Thursday afternoon, January 13, 1881
As Jamie went into Kathleen’s room behind the laundry, Dandy ran ahead and jumped up on the bed, a rolled-up copy of a newspaper in his mouth.
Ian, who sat with his right leg propped up on a pile of pillows, laughed and said, “Look at you, boy. Is that the Chronicle you have there?”
Jamie sat down carefully on the end of the bed, saying, “Dandy, drop it and come sit on my lap. You don’t want to bump him. No, Ian, it’s not the Chronicle but an old copy of the California Alta that Mrs. Dawson says she didn’t need any more. For some reason, Dandy has no desire to chew it up. Maybe the ink tastes different.”
“We should do a test. Try each of the daily papers, then the weeklies, see which ones he favors. Would be a scientific experiment,” Ian said.
Jamie could tell his friend, who’d been staying in his sister’s room since Saturday, was feeling better. While there were still visible bruises, the swelling on his face had gone away and his blue eyes sparkled, not with fever but with his usual mischief.
It amazed him how quickly Ian was recuperating, since he’d believed his friend was truly at death’s door when Mitchell had carried him out from between the buildings and he got a better look at him in the watery half-light. Mitchell had said that as far as he could tell, Ian didn’t have any broken bones, just a badly sprained knee. He also said what Ian most needed was to get out of the cold and rain as quickly as possible because it looked like he’d contracted a lung infection. Seth Timmons, who’d already hailed a hansom while Mitchell was examining Ian, decided that they should take him right to the boardinghouse, not the hospital, because no one would be able to nurse him better than his sister.
So that’s what they’d done.
Jamie learned later that Kathleen had arrived at the boardinghouse a few minutes earlier to report that neither of her brothers nor any of the Hennessey relatives had seen Ian in the past week. She was about to make the rounds of the local hospitals when Jamie came running into the kitchen to say that Mitchell and Mr. Timmons were bringing in Ian from a cab in the back alley and that he was hurt but alive.
Kathleen had gone dead white, as Mrs. Dawson hurried to her side with words of encouragement. But as soon as the men arrived, Ian’s sister had taken a deep breath and begun to give orders.
What followed was controlled pandemonium.
First, Kathleen sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and directed Mitchell to bring her brother, who seemed barely conscious, and put him on her lap. Then she asked Mrs. Dawson to help Mitchell strip Ian’s filthy wet clothes off him and wrap him in a large towel. Meanwhile, as instructed, Mrs. O’Rourke drained warm water from the oven reservoir into a basin, and little Tilly brought in a pile of soft cloths from the laundry. Mitchell used the cloths to wash Ian gently from head to toe, cleaning his wounds, and checking to make certain there were indeed no broken bones. Ian’s breath was so labored, Jamie had found himself breathing deeply as if that would help his friend take in air.
Sometime during this process, Jamie’s mother had come into the kitchen and coaxed him to hand the shivering Dandy over to Mrs. O’Rourke to towel off, then sent him upstairs to change into dry clothes. When he got back into the kitchen, Mitchell was directing Seth Timmons to pick up Ian and take him back into Kathleen’s room.
Jamie slipped into the room as everyone fussed around the bed, getting his friend settled. Mitchell told Kathleen that she needed to keep Ian sitting up so he could breathe easier but that at the same time he should also keep his right leg elevated. Somehow, Mrs. Dawson had known what would be needed, because she appeared at that moment with what looked like every spare pillow in the house, helping Kathleen to situate her brother in the bed as Mitchell wrote out instructions of what to get at the nearest pharmacy.
At that point, Jamie had stepped forward to take the slip of paper, but Kathleen said sharply that he wasn’t going out in that rain again…she didn’t need two sick boys to tend to. Then her face had crumpled up and she’d run over to hug him, bursting into tears. That might have been the scariest thing that had happened all day.
Finally, Seth Timmons had left for the pharmacy, while Mitchell went off to work at St. Mary’s Hospital, promising to stop back when his shift was over. Jamie was banished from the sick room at that point, but his mother let him stay in the kitchen until bed time. He spent most of the day sitting in the rocker with Dandy in his lap, soothed by watching Mrs. O’Rourke and Tilly engaged in the normal tasks of cooking and serving meals for the boarders.
Mr. Dawson came into the kitchen after dinner and quietly asked Jamie to tell him about how he’d found Ian and what the boy had said to him. He’d then shaken his head and said that it was a shame the papers paid newsboys so little that they had to fight over every customer. Mrs. Dawson, who’d pulled a chair over to sit beside him during this conversation, said afterwards that he had the makings of a born detective and that he’d done a grand thing in finding his friend. His mother said something similar as she tucked him and Dandy into bed that night. What none of the grown-ups said, but he could tell all of them were thinking, was that he might have been too late, that Ian could still die.
The following morning Jamie learned that Mitchell had stopped by after his shift at midnight and was concerned enough about Ian’s continued fever and labored breathing to spend the rest of the night, keeping vigil with Kathleen by his bedside.
For Jamie, Sunday had dragged on forever. And the one time he’d been let into the sick room, Ian hadn’t even recognized him. Thank goodness for Dandy and Emmaline. Between taking the dog out and helping Emmaline with her schoolwork, he’d been able to survive the hours that crawled by until bedtime that night. Then, when his mother woke him Monday morning to get ready for school, she’d sat down on his bed and given him a tremendous hug, telling him that Ian’s fever had broken sometime in the night and that Mitchell believed he was on the mend.
That was four days ago.
Until yesterday, it seemed all Ian did was sleep, so Jamie hadn’t had but a few words with him, and then there was always someone present. But today, when he and Emmaline got home from school, Kathleen said that he could take Dandy in to see her brother.
Actually, what she’d said was, “I have to go upstairs to help Tilly before dinner, and I don’t trust him not to try to get out of bed if he’s left alone. Mr. Mitchell says he’ll be by this evening, take a look at his leg, and I’m hoping he’ll say he can at least come out to sit in the kitchen. But until then, he stays put. You have my permission to sit on him if he tries anything.”
So here he was, not quite knowing what to say to his friend, who was trying to snatch the rolled-up paper from Dandy.
What do you say to someone who almost died?
What he did say was, “Don’t you dare try to get up, because your sister’s in no mood for shenanigans. She wasn’t able to get all the ironing done this week, and I know from experience that makes her especially cross. Of course she won’t listen to Mrs. Dawson, who says that everyone will survive if their petticoats and shirt collars aren’t starched to perfection, but you know your sister.”
Ian sighed and said, “I know, but I hate sitting here, not knowing what’s going on. When I ask about what Aunt Fiona’s going to do about the rent, Kathleen says it’s not my problem. I can tell she’s really angry at me about skipping school and everything, and I don’t know how to make it better.”
“She’s not angry at you. She’s angry at your Aunt Fiona and Uncle Frank for expecting you to support their family…and angry at all your Hennessey aunts and uncles, maybe even your brothers, for not noticing what was going on with your Uncle Frank.”
“It’s not really Aunt Fiona’s fault,” Ian said. “I mean, she works real hard. But she’s never been the motherly type. Yet, until recently, she did try to do good by me. Didn’t treat me any different from her other boys.”
Jamie thought to himself that the thin mattress on the floor said differently, but he kept his mouth shut.
Ian sighed and said, “Uncle Frank’s another matter. Mean drunk. He’s the reason his two older boys left as soon as they could. When he lost his job last month, he said if I couldn’t bring in more money he was going to send little Sammy, who’s only nine, out to work in a button factory. Sammy’s kind of delicate; that’d kill him.”
“Don’t you worry about Sammy or the others,” Jamie said quickly. “I heard that last night Kathleen went round to see your Uncle Sean and Uncle George. Told ’em they all had to pitch in and help out your Aunt Fiona. And if they didn’t, she’d make sure that everyone, including the Sisters of Mercy, knew that they were willing to let their own flesh and blood end up in the streets.”
Ian’s eyes went wide, and he said, “Oh my, that’ll put the fat in the fire. My Aunt Peg lives and dies by her good name in the parish.”
“I sure hope so,” Jamie said. “Maybe even better, Patrick McGee dragged your Uncle Frank down to the local station and kept him locked up overnight to sober up. Then he told him that the local copper would be keeping an eye on the family, and if he heard about any of his kids being mistreated, he’d be arrested.”
Ian frowned and picked at a scab on his elbow. “Uncle Frank’s not going to like that, but he will listen to Uncle George, who will listen to Aunt Peg, so maybe everything will work out. But what about me? Only thing Kathleen’s said is I’m not going back to Uncle Frank’s, ever. Are they sending me to one of my other uncles?”
Smiling, Jamie said, “This is the best bit. Mrs. Dawson says that you are to live here. They’ve been shifting junk around in the attic. We’re going to share that room where we put up the train set. I won’t have to stay in that dinky alcove any more, and you won’t have to sleep on the floor crammed in with all your cousins. Kathleen wants you to start going to Clement Grammar with me and Emmaline. Mother says that maybe they’ll put you in our class…since you’ve been using sixth grade textbooks. Since Emmaline’s only been attending this week, you wouldn’t be the only new student. We can all help each other with the work. It’ll be great! I know you haven’t really met Emmaline, she’s related in some way to Miss Minnie and Miss Millie, and she’s staying up in their room for now. She…”
Jamie stopped, seeing the frown on Ian’s face. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to stay here and go to school with me?”
“Of course I do!” Ian said. “Although I can see Kathleen’s going to make my life a misery, insisting on a bath every week, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Once, when I yelled at Uncle Frank that I was going to leave, go live somewhere else, he said he was my legal guardian and I had to do what he said.”
“Oh, they’ve got that taken care of, too. Mr. Dawson told your sister that now she’s turned eighteen, he can have legal papers drawn up and approved by a judge that will make her your guardian, fair and square. I think he’s doing the same thing for Emmaline and the Miss Moffets.”
Ian looked stunned and said, “That must cost a fortune! I know the Dawsons are kind and all, but I won’t be beholden.”
Jamie squirmed; it hadn’t even occurred to him that his mother and Kathleen might be paying for him and Ian to share a room in the attic. He didn’t want his mother paying extra. Money was tight as it was, and she never bought anything for herself. And he knew she would insist on paying Mrs. Dawson something. Like Ian, she hated to be beholden to anyone.
Before he could say anything, Ian continued, “I could help pay for my board if I could get back to selling papers, but Kathleen said she won’t let me. I tried to tell her that what happened was my own fault. I knew better than to try to sell on Spike and his friend’s patch. I was so afraid that if I didn’t make enough money last week that Aunt Fiona and the kids would end up on the street. Thought I could get away with it. I mean, I knew I was risking a fight. And I got off a few punches of my own. It was bad luck that I fell so hard on my knee so’s I couldn’t get myself home.”
Jamie bit back what he wanted to say, which was the beating Ian had gotten was worse than could be explained by boys scrapping over territory. And Mitchell had said it looked to him like someone had kicked Ian when he was down and deliberately stomped on his knee. And there was no way that was a fair fight. But Jamie understood why Ian was downplaying what happened, why he wanted to get back on the street selling. Sometimes a fellow needed to prove to himself, if not to anyone else, that he wasn’t afraid…of bullies or drunken uncles.
He thought for a moment, then he said, “Tell you what. We’ll convince them to let us sell papers together. Just Fridays after school and Saturday mornings…so it won’t get in the way of our schoolwork. And we will stick to North Beach, cause you’re right; there’s a lot of untapped potential sales there. Between your gift of gab, and Dandy’s tricks, we’ll make a fortune, you’ll see.”
Dandy, who’d been looking back and forth at Jamie and Ian, showed his willingness to help deliver newspapers by giving one of his soft woofs and then picking up the rolled-up newspaper and giving it a vicious shake.
The End
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