CHAPTER III

THE FARMHOUSE

It took a long time to bring Moya Murphy and little Sheila back to health and strength, but it was only a day or two before Moya was able to tell her story to Mrs. Emerson.

She was twenty-five, she said, and she had come to America with her father and mother five years before.  The New World had not given a warm welcome to the new arrivals, for both of the parents had fallen ill with pneumonia only a few weeks after they landed, and both died within a few days of each other.

Moya, left alone and grieving, had soon after married Patrick Murphy, a lad she had known in the old country.  A happy life they led, especially after little Sheila came to bless them.

When the declaration of war in Europe upset business conditions in America, Patrick lost his “job” and all summer long he walked the streets, working for a day now and then, but never securing a permanent position, and always growing weaker and less able to work because he was underfed.  The little three-room flat that had been such a joy to them, had long been given up and they lived and ate and slept in one room, and thanked their stars that they had a landlord who did not insist on being paid regularly, as did some they knew about who put their tenants out on the street if the rent was not forthcoming promptly.

“Somehow it’s the sudden things that happens to me,” said Moya to Mrs. Emerson.  She was sitting on the latticed back porch of the Emersons’ house, her fingers busy shelling peas for Kate, the old cook who had lived with Mrs. Emerson ever since she was married.  “Patrick was crossing the street—­’tis only six weeks ago, but it seems years!  An automobile with one of the shrieking horns screamed at him.  ’Twas the policeman on the crossing told me.  Patrick was light on his feet always, but that was when he had enough to eat ivery day.  He thried to jump back and his foot slipped and he fell under the car and it killed him.”

She sobbed and Mrs. Emerson and Kate wiped their eyes.

“Two days it was before I knew it; there was nothing on his clothes to tell who he was, and I only found out when he didn’t come home and I went to the police and they took me to the Morgue and there he lay.  They gave me twenty dollars—­the policemen did.  They collected it among themselves.”

“Didn’t they arrest the driver of the car?”

“’Twas a light car and it sped away before any one saw the number.”

Kate Flanigan gave a grunt of disgust at the brutality of the driver.

“I gave the landlord half the money the policemen gave me.  I owed it for the rint.  Then I set out to hunt work.  Ivery day I walked and walked and ivery day I carried the baby, for where could I leave her?  Nobody wanted a girl who wasn’t trained to do anything, and even if I had been able to do something well they wanted no baby.  There’s no room for babies when you have to work,” she said bitterly.