Red Robin
J >> Jane Abbott >> Red RobinRED-ROBIN
BY
JANE ABBOTT
AUTHOR OF KEINETH, HIGHACRES, APRILLY, Etc.
With Illustrations By
HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
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[Illustration: THE EFFECT WAS VERY CHRISTMASY--Page 196]
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TO BETSY
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Prologue--A Story Before the Story 11
I. The Orphan Doll 19
II. A Prince 28
III. The House of Forsyth 39
IV. Red-Robin 49
V. Jimmie 61
VI. The Forsyth Heir 70
VII. Beryl 79
VIII. Robin Asserts Herself 90
IX. The Lynchs 103
X. The Lady of the Rushing Waters 114
XI. Pot Roast and Cabbage Salad 126
XII. Robin Writes a Letter 138
XIII. Susy Castle 151
XIV. A Gift to the Queen 164
XV. The Party 176
XVI. Christmas at the Manor 190
XVII. The House of Laughter 204
XVIII. The Luckless Stocking 220
XIX. Granny 235
XX. Robin's Beginning 250
XXI. At the Granger Mills 266
XXII. The Green Beads 279
XXIII. Robin's Rescue 292
XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home 305
Epilogue--A Story After the Story 318
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Effect Was Very Christmasy Frontispiece
The Beautiful Little Girl Had Not Spoken To Her 20
"Couldn't I Run Away With You?" 56
"It's Like The House of Bread And Cake" 119
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RED-ROBIN
PROLOGUE
A STORY BEFORE THE STORY
On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that
she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was
about her. There was so very, very _much_ beauty--the sky, azure blue
overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the
whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like
waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything--
And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of
her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.
Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very
moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in
the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square
bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow
Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others.
Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was
always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.
And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could
hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the
winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she
went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the
grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music.
Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's
all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating
over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid as
to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like
white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that
land felt richer than Moira when she began her dreaming.
Of late, her dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her
growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the
grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance,
lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and
away westward with it, away like a bird in far flight.
Beyond that golden horizon of heaving sea was everything one could
possibly want; Moira had heard that when she was a tiny girl. America,
the States, they were words that opened fairy doors.
Father Murphy had told her much about that world beyond the sea. He had
visited it once; had spent six weeks with his sister who had married
and settled on a farm in the state of Ohio. His sister's husband had all
sorts of new-fangled machinery for plowing and seeding, and for his
reaping! And Father Murphy had told her of the free library that was in
the town near his sister's home, where he could sit all day and read to
his heart's content.
Father Murphy (he had spent three whole days in New York) had made her
see the great buildings that were like granite giants towering over and
walling in the pigmy humanity that beat against their sides like the
rise and fall of the tide; he told her of the rush and roar of the
streets and of the trains that tore over one's head.
And he told her of the loveliness that was there in picture and music.
Moira, listening, quivering with the longing to be fine and to do fine
things, could always see it all just as though magic hands swept aside
those miles of ocean dividing that land of marvel from her Ireland.
That was why it was so simple to let her dream-mind climb up and away
westward. Her eyes, staring into the paling blue, saw beautiful things
and her thoughts revelled in delicious fancies.
That slender, gold crowned bit of a cloud--_that_ was Destiny circling
her globe, weaving, and moulding, and shaping; Moira O'Donnell's own
humble thread was on her loom! And Destiny's face was turned westward.
Moira saw shining towers and thronged streets and fields greener than
her own. Far-off music sounded in her ears as though the world off there
just sang with gladness. And it was waiting for her--her. She saw
herself moving forward to it all with quick step and head high, going to
a beautiful goal. Sometimes that goal was a palace-place, encircled by
brilliant flowers, sometimes a farm like Father Murphy's sister's and a
husband who worked with marvelous contrivances, sometimes a free library
with all the books one could want, sometimes a dim, vaulted space
through which echoed exquisite music--
She so loved that make-believe Moira, moving forward toward glowing
things, that she cried aloud: "That's me! _Me!_" And of course her voice
broke the spell--the dream vanished; there was nothing left but the
fleecy cloud, the meadow lark's song, close by.
There was just time enough before her grandmother needed her, to run
down to Father Murphy's. She knew at this hour she would find him by his
wide doorstep. Fleetly, her bare feet scarcely touching the soft earth,
she covered the distance to his house. She ran up behind him and slipped
her fingers over his half-closed eyes.
He knew the familiar touch of the girl's hands. He patted them with his
own and moved aside on his bench that she might sit down with him.
"Father," she said, very low, her eyes shining. "It's my dream again."
The old priest did not chide her for idling, as her grandmother would
have done. The old priest dreamed, too.
"Tell me," she went on. "Can one go to school over there as long as one
likes? Is it too grown-up I am to learn more things from books?"
The old Father told her one could never be too old to learn from books.
He loved her craving for knowledge. Had he not taught her himself, since
she was twelve? He looked at her proudly.
"Father!" She whispered now, and the rose flush deepened in her face.
"It's Danny Lynch that comes every evening to see me."
Now Father Murphy turned squarely and regarded her with startled eyes.
This slip of a girl was the most precious colleen in his flock.
"And, Father, it's of America _he_ talks all the time!"
The old priest shivered as though from a chill. Sensing his feeling,
Moira caught his hand quickly and held it in a close grip.
"But if I go away it's not forgetting you I'll be! Oh, who in all this
world has been a better friend to Moira O'Donnell? Who has taught Moira
but you?"
"Child--"
"Sure it's grown-up I am! See!" She sprang to her feet and stood slimly
erect. "See?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes. And your old priest had not noticed. Moira--" he
caught her arm, leaned forward and peered into her face as though to
see through it into her soul. "Moira, girl, is it courage I have taught
ye? And honor? And faith?"
Her heart was singing now over the secret she had shared with him. Who
would not have courage and faith when one was so happy? With a lift of
her shoulders, a tilt of her head, she shrugged away his seriousness.
"If you could only see me, Father, as I am in my dream. Oh, it's
beautiful I am! And smart! And rich!"
"Not money," broke in the priest with a ring of contempt.
"Sure, no, not money! But fine things. Oh, Father," she clasped her
hands childishly. "It's fine things I want. The very finest in the
world! And I want my Danny to want them, too."
"Fine things," he repeated slowly. "And will ye know the fine things
from the dross, child? That wealth is more times what ye give, aye, than
what ye get? It's rich ye are of your fine things if the heart of you is
unselfish--"
"What talk, you, Father; it's like the croaking frogs in the Widow
Finnegan's pond you are! But, sh-h-h, I will tell you what I saw, as
real as real, as I lay dreaming--Destiny herself, as fine as you please,
sailing to the new world, a-spinning on her loom. She had Moira
O'Donnell's poor thread and who knows, Father Murphy, but maybe this
minute it's a-spinning it with a thread of gold she is!" The girl's
eyes danced. "Ah, 'tis nonsense I talk, for it's a dream it was, but my
poor heart's so light it hurts--here."
The old man laid a trembling hand upon her head. Under his touch it
bowed with quick reverence but not before she had seen a mistiness in
the kindly eyes.
"It's God's blessing I ask for ye--and yes, may your dream come true--"
"Your blessing for Danny, too," whispered Moira.
"For the both of ye!"
"Sure it's a crossing Granny'll be a-giving me and no blessing," laughed
the girl. It was her own word for Granny's sharp tongue. "I'd best be
off, Father dear."
"Wait." The old man disappeared through his door. Presently he came out
carrying a small box. From this he took a crumpled package. Unwrapping
the tissue folds he revealed, in the cup of his hand, a string of green
beads.
"Oh! Oh! How beautiful!" cried the girl. "Are they for me?" with the
youthful certainty that all lovely things were her due.
"Yes. To remember my blessing." He regarded them fondly, lifted them
that she might see their beauty against the sun's glow. "'Twas in a
little shop in London I found the pretty things."
Moira knew how much he must love them as a keepsake--that visit to
London was only next in his heart to the trip to America. She caught his
hands, beads, tissue wrappings and all.
"Oh, it's precious they are! And you too!"
The Father fastened them over the girl's shabby dress. "They are only
beads," he admonished. "But it's of this day they'll remind you."
He watched Moira as she ran off down the lane. He noted the quick, sure
tread of her feet, the challenging poise of her head. "Colleen--" he
whispered with a smile. "Little colleen." He turned to his door and his
lips, even though they still twisted in a smile, moved as though in
prayer.
"And may God keep pure the dream in the heart of ye!"
CHAPTER I
THE ORPHAN DOLL
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--"
[Illustration: 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!"
CHAPTER II
A PRINCE
Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door of
"Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward. Three
times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he worked in
the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese, between
customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to be "dumplin's"
this night and that she would keep some warm for him, and because the
wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he broke into a run.
His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the
neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now,
dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering
the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence.
Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit
of humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence.
"Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid?
Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and
swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for
the hour was late, and the child a very small one.
"I lost--my Cynthia."
"Your--_what_?"
"My--my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice
trailed off in a wail.
Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was
visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of
her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round
and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to
run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of
the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony had
come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away and
for-g-got Cynthia!"