Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/128

106 and get a move on ye. Lively, now! We gotta get by. Jamie's got comp'ny."

Mrs. Carew shuddered again, and laid a trembling hand on Jerry's shoulder.

"Not—here!" she recoiled.

But the boy did not hear. With shoves and pushes from sturdy fists and elbows, he was making a path for his charges; and before Mrs. Carew knew quite how it was done, she found herself with the boy and Pollyanna at the foot of a rickety flight of stairs in a dim, evil-smelling hallway.

Once more she put out a shaking hand.

"Wait," she commanded huskily. "Remember! Don't either of you say a word about—about his being possibly the boy I'm looking for. I must see for myself first, and—question him."

"Of course!" agreed Pollyanna.

"Sure! I'm on," nodded the boy. "I gotta go right off anyhow, so I won't bother ye none. Now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. There's always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep somewheres. An' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed cheerfully. "We gotta go ter the top, too!"

Mrs. Carew found the "holes"—broken boards that creaked and bent fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"—a two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. On all sides doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces.