Calvary Alley

Chapter XV. Marking Time

Early in the autumn Birdie took flight from the alley, and Nance found herself hopelessly engulfed in domestic affairs. Mr. Snawdor, who had been doing the work during her long absence, took advantage of her return to have malarial fever. He had been trying to have it for months, but could never find the leisure hour in which to indulge in the preliminary chill. Once having tasted the joys of invalidism he was loathe to forego them, and insisted upon being regarded as a chronic convalescent. Nance might have managed Mr. Snawdor, however, had it not been for the grave problem of Fidy Yager.

"Ike Lavinski says she ought to be in a hospital some place," she urged Mrs. Snawdor. "He says she never is going to be any better. He says it's epilepsy."

"Wel he ain't tellin' me anything' I don't know," said Mrs. Snawdor, "but I ain't goin' to put her away, not if she th'ows a fit a minute!"

It was not maternal solicitude alone that prompted this declaration. The State allowed seventy-live dollars a year to parents of epileptic children, and Mrs. Snawdor had found Fidy a valuable asset. Just what her being kept at home cost the other children was never reckoned.

"Well, I'll take care of her on one condition," stipulated Nance. "You got to keep Lobelia at school. It ain't fair for her to have to stay home to nurse Fidy."

"Well, if she goes to school, she's got to work at night. You was doin' your two hours at Lavinski's long before you was her age."

"I don't care if I was. Lobelia ain't strong like me. I tell you she ain't goin' to do home finishing, not while I'm here."

"Well, somebody's got to do it," said Mrs. Snawdor. "You can settle it between you."

Nance held out until the middle of January; then in desperation she went back to the Lavinskis. The rooms looked just as she had left them, and the whirring machines seemed never to have stopped. The acrid smell of hot cloth still mingled with the odor of pickled herrings, and Mr. Lavinski still came and went with his huge bundles of clothes.

Nance no longer sewed on buttons. She was promoted to a place under the swinging lamp where she was expected to make an old decrepit sewing-machine forget its ailments and run the same race it had run in the days of its youth. As she took her seat on the first night, she looked up curiously. A new sound coming regularly from the inner room made her pause.

"Is that a type-writer?" she asked incredulously.

Mr. Lavinski, pushing his derby from his shining brow, smiled proudly.

"Dat's vat it is," he said. "My Ike, he's got a scholarship offen de high school. He's vorking his vay through de medical college now. He'll be a big doctor some day. He vill cure my Leah."

Nance's ambition took fire at the thought of that type-writer. It appealed to her far more than the sewing-machine.

"Say, Ike," she said at her first opportunity, "I wish you'd teach me how to work it."

"What'll you give me?" asked Ike, gravely. He had grown into a tall, thin youth, with the spectacled eyes and stooped shoulders of a student.

"Want me to wash the dishes for your mother?" Nance suggested eagerly. "I could do it nights before I begin sewing."

"Very well," Ike agreed loftily. "We'll begin next Sunday morning at nine o'clock. Mind you are on time!"

Knowledge to Ike was sacred, and the imparting of it almost a religious rite. He frowned down all flippancy on the part of his new pupil, and demanded of her the same diligence and perseverance he exacted of himself. He not only taught her to manipulate the type-writer, but put her through an elementary course of stenography as well.

"Certainly you can learn it," he said sternly at her first sign of discouragement. "I got that far in my second lesson. Haven't you got any brains?"

Nance by this time was not at all sure she had, but she was not going to let Ike know it. Stung by his smug superiority, she often sat up far into the night, wrestling with the arbitrary signs until Uncle Jed, seeing her light under the door, would pound on the wall for her to go to bed.

She saw little of Dan Lewis these days. The weather no longer permitted them to meet in Post-Office Square, and conditions even less inviting kept them from trying to see each other in Snawdor's kitchen. Sometimes she would wait at the corner for him to come home, but this had its disadvantages, for there was always a crowd of loafers hanging about Slap Jack's, and now that Nance was too old to stick out her tongue and call names, she found her power of repartee seriously interfered with.

"I ain't coming up here to meet you any more," she declared to Dan on one of these occasions. "I don't see why we can't go to Gorman's Chili Parlor of an evening and set down and talk to each other, right."

"Gorman's ain't a nice place," insisted Dan. "I wish you'd come on up to some of the church meetings with me. I could take you lots of times if you'd go."

But Nance refused persistently to be inveigled into the religious fold. The very names of Epworth League, and prayer meeting made her draw a long face.

"You don't care whether we see each other or not!" she accused Dan, hotly.

"I do," he said earnestly, "but it seems like I never have time for anything. The work at the factory gets heavier all the time. But I'm getting on, Nance; they give me another raise last month."

"Everybody's getting on," cried Nance bitterly, "but me! You and Ike and Birdie! I work just as hard as you all do, and I haven't got a blooming thing to show for it. What I make sewing pants don't pay for what I eat. Sometimes I think I'll have to go back to the finishing room."

"Not if I can help it!" said Dan, emphatically. "There must be decent jobs somewhere for girls. Suppose I take you out to Mrs. Purdy's on Sunday, and see if she knows of anything. She's all the time asking me about you."

The proposition met with little enthusiasm on Nance's part. It was Mrs. Purdy who had got Dan into the church and persuaded him not to go to the theater or learn how to dance. It was Mrs. Purdy who took him home with her to dinner every Sunday after church and absorbed the time that used to be hers. But the need for a job was too pressing for Nance to harbor prejudices. Instead of sewing for the Lavinskis that night, she sewed for herself, trying to achieve a costume from the old finery bequeathed her by Birdie Smelts.

You would scarcely have recognized Dan that next Sunday in his best suit, with his hair plastered down, and a very red tie encircling a very high collar. To be sure Dan's best was over a year old, and the brown-striped shirt-front was not what it seemed, but his skin was clean and clear, and there was a look in his earnest eyes that bespoke an untroubled conscience.

Mrs. Purdy received them in her cozy fire-lit sitting-room and made Nance sit beside her on the sofa, while she held her hand and looked with mild surprise at her flaring hat and cheap lace collar.

"Dan didn't tell me," she said, "how big you had grown or--or how pretty."

Nance blushed and smiled and glanced consciously at Dan. She had felt dubious about her costume, but now that she was reassured, she began to imitate Birdie's tone and manner as she explained to Mrs. Purdy the object of her visit.

"Deary me!" said Mrs. Purdy, "Dan's quite right. We can't allow a nice little girl like you to work in a glass factory! We must find some nice genteel place for you. Let me see."

In order to see Mrs. Purdy shut her eyes, and the next moment she opened them and announced that she had the very thing.

"It's Cousin Lucretia Bobinet!" she beamed. "She is looking for a companion."

"What's that?" asked Nance.

"Some one to wait on her and read to her and amuse her. She's quite advanced in years and deaf and, I'm afraid, just a little peculiar."

"I'm awful good at taking care of sick people," said Nance complacently.

"Cousin Lucretia isn't ill. She's the most wonderfully preserved woman for her years. But her maid, that she's had for so long, is getting old too. Why, Susan must be seventy. She can't see to read any more, and she makes mistakes over cards. By the way, I wonder if you know how to play card games."

"Sure," said Nance. "Poker? seven-up?"

"Isn't there another game called penuchle?" Mrs. Purdy ventured, evidently treading unfamiliar ground.

"Yes!" cried Nance. "That's Uncle Jed's game. We used to play it heaps before Rosy cut up the queens for paper dolls."

"Now isn't it too wonderful that you should happen to know that particular game?" said Mrs. Purdy, with the gentle amazement of one who sees the finger of Providence in everything. "Not that I approve of playing cards, but Cousin Lucretia was always a bit worldly minded, and playing penuchle seems to be the chief diversion of her declining years. How old are you, my child?"

"I'm seventeen. And I ain't a bit afraid of work, am I, Dan?"

"I am sure you are not," said Mrs. Purdy. "Dan often tells me what a fine girl you are. Only we wish you would come to some of our services. Dan is getting to be one of our star members. So conscientious and regular! We call him our model young man."

"I expect it's time we was going," said Dan, greatly embarrassed. But owing to the fact that he wanted very much to be a gentleman, and didn't quite know how, he stayed on and on, until Nance informed him it was eleven o'clock.

At the door Mrs. Purdy gave final instructions about the new position, adding in an undertone:

"It might be just as well, dearie, for you to wear a plainer dress when you apply for the place, and I believe--in fact I am quite sure--Cousin Lucretia would rather you left off the ear-rings."

"Ain't ear-rings stylish?" asked Nance, feeling that she had been misinformed.

"Not on a little companion," said Mrs. Purdy gently.

Nance's elation over the prospect of a job was slightly dashed by the idea of returning to the wornout childish garb in which she had left the home.

"Say, Dan," she said, as they made their way out of Butternut Lane, "do you think I've changed so much--like Mrs. Purdy said?"

"You always look just the same to me," Dan said, as he helped her on with her coat and adjusted the collar with gentle, painstaking deference.

She sighed. The remark to a person who ardently desired to look different was crushing.

"I think Mrs. Purdy's an awful old fogey!" she said petulantly by way of venting her pique.

Dan looked at her in surprise, and the scowl that rarely came now darkened his face.

"Mrs. Purdy is the best Christian that ever lived," he said shortly.

"Well, she ain't going to be a Christian offen me!" said Nance.

The next morning, in a clean, faded print, and a thin jacket, much too small for her, Nance went forth to find Miss Lucretia Bobinet in Cemetery Street. It was a staid, elderly street, full of staid, elderly houses, and at its far end were visible the tall white shafts which gave it its name. At the number corresponding to that on Nance's card, she rang the bell. The door was opened by a squinting person who held one hand behind her ear and with the other grasped the door knob as if she feared it might be stolen.

"Who do you want to see?" she wheezed.

"Miss Bobinet."

"Who?"

"Miss Bobinet!" said Nance, lifting her voice.

"Stop that hollering at me!" said the old woman. "Who sent you here?"

"Mrs. Purdy."

"What for?"

Nance explained her mission at the top of her voice and was grudgingly admitted into the hall.

"You ain't going to suit her. I can tell you that," said the squint-eyed one mournfully, "but I guess you might as well go in and wait until she wakes up. Mind you don't bump into things."

Nance felt her way into the room indicated and cautiously let herself down into the nearest chair. Sitting facing her was an imposing old lady, with eyes closed and mouth open, making the most alarming noises in her throat. She began with a guttural inhalation that increased in ferocity until it broke in a violent snort, then trailed away in a prolonged and somewhat plaintive whistle. Nance watched her with amazement. It seemed that each recurrent snort must surely send the old wrinkled head, with its elaborately crimped gray wig, rolling away under the stiff horse-hair sofa.

The room was almost dark, but the light that managed to creep in showed a gloomy black mantelpiece, with vases of immortelles, and somber walnut chairs with crocheted tidies that made little white patches here and there in the dusk. Everything smelled of camphor, and from one of the corners came the slow, solemn tick of a clock.

After Nance had recovered from her suspense about Miss Bobinet's head, and had taken sufficient note of the vocal gymnastics to be able to reproduce them later for the amusement of the Snawdors, she began to experience great difficulty in keeping still. First one foot went to sleep, then the other. The minutes stretched to an hour. She had hurried off that morning without her breakfast, leaving everything at sixes and sevens, and she wanted to get back and clean up before Mrs. Snawdor got up. She stirred restlessly, and her chair creaked.

The old lady opened one eye and regarded her suspiciously.

"I am Nance Molloy," ventured the applicant, hopefully. "Mrs. Purdy sent me."

Miss Bobinet gazed at her in stony silence, then slowly closed her eye, and took up her snore exactly where she had left it off. This took place three times before she succeeded in getting her other eye open and becoming aware of Nance's presence.

"Well, well," she asked testily, in a dry cracked voice, "what are you sitting there staring at me for?"

Nance repeated her formula several times before she remembered that Miss Bobinet was deaf; then she got up and shouted it close to the old lady's ear.

"Lida Purdy's a fool," said Miss Bobinet, crossly. "What do I want with a chit of a girl like you?"

"She thought I could wait on you," screamed Nance, "and read to you and play penuchle." The only word that got past the grizzled fringe that bordered Miss Bobinet's shriveled ear was the last one.

"Penuchle?" she repeated. "Can you play penuchle?"

Nance nodded.

"Get the table," ordered the old lady, peremptorily.

Nance tried to explain that she had not come to stay, that she would go home, and get her things and return in the afternoon, but Miss Bobinet would brook no delay. Without inviting Nance to remove her hat and jacket, she ordered her to lift the shade, sit down, and deal the cards.

They were still playing when the squinting person hobbled in with a luncheon tray, and Miss Bobinet promptly transferred her attention from royal marriages to oyster stew.

"Have her come back at three," she directed Susan; then seeing Nance's eyes rest on the well filled tray, she added impatiently, "Didn't I tell you to stop staring? Any one would think you were watching the animals feed in the zoo."

Nance fled abashed. The sight of the steaming soup, the tempting bird, and dainty salad had made her forget her manners.

"I reckon I'm engaged," she said to Mrs. Snawdor, when she reached home and had cut herself a slice of dry bread to eat with the warmed-over coffee. "She never said what the pay was to be, but she said to come back."

"What does she look like?" asked Mrs. Snawdor, curiously.

"A horse," said Nance. "And she's deaf as anything. If I stay with her, she'll have to get her an ear-trumpet or a new wig before the month's out. I swallow a curl every time I speak to her."

"Well," said Mrs. Snawdor, "companions ain't in my line, but I got sense enough to know that when a woman's so mean she's got to pay somebody to keep her company, the job ain't no cinch."