's his work was done, an'
I doin' it, me bein' big an' strong, as I always was. Me Tom got worse
an' worse, an' I saw him a-failin', an' one day Dr. Mason stopped an'
said if I brought him to Bellevue Hospital, where he had just been
appointed, he'd fix up his rib so he could breathe easier, and maybe
he'd get well. Well, I hung on an' on, thinkin' he'd get better,--poor
fellow, he didn't want to go,--but one night, about dark, I took the
Big Gray an' put him to the cart, an' bedded it down wid straw; an' I
wrapped me Tom up in two blankits an' carried him downstairs in me own
arms, an' driv slow to the ferry."

She hesitated for a moment, leaned her bruised head on her hand, and
then went on:--

"When I got to Bellevue, over by the river, it was near ten o'clock at
night. Nobody stopped me or iver looked into me bundle of straw where
me poor boy lay; an' I rung the bell, an' they came out, an' got him up
into the ward, an' laid him on the bed. Dr. Mason was on night duty, an'
come an' looked at him, an' said I must come over the next day; an' I
kissed me poor Tom an' left him tucked in, promisin' to be back early in
the mornin'. I had got only as far as the gate on the street whin one of
the men came a-runnin' after me. I thought he had fainted, and ran
back as fast as I could, but when I got me arms under him again--he was
dead."

"And all this seven years ago, Tom?" said Babcock in astonishment,
sinking back in his chair.

Tom bowed her head. The tears were trickling through her fingers and
falling on the coarse shawl.

"Yis; seven years ago this June." She paused for a moment, as if the
scene was passing before her in every detail, and then went on: "Whin I
come home I niver said a word to anybody but Jennie. I've niver told
Pop yit. Nobody else would have cared; we was strangers here. The next
mornin' I took Jennie,--she was a child then,--an' we wint over to the
city, an' I got what money I had, an' the doctors helped, an' we buried
him; nobody but just us two, Jennie an' me, walkin' behint the wagon,
his poor body in the box. Whin I come home I wanted to die, but I said
nothin'. I was afraid Schwartz would take the work away if he knew it
was only a woman who was a-doin' it wid no man round, an so I kep' on;
an' whin the neighbors asked about him bein' in a 'sylum an' out of his
head, an' a cripple an' all that, God forgive me, I was afraid to tell,
and I kept still and let it go at that; an' whin they aske