章节正文
the little Square. There was another organ-grinder there grinding
out coon-songs, to which other piccaninnies danced. But nary a
little white bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand. I walked
that Square till my feet were sore. It was hot. My throat was
parched. I was hungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I
just couldn't give it up. I had asked so many children and
nurse-maids whether they'd heard of the baby lost that morning
and brought back by an officer, that they began to look at me as
though I was not quite right in my mind. The maids grabbed the
children if they started to come near me, and the children stared
at me with big round eyes, as though they'd been told I was an
ogre who might eat them.
I was hungry enough to. The little fruit-stand at the entrance
had a fascination for me. I found myself there time and again,
till I got afraid I might actually try to get of with a peach or
a bunch of grapes. That thought haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden
starved and blundering into the cheapest and most easily detected
species of thieving!
I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine
themselves doing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I sat there
on the bench, gazing before me, I saw the whole thing--Nancy
Olden, after all her bragging, her skirmishing, her hairbreadth
scapes and successes, arrested in broad daylight and before
witnesses for having stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a
nickel, for her hot, dry, hungering throat! I saw the policeman
that'd do it; he looked like that Sergeant Mulhill I met 'way,
'way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officer that'd receive
me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the
Manhattan. I saw the woman jailer--oh, she was the A.D, all
right, who'd receive me without the slightest emotion, show me to
a cell and lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or
affected, as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of
creatures--and outwitted myself in forestalling her. I saw--
Mag, guess what I saw! No, truly; what I really saw? It made me
jump to my feet and grab it with a squeal.
I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near
the little fruit-stand that had tempted me.
Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not a
paper, not a stamp, not even my key. Just the same I was glad to
have it. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little
girl that had stolen it had been here in this park, on this very
spot. The thought of that cute young Nance Olden distracted my
mind a minute from my worry--and, oh, Maggie darlin', I was
worrying so!
I walked up to the fruit-stand with the purse in my hand. The old
fellow who kept it looked up with an inviting smile. Lord knows,
he needn't have encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny.
"I want to ask you," I said, "if you remember selling a lot of
good things to a little girl who had a purse this--this
morning?"
I showed it to him, and he turned it over in his crippled old
hands.
"It was full then--or fuller, anyway," I suggested.
"You wouldn't want to get her into trouble--that little girl?"
he asked cautiously.
I laughed. "Not I. I--myself--"
I was going to say--well, you can imagine what I was going to
say, and that I didn't say it or anything like it.
"Well--there she is, Kitty Wilson, over yonder," he said.
I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on
one of the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a
bat and full of trouble--oh, it thickens your wits, does trouble,
and blinds your eyes and muffles your ears!--I'd have suspected
something at the mere sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson
enthroned, a hatless, lank little creature about twelve, and near
her, clustered thick as ants around a lump of sugar, was a crowd
of children, black and white, boys and girls. For Kitty--that
deplorable Kitty--had money to burn; or what was even more
effective at her age, she had goodies to give away. Her lap was
full of spoils. She had a sample of every good thing the
fruit-stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy.
Her dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered
still on her chin and apron. And Kitty--I love a generous
thief--was treating the gang.
It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled
and asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the
birds were hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the
crumbs, and the squirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds.
And all on Nancy Olden's money!
I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't
accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree
with her. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting.
You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm
too inquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case
feels and thinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act.
"Kitty," I said--somehow a twelve-year-old makes you feel more
of a grown-up than a twelve-months-old does--"I hope you're
having a good--time, Kitty Wilson, but--haven't you lost
something?"
She was chewing at the end of a long string of black
candy-shoe-strings, all right, the stuff looks like--and she was
eating just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she
was full enough. Her jaws stopped, though, suddenly, as she
looked from the empty purse in my outstretched hand to me, and
took me in.
Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says: "Wait a minute, till
I get my breath, and I'll know how much you know and just what
lie to tell you."
But she changed her mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if
there's a thing that's fixed in your memory it's the face of the
body you've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery,
but we, that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fools'
gallery to correspond to it.
In which of 'em is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You
know my portrait hangs in both.
I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the
second salon, and lo, in a flash she was on her feet, the lapful
of good things tumbled to the ground, and Kitty was off.
I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag! I was altogether
mistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a physical
cleverness, a talenteddexterity. She had no resource in time of
danger but her legs. And legs will not carry a grafter half so
far as a good, quick tongue and a steady head.
She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her
hostility excited the crowd of children--her push--against me,
and the braver ones jeered the things Kitty only looked, while
the thrifty ones stooped and gathered up the spoil.
"Tell her I wouldn't harm her," I said to one of her
lieutenants.
"She says she won't hurt ye, Kit," the child screamed.
"She dassent," yelled back Kitty, the valiant. "She knows I'd
peach on her about the kid."
"Kid! What kid?" I cried, all a-fire.
"The kid ye swiped this mornin'. Yah! I told the cop what
brought her back how ye took her jest as I--"
"Kitty!" I cried. "You treasure!" And with all my might I ran
after her.
Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirts
above those thin legs meant. I couldn't come within fifty feet of
her. I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing
tantalizingly half a block away.
What to do? I wished I had another purse to bestow on that sad
Kitty, but I had nothing, absolutely nothing, except--all at once
I remembered it--that little pin you gave me for Christmas, Mag.
I took it off and turned to appeal to the nearest one of the
flying body-guard that had accompanied us.
"You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house
where that baby lives I'll give her this pin."
He sped on ahead and parleyed with Kit; and while they talked I
held aloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price.
She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands,
but a sudden rival voice piping out, "I'll show ye the house,
Missus," was too much for her.
So, with Kit at a safe distance in advance to guard against
treachery, and a large and enthusiastic following, I crossed the
street, turned a corner, walked down one block and half up
another, and halted before a three-story brownstone.
I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the
bell. It wasn't so terribly swagger a place, which relieved me
some.
"I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning," I
said to the maid that opened the door.
"Yes'm. Who'll I tell her?"
Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the Vaudeville,
later of the Van Twiller, and latest of the police station.
No--not Nance Olden . . . not . . .
"Tell her, please," I said firmly, "that I'm Miss Murieson, of
the X-Ray, and that the city editor has sent me here to see
her."
That did it. Hooray for the power of the press! She showed me
into a long parlor, and I sat down and waited.
It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. The
shades were down, the piano was open, the chairs were low and
softly cushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted.
And suddenly--Mag!--I felt something that was a cross between a
rose-leaf and a snowflake touch my hand.
If it wasn't that delectable baby!
I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling
thing as though that was what I came for. Then, in a moment, I
remembered the paper and lifted her little white slip.
It was gone, Mag. The under-petticoat hadn't a sign of the paper
I'd pinned to it.
My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the
heat, with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I felt myself
slipping out of things when I heard the rustling of skirts, and
there before me stood the mother of my baby.
The little wretch! She deserted me and flew to that pretty mother
of hers in her long, cool white trailing things, and sat in her
arms and mocked at me.
It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about
being a newspaper woman out on a story; how I'd run across the
baby and all the rest of it.
"I must ask your pardon," I finished up, "for disturbing you,
but two things sent me here--one to know if the baby got home
safe, and the other," I gulped, "to ask about a paper with some
notes that I'd pinned to her skirt."
She shook her head.
It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were
pink; they had been blue in the morning.
"Of course," I suggested, "you've had her clothes changed
and--"
"Why, yes, of course," said baby's mother. "The first thing I
did when I got hold of her was to strip her and put her in a tub;
the second, was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her
out of her sight."
"And the soiled things she had on--the dress with the blue
ribbons?"
"I'll find out," she said.
She rang for the maid and gave her an order.
"Was it a valuable paper?" she asked.
"Not--very," I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and
out coon-songs, to which other piccaninnies danced. But nary a
little white bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand. I walked
that Square till my feet were sore. It was hot. My throat was
parched. I was hungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I
just couldn't give it up. I had asked so many children and
nurse-maids whether they'd heard of the baby lost that morning
and brought back by an officer, that they began to look at me as
though I was not quite right in my mind. The maids grabbed the
children if they started to come near me, and the children stared
at me with big round eyes, as though they'd been told I was an
ogre who might eat them.
I was hungry enough to. The little fruit-stand at the entrance
had a fascination for me. I found myself there time and again,
till I got afraid I might actually try to get of with a peach or
a bunch of grapes. That thought haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden
starved and blundering into the cheapest and most easily detected
species of thieving!
I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine
themselves doing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I sat there
on the bench, gazing before me, I saw the whole thing--Nancy
Olden, after all her bragging, her skirmishing, her hairbreadth
scapes and successes, arrested in broad daylight and before
witnesses for having stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a
nickel, for her hot, dry, hungering throat! I saw the policeman
that'd do it; he looked like that Sergeant Mulhill I met 'way,
'way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officer that'd receive
me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the
Manhattan. I saw the woman jailer--oh, she was the A.D, all
right, who'd receive me without the slightest emotion, show me to
a cell and lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or
affected, as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of
creatures--and outwitted myself in forestalling her. I saw--
Mag, guess what I saw! No, truly; what I really saw? It made me
jump to my feet and grab it with a squeal.
I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near
the little fruit-stand that had tempted me.
Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not a
paper, not a stamp, not even my key. Just the same I was glad to
have it. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little
girl that had stolen it had been here in this park, on this very
spot. The thought of that cute young Nance Olden distracted my
mind a minute from my worry--and, oh, Maggie darlin', I was
worrying so!
I walked up to the fruit-stand with the purse in my hand. The old
fellow who kept it looked up with an inviting smile. Lord knows,
he needn't have encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny.
"I want to ask you," I said, "if you remember selling a lot of
good things to a little girl who had a purse this--this
morning?"
I showed it to him, and he turned it over in his crippled old
hands.
"It was full then--or fuller, anyway," I suggested.
"You wouldn't want to get her into trouble--that little girl?"
he asked cautiously.
I laughed. "Not I. I--myself--"
I was going to say--well, you can imagine what I was going to
say, and that I didn't say it or anything like it.
"Well--there she is, Kitty Wilson, over yonder," he said.
I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on
one of the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a
bat and full of trouble--oh, it thickens your wits, does trouble,
and blinds your eyes and muffles your ears!--I'd have suspected
something at the mere sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson
enthroned, a hatless, lank little creature about twelve, and near
her, clustered thick as ants around a lump of sugar, was a crowd
of children, black and white, boys and girls. For Kitty--that
deplorable Kitty--had money to burn; or what was even more
effective at her age, she had goodies to give away. Her lap was
full of spoils. She had a sample of every good thing the
fruit-stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy.
Her dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered
still on her chin and apron. And Kitty--I love a generous
thief--was treating the gang.
It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled
and asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the
birds were hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the
crumbs, and the squirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds.
And all on Nancy Olden's money!
I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't
accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree
with her. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting.
You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm
too inquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case
feels and thinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act.
"Kitty," I said--somehow a twelve-year-old makes you feel more
of a grown-up than a twelve-months-old does--"I hope you're
having a good--time, Kitty Wilson, but--haven't you lost
something?"
She was chewing at the end of a long string of black
candy-shoe-strings, all right, the stuff looks like--and she was
eating just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she
was full enough. Her jaws stopped, though, suddenly, as she
looked from the empty purse in my outstretched hand to me, and
took me in.
Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says: "Wait a minute, till
I get my breath, and I'll know how much you know and just what
lie to tell you."
But she changed her mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if
there's a thing that's fixed in your memory it's the face of the
body you've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery,
but we, that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fools'
gallery to correspond to it.
In which of 'em is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You
know my portrait hangs in both.
I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the
second salon, and lo, in a flash she was on her feet, the lapful
of good things tumbled to the ground, and Kitty was off.
I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag! I was altogether
mistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a physical
cleverness, a talenteddexterity. She had no resource in time of
danger but her legs. And legs will not carry a grafter half so
far as a good, quick tongue and a steady head.
She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her
hostility excited the crowd of children--her push--against me,
and the braver ones jeered the things Kitty only looked, while
the thrifty ones stooped and gathered up the spoil.
"Tell her I wouldn't harm her," I said to one of her
lieutenants.
"She says she won't hurt ye, Kit," the child screamed.
"She dassent," yelled back Kitty, the valiant. "She knows I'd
peach on her about the kid."
"Kid! What kid?" I cried, all a-fire.
"The kid ye swiped this mornin'. Yah! I told the cop what
brought her back how ye took her jest as I--"
"Kitty!" I cried. "You treasure!" And with all my might I ran
after her.
Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirts
above those thin legs meant. I couldn't come within fifty feet of
her. I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing
tantalizingly half a block away.
What to do? I wished I had another purse to bestow on that sad
Kitty, but I had nothing, absolutely nothing, except--all at once
I remembered it--that little pin you gave me for Christmas, Mag.
I took it off and turned to appeal to the nearest one of the
flying body-guard that had accompanied us.
"You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house
where that baby lives I'll give her this pin."
He sped on ahead and parleyed with Kit; and while they talked I
held aloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price.
She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands,
but a sudden rival voice piping out, "I'll show ye the house,
Missus," was too much for her.
So, with Kit at a safe distance in advance to guard against
treachery, and a large and enthusiastic following, I crossed the
street, turned a corner, walked down one block and half up
another, and halted before a three-story brownstone.
I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the
bell. It wasn't so terribly swagger a place, which relieved me
some.
"I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning," I
said to the maid that opened the door.
"Yes'm. Who'll I tell her?"
Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the Vaudeville,
later of the Van Twiller, and latest of the police station.
No--not Nance Olden . . . not . . .
"Tell her, please," I said firmly, "that I'm Miss Murieson, of
the X-Ray, and that the city editor has sent me here to see
her."
That did it. Hooray for the power of the press! She showed me
into a long parlor, and I sat down and waited.
It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. The
shades were down, the piano was open, the chairs were low and
softly cushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted.
And suddenly--Mag!--I felt something that was a cross between a
rose-leaf and a snowflake touch my hand.
If it wasn't that delectable baby!
I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling
thing as though that was what I came for. Then, in a moment, I
remembered the paper and lifted her little white slip.
It was gone, Mag. The under-petticoat hadn't a sign of the paper
I'd pinned to it.
My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the
heat, with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I felt myself
slipping out of things when I heard the rustling of skirts, and
there before me stood the mother of my baby.
The little wretch! She deserted me and flew to that pretty mother
of hers in her long, cool white trailing things, and sat in her
arms and mocked at me.
It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about
being a newspaper woman out on a story; how I'd run across the
baby and all the rest of it.
"I must ask your pardon," I finished up, "for disturbing you,
but two things sent me here--one to know if the baby got home
safe, and the other," I gulped, "to ask about a paper with some
notes that I'd pinned to her skirt."
She shook her head.
It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were
pink; they had been blue in the morning.
"Of course," I suggested, "you've had her clothes changed
and--"
"Why, yes, of course," said baby's mother. "The first thing I
did when I got hold of her was to strip her and put her in a tub;
the second, was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her
out of her sight."
"And the soiled things she had on--the dress with the blue
ribbons?"
"I'll find out," she said.
She rang for the maid and gave her an order.
"Was it a valuable paper?" she asked.
"Not--very," I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and
- bundle [´bʌndl]
n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词) - throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
- daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- detective [di´tektiv] n.侦探 a.侦探的 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- sample [´sæmpl, ´sɑ:mpəl] n.样品；试样 vt.尝试 (初中英语单词)
- abundant [ə´bʌndənt] a.丰富的；充分的 (初中英语单词)
- grown-up [´grəun-ʌp] n.成年人 a.成熟的 (初中英语单词)
- goodness [´gudnis] n.优良；美德；精华 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- beggar [´begə] n.乞丐 (初中英语单词)
- bitterly [´bitəli] ad.悲痛地；憎恨地 (初中英语单词)
- talented [´tæləntid] a.天才的；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- resource [ri´zɔ:s] n.手段；智谋 (初中英语单词)
- bestow [bi´stəu] vt.(把...)赠给；使用 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- parlor [´pɑ:lə] n.客厅；起居室 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- discharge [dis´tʃɑ:dʒ] vt.&n.卸货；释放；解雇 (初中英语单词)
- valuable [´væljuəbəl, -jubəl] a.有价值的，贵重的 (初中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- sergeant [´sɑ:dʒənt] n.警官；军士 (高中英语单词)
- gravel [´grævəl] n.砾石 vt.铺砾石 (高中英语单词)
- unexpected [ʌniks´pektid] a.突然的；意外的 (高中英语单词)
- correspond [,kɔri´spɔnd] vi.符合；相当；通信 (高中英语单词)
- portrait [´pɔ:trit] n.肖像；相片；雕像 (高中英语单词)
- appeal [ə´pi:l] vi.&n.请求；呼吁；上诉 (高中英语单词)
- enthusiastic [inθju:zi´æstik] a.热情的，热心的 (高中英语单词)
- escort [´eskɔ:t] n.伴随者；警卫(队) (高中英语单词)
- fatigue [fə´ti:g] n.&vt.(使)疲劳(劳累) (高中英语单词)
- fascination [,fæsi´neiʃən] n.魅力；强烈爱好 (英语四级单词)
- triumphant [trai´ʌmfənt] a.胜利的；洋洋得意的 (英语四级单词)
- brigade [bri´geid] n.(军队的)旅；队，组 (英语四级单词)
- valiant [´væliənt] a.勇敢的，英勇的 (英语四级单词)
- inviting [in´vaitiŋ] a.动人的 (英语六级单词)
- doleful [´dəulful] a.悲哀的；忧郁的 (英语六级单词)
- inquisitive [in´kwizitiv] a.好奇的，好问的 (英语六级单词)
- outstretched [,aut´stretʃt] a.扩张的；伸长的 (英语六级单词)
- intimately [´intimitli] ad.密切地；熟悉地 (英语六级单词)
- dexterity [dek´steriti] n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 (英语六级单词)
- thrifty [´θrifti] a.节俭的；兴旺的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
