tom moran read the besmirched letter dorothy had received through her advertisement in the paper. then he made poke
daggett give up the reply he had taken addressed to “john smith.”
“explanation’s easy,” he said, bluntly. “these daggetts knew me. why, i fed ’em for a whole month this winter
when jane daggett was sick. ain’t that so, poke?”
poke whined: “wal, ’twarn’t none o’ my doin’s, tom. i tole ma how ’twould be. but she seen the notice in the
salvation army paper. one o’ them salvation anns was round ter see us an’ lef’ the paper; maw said mebbe there
was money in it for us ef we played our cards right——”
“and all we were trying to find mr. moran for was because of his little sister—and she wanting him so!”
ejaculated tavia. “my! but you daggetts must be mean sort of folks.”
this frank statement drew no comment from poke. he was too meek now.
225 “well, i reckon you can get out,” said tom moran, grimly. “and tell your maw to bring around to the place
where i’ve been boarding miss dale’s hat and coat, the watch, the pocket-book and the ring—and anything else they
took from miss dale. if she doesn’t do it i’ll see that she and you and that munsey woman all go to jail, where
you belong. believe me, i’ll do it!”
tom moran, although he had been only working at odd jobs about dalton, was a person of intelligence and seemed to
feel sure of his ability to do as he said. when poke was out of the way, he turned back to dorothy and smiled
broadly.
“i get it that you have been interesting yourself in my affairs, miss, and i thank you. if you can tell me anything
about poor little cely——”
“i can tell you all about her, mr. moran,” cried dorothy, eagerly. “and you really couldn’t find her?”
“i’ll tell you how it was,” said tom moran. “i went away to get work that would pay me better. i was going to
send money to auntie every month. i went with a gang to mexico, and the very first week we were at work a crowd of
rebels came and drove us away from the job, and i got shot.
“i was in a hospital in texas. then i came east, after writing and getting no answer from auntie. when i got home
the very house we226 lived in was torn down and there wasn’t a soul in the neighborhood remembered my aunt, or
little cely, or knew what became of them.
“i hunted around and advertised in the papers, but didn’t get any news. i had to go to work again, and i got a job
on the adrian building, that was put up right next to the old rector street school. i guess you read about that
school being burned?” he asked, with a sidelong glance at dorothy, that reminded the girl very much of celia
herself.
“we looked it up,” said dorothy.
“oh, and there’s miss olaine!” interposed the deeply interested tavia. “did you know miss rebecca olaine?”
“hush, tavia!” admonished dorothy.
but tom moran flushed up to the very roots of his red hair, and his blue eyes opened wide.
“guess i do know her,” he said. “why—why, we boarded at the same house together, for a while. on morrell street.
of course—of course, miss olaine was too high-toned a lady for me——”
tavia sniffed. “i don’t know, mr. moran. she’s one of our teachers now at glenwood. aren’t you just as good as
anybody else?”
“well! i dunno. i ain’t eddicated, as ye might say. when i get re’l excited i drop inter the brogue, too,” and
he shook his head with a grin.
227 “howsomever, no need to speak of that fire—or miss olaine——”
“but we want to know,” began the eager and curious tavia.
“hold on, now!” cried ned white. “let’s have things on order. all this search of dorothy’s was taken on because
of the little girl, i understand?”
“i promised celia i’d find her brother,” said dorothy, gravely. “and i believe you are he, mr. moran. she says
her brother is tom moran, and that he is very big and strong, and—that his hair is red——”
“that’s me!” cried tom moran, slapping his knee, and bursting into laughter. “the little dear! she used ter pull
my hair when she was a baby. she ain’t forgot.”
“no,” said dorothy, quietly. “she hasn’t forgotten. ‘he builds bridges, and things,’ celia says. and she prays
for you to come for her every night, tom moran. she—she is just wearing her little heart out for you,” and dorothy
hid her eyes and sobbed aloud.
“oh, my dear!” cried tavia, coming to hug her.
“you tell me all about her, miss,” urged the red-haired man. “i’ll sure go after her if she’s a thousand miles
away.”
“oh, she’s not,” replied dorothy, through her228 tears. “she’s only eight miles from glenwood, on mrs. hogan’s
farm.”
“that ogress!” muttered tavia.
“what’s that?” exclaimed tom moran. “what d’ye call her? isn’t cely being treated right by some woman?”
“it’s only that the child wants to be loved—and mrs. hogan doesn’t love her,” dorothy said, mildly. “she’s
never improperly treated—not really.”
“just the same, that hogan is an awful woman,” grumbled tavia.
dorothy proceeded to repeat to tom moran all the story of little celia, as the child had told it to her; and she
told, also, of her first meeting with celia and her promise, and how she (dorothy) had been lost in the snow and had
spent sunday at mrs. hogan’s; likewise, how celia, “jes’ the cutest little thing,” had longed to see dorothy so
much that she had run away from the farm woman and found glenwood hall all by herself.
“and if you don’t say she’s the cutest thing you ever saw when you set eyes on her——” interrupted the
exuberant tavia.
“i want to see her bad enough, the lord knows. i was going to beat it away from dalton this very night. lucky you
boys set that rick afire, or i’d still been sleeping, and i’d caught the night freight out of here—that’s right,
” said tom moran.
229 “but i’ll get a job now—a steady job. i’ll have an anchor if i have cely. that’s what miss olaine used to
say i needed. ye see,” said tom, again blushing, “she an’ me was awful good friends once.”
“but why did you run away after the schoolhouse fire?” asked tavia, the curious.
“well, ye see,” said tom moran, “the newspaper made such a fuss over it—and folks began to talk about doin’
foolish things——”
“you were a hero!” cried tavia. “a real hero.”
“aw, no,” said moran, blushing again. “that was all newspaper talk. anyhow i didn’t want money for saving them
kids from being burned up.”
“but you needn’t have run away,” sighed dorothy. “your modesty made us a lot of trouble. you know, we might have
found you out a long time ago——”
“huh! everybody didn’t think so much of me,” grinned tom moran. yet he looked serious the next minute. “you see
—miss—olaine—— well, we’d had some words, and i’d left the morrell street house before the fire happened. i’d
have gone away from that town, anyway.”
“and your seeing her at the fire helped to make you decide to leave town?” demanded the shrewd tavia.
230 “why, tavia!” murmured dorothy, rather disturbed because her friend seemed to pry into tom moran’s personal
affairs.
“something like that, i s’pose,” replied the young man, running his blackened hands through his mop of red hair.
“ye see—well! we was engaged.”
“to be married?” queried ned, open-eyed.
“of course.”
“oh, dear me!” whispered dorothy in tavia’s ear; “and we treated miss olaine so meanly.”
“huh! did we know it?” returned her friend.
“i guess she got sorry right away. of course i ain’t in her class,” said tom moran, soberly. “she’s got
education. i ain’t got nothing but a little schoolin’ an’ me two hands. but she was willing to wear my ring, and
——”
“tell me,” interrupted dorothy, herself getting personal now, “is it a ring with a diamond in the middle and
little chip emeralds around it?”
“ye—as,” drawled tom moran, looking at her again in his sly way.
“she’s wearing it yet,” murmured dorothy.
“and on her engagement finger,” cried tavia. “i remember! she—she——”
“hush!” warned dorothy. then she said to tom moran: “she must think a whole lot of you yet, mr. moran.”
“do—do you think so?”
231 “i am sure.” she whispered in his ear about miss olaine coming to number nineteen the night little celia had
slept with dorothy, and how the teacher had stooped over and kissed the little girl.
“she did it in memory of you—i am sure,” dorothy said, earnestly.
the others had stepped aside to look at the woodchucks. tavia had seen that dorothy wished to speak to tom moran
alone.
“why was it she wouldn’t let me haul her out of that fire, then, two years ago?” demanded tom moran, in an
injured tone.
“wouldn’t she let you help her?”
“she give me a shove into the fire herself. guess that was an accident. but she said, ‘don’t you touch me!’”
declared tom.
“i wouldn’t let that worry me,” dorothy said, decidedly. “i am sure that miss olaine has been grieving over your
absence all this time. she was excited at the fire, i suppose. oh, mr. moran! you can’t always tell what a woman
means by what she says.”
“is that so?” returned tom moran, wonderingly.
