Chapter 24

Down in the shabby little cottage on the Hill road Mrs. Durgin walked the floor, vibrating between the window and the low bed in the corner. By the stove sat Mrs. Magoon, mending a pair of trousers�and talking. To those who knew Mrs. Magoon, it was never necessary to add that last�if Mrs. Magoon was there, so also was the talking.

"It don't do no good ter watch the pot��twon't b'ile no quicker," she was saying now, her eyes on the woman who was anxiously scanning the road from the window.

"Yes, I know," murmured Mrs. Durgin, resolutely turning her back on the window and going over to the bed. Sixty seconds later, however, she was again in her old position at the window, craning her neck to look far up the road.

"How's Maggie doin' now?" asked Mrs. Magoon.

"She's asleep."

"Well, she better be awake," retorted Mrs. Magoon, "so's ter keep her ma out o' mischief. Come, come, Mis' Durgin, why don't ye settle down an' do somethin'? Jest call it she ain't a-comin', then 'twill be all the more happyfyin' surprise if she does."

"But she is a-comin'."

"How do ye know she is?"

"'Cause she's Maggie Kendall, an' she was Mag of the Alley: an' Mag of the Alley don't go back on her friends."

"But she's rich now."

"I know she is, an' you don't think rich folks is any good; but I do, an' thar's the diff'rence. Mr. McGinnis has seen her, an' he says she's jest as nice as ever."

"Mebbe she is nice ter folks o' her sort, but even Mr. McGinnis don't know that you've sent fur her ter come 'way off down here."

"I know it, but�Mis' Magoon, she's come!" broke off Mrs. Durgin; and something in her face and voice made the woman by the stove drop her work and run to the window.

Drawn up before the broken-hinged, half-open gate, were the Spencers' famous span of thoroughbreds, prancing, arching their handsome necks, and apparently giving the mighty personage on the driver's seat all that he wanted to do to hold them. Behind, in the luxurious carriage, sat a ragged little girl, and what to Patty Durgin was a wonderful vision in golden brown.

Mrs. Durgin was thoroughly frightened. She, she had summoned this glorious creature to come to her, because, indeed, her little girl, Maggie, was sick! And where, in the vision before her, was there a trace of Mag of the Alley? Just what she had expected to see, Mrs. Durgin did not know�but certainly not this; and she fairly shook in her shoes as the visible evidence of her audacity, in the shape of the vision in golden brown, walked up the little path from the gate.

It was Mrs. Magoon who had to go to the door.

The young woman on the door-step started eagerly forward, but fell back with a murmured, "Oh, but you can't be�Patty!"

Over by the window the tall, black-eyed woman stirred then, as if by sheer force of will.

"No, no, it's me that's Patty," she began hurriedly. "An' I hadn't oughter sent fur ye; but"�her words were silenced by a pair of brown-clad arms that were flung around her neck.

"Patty�it is Patty!" cried an eager voice, and Mrs. Durgin found herself looking into the well-remembered blue eyes of the old-time Mag of the Alley.

Later, when Mrs. Magoon had taken herself and her amazed ejaculations, together with her round-eyed daughter, home�which was, after all, merely the other side of the shabby little house�Patty and Margaret sat down to talk. In the bed in the corner little Maggie still slept, and they lowered their voices that they might not wake her.

"Now, tell me everything," commanded Margaret. "I want to know everything that's happened."

Patty shook her head.

"Thar ain't much, an' what thar is ain't interestin'," she said. "We jest lived, an' we're livin' now. Nothin' much happens."

"But you married."

Patty flushed. Her eyes fell.

"Yes."

"And your husband�he's�living?"

"Yes."

Margaret hesitated. This was plainly an unpleasant subject, yet if she were to give any help that was help�

Patty saw the hesitation, and divined its cause.

"You�you better leave Sam out," she said miserably. "He has ter be left out o' most things. Sam�drinks."

"Oh, but we aren't going to leave Sam out," retorted Margaret, brightly; and at the cheery tone Patty raised her head.

"He didn't used ter be left out, once�when I married him eight years ago," she declared. "We worked in the mill�both of us, an' done well."

"Here?"

Patty turned her eyes away. All the animation fled from her face and left it gray and pinched.

"No. We hain't been here but two years. We jest kind of drifted here from the last place. We don't never stay long�in one place."

"And the twins�where are they?"

A spasm of pain tightened Patty's lips.

"I don't know," she said.

"You�don't�know!"

"No. They lived with us at first, an' worked some in the mill. Arabella couldn't much; you know she was lame. After Sam got�worse, he didn't like ter have 'em �round, an' �course they found it out. One night he�struck Arabella, an' 'course that settled things. Clarabella wouldn't let her stay thar another minute, an'�an' I wouldn't neither. Jest think�an' her lame, an' we always treatin' her so gentle! I give 'em what little money I had, an' they left �fore mornin'. I couldn't go. My little Maggie wa'n't but three days old."

"But you heard from them�you knew where they went?"

"Yes, once or twice. They started fur New York, an' got thar all right. We was down in Jersey then, an' �twa'n't fur. They found the Whalens an' went back ter them. After that I didn't hear. You know the twins wa'n't much fur writin', an'�well, we left whar we was, anyhow. I've wrote twice, but thar hain't nothin' come of it.... But I hadn't oughter run on so," she broke off suddenly. "You was so good ter come. Mis' Magoon said you�you wouldn't want to."

"Want to? Of course I wanted to!"

"I know; but it had been so long, an' we hadn't never heard from you since you got the Whalens their new�that is��" she stopped, a painful red dyeing her cheeks.

"Yes, I know," said Margaret, gently. "You thought we had forgotten you, and no wonder. But you know now? Bobby told you that��" her voice broke, and she did not finish her sentence.

Patty nodded, her eyes averted. She could not speak.

"Those years�afterward, were never very clear to me," went on Margaret, unsteadily. "It was all so terrible�so lonely. I know I begged to go back�to the Alley; and I talked of you and the others constantly. But they kept everything from me. They never spoke of those years in New York, and they surrounded me with all sorts of beautiful, interesting things, and did everything in the world to make me happy. In time they succeeded�in a way. But I think I never quite forgot. There was always something�somewhere�behind things; yet after a while it seemed like a dream, or like a life that some one else had lived."

Margaret had almost forgotten Patty's presence. Her eyes were on the broken-hinged gate out the window, and her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible. It was a cry from little Maggie that roused her, and together with Patty she sprang toward the bed.

"My�lucky�stars!" murmured the child, a little later, in dim recollection as she gazed into the visitor's face.

"You precious baby! And it shall be �lucky stars'�you'll see!" cried Margaret.