N
umber five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."

"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman, angrily.

"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.

"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.

"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered, showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.

A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.

"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big for her boots with her impudence."

"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for it.

Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her, seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.

"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after her.

The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so funny she "just couldn't help laughing."

"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "I call it impudence. She ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about, that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you, Lizzie."

"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said Lizzie.

This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,—taking people off. She was a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady fashion,—"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,—

"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."

"Eh?" said Becky.

Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."

"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.

"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so long for?"

"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."

"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"

"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."

"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."

"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.

"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.

"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin' anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.

A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and cried good-naturedly,—

"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us about it."

"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.

Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly, said,—

"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and baskets."

"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."

Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never happened to hear this rhyming bit:—

"Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone."

Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,—

"The first pleasant one."

"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the first pleasant day in May?"

"They didn't say as they was goin' to do anythin'; they was tellin'—or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one—what folks did when they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind 'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen, and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the children minded her."

"You'd like that,—to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky, wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.

"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.

"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.

"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest the term "children,"—which she had learned to use since she had come up daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,—"the kids use to fill a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's house,—somebody they knew,—and then ring the bell and run. Golly! guess I should hev to hang it inside where I lives. I couldn't hang it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,—them thieves o' alley boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to try to start 'em up again here in the city."

"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with a new air of attention.

"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for somebody she knows!"

"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her? Did you see it?"

"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that, and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."

"Oh, I wish I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.

"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."

"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.

"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."

"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.

"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.

Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of "kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.

"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they had left the lunch-room.

"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's got every time."

"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat nosey way of talkin' to a T?"

"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.

CHAPTER II.

Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of them,—to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors, and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her. Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to her,—when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove alleys,—that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find; that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and didn't care if it was, there were others not so good-natured as Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the street,—"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,—the lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.

"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday, and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.

"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's waitin', and so are we."

"What yer waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.

"To see how you make the baskets."

"Well, yer'll hev to wait."

"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"

"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free kinnergarden. These are private lessons."

A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,—

"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"

"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.

"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the parcel-girls with a wink at the other.

"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.

"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed her teacher.

"And you didn't get ahead o' me this time, either!" called out Becky, as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.

"You're too sharp for any of us, Becky," called back one of the saleswomen.

"Ain't she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said." Lotty was the older parcel-girl.

And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got 'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.

"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o' that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. She know how to make baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it now,—you see."

This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung upon her finger.

"Well, I never! She did know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the party.

The pretty little basket of green and white paper
The pretty little basket of green and white paper

"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.

Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.

"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.

"Hush!" warned one of the company.

But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her eyes as she burst forth savagely,—

"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to think that!"

"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.

Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.

"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she only wanted to bother you."

"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,—she and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. Hooked it!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys. I'd—I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but," with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk, an'—I'll forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes!"

This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.

Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had received, thought to themselves: "What a temper!" Becky's wild little threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim, Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's a fren' o' mine,—a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"

But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from her fun.

The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;" but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.

"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.

"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.

Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where could she be? She had always been punctual to a minute.

The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was forgotten. It was not until the closing hour—five o'clock—that Lizzie thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly, as they were leaving the store together,—

"Where do you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day, and she's always here, and so punctual."

"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would be just like her; she's that independent."

"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do that," put in Josie, laughing,

"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.

"Sick! her kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough. Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that basket?"

"Why, what I agreed to give,—enough to make a basket for herself; and last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my Mayflowers,—I had plenty."

"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."

"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."

"Yes, Becky's bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking about private lessons!"

"Oh, that was only her fun."

"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you think that was only fun?"

"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove Street."

"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends she was working alongside of."

"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.

"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she sold her basket, and very likely to that prize-fighter,—that Tim."

"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster down—' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."

"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,—in one of those tenements."

"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and, owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means small.'"

"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here, breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.

"But, Lizzie—"

"You needn't try to stop me, I'm going. Becky's down there somewhere, and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to see. You needn't come if you're afraid, but I'm going!"

The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and the three went on together toward the burned district.

"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business here."

"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,—one of the girls in our store," answered Lizzie.

"Becky Hawkins?"

"Yes; do you know her?"

"Should think I did. This is my beat,—known her all her life pretty much."

"Did she get out,—is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.

"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend Tim."

The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,—a smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what the Riker girls had said she was,—a little Cove Street hoodlum,—while Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman had advised, adding,—

"We are decent girls, and—it's a disgrace to have anything to do with such a lot as Becky and her family and—"

"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,—"what yer talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow him.

They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"

But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.

"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"

"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room; but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes, and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt, and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you; but I'm so glad you are all right—But," coming nearer and finding that Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table, "you're not all right, are you?"

"No, I—I guess—I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.

"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,—a little thing like you!"

"'Twas she was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women in the room.

"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she saved him for me,—she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the 'scape; but Becky—Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she made a jump—and fell—oh, Becky! Becky!"

"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry her, and it's no use."

"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in dumb amazement.

"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.

Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.

Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.

"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.

"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"

"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I could make another—"

"I'll make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.

"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.

"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone, roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old mischief she said,—

"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."

There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body, wasted and shrunken,—the body of a child of seven with a shapely head and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.

"That's him,—that's Tim,—the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout," said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,—

"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,—the girls in the store,—how I played it on 'em; and when I git back—I'll—"

"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.

The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open, letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks beyond the Cove.

"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.

"I—I feel fus' rate—all well, Jake, and—I—I smell the Mayflowers. They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they jolly! Tim, Tim!"

"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.

"Wait for me here Tim,—I—I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,—ther, ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by—I'm goin'—to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.

The two women—and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had always lived—broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the radiant face, she said suddenly,—

"She's well out of it all."

"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and 't ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' him," nodding towards Jake, who was slipping quietly out of the room,—"it's the like o' him. They looked up to her, they did,—bit of a thing as she was. She was that straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better. Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."

And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty and Josie still waiting for her.

"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time—have you seen—have you heard—"

They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,—

"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I don't know."

"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.