University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
TEDDY FINDS A NEW PATRON.

Teddy, dragging his heavy feet up the stairs in the
stifling September twilight, paused suddenly to listen to a
murmur of voices in his mother's room.

Some one was speaking; and the pure, clear tone sent
a thrill through his veins like the shock of an electric battery.
No voice but one had ever sounded like that to him;
and, springing up the remaining stairs, Teddy threw open
the door of the chamber, and looked eagerly about it.

The one for whom he looked was not there; but, instead,
a lady, whose fragile loveliness reminded him so strangely
of the little sister as she had looked in her long days of
convalescence, that he stood still, staring dumbly.

“An' where's yer manners, Teddy Ginniss? Couldn'
ye see the lady forenenst ye, widout starin' like a stuck
pig? — It's dazed he is, ma'am, wid seein' the likes uv yees
in this poor place.”

“Come here, Teddy; I am waiting to see you,” said

the lady. And again the pure, silvery tones tingled along
Teddy's nerves with a sharp, sweet thrill.

“O ma'am! are you her mother?” cried he breathlessly.

“Yes, I am her mother, and have come to see you, who
loved her so well, and your good mother, who cared for her
when she was motherless” —

The sweet voice faltered, and Teddy broke in, —

“And you needn't be afraid to say the worst that can be
said, ma'am. I've said it all before; and you can't hate me
worse than I hate myself.”

“Hate you, my poor boy? I only pity you; for I have
heard, and can see, how much you suffer. I cannot wonder
that you should love her so well; and, when you knew who
she was, I dare say you were meaning to restore her, so
soon as you could bring yourself to it.”

“Indeed I was, ma'am. I can take God to witness that
I was,” said Teddy solemnly, his eyes brimming, and his
face working with the strong emotion he tried so hard to
subdue.

“I am sure of it; and I love you more for the love you
bore her than I blame you for the fault that love led you

into.” She paused a moment; and then the insatiate
mother pride and love burst out, demanding sympathy.

“She was a lovely child, wasn't she, Teddy?” asked
she with a tremulous smile.

The boy's rough face lighted, as if by reflection from her
own, as he replied, —

“O ma'am! it's so good of you to let me talk about
her! There was never another like her in all the world, I
believe. I used to take her walking Sundays, and look at
all the children we met (some of them rich folks' children,
and dressed all out in their best); but there was never one
could hold a candle to my little sister. Oh! and I hope
you'll forgive me that word, ma'am; for I know it's no business
I had ever to call her so, or think of her so; but I was
so proud of her!”

“I don't need to forgive you, Teddy. It shows how
much you loved her; and that is what I like to think of
best.”

“But if you please, ma'am, will you tell me what is
doing about looking for her?” asked Teddy eagerly.

“Very little now,” answered the lady sadly. “The
police traced Giovanni, the Italian organ-grinder, to the
station, where he took the cars for the West. At Springfield,

a man answering to his description, with a little girl, staid
all night; and next day the child danced — in the streets.”

The mother's face grew deadly pale as she said the last
words, and she paused a moment. Teddy turned away his
head, and Mrs. Ginniss groaned aloud. Mrs. Legrange
went on hurriedly: —

“Where they went afterwards is not yet discovered; but
they are looking everywhere. It seems so strange” —

She fell into a momentary revery, thinking, as she
thought so many, many times in every day, how hard and
strange it seemed that no clew could be found to her lost
darling beyond the terrible day that saw her dancing in the
public streets, — an ignominy, that, to the lady's sensitive
mind, seemed almost equivalent to death.

Perhaps it would have been kinder had her husband
and cousin told her the worst they knew or suspected, and
allowed her to mourn her child as dead. The acute detective
in whose hands the new clew had been placed had not
only traced the fugitives to Springfield, as Mrs. Legrange
had said, but had ascertained at what hour they left the
hotel for the railway-station. It was impossible, however,
to discover for what point the Italian had purchased tickets,
as the station-master had no recollection of him, and the

baggage-master was sure he had seen “no sich lot” as was
described to him.

And, from Springfield, a man may take passage to almost
any point in the Union.

One startling fact remained, and upon this fact the whole
report of the detective turned.

The train leaving Springfield for Albany upon the night
when Giovanni left that town, encountered, at a certain
point, another train, which, by some incomprehensible stupidity,
was supposed to have passed that point half an hour
before.

Consequences as usual, — frightful loss of life; a game
of give and take in the newspapers, as to who should bear
the blame, finally resulting in a service of plate to one
party, and a donation in money to the other; several lawsuits
brought by enterprising widowers who demanded
consolation for the loss of their wives; by other men, who,
having skulked the draft, now found themselves minus both
legs and glory; by spinsters whose bandboxes had been
crushed, and by young ladies whose beauty had suffered
damage from broken noses and scattered teeth.

But, among all these sufferers, not one remembered seeing
an Italian organ-grinder with a little girl; until, at the

very last, a small boy was found, who averred, that, on the
morning after the disaster, he had seen a sort of box, with a
little creature chained to the top of it, floating down the
river; and that the little creature had seemed very much
scared, and kept laughing, and showing all his teeth; and
that they had gone on and out of sight. And that was all he
knew about it.

The river! — what use to question those dark and swollen
waters? what use to demand of them the bright form, that,
it might be, slept beneath them? — it might be, had been
washed piecemeal to the ocean?

At the brink of that river, mournful and terrible as Styx,
river of the dead, ended, that night, the story of many a life;
and why not that of the child so strangely lost, so nearly
recovered, and now, perhaps, lost again forever?

“We have found her, I am afraid, Tom,” said Mr.
Legrange to his cousin, as the detective closed his report,
and his two hearers looked at each other. “But,” added
the father, “keep on; keep every engine at work; search
everywhere; spend any amount of money that is needful;
leave no chance untried. Remember, the reward is always
ready.” And, when they were alone, he added, —

“But, Tom, don't tell her. She can't bear it as we can.

Poor little Sunshine!” And, to show how well he bore it,
the father hid his face, and sobbed like a woman.

“No, I won't say any thing,” said Tom Burroughs in a
strange, choked voice. And so we come back to Mrs.
Legrange wistfully saying, —

“It seems so strange” —

“And then, with the patience of a woman, she put aside
her own great grief, and added, —

“But, Teddy, I am going to do something for you; and
what shall it be? You wish to be educated; do you not?”

“O ma'am! but I've give it up now.”

Mrs. Legrange smiled at the sudden enthusiasm and the
sudden blank upon the boy's face, and answered, almost
gayly, —

“But I have not given it up for you, Teddy. — By the
way, Mrs. Ginniss, is that your son's real name? — his
whole name, I mean?”

“It's short for Taodoor, I'm thinkin', ma'am; but it's
joost Teddy we alluz calls it.”

“Ah, yes! Theodore. That is a very nice name, and
will sound better, when he comes to be a lawyer or doctor
or minister, than Teddy. Don't you think so?”

“Ye're right, ma'am: it's a dale the dacenter name uv

the two; an' Taodoor I'll call him iver an' always,” said
Mrs. Ginniss complacently.

“I was thinking more of what other people would call
him,” said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. “Some friends
of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,
— somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school,
and the West is the place for a young man who means to
rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be
very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate,
and to help you about settling in a profession, or in
trade, as you like.”

Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although
his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between
them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven,
called down such a shower of blessings from so many and
varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen
refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed
to comprehend more than the half of it.

“I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much
as it can you,” said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence
of the other's manner and language.

“I can't say what I want to, ma'am,” spoke a low voice
beside her; “but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait

till some time when I can show it better than I can now —
that time will come, if we both live. And when I'm a
man, if she isn't found first, I'll go the world round but I'll
find her, and Jovarny too: I'll promise that.”

A wan smile played over the lovely face, as Mrs. Legrange,
laying her hand upon the boy's, said kindly, —

“If she is not found before then, Teddy, I shall not be
here to know it.”

Then going to the drawer, still standing open, she
said, —

“May I have some of these little things, Mrs. Ginniss;
not all, — for I know that you love them too, — but some
of them?”

So Mrs. Ginniss made a package of the relics; and Teddy
asked and obtained the privilege of carrying it home for
his new friend, while James stalked discontentedly behind.

Upon the way, Mrs. Legrange said quietly, “I left a
little money in the drawer, Theodore. It is to buy you
some new clothes, and whatever else you and your mother
need most. And I have just thought of something else.
How would your mother like living in the country?”

“Very much, ma'am, I think. Her father had a farm
in Ireland, and she is mighty fond of telling about it.”

“Well, Mr. Legrange has recently made me a present of
a nice old farmhouse somewhere in the western part of the
State, thinking I might like to go there for a few weeks in
the summer. It is a lovely place, they say; and, if your
mother would like it, she might go there and keep the
house for me. A man is going to take care of the farm,
and he could board with her.”

“That would be first-rate, ma'am,” said Teddy enthusiastically.
“But you're doing too much for us entirely.”

“You were kind to her, Teddy; and I cannot do too
much for you,” said Mrs. Legrange, lowering her veil.