Kitabı oku: «The Rosie World», sayfa 2

CHAPTER IV
A LITTLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT

What Danny said proved right. As soon as Rosie's immediate family and friends heard of the project, they gave her every encouragement. Little Jack lent her his last Christmas money-box – one of those tin banks whose opening is supposed to be burglarproof against the seducing attractions of all hatpins and buttonhooks except those employed by its rightful owner – and Mrs. O'Brien suggested at once that the old wardrobe upstairs would be the place of greatest safety for the bank.

"You can get into it whenever you like, Rosie dear, for you know yourself where the key's to be found."

It might be argued that every one else in the family knew where the key was to be found, for it was an open secret that its hiding-place was under the foot of the washstand. Nevertheless, it was an accepted tradition that anything in the wardrobe was under lock and key and therefore safe. So, with unbounded confidence, Rosie slipped her first week's wages into Jack's money-box and carefully locked the old wardrobe.

George Riley, the boarder, was the first to make a handsome contribution.

"Do you know, Rosie," he said, "here you are carrying my supper up to the cars every night and I've never said anything more than 'Thank you.' I just tell you I'm ashamed of myself! After this I'm going to pay you a nickel a week regular."

"Aw now, Jarge, you won't do any such thing!" Rosie shook her head vigorously. "You can't afford it! And besides, Jarge, I just love to carry your supper up to the cars, honest I do!"

"Of course you do! And why? 'Cause you're my girl!" George turned Rosie's face up and gave her a hearty kiss. "Now you'll be making twenty-five cents a week regular. Here's a nickel for last week."

Twenty-five cents a week and two good sure jobs to one who, but a few days before, was nothing but a penniless creature dependent on any chance windfall! Rosie hugged herself in delighted amazement. She even bragged a little to her friend Janet McFadden.

"Why, Janet, once you know how to do it, making money's just as easy as falling off a log! Look at me: My papers don't take me more'n half an hour in the afternoon and carrying Jarge's supper-pail up to the cars is just fun. And every Saturday night twenty-five cents, if you please!"

Janet said "Oh!" with a rising inflection and "Oh!" with a falling inflection: "Oh! Oh!"

"And besides that, if I hadn't my paper route I'd have to take care of Geraldine all afternoon. Don't you see?"

"You would indeed, Rosie, I know you would."

Rosie looked at her friend thoughtfully. "Say, Janet, why don't you get a job? Of course, I'll lend you my skates, but if we both had a pair we could go to Boulevard Place together. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Janet cleared her throat apologetically. "Do you think Terry would give me a job, Rosie?"

Hardly. Though he did employ Rosie, Terence was scarcely in position to employ every needy female that might apply to him. Rosie spoke kindly but firmly:

"No, Janet, I don't believe Terry can take on any more girls. When I get my skates, though, I tell you what I'll do: I'll let you 'sub' for me sometimes. Yes. On the afternoons I go to skate on Boulevard Place, I'll let you deliver my papers. I'll pay you three cents a day. Three cents ain't much but, if you save 'em real hard, they count up – really they do. If you 'sub' for me eight different times then you'll have twenty-four cents. I told you, didn't I, that twenty-five cents is what's coming in to me now every week regular?"

Yes, Rosie had already specified the amount many times but Janet, being a devoted friend, exclaimed with unabated enthusiasm: "You don't say so, Rosie! Well, I think that's just grand!"

Janet was right. It is fine to have an income that permits one to enjoy the good things of life. Without a touch of envy Rosie could now view the rich Jews and Protestants as they skimmed the smooth surface of Boulevard Place. She, too, would soon be rolling along as well skated as the best of them. The time was not far distant when, hearing the soft whirr of the ball-bearings, they would look at her with a new respect and no longer call out "Mucker!" the moment her back was turned.

This was the happy side of saving. There was, however, another side, and to ignore it would be to ignore the effect upon character which any effort as conscious as saving must produce. In simple innocence Rosie had started out supposing that all that was necessary toward saving was to have something savable. She soon discovered her mistake. The prime essential in saving was not, after all, the possession of a tidy little sum coming in at regular intervals, so much as the ability to keep that sum intact. That is to say, for the sake of this one Big Thing, that looms up faint but powerfully attractive on the distant horizon, you must do without all the Little Things that make daily life so pleasant.

Alas, once you begin saving, you may no longer heedlessly sip the joys of the moment taking no thought for the morrow. Saving involves thought for the morrow first of all! In the old days when she hadn't a penny, Rosie had somehow managed to enjoy an occasional ice-cream cone, or a moving picture show, or a cent's worth of good candy. Now, on the other hand, with money in the bank, these and all like indulgences were forbidden. She was saving!

If for a moment she tried to forget the wearisome task to which she had publicly dedicated herself, some one was always at hand to remind her of it and to rescue her, as it were, from her weaker self. For instance, if she even hinted of thirst in the neighbourhood of a root-beer stand, Janet McFadden would turn pale with fright and hurriedly drag her off, imploring her to remember that, once she had her skates, she could have all the root-beer she wanted. Yes, of course, but Rosie sometimes felt that she wanted it when she wanted it and not at some far-off time when she would, no doubt, be too old and decrepit to enjoy it.

The experience began to give Rosie a clue to one of those mysteries of conduct which had long puzzled her. She had never stood in front of the glowing posters of a picture show, saying to herself or to any one that chanced to be with her: "I tell you what: If I had a nickel, I bet I know what I'd do with it!" nor paused before a bakery shop or a candy store, that she hadn't seen other people – men, women, and children – with eyes as full of desire as her own. What used to amaze her was that many of these people, she was absolutely sure, had money in their pockets. Heretofore, in her ignorance of life, she had supposed that, to possess yourself of anything you wanted, was a simple enough matter provided you had money in your pocket – or in your bank, which is the same thing. What a mistake she had made! How she had misjudged those poor creatures who, in spite of their jingling pockets, so often turned regretful backs upon the pleasures of life. Rosie understood now. Money in their pockets had nothing to do with it for – they were saving.

Unknown even to themselves they were all members of a mystic brotherhood, actuated by the same impulse, undergoing the same sacrifices for some ultimate benefit. Look where she would, she saw them plainly: Miss Hattie Graydon, Ellen's fashionable friend, saving for an outing in Jersey; Janet McFadden's poor mother always saving for a new wash-boiler; George Riley saving to give himself a good start on his father's farm; and now, the newest recruit to their ranks, Rosie herself, saving for ball-bearing roller skates.

"I'd just love to go with you! If there's anything I do enjoy, it's a matinée. But I can't. I got to have a new hat this spring."

"I'd like to lend it to you, Charley, the worst ever, but I don't see how I can. I got to save every cent this year for payments on the house."

"Waffles nuthin'! I ain't goin' a-spend a cent till I got enough money for a new baseball mitt!"

They were the things Rosie had been hearing all her life but never until now had she grasped what they meant. Think of it, oh, think of it – the heroic self-denial that masks itself in commonplaces like these! Rosie wondered if the others, too, had their moments of weakness. Weren't there perhaps times when George Riley sighed over the shabbiness of his clothes, realizing that, if only he were a little sportier, Ellen might not scorn him so utterly?

Theoretically practice makes easy, but Rosie found that the practice of self-denial, instead of growing easier, became harder as time went by. The week she had a dollar ninety-five in her bank, a Dog and Pony Show pitched its tent in a field which Rosie had to pass every afternoon on her paper route. She thought the sight of that tent would kill her before the week was over. The only things talked about at school were Skippo, the monkey that jumped the rope, Fifi, the dancing poodle, and Don, the pony, who shook hands with people in the front row. Afternoon admission was ten cents but, nevertheless, there were people who attended daily.

Even Janet McFadden, valiant soul that she was, grew pale and wan under the strain. "Of course, though, Rosie," she said, "you wouldn't have time to go even if some one was to give you a ticket."

This was Friday, so Rosie was able to answer: "I could go tomorrow afternoon, Janet. You know the Saturday matinée begins at two instead of half-past three. That'd get it over by four. I could ask you or somebody to get my papers for me and meet me at the tent at four o'clock. Then I'd be only a few minutes late."

Janet made hopeless assent. "Yes, I could get them for you all right. And if some one was to give me a ticket, Tom Sullivan would get them for you – I know he would. Tom would do anything for you, Rosie."

Tom was Janet's red-haired cousin and a flame of Rosie's.

"Yes, Janet, I suppose Tom would. But there's no use talking about it… Now if only I could just take – "

Rosie broke off and Janet, understanding her thought, murmured hastily: "No, no, Rosie! Of course you can't take any of that!"

Janet was right. Rosie could not possibly raid her own bank. Too many eyes were upon her. Yet all she needed was a quarter: ten cents for herself, ten for Janet, and five for her small brother. She couldn't go without Janet and Jack and, as she hadn't a cent anyhow, it was just as easy to plan the expenditure of a quarter as of a dime.

She wondered idly if there could by some happy chance be more in her bank than she supposed. She hadn't counted her savings for nearly a week. There wasn't much likelihood that a dime or a quarter or a nickel had escaped her count, but perhaps now – … There was one chance in a thousand, for Rosie was not very strong in addition. At any rate, after supper she would slip up to the wardrobe and, with a bent hairpin, make investigations. A dollar ninety-five was all she was responsible for to the world at large. If her bank contained more, she could appropriate the surplus and no one be the wiser.

Supper afforded one excitement.

"Oh, lookee!" Jack suddenly cried, pointing an excited finger at Ellen. It was the period of pompadour and false hair and Rosie and Terence, following Jack's finger, saw a new cluster of shiny black curls in Ellen's already elaborate coiffure.

"Get on to the curls, Rosie," Terence remarked facetiously. "Lord, ain't we stylish!"

Ellen made no remark but seemed a little flurried.

"Shame on you, Terry!" Mrs. O'Brien expostulated. "Talkin' so of your own sister! Don't you know if Ellen's to be a stenog, she's got to be careful of her appearance? All the young ladies at the college are wearing curls."

Terence answered shortly: "She can wear all the curls she wants as soon as she's able to pay for them. But I tell you one thing, Ma: you needn't think you're going to get me to pay for them, because I won't. She tried to work me for them last week and I told her I wouldn't."

Ellen regarded her brother distantly. "You make me tired, Terence O'Brien. When you're asked to pay for these curls it'll be time for you to squeal."

"Are they paid for already?"

"Of course they're paid for already. Do you think I can get curls on tick?"

Terence's incredulity changed to suspicion. Turning to his mother he demanded: "Did you give her the two dollars you begged from me for the baby's food?"

Mrs. O'Brien spread out distracted hands. "Why, Terry lad, of course I didn't! Rosie went to the drug-store herself with the money, didn't you, Rosie?"

Yes, Rosie had, but even this did not satisfy Terry.

"Well, anyhow, I bet she's playing crooked somewhere!"

Ellen disdained to answer and Rosie remarked: "I'd rather spend my money on skates than on old curls."

Ellen looked at her kindly. "They say skates are going out of style, Rosie."

Rosie folded her hands complacently. "I don't care whether they're going out or coming in. I don't like 'em because they're fashionable but because I like 'em. If the Boulevard Placers didn't have one pair I'd want to go up there by myself and skate by myself just the same. I love roller skates! And, what's more, by the time vacation comes I'll have the finest pair of ball-bearing skates in town! And vacation, mind you, comes at the end of next week!"

Terence nodded a cautious approval. "You're that close to the finish, are you, Rosie?"

"Sure I am. Tomorrow night when I get paid I'll have two twenty and, by the end of next week, if I can manage to scrape up an extra nickel, I'll have two fifty exact."

Mrs. O'Brien fluttered her hands nervously. "I dunno about all this skatin', Rosie dear. I dunno if it's healthy to jump around so."

Rosie smiled superiorly. "I don't jump around. I know how to skate."

A few moments later Ellen excused herself from her usual evening duties on the plea that her friend, Hattie Graydon, had invited her out. So Rosie had to wipe the supper dishes as well as wash them before she could slip upstairs for the purpose of counting her savings.

She found the wardrobe key in its usual place and the little bank where she had put it, hidden beneath her mother's Sunday hat. She reached for it and lifted it up and then, with a loud cry, she clutched it hard and shook it with all her might.

"Ma! Ma!" she screamed, flying wildly downstairs. "My money! Some one's taken all my money!"

"Ssh!" Mrs. O'Brien implored. "Ye'll be wakin' Geraldine!"

For once Rosie heeded not the warning. "I tell you my money's gone! Some one stole it! Listen here!" She was weeping distractedly and waving the empty bank aloft. "There's not a cent left! And, Terry, look here how they took it!"

The thief had not even had the grace to use a hairpin, but had calmly bent back the opening slit.

Terence looked at his mother sternly. "Ma, who took Rosie's money?"

Mrs. O'Brien squirmed uncomfortably. "Now, Terry lad, how do I know who took it? But I do know this: whoever it was that took it only borrowed it and Rosie'll get paid back."

"Paid back!" wept Rosie. "Don't talk to me about getting paid back in this house! I guess I know!"

With a determined eye Terence held his mother's wavering attention. "Now, Ma, you know very well who took that money and I want you to tell me."

"Why, Terry lad, how you talk!" Mrs. O'Brien turned her head to listen, in hopes, apparently, that the baby would require her presence. "But I will say one thing, Terry: Ye know yirself a young girl, if she goes out, has to keep up appearances."

Terence nodded grimly. "So it was Ellen, was it? I thought so."

"Ellen," Rosie repeated in a dazed tone. Then her body grew tense, her eyes blazed. "Terry, I know! Those curls! I bet anything it was those curls!"

Mrs. O'Brien made no denial and Rosie, dropping her head on the table, wept her heart out.

"Terry, Terry, what do you know about that! And after the way I been working hard and saving every cent for two whole months! Just think of it! And you know yourself the fuss she always made about my selling papers at all! It's disgraceful for me to sell papers because I'm a girl, but it ain't disgraceful for her to go steal all my money and buy curls!.. And I can't do nuthin'! If she was a nigger, I could have her arrested but, because she's my own sister, I can't do nuthin'! Oh, how I hate her, how I hate her!.."

Mrs. O'Brien sighed unhappily. "But, Rosie dear, Ellen'll be paying you back as soon as she gets a job. She promised me faithfully she would. You see, she'll soon be going around to them offices now and she feels she ought to be lookin' her best. Oh, you'll be gettin' back your money all right! Why, nowadays a good stenog gets ten dollars a week up!"

Terence cut his mother off sharply. "Aw, forget it! You can't fool Rosie with guff like that! I tell you, Ellen's nuthin' but a low-down crook and it's your fault, too, for encouraging her!"

"But, Terence lad, what could I do? I thried to dissuade her, but ye know yirself how set she is once she gets an idea into her head."

Yes, Terence and Rosie both knew and they knew, likewise, their mother's helplessness in her hands. With no further words they could easily imagine just what had taken place. Mrs. O'Brien had, no doubt, tried hard to protect Rosie's interests. She could always be depended on to protect the interests of an absent child. Her present attitude was an evidence of this, for now she was turned about seeking to defend Ellen because Ellen was absent.

A wail from upstairs brought her ineffectual excuses to a close and, with a "Whisht! The baby!" she fled.

Rosie, crushed and miserable, wept on. Terence put an awkward hand on her shoulder.

"Say, Rosie, I'm awful sorry, honest I am. I wish I could give you a quarter, but I can't this week. They've cleaned me out. Here's a nickel, though."

Rosie did not want the nickel; at that moment she did not want anything; she took it, however, because Terry wished her to.

"Thanks, Terry. It wasn't your fault. You're not a sneak and a thief. I – I'm glad some of my relations are honest."

Little Jack, who had been listening gravely, snuggled up with a sudden suggestion: "Say, Rosie, if you want me to, I'll kick her in the shins when she comes in."

Rosie wiped her eyes sadly. "No, Jackie, I don't see how that'll do any good."

"Do you want me to spit in her eye?"

Rosie gave Jack a tight hug, for his sympathy was sweet. Then she shook her head reprovingly. "You mustn't talk like that, Jackie, and you mustn't do things like that, either. You don't want to be a mucker, do you?"

For this once Jack thought that perhaps he did, but, when Rosie insisted, he promised to behave.

From babyhood he had been Rosie's special charge, so now, when the time came, she took him upstairs and saw him safely to bed. Then she herself slipped down to the front porch and there on the steps, in the dark electric shadow, she waited for her friend, George Riley.

CHAPTER V
GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS

Rosie had not long to wait, as George's run ended at nine o'clock.

"Sst! Jarge!" she called softly as he bounded up the steps and would have passed her in the dark.

"Is that you, Rosie?"

"Sit down a minute, Jarge. I want to ask you something."

George mopped his head with his handkerchief and drew a long breath. "Whew, but I'm tired, Rosie! I rang up over seventy-five fares three times tonight."

Rosie opened with no preliminary remarks. "Say, Jarge, can you lend me twenty-five cents until tomorrow night? You know I get paid tomorrow."

"Sure, Rosie. What for?"

"I want to go to the Dog Show matinée."

George paused a moment. "But, Rosie, you don't need twenty-five cents for that. You told me it was ten cents."

"I know, Jarge, but I want to take Jackie and Janet."

"Why, Rosie!"

"Well, if I don't, poor Janet'll never get there. She never gets anywhere. You know her father boozes every cent. And I just got to take Jackie if I go myself. Besides, he'll only cost me five cents and that will let me use the nickel Terry gave me for peanuts."

"But, Rosie," – George cleared his throat – "I thought you were saving every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time."

"I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly.

"Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?"

She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.

"N-nothing," she quavered.

"Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control.

"I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister."

For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.

"I – I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard – you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.

George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?"

"Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us… And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge – curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"

George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I – I'm sure she will."

"That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were snatched away from you!"

George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many times."

"What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?"

George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm saving every cent until people think I'm a tightwad."

"But, Jarge, how did they get it away from you so many times?"

"Well, just to show you: Two years ago one of the barns burned down. That cost me two hundred dollars. Last summer we lost a couple of our best cows worth sixty dollars apiece. This winter the old man was laid up with rheumatiz a couple o' months and it cost me a dollar a day to get the chores done, let alone the doctor bill. And each time I was just about ready to blow my job here and hike for home. I thought sure I'd be doing my own plowing this spring."

Weariness and discouragement sounded in his voice and Rosie, forgetting her own troubles, slipped her arms about his neck.

"I'm awful sorry, Jarge. Maybe if nothing happens this summer you'll be able to go back in the fall."

George shook himself doggedly. "Oh, I'll get there some time! I cleaned up the mortgage the first year I was here and now I'm working to pile up five hundred in the bank before I go. I'm getting there, too, but I hope to God I won't have any more setbacks!"

"And if you do, Jarge?.."

The answer came sharp and quick: "I'll save all the harder!"

For a few moments both were silent. Then George spoke: "I'm sorry, Rosie, about this thing. I know how you feel. If you want to, after this you may hide your savings in my trunk. I've got two keys and I'll give you one."

"I – I didn't think I was going to save any more, Jarge."

"Not save? Of course you're going to save! You've got to save!"

"Why?"

"So's to have something to show for your work!"

"But it takes so awful long, Jarge, and even then maybe you lose it."

"I know, Rosie, but even so you got to do it. It's only muckers that never save."

"Why, Jarge!"

"Sure, Rosie. Only muckers. They blow in every cent they get as soon as they make it or before. That's why they can afford to go off on drunks and holler around and smash things up. They ain't got nuthin' to lose no matter what they do. Oh, I tell you, Rosie, just show me a loud-mouthed mucker and I'll show you a fellow that don't know the first thing about saving!"

"Really, Jarge?"

"Yes, really. And the same way, take decent hard-working people and what do you find? As sure as you're alive, you'll find them saving every cent to put the children through school, or pay for their home, or take care of the old folks. I tell you, Rosie, you got to save if ever you get anywhere in this world!"

"But, Jarge, I – I think I just got to go to that Dog Show now."

George laughed and gave her a little hug. "All right, kiddo. Here's the quarter. Have a good time and tell me about it afterwards. Next week, you know, you can begin saving in earnest. My trunk – "

"Please, Jarge," Rosie begged, "don't make me promise. Give me a week to think about it."

"Of course you can have a week to think about it." They were standing up now, ready to go into the house. "But I know all right what you'll decide."

"How do you know?"

George stooped and gave her a hearty country kiss, smack on the mouth. "Because I know there's nothing of the mucker about Rosie O'Brien!"

And Rosie, as she slipped upstairs, tying the quarter in the corner of her handkerchief, suddenly realized that she was no longer unhappy. How could any one be unhappy who had a friend as good and as kind as George Riley? And, in addition to him, she had nice old Terry – hadn't he given her a nickel and been sorry it wasn't a quarter? – and dear little Jackie and the faithful Janet and poor old Danny Agin, too! Thank goodness, neither Ellen nor any one else could steal them away from her!