“We have company! Introduce me, Amy – Jess. This young lady–”
“Smarty!” croaked a hoarse voice. “I don’t want to be introducted to nobody. I want to know if you’ve seen Bertha.”
“Big Bertha?” began Burd, who was as much determined on joking as Amy herself.
But Jessie Norwood, her attention drawn to the freckle-faced child who stood there so composedly, motioned Burd to halt. She approached and in her usual kindly manner asked what the strange child wanted.
It really was difficult to look soberly at the little thing. She might have been twelve years old, but she was so slight and undernourished looking that it was hard to believe she had reached that age. She had no more color than putty. And her sharp little face was so bespatted with freckles that one could scarcely see what its real expression was.
“Bertha who?” Jessie asked quietly. “What Bertha are you looking for?”
“Cousin Bertha. She’s an orphan like me,” said the freckled little girl. “I ain’t got anybody that belongs to me but Bertha; and Bertha ain’t got anybody that belongs to her but me.”
Burd and Amy were still inclined to be amused. But Darry Drew took his cue from Jessie, if he did not find a sympathetic cord touched in his own nature by the child’s speech and her forlorn appearance.
For she was forlorn. She wore no denim uniform, such as Amy had mentioned on a previous occasion as being the mark of the usual “orphan.” But it was quite plain that the freckle-faced girl had nobody to care much for her, or about her.
“I wish you would explain a little more, dear,” said Jessie, kindly. “Why did you come here to ask for your Cousin Bertha?”
“’Cause I’m asking at every house along this street. I told Mrs. Foley I would, and she said I was a little fool,” and the child made the statement quite as a matter of course.
“Who is Mrs. Foley?”
“She’s the lady I help. When Mom died Mrs. Foley lived in the next tenement. She took me. She brought me out here to Dogtown when she moved.”
“Why,” breathed Amy, with a shudder, “she’s one of those awful Dogtown children.”
“Put a stopper on that, Amy!” exclaimed Darry, promptly.
But the freckle-faced girl heard her. She glared at the older girl – the girl so much better situated than herself. Her pale eyes snapped.
“You don’t haf to touch me,” she said sharply. “I won’t poison you.”
“Oh, Amy!” murmured her chum.
But Amy Drew was not at all bad at heart, or intentionally unkind. She flamed redly and the tears sprang to her eyes.
“Oh! I didn’t mean – Forgive me, little girl! What is your name? I’ll help you find your cousin.”
“My name’s Henrietta. They call me Hen. You needn’t mind gushin’ over me. I know how you feel. I’d feel just the same if I wore your clo’es and you wore mine.”
“By ginger!” exclaimed Burd Alling, under his breath. “There is philosophy for you.”
But Jessie felt hurt that Amy should have spoken so thoughtlessly about the strange child. She took Henrietta’s grimy hand and led the freckled girl to the side steps where they could sit down.
“Now tell me about Bertha and why you are looking for her along Bonwit Boulevard,” said Jessie.
“Do you wear these pants all the time?” asked Henrietta, suddenly, smoothing Jessie’s overalls. “I believe I’d like to wear ’em, too. They are something like little Billy Foley’s rompers.”
“I don’t wear them all the time,” said Jessie, patiently. “But about Bertha?”
“She’s my cousin. She lived with us before Mom died. She went away to work. Something happened there where she worked. I guess I don’t know what it was. But Bertha wrote to me – I can read written letters,” added the child proudly. “Bertha said she was coming out to see me this week. And she didn’t come.”
“But why should you think–”
“Lemme tell you,” said Henrietta eagerly. “That woman that hired Bertha came to Foleys day before yesterday trying to find Bertha. She said Bertha’d run away from her. But Bertha had a right to run away. Didn’t she?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. Unless the woman had adopted her, or something,” confessed Jessie, rather puzzled.
“Bertha wasn’t no more adopted than I am. Mrs. Foley ain’t adopted me. I wouldn’t want to be a Foley. And if you are adopted you have to take the name of the folks you live with. So Bertha wasn’t adopted, and she had a right to run away. But she didn’t get to Dogtown.”
“But you think she might have come this way?”
“Yep. She’s never been to see me since we moved to Dogtown. So she maybe lost her way. Or she saw that woman and was scared. I’m looking to see if anybody seen her,” said the child, getting up briskly. “I guess you folks ain’t, has you?”
“I am afraid not,” said Jessie thoughtfully. “But we will be on the lookout for her, honey. You can come back again and ask me any time you like.”
The freckle-faced child looked her over curiously. “What do you say that for?” she demanded. “You don’t like me. I ain’t pretty. And you’re pretty – and that other girl,” (she said this rather grudgingly) “even if you do wear overalls.”
“Why! I want to help you,” said Jessie, somewhat startled by the strange girl’s downright way of speaking.
“You got a job for me up here?” asked Henrietta promptly. “I guess I’d rather work for you than for the Foleys.”
“Don’t the Foleys treat you kindly?” Amy ventured, really feeling an interest in the strange child.
“Guess she treats me as kind as a lady can when she’s got six kids and a man that drinks,” Henrietta said with weariness. “But I’d like to wear better clo’es. I wouldn’t mind even wearing them overall things while I worked if I had better to wear other times.”
She looked down at her faded gingham, the patched stockings, the broken shoes. She wore no hat. Really, she was a miserable-looking little thing, and the four more fortunate young people all considered this fact silently as Henrietta moved slowly away and went down the path to the street.
“Come and see me again, Henrietta!” Jessie called after her.
The freckled child nodded. But she did not look around. Darry said rather soberly:
“Too bad about the kid. We ought to do something for her.”
“To begin with, a good, soapy bath,” said his sister, vigorously, but not unkindly.
“She’s the limit,” chuckled Burd. “Hen is some bird, I’ll say!”
“I wonder–” began Jessie, but Amy broke in with:
“To think of her hunting up and down the boulevard for her cousin. And she didn’t even tell us what Bertha looked like or how old she is, or anything. My!”
“I wonder if we ought not to have asked her for more particulars,” murmured Jessie. “It is strange we should hear of another girl that had run away–”
But the others paid no attention at the moment to what Jessie was saying. It was plain that Amy did not at all comprehend what her chum considered. The lively one had forgotten altogether about the unknown girl she and Jessie had seen borne away in the big French car.
CHAPTER VI
SOMETHING COMING
That afternoon Mr. Norwood brought home the radio receiving set in the automobile. The two girls, with