Hesba Stretton - The Ultimate Christmas Library - 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols

“I guess you’re like your father,” said Bess. “He believes in putting poor people into jails, otherwise institutions, instead of giving them a chance to make good where they are. And there aren’t enough institutions for them all. I never supposed there were so many poor people in this whole world as we have seen in Chicago.

“I used to just detest the word ’poor’– Nan’ll tell you,” confessed Bess. “I guess being with Nan has kind of awakened me to ‘our duties,’ as Mrs. Cupp would say,” and she laughed.

“Oh!” cried Grace. “I’d do for them, if I could. But I don’t even know how to talk to them. Sick babies make me feel so sorry I want to cry, and old women who smell of gin and want to sell iron-holders really scare me. Oh, dear! I guess I’m an awful coward!”

Nan laughed. “What are you going to do with that crisp dollar bill I saw your father tuck into your hand at breakfast, Gracie?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought. Papa is always so thoughtful. He knows I just can’t make ends meet on my fortnightly allowance.”

“But you don’t absolutely need the dollar?”

“No-o.”

“Then give it to us. We’ll spend it for something nice with which to treat those kid cousins that Inez told us about.”

“Good idea,” announced Walter. “It won’t hurt you to give it to charity, Sis.”

“All right,” sighed Grace. “If you really all say so. But there is such a pretty tie down the street at Libby’s.”

“And you’ve a million ties, more or less,” declared Bess. “Of course we’ll take it from her, Walter. Come on, now! I’m ready.”

Under Walter’s piloting the chums reached the street and number Inez had given Nan. It was a cheap and dirty tenement house. A woman told them to go up one flight and knock on the first door at the rear on that landing.

They did this, Walter insisting upon keeping near the girls. A red-faced, bare-armed woman, blowsy and smelling strongly of soapsuds, came to the door and jerked it open.

“Well?” she demanded, in a loud voice.

Bess was immediately tongue-tied; so Nan asked:

“Is Inez at home?”

“And who be you that wants Inez— the little bothersome tyke that she is?”

“We are two of her friends,” Nan explained briefly. It was plain that the woman was not in a good temper, and Nan was quite sure she had been drinking.

“And plenty of fine friends she has,” broke out the woman, complainingly. “While I’m that poor and overrun with children, that I kin scarce get bite nor sup for ’em. And she’ll go and spend her money on cakes and ice-cream because it’s my Mamie’s birthday, instead of bringing it all home, as I told her she should! The little tyke! I’ll l’arn her!”

“I am sorry if Inez has disobeyed you,” said Nan, breaking in on what seemed to promise to be an unending complaint. “Isn’t she here— or can you tell us where to find her?”

“I’ll say ‘no’ to them two questions immediate!” exclaimed the woman, crossly. “I beat her as she deserved, and took away the money she had saved back to buy more flowers with; and I put her basket in the stove.”

“Oh!” gasped Bess.

“And what is it to you , Miss?” demanded the woman, threateningly.

“It was cruel to beat her,” declared Bess, bravely, but unwisely.

“Is that so? is that so?” cried the virago, advancing on Bess with the evident purpose of using her broad, parboiled palm on the visitor, just as she would use it on one of her own children. “I’ll l’arn ye not to come here with your impudence!”

But Walter stepped in her way, covering Bess’ frightened retreat. Walter was a good-sized boy.

“Hold on,” he said, good-naturedly. “We won’t quarrel about it. Just tell us where the child is to be found.”

“I ain’t seen her for four days and nights, that I haven’t,” declared the woman.

That was all there was to be got out of her. Nan and her friends went away, much troubled. They went again to Mother Beasley’s to inquire, with like result. When they told that kind but careworn woman what the child’s aunt had said, she shook her head and spoke lugubriously.

“She was probably drunk when she treated the child so. If she destroyed Inez basket and used the money Inez always saved back to buy a new supply of bouquets, she fair put the poor thing out o’ business.”

“Oh, dear!” said Nan. “And we can’t find her on the square.”

“Poor thing! I wisht she had come here for a bite— I do. I’d have trusted her for a meal of vittles.”

“I am sure you would, Mrs. Beasley,” Nan said, and she and her friends went away very much worried over the disappearance of Inez, the flower-seller.

Walter Mason was not only an accommodating escort; he was very much interested in the search for Inez. Even Bess, who seldom admitted the necessity for boys at any time in her scheme of life, admitted on this occasion that she was glad Walter was present.

“That woman, poor little Inez’s aunt, would have slapped my face, I guess,” she admitted. “Isn’t it mean of her to speak so of the child? And she had beaten her! I don’t see how you had the courage to face her, Walter.”

“I should give him my medal,” chuckled Nan. “Where now, Walter?”

“To see that officer,” declared the boy.

The trio were again on the square where Inez had told Nan she almost always sold her flowers. Walter came back in a few moments from his interview with the police officer.

“Nothing doing,” he reported. “The man says he hasn’t seen her for several days, and she was always here.”

“I suppose he knows whom we mean?” worried Bess.

“Couldn’t be any mistake about that,” Walter said. “He is afraid she is sick.”

“I’m not,” Nan said promptly. “It is just as Mrs. Beasley says. If her aunt took Inez’s basket and money away, she is out of business. She’s lost her capital. I only hope she is not hungry, poor thing.”

“Dear, dear!” joined in Bess. “If she only knew how to come to us! She must know we’d help her.”

“She knows where we are staying,” Nan said. “Don’t you remember I showed her Walter’s card?”

“Then why hasn’t she been to see us?” cried Bess.

“I guess there are several reasons for that,” said sensible Nan.

“Well! I’d like to know what they are,” cried her chum. “Surely, she could find her way.”

“Oh, yes. Perhaps she didn’t want to come. Perhaps she is too proud to beg of us— just beg money , I mean. She is an independent little thing.”

“Oh, I know that,” admitted Bess.

“But more than likely,” Nan pursued, “her reason for not trying to see us was that she was afraid she would not be admitted to the house.”

“My gracious!” exclaimed Walter. “I never thought of that.”

“Just consider what would happen to a ragged and dirty little child who mounted your steps— even suppose she got that far,” Nan said.

“What would happen to her?” demanded the wondering Bess, while Walter looked thoughtful.

“If she got into the street at all (there is always a policeman on fixed post at the corner) one of the men at the house, the butler or the footman, would drive her away.

“You notice that beggars never come through that street. They are a nuisance and wealthy people don’t want to see people in rags about their doorsteps. Even the most charitable people are that way, I guess,” added Nan.

“Your mother is so generous, Walter, that if beggars had free access to the street and the house, she could never go out of an afternoon without having to push her way through a throng of the poor and diseased to reach her carriage.”