There’s good stuff in that girl
Again that cry—that weak, bubbling wail from out the
darkness of the sewer basin. Something swirled past Hester’s strained vision in
the dervish dance of the debris floating in the murky water. It was a tiny
hand, stretched forth from a skimpy blue-cloth sleeve.
It was Johnny Doyle’s hand; but the child’s body—the
rest of it—was under water!
The water was not more than six feet below the surface
of the ground; but deep, deep down was the entrance of the big drain that
joined the main sewer taking the street water and sewerage from the whole Hill
section. Johnny was being sucked down into that drain.
The girl, her mind keenly alert to all this, shrieked
unintelligible cries for help—unintelligible to herself, even. She could not
have told afterward a word she said, or what manner of help she demanded; but
she knew the boy was drowning and that she could swim!
With her clothing to hold her up a bit Hester believed
she could swim or keep afloat even in that swirling eddy. The appealing little
hand had no more than waved blindly once, than Hester gathered her rather full
skirts about her and jumped, feet first, into the sewer-basin.
That was no pleasant plunge, for, despite her skirts,
Hester went down over her head. But her hands, thrashing about in the water, caught
the baby’s dress. She came up with Johnny in her arms, and when she had shaken
the water from her eyes so that she could see, above was the brown face of one
of the street cleaners. He was lowering a bucket on a rope, and yelling to her.
What he said Hester did not know; but she saw her
chance, and placed little Johnny—now a limp, pale rag of a boy—in the bucket,
and the man drew him up with a yell of satisfaction.
Hester was not frightened for herself. She felt the
tug of the eddy at her feet; but she trod water and kept herself well above the
surface until the man dropped the bucket down again. Then she saw the wild eyes
and pallid, frightened face of Rufus at the opening, too; and a third anxious
countenance. She knew that this belonged to Nellie Agnew’s father.
“Hang on, child!” exclaimed the physician, heartily.
“We’ll have you out in a jiffy.”
Hester clung to the rope and was glad to be dragged
out of the filthy basin. She sat on the ground, almost breathless, for a
moment. Rufe, with a wild cry, had sprung to Johnny. But the doctor put the
half-witted lad aside and examined the child.
“Bless him! he isn’t hurt a mite,” declared
Dr. Agnew, cheerfully. “Run, get a taxi, Rufe! Quick, now! I’ll take you
and Johnny, and Miss Hester, too, home in it.”
Everybody was used to obeying the good doctor’s
commands, and Rufus Doyle ran as he was told. Hester was on her feet when the
cab returned, and Dr. Agnew was holding the bedraggled and still
unconscious Johnny in his arms.
“We’ll take you home first, Hester,” said
Dr. Agnew. “You live nearest.”
“No, no!” exclaimed Hester. “Go by the way of
Mrs. Doyle’s house. The baby ought to be ’tended to first.”
“Why, that’s so,” admitted the physician, and he
looked at her a little curiously.
Hester whisked into the cab and hid herself from the
curious gaze of the few passers-by who had gathered when the trouble was all
over. The taxi bore them all swiftly to the Doyles’ humble domicile. It was on
a street in which electric cabs were not commonly driven, and Rufe was mighty
proud when he descended first into a throng of the idle children and women of
the neighborhood.
Of course, the usual officious neighbor, after one
glance at Johnny’s wet figure, had to rush into the house and proclaim that the
boy had been drowned in the lake. But the doctor was right on her heels and
showed Mrs. Doyle in a few moments that Johnny was all right.
With a hot drink, and warm blankets for a few hours,
and a good sleep, the child would be as good as new. But when the doctor came
out of the house he was surprised to find the cab still in waiting and Hester
inside.
“Why didn’t you go home at once and change your
clothing?” demanded Dr. Agnew, sharply, as he hopped into the taxi again.
“Is Johnny all right?” asked Hester.
“Of course he is.”
“Then I’ll go home,” sighed Hester. “Oh, I sha’n’t get
cold, Doctor. I’m no namby-pamby girl—I hope! And I was afraid the little
beggar would be in a bad way. He must have swallowed a quantity of water.”
“He was frightened more than anything else,” declared
Dr. Agnew, aloud. But to himself he was thinking: “There’s good stuff in
that girl, after all.”
For he, too, had heard the whispers that had begun to
go the rounds of the Hill, and knew that Hester Grimes was on trial in the
minds of nearly everybody whom she would meet. Some had already
judged and sentenced her, as well!
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