"And her didn't cwy," declared the baby, turning a pair of indignantly reproachful eyes upon Joey, "her danced, her didn't cwy."
"Ain't yer goin' to dance fer us now?" coaxed Mr. Tomlin.
"No," said the Angel naughtily, then relenting at sight of her Tomlin's face, "her'll sing, her won't dance."
The pleasant gentleman, thinking, perhaps to please Mr. Tomlin, or maybe to get rid of them the sooner, produced a red ribbon badge. "Ef ze will sing," he said, showing his white teeth as he smiled, "ze shall hav it."
Turning to view this new party, her ladyship treated him to a brief examination, but evidently approving of him, began to sing with no more ado:
"Je suis si l'enfant gaté
Tra la la la, tra la la,
Car je les aime les petits patés.
Et les confitures,
Si vous voulez me les donner
Je suis très bien obligé,
Tra la la la, tra la la,
Tra la la la, tra la la."
Only a word here and there could have been intelligible, but their effect upon the pleasant gentleman was instantaneous. He broke into a torrent of foreign exclamations and verbosity, showing his teeth and gesticulating with his hands.
A strange light came into the baby's face and she held out her arms to the little man entreatingly. "Oui, oui," she cried, a spot of red burning on each cheek, "you take Angel to her mamma, take Angel to her mamma!"
But here the door of the Tomlin's room opened hastily, and the neighbor who was sitting with the sick woman thrust out her head. "She's talkin' mighty wild an' out her head," she said, "you'd better come to her."
Mr. Tomlin rose hastily, while the dark little man, yielding to the child's entreaties, took her in his arms.
But the red-headed gentleman laid a dirty hand on Mr. Tomlin's arm. "Just as I was saying," he said, as if resuming a broken-off conversation, "no doctor, no medicine. Why? No work, no wages. Why? The heel of the rich man grinding the poor to the earth."
Mr. Tomlin hesitated.
"It's entirely a meeting of Union men. No violence advocated. A mass-meeting to discuss appointing committees to demand work."
"Ze outcry of ze oppressed," put in the pleasant gentleman, looking out from behind the Angel's fair little head, and showing his white teeth in his smile, "in zer union ees zere only strength."
Mr. Tomlin's door opened still more violently. "She's a-beggin' as you'll get her some ice," announced the neighbor, "she says she's burnin' up."
"God A'mighty!" burst forth the giant, "I ain't got a cent on earth to get her nothin'," and he turned toward the two men fiercely, his great brows meeting over his sullen eyes, "yes, I'll come, you can count on me," and he went in the door.
"Liberty Square by the statue, four o'clock," called the dirty gentleman after him, while the pleasant gentleman put the Angel hastily down. "Adieu, mon enfant," he cried, showing his teeth as he smiled back over his shoulder, and followed his companion down the stairs.
In time Joey and his weeping charge also reached the bottom. Not a word of the conversation had escaped the sharp ears of the Major. "It's past two, now," he soliloquized, "an' he said Liberty Square, four o'clock. I know where the statoo is. Yer follows the cars from front of th' arm'ry an' they goes right there, 'cause that's where the Cap'n's office is. Don'tcher cry no more, Angel," with insinuating coaxing in his tones, "I'll take yer there if yer wanter go."
The Angel slipped her hand in his obediently, and the two forthwith proceeded to leave the neighborhood of the Tenement behind them, undeterred by the friendly overtures of Petey O'Malligan and his colleagues to join in with their pastimes.
"We ain't got no time fer foolin'," confided Joey, hurrying her along, "there'll be flags an' hollerin', an' we wanter get there in time."
On reaching the car line the small Major was obliged to slacken his speed, for, while, in a measure, the Angel had caught the spirit of his enthusiasm, yet her legs refused to keep pace with his haste.
"Ef yer was still ter heaven, Angel," the Major pondered, as they stood on the street corner getting breath, "yerz wouldn't need ter use yer legs at all, would yer? Yer'd jus' take out an' fly across this yere street, waggins an' trucks an' all, wouldn't yer?"
The Angel cast her eyes upon him doubtfully.
"That's what my mammy tol' me about Angels," Joey declared stoutly.
"Angel didn't a never fly," nevertheless the baby stated with conviction.
Joey looked disappointed, and even unconvinced. Then his face brightened. "That's 'cause you was too little, like that canary at th' Res't'rant what ain't got its feathers yet. You was too little fer yer wings to have growed afore you come away," and his lively imagination having thus settled the problem, the two continued their way.
"Yer see how it is," he observed presently, evidently having been revolving the subject in his busy brain, "ef Mis' Tomlin had th' doctor an' some ice, she'd get well, she would, an' Mr. Tomlin, he's goin' to this yere meetin' to see about work, so's he can get 'em fer her. But 'tain't no use fer workin' men to beg for work these yere days," he added with a comical air of wisdom. "I heerd Old G. A. R. say, I did, to a man what comes ter talk politics wid him, that beggin' th' rich people to help yer was jus' like buttin' yer head agin a brick wall, so what good's it goin' ter do if he does go?"
The Angel nodded amiably, and slipped her hand in Joey's that she might the better keep up. They had passed the region of small shops and were passing through a better portion of the city. Before a tall stone house, one of a long row, a girl stood singing, while a boy played an accompaniment on a harp. As Joey and his charge reached them, a lady, with a group of children clustered about her, threw some pennies out the window to the young musicians.
"Did yer see that, Angel," demanded Joey, "did yer ketch onter that little game? We c'n do that. I c'n whis'le an' you c'n sing, an' we'll make 'nough to get Mis' Tomlin th' ice ourselves. If yer do," continued the wily Joey, "I tell yer what,-we'll go home on the cable cars, we will." And he hurried his small companion along the sunny sidewalks, still following the line of the cable cars, until they came to a business street again, this time of large and handsome stores. Here, before the most imposing, Joey paused, and cast a calculating eye upon the stream of shoppers passing in and out. "Now, Angel, sing," he commanded.
The footsore, tired Angel, hot and cross, declined to do it. "Her wants to sit down an' west," she declared.
"We'll sit down out there on ther curbstone an' rest soon as yer sing some," promised the Major. So, taking up their stand on the flagging outside the entrance of the big store, the bare-headed Angel, in her worn gingham frock, highbred and beautiful as a little princess, despite it, struck up with as much effect as a bird's twitter might make. Finding that his whistle in no way corresponded to the song, Joey wisely contented himself with holding out his soldier's cap.
Two such babies, one with so innocent, and the other with so comically knowing a smile, could not but attract attention. Some laughed, some sighed, some stopped to question, many dropped pennies and some put nickels, and even a dime or two into Joey's cap, while one stout and good-humored woman opened the paper bag she carried and put a sponge cake in each hand. But at this point, seeing that the policeman in charge of the crossing had more than once cast a questioning eye upon them, Joey decided to move on. "We'll have ter hurry anyhow," he observed, "ter get to ther speakin' in time. If you'll come on, Angel, 'thout restin', I'll tell yer what,-I'll buy yer a banana, I will, first ones we see." And the weary Angel, thus beguiled, dragged her tired feet along in Joey's wake.
* * * * *
The slanting rays from the setting sun were falling across Liberty Square, on the statue of that great American who declared all men to be created equal, on the sullen faces of hundreds of idle men who stood beneath its shadow, listening to speech after speech from various speakers, speeches of a nature best calculated to coax the smouldering resentment in their hearts into a blaze.