The Rosie World

"Rosie! Oh, Rosie! Come here! Please come! Come quick!"

The little front bedroom with its sloping walls and one dormer window was Ellen's room, theoretically. Actually, Rosie shared Ellen's bed, and Jack's little cot stood at the bottom of the bed between the door and the bureau.

Rosie felt hurriedly for matches and candle. "Now, Jackie dear, what's the matter? You're not sick, are you? Tell Rosie."

"It hurts! It hurts!" Jack was sitting up, wailing dolefully. He reached toward Rosie in a helpless, appealing way that warmed her heart. Whatever was the matter, it was bringing him back to her.

"What is it hurts, Jackie?"

"My back! It burns! I tell you it's just burnin' up!"

Rosie gently lifted off his nightshirt and held the candle close.

"Jackie! What's happened to your back and shoulders? They're all red and swollen! What did those Slattery boys do to you?"

"They didn't do nuthin', Rosie, honest they didn't. Ouch! Ouch! Can't you do something to make it stop hurting?"

"Wait a minute, Jackie, and I'll call Jarge Riley. Jarge'll know what to do."

George came at once and as quickly recognized Jack's ailment. "Ha, ha, Jack, old boy, how's your sunburn? Jiminy, you've got a good one this time!.. Say, how's the water?"

"Ugh-h-h!" moaned Jack. "It hurts!" Then with a change of voice he answered George enthusiastically: "Dandy! Just as warm and nice as anything!"

George sighed. "Golly! Wisht I was a kid again! There sure is no place like the old swimmin'-hole in the good old summer-time!"

Rosie glared indignantly. "Jarge Riley, ain't you ashamed of yourself! It's dangerous to go in swimming and you know it is! Jackie's never going in again, are you, Jackie?"

Jack snuffled tearfully: "My back hurts! Can't some o' you do something for it?"

Rosie turned stiffly to George. "What I called you up here for was to ask you what's good for a sunburnt back."

"Excuse me," murmured George meekly. "Let's see now: We ought to put on some oil or grease, then some powder or flour."

"Will lard do?" Rosie still spoke coldly.

"Yes, but vaseline would be better. There's a bottle of vaseline on my bureau. Do you want to get it, Rosie?"

Rosie hurried off and returned just in time to hear George say: "Oh, you can go in again in two or three days."

Rosie blazed on him furiously. "Jarge Riley, what are you telling Jackie?"

"I?" He spoke with an assumption of innocence and that look of guilelessness which Rosie was fast learning to associate with male deceit. "I was just telling him it would take a couple o' days for his back to peel. Then he'll be all right again."

Rosie looked at him in scorn, but made no comment. She resolved one thing: George Riley should have no more moments alone with Jack. When the time came, she made him go downstairs for the flour-shaker, then curtly dismissed him.

"I guess you can go now, Jarge. Jackie wants to go to sleep. Now, Jackie dear, just lie on your stummick and you'll be asleep in two minutes."

George hesitated a moment. "Didn't you say you wanted to see me about something, Rosie?"

Rosie looked at him steadily. "If ever I said that it was before I knew you as well as I know you now. Now they isn't anything I want to say to you."

George gasped helplessly and departed, and Rosie, after settling Jack comfortably, blew out the candle… So even George Riley had joined the conspiracy against her! Well, she was not done fighting yet.

She insisted upon making an invalid of Jack the next morning, keeping him in bed and carrying up his breakfast to him. All day long, she waited on him, hand and foot, loved, amused, coaxed, threatened, bribed him, until by evening she had him weak and helpless, ready to agree to anything she might suggest.

At supper Mrs. O'Brien beamed on him sympathetically and remarked to Ellen, who was just home from business college: "Ellen dear, do you know the awful back o' sunburn poor wee Jack's got on him? Rosie's been nursing him all day."

Ellen glanced at Terry and laughed. "Do you remember, Terry, how you used to come home after your first swim every summer?"

Jack looked up eagerly. "Oh, Terry, did you used to get sunburned, too?"

Terry nodded. "Sure I did. Every fella does."

Jack's face took on an expression of heavenly content.

"Is it peeling yet?" Terry asked.

"No, but it's cracking." Jack's tone was hopeful.

Rosie moved uneasily. "Terence O'Brien, I just wish you'd look out what you're saying, and you too, Ellen! It's dangerous to go in swimming, and Jackie's never going again, are you, Jackie?"

Jack hesitated a moment, then murmured a weak little "No."

Mrs. O'Brien nodded approvingly. "Ah, now, ain't Jack the good b'y to promise sister Rosie never to go in swimmin' again!"

Ellen chuckled. "At least until his back's well!"

Rosie flew at her sister like an angry little clucking hen. "Ellen O'Brien, you just mind your own business! Come on, Jackie, we're through. We're going out in front by ourselves, aren't we?"

Jack, apparently, wanted to remain where he was; but when Rosie whispered, "And I've got another penny for you," he slipped quietly down from his chair.

When you know that this was Jack's fifth penny for that day, you have some idea of what the struggle was costing Rosie. A week's wages seemed in a fair way of being eaten up in a few days. It was a fearful drain on her resources, but anything, Rosie told herself, to keep him out of the clutches of the Slattery gang!

By the third day his back was dry and peeling. After dinner, as Rosie was coming home from the grocery, she found him at the front gate boasting about it to Joe Slattery.

Rosie interrupted politely: "Jackie, will you come into the house a minute? I got something to ask you."

Jack looked at her kindly. "All right, Rosie. You go on in and I'll be in in a minute."

The dismissal was so friendly that Rosie could not gainsay it. She hurried around to the back door and then rushed through the house to the front door, which she slipped open wide enough to see and to hear what was going on at the gate. Joe Slattery's voice carried distinctly.

"Say, Jack, what do you say to goin' down now? Aw, come on! Let's."

Rosie did not have to ask herself what Joe Slattery was proposing; she knew only too well. Breathless, she awaited Jack's answer. It came with scarcely an instant's hesitation.

"All right. Let's."

Jack was out of the gate and off before Rosie could push open the front door.