Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
PETER REFUSES NEW PARENTS
The Children's Home Society moved to the old Hathaway house as soon as possible after Mary Louise signed the deed making over the property to the society. The new quarters were well suited to the needs of the Children's Home, large airy rooms with long porches and a delightful yard and garden where the little tots could play.
"I don't want to leave Mr. and Mrs. Robin before they hatch out their fambly," moaned Peter. "Looks like we can't never stay put, can we, Polly?"
"But the big house is much nicer, Peter dear," comforted Polly. "It kinder reminds me of where we lived one time with Mother and Daddy. That had a yard to it and lots of sweet violets bordering the walks. I wish you could remember the violets, Peter."
"I wish I could. Sometimes I 'most can—but don't you ever forget 'em, Polly. You keep on talking about 'em and maybe sometime I can 'member too the way I can the porridge bowls. I won't never forget our mother. I'm sure glad you didn't never let Cousin Dink know we had her picture, hers and Daddy's."
"Not me! That old Dink wouldn't have let me keep them. I haven't ever showed them to anybody but that nice Miss Josie girl. She is safe I believe and she wouldn't ever let Cousin Dink nor anybody know. She is going to have them framed and let us hang them up in our room. I like being here lots better than traveling 'round with old Cousin Dink, don't you, Peter!"
"I should say so. I hope nobody won't want to 'dopt us. They say folks is all time 'doptin' children from here. That's what the nurse told me when she washed my face and hands. She says, 'If you don't be clean nobody won't want to 'dopt you,' so I'm gonter be as dirty as ever I can be."
"Oh, Peter, what would Mother say? It would be real nice to be 'dopted if we could get 'dopted together."
"Oh, but they couldn't take me without you," and Peter began to weep. "Let's both of us have dirty faces all the time so nobody won't want us."
"No, let's both of us have clean faces all the time so somebody will want both of us. I'm mighty sorry I cut my hair off so jiggly. When it grows out I'm going to see if I can't save up some money and get a permanent wave so's I'll look lovely and everybody that comes to the home will say, 'Who is that charming child? I'll take her and her dear little brother too and well be a happy family.' Now wouldn't that be nice, Peter dear?"
"That 'pends on who it is. Supposin' it was a person like Cousin Dink that comed along an' took us away an' then knocked us around an' wouldn't let us stay put; I'm thinkin' about stayin' put for a while."
The two little waifs had many conversations similar to the foregoing. They soon fitted themselves into the life of the home. Peter was a general favorite because of his engaging manner and sweet confiding nature, while Polly made herself so useful in helping to care for the babies with which the home swarmed that the nurses declared they did not know what they would do without her. She was a motherly child and, having taken care of Peter so much during her mother's illness and after the wanderings with Cousin Dink began, she was well able to nurse the little ones.
"There's something about little babies that makes me happy all over and makes me want to cry too," she said to one of the nurses, holding to her bosom a little pink mummy-like bundle, a recent addition to the home. "I hope some nice kind lady is going to want this little baby child and she will grow up and never know she's 'dopted. Being 'dopted isn't so bad if you don't ever know it. Peter don't want ever to be 'dopted because he thinks somebody like Cousin Dink might get him. I hope they will just let me go on living here and by and by I can be a real sure-enough nurse and wash all the little babies and Peter can grow up and be a policeman or something. Peter used to be afraid of policemen but ever since Miss Josie told him what nice men they were and one time introduced him to a big cop on the corner and Peter shook hands with him, he's been thinking policemen are the finest things going and he wants to be one worse than anything. Peter could be a big policeman and could bring all the little homeless babies here and I could wash them clean and curl their hair and get them ready to be 'dopted."
One day shortly after they had moved to the Hathaway house a ringing of the front door bell heralded the advent of callers. Since callers often meant would-be adopters of infants it was natural for manager and nurses to wish to make as good a showing as possible. A lady and a gentleman were ushered into the parlor. Dr. Weston congratulated himself that everything was in such good order and that he could testify to the good health and disposition of so many of his charges.
"I am thinking of adopting a little boy," spoke the lady, an exceedingly prim little person with a determined chin. "My husband wants a boy, although I should really prefer a girl."
The husband, a sad-eyed man with a humorous twitch to his mouth, looked a bit astonished at this statement. He had been laboring under the idea that it was just the other way around—that he preferred a girl and his wife a boy—but it made very little difference. She was going to have what she wanted, even to the extent of making him pretend he wanted what she wanted.
"An infant, I presume, madam?" said Dr. Weston.
"No, not at all! I'd prefer a little boy who has cut his teeth and can talk. Of course I'd like him to have curls, and to come from a nice family, and to be perfectly sound and healthy, and to have no bad habits—such as eating plastering or having adenoids. I want a bright, attractive child with a sweet disposition so that I can raise him up for the ministry."
"Um-hum!" mused Dr. Weston. "I'll see what we have to offer in the way of angels. There are some children playing in the yard now, madam. Perhaps you and your husband would like to go have a look at them. The infants are on the southern porch in their cribs but the little ones who can toddle we keep out in the yard all we can."
The garden of the old Hathaway house again was the background for a picturesque scene. In the same spot where Hortense Markle had so cleverly staged Mary Louise's out door wedding not so many months before, ten little children from two years up to six were playing happily in a sand pile, recently donated to the home by Mrs. Peter Conant with shovels and buckets enough to go around and a few to spare for possible additions.
Peter Waller was evidently the chief engineer of the sand pile and the other children looked to him for inspiration, whether it were turning out whole spice cakes by packing down the sand in buckets and adroitly inverting them or excavating marvelous tunnels that one could actually see through.
"Now this is a tunnel," he said. "I know 'cause I've been through a whole lot of tunnels. Haven't I Polly?" calling to his sister who was patiently nursing a child with a bumped knee on a bench near by.
"Yes!" answered Polly, "but don't be too show-offy."
Peter disregarded this sisterly rebuke.
"Well, anyhow it is and I have. And this is a chu-chu track."
"Chu-chu track!" echoed his admirers who didn't at all mind his showing off.
"And when the chu-chu train goes in the tunnel it is all dark, as dark as dark, and the engine makes a rumblin' noise and the cars get all full of smoke. But you mustn't git scairt—nobody mustn't git scairt 'cause God is there in that tunnel same as he is on dry land and God loves you—"
"Dod loves us! Dod loves us!" cried a wee tot jumping up and down in the sand in a kind of ecstasy of emotion and the other babies took up the refrain and in a moment all of the sand diggers were shouting in glee but with absolutely no conception of what it all meant: "Dod loves us! Dod loves us!"
They were unconscious of the onlookers. Dr. Weston and the lady and gentleman stood close by hearing Peter's lecture and witnessing the sudden wave of emotion that took the children.
"Wonderful!" exclaimed the lady. "What a darling boy that is—the one who preached the sermon. I want him! Oh, how I want him! I could raise him to be a preacher, I am sure; and look at his curls!"
"He has only been with us a short time," said Dr. Weston, "so short a time that we should prefer keeping him until we find out more about him. He was left here with his sister under rather unusual circumstances."
"I don't care what the circumstances were, I want him. I will have him or none at all."
Dr. Weston glanced at the lady's determined chin and had a feeling she was going to get what she wanted.
"We have thought it advisable not to separate the two children," he continued in a soothing voice. "They have been through various vicissitudes together and a separation would hardly be right. There is his sister over there on the bench with the little child in her lap. Polly is a nice child, helpful and motherly and extremely intelligent."
"But her hair doesn't curl," objected the lady. "I would never adopt a girl whose hair doesn't curl. She would be a nuisance instead of a pleasure."
"Ah really!" from Dr. Weston.
The children were still unconscious of their audience. Peter was widening the tunnel at one end and at the other the eager babies were crowding together, peering through at the youthful civil engineer.
"Ith He in there?" queried one.
"Cose He's in here," announced Peter. "He's everywhere in the world—but He won't git you. He'll just be good to you an' love you an' maybe give you candy, 'cept'n I'd rather have pancakes."
"He shall have them!" cried the eager lady. "He shall have all he wants! Little boy," she asked, impulsively leaning over Peter, who had seated himself in the sand the better to proceed with his excavating, "dear little boy, wouldn't you like to come and live with me and be my little boy?"
Peter looked up startled and distressed. Polly dropped the child with the bumped knee and flew to Peter's side.
"I'll be so good to you and love you as though I were your own mother. You can have a pony to ride and a bicycle and skates—"
"Gee whilikins!" exclaimed Peter.
"I will adopt you—"
"’Dopt me! No you won't! I didn't know you meant to 'dopt me. Me'n Polly ain't ever gonter git 'dopted. We's gonter jes' live along here till we gits growed up an' maybe our mother won't be dead an' will come find us. Me'n Polly has to be together all the time," an expression of agony on his face. "Don't we, Polly?"
"Yes, yes, Peter darling!"
"Well you would hardly stand in your brother's light," spoke the lady a bit sharply. "It would certainly be to his advantage to come and live with me and my husband. He would take our name and be brought up exactly as though he were our own."
"But his own name is a good name," spoke Polly, holding her cropped head proudly. "Peter Waller is a very fine name. I have heard my mother say so often."
"Oh, you have! Well it is no better than Peter Thraves would be. My name is Mrs. Thraves, child."
The little girl was not a bit impressed.
"And mine is Miss Mary Washington Waller, Polly for short," spoke Polly, her head still up.
There was a look of breeding about the child and at the same time a hint of battle in her blue eye and her firm little mouth. Dr. Weston could not help smiling at Miss Mary Washington Waller.
"I am going to adopt your brother because I have taken such a fancy to him. He is so sweet and pious and I am going to raise him to be a preacher."
With that Peter set up such a yell as had never been heard before in the Hathaway garden. He flung himself in Polly's arms and burst into a storm of tears.
"I ain't gonter be no preacher! I—I am gonter be a p'liceman. I don't want to be 'dopted. That's what I git for lettin' you wash my face, Polly." He picked up a handful of dirt and smeared it over his face. With the help of the tears it was very effective. "I'm jest as bad as bad can be. I know a whole string of cuss words an' I can say them as fast as now-I-lay-me. Doggone, devil, deuce, dam, da—"
"Oh, Peter!" gasped Polly, putting her hand over her brother's mouth.
"Don't you stop me, Polly," sputtered Peter. "I ain't near done."
Mrs. Thraves turned away in disgust.
"I fancy it would be more satisfactory if we adopted an infant," she said to Dr. Weston, who was almost bursting with pent-up laughter. "Perhaps a little girl would be less apt to turn out badly. Boys are so deceptive. To think of that angel face! Such language!"
Mr. Thraves stood for a moment looking wistfully at Polly and Peter, who still clung to each other. Polly was drying Peter's tears and endeavoring to clean his dirty face, while she admonished him gently.
"Peter, you were so naughty. What will good Dr. Weston think of such a bad boy?"
"He won't think a thing. He wouldn't like to be 'dopted hisself when his mother might come alive any time an' he'd be gone off with his name changed an' everything. Why don't she be a preacher herself if she wants a preacher so bad? Why didn't she go marry a preacher an' have a whole lot of preacher chilluns? Say, Polly, please don't be mad of me. Did you know I was such a pretty cusser? I made up that cussin' all to once. It was just as easy as anything. I kinder s'prised myself."
Mr. Thraves gave an involuntary chuckle. He glanced at his wife, who was walking across the lawn, presenting a rather indignant and consciously virtuous back to naughty Peter. Down in his pocket went his hand and before Peter and Polly knew what had happened they found themselves each with a silver dollar clasped in a grubby fist.