The earnestness in the little, shrewd face, the quaver of her voice, the clutch of her fingers around Dorothy’s neck, all impressed the girl from Glenwood Hall as to just how much the finding of the big, lost brother meant to little Celia Moran.
“I haven’t found him yet, dear,” she said, brokenly. “But I will—I will—find him. I have written a letter, and I am going to keep on searching—Oh, my dear! I know I shall find him for you in the end. Just you have patience.”
“That’s what the matron used to say at the Findling,” said Celia. “But, do you know patience is a nawful hard thing to keep?”
“I expect it is, dear.”
“And you’ll be sure to find the right Tom Moran,” urged the little girl. “You know, he’s big, and he’s got ever so red hair, and he builds bridges and things.”
“I shall find the right one,” promised Dorothy.
88 “You see, Mrs. Hogan don’t want me to talk about him,” said the child, faintly. “When I forgets and does, she says: ‘Drat the young ’un! Ain’t she thankful for havin’ a home?’
“But, do you know,” pursued Celia, her voice dropping to a whisper again, “I’se afraid I ain’t as thankful as I doughter be—no, I ain’t.”
“Not thankful?”
“No, ma’am! I can’t somehow jes’ feel thankful for Mrs. Ann Hogan.”
Dorothy could not blame her for this, but she did not feel it right to agree with her. “Oh, my dear! I expect Mrs. Hogan is kind to you—in her way,” she said.
“Yes, I ’spect so,” sighed Celia, nodding slowly. “But you can’t jes’ get uster some folkses’ ways; can you? It—it was better in the Findling—yes, it was, Dorothy. And I hoped if any lady took me away it would be a nice, cuddly one.”
“A cuddly one?” repeated Dorothy. “What sort of a lady is that?”
“Why, you know,” Celia said, with eagerness. “The kind that cuddles you, and makes a-much over you. Of course, you never was a Findling, Dorothy?”
“Oh, no, dear! I haven’t any mother, any more than you have; but I have a dear, dear father and two brothers——”
“Well, you see,” interrupted the eager little89 one, “some of the ladies what come for the findlings just fall right in love with them. The matron lady always dresses ’em up real pretty, and curls their hair, and makes ’em look as pretty as they can look.
“You see,” she added, in an explanatory way, “I was so nawful thin—scrawny, the matron said—the mother-ladies what comed to find a findling didn’t care much for me.”
Dorothy could understand that it was the pretty, plump children who would mostly attract those lonely hearts reaching out for the babies that God had denied them.
“You see,” pursued Celia, “Mrs. Hogan wanted a young one that could work. She told the matron so. I was gettin’ so big that they had to let somebody have me pretty soon, or I’d have to go to the Girls’ School—an’ the matron said ‘God forbid!’ so I guess the Girls’ School ain’t a very nice place for little girls to go,” and Celia shook her head wisely.
“But, you see, I hoped an’ hoped that one of the cuddly ladies would take me. I seen one carry Maisie—she was my little friend—right out of the Findling, and down the steps, and into a great, big, be-youtiful ortermobile. She hugged her tight all the way, too, an’ I think—she cried over her. The matron said she’d lost a little girl that looked like Maisie.
90 “But I didn’t look like nobody that was lost—not at all. They all said when they looked at me: ‘She’s jes’ the cutest little thing!’ But somehow they didn’t love me.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Dorothy, gathering Celia into her arms again. “I don’t see why all the lonesome mothers that came there to the asylum didn’t fall in love with you right away!”
There was a great stamping upon the porch and the door flew open. Dorothy saw that the whole world outside seemed to be one vast snowbank. Mrs. Hogan, puffing and blowing, in knee boots and her man’s outfit, was covered with snow.
“That Jim Bentley’s gone home—bad ’cess t’ him. Though ’tis me saves a supper thereby. An’ he niver got the hoss up at all, at all!” she cried, wiping her red face on a towel hanging by the sink, and then shedding her outside garments, boots and all, in a heap by the hot stove.
“’Tis an awful night out,” she pursued. “’Tis lucky ye came here as ye did, Miss. We’re safe and sound, the saints be praised! An’ I got the ould hoss on his feet, mesilf, an’ no thanks to that lazy spalpane, Jim Bentley. The Lord is good to the poor Irish.”
Dorothy decided that the man, Jim Bentley, must be a neighbor whom Mrs. Hogan hired to do some of her heavy work. But the Amazon91 seemed quite capable of doing a good deal of farm work herself.
Now she set about getting supper, and she kept Celia Moran hopping to run her errands, fetch and carry, and otherwise aid in the preparation of the meal. It was no banquet; merely hot bread and fried pork, with some preserves, the latter evidently opened for the delectation of the “paying guest.”
Mrs. Hogan made it plain at every turn that she expected to be paid for everything she did for Dorothy. She was a veritable female miser. Dorothy had never imagined such a person in all her life before.
And, although the woman did not really put her hand upon little Celia, she was continually threatening her and hustling her about. She seemed even to begrudge the poor child her food, and the infinitesimal portion of preserve that was put upon Celia’s plate was, to Dorothy’s mind, “the last straw.”
The school girl boldly changed saucers with Celia and gave the little one her share of the sweetmeat.
Mrs. Hogan would not let her guest assist in clearing up after supper. Celia, in a long apron tied around her throat by its strings, and dragging on the floor so that her little feet in their worn shoes were impeded when she tried to walk, stood92 upon a box at the kitchen sink and washed the pile of dishes, while her mistress dried them—scolding and admonishing all the time.
“Av all the young imps of Satan! looker that now! D’ye not know tis wrong ter wash the greasy dishes first? How often must I tell ye? An’ her water’s not hot.
“That’s it! pour in some more. ’Tis too hot for ye? ’Twill cool. An’ yer han’s no bether nor mine, an’ w&rsq............