University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE FAYVER.

“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 babby 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.