Oh,Mag,Mag,for heaven's sake,let me talk to you!No,don't say anything.You must let me tell you.No--don't call the other girls.I can't bear to tell this to anybody but you.
You know how I kicked when Tom hit on Latimer's as the place we were to scuttle.And the harder I kicked the stubborner he got,till he swore he'd do the job without me if I wouldn't come along.Well--this is the rest of it.
The house,you know,stands at the end of the street.If you could walk through the garden with the iron fence you'd come right down the bluff on to the docks and out into East River.Tom and I came up to it from the docks last night.It was dark and wet,you remember.The mud was thick on my trousers--Nance Olden's a boy every time when it comes to doing business.
"We'll blow it all in,Tom,"I said,as we climbed."We'll spend a week at the Waldorf,and then,Tom Dorgan,we'll go to Paris.I want a red coat and hat with chinchilla,like that dear one I lost,and a low-neck satin gown,and a silk petticoat with lace,and a chain with rhinestones,and--""Just wait,Sis,till you get out of this.And keep still.""I can't.I'm so fidgety I must talk or I'll shriek.""Well,you'll shut up just the same.Do you hear me?"I shut up,but my teeth chattered so that Tom stopped at the gate.
"Look here,Nance,are you going to flunk?Say it now--yes or no."That made me mad.
"Tom Dorgan,"I said,"I'll bet your own teeth chattered the first time you went in for a thing like this.I'm all right.
You'll squeal before I do."
"That's more like.Here's the gate.It's locked.Come,Nance."With a good,strong swing he boosted me over,handed me the bag of tools and sprang over himself.He looked kind o'handsome and fine,my Tom,as he lit square and light on his feet beside me.And because he did,I put my arm in his and gave it a squeeze.
Oh,Mag,it was so funny,going through Latimer's garden!There was the garden table where I had sat reading and thinking he took me for Miss Omar.There was the bench where that beast Moriway sat sneering at me.The wheeled chair was gone.And it was so late everything looked asleep.But something was left behind that made me think I heard Latimer's slow,silken voice,and made me feel cheap--turned inside out like an empty pocket--a dirty,ragged pocket with a seam in it.
"You'll stay here,Nancy,and watch,"Tom whispered."You'll whistle once if a cop comes inside the gate,but not before he's inside the gate.Don't whistle too soon--mind that--nor too loud.
I'll hear ye all right.And I'll whistle just once if--anything happens.Then you run--hear me?Run like the devil--""Tommy--"
"Well,what?"
"Nothing--all right."I wanted to say good-by--but you know Tom.
Mag,were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnight--alone?
No,I know you weren't.'Twas your ugly little face and your hair that saved you--the red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty.
I can see you now--a freckle-faced,thin little devil,with the tangled hair to the very edge of your ragged skirt,yanked in that first day to the Cruelty when the neighbors complained your crying wouldn't let 'em sleep nights.The old woman had just locked you in there,hadn't she,to starve when she lit out.
Mothers are queer,ain't they,when they are queer.I never remember mine.
Yes,I'll go on.
I stood it all right for a time,out there alone in the night.
But I never was one to wait patiently.I can't wait--it isn't in me.But there I had to stand and just--God!--just wait.
If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a'given out so soon.But I stood so still and listened so terribly hard that the trees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and creep.I heard things in my head and ears that weren't sounding anywhere else.And all of a sudden--tramp,tramp,tramp--I heard the cop's footsteps.
He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the gate.I crouched down behind the iron bench.
And my coat caught a twig on a bush and its crack--ck was like a yell.
I thought I'd die.I thought I'd scream.I thought I'd run.
I thought I'd faint.But I didn't--for there,asleep on a rug that some one had forgotten to take in,was the house cat.I gave her a quick slap,and she flew out and across the path like a flash.
The cop watched her,his hand on the gate,and passed on.
Mag Monahan,if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and gone home with me,I'd been so relieved I'd never have tried again.But he didn't come.Nothing happened.Nights and nights and nights went by,and the stillness began to sound again.My throat went choking mad.I began to shiver,and I reached for the rug the cat had lain on.
Funny,how some things strike you!This was Latimer's rug.I had noticed it that evening--a warm,soft,mottled green that looked like silk and fur mixed.I could see the way his long,white hands looked on it,and as I touched it I could hear his voice--Oh,Thou,who Man of baser Earth didst make,And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!
Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that?No?Well,it's--it's different.It's as if the river had spoken--or a tree--it's so--it's so different.