The Rosie World

Rosie was firm. "That's exactly what I mean. I suppose you think the way to make love to a girl is to give her an ice-cream soda once a month. Well, it just ain't!"

George continued obstinate. "I'm not saying I know how to make love to a girl because I don't and, what's more, I don't care. But I'll be blamed if I'm willing to do more than one ice-cream soda a month for any girl alive!"

Rosie caught him up sharply: "Not even for Ellen?"

"Ellen! Ellen's different! I'd like to do something for her every day of her life."

"H'm! What, for instance?"

"Well, I ain't got much money, so I can't do very big things, but I'd like to take her to the movies or on a street-car ride or buy her some peanuts or candy or all kinds o' little things like that. I know they ain't much in themselves, but if a fellow does them all the time, it seems to me a girl ought to know that he's thinking about her a good deal."

"Oh, Jarge, you're such a child!" Rosie smiled on him in womanly amusement. "First you say you don't know how to make love and then you tell just exactly how to do it! Now listen to me: The way to make love to any girl is to treat her just like you'd like to treat Ellen. If anything on earth is going to make Ellen wake up, it'll be just that. And the very things you know how to do are the very things I was going to tell you to do! A bag of peanuts is plenty for a walk and that's only five cents. Then a night when you go to the movies would be ten cents and, if it was hot, you'd probably want ten cents more for an ice-cream soda afterwards and that would make twenty cents. If you took a car ride and back, that would be twenty cents and a treat would be another ten cents. And you'd be getting your money's worth while you were doing it and perhaps you'd get Ellen, too."

George was not very happy over the prospect. "As you've got everything else fixed up for me," he grumbled, "I suppose you've got the girl picked out, too. But I tell you one thing: I won't take after one of them Slattery girls, no matter what you say! If a fellow was to give one of them an ice-cream soda once, he'd have to marry her!"

Rosie put out a quieting hand. "Now, Jarge, don't be silly! You don't have to take one of the Slattery girls or any other girl that you don't want to take. You can just suit yourself and no one's going to say a word to you… What kind of girl do you think you'd like? Do you want a blonde? Well, there's Aggie Kearney, she's a blonde."

"Aw, cut out Aggie Kearney! What do you think I am!"

"Well, maybe you want a brunette. What about Polly Russell?"

"Aw, cut out Polly Russell, too! You know what I think of that whole Russell bunch!"

Rosie looked a little hurt. "I must say, Jarge, even if you don't want Polly, you needn't snap my head off. Make your own choice! I'm sure there are enough girls right in this neighbourhood for any man to pick from. How do you like 'em? Do you like 'em fat or do you like 'em thin? Or maybe you don't want an American girl. Well, there are those Italians around the corner and down further there's that nest of Yiddish. All you've got to do is make up your mind about the kind of girl you want. There's plenty of all kinds."

"Aw, get out! I tell you I don't want any of them!" By this time George had grown very red in the face and his voice had risen to a volume better suited to the outdoors than to a small room.

Rosie looked distressed. "You needn't talk so loud, Jarge. I'm not deaf… I must say, though, after all the trouble I've taken, … And poor old Danny Agin, too, …" Rosie felt for her handkerchief.

"Well," George complained, "I don't see why you go offering me the worst old snags in town! Why don't you pick out a few nice ones?"

Rosie swallowed quite pathetically and blinked her eyes toward the ceiling. It has been observed that gazing fixedly at the ceiling very often conduces to inspiration. Apparently it was to be so with Rosie. The expression on her face slowly changed. She turned to George a little shyly.

"I was just wondering, Jarge, whether, maybe, I wouldn't do."

It must have been an inspiration! To attribute such a suggestion to anything else would be to credit Rosie with a depth of guile which only supreme feminine art could have compassed.

George at least saw no guile. His face glowed. He actually shouted in an exuberance of relief. "Would you, Rosie? That'd be fine! We'd have a bully time together!" Then he paused. "But, Rosie, do you think you're big enough? I wouldn't think Ellen would get jealous of a little girl like you."

Rosie shook her head reassuringly. "Don't you worry about me. I'm plenty big enough. Besides, I don't count. You're the only one that counts. All you've got to do is make love to almost any one. If it's some one you like, then it'll be all the easier for you."

"Well, you know I like you all right, Rosie." The heartiness in George's tone was unmistakable. "I just love to spend money on you, Rosie! That's a great idea! Who thought of it, Danny or you?"

"Not Danny," Rosie answered promptly. "I thought of it myself – I mean," she added, "I thought of it just now. And you think it's a good idea, do you, Jarge?"

"Good? You bet your life I think it's good! Why, do you know, Rosie, when you began talking about Aggie Kearney and Polly Russell and those Ginneys around the corner, you made me plumb sick! I was ready to throw up the whole thing! I sure am glad you happened to think about yourself on time!"

"H'm!" murmured Rosie.

"I mean it!" George insisted. "Let's start out tonight! What shall it be, a street-car ride or the movies?"

"Just as you say." Rosie, with sweet deference, put the whole thing into George's hands. "They're going to give the 'Two Orphans' at the Gem. Three reels. I saw the posters this morning. But you decide, Jarge. Whatever you say will be all right."

With a fine masterfulness George made the decision. "Well, I say movies for tonight." He reached across the table and patted Rosie's face. "Don't forget, kid, you're my girl now. And I tell you what: I'm going to show you a swell time!"

"It's just as you say, Jarge," Rosie murmured meekly.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE SUBSTITUTE LADY

Rosie now entered upon a season of unparalleled gaiety. It was as if she were being rewarded for her generosity in thinking not of herself nor of her dislike for the object of George's fancy but only of George and of his happiness. It had been something of a struggle in the first place to advise a course of action which really might awaken in Ellen an appreciation of George's worth. Well, Rosie had advised it in all frankness and sincerity. That the putting into practice of this advice was working out to Rosie's own advantage is neither here nor there. If, in the campaign which she and Danny had planned, there had to be a substitute lady, why, as an after-thought, should not Rosie herself be that lady?

With George, Rosie never forgot that the relationship was a substitute one. Whenever he did something particularly lover-like, she would commend him as a teacher commends an apt pupil: "Jarge, you certainly are learning!" or, "I don't care what you say, Jarge, but if you were really making love to me and acted this beautiful, you sure could have me!"

In giving him hints about new attentions, she never made the matter personal. She would say, casually: "Now there's one thing a girl just loves, Jarge, and you ought to know it. It's to have her beau do unexpected things for her. I mean if he's used to giving her candy every night, it just tickles her to death to get up some morning and find a little package waiting for her. And if he goes to the trouble of sticking in a little note that says:

"'My dearest Sweetheart, I couldn't wait until to-night to give you this…'

why, she just goes crazy about him. Whatever you do, Jarge, you mustn't forget that girls love to get notes all the time."

This particular instruction Rosie had frequently to repeat before George put it into execution. "Aw, now, Rosie," he used to plead, "you know perfectly well I ain't nuthin' of a letter-writer."

But Rosie was firm. "Do as you like," she would say, "but you can take it from me they ain't nuthin' like letters to make a girl sit up. You're practising on me, so you might as well practise right. Besides, it's not hard, really it's not. You don't have to be fancy. Why, I once heard a girl tell about a letter that she thought was great and all it said was, 'Say, kid, maybe I ain't crazy about you!' Now is it so awful hard to tell a girl you're crazy about her if you are? And that's all that any love-letter says anyhow."

"Seems to me," George grumbled one day, "for a kid you know an awful lot about love-letters."

"Of course I do," Rosie told him. "I know just the kind I'd like to get and that's the kind every girl would like to get."

All such discussions took place in the privacy of their pseudo-courtship. Who would have the heart to be censorious if, to the outside world, Rosie began to bear herself with something of the air of a lady who has a knight, of a girl who has a beau? It would have been beyond human nature for Rosie not to remark periodically to Janet McFadden: "What do you suppose it is that makes Jarge Riley treat me so kind? He just seems to lie awake nights to think up nice things to do."

Janet, being a true friend, would give a long sigh and murmur: "Don't it beat all, Rosie, the way some girls have beaux from the beginning and some don't. I suppose it runs in your family. You know Tom Sullivan is always asking about you. Whenever I go to Aunt Kitty's or when Tom comes to our house, the first thing he says is, 'How's Rosie O'Brien these days?' If only he wasn't so bashful, he'd invite you to the movies – you know he would. Of course he asks me because we're cousins, but I tell you one thing, Rosie: you're the one he'd like to take."

What Janet was always saying about Tom Sullivan's devotion to Rosie was perfectly true but, nevertheless, it was so generous in Janet to acknowledge it that Rosie was always ready to declare: "Aw, now, Janet, you needn't go jollyin' me like that! Tom likes you awful well and you know he does."

Rosie never talked to Janet about her own round of pleasure without stopping suddenly with a feeling of compunction and the quick question: "But, Janet dear, how are things going with you? How's your poor mother and is your father still on the water wagon?"

News about Mrs. McFadden was slow in changing. For days she lay in the hospital, weak and broken, not wishing to come back to life and without interest in herself or her husband or even her child. A case like this takes a long time, the nurse would tell Janet and Janet had only this to repeat in answer to Rosie's inquiries.

With Dave McFadden it was different. There the unexpected was happening. It was a week before Janet risked speaking of it. Then, in awe-struck tones, she confided to her friend.

"Say, Rosie, what do you think? He hasn't had a drink since the day you stayed all night with me. I don't know how long he can stand it. He looks awful and he makes me give him about ten cups of tea at night. I don't believe he sleeps more than half an hour." Not relief so much as a new kind of fear showed in Janet's face and sounded in her voice. "And, Rosie, he's just terrible to live with, because he never says a word… Don't it beat all the way you long and long for a thing and then, when you get it, it turns out entirely different! There I used to suppose I'd be perfectly happy if only he'd stop boozing but now, when I wake up at night and hear him rolling around and groaning, why, do you know, Rosie, it scares me to death. It's just like he's fighting something that I can't see. And the worst is I can't do anything to help him but get up and make him some more tea."

Both Rosie and Janet were too familiar with Dave's type to hail as a happy reformation those first days of struggle. They stood back and waited, grateful for each day won but as yet not at all confident of the morrow.

"He certainly is trying," Rosie would say, and Janet would repeat, a little dubiously, "Yes, he's trying."

A day came when she looked tenser and more breathless than usual. "What do you think, Rosie? He handed me over fifteen dollars this week and ten last week that I didn't tell you about. I didn't want to too soon. All he said was, 'You take care of this till your mother comes home.' I'm paying up the back rent and I've started a savings account at the Settlement."