“Jesus!” cried the Italian woman who answered my knock, as soon as I explained my errand. “Ain’t she got back yet?”
Yes, the janitor had stopped at her door on her way out, more than an hour ago. She had said her baby was better, more quiet, had not fretted so much during the later part of the night. She was on her way to the grocery to get a bucket of milk for the baby and a little something for her own and her daughter’s breakfast.
However untidy an Italian woman might be I always found a heart in her bosom, and that her hands were ready to help. This one, while talking, jerked up a milk-pail and held it bottom upward over a cup. Not a drop. How greedy her children were! If only they had left a few swallows for her to heat and give the janitor’s baby. Then scooping up a panful of coals she hurried after me and into the janitor’s flat.
Turning the pan of coals over to the little girl, she followed me to the bedside. Crooning half under her breath she bent over the still little figure. At first it seemed almost gone, its breathing was so faint.
Throwing at me a swift glance of consternation, the woman turned on the little girl. She must get on her coat—the poor, half-frozen little mite was wearing the only coat she possessed—and run down to the grocery. While talking she snatched the pan of coals from the child’s hands and proceeded to gouge down into one of her stockings.
As the Italian woman drew a crumpled bill from her stocking the door of the flat opened, and in stepped the janitor. Her face was wreathed in smiles, and both hands concealed by the ends of her shawl. The Italian woman, extending her hand, demanded the milk.
The janitor, throwing aside her shawl, displayed a short fat candle. She had been to church, she explained complacently, had burned a candle and prayed to Saint Somebody—I did not write the name of the saint to whom she prayed in my diary—for her baby. Her baby would get well. Oh, yes, it would surely get well, for she had spent the balance of her money for another candle.
Then without so much as a glance at the dying child, she hurried into her front room, and having lit the candle, placed it before the gaily colored picture of another saint. While she was doing this the last breath fluttered away from her baby.