CHAPTER XXIX

REUNION

"Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken and we are delivered."--Ps. cxxiv, 7

Mollie had been up all of the night previous preparing for that hazardous day through which she and the children had just passed. She had eaten scarcely anything until she arrived at the police station where the kind policeman had sent to a restaurant and had food brought in for them all. Never in their recollection had the children seen so much food at one time. They ate ravenously and were already dozing in their chairs before the matron came to take them to their beds. But Mollie had fought off sleep, or it may have been that sheer excitement kept her awake, until after her arrival at the Wayne home.

There, sitting in a comfortable chair, for the first time in her recollection, with little Doris dropping contentedly to sleep in her arms, Mollie found her own head nodding every now and then, and her eyes closing in spite of her efforts to keep them open. She was only a child, herself, yet she had performed a feat of heroism that day which was the culmination of long years of daily sacrifice of her own comfort that little children might be succored and comforted. Now, tired nature was beginning to assert itself by demanding rest and sleep.

As Harris Wayne sat watching the ragged, lonely little girl who had so nobly and unhesitatingly risked her life to save his baby daughter his heart smote him with the realization of his own selfishness. The thought that sickened him--made him feel mean and small--was that he, with all his wealth and education was, little better than Grimes.

True, he had not knowingly inflicted suffering upon anyone, but he had by his self-absorption and disinterest in affairs outside his own household been guilty of criminal negligence. It was he, and men like him, who had permitted such a state of affairs as had been revealed on the Grimes farm to exist year after year for the enrichment of some criminal or abnormal person at the expense of helpless little children. Why had it not been discovered and investigated? Peter Grimes was ignorant, abnormal and irresponsible. Dying, he spoke the truth. He literally knew no better.

But Harris Wayne knew better. He, who had professed to love children, had done nothing whatever for any child in the world other than his own. He had not even made the search for little Stephen that he knew he ought to have made. He was the one actually responsible for the little boy's unhappy, wasted years. If Stephen had been traced and located all these other children might have been spared suffering and the lives of those saved that had perished for lack of food and care.

That such horrors should have existed unsuspected and unmolested in his own township, seemed a crime in which he and every citizen like him were participants. He wanted to do something to atone for his selfishness and indifference. Something to make other children as happy and content as this tattered, neglected little girl had made his baby. He had prated of the inadequacy of hireling service as compared with that actuated solely by love but he had viewed the matter from only one side--his side. He wanted someone to love his child and give to her unselfish devotion but it had never occurred to him that other children might also be suffering for lack of affection.

This little girl had been starved of love and care all during her childhood. She had realized it and in her way had tried to supply to other little ones that for which she, herself, had yearned.

He crossed to where she was sitting and lifted his sleeping baby into her crib. Then he took Mollie's little brown hand in his and stroked it tenderly.

"Little girl," he said, "to-morrow there is much that I shall want to talk to you about. You have done more for me--and for little children--than you, perhaps, realize. I shall not try to thank you now. In fact I never will be able to thank you enough for what you have done. But I want you to feel that this house is your home. I want to see you happy--very, very happy. I have been selfish to-night in keeping you up till this hour. I should have brought you with us the first time. Now, the baby is sleeping and I want you to go with the nurse and let her make you as comfortable as you have made Doris. She will bandage your poor, bruised feet and get you everything necessary for the present. To-morrow we will talk about the future."

Mollie was too near asleep, from sheer fatigue, to grasp much beyond the statement that she was to remain there with the baby and that this nurse, who didn't know how to take care of babies, seemed to be doing just the right things to make her more comfortable than she had been in years. She was almost afraid to touch the dainty bed to which the nurse finally conducted her. Oh, how comfortable it was! She had not known before how tired she had grown, nor how her back ached from carrying the baby. She tried to think--there was something the baby's father had said about Stephen--Did he know Splutters?--She would ask to-morrow.--And the children--She hoped they were all right--They were so tired--She, too, was tired--How nice it was here--If only--Splutters--The children--could enjoy it too!

It was Mollie's last waking thought. Her tight-clinched little hands relaxed, the long-lashed lids drooped over her tender, brooding eyes, the sweet lips parted in a smile. When the nurse entered the room, she was sleeping as tranquilly as she had slept that last night before she was turned over to the custody of Peter Grimes.

When Mollie awoke it was with the sense that she had slept too late and the children would not get to the field in time. For a full moment she could not comprehend where she was nor what had happened. The sight of a maid placing a dainty breakfast tray beside her bed made her think that she was dreaming. The maid spoke, and then she remembered. It was not a dream--it was true. At last, they had escaped! She moved and was surprised to find how bruised and sore her limbs and body were. The nurse entered.

"After you have had your breakfast I will fix you up for the day," she said, placing a tray of interesting looking little jars and bottles down on a table. "You were pretty badly bitten by insects. It was lucky you didn't meet a snake."

"We said our pra'rs," Mollie said, simply. Then, suddenly starting up, "Oh, whar's th' baby?"

The baby was taking her nap, the nurse explained. Mollie stared. Then she asked the time. When she realized that she had slept until afternoon she laughed as she had not laughed in years. Mr. Wayne had gone to town, she learned, for the purpose of bringing all the children out to his house.

Mollie gave a cry of joy. She could hardly restrain herself from leaping out of bed and dispensing with the food which had been brought her. But the nurse persuaded her to yield to her ministrations, to eat her breakfast and later to be fitted into proper clothes.

The poor little girl laughed and cried by turns. It all seemed like a fairy tale. It began to look as if she might yet find out about her father and her former home. There was so much she wanted to talk about to Mr. Wayne. She was ashamed that she had behaved so badly about surrendering the baby to him after he had felt so badly because the child had been stolen.

Several times during the progress of her toilette she slipped into the nursery to admire Doris as she lay in her beautiful bed and to contrast it with the horrible rags and disorder of the barn loft.

"No wonder her daddy war upsot," she told the nurse. "Hit'll take a long time fer we-uns ter git used ter all th' fine things you-uns has hyar. Them chil'en will hev ter be mighty keerful not ter spile nawthin'."

At last she saw them coming. With the baby in her arms she ran to the gate to meet them. Harris Wayne, as he rode those few miles out to his home, felt more content and satisfied with life than he had since his wife's death. His limousine swarmed with children. They asked him a thousand questions. They laughed and chattered like sparrows. Wayne thought of the simile himself. When he mentioned it, every child tried to explain to him about the sparrows that flew across the swamp and didn't fall.

"So Mollie said we war jist es good es sparrows an' ef we'd keep a-lookin' up et th' sky an' not down in th' mud we-uns could git ary place. An' we done hit, mister, we done hit," explained Jimmie, triumphantly.

"An' when we-all seed them things th' man tol' us war 'gators an' had ter git up in th' tree quick, God jist a'most giv wings ter all on us," declared Willie. "Yo' jist oughter ha' seed Johnnie skedaddle 'thout usin' his crutch. Hain't et th' truf, Johnnie?"

"Shore es," returned Johnnie.

Harris Wayne glanced down at the child's bare, crippled foot and made a quick decision.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," he said, "if Johnnie would be able to throw his crutch away some of these days. I think I know a man who'll be able to make his foot as good as new."

Johnnie gave a whoop of delight. The other boys joined. From the gate, Mollie answered. Then they all saw her. They waved and shouted hilariously. Harris Wayne found himself laughing with them as he turned them loose to awaken the echoes of his all too silent home.

But the final note of happiness was achieved a little later when the chauffeur again appeared with the car and drove gently in at the gate and up to the front door. The children ran to see who had come. Then the door of the car opened and they recognized Stephen, sitting weakly among the pillows that had been arranged for his comfort, and smiling upon them.

Mollie flew to his side, eager to ask about his illness, of which she had not known and to learn all that had befallen him since he had been so suddenly taken from among them.

"Oh, I missed yo' turrible, Splutters," she exclaimed, tears brimming over the lashes of her large, luminous eyes that now seemed like deep pools of thought. "I missed yo' turrible."

"But th' mistake hes been found out," he told her eagerly. "Mr. Wayne come for me, an' he's goin' ter hev a man come and teach me every day, so's I kin go ter school right soon."

The boy's pinched little face was shining with happiness. The blue eyes that beamed upon Mollie were full of an affection far beyond words. To Splutters there was no one like Mollie in the whole, wide world.

But Mollie's surprise was yet to come. When Mr. Wayne drew her away from the children and told her all that he had learned regarding her from the Chief, down at police headquarters, she could not at once comprehend that for her, too, there would be opportunity for education and training.

"But hit's th' chil'en I wanter help," she exclaimed, looking straight into Harris Wayne's eyes in a manner that seemed to read his very soul. "This is such a big, big house. Hit hain't a doin' yo' ary good es I kin see, 'thout folks in hit. Hain't thar room fer these hyar young-uns--all on em--ter live hyar?"

Harris Wayne admitted there was. Mollie need not worry about the children, he assured her. They would be provided for. And she need never be separated from little Doris. But the plan he proposed was somewhat different. It was bigger, better, more enduring and would be the means not only of helping the little flock she had led through the swamps but generations of children to come.

His house, he explained to her, would not be large enough for such an extensive plan. It might serve temporarily. But by the time she had received her education, by the time Stephen would get through college there would be established upon his broad acres such an institution for children that it would be known, throughout the country.

Mollie entered into the plan heartily. "An' hit mus' hev money," she insisted, "so thet pore folks like little Amy's mammy, doan hev ter fret ef th' hain't got money ter pay fer the'r chil'en. Let th' young-uns stay jest th' same."

"That's my idea, exactly," exclaimed Wayne, at which Mollie, in sheer gratitude, grasped his hand and pressed it to her lips.