The Rosie World

"Mad?" Rosie spoke the word as if it were one with which she was unfamiliar.

"I didn't think you'd care, Rosie, honest I didn't. I thought you'd understand."

"Understand what?" There was a certain coldness in the tone of Rosie's inquiry, and Janet, feeling it, seemed ready to wring her hands in despair.

"Why, Rosie, all we talked about was you – honest it was! Jarge said you were just like his own little sister to him, and I told him I loved you more than I would my own sister if I had one."

"Huh!" Rosie grunted, recalling the tilt of Janet's black sailor hat over George's shoulder. It had looked then as if they were talking about her, hadn't it now?

"Honest, Rosie!"

"Yes, of course. I suppose now you were talking about me when you – " Rosie pursed her lips and Janet, understanding her meaning, blushed guiltily.

"Aw, now, Rosie, listen: all I wanted was to have Tom Sullivan see."

"Well, he saw all right. So did I. So did everybody. And it was disgraceful, too!"

Janet groped helplessly about for words. "I don't exactly mean on account of Tom himself."

"Oh!"

"Please, Rosie," Janet begged; "don't talk to me that way… You know Tom's mother, my Aunt Kitty. You know the way she makes fun of me because I'm ugly and lanky. She's always saying that I'm an old maid already and that I'll never get a boy to look at me. So I just wanted her to hear about a nice fella like Jarge Riley hugging me and kissing me."

Rosie looked at Janet in astonishment. She had certainly expected Janet to make up a better story than that.

"Well, I must say, Janet McFadden, this is news to me! Since when have you got so particular about what your Aunt Kitty thinks or doesn't think? I always supposed she was beneath your contemp'."

"No, no, Rosie, it isn't that! I don't care what she thinks or what she says either, if only she wouldn't go blabbing it around everywhere!" With a sudden gust of passion, Janet clenched her hands and breathed hard. "Oh, how I hate her!"

Rosie had nothing to say and, after a pause, Janet continued more quietly:

"It's this way, Rosie: You know my old man. He's all right except sometimes when he comes home not quite himself. You know what I mean."

Yes, Rosie knew. In fact, like the rest of the world, she knew a great deal more than Janet supposed about Dave McFadden's drunken abuse of his wife and child.

"He's all right when he's straight, Rosie, honest he is."

Never before had Janet confessed in words, even to Rosie, that her father wasn't always sober. It was the fiction of life that she struggled most valiantly to maintain that this same father was the best and noblest of his kind. Poor Janet! In spite of herself Rosie experienced a pang of the old pity which thought of Janet's hard life always excited. But Janet was not striving to appeal to her thus. Slowly and painfully she was forcing herself to lay bare the little tragedy that shadowed her days…

"When he comes home that way he says awful things to me. He says I got a face like a horse and arms as long as a monkey's. He'd never think of things like that if it wasn't for Aunt Kitty. You know he thinks everything Aunt Kitty says is wonderful because she's supposed to be the bright one of the family and used to be pretty. And, Rosie, she ain't got a bit o' sense. All she can do is make people laugh by making fun of somebody. She never cares how much she hurts any one's feelings. I – I know I'm ugly, but – can I help it?.." Janet's face was quivering and her eyes were swimming in tears. "I don't see why Aunt Kitty's got to talk about it, do you? Even if I am ugly, I guess – I guess I got feelings like anybody else… It's only when dad's full that he starts in on it and begins to yell around until everybody in the building hears him. And I know just as well he'd never think of it if only Aunt Kitty would let up on me a little. So I thought – Oh, you understand now, don't you, Rosie? That's the reason I did it, honest it is. You believe me, Rosie, don't you?"

Believe her? Who wouldn't believe her? Long before she had finished speaking, the citadel of Rosie's affections had been stormed and retaken and Rosie, abject and conquered, was ready to cry for mercy.

"And when I told Jarge Riley about it," Janet continued, "he was just as nice. He pretended he wanted to kiss me anyhow, but he didn't, Rosie, honest he didn't. It was only because I was your friend that he wanted to be nice to me…"

Of course, of course. At last Rosie was seeing things as they really were, and seeing them thus made her heartsick when she remembered how she had spoken to kind old George Riley. How could she ever put herself right with him?.. She would be carrying his supper up to the cars at six o'clock. There would be only an instant of time, but an instant would be enough for her to say: "Oh, Jarge, I've just been happy all day long thinking about the good time you gave me yesterday! Me and Janet have been talking about it. Thanks, thanks so much!" And George Riley, if she knew him at all, instead of recalling her foolish words of last night, would grin all over and gasp out: "Aw, Rosie, that wasn't nuthin' at all!" That was the sort of fellow George was!..

"But listen here, Rosie," Janet's voice was continuing in tones of humble entreaty; "if I'd ha' known it would ha' made you mad, I wouldn't have asked Jarge Riley – honest I wouldn't. You believe me, don't you, Rosie?"

Tears were in Rosie's throat and self-abasement in her heart. Words, however, came hard. Fortunately she could slip her arm about Janet's neck in the old sweet, intimate fashion and Janet would understand that all was well between them.

"And, Janet dear, are you sure that Tom'll tell his mother?"

"Yes, I'm sure, because I made him promise not to."

"Why, Janet!"

"Sure, Rosie. You see Aunt Kitty'll ask him all about things and he'll tell about you and how pretty you looked and about Jarge Riley, and then Aunt Kitty'll begin making fun of me and that'll make Tom mad and he'll tell Aunt Kitty not to be so sure, and then she'll see he's holding back something and she'll tease until she gets it out of him… Oh, Rosie, I tell you I know her just as well! I can just hear her! And when Tom tells her how mad you are, that'll make her believe the rest… But honestly, Rosie, I didn't know you was mad till Tom told me."

"Tom!" Rosie was indignant at once. "Do you mean to say Tom Sullivan told you I was mad? Well, the next time you see Tom Sullivan you tell him for me to mind his own business!" Rosie paused a moment, then drew Janet closer to her. "Mad? What's eating Tom Sullivan? Friends like you and me, Janet, don't get mad!"

And Janet McFadden, shaking her head in horror that any one should even suggest such a thing, declared emphatically: "Of course not!"

CHAPTER XI

VON SCARS AND BRUISES

A few mornings later Rosie was seated on the front steps, shelling peas, when Janet passed the gate.

"Aren't you coming in?" Rosie called out.

At first Janet was not, but on Rosie's second invitation she changed her mind. As she reached the steps, Rosie discovered the reason of her hesitation. She had a black eye. She carried it consciously, but with such dignity, as it were, that Rosie could not at once decide whether Janet expected her to speak of it, or to accept it without comment.

Janet herself, after an introductory remark about the weather, broached the subject.

"What do you think about the eye I've got on me? Ain't it a beaut?"

It certainly was, and Rosie expressed emphatic appreciation.

"And how do you suppose I got it?" Janet pursued.

"I couldn't guess if I had to!"

Rosie's answer was tactful, rather than truthful. In her own mind she had very little doubt whence the black eye had come. But it would never do to say that she supposed it had been given Janet by her father during one of the drunken rages to which he was subject. With one's dearest friend one may be frank almost to brutality, but not on the subject of that friend's family. There are reserves that even friendship may not penetrate. So, with an exaggeration of guilelessness, Rosie declared:

"I couldn't guess if I had to! Honest I couldn't!"

Janet had her story ready:

"You know how dark the halls in our building are. Well, I was just going downstairs, when a boy sneaked up behind me, and pushed me, and I slipped, and hit my face against the banister. And I think I know who it was, too!"

Rosie was by nature too simple and direct to simulate with any great success the kind of surprise that Janet was forever demanding of her. Fortunately this time it did not matter, for, while Janet was speaking, Rosie's mother had appeared with an armful of darning. Unlike Rosie, Mrs. O'Brien was always in a state of what might be termed chronic surprise. She paused now before seating herself, to remark in shocked tones:

"Why, Janet McFadden, what's this ye're tellin'? Mercy on us, ain't b'ys just awful sometimes! But I'm thinkin' your da'll soon settle that lad!"

Janet shook her head violently.

"Mrs. O'Brien, I wouldn't dare tell my father that boy's name for anything! My father'd just murder him – honest he would! It just makes my father crazy when anybody touches me! He ain't responsible, he gets so mad – really he ain't! So you can see yourself I got to be mighty careful what I tell him. Besides, I ain't dead sure it was that boy, but I think it was."