The Rosie World

"Danny, you oughtn't to talk that way about poor Mis' Agin!" Rosie shook her head vigorously. "She loves you, Danny, you know she does!"

"To be sure," Danny agreed. "'Whom the Lord loveth, He chases,' and Mary has been chasin' me these forty years. But she's a good woman, Rosie – oh, ho, I never forget that!" Danny paused a moment, then added with a wicked little grin: "And if I was to forget it, she'd be on hand herself to remind me of it!"

As always, when they were alone, Danny was a good deal of the naughty small boy saying things he should not say, and Rosie a good deal of the helpless shocked young mother begging him to mind his manners. She looked at him now sadly and yearningly. "Oh, Danny, I don't see how you can talk that way and poor Mis' Agin's just been nursing you night and day."

"Pooh!" scoffed Danny. "Take me word for it, Rosie, when ye've been married forty years, ye'll expect to be nursed night and day and no back talk from any one. But, for love of Mike, darlint dear, let's talk of something else! I've had nuthin' but Mary for the last couple of weeks. Not another face have I seen and ye know yourself that Mary's face was niver intinded for such constant use!"

Rosie gasped and swallowed and tried hard to find some fitting reproof. Failing in this she sought to distract her friend from further indiscretions by changing the subject. "Hasn't Janet been in to see you, Danny?"

"Janet?" Danny spoke as though with an effort to recall the name. "Yes, I suppose Janet has been in. I dunno."

"Danny, I don't see how you could forget."

"I don't forget but I don't just exactly remember."

"Danny, you're always saying things like that and I don't know what you mean. Either you remember or you don't remember and that's all there is to it." Rosie looked at him severely. "I don't think it's a bit nice of you to pretend not to remember Janet. She's my dearest friend and besides that she's a very nice girl."

Danny agreed heartily: "Oh, Janet's a fine girl – she is that! In fact" – and Danny paused to make Rosie a knowing wink – "she might very well be Mary's own child. Just look at the solemn face of her that hurts when she laughs!"

"Danny, Danny, you mustn't talk that way, and you wouldn't either if you knew the hard time poor Janet has at home!"

"Wouldn't I now? Don't I know the hard time poor Mary Agin has at home and don't I say the same of her? Rosie, take me word for it, there are some women are born for a hard time. They like it. Since Mary's been waiting on me, hand and foot, she's been a happy woman. In the old days when I was a spry, jump-about kind of man, making good money and no odds from any one, Mary was a sad complainin' creature, always courtin' disaster and foreseein' trouble. And look at her now: with a penny in her pocket where she used to have a dollar and a cripple in a chair instead of a wage-earnin' husband, and never a word of complaint out of her mouth!" Danny ruminated a moment. "The rheumatiz has been pretty hard on me, Rosie dear, but I tell you it's been the makin' of a happy woman!"

Close as they were to each other, Rosie was often in doubt as to the exact meaning of Danny's little quirks of thought. She looked at him now, trying to decide whether his remarks deserved reproof or acceptance. Danny watched her with twinkling amusement. At last he burst out laughing.

"Ah, Rosie dear, don't trouble yir pretty little head for ye'll never make it out! And, after all, what does it matter if ye don't? With you, darlint, the only thing that matters is this: that it's yourself that cheers a man's heart with your lovin' ways and your sweet pretty face."

How Danny had worked around to this sentiment, Rosie could not for the life of her tell. His words, however, suggested a question that called for discussion.

"It seems to me, Danny, you think all men like girls with loving ways."

Danny's answer was prompt: "I do that, Rosie! You can take an old man's word for it and no mistake."

Rosie shook her head thoughtfully. "I don't see how you make that out. Take Ellen now: she hasn't very loving ways; she snaps your head off if you look at her; but she's got beaux all right – more than any girl on the street, and poor old Jarge Riley's gone daft over her. Now how do you make that out?"

"Ah, that's a different matter," Danny explained airily. "You see, Rosie, there be two classes of men, sensible men and fools, and most men belong to both classes. Now a sensible man knows that a sweet loving woman will make him a happy home and a good mother to his children. Any man'll agree to that. So I'm right when I tell you that all men love that kind of a woman, for they do. But let a bold hussy come along with a handsome face on her and a nasty wicked temper, and before you count ten she'll call out all the fool there is in a man and off he goes after her as crazy as a half-witted rooster. Ah, I've seen it time and again. Many a poor lad that ought have known better has put the halter about his own neck! Have you ever thought, Rosie dear, of the queer ch'ices men make when they marry?"

"Danny, I don't know what you mean."

Danny's eyes took on a far-away look. "Take Mary and me. For forty years now I've been wonderin' what it was that married us."

"Why, Danny!" Rosie's expression was reproachful. "Didn't you love Mary?"

"Love her, do you say? Why, of course I loved her! Didn't me knees go weak at sight of her and me head dizzy? But the question is: why did I love her or why did she love me? There I was a gay dancing blade of a lad and Mary a serious owl of a girl that had never footed a jig in her life and would have died of shame not to have her washin' out bright and early of a Monda' mornin'. Now what was it, I ask you, that put love between us?"

Danny appealed to his young friend as man to man. Rosie, however, was not a person to grant the purely academic side of any question that was perfectly clear and matter-of-fact.

"Why, you loved her, Danny, and she loved you and that's all there was to it."

For a moment Danny looked blank. Then he chuckled. "Strange I didn't think of that before!" His eyes began to twinkle. "I'll wager, Rosie dear, ye've never lain awake o' nights wondering what it was that made the world go round, have you now?"

Rosie's answer was emphatic: "Of course not! I'm not so silly!"

Danny laughed. "I thought not."

Rosie went back to serious matters. "But, Danny, I can't understand about Jarge Riley and Ellen. Why is he so crazy about Ellen?"

Danny drew a long face. "The truth is, I suppose he loves her."

"But why does he love her?"

Danny's eyes opened wide. "Is it yourself, Rosie O'Brien, that's askin' me why?"

"I don't understand it at all," Rosie continued. "I've got a mind to give Jarge a good talking to. He just ought to be told a few things for his own good."

"I'm sure he'll listen to you." There was a hint of guile in Danny's voice but Rosie refused to hear it.

"He always does listen to me. We're mighty good friends, Jarge and me… Yes, I'll just talk to him tonight. I'll put it to him quietly. Jarge has got lots of sense if only you talk to him right."

"Of course he has," Danny agreed. "And, Rosie dear, I'm consumed with impatience to hear the outcome of your conference. You won't fail to stop in and tell me about it tomorrow – promise me that!"

Rosie promised. She bid her old friend good-bye and left him, her mind already full of the things she would say to George Riley.

CHAPTER XXVI

ELLEN

"I don't know what's keepin' poor Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien remarked as the family gathered at supper that evening. "They're awful busy at them down-town offices, I'm thinkin'. Ellen was expectin' to be home at six o'clock sharp but something important must have come in and they need her. Ah, say what you will, a poor girl's got to work mighty hard these days."

"Huh!" grunted Terry.

There was a slam at the front door, at sound of which Mrs. O'Brien's face lighted up. "Ah, there she is now, the poor dear!"

Yes, it was Ellen. She swept at once into the kitchen and stood a moment glowering on the family with all the blackness of a storm-cloud. Then, without a word, she flung herself into a chair.

"Why, Ellen dear," her mother gasped, "what's ailin' you?"

Beyond twitching her shoulders impatiently, Ellen made no answer.

"How do you do, Ellen?" Rosie spoke formally, in the tone of one not at all certain as to how her own civility would be received.

Ellen glanced at her sharply. "Huh! So you're back, are you?"

"Ellen, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien cried reprovingly, "is that the way you talk to poor little Rosie and her just in from the country? And she brought you two nice dressed chickens and a basket of fine fresh vegetables and a box – "

Ellen cut her mother short with an impatient, "Aw, Ma, you dry up!"

"What's the matter, Ellen?" Terry drawled out. "Lost your job?"