The Heart Line 3

The Heart Line 3

"Only some peanuts I was eating, Mamsy," said the boy, guiltily watching

her.

 

"Somebody has been in Toledo, somebody has been in New York! I can see

the smoke of the trains!" Her eyes traveled around an invisible path,

from mound to mound of dirt and scraps, noticing the slight

displacements the boy had made in his quest for food. He watched her

sharply, but without fear.

 

"Oh, the train didn’t stop, Mamsy; they were express trains, you know."

 

"Don’t tell me, don’t tell me!"

 

She pointed with her slender forefinger here and there. "New Orleans is

safe; New Orleans is always a safe, strait-laced old town; but the place

isn’t what it was! They’ve left the French quarter now to the Creoles,

but I know a place on Royal Street where the gallery whispers—O God!

that gallery with the magnolia trees—and the leper girl across the

street in the end room!" Her voice had sunk to a harsh whisper; now it

rose again. "Chicago—all right. I wouldn’t care if it weren’t.

Baltimore—_he_ never was in Baltimore. But what’s the matter with

Denver? Somebody’s been to Denver!" She turned her gaze point-blank

upon Francis.

 

He met it fairly.

 

"Oh, no, Mamsy, nobody ever goes to Denver, Mamsy dear!"

 

She knelt down and groped tentatively, sensitively, across the layer of

dust that sloped toward the corner, by the bay-window. She turned,

still on all-fours, to shake her finger at him, and say solemnly: "Don’t

ever go to Denver, Francis! Denver’s a bad place, a very wicked place.

They gamble in Denver, they gamble yellow money away." She arose,

apparently either satisfied or diverted in her quest, to turn her back

to the boy and look inside the bag she had been holding.

 

"Go outside, Francis!" she commanded, after fumbling with its contents.

 

He walked to the door and passed into the hall. Here he waited,

listening listlessly, drumming softly upon the railing. The room was

silent for a while; then he heard a muffled pounding, as of one stamping

down the surface of the matted dirt. At last she called him and he went

in again. Madam Grant’s face was placid and kind.

 

She proceeded to occupy herself busily at the little oil stove, putting

into the greasy frying-pan some chops which she had brought home with

her. The spluttering and the pungent odor of the frying fat soon filled

the two rooms. She cut a few slices from a loaf of stale bread, and set

the meager repast forth upon the top of a wooden box.

 

"Come and have dinner, Francis!" she said, with a sweet look at him.

 

That the boy was far older than his years was evident by the way he

watched her and took his cue from her, humoring her in her madder

moments, restraining her in her moods of mystic exaltation, pathetically

affectionate during her lucid intervals. She was in this last phase now,

and from time to time, in the course of their meal, his hand stole to

hers. Its pressure was softly returned.

 

"What have you read to-day?"

 

"I finished _Gulliver_."

 

"What did you think of it?"

 

"Why, somehow, it seemed just like it might be true."

 

"_As if_ it might be true, Francis—what did I tell you?" Her tone grew

severe, almost pedagogic. "You must be careful of your talk, my boy!

Never forget; it is important. You’ll never get on if you’re careless

and common. You will often be judged by your speech. What else did you

read?"

 

"I tried Montaigne’s _Essays_, but I couldn’t understand much. It

seemed so dull to me. But there’s one, _Whether the Governor of a Place

Besieged Ought Himself to go out to Parley_. I like that!"

 

Madam Grant laughed. "I’d like to have known Montaigne; he was a kind

of old maid, but he was a modern, after all; common sense will do if you

can’t get humor."

 

"Where did you get all these books, Mamsy?"

 

Her face grew blank again; her eyes wandered. She recited in a sort of

croon:

 

"Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never

repented his sin.

How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of

his kin?"

 

 

A frightened look came on the boy’s face and his hand went to hers

again.

 

"Mamsy, Mamsy!" he cried. "Come back, Mamsy! I want you!"

 

She turned to him as if she had never seen him before. "Oh!" she said,

and drew aside. Then: "You mustn’t ask questions, my boy."

 

"I won’t, Mamsy."

 

"You’re a good little boy and you came out of the dark," she pursued.

 

"Out of the dark?" he repeated, tempting her on. His curiosity was

manifest.

 

"Don’t you remember?"

 

"I’m not sure. They was a place—"

 

"There was a place," she corrected.

 

"There was a place where they beat me, and I ran away, and I found you,

and you were good to me."

 

"No, it is you who have been good—I’m not good; I’m bad, Francis."

 

"I know you’re good, Mamsy, because you teach me to do everything right,

and I love you!"

 

With a quick impulse she clasped him to her, but even as she did so, her

face changed again, this time with an __EXPRESSION__ of pain. She put her

hand to her heart suddenly and moaned. He watched her in terror.

 

"Get the bottle!" she commanded huskily, dropping to the floor, to

support herself on her elbow.

 

He ran to a little bath-room beside the closet, brought a bottle and

spoon, poured out a dose of the medicine and put it to her lips.

Finally she sat up, listening.

 

"Somebody’s coming. _She_ is coming! Come here, Francis! Quickly!"

 

Taking him by the hand, she led him to the closet in the back room,

pushed him inside, closed the door and locked it.

 

It was dark in the closet, but he knew its contents as well as if he

could see them. Upon a row of shelves were account-books and papers

covered with dust. On nails in the wall his own small stock of clothes

hung, and in a wooden box on the floor were his playthings—blocks, a

wooden horse, several precious bits of twine and leather, a collection

of spools and a toy globe. He sat down on this box patiently and

waited.

 

Presently there came a knock at the hall door. Madam Grant opened it and

some one entered. He heard his guardian’s voice saying:

 

"Come in, Grace, here I am, such as I am, and here you are, such as you

are." Then her voice changed, becoming tremulous and excited. "Ah, but

she’s beautiful! May I kiss her, Grace? Oh, what eyes! Her father’s

eyes, aren’t they? Don’t be afraid, Grace, let her come to me."

 

There was a reply in a soft voice which Francis could not make out, as

they passed into the front room. He tried to peep through the keyhole,

but as the key had been left in, he could see nothing. He sat down upon

the box again to wait, playing with his toy globe. After a while he

noticed a thin streak of light admitted by a crack in the panel of the

door, and rose to see if he could see through it. At the height of his

eye it was too narrow to show him anything in the room, but farther up

it widened. He pulled down several account-books from the shelves and

piled them upon the box. Standing tiptoe upon these, he found that he

could get a clear though limited view of the bay-window.

 

Here a little girl sat quietly, vividly illuminated in the sunshine.

She was scarcely more than four years of age and was dressed in a navy

blue silk frock whose collar and pockets were elaborately trimmed with

ruffles of white satin and bows of ribbon. She wore a white muslin cap

decorated with ribbon, lace and rosebuds; white stockings showed above

her high buttoned boots; her hair was a truant mass of fine-spun

threads, curling, tawny yellow. Her face was round, her eyes

extraordinarily wide apart under level, straight brows. What caught and

held his attention, however, as he watched, was a velvety mole upon her

left cheek, so placed as to be a piquant ornament rather than a

disfigurement to her countenance. She sat listening, tightly holding a

woolly lamb in her plump little arms. The two women were out of his

range of vision.

 

The steady low sound of voices came to him, but he made no attempt to

listen—his attention was riveted upon the figure of the little girl who

was sharply focused, as in an opera-glass, directly in his field of

view. Occasionally, as she was spoken to, she smiled, and her cheek

dimpled; but she seemed to be looking at him, through the door. She

scarcely moved her eyes, but kept them fixed in his direction, as if

conscious of an invisible presence.

 

The women talked on. Occasionally Madam Grant’s voice rose to a more

excited note, and a few words came to him, betraying to his knowledge of

her that her mood had been interrupted by her customary vagaries. At

such times the little girl would withdraw her glance to gaze solemnly in

Madam Grant’s direction; she showed, however, no signs of alarm. It

seemed, indeed, as if the little girl understood, even as he understood,

the temporary aberration. Then her eyes would return to his, as if

drawn back by his gaze.

 

So the scene lasted for a half-hour, during which time he caught no

glimpse of the other visitor. At last a hand was outstretched and the

little girl rose. Francis stepped down for a moment to rest himself from

his strained position; when he had put his eye again to the crack she

had passed out of his line of sight.

 

He was to catch a few words more, however, before the callers left.

 

"I’m glad you came to-day," Madam Grant said. "You were just in time."

 

"Why, are you going to leave here?"

 

"Yes, I’m going away."

 

"Felicia," the visitor said earnestly, "why won’t you let us take care of you? This is no place for you—it is dreadful to think of you here!Now, while you are able to talk to me, do let me do something for you!"