Grandfathers -- Juvenile fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction; Poor girls -- Juvenile fiction
With a desperate desire for guidance, Glory burst out her whole story
and Mary Fogarty was forced to listen, whether or no. To that good
woman's credit it was that as she listened her really warm heart, upon
which Timothy Dowd had counted, got the better of her impatience and,
once more closing the door upon her peeping children, she said,
"Why, you poor, brave little creatur'! Come this way. I'll show you
where, though you must carry the baby yourself, if so be she won't carry
herself. I've got seven o' my own an' I wouldn't have nothin' catchin'
get amongst them, not for a fortune. I wouldn't dare. I've had 'em down,
four er five to a time, with whooping-cough an' measles an' scarletina
an' what not; an' now sence the twinses come, I don't want no more of it
I can tell you. Don't lag."
Mary strode along, "like a horse," as her husband frequently
complimented her, walking as fast as she was talking and, with Bonny
Angel in her arms, Goober Glory did her best to keep a similar pace. But
this was impossible. Not only were her feet heavy beneath the burden she
bore, but her heart ached with foreboding. With Bonny Angel ill, how was
the search for grandpa to go on? How to look for the little one's own
people? Yet how terrible that they must be left in their grief while she
could do nothing to comfort them.
"Oh, if they only knew! She's so safe with me, I love her so. If I could
only tell them! I wonder--I wonder who they are and where they are and
shall I ever, ever find them!" she exclaimed in her anxiety as, coming
to the wagon-house door, she found Mistress Fogarty awaiting her.
That lady answered with her own cheerful exclamation, "'Course you will.
Everything comes right, everywhere, give it time enough. Now step right
up into this loft. There's a bed here that the extry man sleeps on when
there is an extry. None now. Real gardenin' comes to a standstill when
Dennis has the chills. You can put the baby down there an' let her sleep
her sleep out. You might 's well lie down yourself and take a snooze,
bein' you're that petered out a luggin'.
"I must get back an' start up dinner," continued Mary. "It's a big job,
even with Dennis round to peel and watch the fryin'. Seven youngsters of
my own, with him an' me, and ten boarders----My, it takes a pile of
bread to keep all them mouths full, let alone pies an' fixin's. It's
vegetable soup to-day, and as the gang's working right nigh, they'll all
be in prompt. I won't forget ye, an' I'll send something out to ye by
somebody--but don't you pay me back by giving one of my children
anything catchin'!"
Before Glory could assure the anxious mother that she would do her
utmost for their safety, Mary had run down the rude stairs, shaking the
shed-like building as she ran, and was within the red cottage ere the
visitor realized it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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