ere have you been, precious? Are you hungry? Oh,
Nellie, she is hungry, I know! She looks thin. Run over to the
bakery and buy her some cookies, quick! Are you cold? Give her this
sacque. Only look at her! Kate, only look at her! Are you hurt,
darling? Has anybody hurt you? If anybody has, he shall be hung! Oh,
you darling! Only see her, 'Liza."
But Jim Tenny, his mouth set, his black brows scowling, his hard
grasp on Eva's arm, pushed straight through the gathering crowd
until they came to Clarkson's stables at the rear of Lloyd's, where
he kept his horse and buggy--for he lived at a distance from his
work, and drove over every morning. He pointed to a chair which a
hostler had occupied, tilted against the wall, for a morning smoke,
after the horses were fed and watered, and which he had vacated to
join the jubilant crowd. "Sit down there," he said to Eva. Then he
hailed a staring man coming out of the office. "Here, help me in
with my horse, quick!" said he.
The man stared still, with slowly rising indignation. He was portly
and middle-aged, the senior partner of the firm, who seldom touched
his own horses of late years, and had a son at Harvard. "What's to
pay? What do you mean? Anybody sick?" he asked.
"Help me into the buggy with my horse!" shouted Jim Tenny. "I tell
you the child is found, and I've got to take it home to its folks."
"Don't they know yet? Is that it?"
"Yes, I tell you." Jim was backing out his horse as he spoke.
Mr. Clarkson seized a harness and threw the collar over the horse's
head, while Jim ran out the buggy. When Mr. Clarkson lifted Eva and
Ellen into the buggy he gave the child's head a pat. "God bless it!"
he said, and his voice broke.
The horse was restive. Jim took a leap into the buggy at Eva's side,
and they were out with a dash and a swift rattle. The crowd parted
before them, and cheer after cheer went up. The whistles sounded
again. Then all the city bells rang out. They were signalling the
other searchers that the child was found. Jim and Eva and Ellen made
a progress of triumph down the street. The crowd pursued them with
cheers of rejoicing; doors and windows flew open; the house-yards
were full of people. Jim drove as fast as he could, scowling hard to
hide his tenderness and pity. Eva sat by his side, weeping in her
terrible candor of grief and joy, and Ellen's golden locks tossed on
her shoulder.
Chapter VI
As Jim Tenny, with Eva Loud and the child,
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