what’s in the flower-store windows. an’ they smelled sweet,” continued celia, big eyed with her remembrance of her first experience in the country.
“i felt funny inside—all lonesome, like as though there was a hole here,” and she put her little hands upon her stomach to show where she felt the emotion which she could so ill express—the homesickness for the sights, and sounds, and bustle of the city.
“but the old lady was real nice to me,” confessed celia. “and she gave me real nice things to eat. and—oh, yes! she laughed at me so. you see, i was a nawful greeny!”
“i expect you were, dear,” chuckled dorothy. “you had never seen the country before?”
“no, i never had. and i saw the chickens go to roost, and the old lady caught one chicken and began to pick his feathers off, and that’s when she laughed so at me.”
“why?” asked dorothy.
“you see, i didn’t know about it, and i asked her: ‘do you take off their clo’es every night, lady?’ and of course they don’t,” finished celia, laughing shrilly herself now. “chickens ain’t like folks.”
22 “no; not very much like folks,” agreed dorothy, greatly amused.
“no. we eat—ed that chicken the next day,” said celia. “an’ it was nawful good. we don’t have chicken—much—at the findling.”
“perhaps it will be nice at mrs. hogan’s for you, celia, dear,” suggested the older girl. “perhaps it will be as nice as it was at that other farm.”
but the little one shook her head slowly and for the first time the tears welled into her eyes and over-ran them, falling drop by drop down her thin cheeks. she did not sob, or cry, as a child usually does.
“no,” she whispered. “mrs. ann hogan isn’t like the good lady i was with for two weeks las’ summer. no, mrs. hogan isn’t like that.”
“but she’ll learn to love you, too,” declared dorothy, determined to cheer the child if she could.
“no,” said celia again, gravely. “i’ve got to ‘earn my salt,’ mrs. hogan says. an’ i guess i’ll hafter work nawful hard to earn that, for i like things salt,” and she shook her head.
“you see, at that other farm, the lady didn’t make me work. i played. and i watched the birds, and the chickens, and the horses and cows. why,” she said, her face clearing up with the elasticity of youth, “why, there was an old man23 that brought his cow along the road to feed every day. the grass was good beside the road and the old man had no reg’lar lot for her to feed in, so my lady friend said.”
the little old-fashioned way in which she used this last phrase almost convulsed dorothy, despite her feeling of pity for the child.
“and i used to watch the cow. it was a pleasant cow,” said celia, gravely. “and sometimes the old man would sit down under a tree in the lane, and he’d open a newspaper an’ read to the cow while she was chewin’ grass. she must ha’ been a real intel’gent cow,” concluded celia, wagging her little head.
“oh, dear me! you funny little thing!” murmured dorothy. “i do wish tavia could hear you.”
but this she said to herself. celia moran talked on, in her old-fashioned way: “no’m; i ain’t goin’ to like it so well at mrs. ann hogan’s. i—i’m ’most afraid of mrs. hogan. i—i don’t think she likes little girls a-tall.”
“oh! i hope she’ll like you,” said dorothy.
“but you will find my brother, tom?” urged celia, earnestly. “tom moran will take care of me if he finds me. i know he will.”
“i will do my very best to find him, dear,” promised the bigger girl, again, with her arm about celia’s shoulders.
24 in the distance she saw the grenadier mrs. hogan approaching, and she had a feeling that the woman would not be pleased if she knew celia had been talking to anybody.
“here, dear,” said dorothy, hastily, drawing out her purse and giving the child a crisp dollar bill. “you hide that away. maybe you will want to spend some of it for candies, or ribbons, or something. let me kiss you. you dear little thing! i will try to find your brother just as hard as ever i tried to do anything in my life.”
“i guess you can find him,” returned celia, with assurance, looking wistfully up at dorothy dale. “you’re so big, you know. i want to see you again.”
“and you shall. i’ll find out where mrs. hogan lives and come to see you,” declared dorothy.
but then the big woman came and grabbed the child by the wrist. “come on, you!” she exclaimed. “we gotter hurry now, for bentley’s waitin’.”
celia looked back once over her shoulder as she was borne so hurriedly away. the little, thin face was twisted into a pitiful smile, and dorothy bore the remembrance of that smile in her heart for many a long day.
mrs. hogan had been so abrupt that dorothy had not plucked up courage to accost her. when she asked one of the railroad men if he knew25 where jim bentley, or mrs. hogan, lived, the man had never heard the names.
there was no time then to seek further for the locality of the farm to which little celia moran was being taken, for a train was backing down beside the platform and the conductor told her it would start in ten minutes for glenwood.
so dorothy ran to gather her scattered flock of schoolmates. ned ebony’s coat was dry enough to put on; but she had to go dressed in a conglomeration of other garments, some of which did not fit her very well. tavia and the others made much fun over edna’s plight.
“that hat!” groaned tavia. “it—it looks just like you’d had it in pawn, ned.”
“in pawn! what do you mean?” queried edna, doubtfully, and putting up both hands to the really disgraceful-looking hat—for it had been dried out before the sitting room stove at the railroad station agent’s, too.
“anyway, it looks like it had been in soak, neddie, dear,” giggled tavia. “and to use a slang phrase——”
“i should say that was slang,” returned edna, in disgust. “the very commonest kind—‘in soak,’ indeed!”
“and that bird on your hat,” pursued tavia, wickedly. “that is sure enough one of those extinct fowl you read about.”
26 “lots you know about extinct birds,” sniffed edna.
“there’s the dodo,” suggested one of the other girls.
“oh, i know what an extinct bird is,” declared cologne. “it’s billy, our poor old canary—poor thing! the cat got him this morning before i left home, so he’s extinct now!”
ned ebony couldn’t take her coat off because she wore dorothy’s morning gown instead of a street dress. and she had on tavia’s slippers instead of real shoes; and there hadn’t been a guimpe in any girl’s bag that would fit her, so she was afraid of removing the coat as she might catch cold. she had been used to wearing a fur-piece around her neck and that much bedraggled article was in the big bundle of her half-dried belongings, thrust into the baggage rack overhead.
“i know that fur is just ruined,” she moaned. “and it’s brand new, too.”
“never mind,” giggled tavia. “i bet it’s only cat’s fur, and there’s slathers of cats at the glen. we can trap some and make you a new scarf just as good.”
“miss smartie!”
“i declare, ned, you looked just like a half-drowned pussy-cat yourself when doro hauled you ashore.”
“yes,” complained edna, “you others would27 have left me to swim out as best i might alone—no doubt of that. it is always doro who comes to the rescue.”
dorothy smiled half-heartedly. she did not join the general cross-fire of joking and repartee. she could not get the wan little face of celia moran out of her mind—that wistful little smile of hers—while she seemed to hear again the sweet little voice say: “an’ i’m jes’ the cutest little thing you ever see!”
but dorothy was afraid that, as cute as she was, the ogress would be too much for her!
“that’s just what that hogan woman is—an ogress,” thought dorothy.
celia had been woefully afraid of mrs. hogan; yet how brave she had been, too!
“somehow i’ll find her brother—tom moran—for her,” thought dorothy. “i will! i must!”
