CHAPTER III

MARIA FINDS A COMPANION

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord."--Ps. cxxvii, 3

Peter Grimes was exceedingly pleased with the success which had attended his quest for farm labor. His meeting with the young man from whom he had received little Mollie was wholly accidental but it insured a steady income for the future. For the time being, the ugly-dispositioned farmer was inclined to permit the little girl house privileges such as he deemed worthy of a well-paying guest. He had not planned to bring a girl into the establishment. Girls were useless and troublesome and no good at hog-raising. But the regular income offered by the young man he had encountered driving along the old, little-used road leading to the farm was too tempting to be refused. Upon acceptance of the child, Peter gave a post-office address to which remittances might be sent and the two men exchanged promises of secrecy.

"I doan want no one knowin' I got young-uns on the place," explained Peter. "Them big-heads thet passed thet law agin lettin' hawgs run in th' woods ain't past interferin' with what a man does on his own lan'. I doan want no agents a-comin' up hyar a-rootin' 'round."

The mustached individual in the buggy, who gave his name as Bailey, expressed much pleasure at hearing such sentiments. He agreed with Peter heartily. A man's house was his castle, he declared, and no one had a right to interfere with what he did there. He had a perfect right to house a dozen children if he so desired.

All the way home Peter pondered that statement. He had started out with the intention of securing a charity child to help with chores about the place. He had made inquiry and been directed to a hotel where a wealthy woman guest was about to be removed to a hospital. She had been too ill to see him but a maid had assumed that he was a Mr. Connors whom they were expecting and who was going to conduct a small boy to a distant school. Peter, groping for words to explain matters, was incoherent. The maid was called away and Peter found himself alone with the boy, and a small hand bag beside him.

The child looked sturdy and the maid had handed to Peter a roll of bills which she said were for traveling expenses. It seemed useless to prolong his stay in the city, so the hog farmer lost no time in starting homeward. The boy instinctively shrank from accompanying him but was too well trained to make open remonstrance.

"I'm afraid there's some mistake," was all the little fellow said as he trudged off beside the cruel-visaged man at whom, from time to time, he stole cautious, thoughtful glances.

It was while pausing to rest at a crossroads they were accosted by the man in the buggy. The latter's light remark about housing a dozen children gave Peter food for reflection. He fumbled the money in his pocket and gloated over its easy acquisition. If two children represented that much money, how much more might a dozen be reckoned to bring in? Deep in this fascinating problem he paid little heed to Mollie and Stephen for the first few hours.

For Maria, they provided diversion and entertainment. Without knowing it she had suffered all her life for lack of human companionship. Her father, the old moonshiner, and Peter her brutal consort, were both hard men, of few words. Young Ambrose, as yet, did little more than howl.

The advent of a talkative little girl and a kindly-spoken, gentle-mannered boy left the gaunt, stupid woman somewhat dazed. She studied the two attentively and listened, only half-comprehending, to their conversation. The morning following their arrival, little Mollie cried. She was tired and aching from her sleep on the floor and very, very hungry.

Maria, not intentionally cruel, and anxious to quell the outbreak of tears before Peter came within hearing, strove to learn what the child was crying about and made haste to supply something substantial in the way of food. She could not conceive of such a thing as homesickness. Her naïve questions finally resulted in staying Mollie's sobs and launching the little chatter-box upon a sea of vivid description of that world in which she had spent her short life.

"I know how to wipe dishes," she announced. "And once, Lucy let me make the coffee. Lucy's our cook. She showed me how to do lots of things. I can sew, too. My Mama taught me." There was a suspicion of tears again.

Stephen, until now very still, suddenly looked up from his huge cup of unappetizing coffee.

"Did you ever make a kite?"

"What's a kite?"

Maria got her snuff dip and sat down to listen.

"It's a big piece of paper like this," Stephen explained, indicating with his arms and hands the dimensions of the kite he had in mind. "You can put pictures on it if you want to, or you can write something on it. And you make a long tail for it out of most anything and then you take a string and run with it. Only it has to be a long string for the kite goes higher and higher, and then goes away off, nobody knows where. If you don't let go of the string you can pull it back again. But if you let go it just sails away to New York or China or some place a long way off. You never see it again."

"I reckon I'd see it again if it went straight up to heaven," exclaimed Mollie, ready to argue the matter.

"How?"

"Because God's up in heaven. He wouldn't take anything away from little children and not give it back some day." Then, suddenly, "Oh, of course, if it got all torn and rained on I reckon He'd feel sorry and--maybe give back something lots nicer. Did you ever try sending Him one, Splutters?"

Splutters had not. He did not think he could make a kite that would go high enough, he said.

Ambrose, waddling into the kitchen at that moment, paused by the stove to investigate the contents of a pan just within his reach. The pan overturned. There was a splash, a clatter and a shriek. Maria lurched to her feet.

"Hain't I tol' yo' to keep clar of thet thar stove?" she cried, distractedly, as she hurried to examine the child's injuries. "Now yo' got burned. Hit'll larn yo' somethin'. Lemme see yo' han'. Now, whut'll yore Paw say?"

But the thought of his "Paw" brought no comfort to Ambrose. Fortunately there had been little water in the pan. Most of it had poured over the hearth. Some had splashed over the youngster's clothes, and his hand was a trifle burned. From the degree of distress manifested he might have been undergoing torture. Mollie sprang from the table and ran to Maria's side.

"I know what to do," she cried. "Get some soda right away. That's what Lucy did when I spilled coffee on my fingers."

"Fetch hit. Hit's thar on th' shelf." Maria nodded toward the cupboard. Stephen, realizing that Mollie could not reach the shelf, climbed on a chair and secured the package of soda. Maria was having her hands full trying to manage the unruly Ambrose. She was glad to receive assistance. She had never had any before in her life. She had heard orders given and had always obeyed. Now she could give orders herself.

"Fetch that cloth, thar," she commanded. "Be still, honey, Mammy's goin' ter fix hit," she assured Ambrose, as she took the fat, pink fist in her hardened palm. "Hyar, yo' Steve, we doan' need yo'. Yo' git busy and tote thet bucket uf swill down ter th' hawgs. Pete's thar. He'll tell yo' whut ter do."

Stephen hesitated, looking down at his clothes. He had been dressed to travel to a school. They were not his oldest clothes. They were not even his every day clothes. Everything about the premises looked unclean. He wondered if he ought to carry such a big, unsavory bucket in such close proximity to his new suit. Then he remembered that the trunk which had been packed for him had not arrived. There was only the bag, and it contained no other suit; only toilet articles and night clothing. Some inner sense told him that the trunk would never come. There had certainly been some awful mistake. Again his lips quivered but the courageous spirit that had endeared him to everyone he had ever known enabled him to suppress the tears, as he had done the night previous, and to nerve his slight frame for what was before him.

"G'wan. Do as I to' yer. Doan stan' there a-gawpin'," exclaimed Maria. "Pete'll make yo' move quicker'n that, afore yo' hev ben hyar long."

Stephen stooped, carefully clutched the loathsome pail and staggered with it out of the door and along the path to the hog pen.

Mollie, whose natural instinct was to care for and mother something and who could not withstand a cry of distress from anyone or anything, was wholly engrossed in helping Maria bandage the blistered hand and quiet the cries of the luckless Ambrose. The little girl ran willingly here and there, doing whatever she was told, making suggestions as they came to her mind and trying in one way and another, after the manner of children, to divert the attention of the crying child from his injury and to make him laugh. In this she eventually succeeded. She danced for him.

Ambrose, more frightened than hurt by the accident and having created as much excitement as possible, permitted his mother to deposit him on the floor that he, too, might dance. The effort was not satisfactory. He had been dragging a stick with him when he entered the house. It now lay on the floor under his feet. He kicked it, then picked it up and, brandishing it in his uninjured hand, lunged wildly at Mollie. Some children talk volubly at three years of age. Ambrose, overgrown and lumbering, and nearing five years, possessed but a very limited vocabulary.

"Git," he cried excitedly. "Git--Git!"

Maria looked around. "Yo' better do whut he tells yo'," she warned Mollie. "Ef yo' doan, he'll hit yo'. He wants yo' to run so he kin play drivin' Walter."

Mollie evaded the stick by dodging. "Who's Walter?" she asked.

"Our horse," returned Maria, shortly.

The little girl's eyes sparkled. "Oh, I love horses," she exclaimed. "Can I see yours?"

"Not now yo' cain't. Yo' said yo' could do dishes. I'm goin' ter let yo' do 'em."

The woman's tone implied a command. Child though she was, Mollie sensed it. The momentary pleasure that had brightened her piquant little face at the mention of the horse now gave place to something akin to fear. This was not the kindly, humorous old cook, Lucy, who, by dint of much coaxing, had permitted her to wipe a few pieces of silver and her own cup and saucer occasionally. This was a gaunt, untidy, unkempt woman who had a wild look in her eyes and who seemed to be always afraid of something. Now she turned to her own offspring and pushed him forcibly out the door.

"Yo' git, yo'self, Sonny," she ordered. "Yo' kin make Mollie git, arter th' dishes is done. See what yo' Pappy's a-doin' down thar."

Ambrose lifted up his voice to protest but glimpsed his father going toward the bog with something over his shoulder, Stephen trudging behind, also encumbered. Instantly he changed his mind and hurried as fast as his fat legs would carry him in their direction.

Maria, turning again toward the heaped-up dishes on the table, looked down upon Mollie in surprise. The tot was standing rigidly in the center of the room, her eyes flashing, her tiny hands clinched.

"I don't want to wipe dishes," she exclaimed. "I don't like it here. I want to go home."

"This is yore home now," ejaculated Maria slowly, after she had comprehended the mutinous speech.

"It is not."

"Shuah hit es. Yo' an' me's goin' ter cook an' wash dishes an' arter while yo' kin go with me ter pull weeds an' pick 'tater-bugs."

The evident friendliness of this announcement disarmed Mollie. She had once looked at the colored pictures in a book of natural history and been much interested in the attractive jacket worn by the queer little bug "that just loved potatoes". Perhaps, she reflected, if she were good, as her Papa had told her to be, everything would yet turn out all right. If they had potato bugs and a horse at this queer place, they must also have sparrows. And if they had sparrows, God must be around somewhere. Perhaps He was looking for her at that very moment. With a winning smile she peered up into Maria's weather-beaten countenance.

"I'd like that," she said. "And then can I see Walter?"

"Shuah. Yo' kin tote his feed."

Mollie skipped about ecstatically. "Let's hurry," she said. "I like to do things quick. How do you wash dishes? That isn't the way Lucy does. If I was bigger I'd show you."

"I'll git me a box down ter th' barn fer yo' ter stan' on, an' termorrer yo' kin do 'em by yo'self while I set," said Maria.

Mollie's tongue, once loosened, found much to say. She enjoyed talking and Maria was a wonderful listener. Just as the dishes were finished and they were about to start for the truck patch a scream sounded. Another and another followed. They were screams of terror. Maria stood, as if rooted to the spot. Mollie raised her little hands in an involuntary gesture of alarm. Her heart seemed to flutter into her throat.

"Splutters!" she gasped, and darted like a bird in the direction whence the cries came.