Red-Robin

November-and a chill wind scurrying, snapping, biting, driving before it fantastic scraps of paper, crackly leaves, a hail of fine cinders. An early twilight, gray like a mist, enveloped the city in gloom. Through it lights gleamed bravely from the grimy windows rising higher and higher to the low-hanging clouds, each thin shaft beckoning and telling of shelter and a warmth that was home.

High over the heads of the hurrying humanity in a street of tenements Moira Lynch lighted her lamp and set it close to the bare window. With her it was a ceremony. She sang as she performed the little act. Without were the shadows of the approaching night-gloom, storm, disaster, perhaps even the evil fairies; her lamp would scatter them all with its glow, just as her song drove the worries from her heart.

Her lamp lighted, she paused for a moment, her head forward, listening. Then at the sound of a light step she sprang to the door and threw it open. A wee slip of a girl, almost one with the shadows of the dingy hallway, ran into her arms.

"And it's so late you are, dearie! And so dark it's grown-and cold. Your poor little hands are blue. Why, what have you here, hidin' under your shawl? Beryl Lynch! Dear love us-a doll!" With a laugh that was like a tinkling of low pitched bells the little mother drew the treasure from its hiding place. But as her eyes swept the silken splendor of the raiment her merriment changed to wonder and then to fear.

"You didn't-you didn't-oh, Beryl Lynch, you-"

"Steal it? No. Give me it. I-found it."

But the terror still darkened the mother's eyes.

"And where did you find it?"

"On the bench. She left it. She forgot it. Ain't it mine now?" pleadingly. "I waited, honest, but she didn't come back."

Mrs. Lynch was examining the small wonder with timid fingers, lifting fold after fold of shining satin and dainty muslin.

"Who was she?" she asked.

"A kid." Little Beryl kindled to the interest of her story. Had not something very thrilling happened in her simple life-a life the greatest interest of which was to carry to the store each day the small bundle of crocheted lace which her mother made. "She was a swell kid. She played in the park, waitin' for a big man."

"Did she talk to you?" breathlessly.

Beryl avoided this question. The beautiful little girl had not spoken to her, though she had hung by very close, inviting an approach with hungry eyes.

"She was just a little kid," loftily. Then, "Ain't the doll mine?"

Mrs. Lynch patted down the outermost garment. "Yes, it's yours it is, darlin'. At least-" she hesitated over a fleeting sense of justice, "maybe the little stranger will be a-coming back for her doll. It's a fair bit of dolly and it's lonesome and weeping the little mother may be this very minute-"

Beryl reached out eager arms.

"It's an orphan doll. I'll love it hard. Give me it. Oh," with a breath that was like a whistle. "Ain't she lovely? Mom, is she too lovely for us?"

The timid question brought a quick change in the mother's face, a kindling of a fire within the mother breast. She straightened her slender body.

"And if there's anything too good for my girlie I'd like to see it! Isn't this the land where all men are equal and my girl and boy shall have a school as good as the best and grow up to be maybe the President himself?" She repeated the words softly as though they made a creed, learned carefully and with supreme faith. Why had she come, indeed, to this crowded, noisy city from her fair home meadows if not for this promise it held out to her?

"And isn't your brother the head of his class?" she finished triumphantly. "And it's smarter than ever you'll be yourself with your little books. Oh, childy!" She caught the little girl, doll and all, into an impulsive embrace.

From it Beryl wriggled to a practical curiosity as to supper. She sniffed. Her mother nodded.

"Stew! And with dumplin's-" She made it sound like fairy food. "Ready to the beating when your father comes."

"Where's Dale? And Pop?"

"It's Dale's night at the store. And Pop'll be comin' along any minute. I've set the lamp for him."

"I'm hungry," Beryl complained. She sat down cross-legged on the spotless scrap of carpeting and proceeded with infinite tenderness to disrobe the doll.

"Do you think she will like it here?" she asked suddenly, looking about the humble room which for the Lynch's, served as parlor, dining-room and kitchen. Now its bareness lay wrapped in a kindly shadow through which glinted diamond sparks from much-scrubbed tin. "It's nice-" Beryl meditated. She loved this hour, she loved the singing tea-kettle and the smell of strong soap and her mother's face in the lamplight, with all the loud noises of the street hushed, and the ugliness outside hidden by the closed door, against the paintless boards of which had been nailed a flaming poster inviting the nation's youth to join the Navy.

"But maybe this home'll be-too different," she finished.

The mother's eyes grew moist with a quick tenderness. Her Beryl, with this wonder of a dolly in her arms! Her mind flashed over the last Christmas and the one before that when Beryl had asked Santa Claus for a "real doll" and had cried on Christmas morning because the cheap little bit of dolldom which the mother had bought out of her meagre savings would not open or shut its eyes. And now-the impudent heart of the blessed child worrying that the home wasn't good enough for the likes of the doll!

"It's a good home for her where it's loving you are to her. It's the heart and not the gold that counts. And who knows-maybe it's a bit of luck the dolly'll be a-bringing."

As though a word of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that never failed to brighten her deepest gloom. Did she not staunchly believe that someday by a turn of good fortune she and her Danny would know the America and the good things of which they had dreamed, sitting in the gloaming of their Ireland, their lover's hands close clasped? But for that hope why would they have left their dear hillsides with the homely life and the kindly neighbors and good Father Murphy who had taught her from his own dog-eared books because she was eager and quick to learn? Through the fourteen years since they had come to America those girl-and-boy dreams had gone sadly astray, but the little wife still clung to the faith that they'd have the good things sometime, her Danny would get a better job and if he didn't there was young Dale, always at the head of his class in school and even the baby Beryl, as quick as anything to pick out words from her little books.

"A good luck dolly!" Beryl held the doll close. Her eyes grew round and excited. "Then I can ride all day on a 'bus and go to the Zoo, can't I? And can I have a new coat with fur? And go to Coney? And shoot the shoots? And can Dale ride a horse? And can Dale and me go across the river where it's like-that?" nodding to the poster.

Mrs. Lynch rocked furiously in her joy at Beryl's anticipations. The floor creaked and the kettle sang louder than before.

"That you can. And it'll be a fine strong, brave girl you'll be, going to school and learning more than even poor old Father Murphy knew, God love him. And by and by-"

But a heavy toiling of steps up the stairs checked her words. That slow tread was not her big Danny nor the young Dale! At a knock she flew to the door.

"Oh, and if it isn't Mister Torrence." She caught the old man who stood on the threshold and laughingly pulled him into the room. "It was afraid I was that it was bad news! Danny Lynch isn't home yet but you shall stay and eat dumplin's with us-the best outside of our Ireland-"

THE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL HAD NOT SPOKEN TO HER

"No! No!" protested the old man, regretfully. "My old woman's waitin'! Bad news! It's good news I bring. Dan's had a raise. He's foreman of the gang now. And I stepped 'round to tell ye the good news and that Dan'll be a-workin' tonight with an extry shift and'll not be comin' home to dinner, worse luck for him!" sniffing appreciatively at the pleasant odor from the stove.

"A raise? My Dan a foreman?" Moira Lynch caught her hands together. "It's the good luck! And it's deservin' of it he is for no man on the docks works harder than my big Dan." Her eyes shone like two stars.

"Well, ye'll want to be a-eatin' the dumplin's so I'll go along. Good-night, Mrs. Lynch."

"God love you, Mister Torrence," whispered Moira, too overcome to manage her voice.

Closing the door behind her unexpected visitor she turned and caught the wondering Beryl into her arms.

"And I was a-thinking it would never come! It's ashamed I should be to have doubted. My big Dan!"

"Is it the dolly that's brought us the good-luck, Mom?" interrupted Beryl, round-eyed.

"A foreman!" cried the mother in the very tone she would have used if she had said "a king." She-danced about until the floor creaked threateningly. "Our good fortune is coming, my precious. And it's fine and beautiful my girl shall be with a dress as good as the next one. Wait! Wait!" She flew into the tiny bedroom, returning in a moment with a small box in her hands. From it she lifted a string of round green beads and held them laughingly before Beryl's staring eyes.

"My beads! You shall wear them this night. It's the good old Father's blessing." She clasped them about Beryl's neck, fingering them tenderly.

"Pretty beads. Pretty beads," cried the little girl.

Suddenly quieted by a rush of memories Mrs. Lynch sat down and took Beryl upon her lap. "Beryl darlin', was the likes of that other little girl-the one who forgot the dolly-fine and beautiful?"

"Oh, yes!" The child's voice carried a note of wonder.

"And you shall be fine and beautiful, too, Moira Lynch's own girl, just as I used to dream for my own self, the selfish likes o' me. You shall go to school and learn from good books. Didn't the old Father tell me of the fine schools he had seen when he visited his sister in America? And anybody can go-anybody!"

Little Beryl felt that it was a solemn moment. She lifted serious eyes. "I promise," she drawled, with a gravity out of all proportion to her six years, "I promise to go to school and learn lots like Dale and be fine and boo'ful so's my 'dopted dolly will like me as well as-that other kid. I've gotta be good 'nough for her. So there."

The child could not comprehend the obstacles which might threaten such a standard; she stared bravely into the unblinking eyes of the doll who smiled back her graven smile.

Then: "I'm hungry," she declared, suddenly deciding that dumplings were more important than anything else. "And can my Dolly sit in Pop's seat?"

"That she can," cried the mother, going to her "mixin'." "And what a gay supper it will be-with the new dolly and the pretty beads and the dumplin's. Oh, Himself a foreman!"

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