_ "AND is she here, mother?" asked Teddy, rushing into his mother's
room next morning as soon as there was light enough to see.
"Yis, b'y, she's here; but it's not long she'll be, savin' the mercy
o' God. It's the heavy sickness that's on her the morn."
"And will she die, mother?"
"The good Lord knows, not the likes of me, Teddy darlint."
"And you'll keep her, and do for her, mother, won't you?" asked the
boy anxiously.
"Sure and it wouldn't be Judy Ginniss that'd turn out a dying child,
let alone sending her to the poor'us. Thim that sint her to us will
sind us the manes to kape her," said the Irish woman confidently;
and leaving her little moaning, feverish charge dozing uneasily, she
rose, and went about the labors of the day.
"Here's the masther's shirts done, Teddy; and ye'd betther take thim
to his lodgings before yees go to the office. More by token, it's
him as u'd tell us what we'd ought to be doin' wid the darlint, if
she lives, or if she dies. Tell the masther all ye know uv her,
Teddy; an' ax him to set us sthraight."
"No, no, mother!" exclaimed Teddy eagerly; "I'll be doing no such
thing: for it's ourselves wants her, and any thing the master would
say would take her away from us. Sure and how often I've said I'd
give all ever I had for a little sister to be my own, and love me,
and go walking with me, and be took care by me; and, now one is
sent, if it's the good folks or if it's the good God sent her, I'm
going to keep her all myself. Sure, mother, you'll never be crossing
me in this, when it's yourself never crossed me yet; and more by
token, it'll keep me out of the streets, and such."
"Thrue for ye, Teddy; though it's you was alluz the good b'y to
shtop at home, an' niver ax fur coompany savin' yer poor owld
mother," said the washerwoman, looking fondly at her son.
"And you'll keep the child, and say nothing to nobody but she's our
own; won't you, mother?" persisted Teddy.
"Yis, b'y, if it's yer heart is set on it."
"It is that, mother; and you're the good mother, and it's I always
knowed, I mean knew it. And will I bring home a doctor to the little
sister?"
"No, Teddy; not yit. Faix, an' it's hard enough to live when we're
well; but it's too poor intirely we are to be sick. Whin the time
cooms to die, it's no doctherin' 'll kape us."
Teddy looked wistfully at the little burning face upon the coarse,
clean pillow: but he knew that what his mother said was true; and,
without reply, he took up the parcel of clothes, and left the room.
All through the long day, Mrs. Ginniss, toiling at her wash-tubs,
found a moment here and another there to sit upon the edge of the
bed, and smooth her little patient's hair, or moisten her glowing
lips and burning forehead, trying at intervals to induce her to
speak, if even but one word, in answer to her tender inquiries; but
all in vain: for the child already lay in the stupor preceding the
delirium of a violent fever, and an occasional moan or sigh was the
only sound that escaped her lips.
Toward night, Teddy, returning home an hour earlier than usual, came
bounding up the stairs, two at a time, but, pausing at the door,
entered as softly as a cat.
"How is the little sister now, mother?" asked he anxiously.
"Purty nigh as bad as bad can be, Teddy," said his mother
sorrowfully, standing aside as she spoke that the boy might see the
burning face, dull, half-closed eyes, and blackening lips of the
sick child, and touch the little hands feebly plucking at the
blanket with fingers that seemed to scorch the boy's healthy skin as
he closed them in his palm.
Teddy looked long and earnestly,--looked up at his mother's sad face,
and down again at the "little sister" whom he had taken to his heart
when he first took her to his arms; and then, shutting his lips
close together, and swallowing hard to keep down the great sob that
seemed like to strangle him, he turned, and rushed out of the room.
Mrs. Ginniss looked after him, and wiped her eyes.
"It's the luvin' heart he has, the crather," murmured she. "An' if
the baby wor his own sisther, it's no more he could care for her.
Sure an' if the Lord spares her to us, it's Teddy's sisther she
shall be, forever an' aye, while me two fists hoold out to work fer
'em."
An hour later, Teddy returned, conducting a stranger. Rushing into
the room before him, the boy threw his arms around his mother's
neck, and whispered hastily, in his broadest brogue,--
"It's a docther; an' he'll cure the sisther; an' it's not a cint
he'll be afther axin' us: but don't let on that she's not our own."
Mrs. Ginniss rose, and courtesied to the young man, who now followed
Teddy into the room, saying pleasantly,--
"Good evening, ma'am. I am Dr. Wentworth; and I came to see your
little girl by request of Teddy here, who said you would like a
doctor if you could have one without paying him."
Mrs. Ginniss courtesied again, but with rather a wrathful look at
Teddy, as she said,--
"And it's sorry I am the b'y should be afther beggin' of yees,
docther. I thought he'd more sinse than to be axin' yees to give
away yer time, that's as good as money to yees."
"But my time is not as good as money by any means," said Dr.
Wentworth, laughing as he took off his hat and coat; "for I have
very little to do except to attend patients who cannot give more
than their thanks in payment. That is the way we young doctors
begin."
"An' is that so indade! Sure an' 'Meriky's the place fur poor folks
quite an' intirely," said Mrs. Ginniss admiringly.
"For some sorts of poor people, and not for others. Unfortunately,
bakers, butchers, and tailors do not practise gratuitously; so we
poor doctors, lawyers, and parsons have to play give without take,"
said the young man, warming his hands a moment over the
cooking-stove.
"An' sure it was out of a Protistint Bible that I heard wonst, 'Him
as gives to the poor linds to the Lord:' so, in the ind, it's yees
that'll come in wid your pockets full, if ye belave yer own
Scripter," said Mrs. Ginniss shrewdly.
The young doctor gave her a sharp glance out of his merry brown
eyes, but only answered, as he walked on to the bedside,--
"You have it there, my friend."
For several moments, there was silence in the little room while Dr.
Wentworth felt his patient's pulse, looked at her tongue, examined
her eyes, and passed his hand over the burning skin.
"H'm! Typhoid, without doubt," said he to himself, and then to Mrs.
Ginniss,--
"Can you tell the probable cause of the child's illness, ma'am? Has
she been exposed to any sudden chill, or any long-continued cold or
fatigue?"
Mrs. Ginniss was about to reply by telling all she knew of the
little stranger; but catching Teddy's imploring look, and the
gesture with which he seemed to beg her to keep the secret of his
"little sister's" sudden adoption, she only answered,--
"Sure an' it's the cowld she took last night but one is workin' in
her."
"She took cold night before last? How was it?" pursued the doctor.
"She was out late in the street, sure, an' the clothes she'd got
wasn't warm enough," said the washwoman, her eyes still fixed on
Teddy, who, from behind the doctor, was making every imploring
gesture he could invent to prevent her from telling the whole truth.
The doctor did not fail to notice the hesitation and embarrassment
of the woman's manner, but remembering what Teddy had told him of
his mother's poverty, and her own little betrayal of pride when he
first entered, naturally concluded that she was annoyed at having to
say that the child had been sent into the street without proper
clothing, and forbore to press the question.
Ah Teddy and Teddy's mother! if you had loved the truth as well as
you loved little lost 'Toinette, how much suffering, anxiety, and
anguish you would have saved to her and her's!
But the doctor asked no more questions, except such as Mrs. Ginniss
could answer without hesitation; and pretty soon went away,
promising to come again next day, and taking Teddy with him to the
infirmary where medicine is furnished without charge to those unable
to pay for it.
Before the boy returned, 'Toinette had passed from the stupid to the
delirious stage of her fever; and all that night, as he woke or
dozed in his little closet close beside his mother's door, poor
Teddy's heart ached to hear the wild tones of entreaty, of terror,
or of anger, proving to his mind that the delicate child he already
loved so well had suffered much and deeply, and that at no distant
period.
Toward morning, he dressed, and crept into his mother's room. The
washerwoman sat in the clothes she had worn at bed-time, patiently
fanning her little charge, and, half asleep herself, murmuring
constantly,--
"Ah thin, honey, whisht, whisht! It's nothin' shall harm ye now,
darlint! Asy, now, asy, mavourneen! Whisht, honey, whisht!"
"Lie down and sleep, mother, and let me sit by her," whispered Teddy
in his mother's ear; and, with a nod, the weary woman crept across
the foot of the bed, and was asleep in a moment. _