Chapter V: A New Home

THE day was nearly done when Katy felt as if she could not go any farther, and she sat down on a stone step to rest herself.

A man stopped just in front of her to fill and light his pipe. As he saw Katy, he seemed to recollect something, for he said half aloud: "I declare if I didn't forget all about it."

Then he stood still and thought a few minutes, puffed away at his pipe and looked at Katy. It ended by his asking her name and where her father and mother lived.

"Haven't got any," said Katy.

"Well, who do you belong to, then?"

"Guess I don't much belong to anybody now," was the answer.

"Well, s'pose'n you go long o' me and belong to us. My wife wanted me to bring home a little girl to help her. Don't know as you're big enough, but then, you'll be getting bigger every day. Will you go?"

"Yes, I will," said Katy, jumping up with energy. "I never will go back to that bad old place again."

"Well, hurry up then, I'm afraid I shall miss the train."

So they walked along quite fast, Katy occasionally glancing up to see what sort of a person she was going off with.

He was short and stout and had rather a pleasant look, but he gave all his attention to his pipe, and took no further notice of Katy.

His name was Jacob Scram, and he lived a good many miles away in a smaller city, a manufacturing place, where he furnished beer enough to the men and boys who worked in the factories to make a great many unhappy families and miserable homes.

It was too dark by this time to see much of anything about her, but Katy's heart gave a great bound as she thought, "Maybe, I'm going to the country."

Mr. Scram soon settled himself for a nap, but Katy sat up wide awake, looking about her in great wonderment.

Jacob Scram had come to the city the day before on business, and his wife had told him to go to the "Home for the Friendless," and see if he could not get a little girl to help her. He forgot his errand until he happened to see Katy. Then he thought, "What's the use of botherin' and stayin' another day, I expect this one will do just as well as any of 'em, anyhow, she's friendless enough, if she didn't come from there."

It was morning when they reached the end of their journey. The Scrams lived in a narrow street, in two dark little rooms back of the saloon. There was a building within two feet of them on each side, so the rooms were very gloomy indeed. Mrs. Scram was getting breakfast, and the air of the room was suffocating with the smoke from the frying pork. Katy thought it wasn't a pleasant place to come to, not a bit. Mrs. Scram had on a soiled wrapper, and her light hair was twisted into hair pins about her forehead. She did not look pleasant, Katy thought; her mouth was drawn down at the corners, and her eyes were sharp.

"Well, here's your little girl," said Mr. Scram.

Mrs. Scram gave one look at Katy and then she said:

"Well, Jacob Scram! That's just exactly like you. That's just about as much as I'd think you'd know. To go and bring me home a little dud of a girl like that, and she's nothing but a bundle of rags, anyhow you can fix it."

Poor Katy! It was not a bright prospect. The baby, too, did his share toward making things uncomfortable, for he roused up and cried at time top of his lungs, and when Katy smiled at him, he only cried harder.

"Well, come along to breakfast," said Mrs. Scram. "Now she's here, I s'pose she's got to stay a spell, but I wish she was back where she came from."

After breakfast, Mrs. Scram told Katy to wash up the dishes, and she took her baby and a yellow-covered novel and sat down to rock and read. Of course it could not be expected that a little girl only nine years old could wash up the dishes, unless she had been taught by a careful mother or some one else, and a little girl who had spent a good deal of her life on the street as a beggar would not be likely to be very handy at little jobs of housework that other children could do with great ease. So Katy felt at a great loss to know just how to go to work.

"Come, don't stand gaping there," said Mrs. Scram, looking up from her book. "Scrape up the dishes and get the pan and put them in it, and put some hot water on them."

So Katy did it as well as she could, though in a very awkward way, putting a great share of the dish-water on herself, and on the floor. It took a long time to do it, and when Mrs. Scram finally laid down her book and came to see what fault to find with her, she gave Katy a sharp box on the ear for spilling so much water and bade her wipe it up.

After scolding a great deal, she seated herself once more, and Katy slipped out into the little back-yard to see if she had really come to the country. Alas! There was nothing green to be seen except some straggling spires of grass and a few weeds. It was a filthy little spot, and all around was dust and smoke and tall black chimneys.

"Come in," screamed Mrs. Scram, "and make a fire and pare some potatoes for dinner."

Make a fire! Now this was something Katy had never done in all her life. There were some wood and shavings lying there, and Katy put in two or three sticks, and put a few shavings on the top and lighted them. Of course, it went out as soon as the shavings were burned out.

After repeating this two or three times, Katy ventured to say, "The fire won't burn."

Mrs. Scram was in a very exciting part of the novel she was reading, and she felt very cross at being interrupted. She flew up in a rage, and boxing Katy's ears, told her to bring a bit of pine board and a knife. She cut kindlings and made the fire herself, and then Katy made bungling attempts to pare the potatoes.

That was a hard day. Mrs. Scram seemed to have great skill in boxing ears. Katy had been kicked, pounded, and shaken, but this was a new mode of punishment, and not much more agreeable than the others. She began to wonder if all the people in the world were so cross, and if they all drank beer or whisky. Mr. and Mrs. Scram drank beer instead of whisky, but that or something else made them out of humor much of the time. Then Mrs. Scram's novels did not sweeten her disposition. Those who give themselves up to novel reading are almost as bad as drunkards in one way, they do not try to make home happy.

Those were dreary days to Katy. The two dark rooms were like a prison. It was worse on some accounts than being with Peter and Nancy, for she was away from them all day, and so did not have some one finding fault with her all the time. Nobody can be happy who is continually scolded and blamed, and Katy began to get very cross too, and to answer back when she was scolded in a way that made it harder than ever for her. She had never learned to go to Jesus with her troubles and get help from him to bear them, so she had to fight her battles all alone.

She began to have a little pleasure in the baby, for he was getting fond of her, but he cried a great deal and it was hard work to tend him, and Katy often went to bed with her little arms and back aching.

Poor little baby Scram! He had a hard lot of it too. He did not know there was any more world than those two ugly dark rooms. Nobody ever carried him to a green spot, and let him pull dandelions and daisies and buttercups. He didn't have a brimming mug of warm milk every night fresh from the cow, only occasionally a little blue thin stuff they called milk from the milkman's cart.

Then he had the toothache most of the time, and his mother did not know how, or wouldn't take the trouble, to soothe him with a low sweet song or pretty play and make him forget his troubles. He never had heard of the little pigs that went to market, or had a ride to Boston on grandma's knee. Ah! That was almost the worst of it. He had no grandma. All that his mother seemed to do for him was to feed him with soothing syrup to keep him quiet, so when he was awake he was either very stupid or very cross.

You would have found at Mr. Scram's no plump fair little darling, full of fun and frolic, toddling about in white dresses and red shoes, for he had none of those pretty things, but instead, a poor thin hollow-eyed sad-faced baby, in dark dresses and soiled face and hands. Yet Katy was beginning to love him, for he was better than a kitten or a doll, besides she felt very sorry for him. Perhaps the dear Lord gives his most loving smiles to the child who tries to brighten the life of a poor sorrowful baby like this one.