The Alchemist's Secret Part 8

"Miss Merton, it can't be true, what Louise has just been telling us, that you are going to let that horrid Julie Benoit come back again. You surely wouldn't take her back, would you, Miss Merton?"

"Yes, it is perfectly true," replied the forewoman calmly. "Julie will return to us next Monday, and I hope all my girls will do everything they can to make her feel that we are glad to have her back."

"But we're not glad. We don't want her back," cried one girl.

"Why it's impossible after what she did," added another.

"I, for one, wouldn't work in the same room with a girl like that," said a third, with a toss of her head. "I wouldn't dare leave any of my belongings out of my sight for a single instant."

"That's just the trouble," chimed several all at once. "We wouldn't feel safe for a moment knowing there was a thief amongst us."

During this outburst the forewoman sat quietly watching the indignant faces before her. Then she said very gravely:

"Girls, I think we all misjudged Julie, and really almost owe her an apology. I have asked her pardon, and though I do not expect you to do the same, I do ask you to receive her back with kindness."

"Misjudged her! Apology!" gasped Speckles. "She took that money, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"And a person who takes money that belongs to someone else is a thief, isn't she?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well then, I say a thief is a thief, and I don't see where any misjudging comes in," and Speckles looked defiantly from one to another.

A tall blonde whose thoughtful blue eyes had been studying the forewoman's face, laid her hand on the excited girl's arm, remarking gently:

"Let's not judge too hastily, Speckles dear. I think Miss Merton has something to tell us. For my part I used to pity Julie, she seemed so weak and sickly and so terribly alone. She was with us but she was not one of us."

"Pity your grandmother," cried Speckles the irrepressible. "If she was alone all the time, it was her own fault. She was a stuck-up old thing and wouldn't make friends with any of us. If you'd speak to her she'd only stare at you with those fierce black eyes of hers and answer yes or no just as short and snappy as you please."

"I doubt if we tried very hard, any of us, to win her friends.h.i.+p, the poor little thing. And she did seem so forlorn and lonely at times,"

answered the blonde. "But there, girls, let's all keep quiet if we can for I know Miss Merton has something to tell us."

"You are right, Louise, I have a little story to tell you, the story of Julie Benoit," and she told them Julie's story as she had heard it from Julie herself. In conclusion, she added: "When I left that poor child beside her dead mother, I went at once to the superintendent and told him the whole story. You girls know how kind he is; many of you have had personal experience of his charity. He called in his wife and together they planned to bury Julie's mother as a Catholic should be buried, they to stand all the expense. They have also undertaken to see that the younger children are sent to school and the grandmother properly cared for, and Julie is to return to her place here on Monday.

"I wish you could have seen her face when I went back to those two dreadful rooms in the alley where she lives and told her what the superintendent and his wife had said. She stared at me, amazed, incredulous; then said slowly in an awed whisper:

"'They do all that for me, Julie Benoit the thief! You tell the lady it is I who steal her money but she forgive and have my mother buried like a Christian. She have her taken into church where the priest will bless her and pray over her. She have her buried where I can go and kneel beside her grave and tell her that I love her still and that I forget her never, no never. The lady do all that for me who steal her money.

But she is good, she is kind to forgive me.'

"After a moment's thought, she added: 'You think G.o.d will forgive me too? I very bad, very wicked; I say all those dreadful things about Him, but He will forgive me, is it not so? Grandmother say He good and kind.

You think He will forgive me if I ask Him?'

"It was a very different Julie that I left that night; oh! very different from the girl who met me with such fierceness earlier in the evening. Just as I was leaving, she said to me very humbly: 'The girls at the factory, you think they will forgive me also? I very rude to them; I say I hate them all. You think they will forgive me?'

"So now, my girls, your welcome to Julie on Monday morning will be the best answer to that question."

"Will we forgive her, the poor girl!" cried Speckles impulsively. "You bet we will. If there's any one here who won't be kind to that poor little Julie, she'll just have to reckon with me. I think it is we who should ask her to forgive us, for I must admit we were all rather hateful to her. Oh, I say, girls! I've just got an idea," she continued.

"Here, Louise, just hand me one of those empty boxes from that shelf over your head. There you are. Now then, this is a hat and I pa.s.s it around to each one of you, so. I say to each one of you: 'Did you notice that poor Julie has been wearing a thin summer coat all this bitter winter weather? It used to make me s.h.i.+ver just to look at her. Did any of you notice that her shoes were all broken through and even in rain or snow storms she never had any rubbers to wear over them?' Suppose each one of us chip in a few pennies, we can all spare a little, and have Miss Merton give it to her to buy shoes or something for herself.

I'll start with fifty cents."

The box was pa.s.sed from one to another, each contributing what she could, and each contribution meaning more or less of a sacrifice to the donor. In this way a goodly sum was collected and laid on Miss Merton's table.

"There, girls," said the triumphant Speckles. "That will show Julie whether we have forgiven her or not. And now, do you hear that musical whistle calling us back to our places? We'd better hustle for the machines will start up in a minute or two. Machines are like time and the tide, they wait for no man. Nor woman, either, not even for Julie Benoit," and with a laugh, Speckles was off like the wind.

As the girls departed, each to her own machine or work-table, Miss Merton looked after them, a tear in her eye and a smile upon her lips.

"G.o.d bless my girls," she said to herself. "Their hearts are in the right place, every one of them. I need have no fear of the welcome they will give my poor little Julie Benoit."

PETER.

Peter was thinking. Not that it was an unusual event for Peter to think.

Quite the contrary! To Peter himself it seemed that life was one continuous round of thinking and planning and worrying. It certainly was for him, especially since the advent of the baby, that wonderful baby sister of his. Somehow things had not mattered so much before, when there was no one to be considered but himself. Now it was different, with his baby to be thought of and cared for. Peter was worried and anxious. He felt that a great responsibility rested upon his shoulders.

They were young shoulders, too, far too young to be burdened with the cares and troubles of life.

The winter wind came tearing down the street, stinging his face and piercing through his thin garments. s.h.i.+vering, he turned up the collar of his worn and ragged coat and thrust his hands deep into the pockets.

Then he hastened on with eyes on the ground and bent down head, for Peter was thinking. A mighty problem confronted him, a problem which must be solved at once.

He turned into the dirty, narrow alley in which he lived, opened the door of a tenement house, and, running quickly up a flight of stairs, entered Mrs. Dempsey's kitchen. The savory odor of frying ham greeted his nostrils and reminded him that he had had nothing to eat since morning. Well, never mind that, he would have supper soon now, he and baby together.

"Bless me, Peter, is that you home so early?" cried cheery Mrs. Dempsey turning around from the stove, frying-pan in one hand, a large fork in the other. "You must have had good luck to-night to be back so early."

Peter caught up in his arms the pretty child who toddled across the floor and threw herself upon him with a shriek of delight. With a gravity befitting his great responsibility, he seated himself upon a nearby chair, holding the baby close to him and smoothing back the tangled yellow curls.

"Yes, Mrs. Dempsey, I had real good luck to-night. Was all sold out long afore the other fellers, then hustled right home to baby. I hope she wasn't no bother to ye, Mrs. Dempsey."

"Bother is it? The darlin', an' she as quiet as a little lamb. It's an angel she is entirely an' ye'd think so yerself if ye could have seen the nice supper of bread and milk she ate along with my own young ones."

"Does angels eat bread and milk, Mrs. Dempsey?" Peter asked the question in all sincerity. He had often wondered about angels and he really wanted to know.

"Oh, I guess they does," replied the good woman absently, too busy with her cooking to pay much heed to what Peter was saying. "Goin', Peter?

Wish ye could stay and have a bite yerself, but I suppose if that precious father of your'n come home and his supper warn't ready he'd make it pretty hot for you, poor child. Well, good-night, Peter. Bring the baby back in the morning."

"By the way, Peter," she called after him just as he was closing the door. "To-morrow's Christmas day ye know. Don't forget to drop into the church on yer way home and hear Ma.s.s, like a good boy."

Peter's ideas on the subject of religion were very vague. Mrs. Dempsey had told him he must always attend Ma.s.s on Sunday and reminded him of the fact every Sat.u.r.day night when he would come to claim the baby.

Perhaps Christmas was another sort of Sunday, thought Peter. To him Christmas had always meant a time when other boys and girls talked of nothing but Christmas trees and turkey and wonderful presents they had received. No one had ever given Peter anything. He wondered if Mrs.

Dempsey would. He had not known Mrs. Dempsey last Christmas; she came to the alley only a few months ago. Life had been somewhat easier for Peter since her coming for she helped so much in caring for baby while he was out. He wished Mrs. Dempsey would give baby something for Christmas. He had hoped to do so himself, but somehow he never could find a cent for anything except the absolute necessities of life. Sometimes he could do no more than provide bread and milk for the baby and go hungry himself.

That was when father would beat him and take away the few pennies he was saving to buy food for the little sister and himself.

With baby held carefully in his arms, Peter descended the two flights of stairs to his home in the cellar. As he pushed open the door of the room which served as kitchen and living room in the daytime and as sleeping apartment for himself and baby at night, the damp chill of the place struck him as it never had done before. Groping his way to the table he lighted the candle upon it. Then, after wrapping baby in his mother's old shawl and depositing her upon their bed in the corner, he proceeded to make a fire in the cracked and rusty stove. Peter was only eleven, but the children of the slums are little men and women almost from their cradles, and Peter was really the man of the family. He it was who cared for the baby and prepared their frugal meals; he it was who cried his papers upon the street in the cold darkness of the winter mornings, who ran errands all day for the grocer on the next corner and again in the evening sallied forth with his papers under his arm in order to procure food to keep the life in their bodies. If father ever earned any money but little of it was contributed to the family support.

As Peter wrestled with the fire, which positively refused to kindle, he was still revolving in his mind the problem which troubled him. He had been thinking of it all day, and the only thing he could decide was that something must be done at once, but what that something was to be he could not imagine. Things had been going from bad to worse lately, and after last night he would never know an easy moment while baby was under the same roof with father and mother. For himself he did not care.