“Whew! I’ve never seen such a storm since I lived in Baltimore city!” cried John Johns, looking out of the window, early on the morning following Molly’s visit to Miss Armacost. “It snows as if it never meant to stop. How still it is, too! Not a car running, not a wagon rattling over the stones, everything as quiet as a country graveyard.”
“Not quite, John. There’s a milk cart trying to force itself through the drifts. My! look into the alley between us and Miss Armacost’s! The snow is heaped as high as the fence, in some spots.”
“Well, I’m glad I’m a plumber! There’ll be plenty of work for me and my kind to-day. We’re not used to anything of this sort down here, and nobody’ll think to look out for his water pipes. Just listen to that wind, will you?”
“I’d rather not. It makes me think of poor folks without coals, and babies without their milk, and lots of suffering.”
“Not so much, wife. Not so much. The coal wagons will be the first astir, and they’ll break the roads nicely with their heavy wheels. The bakers and butchers and milkmen will follow mighty soon. The boys that want a bit of money for Christmas will all be out with any sort of broom, or shovel, or even a stick, they can pick up. It’ll give work for idle men, clearing the streets, and the liverymen will make a lot of money as soon as it settles a little. Oh! a rousing snow-storm is a good thing once in a while.”
“I declare, John, you are the cheerfullest soul. Nothing is ever wrong with you, and Molly is as like you as two peas! But I must say, I wish you wouldn’t go to work to-day. I’ll worry lest you get overcome or frozen, or something.”
“That so? Glad to hear it. Makes a man feel happy inside to know his folks’ll worry about him when he’s in danger. But isn’t it an odd fact that a soft little thing like a snowflake can stop the traffic of a whole city! Hello there, Molly! Got my coat and mittens ready? Well, you don’t look as if the storm had kept you awake much. Give the father a kiss, lass, to sort of sweeten his breakfast. Are the Jays awake? Hunt them up a spadeor a shovel and set them digging their neighbors out. And, Mary wife, if I were you I’d keep a pot of coffee on the range all day. There’s maybe a poor teamster or huckster passing who’ll be the better for a warm cup of drink, and the coffee’ll keep him from thinking of beer or whiskey.”
“That might cost a good bit, all day so.”
“Never mind; never mind. What they drink we’ll go without. We’re hale and hearty folks, who’ll thrive well enough on cold water, if need be. Thank the Lord for all His mercies, say I.”
“Well, breakfast is ready. I’ll dish it up while you two have your own morning talk,” said the mother, patting Molly’s sturdy shoulder as she passed tableward. For the girl and her father were the closest of friends, which isn’t always the case between parent and child. But Molly’s day would have seemed imperfect without that few minutes’ chat with the cheery plumber at its beginning; and he managed always to leave a bit of his wisdom or philosophy in the girl’s thoughts.
The three brothers, Jim, Joe, and Jack, known in the household as the “three Jays,” came tumbling down the short flight of stairs from the bedroom above to the little first-floor kitchen, which theyimmediately seemed to fill with their noisy presence. They were so nearly of one size that strangers often mistook one for another, and they were all as ruddy and round as boys could be. Yet their noise was happy noise and disturbed nobody; and they good-naturedly made room for Sarah Jane, their “sister next youngest but the twins,” as they commonly mentioned her.
Those twins! My! but weren’t they the pride of everybody’s heart, with their fair little faces, like a pair of dolls; and their round blue eyes which were always watching out for mischief to be done. Their names had been selected “right out of a story book” that their mother had once read, and expressed about the only “foolishness” of which the busy woman had ever been guilty.
“Ivanora! Idelia! Truck and dicker! Why, Mary wife, such names will handicap the babies from the start. Who can imagine an Ivanora making bread? or an Idelia scrubbing a floor? But, however, if it pleases you, all right, though I do think a sensible Susan or Hannah would be more useful to girls of our walk in life.”
“Oh! I don’t object to those either. Let’s put them on behind the pretty ones; and maybe they’llnot have to scrub floors or make bread, the sweet darlings,” answered the wife, when soon after the babies’ birth the important matter of naming them arose.
At the moment when the father and Molly were watching the storm from one small window, while the three Jays and Sarah Jane occupied the other, these youngest members of the big family were seated upon a gray blanket behind the stove. They had been placed there by their careful mother, as a safeguard against cold and exposure, and in dangerous proximity to a pan of bread dough which had been set to rise. It was due to the excitement of the storm that, for once, their mother forgot them; and it was not till she called, “All hands round!” and the family filed into place about the big table that she remembered them; or, rather, had her attention called to them by Sarah Jane, the caretaker of the household.
“Oh! mother Johns! the twins! the twins!”
“Bless me! the twins, indeed! the bread-maker’s beginning early, Mary wife!” laughed the plumber.
“Oh! oh! oh! you naughty dears! You naughty, naughty dears! To think that great big girls,almost two years old, should waste mother’s nice dough like that!”
The pair had plunged their fat little arms deep in the soft, yielding mass and plucked handfuls of it, to smear upon each other’s faces and curls; and what remained in the raiser had been plentifully dotted with bits of coal from the near-by hod. They looked so funny, and were themselves so hilarious with glee over their own mischief, that there was nothing left for their elders to do except join in the general merriment.
But Mrs. Johns’ face sobered soon.
“It’s a pity, it’s a pity. All that good bread gone to do nobody any good, when there are so many hungry people will be needing food before this storm’s over. And we almost out of flour, too.”
“Seems to me we’re almost always out of flour—or shoes!” laughed the father. “And it’s a blessing, that, so long as I’ve the money to pay for either. There wouldn’t be empty flour buckets if there weren’t healthy appetites in the house; and shoes wouldn’t wear out if the feet inside them weren’t active and strong.”
“Hm’m. I’d like a chance to save a cent, now and then. What if your own health should fail, oryou lose your job? And I’ve been wanting a set of cheap, pretty lace curtains to the front-room windows ever since I could remember. All the neighbors have them, but we never can.”
For the first time a shadow passed across the genial face of the plumber, though it vanished quickly.
“The curtains shall come, Mary wife, some time, if my strong arm can earn them. But we’ll not have any silly imitation laces at our windows. They’re shams, and a sham is a lie. Plain simple muslin, with as many frills and ruffles as you’ve the patience to keep starched and ironed—they’re honest and suitable to our station. Meanwhile, is there a prettier sight at anybody’s windows than the row of healthy, happy faces of our children? Look at that great house, across alley, with not a chick nor child in it. What do you suppose its mistress would give for such a batch of jolly little tackers as ours?” Then, reaching across the table corner to drop another hot cake upon the empty plate of the youngest Jay, he quoted, merrily: “‘This is my boy, I know by the building of him; bread and meat and pancakes right in the middle of him.’”
Of course, all the children laughed at the familiarjest, and each took heart to send up his own plate for another helping.
“They’ve had their allowance, John. There’s no use to make a rule and break it, dear.”
“No, Mary wife. Surely not. That is, in ordinary. But in a blizzard? Everything gets out of gear in a blizzard, even boys’ appetites. As many cakes as a child is years old is a safe rule to follow; but not on blizzard mornings, that come but seldom in a lifetime. Hark! Quiet! I hear a bell ringing somewhere. A dinner bell. It sounds like a summons.”
All fell perfectly silent for the space of a half-minute, maybe; then Molly burst forth with a thought she had been pondering:
“What a good thing it was that Miss Armacost had Sir Christopher buried last night, before this snow came! If she hadn’t I don’t know what she would have done. But—I believe that bell is from her house. It sounds out the back way, the alley side.”
There was a general stampede from the table, that was as promptly checked.
“Come back to your places, every youngster of you! Of course, it’s an exciting time, but manners to a body’s mother must never be forgotten.”
So the flock marched back to the table, and, beginning with Jim, the eldest, each inquired respectfully:
“Mother, will you excuse me?”
“Certainly,” came the prompt response.
Even the babies lisped and gurgled their merry, imitative “’Scuse me’s,” though with no thought of any attention being paid them.
“Folks without much money can’t afford to go without manners,” laughed father John, and, himself asking leave of the little woman behind the coffeepot, followed his children to the rear window.
For the ringing of the bell was so prolonged and so insistent in its demands that he no longer doubted it to be a signal of distress. But it was almost impossible to see even a few feet through the blinding clouds of snow, and raising the sash the plumber hallooed:
“What’s wanted? Anybody in trouble?”
“Help’s wanted! Awful trouble!” came the answering shout.
“Where?”
“Armacost’s. Will you lend a hand? All afloat and frozen up!”
“Lend a pair of them! Which door will I try?”
“Front. The back one’s blocked. Hurry up, please. Have you any tools? Bring everything!”
“Quite a contract!” ejaculated John, closing the window and brushing the snow from his head and shoulders. “But it’s a good thing I always keep a ‘kit’ handy here at home. Now, lads, you all get to work, too. There are some pieces of boards in the cellar. Take them and nail a sort of snow shovel together. Never mind if it’s a bit rough, it’ll be easier than clearing off the whole mass of snow with common spades or brooms. If you don’t know how, ask mother. She’s as handy as a master mechanic, any day. Then pitch in on our own front steps. Make a path for misery to enter, if need be, and for comfort to go out.”
“What do you mean, father?” asked Molly.
“Some poor creature might be floundering along outside, chilled and discouraged, and a ready-made path to a warm house would be tempting. Over the same road out, mother’s coffee and flapjacks can pass!”
“Flapjacks? That’s the first I heard aboutthem,” said Mrs. Johns, smiling.
“Chance of your life to make yourself famous to-day,” answered her husband. “You may believethat any poor wretch who tastes your cakes and coffee, this terrible day, will never forget them. And, lads, after you’ve cut a way to our own door go and help that widow across the street who keeps the boarders. She has a hard time of it, any way, and it’s part of her business to keep things comfortable for those who live with her.”
“She wouldn’t give us a cent, if we shovelled at her sidewalk all day,” grumbled Joseph.
“The other side the bed, lad! Quickly!” ordered the father, pausing on his way to the door to see his command obeyed.
Everybody laughed, even the culprit, who had to ascend to his own sleeping-room, get into the bed at one side—the side from which he had originally climbed—and get out at the other. A simple operation, and one not helpful to mother Mary’s housekeeping labors; but she never minded that, because the novel punishment always sent the grumbler down-stairs again in good humor.
Then they all clustered about that rear window which commanded a view of the Armacost yard, and watched their father floundering through the drifts between the small house and the large. He disappeared around the corner of the mansion, andmother Mary set her young folks all to work: Molly to washing the dishes and tidying the house; while she herself bathed and dressed the twins, stirred up a fresh lot of bread dough, rolled out her sewing-machine, and made flying visits to the small cellar where the three Jays were sawing and nailing and chattering like magpies.
They were all so busy and happy that the morning flew by like magic and dinner time came before anybody realized it. Meanwhile, the three boys had kept their own steps passably free from the gathering snow, and had shovelled a way into the widow’s house, not once but twice. Coal carts and milk wagons had, as father John prophesied, come out and forced their passage through the street, and a gang of workmen, each with a shovel over his shoulder, had made their way to the Avenue for the purpose of clearing the car tracks. But they had not remained. Their task was such a great one that, until the storm was really over, there was no use in their beginning it.
Yet even these few moving figures rendered the outlook more natural, and Molly had almost forgotten to worry over any possible suffering to the poor, much less the rich, when her father came in andshe saw, at once, how much graver than usual he was.
“Why, father, dear! Has anything happened? Was there real trouble over at the lady’s?”
“Plenty has happened, and there is real trouble. But let’s have dinner first; and, Mary wife, when I go back I’ll take a pot of coffee and a bit of this hot stew for our neighbor.”
“Which neighbor, John?”
“Miss Armacost.”
“Miss—Armacost! What in the world would she, with all her luxuries, want with stew from our plain table?”
“Well, the boiler in her kitchen burst this morning. Pipes frozen, and no fire till things are fixed; that is, to cook by. Pipes over the handsome parlor frozen, too, and leaking down into all the fancy stuff with which it is filled. Two of the servants sleep at their own homes, as you know, and the two who are left have all they can do helping me. I’ve ’phoned for somebody from the factory to come out and help, too, but there are so many orders ahead the boss says I must do the best I can. Yet the worst of all is—Towsley.”
Molly dropped her fork with a rattle. “Towsley! Has anything happened to him?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. That’s what that poor rich woman, yonder, is grieving herself ill over.”
“Tell us. Tell us, quick, father, please!”
“There’s not so much. She says she found him asleep in her back parlor at nine o’clock. It was snowing fast then, and she kept him all night. That’s what she meant to do, at least. She gave him his supper and had him put to bed on her top floor. She knows he was there till midnight, for she went up to see if he was all right. Then she went to bed herself, and this morning he was gone. The front door was unfastened, and he must have gone out that way. At one moment she blames herself for neglect of him, and the next for having been kind to him.”
Molly sprang up from the table.
“Oh! mother, letmego across and carry the stew and tea. Maybe I could help her to think of something would tell where he was. Anyway, I can tell her just what kind of a boy Towsley is and how well he can take care of himself. He isn’t lost. He mustn’t be. He cannot—shall not be!” cried the girl, excitedly.
“Very well. Put the stew in the china bowl”—the one nice dish that their cupboard possessed—“and take your grandmother’s little stone teapot. If Miss Armacost is a real lady, as I think, she will appreciate the motive of our gift, if not the gift itself. And if she’s not a gentlewoman her opinion would not matter.”
“But she is, mother; she is. I’m so glad I can do something for her! She was nice to me, and ‘giff-gaff makes good friends.’”
On the morning of the blizzard, at that dark hour which comes just before daylight, Dr. Frank Winthrop left his own house for a visit to the hospital. There were no cars running, and he would not think of rousing his coachman, or even his horses, to breast such a storm; for his errand might be a prolonged one, and was, indeed, a case of life or death. At ten o’clock he had left a patient in a most critical condition, and was now returning to further attend the sufferer. His ulster was fastened tightly about him, his head thrust deeply into his collar, his hands in his pockets, and with teeth grimly set he faced the night.
“Two miles, if it’s a block! Well, it’s useless to try and see one’s way. The street lamps, such as are still burning, make an occasional glimmer in the fog of snowflakes and are almost more misleading than none at all. But I’ve walked the route so often, I’ll just trust to my feet to find their ownroad, and to Providence that I may reach my man in time!”
Robust and determined as the good physician was, he was almost overcome by the cold and the struggle through the unbroken drifts; while his whole person soon became so covered with the flying flakes that he looked like a great snow-man itself, suddenly made alive and set in motion. But the hope of easing pain gave him courage to persevere; and finally he came within a short distance of the great building whose dimly lighted windows made a dull redness through the storm.
“There she is, the blessed old house of comfort! Her wards are like to be full this night. And that was the very hardest walk I ever took. I hope, I pray, it has not been for nothing.”
Just then his foot stumbled against some half-buried obstruction, and stooping, the doctor touched the object with his hands.
“Oh! as I feared! A human being. A child—a boy. Overcome and maybe frozen. Poor little chap, poor little chap!”
Unbuttoning his overcoat the physician struck a match within the shelter of its flap, and by its flare scanned the small face from which he had brushedaway the snow. Then he uttered another exclamation of surprise and lifting the little, rigid figure in his arms, folded his great-coat about it and started forward with renewed energy.
“Whatever is a child like this doing down here in this part of town? If it weren’t for his clothes I might think he was a newsboy headed for Newspaper Square, yonder; but newsboys don’t wear velvet attire, or hats with wide brims and drooping feathers, like a girl’s ‘picture’ headgear. Thank God, we’re almost there!”
On such a night, more than ever alert, the attendant at the door of the accident ward opened it wide to the slightest summons of the good doctor, who staggered into the light and warmth, shaking the snow from him in clouds and ordering:
“Promptest attention. Child overcome in the snow. Call nurse Brady. She’ll know.”
The nurse was instantly at hand, and received the new “case” from the attendant; while the physician took off his own snow-covered ulster and brushed the melting flakes from his beard. All the while his keen eyes were studying the child’s countenance and following his motionless figure as, with that haste which is never waste, the trained nursecarried it away toward the great ward where so many other “cases” were receiving the care which should save life.
Finding, by brief question and answer, that the patient he had come especially to see was neither better nor worse, Dr. Winthrop followed nurse Brady and her new charge; watching and directing as it seemed necessary, and finally announcing:
“I’ll have him put in a private room; this ward is so full already, and there’ll be more coming right along. A boy who wears velvet and feathers must belong to some rich family, who’ll gladly pay for every attention. Poor, little, bedraggled bird of paradise!”
So it happened that when Towsley opened his eyes, a few hours later, it was in a room whose comfort quite equalled that of the one from which he had fled, even though its furnishings were much plainer. And over his pillow leaned another woman wearing a snowy cap, far daintier in shape than had adorned Miss Lucy’s gray curls. There were no gleaming glasses shading the kindly eyes which regarded him, and no sternness in the lips that said slowly and gently:
“So my little patient is better. I am so glad of that.”
After a long, silent stare into nurse Brady’s face, Towsley asked:
“Be you? Where’s I at?”
“In a nice warm bed, all safe and sound, with a fine breakfast waiting for you.”
“Where’s it at, I say?”
“The hospital.”
“What for?”
“Because you must have been taking a little walk in the storm and got too tired to go very far. A kind man found you and brought you in here, and now if you’ll please drink this hot soup you’ll feel as fine as a fiddler!”
“Humph. I can fiddle—some, myself. Is the pie all gone? Oh! I mean—I—I—my head’s funny.”
“That will come right enough when you set your empty stomach to work. Afterward you will tell me your name and where you live, and I’ll send for your people. But the soup first.”
Towsley sat up against the nurse’s arm and obediently drank all the broth she offered him, even to the last drop. Then he lay back with a sigh ofdeep content and fell into a sound, refreshing sleep. When he awoke again the pretty nurse was gone and in her chair sat a gentleman gazing at him with a curious sort of stare, as if Towsley were some new kind of animal in whom the stranger was interested.
The stare nettled Towsley, who felt strangely cross and irritable. He knew he was saucy, but he couldn’t help making a little grimace of disgust and demanding:
“Think you’ll know me next time you see me, governor?”
“I certainly hope so. That’s why I’m studying your face. Hm’m. I see you are decidedly better. Quite all right, in fact. Feeling prime, aren’t you? Ready to run away again?”
“What you mean? How did you know I ran away?”
“By your clothes. A little lad who wears velvet blouses and fine hats had no business away from his home in such a storm as we have had. Now, your people will probably have grieved themselves ill about you, and you’re to tell me your name and address at once, so I can send them word where you are. The storm is over and people are beginning toget about again. The street cars should be running by to-morrow, as usual.”
Towsley regarded the gentleman wistfully for a moment; then cried out, impatiently:
“I’ll bet the fellows got a beat on me!”
“Eh? What?”
“Have the ‘lines’ been tied up? I thought they was goin’ to be, last night.”
“Eh! What? What do you know about ‘lines,’ and ‘beats,’ and such matters?”
“Well, I guess I know as much as the next one,” answered the lad proudly. “Ain’t I been on the’Xpresssince I was so high?” measuring a short space between his thin, and now—thanks to nurse Brady’s attention—very white little hands.
“The dickens you have! Then why were you masquerading in borrowed plumes, my lad? Your story and your clothing don’t agree. What is your name? Give it right, now, mind.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I ain’t ashamed of it, if it isn’t pretty. I’m Towsley. Towsley Towhead, some the Alley folks call me. I’m one the boys on the’Xpress. That’s who I am, and I can sell more’n any other fellow of my size on the whole force.”
“I believe it. You look as sharp as a razor. But let’s keep to facts. You tacitly admitted that you ran away, and your velvet attire is certainly against you!”
There was something both whimsical and kindly in the doctor’s expression, and Towsley’s confidence was won.
“Don’t you s’pose I know that? Don’t you s’pose I reckoned I was a guy; and that all the fellows would laugh at me when they saw me? But I couldn’t help it, could I? That old black man took my own clothes away and left these, and I couldn’t go out without any, could I? She was a nice old lady and her pie was good. Pretty good, I mean. But she wasn’t going to catch Towsley and adopt him, not if he could help himself! No, siree! So I waited till everybody was asleep, then I lit out.”
“Smart boy! Tell me the whole story; from start to finish.”
“Say, you tell me, first. Was I half dead in the snow? Did you find me and fetch me here, like I heard them say? ’Cause if you did, I—I—I’d like to do something back for you, yourself.”
“Oh! that’s all right, my lad. You’ll have a chance. Don’t fear.”
“What do you mean, sir? What can I do?” asked Towsley eagerly.
“Did you ever hear, as you went along the street, somebody start humming or whistling a tune? any kind of a tune, but a catchy one the best. In a little while you’ll hear another person pick it up and hum or whistle, just the same way; so on, till nobody knows how many have caught and heard the wandering melody and passed it onward through a crowd. Did you ever notice anything like that?”
“Heaps of times. I’ve done it myself. Started it or picked it up, either.”
“Well, that’s like kindness. Pick it up, pass it along. Let everybody who hears it, catch on; understand? So, that’s what I mean. You may never have a chance to do anything especially for me—and you may have dozens; but that doesn’t matter. Keep it moving. The first time you have an opportunity to be decent to somebody else, why—just be decent, and say to yourself: ‘That’s because the doctor picked me out of a snow-drift.’ The Lord will keep the account all straight, and settle it in His own good time. We don’t have to worry about that part, fortunately; else our spiritual book-keeping would get sadly mixed.”
They were both silent for a brief while, and the words made a deep impression upon Towsley’s heart; a warm and gentle heart at all times, though not always a wise one in its judgments.
“Well, my boy. I’m waiting for your story, and I’m a pretty busy man. Along about time for giving out the papers you wouldn’t care to be hindered needlessly, would you?”
A brilliant smile broke over the sharp little face upon the pillow.
“No, I wouldn’t, and you don’t. Well, here it is;” and very briefly, but graphically, the alley vagrant sketched the story of his acquaintance with Miss Armacost and his flight from her house.
The doctor listened without interruption till after the tale was done; then he asked:
“How about that wandering melody of kindness, eh, my boy?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I mean—I—I——”
Down in his warm heart Towsley did know, though he hated to acknowledge it. He tried to justify himself in his own eyes as well as in those of the good physician.
“She hadn’t any right to take away my clothes.All the clothes I had. She took away my name, too.”
“Were they very good clothes, Towsley?”
“No. But they weremine!” fiercely.
“And the name. Is it a very honorable name, laddie?”
“It’s just as honorable as I make it, sir! I needn’t be an Alley boy always, just because—because—nobody knows who my folks were.”
“No, indeed. That you need not. That you will not be, for you’ve the spirit to succeed. Only you need a little of the spirit of generosity, too. The wandering melody again, you see. We can never quite get away from it. Now, I’m going on my rounds through the wards. I’ll stop in, after an hour or so, and see if you have any errand for me to do. Good-by. Take a nap, then think it over. I’ll be back again.”
Towsley didn’t nap at all. He lay wide-eyed and full of thought, staring at the white ceiling overhead, and occasionally touching a pansy which nurse Brady had laid beside him on his pillow. As he fondled and looked at the flower, more and more it gradually began to assume the face and features of a delicate little old lady whom he knew. It was awhite pansy, with faint lavender patches on its lateral and lower petals; dashed, like all its kind, by little touches of darker hue. Yes, it was a face—Miss Lucy’s face. Those two white upper leaves were her snowy curls under her every-day lace cap. The eyes, the keen, whimsical little mouth—all were there; and the newsboy looked and remembered—till the eyes seemed to gather tears and the pursed-up mouth to tremble like a child’s—like Sarah Jane’s, when she had been denied a share in her brothers’ games.
Had there been tears in Miss Lucy’s eyes, last night, behind those gleaming glasses? Had it been out of love, after all, that she had given him her dead nephew’s pretty garments and her dead nephew’s aristocratic name?
It was all very puzzling, and Towsley felt unequal to solving the riddle, although it was he who always was first among the fellows to find the answers to the printed riddles on the children’s page of the weeklyExpress. He shut his eyes a moment, to see things a little better, and after the ceiling and the pansy were thus put out of sight he did begin to understand quite clearly.
Tears? He hated them. There should neverany be shed for him, that he could prevent. On that point he made up his mind, and he shut his lids down tighter, so that nothing should alter his sudden resolution.
What was that sound?
Towsley’s eyes opened with a snap. He was sure that they had not been closed a second, but the nurse laughed when he so declared; he always afterward believed that some sort of magic had been used to change things about in that little hospital bedroom.
For there on the tiny dresser was lightly tossed a rich fur robe that looked as if it had just slipped off somebody’s slender shoulders. It was an old-fashioned robe, Towsley saw that, and the bonnet which had fallen to the floor beside it was quite out of style, also.
“Regular old timer, ain’t it! And she’s an old timer, too, but—the tears! Shucks! He wished nobody would ever cry. He hated tears!” again thought Towsley. And then he stole his hand around the neck of the little old lady who was kneeling beside his cot, and remarked, generously:
“Oh! I say, Miss Lucy, please don’t. It’s all right. I didn’t behave very—very gentlemanly, Iguess, but if you like I’m willing to try it over again. I’ll be your little boy if you want me, and if I have to be ‘Lionel,’ just make it Towsley, too, can’t you?”
“Oh! you darling! I didn’t know that it could be possible; that in so short a time a stranger child could creep so closely into my affection. I’ve been hearing such a lot about you, from Molly, you know. Oh! my dear, I am so thankful that you did not perish. So thankful that my eyes have been opened to see how lonely and selfish a life I’ve led. Just to think, to think, that I have at last a dear little human boy to love and to love me! All day I’ve thought about you and seemed to feel that it was Lionel, our own Lionel, who had wandered out into the storm to suffer so; and—and——”
This was too much for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet been transformed into the gentleman he aspired to become, and in a way that was more honest than courteous he forestalled another hysterical outburst on the part of his overwrought benefactress.
“Hold on, Miss Lucy. It’s all right. I ain’t dead nor dyin’. It’s the wandering melody of the kindness, as the doctor said. Don’t you know?He was good to me, and I’ll be good to you, and you’ll be good to somebody else; and that’s the way it goes. I can tell you of a lot of fellows to be kind to. Whistling Jerry, and Battles, and Shiner. Oh! there are a plenty to fill the house full, but there won’t any of them stand being cried over. It would scare the life out of ’em. A kick or a blow—that they wouldn’t mind, being used to it, you see, but tears—they’d scat! like kittens with a dog after them. They would, indeed.”
“Oh!” gasped Miss Lucy, rising from her knees—“Oh! but I’ve nothing to do with these—these boys with the objectionable names. It is yourself only, my child, whom I want to live with me. Just you; to be my one, only, little precious boy.”
“Then, I guess we’d better drop it. I was only trying to be good to you.”
“Towsley, boy! you’re quite well enough to go home. Especially as there is, just outside the hospital gate, a red-plumed sleigh waiting, with great fox robes big enough to wrap a dozen newsboys in; with horses in a tinkling harness, and more red plumes at their heads; and a coachman named Jefferson sitting up front with a mighty fur collar on and a Christmas favor in his hat, and—I’ve lost my breath, telling the wonders! For you, my snow-bank youngster!”
The genial doctor entered the room just in time to witness the little scene between Miss Armacost and her protégé; and knowing both parties fairly well, he judged that the best way out of a difficulty was to get rid of the difficulty. Which he did in the manner above.
For there was never a newsboy on Newspaper Square, not even the independent Master Towsley, who could resist the charm of a sleigh ride; especiallyin a city where sleighing was a rare occurrence, and where enormous prices were asked and obtained for any sort of vehicle that would glide over the snow.
Towsley forgot everything but the prospect before him. Even the objectionable velvet suit and girlish hat would be endurable under the circumstances. What if some fellow of his own craft did see and laugh at him? He laughs best who laughs last, and in this case that would be the boy in the sleigh. So he clapped his hands and cried out, excitedly:
“Oh! may I? And will Miss Lucy please go away, and somebody send me back my clothes?”
“Certainly. Everybody shall clear out except you and me,” said the physician, pulling a brown paper parcel from beneath his arm and tossing it upon the foot of the cot.
So Miss Armacost and nurse Brady went away and the doctor closed the door behind them. Then he unfastened the mysterious parcel and spread before Towsley’s wondering gaze a complete suit for a boy of Towsley’s size. Everything was there, down to the shoes and stockings, though all were of coarse material.
“Oh, ginger! Ain’t that prime? For me? Are they for me, doctor?”
“If they fit.”
“Oh! they’ll fit. Anything fits me.”
“Velvet knickers and plumed hats?”
The lad, who had tried to spring out of bed, and had succeeded only in climbing out rather slowly and shakily, looked up with a twinkle in his eye; then he answered very seriously:
“Yes, sir; even them. I’d hate ’em. I’d hate to have the fellows see me in ’em; but I’d wear them forever, rather than make her cry again. I can’t get over that. To s’pose that she, a rich lady living on the Avenue, should cry over an Alley kid! It ain’t nice to think about, her saying I’ve got to be her only, ‘one precious.’ I’ll about die of lonesomeness; but—it’s the wandering kindness, you know, sir. I’ll pass it on, and maybe it’ll all come right. Do you s’pose she’ll make me sit in front of a window and be dressed up, and make myself a show for the fellows to come and gibe at?”
“Those shoes all right, eh? Look here, Towsley. I’m not a ‘supposing’ sort of a man. I’ve no time to speculate over things. I have to take them as they come and keep hustling. That’s prettymuch the way it is in the newspaper business, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You just believe it.”
“I do. Well, though I rarely give away advice—that being a luxury I dare not afford, in general—I’m going to present you with a bit now, as a kind of keepsake: Don’t you stop to worry or ‘s’pose’ anything. Life’s too short. Just keep hustling. Do right, as near as you can, straight along and all the time, and let results take care of themselves or leave them to the Lord who will do it for us. And remember one other thing: If you do a kindness to anybody you have to like them. Fact; you can’t help it. You will like them, whether or no. Now I didn’t care a nickel about you till I tumbled over you in the snow-drift. Never heard of you, indeed. But then I had a chance to help you, and right away I liked you. So I’ve been down-town, this afternoon, and bought you this outfit. Between you and me, Towsley, I shouldn’t care for the velvets, either. But they must have been all that Miss Armacost had on hand and so she gave them to you. These I’m not giving; I’m simply advancing. Men like us don’t care to accept what we can’t pay for, you know.Anything that Miss Lucy will offer you, you’ll have a chance to repay: by love, and attention, and the deference that a son of her own house would render a gentlewoman who befriended him. But you’ll have no further use for me, and so I’m merely lending you this suit. If you should ever be able, as you may, to collect what I’ve spent on it—about five dollars—you just remember the wandering kindness and send it along. I’d get a scrap of paper, if I were you, and write it down: ‘Five dollars received of Dr. Frank Winthrop’; and when you use something for some needy person, consider that it is so much toward the liquidation of the debt and write it opposite: ‘Paid Dr. Frank Winthrop, so and so.’ Understand?”
“Yes. I will repay, too. Though I’d rather do it to you, yourself.”
“Doubtless. Yet that doesn’t matter. The real thing is to be systematic and exact in our charities. Slovenliness or carelessness in such things is worse than a bad habit—it’s a sin. Now, how are you? A trifle queer in the legs, eh? Things in the room look a bit hazy? That’s all right. Effect of an active boy lying in bed. The air will set you straight. My! but you are a dandy in that suit!Fits you like a duck’s bill in the mud, doesn’t it?”
Towsley laughed, so gayly and loudly that anxious Miss Lucy tiptoed to the outside of the closed door and asked, eagerly:
“Can’t I come in yet?”
The jolly doctor gave a nod of his head and Towsley opened to admit his friend. In all his little life he had never been so well, so completely clothed as he was at that moment; and the consciousness of being suitably dressed went far toward giving him the ease of manner which belonged to the “gentleman” whom he aspired to become.
The alteration in his appearance was so great and his bow so correctly made that Miss Lucy cried out in delight and surprise, and was about to throw her arms about the child and caress him before them all.
But the wise doctor prevented that, by saying in his quick way:
“All ready, Miss Armacost; and I fancy your horses and coachman won’t be sorry. If this young fellow gives you any trouble just let me know. I’ll attend to his case, short order; with a dose of picra or some other disagreeable stuff! But I wish youboth the compliments of the season and—this way out, please. Say good-by to nurse Brady, Towsley Lionel Armacost, and don’t forget that but for her care you might not be starting on a sleigh-ride now.”
Then he was gone, and they had to hurry along the halls and down the stairs to follow him toward that outer door, before which stood the chestnuts, jingling their bells and pawing balls of the light snow, in their impatience to be trotting over the white roads and up to the park where other horses were flying about, as merry, apparently, as the people whom they carried.
So with a mere nod of his head, old Jefferson whisked the newsboy into a corner of the cushioned seat and Miss Armacost followed without assistance; but her doing so made Towsley remember something and sent a blush to his pale cheek. That was, the manner in which real gentlemen helped their women folk on any similar occasion.
“To Druid Hill!” said Miss Lucy, briefly; and Jefferson drove briskly away.
For some time neither of the occupants of that warm back seat said a word. Each was too thoroughly engrossed by his and her own thoughts; butfinally Miss Lucy stole a glance toward her small companion and inquired:
“Do you like sleighing, Lionel?”
“Yes, Miss Armacost. Only—it all seems like—like make-believe. I keep wondering when I’ll wake up. And I wish—I wish Battles and Shiner were here. I don’t believe that Shiner ever had a sleigh-ride in his life—Never; not once.”
“Indeed?” asked the lady, coldly.
“No, ma’am. I mean, no, Miss Lucy. And he ain’t much more’n a baby, Shiner ain’t. Not near as old as I am.”
“How old are you, my dear?”
“I guess I’m going on eight. Molly thinks I am. You know Molly; the girl that took me to your house or run me into you on her skate. She’s a dreadful nice girl, Molly is; but I don’t believe she ever had a sleigh-ride, either. Poor Molly.”
The lad’s eyes were shining from his own pleasure; his pale face was rapidly taking on a healthy glow; he was a very presentable little fellow, indeed, in his modern suit of well-shaped clothing, so Miss Armacost thought, but—he was also spoiling her ride for her as thoroughly as he could. Spoilingit without the slightest intention or desire on his own part to do so.
“Molly spent the greater part of yesterday with me, Lionel.”
“She did? What for?”
“Because I was in trouble, of more sorts than one; and her kind heart sent her—in the first place. After she came I begged her to stay. I am already very fond of Molly; she is so gay and cheerful.”
Towsley’s face became radiant.
“Oh, jimmeny! Ain’t that prime! Have you adopted her, too?”
“No, indeed. She has no need for such an action on my part. She has both parents living. But our plumbing went to wreck, yesterday, in the unlooked-for cold snap, and her father came to our rescue. He had to work there all day, and when he found I was grieving so about your—your running away into the storm, he told Molly and she came. She very kindly brought me some of their own dinner, hot and steaming; and I assure you it did taste fine! I was almost really hungry, for once.”
“That’s just like Molly. She’s an awful generous girl, Molly is.”
Miss Lucy was about to suggest that some otheradjective than “awful” would better apply to “generous,” but refrained. It would not do, she considered, to begin too sternly or suddenly in the reconstruction of her charge. She simply replied:
“Yes. She is generous and lovable. She has excellent common sense.”
Towsley found his tongue and launched into praise of the whole family of Johns, with such graphic pictures of their daily life that Miss Armacost felt well acquainted with the entire household. Then the little fellow became absorbed in the excitement of the ride, and the novelty of dashing around and around the lake, in that endless line of prancing horses and skimming vehicles, set his tongue a-chatter ceaselessly.
Miss Lucy listened, in a sort of charm. The few children whom she knew were apt to be rather quiet in her presence, but not so this lad from the back alley. He enjoyed everything, saw everything, described everything, like a keen reporter of the papers he had used to sell.
“Look-a-there! and there! and there! Did you see that? That was a regular clothes-basket, set on a pair of runners! Sure; it all goes. Snow doesn’t come down here very often. Why, upnorth, in New York, or Boston, or such places, they have sleighing whenever they’ve a mind to! but not down here. Folks daren’t lose a chance, dare they? See! There’s a regular old vender’s wagon, that a lot of young folks have hired, and they’re old cow-bells they’ve put on the horses. Ki! look-a-there! look-a-there! Them’s woman’s college girls—sure! Whew! regular hay-riggers, ain’t they! They must have took all their money to pay for it! And—shucks! just see them bobs!”
In his excitement the little boy stood up and pointed frantically toward a group of boys who had brought out their long sleds and were hastening toward that hill of the park where coasting would be permitted. Unconsciously he attracted a deal of attention from the throngs of pleasure-seekers, and Miss Armacost felt herself unpleasantly conspicuous. Yet there was not an eye which beheld him that did not brighten because of his happiness; and in spite of her annoyance at the gaze of her fellow townsmen, the owner of the chestnuts felt also a sort of pride in its cause.
But at last she ordered the coachman homeward, and they rode slowly out of the park, down the beautiful Avenue toward the Armacost mansion andTowsley’s new home. He sank back into his place with a profound sigh of mingled pleasure and regret:
“To think they never had a sleigh-ride!”
“Humph! How many haveyouhad, before this one, Lionel?”
“Why—why—why—none.”
“I thought so. Have you pitied yourself?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, no, Miss Lucy.”
“Then save your sympathy. One cannot miss what one has never enjoyed. For myself, I see little good of this snow. It’s made no end of trouble and expense to house owners, and filled the streets with stuff which the city will have to remove, and——”
“It’s made a heap of fun, hasn’t it? Won’t it give idle men a lot of shovelling to do? I’ve always heard them saying how glad they were when a snow-storm came; those tramps around the city buildings. I’m sure I think it’s jolly. Only I wish——”
“Well, what?”
“That I had as much money as I wanted. I’d hire the big picnic stage and have it put on runners, and I’d go ’round Newspaper Square, and the Swamp, and the asylums and—and places—and I’d give every little kid that never had a ride, I’d givehim one to-morrow, as sure as I live. Oh! I wish I had it!”
Miss Armacost lost all manner of patience with this boy. If he’d only be contented with enjoying himself and let his neighbors rest. But here they were at home. How odd it looked, to see those great heaps of snow which had been shovelled from the sidewalk and piled up in banks before the houses, between the curbstone and the driveway. And over in the “Square” which filled the centre of the block the children of the bordering houses had all come out with sleds and happy laughter, and were making the old silence ring.
“Maybe, after all, anything which pleases the children is not an unmitigated annoyance,” observed Miss Armacost, reflectively.
Jefferson brought the horses to a standstill and stepped down to loosen the robes about his mistress and help her alight, if need be. But Towsley had been before him. He had pulled off his hat, thrust it under his arm, and extended his hand toward the lady, to assist her, as courteously and gracefully as any grown gentleman could have done; even if not with quite so much strength.
Repressing a smile at the difference in size betweenher assistant and herself, Miss Armacost quietly placed her hand within his and stepped to the sidewalk. This was slippery in spots, as Towsley observed, and he remarked:
“Better let me hold your hand till you get clear up the steps, hadn’t you, Miss Lucy?”
“Yes, dear, I think I would much better.” Then when the lad reached the top and she had rung for admittance, she turned to him with a lovely smile:
“Welcome home, Lionel Towsley Armacost.”
“Thank you, Miss Lucy. I hope we won’t neither of us ever be sorry I’ve come.”
She liked his answer; liked it far more than she would have done one full of enthusiasm. So they went in together, well pleased, and as the boy had been so lately a hospital patient, he was sent early to bed and to sleep.
As she had done before, Miss Lucy visited him afterward, and enjoyed without restraint the sight of her adopted son, lying so peacefully upon his pillow. For there were now no soiled stains of the street to mar his beauty, and the little hands upon the coverlet were as dainty as need be.
But even in slumber Towsley had an uncomfortable effect upon the lady’s thoughts: reminding herof the many other little lads who had shared his poverty yet not his present good fortune. She had never considered her house as an especially large one till his small person served to show the size of the empty rooms, and how tiny a space one child could occupy.
Miss Lucy sat so long that she grew chilled. Then she reflected that she might easily become ill, which would be most unfortunate now, since she had taken a child to care for. So she rose rather stiffly and started for her own room; though she had not taken a dozen steps in its direction before she came to a sudden, startled pause. Somebody was ringing her door-bell. Ringing it persistently, without waiting for any response.
“Oh, dear! That must be somebody in trouble! Or, possibly, a special delivery message from the post-office or express; though I’m sure I have nobody near and dear enough to call upon me in that manner. Yes, yes, I’m coming!” she cried to the invisible visitor, though she knew perfectly that her voice could not reach him.
At that hour, Jefferson and Mary, who slept in the house, were both in bed, and their mistress would not disturb them. She preferred to hurry tothe door herself and learn what was wanted. But when she reached and opened it there was nobody waiting. Even though she drew her shoulder shawl closer about her and stepped out upon the marble stoop to look, there was nobody in sight. In that quiet neighborhood all lights had long since been extinguished, and there was no sign of life in any of the stately homes bordering the snowy Square.
“That’s very odd! The bell did certainly ring. Not once but several times. Well, whoever it was must have been in a hurry, and may have disappeared around Side Street corner.”
So she locked the door, extinguished the light she had turned on, and climbed the carpeted stairs toward her own apartment. Her slippered feet made no sound, and the stillness all over the house was profound; but, just as she turned the first landing, it was broken again. There came the same prolonged, insistent ringing, and fairly flying back to the door, Miss Lucy exclaimed:
“Well, I’ll be in time now, I think!”
Yet, just as before, she opened to silence and the moonlight only.
“Come, Master Lionel! It’s time to be stirring. Your bath’s ready and breakfast will be before you are dressed. Miss Lucy says you are not to delay, and to open your window when you leave your room, and to be in your place in the breakfast-room when she comes down to lead morning worship. Now, don’t go to sleep any more, that’s a good boy, and make me climb three flights of stairs again, just for nothing at all. Hear?”
“Yes, ma’am, I hear,” responded Towsley, sleepily. But he was much mixed in his ideas at that moment, and quite mistook Mary for her mistress; also that he had been instructed by his benefactress, during the past evening, as to his demeanor toward the servants of the house, whom he was to treat with all kindness, yet not to “ma’am” nor “mister,” as seemed natural to an Alley-trained boy.
“I can trust you, can I?” again demanded the voice outside the half-closed door.
“Yes. I’m awake. But, say, Mary!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Did you say bath? Have I got to wash myself again? They washed me at the hospital enough to kill. I won’t be dirty again this winter.”
Mary laughed. “The idea! Did you ever hear of a young gentleman as didn’t take his bath every day? Ridic’lous. Come, step lively. Here’s a bath-robe by the door used to belong to the other Lionel. Miss Lucy says, wear it.”
Towsley had seen such robes in the shop windows; and as he folded this one about him and thrust his feet into the warm little slippers, also provided, he had a curious feeling that he was thus investing himself with his new life.
But this made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture of woe.
However he had no idea of disobedience; and though it was with a shiver of repugnance that he stepped into the porcelain tub, his emotions underwent a sudden and radical change.
“Hi! this is nicer than swimming! And themtowels—for me! Ain’t they prime! I wonder what Shiner would say if he could see ’em.”
This was an unfortunate suggestion. It almost, though not quite, overset the exhilaration of the bath, and as he stepped out upon the rug he seemed to see the reproachful face of his mate looking up at him and questioning:
“Why ain’t I in it, too?”
“Why wasn’t he? Why did I happen to be the one, just the only one, who should skate bang into Miss Lucy and be taken in and done for? And I couldn’t skate, either. I was just a-learning. Pshaw! I wish I hadn’t. I wish—I wish. ’Bout this time, I s’pose, the fellows have near sold out. There’ll be some running on the down-town cars, though, and the gents that go to business late; bankers and lawyers and such. I s’pose somebody’s got my route, already. If a chap gets out the line—there’s another hops into his place—spang! I wonder——”
But just there Lionel Towsley’s reflections became so sombre that some very unusual tears crept into his eyes. This fact restored him to a sense of his own foolishness.
“Shucks! if I ain’t crying! I—Towsley!Well, that beats all. I ain’t never done it since I can remember, only now I’m adopted I ’pear to be losing all my snap. Is that the way with rich folks always? Am I a rich one, now, just because I stay in Miss Lucy’s house? Well, I can’t let myself get to be a girl, even if I do live like one.”
Then the lad remembered Doctor Frank and that, although the gentleman wore fine attire, he was the manliest person he knew. Yet he was evidently wealthy, since he could afford to give away, or advance—to penniless Towsley this seemed the same thing—a five-dollar suit of clothing. So he hurried himself and brushed his hair, as far as he could reach around; and he tried to use all the accessories of his toilet which Miss Lucy had provided and he could understand. In his efforts he forgot to be so lonely; and it was a really bright-faced little fellow who presented himself in the breakfast-room, where the house mistress sat waiting, and who addressed her very respectfully:
“Good-morning, Miss Armacost. Am I late? I guess I fooled ’round some. I—I ain’t got used to things yet.”
“Good-morning, my child. Did you rest well?”
“Prime. I hope you did, too,” he replied, sitting down upon a chair near her own.
Yet she did not look as if she had, and the child opened his lips to remark this; but she motioned him to be quiet, and immediately took up the Bible lying ready on a little stand beside her. He noticed that all the servants were present, sitting in an orderly row upon one side of the room, which was very still. Then Miss Lucy read a portion of the Word and offered a brief prayer, to which Towsley listened in a scared sort of way. For she mentioned him in her petition, asking for a blessing upon the new relation established between them.
This gave the matter a dignity and importance really startling to the waif. If he and what happened to him were worth mentioning to the Lord he had no right to grumble about them; and, during that few moments upon his knees, there was born in the boy’s heart a self-respect that was never after to forsake him.
But when they had taken their places at the table, and Mary was passing the food, he saw how Miss Lucy’s hand shook, and inquired, anxiously:
“Miss Lucy, are you sick? What makes you trembleso? Are you cold? Can I get you something?”
She was much pleased by his quick observation, yet shook her head in a way that made him understand he was to ask no more questions while Mary remained in the room. After she had served them and gone, he ventured again:
“Didn’t you sleep as nice as I did, Miss Lucy? You look awful tired.”
The little lady regarded him very attentively for a moment. Then she inquired:
“Lionel, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?”
“Yes, indeed. I will. Hope to die if I don’t.”
“Needn’t say that. It wouldn’t be true. But there was something very queer going on here last night; and it kept me awake, and I’m all upset this morning.”
Even to herself it seemed strange that Miss Armacost should turn to this stranger child for sympathy, when she would not allow herself to do so toward any of the servants who had known her so long.
“What was it, Miss Lucy? P’raps I can find out what it was. I’d like to if I could. I’d like to, first rate. I heard what you said when you werepraying, and I ain’t going to forget. I’d rather be back to my old place in the Square, with my papers under my arm, but if I can’t help myself—if the Lord’s took a hand in it—I’d like to be the next best thing I can. That’s to help you, ain’t it?”
The mistress of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed,—a frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and brace her jaded nerves. She replied, a little sharply:
“If you don’t like it you needn’t stay. That is, after you’ve given the matter a good trial, and I have. That’s fair for both sides. But—hark! There it goes again!”
At that instant, the electric door-bell rang in a peculiar, prolonged, and rather gentle fashion. Towsley couldn’t understand why Miss Lucy’s face paled still further; nor why, after Mary had answered the summons, she should slam the door viciously, and almost run back along the hall to her own quarters.
Miss Lucy touched the table bell and summoned her; then inquired, in as calm a voice as she could command:
“What was it, this time, Mary?”
“The same old story, ma’am; nothing.”
“Very well. You may go.”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You see,we’vebeen hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn’t dare to stay in a house that had a ‘haunt.’”
“Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation will be found. You may return to your dusting.”
“Yes, ma’am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma’am, I’d like to be let off, and I’ll try to find somebody to take my place if you want me to.”
Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down, and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.
“What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?”
Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell; that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored race,they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again occurred.
“It’s very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I’m quite upset by it, and don’t know what to do.”
“It’s electric, ain’t it?”
“What? The bell? Yes, certainly.”
“Then I’d send for a ’lectrician. He’d find out the trouble in a jiffy. But, shucks! wouldn’t it be prime!”
“What would be prime?” Yet Miss Lucy sighed in relief, as she added: “What an extremely simple thing; and why didn’t I think of it before?”
“Don’t know, except ’cause you didn’t.”
“Hm’m. Immediately after breakfast I’ll send for a man. Now—my goodness! What’s all this?”
The glances of both flew to the windows which were on a level with the street. There were four of these lace-draped windows, two in front and two upon the side. At each was a small face peering in, and at some there were two faces.
Towsley forgot everything. All the changed conditions of his life, his determination to be very thoughtful of Miss Lucy, the gentlemanly behaviorwhich belonged to a boy who lived in the finest house upon the Avenue. They were faces that he knew,—every one! They, were the faces of Shiner, and Battles, and Toothless, and Whistling Jerry. Behind these, Tom the Bugler, and Larry Lameleg.
His friends were they, his jolly little comrades; who had heard of what had befallen him and had come to condole with him. The mere sight of them brought back the atmosphere so familiar to him: of the alleys and their freedom, of Newspaper Square with its hurry and bustle and eager life! It was too much for Towsley, and with a shout of rapture he rushed to the basement entrance, out upon the street, into the very arms of his mates.
“Say, it was true, then, ain’t it?” demanded Tom the Bugler. “What was in our paper last night, and that our man saw up in the park? You dressed up in another boy’s clothes and lost yourself in the snow, didn’t you? Must been a dumb one to do that. Right here in Baltimore city where you’ve lived all your life. Say, was it bad in hospital? Be you goin’ to stay here? What’s the lady doin’? She looks—she looks kind of funny, don’t she?”
Lionel Towsley glanced back through the window into the room he had deserted, and his heart sank.Miss Lucy had pushed aside from the table and was watching him with a white, disappointed face. It had been such a little while that she had had him, and yet he had become so dear. She had been so ready, so eager to bestow every comfort and benefit upon him, and he had seemed so deserving; yet now, at a glance, he was back in the old ways among his rude companions, and she and her offered love were quite forgotten.