the earnestness in the little, shrewd face, the quaver of her voice, the clutch of her fingers around dorothy’s neck, all impressed the girl from glenwood hall as to just how much the finding of the big, lost brother meant to little celia moran.
“i haven’t found him yet, dear,” she said, brokenly. “but i will—i will—find him. i have written a letter, and i am going to keep on searching—oh, my dear! i know i shall find him for you in the end. just you have patience.”
“that’s what the matron used to say at the findling,” said celia. “but, do you know patience is a nawful hard thing to keep?”
“i expect it is, dear.”
“and you’ll be sure to find the right tom moran,” urged the little girl. “you know, he’s big, and he’s got ever so red hair, and he builds bridges and things.”
“i shall find the right one,” promised dorothy.
88 “you see, mrs. hogan don’t want me to talk about him,” said the child, faintly. “when i forgets and does, she says: ‘drat the young ’un! ain’t she thankful for havin’ a home?’
“but, do you know,” pursued celia, her voice dropping to a whisper again, “i’se afraid i ain’t as thankful as i doughter be—no, i ain’t.”
“not thankful?”
“no, ma’am! i can’t somehow jes’ feel thankful for mrs. ann hogan.”
dorothy could not blame her for this, but she did not feel it right to agree with her. “oh, my dear! i expect mrs. hogan is kind to you—in her way,” she said.
“yes, i ’spect so,” sighed celia, nodding slowly. “but you can’t jes’ get uster some folkses’ ways; can you? it—it was better in the findling—yes, it was, dorothy. and i hoped if any lady took me away it would be a nice, cuddly one.”
“a cuddly one?” repeated dorothy. “what sort of a lady is that?”
“why, you know,” celia said, with eagerness. “the kind that cuddles you, and makes a-much over you. of course, you never was a findling, dorothy?”
“oh, no, dear! i haven’t any mother, any more than you have; but i have a dear, dear father and two brothers——”
“well, you see,” interrupted the eager little89 one, “some of the ladies what come for the findlings just fall right in love with them. the matron lady always dresses ’em up real pretty, and curls their hair, and makes ’em look as pretty as they can look.
“you see,” she added, in an explanatory way, “i was so nawful thin—scrawny, the matron said—the mother-ladies what comed to find a findling didn’t care much for me.”
dorothy could understand that it was the pretty, plump children who would mostly attract those lonely hearts reaching out for the babies that god had denied them.
“you see,” pursued celia, “mrs. hogan wanted a young one that could work. she told the matron so. i was gettin’ so big that they had to let somebody have me pretty soon, or i’d have to go to the girls’ school—an’ the matron said ‘god forbid!’ so i guess the girls’ school ain’t a very nice place for little girls to go,” and celia shook her head wisely.
“but, you see, i hoped an’ hoped that one of the cuddly ladies would take me. i seen one carry maisie—she was my little friend—right out of the findling, and down the steps, and into a great, big, be-youtiful ortermobile. she hugged her tight all the way, too, an’ i think—she cried over her. the matron said she’d lost a little girl that looked like maisie.
90 “but i didn’t look like nobody that was lost—not at all. they all said when they looked at me: ‘she’s jes’ the cutest little thing!’ but somehow they didn’t love me.”
“oh, my dear!” cried dorothy, gathering celia into her arms again. “i don’t see why all the lonesome mothers that came there to the asylum didn’t fall in love with you right away!”
there was a great stamping upon the porch and the door flew open. dorothy saw that the whole world outside seemed to be one vast snowbank. mrs. hogan, puffing and blowing, in knee boots and her man’s outfit, was covered with snow.
“that jim bentley’s gone home—bad ’cess t’ him. though ’tis me saves a supper thereby. an’ he niver got the hoss up at all, at all!” she cried, wiping her red face on a towel hanging by the sink, and then shedding her outside garments, boots and all, in a heap by the hot stove.
“’tis an awful night out,” she pursued. “’tis lucky ye came here as ye did, miss. we’re safe and sound, the saints be praised! an’ i got the ould hoss on his feet, mesilf, an’ no thanks to that lazy spalpane, jim bentley. the lord is good to the poor irish.”
dorothy decided that the man, jim bentley, must be a neighbor whom mrs. hogan hired to do some of her heavy work. but the amazon91 seemed quite capable of doing a good deal of farm work herself.
now she set about getting supper, and she kept celia moran hopping to run her errands, fetch and carry, and otherwise aid in the preparation of the meal. it was no banquet; merely hot bread and fried pork, with some preserves, the latter evidently opened for the delectation of the “paying guest.”
mrs. hogan made it plain at every turn that she expected to be paid for everything she did for dorothy. she was a veritable female miser. dorothy had never imagined such a person in all her life before.
and, although the woman did not really put her hand upon little celia, she was continually threatening her and hustling her about. she seemed even to begrudge the poor child her food, and the infinitesimal portion of preserve that was put upon celia’s plate was, to dorothy’s mind, “the last straw.”
the school girl boldly changed saucers with celia and gave the little one her share of the sweetmeat.
mrs. hogan would not let her guest assist in clearing up after supper. celia, in a long apron tied around her throat by its strings, and dragging on the floor so that her little feet in their worn shoes were impeded when she tried to walk, stood92 upon a box at the kitchen sink and washed the pile of dishes, while her mistress dried them—scolding and admonishing all the time.
“av all the young imps of satan! looker that now! d’ye not know tis wrong ter wash the greasy dishes first? how often must i tell ye? an’ her water’s not hot.
“that’s it! pour in some more. ’tis too hot for ye? ’twill cool. an’ yer han’s no bether nor mine, an’ w’en i was your age i washed dishes for a boardin’ house—twinty hear-r-rty men sat doon to the table, too. and they made a wash-basket o’ dishes iv’ry male, so they did!
“what’s the mather with yer han’s? is ut a cute lady ye expict ter be? ha! ye’ll l’arn some practical things, then, while yer wid me. arrah! there’s a plate that ain’t clane. what d’ye mane by ut? ’tis a good lickin’ ye oughter have!”
and thus she went on all during the task. poor celia was not struck, or really abused, as far as dorothy could see. but she was sensitive, and the lashing of mrs. hogan’s coarse tongue hurt celia more than physical punishment would have hurt some other child.
when the smoke of battle had passed away, and little celia had washed out and hung up the dish-towels to dry on the line behind the stove, dorothy took her on the settee beside her. mrs. hogan93 made no objection, nor did she scarcely speak to them as the evening advanced.
dorothy whispered stories to the round-eyed child—oh! she had had plenty of practise in story-telling while her brothers, joe and roger, were little. celia was too old to care much for “the little rid hin”, or “the frog he would a-wooing go”; but dorothy could repeat “aspinax; or, the enchanted dwarf” almost word for word, and the marvellous adventures of that appealing hero held celia’s enthralled attention for the evening.
perhaps mrs. hogan had been listening, too; for she never said a word about its being bedtime until the story was finished. all the time the snow had been beating against the house, while the wind moaned in the chimney and occasionally rattled a loose shutter.
it was really an awful night out, and dorothy felt that she was being snowbound here in this lonely farmhouse. she was only afraid that tavia and the other girls, as well as mrs. pangborn, would be frightened for her.
“i’ll be puttin’ youse in the spare room. ’tis a betther bed than those above stairs,” said mrs. hogan. “i suppose ye’ll be willin’ to pay a mite extry for th’ accommidation? there’s a stove and a fire laid ready to light. ye kin undress where ’tis war-r-rm, and i’ll heat the sheets for ye. in the94 marnin’ i’ll sind celia down airly, an’ she kin light the fire for ye, miss dale. ’tis goin’ to be a cold night, an’ we may be snowed ter th’ eaves by marnin.”
“oh! i hope not,” replied dorothy, warmly.
“ye nade have no fear. there’s plenty of fuel and atein’, i’d have ye know.”
“but are you going to let me sleep down here all alone?” queried dorothy.
“sure, the upstairs rooms are not fit for the likes o’ ye,” said the woman, quickly. “and there’s no manes of heatin’ them. in the marnin’ ye’ll have a nice, hot fire to git up by. i’ll see that cely lights it——”
“oh, mrs. hogan!” cried dorothy, “let celia sleep down here with me. your bed is big enough for two, surely.”
“well, i dunno——”
“then she will be right on hand to light the fire in the morning,” suggested dorothy, who could not think calmly of the little girl getting up in the cold to come downstairs and light a fire for her. “and i’d love to have her sleep with me. she’d be company.”
“well, if ye wish it,” said the woman, slowly. “but mind ye, cely! if ye’re not a good gur-rl—an’ kick an’ thrash in yer sleep—i’ll certainly spank ye. now, mind that!”
the woman got up and went through the hall95 to open the guest chamber. the room was like a refrigerator, and the cold air swept out of it into the kitchen and made dorothy and celia “hug the stove.” it was a bitter cold night and dorothy secretly longed for her own warm room, with tavia, at glenwood hall.
but celia was delighted at the permission given her. she wriggled out of dorothy’s arms and ran upstairs for her nightie. mrs. hogan brought forth one of her own sleeping garments for dorothy—voluminous enough, it seemed to the girl, to be used as a tent if one wished to go camping out.
the nightgown was of coarse muslin, but as white as it could be, and had evidently been folded away in lavender for some special occasion. mrs. hogan did not give one the impression of being a lady who paid much attention to the niceties of life.
and there was celia’s little nightie—a coarse, unbleached cotton garment, with not even a frill of common lace about the throat. when the child got into it and knelt by the kitchen settee to say her prayers, dorothy thought she looked as though she was dressed in a little meal-sack!
meanwhile mrs. hogan had brought down an old-fashioned brass “bed warmer” from the wall—a long handle, covered pan (the cover being perforated) into which she shoveled some glowing96 coals from the stove fire-box. with this bed-warmer she ironed the bed in the guest room. these bed-warmers were common enough in the pioneer homes of new england and the upper new york counties, and dorothy decided that mrs. hogan must have found this one in the old farmhouse when she had purchased the place.
“come on wid ye, now!” the woman called from the cold bed chamber. “oi’ve taken the desp’rit cold out o’ the shates, and’ yez kin cuddle in here an’ kape war-r-rm. but ye’ll git no sich notion in yer head that i’ll be warmin’ yer bid for yez on other nights, cely; for i won’t do ut! i never have me own bed warmed, and it’s well fer youse ter l’arn ter live harsh, too.”
this was her good-night to them. when the two girls had scrambled into bed, all of a shiver from crossing the cold hall and the big chamber, mrs. hogan banged the door, and the next moment they heard her fixing the kitchen fire for the night.
dorothy had gathered the little, starved body of celia in her arms. the little one sighed, sobbed, and then lay still. before dorothy had realized it, celia was fast asleep—so wearied was the little one.
but the older girl lay, broad awake, for some minutes. her breath puffed out in plainly visible mist, the air of the room was so cold. the freezing97 water in the pitcher on the washstand snapped and crackled. a shade had been raised to the top of the sash, and that ghostly light always present when it is snowing at night, faintly illuminated the bare room.
“swish! swish! swish!” the snow beat upon the clapboards outside. she saw that the lower sash was completely covered by the snow. the drifts were piling up on this side of the house, and dorothy finally dropped to sleep, hugging her little charge, with the feeling that she was being buried alive beneath the soft, white mantle.
