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Strange places, hospitals, into which drift men from every walk of life, to find a haven and peace within their quiet walls. Old Tony had sung, in his youth, in the opera at Milan. A pretty young nurse went around the corridors muttering bits of "Orphant Annie" to herself. The Senior Surgical Interne was to sing the "Rosary," and went about practising to himself.
"Well, Jake Sawyer, if half them trollops o' weemin in there would clear out and leave me alone, I'd 'a' had you at the station by this time. Hannah!" she addressed the window peremptorily, "you hurry up there an' come down, whether you're ready or not! I never agreed to this wild-goose chase after an orphant, but now that you're half ready you've got to go!"
"He knows you, as the orphant knows The folks that loves her like theyr own, And raises her and "finds" her clothes, And "schools" her tel a womern-grown! "I claim no hoss will harm a man, Ner kick, ner run away, cavort, Stump-suck, er balk, er 'catamaran, Ef you'll jest treat him as you ort.
"That there's our ball!" said the elf sharply. "Give us a throw!" Miss Arabella stared, motionless. "Are are you Jake Sawyer's orphant?" she asked incredulously. The boy grinned, a queer contortion of his wizened little face with more mischief in it than mirth. "Naw, I'm just the tail of it," he answered enigmatically. "Say, when did the folks in that there house adopt you?"
Field is the greater of the two, for he possessed a depth of feeling and insight which is lacking in Riley. Few lyrics have been more widely popular than his "Little Boy Blue" and "Dutch Lullaby"; while Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man" are equally well known.
"Hannah Sawyer, don't you know that there orphant may be an infant in arms, an' if it is, it'll die of colic on the road home if you fill it up with such stuff!" The face which had disappeared from between the curtains came into view again, red and alarmed. "Mercy me, Susan! I didn't know. I'll give it to Jake's cousin.
"Oh, my, what a pity!" groaned Miss Arabella, remembering all she had suffered in toiling down the lane with the basket. "It don't matter much, though," continued the narrator placidly. "Jake said somebody'd get them that likely needed them worse than Minnie Morrison. Well, in the afternoon, after we'd visited a while, Jake hired a livery rig an' we drove out to the orphant home.
She told him how that old harpy wrote her, an’, bein’ an orphant, she come out thinkin’ she was goin’ to a respectable place as waitress, an’ Jim he ’lowed it was a case for the law. He was a little shy of twenty at the time, just a young cockerel ’bout br’ilin’ size.
Our meager income ceased with my father's life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley's poem. There appeared to be three avenues open to me. I could be a governess, domestic servant, or dressmaker.
That's the way to live, an' all's well 'at ends well, as we hope she will this little orphant thrust upon us without no druther of our own, an' a bad beginnin' gen'ally makes a good ending; an' I 'low I'd best take one more peek into the sittin'-room chamber, afore I go to bed myself. Good night. Don't worry. I've fixed fish-cakes for breakfast."
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