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JERRY'S REWARD
[Illustration: "THEY NEVER SAW THE OLD FELLOW WITHOUT
SHOUTING." (_See page 21_)]
Cosy Corner Series
JERRY'S
REWARD
By
Evelyn Snead Barnett
_Illustrated by_
Etheldred B. Barry
_Boston_
_L. C. Page & Company_
1903
_Copyright, 1900, 1901_
By E. S. BARNETT
_Copyright, 1902_
By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published, May, 1902
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE INTERRUPTED GAME 11
II. THE SHADOW 16
III. PADDY AND PEGGY 22
IV. HARD TIMES 28
V. PEGGY OVERHEARS A STARTLING CONVERSATION 35
VI. THE POLICE ARE SUMMONED 41
VII. WHERE WAS PEGGY? 49
VIII. LUCK IN DISGUISE 58
IX. PADDY MAKES THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE 66
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"THEY NEVER SAW THE OLD FELLOW WITHOUT
SHOUTING" (_See page 21_) _Frontispiece_
"THEY STOOD IN A LONG ROW" 13
"HE TURNED AROUND SUDDENLY" 19
"'THE TOP OF THE MORNIN' TO YE'" 24
"ALL THE CHILDREN EXCEPT THE BABIES
STARTED FOR SCHOOL" 29
"ALTHOUGH SHE WAS WARMLY CLAD, THE RUSH
OF COLD AIR MADE HER SHIVER" 39
"'WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING HERE ALONE?'" 44
"A STURDY LEG EMERGING FROM HIS FRONT WINDOW" 53
"AROUND HIS TANNED AND WRINKLED NECK
WENT HER WHITE ARMS" 64
"AFTER THEM FOLLOWED THE NURSES, CARRYING
THE BABIES" 73
JERRY'S REWARD
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE INTERRUPTED GAME
Jefferson Square was a short street in Gaminsville, occupying just one
block. It took only two things on one side of it to fill up the space
from corner to corner. One was the Convent of the Good Shepherd, built
on a large lot surrounded by a high brick wall; the other, a common
where all the people around dumped cinders, rags, tin cans--in fact,
anything on earth they wished to throw away. On the other side were
dwelling-houses, and these were filled with children--lots of them.
There surely were never so many children on one square before!
There were the Earlys, the Rickersons, the Bakers, the Adamses, the
Mortons, and the Longs--twenty-one in all.
There were really twenty-eight; but the parents of seven children,
though they were not what you might call poor, were not well-born like
the others, so nobody counted them any more than they included them in
the games that the twenty-one played. This was sad for the seven little
outcasts, but the others never thought about that.
The twenty-one had splendid times together. It was play, play, play for
ever--dolls, pin fairs, circuses, and games. Every afternoon they
gathered in the Mortons' front gate, because it was wider and had three
stone steps leading down from it, where all the children could sit.
One evening, the latter part of August, the sun had dipped down behind
the world, leaving red splashes over a green sky. On seeing it the
children played fast and furiously, for they knew only too well that
when the sky looked like that they might at any moment be called
indoors, made to eat their suppers and go to bed.
[Illustration]
The oldest child of the lot was Henry Clay Morton. He was one of those
boys who try to have their way in everything, and generally succeed; so,
on this particular evening when he got tired playing "Grammammy Gray"
and proposed "Lost My Handkerchief," the others consented without any
fuss. The next thing to decide was who should be "ole man." They stood
in a long row, and Henry Clay, pointing, began at the top and gave each
child a word like this:
"Eeny, meany, miny, mo;
Cracky, feeny, finy fo;
Ommer neutcha, popper teucha;
Rick, bick, ban, do.
"Oner-ry, oer-ry, ickery Ann;
Phyllis and Phollis and Nicholas John;
Queevy quavy, English Navy,
Stinklum, stanklum, BUCK."
"Buck" was "ole man," and on this occasion happened to be Addison
Gravison Rickerson, a little pudgy boy who was called "Addy Gravvy"
for short. He took a handkerchief, and the children, joining hands,
formed a big circle. Then skipping behind them he sang:
"Lost my hankshuff yesterday,
Found it to-day,
Filled it full 'er water,
En dashed it away."
He sang the words twice, and then he let the handkerchief fall behind
little Nell Morton, but she was watching, so she grabbed it and chased
Addy Gravvy, trying to catch him before he could get round the circle
into her place. He ran so fast he would have beaten her had not Willie
Baker stuck out his foot, tripping him up so that little Nell easily
caught him.
Addy Gravvy protested: "That's no fair, I won't go in the middle." For
whoever got caught had to go in the middle until the close of the game.
"She is so little," explained Willie, "that she never could have caught
anybody."
"Then she oughtn't to play," said Addy Gravvy.
At this the children all began talking at once, for Nell was a
favourite, and matters were looking serious, when suddenly a shadow
crossed the bar of light made by the Mortons' open front door.
"Paddy!" "Paddy!" cried a dozen frightened ones, and the little group
took to their heels.
In two minutes the street was as silent as midnight, the only person
left being a little old man whose back was bent almost double. He
turned and looked after the children and gave a long, deep sigh.
CHAPTER II.
THE SHADOW
Of course you wish to know all about the crooked man whose very shadow
caused the children to stop their play and scamper to their homes.
You remember I told you that one side of Jefferson Square was occupied
by the Convent of the Good Shepherd and the common? Well, this convent
was a source of much interest and not a little awe to the children. They
were always curious to know what was going on behind those high brick
walls.
Nothing in the shape of a man, except the priests, was ever allowed
inside the convent. You can judge, then, of the flutter it caused
when one day at noon, as the children from their windows opposite were
watching the penitents playing in the garden in their blue dresses and
white caps, they saw a little man go boldly in their midst and with a
shovel begin turning up the soil.
To be sure he was old and ugly; his back was bent like a hoop, and his
long nose almost touched his toes as he leaned over his shovel--but all
the same he was a man.
"I wonder who on earth he can be!" said Fanny Morton, and the nurse who
was peering over her head thoughtlessly replied:
"One of Satan's own imps."
They did not see the newcomer for a long time after, then one morning
the word passed that he was there. This time the big iron gates at the
side were open, and he was wheeling barrows of coal into the convent
cellar.
The next meeting was on the common where he was raking over old
rubbish and abstracting rags and bits of iron. The children were
about to speak to him when something in his brown and wrinkled
face recalled the nurse-girl's remark about "Satan's imps," so
they were afraid and ran home.
I do not know who started it, but soon he came to be known as "Paddy on
the Turnpike," and just what this meant would be hard to say. While we
all know that Paddys are common enough in cities, still there wasn't a
turnpike for this one to be on within five miles of Jefferson Square.
Although the children were afraid of the old man, they could not help
teasing him whenever they got a chance. It seemed reckless and brave to
shout out something and then take to their heels. They dared not come
too near, for the same nurse-girl, seeing the sensation that her first
remark had created, added another more astonishing, to the effect that
Paddy had traded his soul to the devil, and was hunting the rubbish on
the common over, for sufficient money to buy it back. Which was, of
course, sheer nonsense, and if the children had been as good as all
children should be, they never for a moment would have believed such a
stupid untruth.
By degrees they grew bolder. They would creep behind when he was bending
over his ash pile, nearer and nearer. Then they would shout something
about the devil and his bartered soul, thinking they were brave indeed.
Once they approached so near that they almost touched him, but he turned
around suddenly and reached out his rake as if he were going to rake
them all in. At this a panic seized them, and they ran like young deer.
[Illustration: "HE TURNED AROUND SUDDENLY."]
Finally Henry Clay Morton made a rhyme about him, and the others took it
up. They never saw the old fellow without shouting to a sing-song tune
that they had made themselves:
"Paddy on the Turnpike
Couldn't count eleven,
Put him on a leather bed,
Thought he was in Heaven."
CHAPTER III.
PADDY AND PEGGY
Not seeming to hear the children, the old man used to work in silence,
gathering the bottles and rags and things and putting them in his bag.
Once a week he sold all he had found and brought the money home to his
wife.
Now Paddy and his wife lived in a little cottage on the far side of the
common. And Paddy's wife was always sick. The poor woman had had a
terrible accident in which she had been so badly crushed and twisted
that she was never free from pain a single moment.
Paddy would rise early in the morning, and, before he left to go to his
work, he would put her in her chair by the window so that she could look
out on the common, and here she sat knitting socks all day long.
She did not know many people, so she was much alone. None of the
neighbours in Jefferson Square were aware that such a person as
Mrs. Paddy existed, though they might have seen her, if they had
taken the trouble, every time they looked out of a front window;
for she lived in plain view of all the dwellings on the Square.
But though none of the "well-bred" people ever knew of Mrs. Paddy's
existence, sometimes the mother of the little outcasts who were too
common to be the associates of fine ladies would drop in "to straighten
things up a bit."
"Well, Mrs. Myer," she would say, "the top of the mornin' to ye. It's to
market I've just been and the butcher sent ye a posy," and she would put
a gay flower or two in the blue glass vase that stood on the sick
woman's window-sill.
Or maybe one of the little outcasts would bring a bowl of steaming soup.
"Mother thought you might like something to warm you up inside," the
child would say, and Mrs. Paddy, unknown and unknowing of the fine
world, would kiss and thank her with a smile that she must have learned
from the angels.
But no other soul ever visited Mrs. Paddy, and knitting at her window,
she led a solitary life indeed.
[Illustration]
And the whole heart of Mrs. Paddy was bound up in Paddy, strange as that
may seem. But, you must know, Paddy was a very different sort of a
person from what the children imagined him. No matter what she was
suffering, Mrs. Paddy had always a bright look for him, while, with her,
Paddy would grow so tender and his knotty features would smooth out so,
the children never would have recognised him.
And Paddy's thousand attentions could only have been prompted by a
loving heart. He even grudged every penny that he had to spend on
himself; and indeed he had often gone hungry that his Peggy might
have some little comfort.
You see, before she was hurt--before that dreadful day when the heavy
four-horse team knocked her down and all but crushed the life out of
her--he used to spend most of his earnings in drink. In fact, to tell
you the honest truth, he was almost always drunk. And sometimes--it
makes the tears come into his eyes to think of it now--he used to beat
her. When he was drunk, you know; never except when liquor had stolen
his brains.
Well, after she was brought in mangled and bleeding, he was so sorry he
had ever treated her unkindly that he nearly lost his mind. He prayed
to God to let her stay with him long enough for him to prove how much he
really loved her.
Afterwards when she lived, although but a crippled, suffering being, he
was so afraid that he might forget himself and abuse her again, that he
never touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee. The poor woman
used to say that it was worth all the pain, and more, too, to have her
husband always himself.
Giving up strong drink was not an easy task for him, and he often wanted
it; but he shunned the society of his drinking friends, and never once
went where he would be tempted.
He pretended not to hear the children's teasing, but it was only
pretence. You see, he loved children dearly. He once had two little
ones of his own, but God took them. For their dear sakes he had tender
feelings toward all children, and it hurt him that these on Jefferson
Square should run away from him every time he came near.
He also disliked their name for him; for his real name was Jerry, not
Paddy at all. He could not help telling his Peggy about it, especially
when they had been unusually thoughtless and teasing.
It was after one of such times that he said to her: "I think I'll have a
little speech with 'em. I'll tell 'em that far from wanting to hurt 'em,
I'll be their friend if they'll let me."
"Do, lovey," replied Mrs. Peggy, "for I'm hatin' to have 'em misjudge
you."
So the very next day he pretended to be raking and sifting until they
came nearer and nearer shouting their jibes and their jeers, when he
quickly turned around and facing them began his speech:
"Don't fear me, chil--" was all the further he got when the rosy cheeks
became as white as sheets and such scampering and rushing over one
another you never saw in all your life.
After that it was three whole days before a single one of them was bold
enough to come even in sight when he was bending over his work, and he
missed them so that he resolved never to attempt any conversation with
them again as long as he lived.
CHAPTER IV.
HARD TIMES
Things went on in this manner for some time. Then the hot summer was
over and the green leaves died and fell to the ground with a rustle. All
the children except the babies started to school. It became too cold to
play out-of-doors in the afternoon, and soon the days got so short that
there were no afternoons, and the children forgot it ever had been
summer at all.
If a body had not already known it, he would never have guessed that the
row of houses on one side of Jefferson Square contained twenty-eight
children toasting their toes by blazing fires.
We should say twenty-one, for the entire family of outcasts had moved
from the square to a more congenial neighbourhood, and Mrs. Paddy lost
the only friends she had. Instead of the bright faces smiling and
nodding to her every time they went in or out the front door, an ugly
white card, with "For Rent" in big black letters, stared at her all day,
reminding her sadly of the friends who were gone.
[Illustration: "ALL THE CHILDREN EXCEPT THE BABIES STARTED TO SCHOOL."]
Paddy noticed her looking a little forlorn one morning, so he said:
"The cold weather doesn't agree with you, Peggy; there's too much air
coming through the window cracks. I'll just move your chair away from
it, and as close to the fire as may be."
He had to leave her alone a great deal those days, for bread was high
and work scarce. To get either, a man had to start early so as to be
handy for any odd jobs that came his way.
Peggy was sometimes so lonely that she missed even the naughty children,
for in summer when they played on the common she could hear their young
voices and it was company for her. Now all she could see was a bare
brown waste with never a child in sight.
When Paddy was there bending over his ash heaps she didn't care, for
every little while he would look up from his work, and wave his hand,
and that was all she wanted.
Things got very desperate with the Paddys. Money became so scarce that
they couldn't buy coal, but had to use half-burned cinders from the
common instead. Peggy declared that they made a "real hot fire," and
she would joke about their large coal cellar--meaning the common--"that
never got empty--only fuller and fuller."
Paddy would come in shivering and shaking in his threadbare coat.
"And are you frozen entirely?" she would ask.
And he would answer: "I was mortal cold, but the sight of your gentle
face has warmed my blood. Faith, it's better than all the fires!"
Whenever the sun came out she would make him take her to the window
where she could warm herself in its rays. When her husband was working
at the ash piles she would wave to him.
"On those days," said Paddy, "I always have luck. The people throw out
more rags, and the cinders are in big lumps and only half burned."
Whenever he made a good find he waved his hand to her, but one day he
waved both hands and his cap, and she knew he had been unusually
fortunate.
He came straight in to show her. He had found a big silver dollar. It
was tarnished and black from the flames, but it was a good one with a
true ring.
"Whose can it be, I wonder!" exclaimed Peggy.
"If I knew I'd have to take it back," answered Paddy, "but,
unfortunately, people don't often leave their visiting cards on their
ash heaps."
This was not all. The very day after he found the dollar, Peggy, from
her window, saw more frantic waving.
This time it was a silver spoon!
"I can find the owner of that, I'm sure," says Paddy. And he made the
rounds of all the houses in the neighbourhood to see if they were
missing any spoons, but nobody claimed it.
Peggy cleaned it and made it shine like new. At first she didn't like to
use it--it was so beautiful--but her husband persuaded her that as long
as they couldn't sell it, seeing that the owner might be found some day,
she had better get the good of it. So she yielded, and declared that
the soup had an extra richness all on account of the silver.
"It's luck coming our way, dear," says Paddy. "Money in our pockets and
a silver spoon in our mouths--you'll see."
And it was so; though at first it took such a round-about path--- a
little way luck has--that they quite mistook it for something else.
CHAPTER V.
PEGGY OVERHEARS A STARTLING CONVERSATION
One cold morning in January Paddy built up a good fire, and, putting
Peggy in her wheel chair, he placed everything in reach that she could
possibly need.
"I'll not be back before dark, dearie," he said, "for outside of my
convent work I have a job at the wharf that will keep me all the day."
With this he kissed her on each pale cheek and on her sweet, patient
mouth, and left.
The little cottage in which the Paddys lived, you will remember, was on
the far side of the common. Behind it ran an alley where all sorts of
people lived,--negroes, beggars, tramps, all of them poor and some of
them desperate.
Peggy's cottage was at one end of the row, and the convent wall was
built up close to the side of it, leaving a space just wide enough for
one person to squeeze through. The walls of the cottage were so thin
that whenever the children hid in the narrow passage during their play,
the sick woman inside could hear every word they said--could almost hear
them breathe.
On the morning in question Peggy was sitting by her fire knitting so
fast that you could not tell needles from fingers nor fingers from
needles, when she heard the sound of talking between the cottage and
the convent wall. She could tell that the speakers were men.
"Now, why have they crept in that narrow crack to talk?" she mused.
A low voice said:
"Are you sure she'll not go back on us?"
Another answered:
"She's safe enough; I've fixed her."
"Listen to me," said the first voice; "you are to bring a bundle to the
side door at five o'clock. The nurse will let you in, and show you the
closet under the staircase. There you'll stay until the house is locked
up and everything settled for the night. After the children are asleep
and the grown people quieted by the drugged coffee--say when the
convent bell strikes ten--you will slip out and, unlocking the side
door, let me in. I have a plan of the house, and know where everything
of value is kept. We'll get a good, rich pull, and skip."
"You're certain no harm will come from spiking the drink?"
"Not if she obeys orders; it'll give 'em a bully night's rest; that's
all."
"How'll I know when it's safe to come out?"
"She says if anything happens not down on the books she'll come past
your hiding-place, and give two taps like this" (tapping). "In that
case you'll wait till you hear further."
"You'll be there to help, if I get caught? You won't slump?"
"Me? Never! Ain't I always been a man of honour?"
"They say old Morton's mighty game when once roused."
"But he won't be if we can help it; in case he is, and shows fight, why
then we'll have to----"
The rest of the sentence was lost, and the two men departed.
Poor Mrs. Peggy sat frozen to her chair in terror. What on earth could
she do! Her husband was gone for the day. There was no chance for his
return before six o'clock at least.
"Poor, useless body!" she exclaimed, "the neighbours' property in
danger, their very lives threatened, a traitor in their midst, and me
sitting here knowing it all, and not able to do anything!"
She was so distressed at her helplessness that tears rolled down her
thin cheeks. But soon she dried them and said, emphatically:
"There's no avoiding it; I must get word to Mrs. Morton!"
She thought harder than she had ever done before in all her life; then,
as if answering objections, she said aloud:
"If I can't get anybody to go for me, I will go myself."
She, poor soul, who had never moved unaided for five long years, except
to turn the wheels of her chair for a few yards in her little narrow
room!
She rolled herself away from the fire toward the door. With a little
difficulty she opened it, and peered out. Although she was warmly clad,
the rush of cold air made her shiver, but she wrapped one of her shawls
around her head and watched.
No one passed. Twelve o'clock struck. In a few hours it would be too
late.
[Illustration]
She sighed heavily. "Would it be possible for me to wheel myself over
the common and across the street? Could I ever reach that great house
alive?"
She did not think the Mortons' nurse knew her, though she remembered the
woman distinctly.
Then a new difficulty occurred to her. "Even if I succeed in making the
journey, can I get private speech with the right persons?"
She hesitated, then she added, bravely:
"Shame on me to think of giving up!" and throwing the door wide open,
with a mighty effort she pushed her chair over the sill.
It rolled down with a bump and on for a few feet until it was stopped by
a sharp stone.
It was only several inches from the door to the ground, nevertheless,
the jar gave her so much pain that she nearly fainted. She lay still for
some moments, more dead than alive.
"I must go! I have cut off all way of return now. Bumping down that step
was one thing; getting back would be impossible."
But when she tried to go on, her weakness was so great that she could
not make any progress. Her chair, wedged against the stone, was
immovable.
"O God," she prayed, "I don't know what to do now--help me!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE POLICE ARE SUMMONED
"Well, Mrs. Myer," exclaimed a bright, chirpy voice right behind her,
"whoever would have thought of seeing you spry enough to be
out-of-doors! Won't mother be glad?" and there stood the eldest little
Outcast, smiling broadly, and holding in her chubby hand a tin bucket,
that Peggy had seen many a time before.
"You've come just in time, dear heart," said the thankful Peggy. "Do you
think you could wheel me across the street?"
"Across the street?" reiterated the girl. "Won't it tire you very much?
Let me go for you."
"I fear you are too little for my business," replied Peggy, and as she
spoke the words a new idea for accomplishing her purpose entered her
mind. "Stay, love; I'll tell you what you can do. Take me back to the
house and you shall hear."
Miss Outcast did her best, and as the burden was not great and the chair
rolled easily, after some bumping and shoving and pushing, Mrs. Myer
found herself once more in her own room.
And, as she got her breath, she said: "Have you ever been to the river,
dearie?"
"Oh, yes," answered the child, "father takes us down there every Sunday.
We love to stand on the bridge and watch the water dashing against the
piers. It's such fun; you can't think."
"Could you go there alone?"
"Course I could; what do you want to know for?"
"Jerry is working there to-day, pet, and I have something important to
tell him. If you can find your way to the mail-boat landing where he is
helping to load up, and tell him to come to me right away, you'll be
doing a good action."