O'Brien made no denial and Rosie, dropping her head on the table, wept her heart out.
"Terry, Terry, what do you know about that! And after the way I been working hard and saving every cent for two whole months! Just think of it! And you know yourself the fuss she always made about my selling papers at all! It's disgraceful for me to sell papers because I'm a girl, but it ain't disgraceful for her to go steal all my money and buy curls!.. And I can't do nuthin'! If she was a nigger, I could have her arrested but, because she's my own sister, I can't do nuthin'! Oh, how I hate her, how I hate her!.."
Mrs. O'Brien sighed unhappily. "But, Rosie dear, Ellen'll be paying you back as soon as she gets a job. She promised me faithfully she would. You see, she'll soon be going around to them offices now and she feels she ought to be lookin' her best. Oh, you'll be gettin' back your money all right! Why, nowadays a good stenog gets ten dollars a week up!"
Terence cut his mother off sharply. "Aw, forget it! You can't fool Rosie with guff like that! I tell you, Ellen's nuthin' but a low-down crook and it's your fault, too, for encouraging her!"
"But, Terence lad, what could I do? I thried to dissuade her, but ye know yirself how set she is once she gets an idea into her head."
Yes, Terence and Rosie both knew and they knew, likewise, their mother's helplessness in her hands. With no further words they could easily imagine just what had taken place. Mrs. O'Brien had, no doubt, tried hard to protect Rosie's interests. She could always be depended on to protect the interests of an absent child. Her present attitude was an evidence of this, for now she was turned about seeking to defend Ellen because Ellen was absent.
A wail from upstairs brought her ineffectual excuses to a close and, with a "Whisht! The baby!" she fled.
Rosie, crushed and miserable, wept on. Terence put an awkward hand on her shoulder.
"Say, Rosie, I'm awful sorry, honest I am. I wish I could give you a quarter, but I can't this week. They've cleaned me out. Here's a nickel, though."
Rosie did not want the nickel; at that moment she did not want anything; she took it, however, because Terry wished her to.
"Thanks, Terry. It wasn't your fault. You're not a sneak and a thief. I – I'm glad some of my relations are honest."
Little Jack, who had been listening gravely, snuggled up with a sudden suggestion: "Say, Rosie, if you want me to, I'll kick her in the shins when she comes in."
Rosie wiped her eyes sadly. "No, Jackie, I don't see how that'll do any good."
"Do you want me to spit in her eye?"
Rosie gave Jack a tight hug, for his sympathy was sweet. Then she shook her head reprovingly. "You mustn't talk like that, Jackie, and you mustn't do things like that, either. You don't want to be a mucker, do you?"
For this once Jack thought that perhaps he did, but, when Rosie insisted, he promised to behave.
From babyhood he had been Rosie's special charge, so now, when the time came, she took him upstairs and saw him safely to bed. Then she herself slipped down to the front porch and there on the steps, in the dark electric shadow, she waited for her friend, George Riley.
CHAPTER V
GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS
Rosie had not long to wait, as George's run ended at nine o'clock.
"Sst! Jarge!" she called softly as he bounded up the steps and would have passed her in the dark.
"Is that you, Rosie?"
"Sit down a minute, Jarge. I want to ask you something."
George mopped his head with his handkerchief and drew a long breath. "Whew, but I'm tired, Rosie! I rang up over seventy-five fares three times tonight."
Rosie opened with no preliminary remarks. "Say, Jarge, can you lend me twenty-five cents until tomorrow night? You know I get paid tomorrow."
"Sure, Rosie. What for?"
"I want to go to the Dog Show matinée."
George paused a moment. "But, Rosie, you don't need twenty-five cents for that. You told me it was ten cents."
"I know, Jarge, but I want to take Jackie and Janet."
"Why, Rosie!"
"Well, if I don't, poor Janet'll never get there. She never gets anywhere. You know her father boozes every cent. And I just got to take Jackie if I go myself. Besides, he'll only cost me five cents and that will let me use the nickel Terry gave me for peanuts."
"But, Rosie," – George cleared his throat – "I thought you were saving every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time."
"I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly.
"Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?"
She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.
"N-nothing," she quavered.
"Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control.
"I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister."
For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.
"I – I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard – you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.
George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?"
"Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us… And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge – curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"
George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I – I'm sure she will."
"That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were snatched away from you!"
George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many times."
"What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?"
George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm
