Dan, the Newsboy, Jr. Horatio Alger [fantasy novels to read txt] 📗

for you."

"But she said she was coming right back."

"She's hurt, and she can't come, and she has sent for you. Don't cry, my dear."

"But how shall I know where to go, Nancy?"

"There's a kind gentleman at the door with a carriage. Your ma has been taken to his home."

The little girl began to cry once more.

"Oh! I'm afraid mamma's been killed," she said.

"No, she hasn't, or how could she send for you?"

This argument tended to reassure Althea, and she put on her little shawl and hat, and hurried down stairs.

Hartley was waiting for her impatiently, fearing that Mrs. Mordaunt would come back sooner than was anticipated, and so interfere with the fulfillment of his plans.

"Is mamma very much hurt?" asked Althea, anxiously.

"So she calls this woman mamma," said Hartley to himself.

"Not very badly, but she cannot come home [Pg 226]to-night. Get into the carriage, and I will tell you about it as we are riding to her."

He hurried the little girl into the carriage, and taking a seat beside her, ordered the cabman to drive on.

He had before directed him to drive to the South Ferry.

"How did mamma get hurt?" asked the child.

"She was crossing the street," said Hartley, "when she got in the way of a carriage and was thrown down and run over."

The child began to cry.

"Oh, she will die!" she exclaimed, sobbing.

"No, she will not die. The carriage was not a heavy one, luckily, and she is only badly bruised. She will be all right in a few days."

John Hartley was a trifle inconsistent in his stories, having told the servant that Mrs. Mordaunt had been run over by a street-car; but in truth he had forgotten the details of his first narrative, and had modified it in the second telling. However, Nancy had failed to tell the child precisely how Mrs. Mordaunt had been hurt, and she was not old enough to be suspicious.

"Where is mamma?" was the little girl's next question.

"She is at my house."

"Where is your house?"

[Pg 227]

"Not far from here," answered Hartley, evasively.

"Then I shall soon see mamma."

"Is she your mamma?" asked Hartley.

"No, not my own mamma, but I call her so. I love her dearly."

"Where is your own mamma?"

"She is dead."

"Do you remember her?"

"A little."

"Have you a papa?"

"My papa is a very bad man. He treated poor mamma very badly."

"Who told you this?" demanded Hartley, frowning. "Was it Mrs. Mordaunt?"

"No; it was auntie."

"I thought this was some of Harriet Vernon's work," said Hartley to himself. "It seems like my amiable sister-in-law. She might have been in better business than poisoning my child's mind against me."

"Who else lives with you?" he asked, partly out of curiosity, but mainly to occupy the child's mind, so that she might not be fully conscious of the lapse of time.

"My brother Dan."

"How old is Dan?"

"I don't know. He is a good deal bigger than me."

[Pg 228]

"Do you like Dan?"

"Oh, yes; Dan is a nice boy. He buys me candy. He has gone to a party to-night."

"Has he?"

"And he won't be home till late. He told mamma so."

"I am glad of that," thought Hartley. "It is the better for my purpose."

"Dan is a smart boy. He earns lots of money."

"What does he do?"

"I don't know. He goes down town every morning, and he doesn't come home till supper time."

Hartley managed to continue his inquiries about Dan, but at last Althea became restless.

"Are we most there?" she asked.

"Yes, we are almost there."

"I don't see how mamma could have gone so far."

John Hartley looked out.

"I see how it is," he said. "The cab-driver lost the way, and that has delayed us."

This satisfied the child for a time. Meanwhile they reached the South Ferry, and Hartley began to consider in what way he could explain their crossing the water.

[Pg 229]

CHAPTER XXXII. DONOVAN'S.

After a moment's thought Hartley took a flask from his pocket, into which he had dropped a sleeping potion, and offered it to the child.

"Drink, my dear," he said; "it will do you good."

It was a sweet wine and pleasant to the taste. Althea drank considerable.

"What is it? It tastes good," she said.

"It is a cordial," answered Hartley.

"I like it. I will ask mamma to get some. How long is it? Are we most there?"

"Almost."

"I feel very sleepy," said Althea, drowsily, the potion having already begun to attack her.

"Lean back and shut your eyes. I will tell you when we have arrived."

The innocent and unsuspecting child did as she was directed. Her little head nodded. She struggled against the increasing drowsiness, but in vain. In five minutes she was fast asleep.

[Pg 230]

"There will be no further trouble," thought Hartley. "When she wakes up it will be morning. My plan has been a complete success."

It might have been supposed that some instinct of parental affection would have made it disagreeable to this man to kidnap his own child by such means, but John Hartley had never been troubled with a heart or natural affections. He was supremely selfish, and surveyed the sleeping child as coolly and indifferently as if he had never before set eyes upon her.

Two miles and a half beyond the South Ferry, in a thinly settled outlying district of Brooklyn, stood a three-story brick house, shabby and neglected in appearance, bearing upon a sign over the door the name

DONOVAN'S

Wines and Liquors.

It was the nightly resort of a set of rough and lawless men, many of them thieves and social outlaws, who drank and smoked as they sat at small tables in the sand-strewn bar-room.

Hugh Donovan himself had served a term at Sing Sing for burglary, and was suspected to be indirectly interested in the ventures of others engaged in similar offenses, though he managed to avoid arrest.

[Pg 231]

John Hartley ordered the hackman to stop. He sprang from the carriage, and unceremoniously entered the bar-room. Donovan, a short, thickset man with reddish whiskers, a beard of a week's growth, and but one serviceable eye, sat in a wooden arm-chair, smoking a clay pipe. There were two other men in the room, and a newsboy sat dozing on a settee.

Donovan looked up, and his face assumed a look of surprise as he met the glance of the visitor, whom he appeared to know.

"Where did you come from, Mr. Hartley?" he asked, taking the pipe from his mouth.

"Hist! Come out here," said Hartley.

Donovan obeyed directions.

"Is your wife at home, Hugh?" asked Hartley.

"Yes, Mr. Hartley. She's up stairs."

"I have a job for her and for you."

"What is it now?"

"I have a child in that carriage. I want her taken care of for a few days or weeks."

"Shure, the old woman isn't a very good protector for a gal. She's drunk half the time."

"I can't help it. There are reasons—imperative reasons—why the girl should be concealed for a time, and I can think of no other place than this."

"Who is the girl?"

"It is my own child."

[Pg 232]

Donovan whistled.

"I see you are surprised. I have little time for explanation, but I may tell you that she has been kept from me by my enemies, who wanted to get hold of her money."

"Has she got money?" asked Donovan, with curiosity.

"She will have, sometime. She is her mother's heiress."

"Did the old lady leave it all away from you, then? Shure, it's hard."

"Of course it is. The least I can expect is to be made guardian of my own child. But we are wasting time. Is there no way of getting up stairs except by passing through the bar-room?"

"Yes, Mr. Hartley, we can go up the back way. Just take the child and follow me."

Hartley did so. At the rear of the house was a stair-way, up which he clambered, bearing the sleeping child in his arms.

Donovan pushed the door open, and disclosed a dirty room, with his better-half—a tall, gaunt woman—reclining in a rocking-chair, evidently partially under the influence of liquor, as might be guessed from a black bottle on a wooden table near by.

She stared in astonishment at her husband's companions.

[Pg 233]

"Shure, Hugh, who is it you're bringin' here?"

"It's a child, old woman, that you're to have the care of."

"Divil a bit do I want a child to worrit me."

"You'll be well paid, Mrs. Donovan," said John Hartley.

"Will I get the money, or Hugh?" asked the Celtic lady.

"You shall have half, Bridget," said her husband.

"Will you shwar it?" asked the lady, cautiously.

"Yes, I'll swear it."

"And how much will it be?"

"I will pay ten dollars a week—half to you, and half to your husband," said Hartley. "Here's a week's pay in advance," and he took out two five-dollar bills, one of which was eagerly clutched by Mrs. Donovan.

"I'll take care of her," said she, readily. "What's her name?"

"Althea."

"Shure that's a quare name. I niver heard the like."

"You needn't call her that. You can call her any name you like," said Hartley, indifferently. "Perhaps you had better call her Katy, as there may[Pg 234] be a hue and cry after her, and that may divert suspicion."

"How old is the crathur?"

"Five or six—I forget which. Where shall I put her?"

"Put her in here," said Mrs. Donovan, and she opened the door of a small room, in which was a single untidy bed.

"She won't wake up till morning. I gave her a sleeping potion—otherwise she might have made a fuss, for she doesn't know me to be her father."

"Shure ye knew what to do."

"Now, Mrs. Donovan, I depend upon your keeping her safe. It will not do to let her escape, for she might find her way back to the people from whom I have taken her."

"I'll see to that, Mr. Hartley," said Donovan.

"Say nothing about me in connection with the matter, Donovan. I will communicate with you from time to time. If the police are put on the track, I depend on your sending her away to some other place of security."

"All right, sir."

"And now good-night. I shall go back to New York at once. I must leave you to pacify her as well as you can when she awakes. She is sure to make a fuss."

[Pg 235]

"I'll trate her like my own child," said Mrs. Donovan.

Had Hartley been a devoted father, this assurance from the coarse, red-faced woman would have been satisfactory, but he cared only for the child as a means of replenishing his pockets, and gave himself no trouble.

The hackman was still waiting at the door.

"It's a queer place to leave a child," thought he, as his experienced eye took in the features of the place. "It appears to be a liquor saloon. The gentleman can't be very particular. However, it is none of my business. I suppose it is all right."

"Driver, I am ready," said Hartley. "I'll go back with you."

"All right, sir."

"Go over Fulton Ferry, and leave me at your stand in Union Square."

The ride was a long one. Hartley threw himself back on the seat, and gave himself up to pleasant self-congratulation.

"I think this will bring Harriet Vernon to terms," he said. "She will find that she can't stand between me and my child. If she will make it worth my while, she shall have the child back, but I propose to see that my interests are secured."

The next morning Hartley stepped into an up-town[Pg 236] hotel, and wrote a letter to his sister-in-law in London, demanding that four thousand dollars be sent him yearly, in quarterly payments, in consideration of which he agreed to give up the child, and abstain from further molestation.

[Pg 237]

CHAPTER XXXIII. ALTHEA BECOMES KATY DONOVAN.

The sleeping potion which had been administered to Althea kept her in sound sleep till eight o'clock the next morning. When her eyes opened, and she became conscious of her surroundings, she looked about her in surprise. Then she sat up in bed and gazed wildly at the torn wall paper and dirty and shabby furniture.

"Where am I?" she asked herself, in alarm. "Mamma, mamma!"

The door opened, and the red and inflamed face of Mrs. Hugh Donovan peered in.

"What is it yer want?" she asked.

"I want mamma," answered the child, still more frightened.

"Shure I'm your ma, child."

"No, you are not," said Althea. "I never saw you before."

"Didn't you, now? Maybe you've forgotten. I sent you away to board, but you've come home to live with your ma."

[Pg 238]

"You are telling stories. You are a bad woman," returned the child, ready to