Читать книгу The Rosie World - Fillmore Parker - Страница 5

Rosie had not long to wait, as George's run ended at nine o'clock.

"Sst! Jarge!" she called softly as he bounded up the steps and would have passed her in the dark.

"Is that you, Rosie?"

"Sit down a minute, Jarge. I want to ask you something."

George mopped his head with his handkerchief and drew a long breath. "Whew, but I'm tired, Rosie! I rang up over seventy-five fares three times tonight."

Rosie opened with no preliminary remarks. "Say, Jarge, can you lend me twenty-five cents until tomorrow night? You know I get paid tomorrow."

"Sure, Rosie. What for?"

"I want to go to the Dog Show matinée."

George paused a moment. "But, Rosie, you don't need twenty-five cents for that. You told me it was ten cents."

"I know, Jarge, but I want to take Jackie and Janet."

"Why, Rosie!"

"Well, if I don't, poor Janet'll never get there. She never gets anywhere. You know her father boozes every cent. And I just got to take Jackie if I go myself. Besides, he'll only cost me five cents and that will let me use the nickel Terry gave me for peanuts."

"But, Rosie," – George cleared his throat – "I thought you were saving every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time."

"I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly.

"Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?"

She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.

"N-nothing," she quavered.

"Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control.

"I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister."

For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.

"I – I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard – you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.

George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?"

"Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us… And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge – curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"

George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I – I'm sure she will."

"That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were snatched away from you!"

George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many times."

"What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?"

George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm saving every cent until people think I'm a tightwad."

"But, Jarge, how did they get it away from you so many times?"

"Well, just to show you: Two years ago one of the barns burned down. That cost me two hundred dollars. Last summer we lost a couple of our best cows worth sixty dollars apiece. This winter the old man was laid up with rheumatiz a couple o' months and it cost me a dollar a day to get the chores done, let alone the doctor bill. And each time I was just about ready to blow my job here and hike for home. I thought sure I'd be doing my own plowing this spring."

Weariness and discouragement sounded in his voice and Rosie, forgetting her own troubles, slipped her arms about his neck.

"I'm awful sorry, Jarge. Maybe if nothing happens this summer you'll be able to go back in the fall."

George shook himself doggedly. "Oh, I'll get there some time! I cleaned up the mortgage the first year I was here and now I'm working to pile up five hundred in the bank before I go. I'm getting there, too, but I hope to God I won't have any more setbacks!"

"And if you do, Jarge?.."

The answer came sharp and quick: "I'll save all the harder!"

For a few moments both were silent. Then George spoke: "I'm sorry, Rosie, about this thing. I know how you feel. If you want to, after this you may hide your savings in my trunk. I've got two keys and I'll give you one."

"I – I didn't think I was going to save any more, Jarge."

"Not save? Of course you're going to save! You've got to save!"

"Why?"

"So's to have something to show for your work!"

"But it takes so awful long, Jarge, and even then maybe you lose it."

"I know, Rosie, but even so you got to do it. It's only muckers that never save."

"Why, Jarge!"

"Sure, Rosie. Only muckers. They blow in every cent they get as soon as they make it or before. That's why they can afford to go off on drunks and holler around and smash things up. They ain't got nuthin' to lose no matter what they do. Oh, I tell you, Rosie, just show me a loud-mouthed mucker and I'll show you a fellow that don't know the first thing about saving!"

"Really, Jarge?"

"Yes, really. And the same way, take decent hard-working people and what do you find? As sure as you're alive, you'll find them saving every cent to put the children through school, or pay for their home, or take care of the old folks. I tell you, Rosie, you got to save if ever you get anywhere in this world!"

"But, Jarge, I – I think I just got to go to that Dog Show now."

George laughed and gave her a little hug. "All right, kiddo. Here's the quarter. Have a good time and tell me about it afterwards. Next week, you know, you can begin saving in earnest. My trunk – "

"Please, Jarge," Rosie begged, "don't make me promise. Give me a week to think about it."

"Of course you can have a week to think about it." They were standing up now, ready to go into the house. "But I know all right what you'll decide."

"How do you know?"

George stooped and gave her a hearty country kiss, smack on the mouth. "Because I know there's nothing of the mucker about Rosie O'Brien!"

And Rosie, as she slipped upstairs, tying the quarter in the corner of her handkerchief, suddenly realized that she was no longer unhappy. How could any one be unhappy who had a friend as good and as kind as George Riley? And, in addition to him, she had nice old Terry – hadn't he given her a nickel and been sorry it wasn't a quarter? – and dear little Jackie and the faithful Janet and poor old Danny Agin, too! Thank goodness, neither Ellen nor any one else could steal them away from her!