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CHAPTER III.
The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;" but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where could she be? She had always been punctual to a minute.
The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was forgotten. It was not until the closing hour—five o'clock—that Lizzie thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly, as they were leaving the store together,—
"Where do you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day, and she's always here, and so punctual."
"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would be just like her; she's that independent."
"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do that," put in Josie, laughing,
"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
"Sick! her kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough. Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that basket?"
"Why, what I agreed to give,—enough to make a basket for herself; and last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my Mayflowers,—I had plenty."
"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
"Yes, Becky's bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking about private lessons!"
"Oh, that was only her fun."
"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you think that was only fun?"
"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove Street."
"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends she was working alongside of."
"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she sold her basket, and very likely to that prize-fighter,—that Tim."
"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster down—' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,—in one of those tenements."
"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and, owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means small.'"
"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here, breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
"But, Lizzie—"
"You needn't try to stop me, I'm going . Becky's down there somewhere, and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to see. You needn't come if you're afraid, but I'm going!"
The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and the three went on together toward the burned district.
"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business here."
"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,—one of the girls in our store," answered Lizzie.
"Becky Hawkins?"
"Yes; do you know her?"
"Should think I did. This is my beat,—known her all her life pretty much."
"Did she get out,—is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend Tim."
The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,—a smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what the Riker girls had said she was,—a little Cove Street hoodlum,—while Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman had advised, adding,—
"We are decent girls, and—it's a disgrace to have anything to do with such a lot as Becky and her family and—"
"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,—"what yer talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow him.
They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room; but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes, and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt, and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you; but I'm so glad you are all right—But," coming nearer and finding that Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table, "you're not all right, are you?"
"No, I—I guess—I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,—a little thing like you!"
"'Twas she was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women in the room.
"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she saved him for me,—she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the 'scape; but Becky—Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she made a jump—and fell—oh, Becky! Becky!"
"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry her, and it's no use."
"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in dumb amazement.
"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I could make another—"
" I'll make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone, roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old mischief she said,—
"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body, wasted and shrunken,—the body of a child of seven with a shapely head and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
"That's him,—that's Tim,—the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout," said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,—
"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,—the girls in the store,—how I played it on 'em; and when I git back—I'll—"
"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open, letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks beyond the Cove.
"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
"I—I feel fus' rate—all well, Jake, and—I—I smell the Mayflowers. They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they jolly! Tim, Tim!"
"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
"Wait for me here Tim,—I—I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,—ther, ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by—I'm goin'—to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
The two women—and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had always lived—broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the radiant face, she said suddenly,—
"She's well out of it all."
"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and 't ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' him ," nodding towards Jake, who was slipping quietly out of the room,—"it's the like o' him. They looked up to her, they did,—bit of a thing as she was. She was that straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better. Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty and Josie still waiting for her.
"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time—have you seen—have you heard—"
They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,—
"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I don't know."
"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.