Then suddenly she remembered that it was down that very street that a little Sunday school scholar of hers lived, and the minister had asked her not long ago if she wouldn’t call on the child and try to brighten her up a bit. She had been run over by a truck and broken her hip, and there was danger that the spine was involved, and she might never walk again.
In the joy of her new fortunes Romayne had completely forgotten the request. Now it suddenly came back to her. That was awkward. She might meet Dr. Stephens almost any day, and he would be likely to ask her about the child. Why couldn’t she just run back in the station and check her suitcase and make the call now? Of course, she was rather too much dressed up for that sort of thing, but it would be so good to get that duty done and off her conscience. Poor little thing! She was a sweet little girl with golden curls and blue eyes! What a pity! She would get some oranges at the fruit stand and take them to her. There was no reason in the world why she shouldn’t do it. Father wasn’t likely to be home from the corporation meeting before six, and he didn’t even know she was coming. She would just get it done at once!
So she checked her suitcase, bought some oranges and a child’s lovely magazine full of pictures, and started on her errand of mercy with a heart full of loving kindness.
She asked the group of children if they knew where Wilanna Judson lived, and they pointed out a house halfway down the next block. But when she rang the bell, it was a long time before anybody came to the door, so that Romayne almost concluded that nobody was at home until she remembered that Wilanna was not able to get up. Then she debated whether she should attempt to open the door and walk in, for perhaps the child was all alone.
But a faint step was finally heard, the door was opened a crack, and a tear-stained face peeked out and looked her over half belligerently from a dainty shoe to tip of hat.
"Could I see Wilanna Judson a few minutes?" she asked, half-wishing she had not come. "I’m her Sunday school teacher."
"Oh, come in," said the girl, opening the door grudgingly. "I didn’t know it was you at first. Yes, she’ll be glad to see you. Nobody’s paid much attention to her today."
Romayne stepped in and saw that the girl was one of those tawdrily dressed little flappers that sat in the girls’ Bible class next to her own and sang a high clear soprano. The girl looked anything but a flapper now. Her stringy hair was out of curl, and her nose was swollen with crying. Even now the tears were brimming over again.
"It’s awful good of you to come," said the girl. "I s’pose you’ve heard?"
"Heard?" asked Romayne. "Are you in trouble, dear?" It wasn’t like shy Romayne to speak to a stranger that way, but there was something in the girl’s woebegone countenance that made her sorry.
"Oh!" said the girl, bursting into tears again. "I can’t never hold up my head again!"
"What is the matter?" asked Romayne in a soothing tone. "Can’t you sit down here and tell me about it? You look awfully tired. Is Wilanna worse?"
"No!" wailed the girl. "She’s doing all right. It’s papa. He’s in jail! I thought you’d seen it in the papers."
"Why, no," said Romayne. "I’ve been away—that is, I didn’t see the paper yet. Who are you? Wilanna’s sister?"
"Yes, I’m Frances."
"Can you tell me about it? Is there anything I could do for you?"
"I don’t know," sobbed the girl. "I don’t guess there is! Mamma’s gone out to see a lawyer, but it all depends if the woman dies. You see he’d been drinking again, and he ran over a woman and just missed killing her baby, too. They took the woman to the hospital, but they think mebbe she won’t live——"
"You poor child!" soothed Romayne, trying to think what to say to one in a predicament like this. "You say he had been drinking? Why, where in the world could he get anything to drink?"
"Plenty of places!" shrugged Frances. "It’s all over. There’s a new one almost every week somewhere, and there’s devils around here always coaxing him to drink. You don’t know——"
"You poor little girl," said Romayne, laying a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. "Tell me all about it. I’ll tell my father and brother, and we’ll see if we can’t do something to get those places closed up. Did your father always drink?"
"No," sighed the girl, "he don’t drink when they let him alone, but it’s always going around. He wouldn’t go get it hisself, but everybody he goes with has it or treats him."
It was half-past five when Romayne came away from the Judson house, her mind filled with the sorrows of little Wilanna and her sister Frances, and turning it over how she would ask her father to get his new friend Judge Freeman to do something about the places where they were selling liquor. Of course, Frances had probably exaggerated it. There couldn’t be as many taxes as she said there were, or people would hear more about it. Of course, there was bootlegging, but that was mainly people who stole automobiles and ran away across the border of Canada, or made moonshine whiskey down in the South somewhere. It was all very vague to her. She had never taken much interest in such things. Her life had been so safe and guarded all these years, the companion of her mother during her lifetime, and now the companion of her father. But Father would be interested in the whole story, and then perhaps he would take her out to call on Judge Freeman, and she would tell him. She had always wanted to go with her father when he went to the judge’s house, but there had always been some reason why it wasn’t convenient when he had to go on business.
Thinking these thoughts, she reached the station, claimed her baggage, and signaled the taxi that had finally appeared on the scene.
"I thought there were always taxis here by the station?" she said to the man. "I waited for fifteen minutes a little while ago."
"Well, there usually is," said the man apologetically, "but you see we all ben down the commissioner’s office trying to get our rights."
"Your rights?" said Romayne faintly, wishing she had said nothing to the man, and reproaching herself for giving him opportunity to talk with her. Isabel Worrell would never have done that. It was because she was not accustomed to riding in taxis.
"Yes, miss," said the man as if he had just been looking for someone to whom he could tell his troubles. "You see, us fellers has pay fifteen dollars a week to the commissioner to get our licenses, and we ben herin’ there’s a guy in the city ben makin’ it hot fer everybody what’s in this here graft game, so jest kinda got together and decided we’d tell the commissioner we was going to give evidence ‘gainst him he didn’t do somepin about it. So we went together, a gang of us, an’ we give him a line of talk, and wddaya think? He give us money back! Sorry to keep ya waitin’, miss, but you see how ‘twas. I jest had to have that money. I got a sick kid, and she has to go to the hospital fer an operation, an’ I needed that money."
Romayne was all sympathy now. She asked questions about the child and promised to send her a doll and a picture book. How much trouble there was in the world, and she had been fretting for years just because she had to make over her dresses and they couldn’t ride in taxis. And now money had come to the Ransoms, but here were the Judsons, and the taxi drivers, and a lot of other poor people who were still in trouble. It really spoiled much of her own pleasure in her good fortune to know that there were so many people in such deep trouble. And it all seemed to be the fault of a few rich politicians who were trying to get richer than anybody else without doing anything. At least that was the way it looked. Or, perhaps, it was the fault of the people who voted to put men who would do such things into these offices of trust. Fancy a commissioner trying to live off a poor taxi driver whose little girl was waiting to have a much-needed operation until her father could scrape the money together to pay the doctor and the hospital! Something ought to be done about it. She meant to ask Lawrence and Father to start