Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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Belle K. Maniates >> Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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This to Bud was the most beautiful spot in the world. He looked up into
the sapphire blue of the sky flecked with soft patches of white, then
down upon the waving grass latticed by sun and shade; he listened to the
soothing rustle of the poplar leaves, the soft flapping of linen in the
breeze, the birds in the tree tops, and felt his heart and throat
bursting with all the harmony and melody about him. Not always was Bud's
refrain one of joy. There were songs of sorrow on the damp days when the
washings must be dried within the house, and he could not venture forth
because he still was regarded as the delicate one of the family. There
were days, too, when the number of garments was not adequate to complete
the boundary to the park, and that meant less to eat and worry about the
rent and a harassed look in his mother's anxious eyes.
But there was no sob in Bud's song this afternoon. The clothes had been
hung out unusually early, and were nearly dry, so his mother had brought
out her little lean-back rocker and sat beside him for a few moments to
listen to his carol and to hark back to the days when his lusty-voiced
father had sung to her in the shadows of a vine clad porch.
It was not upon Amarilly, the sharer of her burdens, nor upon the baby
that Mrs. Jenkins lavished her tenderness. Bud crept closest because he
had been the one most dependent upon her care.
When the little singer ceased, the mother arose and unpinned the
garments, carrying them in armfuls to the huge basket in the middle of
the park. Bud watched her thin, fatigued hands as they performed their
accustomed task, and a sudden inspiration came to him. His future field
of labor had troubled him. Now his way seemed clear. He stepped nimbly
to the grass plot and gathered up the pieces spread thereon.
"Ma," he said, as they met at the basket, "I've jest thought what I kin
do, when I grow up, to support you."
"What is it, Bud?" she asked interestedly.
"The teacher said we must plan to do what we knew the most about. I know
more about washin' than anything else."
"You'd orter," she replied with a sigh.
"I kin run a laundry," he declared.
"That would be a fine business."
Happy in the hope of this new horoscope, Bud resumed his seat in the
amphitheatre, and in a voice of clarion clearness ecstatically rendered
one of the hymns he had learned at St. Mark's. Ever since he had become
a member of the choir, Clothes-line Park had rung with echoes of the
Jubilate and Venite instead of the popular old-time school airs. The
wringer was turned to the tune of a Te Deum, the clothes were rubbed to
the rhythm of a Benedictus, and the floor mopped to the melody of a
Magnificat.
On the happy, by-gone Thursdays, cloistered by snow-white surplices,
with the little chorister enthroned in the midst, Clothes-line Park had
seemed a veritable White Chapel.
Bud was snatched from his carols by the arrival of Amarilly, who was far
too practical to hearken to hymns when there was work to be performed.
"I got the money Miss Ormsby's owed us so long," she announced in a tone
of satisfaction, "and that jest makes up the money to git back the
surplus. I'll give you carfare one way, Bud, and you must go to the
bishop's and git it. I'm too beat to go. I've walked most five miles
sence dinner."
Bud was scoured and brushed, the pocket of his blouse tagged with a
five-dollar bill carefully secured by a safety pin, and he started on
his way for the address Amarilly had given him. He stopped at the corner
drug store to spend his car-fare for an ice-cream soda.
When the lad's quest was repeated to the bishop by his housekeeper, he
instructed her to send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed
towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the
organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed
forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud
had learned at St. Mark's. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying
to carry the sustained note an octave above the man's voice; once it
sharped.
"Oh!" shuddered Bud in dismay. "He can't keep the tune."
"He isn't our regular soloist," explained the bishop apologetically. "He
is ill, and this boy is trying to learn the part for an organ recital to
be given next week."
Again the choirmaster's voice, patient and wearied, began the refrain.
Instinctively Bud's little chest swelled, and involuntarily his clear,
high treble took the note and sustained it without break through the
measures, and then triumphantly broke into the solo. The bishop's eyes
shone.
"Come," he said, rising and going towards the door, "come with me."
Wonderingly and obediently, Bud followed him into the church and up to
the organ where the choirmaster sat.
"This is one of the boys from St. Mark's. Try him on the solo. He just
sang it for me."
"I thought I heard it sung just now, but I feared it was only an echo of
my dreams. Let me hear you again, my lad."
Easily and confidently Bud attacked the high C in alt. At the end of the
solo, the long-suffering choirmaster looked as if he were an Orpheus,
who had found his Eurydice.
"Who taught you to sing that solo?" he demanded.
"My school teacher. She is studying fer an opery singer, and she helps
me with my Sunday singing."
"I thought the style was a little florid for the organist of St.
Mark's," said the choirmaster whimsically. "My boy, if you will sing it
for us at the recital as well as you did just now, you shall have ten
dollars."
The laundry now loomed as a fixed star in Bud's firmament. When he went
home and told his mother the good news she moved joyfully among her mops
and tubs. The turn of the wringer never seemed so easy, and she
frequently paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment to wring the suds
from her swollen hands and listen anew to the recital of Bud's call upon
the bishop and the choirmaster of Grace Church.
CHAPTER XIV
The next day the flood-tide of the Jenkins's fortunes bid fair to flow
to fullness. Word came to the little home that Mr. Meredith had returned
to the city and desired the laundry work to be resumed. Bud was summoned
to choir practice the following Friday, and Miss King sent her chauffeur
with a fair-sized washing.
"Everything comes so to onct, it takes your breath away," said Amarilly,
quite overcome by this renewal of commercial activity, "and next thing I
know,"--there her heart gave a deer-like leap--"Mr. Derry'll be hum, and
sendin' fer me. Then we'll all be earnin' excep' Gus."
At the end of the week Amarilly eagerly went to deliver the washings at
the rectory and Miss King's, but in both instances she was doomed to
disappointment, as her friends were not in.
"I'll go to church and see 'em," she resolved.
This time her raiment was very simple, but more effective than upon the
occasion of her previous attendance.
Before Amarilly's artistic temperament was awakened by the atmosphere of
the studio, she had been wont to array herself in things convenient
without regard to color or style, believing herself to be hopelessly
homely and beyond the aid of personal adornment; but since Derry had
praised her hair, she had scrupulously cared for it and allowed no
conflicting color in proximity thereto. On this occasion she fastened it
with the black velvet bows, and arrayed herself in the white dress Mrs.
Jimmels had given her.
"I declar, Amarilly," exclaimed her mother, "I believe you're agrowin'
purty!"
Amarilly's eyes danced, and she gave her mother a spontaneous and
rewarding hug.
She didn't do her own ushering this time, and was consequently seated
most inconspicuously near the entrance. Her heart beat rapturously at
the sight of John Meredith in the pulpit.
"His vacation didn't freshen him up much," she thought, after a shrewd
glance. "He's paler and don't look real peart. Sorter like Bud arter he
got up from the fever."
Her attention was diverted from the rector by the vision of Colette
coming down the aisle. The change in her appearance was even more
startling to the little anxious-eyed girl than in John's case. There
were violet shadows under the bright eyes, a subtle, subdued air about
her fresh young beauty that had banished the little touch of wilfulness.
As soon as she was seated, which was after the service had begun, she
became entirely absorbed in her prayer-book.
"Vacation ain't agreed with her, nuther," pondered Amarilly perplexedly.
She turned her gaze again to John, who was sitting back of the choir,
while his "understudy" conducted the service. His face was shaded by his
hand, but Amarilly's gimlet glance noted that he frequently sent a
fleeting, troubled look toward the King pew.
"Thar's something up atwixt 'em," deduced Amarilly, "and they air both
too proud to say nuthin' about it to the other."
John's sermon was on the strength that renunciation brings, and the duty
of learning resignation. There was a pervasive note of sadness in his
deliverance of the theme, and Amarilly felt her joyousness in the return
of her friends slipping from her.
She went out of church somewhat depressed, but was cheered by the
handclasp of the rector and his earnest assurance that he would see her
very soon. While he was saying this, Colette slipped past without
vouchsafing so much as a glance in their direction. Hurt through and
through, the little girl walked sadly to the pavement with head and eyes
downcast.
"Amarilly," dulcetly spoke a well-loved voice.
Her eyes turned quickly. Colette stood at the curb, her hand on the door
of the electric.
"I waited to take you home, dear. Why, what's the matter, Amarilly?
Tears?"
"I thought you wan't goin' to speak to me," said Amarilly, as she
stepped into the brougham and took the seat beside Colette.
"I didn't want to interrupt you and Mr. Meredith, but it's a wonder I
knew you. You look so different. You have grown so tall, and what a
beautiful dress! Who showed you how to fix your hair so artistically? I
never realized you had such beautiful hair, child!"
"I didn't nuther, till he told me."
"Who, Amarilly? Lord Algernon?"
"No!" scoffed Amarilly, suddenly realizing that her former hero had
toppled from his pedestal in her thoughts. "'Tain't him. It's a new
friend I have made. An artist."
"Oh, Amarilly, you have such distinguished acquaintances! All in the
profession, too. Tell me who the artist is."
"Mr. Derry Phillips. I cleaned his rooms, and he took me to lunch. We
ate things like we had to your house."
"Derry Phillips, the talented young artist! Why, Amarilly, girls are
tumbling over each other trying to get attention from him, and he took
you to luncheon! Where?"
"To Carter's, and I'm to serve his breakfast and take care of his rooms,
and he showed me how to fix my hair and to say 'can' and 'ate.' He's
fired the woman what red his rooms."
"'Merely Mary Ann,'" murmured Colette.
"No," said Amarilly positively. "Her name is Miss O'Leary, and she
didn't clean the mopboards."
Colette's gay laughter pealed forth.
"Amarilly, this is the first time, I've laughed this summer, but I must
explain something to you. The housekeeper told me that all the children
had scarlet fever and were quarantined a long time after we left. I wish
I had known it and thought more about you, but--I've had troubles of my
own. How did you manage so long with nothing coming in?"
"It was purty hard, but we fetched it," sighed Amarilly, thinking of the
struggles, "We're doin' fine now again."
"But, tell me; how did you buy food and things when none of you were
working?"
"When your ten dollars was gone, we spent his'n."
"Whose?"
"Mr. Meredith's. He sent us a ten, too."
"Oh!" replied Colette frigidly.
"Then the Boarder give us all he hed. Arterwards come dark days until
Mr. Vedder sent us a fiver.--Then thar was an orful day when thar wa'n't
a cent and we didn't know whar to turn, and then--It saved us."
"It? What?"
"The surplus. Mr. St. John's surplus. It brung in lots."
"Why, what do you mean, Amarilly?"
"You see 'twas at our house when Iry was fust took sick--same as the
waist you gimme was. They couldn't nuther on 'em be sent hum till they
was fumygated. Then Mrs. Winders said as how he, Mr. St. John, said as
how we was to keep it and cut it up fer the chillern, but we didn't."
"Oh, Amarilly," asked Colette faintly, "do you mean to tell me that the
surplice was never delivered to Mr. Meredith?"
"No. Gus didn't take it that night, and in the mornin' when Iry was took
it was too late. And then when it got fumygated, Mr. St. John had gone
away and he left word we was to keep it."
The transformation in Colette's mobile face during this explanation was
rapid and wonderful. With a radiant smile she stopped the brougham and
put her arms impulsively about Amarilly.
"Oh, Amarilly, I'm so happy, and I've had such a wretched summer! Now,
we will go right to your house and you'll let me see the surplice."
Amarilly looked surprised.
"Why, yes, you can see it, of course, though it ain't no diffrent from
his other ones."
"Oh yes it is! Far, far different, Amarilly. It has a history."
"Yes, I guess it has," laughed Amarilly, "It's been goin' some these
last two months!"
"Why, what do you mean, Amarilly? and I forgot in my excitement to ask
how it helped you. But first tell me. You know there is a pocket in it?"
"Yes, Miss King."
"Have you noticed anything in the pocket?"
"Never looked onct. But then if thar was 'twould hev come out in the
wash. It's been did up heaps of times. You see, rentin' it out so
much--"
"Renting it out!"
Amarilly gave a graphic account of the adventures of the errant garment
to date. Meanwhile Colette's countenance underwent kaleidoscopic
changes.
"Amarilly," she asked faintly, "have you the addresses of all those
people to whom you rented it?"
"Yes; I keep books now, and I put it down in my day ledger the way the
Boarder showed me."
"There was something--of mine--in--that pocket. Will you ask your mother
to look for it, and hunt the house over for it?"
Amarilly, greatly distressed at the loss, promised faithfully to do so.
CHAPTER XV
As soon as Amarilly had been deposited at her door, Colette tore a leaf
from the tablet reposing in its silver case, hastily wrote a few lines,
and then ran her brougham at full speed back to St. Mark's. A chorister
was just coming out.
"Walter!" she called.
The lad came down to the curb.
"Will you please take this to Mr. Meredith? He is probably in the
Sunday-school now."
"Sure. Will you wait for an answer, Miss King?".
"No, thank you, Walter."
She rode home and waited anxiously for the personal answer to her note,
which came with most unclerical alacrity.
"Colette," he said, his voice tense, "if you knew what your little note
meant! Did--"
"Wait until I explain, John. I must tell you about the surplice."
She repeated Amarilly's account of the peregrinations of the robe.
"Well?" he asked bewildered, "I don't see what that has to do with--"
"Everything. There was something of mine--" she turned a deep
crimson--"in the pocket of that surplice."
"Yours! Why, how did it get there, Colette? Was it--"
"I am not going to tell you--not until I have it back. Oh, I could die
of shame when I think who may have found it. You must get it."
"Colette," he answered gravely, "the surplice must have passed through
many hands, but if it is possible to trace this--article, I will do so.
Still, how can I make inquiries unless I know what it is?"
"You can ask them, each and all, if they found anything in the pocket,"
she replied. "And you must tell them you left it there."
"And you won't trust me, Colette? Not after my long unhappy summer. And
won't you give me an answer now to the note I wrote you last spring?"
"No; I won't tell you anything! Not until you find that."
"Be reasonable, Colette."
His choice of an adjective was most unfortunate for his cause. It was
the word of words that Colette detested; doubtless because she had been
so often entreated to cultivate that quality.
"I will not," she answered, "if to tell you is being reasonable. I must
have it back. I think no one will really know to whom it belongs, though
they may guess. You must, assume the ownership."
"I certainly shall, if it can be found," he assured her.
Seeing the utter futility of changing her mood, he took his departure;
perhaps a little wiser if not quite so sad as he had been before he saw
her. The next morning he called upon Amarilly, whom he found alone with
Iry.
"I am very sorry to learn that you had such a hard summer," he said
kindly, "and I regret that I didn't know more about your affairs before
I left the city, but I was too absorbed, I fear, in my own troubles."
"How did you hear about us?" she asked curiously.
"From Miss King."
"Oh," said Amarilly happily, imagining that their trouble must have been
patched up. Then another thought occurred to her which gave her a little
heart palpitation. With intense anxiety depicted on her lineaments she
asked tremulously: "Did she tell you about the surplus?"
"Amarilly," and the tone was so reassuring that the little wrinkles of
anxiety vanished, "when I gave you the surplice, I gave it to you
unconditionally, and I am very glad that you put it to profit. But, you
know, as Miss King told you, that there was something of value--of
importance--in that pocket; something that must be found. My happiness
depends entirely upon its recovery. Now, she tells me that you can give
me the names and addresses of all the people through whose hands it
passed."
"Sure thing!" she replied with business-like alacrity. "You see the
Boarder has been larnin' me bookkeepin', and so I keep all our accounts
now in a big book the grocer give me."
She produced a large, ledger-like book and laid it on the table for his
inspection. He examined her system of bookkeeping with interest. Under
the head of "Cr.," which she explained to him meant "brung in," was
"Washins," "Boarder," "Flamingus," "Milt," "Bobby," "Bud." Below each
of these subheads were dates and accounts. The page opposite, headed
"Dr.," she translated, "means paid out."
She turned a few leaves, and in big letters he read the word "Surplus."
"This bein' a sort of extry account, the Boarder said to run it as a
special and keep it seprut. If you'll set down, I'll read offer to you
whar it has went."
She began to read laboriously and slowly from the book, adding
explanatory notes in glib tones.
"'July 8. Mister Carrul, tenner, 1 doller. Pade.' He's the tenor, you
know, to Grace Church. He wanted it to sing in at a sacred concert. His
was too short or too long.
"'July 11. Miss Lyte and Miss Bobson. 'Tablos. 1 doller. Pade.' Mr.
Carul knows where they live. 'Twaz him as got the job fer me.
"'July 15 to July 19. The Beehive. 3 dollers and 1/2 Pade.' That's a
bargain store down in our parts. I went in fer to git Bud a cap and I
hearn the clerk askin' the boss about fixin' up a winder show with wax
figgers fer a weddin'. I step up to him and ask him if he kep surpluses,
and he sez as he didn't. I told him I could rent him one to put on the
minister, and he hedn't thought fer to hev it an Episcopal show, but he
sed he'd do it fer an ad fer his white goods. He wouldn't stand fer no
dollar a day. He beat me down to three-fifty, but he throwed in a cap
fer Bud.
"Next come Mrs. Hudgers. I didn't put it down in the ledger, though,
cause it didn't bring nuthin' but a pan of doughnuts. Her son Hallie
died, and he didn't hev no nice clo'es ter be laid out in, and she was
agoin' to hev quite a funyral, so jest afore folks come, she slipped the
surplus on ter him over his old clo'es, and then when 'twas over, she
took it offen him again. He made a swell lookin' corpse. Bein' a
neighbor we didn't go fer to ask her nuthin', but she give us the nut
cakes. They give her dyspepsy, anyhow."
The muscles of John Meredith's face grew rigid in his endeavor to
maintain a serious expression. He had taken out a notebook at the
beginning of the interview to jot down the addresses, but he copied
Amarilly's comments as well, for the future entertainment of Colette.
"'July 25 and 26. Mr. Derry Phillips, The Navarre. 2 dollers. Pade.' He
paints picters. He painted the surplus onto a man playin' on a orgin."
She hesitated a moment, and then continued: "I'm agoin' to work reg'lur
fer him instead of to the theayter. I'm agoin' to git his breakfast and
clean his rooms. He'll pay me the same as I got. He's a sort of
eddicatin' me too."
"Why, how is that, Amarilly?" asked John in perplexity.
"He larnt me not to say 'et' and 'kin.'"
The rector's eyes twinkled.
"And," pursued Amarilly, after another moment of hesitancy, "he's larnt
me how to fix my hair. He says red hair is beautiful! He took me to a
restyrant."
John looked troubled at this statement, and felt that his call at the
studio would now be for a double purpose.
"'July 27,'" resumed Amarilly. "'The Boarder. 25 cents. Pade.'"
"Why, what possible use could he have for a surplice?"
"He's akeepin' company with a young gal--Lily Rose--and she wanted his
likeness tooken sorter fancy-like, so he wuz took in the surplus, and he
got himself framed in a gilt and shell frame, and she hez it ahangin'
over her bed. I didn't want no pay from him, cause he give us his money
when yours and Miss King's was gone, but he says as how it might bring
him luck in gittin' her, so I took a quarter of a dollar.
"'July 29. Mister Vergil Washington. Reckter Colered Church. 1 doller.
Pade.' Some one stole his'n off en the clo'es-line, and he only hed one.
"'July 31. Widder Hubbleston, 56 Wilkins St. 1 Doller. Pade.' She got
merried by an Episcopal minister, and he furgot his surplus, and that
was all she hed hired him fer, so she rented our'n fer him, and Mr.
Jimmels, her new husband, took it outen the minister's pay. Somethin'
allers goes wrong to her weddin's."
"Does she have them often?" interrupted John gravely.
"Quite frequent." "'Aug. 3, Mister Vedder, Ticket Seller to the
Theayter. 1 doller. Pade.' He wore it to a sheet and piller case party.
I didn't want fer to take nuthin' from him, cause he give us money when
we hed the fever, but he wouldn't hev it that way.
"'Aug. 5. Pete Noyes. Gum.' He's the boy what sells gum to the theayter.
He was agoin' to a party whar you hev to be the name of a book. He wore
the surplus so his name was the Little Minister. We took it out in gum--
spruce and pepsin. Iry swallered his'n every time, and Miss Hudgers was
afeard he'd be stuck together inside.
"'Aug. 9-23. Vawdevil Theayter. 5 dollers. Pade.' They put it on fer a
sketch.
"'Aug. 25. Mister Cotter. 25 cents. Pade.' He's a brakeman friend of the
Boarder. He wore it to a maskyrade.
"'Aug. 27. Poleece. 35 cents. Pade.'"
"Police!" ejaculated John faintly.
"Some one swiped it offen our clo'es-line, and when the police ketched
the thief, we was subpenyed, or ma was. She got thirty-five cents, and
all on us 'cept Iry went to hear her."
"'Aug, 29. Bishop Thurber. 5 dollers. Pade.'"
"Bishop Thurber!" the name was repeated with the force of an expletive.
"Seems to mind that more'n he did the police," thought Amarilly.
"It's quite a story," she explained, "and though it was orful at the
beginnin' it come out all right, jest as the plays all do. I jest
thought, I shouldn't hev put that down in the account, cause we give
back the five, so we didn't make nuthin' in a way. We wuz dead broke. I
suppose," she ruminated, "you don't know jest how orful it is to be
that."
"I don't, Amarilly, from my own experience," replied John
sympathetically, "but I can imagine how terrible it must be, and I am
very sorry--"
"Well, as long as it come out all right, it don't make no difference.
We'd got to pay our rent or else git put out, and I was up a stump till
the Boarder said to tackle a pawnshop. I didn't hev nuthin' but the
surplus to pawn, and I hated to pawn it on your account."
"I don't care, my child," was the fervent assurance, "where you took it
as long as it helped you in your troubles."
"Well, I was in a pawnshop, and the man was holdin' it up, and the
bishop went by, and when he seen what it was he come in, and asked me
all about it, and I told him. He took it worse than you do that I would
pawn it, and to save it he lent me five dollers. Course I made him take
the surplus till I hed the money to git it outen hock, and when we was
able to pay fer it, Bud went arter it. Thar was a boy practicin' at the
church next door, and he warn't singin' it right, and Bud he couldn't
keep still noway, so he up and sings the soler, and when the man at the
orgin hearn him, he fired the boy what was tryin' to sing, and hired Bud
in his place. He's agoin' to sing to a recital at Grace Church day arter
to-morrer, and git ten dollers. And we air goin' to make Bud bank all he
gits cause he ain't so strong as the rest of us. He may need it some
time. That's all the places the surplus went to. I guess I'll go outen
the costumin' business now, 'cause I'll be startin' in with Mr. Derry
soon."
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