“I don’t know. Somebody took it, I s’pose, and she thought it was me.”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I haven’t got but two cents, and I don’t know where to sleep.”
“Where’s the old woman you used to live with?”
“I shan’t go back to her,” said Tom, firmly. “I hate her.”
“You’ve got some good clo’es,” said Mike. “I didn’t know you, at first. I thought you was a young lady.”
The time had been when she did not want to look like a young lady,—when she would have preferred to be a boy. But her tastes had changed considerably since then. Something of the instinct of her sex had sprung up in her, as she was brought to a closer knowledge of more refined ways of life. She was no longer a young Arab in her feelings, as before. Three months had wrought a great change in Tom.
“If you haven’t any place to sleep, Tom,” said Mike, “you can come along of me.”
“Can I?” asked Tom. “What’ll your mother say?”
“Oh, she won’t mind. Only you’ll maybe have to sleep on the floor.”
“I don’t mind,” said Tom. “It’ll be better than sleeping in the street. Where do you live?”
“I guess I’ll get something to do to-morrow,” said Tom.
“Sweep the crossings sometimes. I won’t do that again. It’s too dirty.”
“It would sp’ile them nice clo’es of yours.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “Besides, I wouldn’t want Mrs. Merton, or Mary, to see me doin’ that.”
Tom got up from her seat with alacrity, and prepared to accompany Mike. It was a great burden off her mind to think she was likely to have a shelter for the night. Perhaps something would turn up for her the next day. This thought brought back some of her old courage and confidence.
Mike Murphy’s home was neither elegant nor spacious. Mulberry Street is not an aristocratic locality, and its residents do not in general move in fashionable society. Mrs. Murphy was a retail merchant, being the proprietor of an apple-stand on Nassau, near Spruce Street. Several years’ exposure to the weather had made her face nearly as red as the apples she dealt in, and a sedentary life had enlarged her proportions till she weighed close upon two hundred pounds. In nearly all weathers she was to be found at her post, sometimes sheltered by a huge cotton umbrella, whose original color had been changed by the sun to a pale brown. Though she had not yet been able to retire from trade upon a competence, she had earned enough, with Mike’s assistance, to support a family of six children,—in Mulberry Street style, to be sure, but they had never been obliged to go to bed hungry, and the younger children had been kept at the public school.