Brenda, Her School and Her Club
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 17: The Rosas at Home
In a few moments Miss South returned.
“I do not think,” she said, “that there would be the least harm in your going with me to the house. I know, Nora, that your mother would not object, and Julia, you can use your own judgment. I am sure that there is no contagious disease in the neighborhood, and——”
“Oh,” interrupted Julia, “do let me go back with you. I have never been in a tenement house and I am so anxious to see one. My aunt would not have the least objection, and you know that Brenda has been there.”
So in less time than it takes me to tell of it they were actually at the door of the house where the Rosas lived. Fortunately their rooms were now on the first floor, and as the door was open as well as the window, there was good ventilation. Had this not been the case they must have been half suffocated by the heat from the stove which was glowing hot. Mrs. Rosa was seated in a high backed wooden rocking-chair, but she rose to her feet as she saw Miss South and the two girls approaching. To do this was evidently a great effort for her, and after she had said a word or two of welcome in broken English, she sank back half exhausted.
She had strength, however, to speak to her elder daughter, who had not turned when they entered, and at her bidding Angelina had looked up from the depths of the mysterious mixture which she was stirring in an iron kettle, and coming forward offered her hand to the three newcomers. Two younger girls in rather untidy dresses, with half the buttons off their shoes looked on a little timidly, and no one but Manuel seemed perfectly at ease.
“It’s rather hard, isn’t it,” said Miss South pleasantly, “to take care of so many children, Mrs. Rosa?”
“Oh, yes, Miss South,” she replied, “they gets hungry every day, and always wants so much to eat.” Even the lively Nora did not smile at this, although she afterwards said that she wondered if their mother expected the children to want only one meal a week.
“But you’re not able to work now; you can’t go out to your fruit stand, can you?” continued Miss South.
“Oh, no indeed, no indeed,” shaking her head. “I’m awful weak.”
“Then how have you been paying your rent?”
“Well, the good minister, he help me; he pay it just now, and John he have a license for papers, and he sell quite a good many every day after school—and, oh well, we get along.” Mrs. Rosa had a very pleasant expression, and as she talked she looked almost handsome. Her black stuff dress, worn without a collar, made her pale face seem more haggard than usual, yet it beamed with gratitude as she told how kind one and another had been since her illness had become so serious.
“Where does she sleep?” asked Julia in a half whisper to Nora.
“Why, in that little room where you see the door open. I remember they told us when we were here before, that she and the girls sleep there, while the boys have a mattress to themselves on the kitchen floor. They bring it out every night.”
“How dreadful!” was all that Julia had time to say, for she saw Angelina’s sharp eyes turned towards her, and feared that already she had been impolite in talking thus in an aside to Nora.
The latter, while Miss South was talking with Mrs. Rosa about her recent symptoms, tried to draw Manuel into conversation, but, as before, only a word or two at a time could be drawn from him, although his expression was still as seraphic as ever, even when Nora was half teasing him.
Yet, after all, they had been in the dingy room but a very short time when Miss South reminded them that it was growing dark, and that Mrs. Gostar and Mrs. Barlow would both disapprove their being out much later. As they rode up Hanover street in the car both girls noticed that Miss South was unusually quiet. At last Julia broke the silence.
“I’m sure that you are thinking about Mrs. Rosa,” she said softly.
“Yes,” answered Miss South, “I see that something must be done to help her, but I am not sure just what it should be. Possibly she cannot recover, or perhaps if she had a good doctor he might advise—but still, she is almost too poor to take advantage of any advice.”
“Yes,” said Nora, “suppose a doctor should advise her to go to Colorado, or California; why he might as well talk about the moon.”
“I know it,” murmured Julia, “and yet people are sometimes very kind to the poor.”
“Yes, at Christmas especially,” rejoined Nora with a laugh. “Did you hear one of the little girls when I asked her what she had Thanksgiving say, ‘Two turkeys, one Baptist and one ‘Piscopal.’”
Julia looked a little shocked at this, but Miss South only smiled. “I am afraid that loaves and fishes count for a great deal with these people when they come to select a church. They have discovered that they can get more from the Protestants than from their own church, and if they have some little disagreement with a priest, they take advantage of this to put themselves under the wing of the Bethel, or of Christ Church. Both have a great many Portuguese in attendance, and I ought not to be too censorious, for some of them undoubtedly are perfectly sincere.”
“How does it happen, Miss South, that you know so much about these poor North End people?” asked Julia. “There, I did not mean to be inquisitive, but it seems wonderful that you should understand them so well.”
“To tell you the reason fully,” replied she, “would be a long story, but just now it may be enough to say that I have had a little mission class down there but a block or two from Mrs. Rosa’s for several years. In this way, spending one evening among them, as well as Sunday afternoon, I have come to understand the characteristics of these foreigners.”
“Have you known Mrs. Rosa all this time?” asked Nora.
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