VIAnd as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”And Aleko answered:—“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”“And Dino was glad?”“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”“You are going?”“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”“What? She has lost him again?”“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.Anneza became tearful.“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.He jumped up, overturning the basket.“Solon!”And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.Alexander with dog.“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”“I hear.”“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.
VIAnd as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”And Aleko answered:—“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”“And Dino was glad?”“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”“You are going?”“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”“What? She has lost him again?”“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.Anneza became tearful.“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.He jumped up, overturning the basket.“Solon!”And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.Alexander with dog.“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”“I hear.”“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.
VIAnd as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”And Aleko answered:—“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”“And Dino was glad?”“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”“You are going?”“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”“What? She has lost him again?”“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.Anneza became tearful.“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.He jumped up, overturning the basket.“Solon!”And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.Alexander with dog.“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”“I hear.”“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.
VIAnd as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”And Aleko answered:—“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”“And Dino was glad?”“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”“You are going?”“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”“What? She has lost him again?”“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.Anneza became tearful.“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.He jumped up, overturning the basket.“Solon!”And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.Alexander with dog.“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”“I hear.”“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.
VI
And as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”And Aleko answered:—“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”“And Dino was glad?”“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”“You are going?”“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”“What? She has lost him again?”“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.Anneza became tearful.“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.He jumped up, overturning the basket.“Solon!”And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.Alexander with dog.“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”“I hear.”“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.
And as the days became hotter and hotter, as May melted into June and June into July, Kyr Themistocli got to depend more and more on the boy’s daily visits, and as he was an old man and had lost many things in his life, he would tremble sometimes at the thought of losing this new joy. For itwasa joy as all creating and all planting is a joy. In all the years he had been a schoolmaster, it was the first time he had come across an intellect where all seeds once sown bore fruit; where there were no barren spots.
But Aleko never failed him; every day he would bring the newspaper and read it all through to the blind man. When the heat was intense, and the white light in the streets was blinding, they would sit indoors behind closed shutters, and when it became cooler, late in the afternoon, the old man’s chair would be placed outside the house, and Aleko sat on the step below him, and asked all the questions thatcrowded into his mind. He had more time now, for examinations were over and school was closed until September again. One evening, when the sounds of passing guitars and men’s voices singing, floated up to the narrow little street, mingled with the cries of boys racing and calling to each other, the old man asked him:—
“Do you not want to run with the other lads, Aleko?”
And Aleko answered:—
“I run all day; now it is good to sit. Tell me about some great men, Kyr Themistocli.”
And the old schoolmaster, well content, tilted his chair back against the sun-baked wall of the house, and told him many things.
He told him of the old, old times even before the ancients, when men were almost like brutes, but with something manlike in them which set them apart from the wild beasts; when they made weapons of stones, and lighted fires by the rubbing of sticks; when they crossed over the barrier of water by hollowing boats out of trees. He told him of the terrible wild animals which existed in those days, so monstrous that the heads of some would reach up to thethird floor windows of a house; and how they would long ago have devoured all the men if these had not used their brains to defend themselves. How men followed men through the centuries and how, little by little, their brains grew cleverer and cleverer through much using, until at last, from those wild men sprang the minds, and the hearts, and the hands, of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle, the philosophers, and Leonidas, the warrior, and Pericles, the statesman, and Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculptors. Then, he went on to tell him of all the poor boys through many ages who had the spirit of the old cave dwellers in them—who would not stay as they had been born. He told him of Æsop, who was only a poor slave boy, so ugly and deformed that people laughed and jeered at him; and yet his fables have been translated into all languages of Europe, and even into Arabic and Chinese; of Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor comber of wool in Genoa, who discovered America; of the shepherd boy Giotto, who drew pictures on stones whilst watching the sheep, and who grew up to be a celebrated painter; of Lully, the musician, who was a cook-boy; of Metastasiothe Italian poet, who as a boy recited verses in the streets of Rome; and to come to our own days, he told him all he had read before he lost his sight, of Edison, the American, who was a poor boy, and—like Aleko—had at one time sold newspapers to earn his bread, and of what wonderful things he had invented, and how there were few in the world who were not indebted to him; he told him of others—of all he could remember; then he tried to explain to him, a little, how hard all these men had worked, each in his own way, and how they had not onlywishedto do great things, but hadwilledit very hard, and had gone on willing it every moment of their lives, and how it was this great will that had made them conquer all obstacles, and all discouragement. He told him also how it was not enough to work, and to be brave, in order to grow up into a great man, or even simply into a good and just one, but how he must think as well; how he must always look for the cause, always ask himself the why and the wherefore, of everything ….
“Of course,” interrupted Aleko, “I know that. If you do not you are stupid. Yesterday,the drawer of a boy’s box would not open; you know the drawer, where all the shoe-polishes and rags are kept; and this boy—Dino—he pulled, and he pulled, and he could not get it open, and he was very angry, because a man got tired of waiting for him to clean his boots and went to another boy’s stand. Then I looked at Dino’s box, and I pulled a little, and it was one side only of the drawer which stuck, so I turned it to the light, and I found that a little nail had fallen between the side of the box and the drawer, and jammed it, and when I pulled it out with a bit of wire it opened as before.”
“And Dino was glad?”
“He was glad, but he did not look why the drawer had stuck, and when another nail falls in he will be stupid again; he will not know how to open it. His head is stuffed with straw!”
Then Aleko got up from the step, and gathered his remaining newspapers under his arm.
“The good hour be with you, Kyr Themistocli!”
“You are going?”
“Yes, I want to go and see if that Anneza has found the dog yet.”
“What? She has lost him again?”
“Since noon to-day, and she was trembling with fear of what her master would say.”
“You will remember, Aleko, to bring the coffee to-morrow afternoon.”
“I will remember. Be easy! I have the money you gave me safe here.” Then as he turned to go, he said, “You have sufficient for the morning?”
“No,” answered the old man, “it is all finished; but for one day it does not matter if one eats one’s bread dry.”
“For you it matters,” pronounced Aleko. “I shall bring the coffee in the morning, ready ground.”
“Do not trouble, my boy; in the mornings you have no time.”
“I shall have time, and I shall bring it when I come with the newspapers for the Spinotti house,” and without waiting for further objections he ran down the street and up the wider one, till he came to the railings of the Spinotti garden.
Anneza, leaning out of her kitchen window, was explaining something vehemently to the next-door cook.
“Have you found the dog?” asked Aleko.
“If only I could find him, I would give twenty drachmæ out of my wages, that I would! The master was like mad when he heard I had lost him; he says the dog must have been stolen, and he has gone now to put it in the newspapers.”
“Did he give it to you badly?” asked the next-door cook curiously.
Anneza became tearful.
“He scolded me,” she said, “till I have been trembling ever since.”
“He did well,” pronounced Aleko as he turned away, “if your head were not fixed on, you would lose it every day.”
“Wait a moment!” shouted Anneza. “Wait till I get the jam stick to you!” but Aleko was already out of sight.
When he got back to his cellar home he folded the left-over newspapers to be returned on the morrow, and looked doubtfully at his mattress; Andoni, the other boy, was already fast asleep in the farther corner. But it was stiflingly hot in the cellar and there was bright moonlight outside, so he sauntered up the steps again and looked about him. There were fewpassers-by, and the shadows of the houses lay in deep blue-black patches on the moonlit street.
Farther down, outside a closed fruit shop, were some empty baskets, and on one of these he sat down, his elbows on his knees, and his face cupped in his hands. A cooling breeze came from one of the side streets leading up to the first slopes of Mount Lycabettus,14and though Aleko drowsed a little as he sat there, he did not feel inclined to return to his cellar.
Suddenly, behind him came a soft patter and something sniffed at his bare ankles.
He jumped up, overturning the basket.
“Solon!”
And Solon it was, not smooth and white and clean as usual, but muddy, and draggled, and gray with dust.
“You bad dog! How did you find yourself here? Do you know that your master is searching for you in all the town? Do you know that he has paid money to have it printed in the newspaper that you are lost? Are you not ashamed then? Bad dog!”
Solon did not like this tone of voice so he sat up and begged with his dusty little forepaws.All at once, Aleko saw that a broken piece of coarse string was tied round the dog’s neck.
“Bah! Your master was right then that you had been stolen! Some one tried to tie you up, and you must have broken the string and run away. You are a very clever dog! Bravo, Solon!”
Solon opened his mouth very wide and curled up his tongue in a long yawn.
“Come, I will carry you home so that you may not stray again.” And Aleko stooped to pick him up; but as he did so, a man who was coming along the other side of the pavement some distance off, a tall man wearing a Panama hat, called out loudly:—
“Who is there? What are you doing with that dog?” and hastened his steps. He crossed the road to Aleko’s side, and stooped over him to see what he held.
Suddenly Solon gave a shrill, joyous bark and the man snatched him out of Aleko’s arms, at the same time giving the boy a violent push which sent him staggering against the closed shutters of the shop.
Alexander with dog.
“You young scoundrel, you! So I havecaught you, have I? Do you know that this is my dog?”
Aleko looked up. It was the man he had often seen coming out of the big house in the garden; it was Solon’s master.
“Yes,” he said, “I know; but you need not push people in that way. I was going to bring the dog to your house. Now that you have found him, you can take him yourself.”
And turning his back he was walking off. But Nico Spinotti had been searching for his dog for the whole long hot afternoon; he had walked up and down likely and unlikely streets; he had visited most of the shops at which Anneza dealt, he had been to the police station, and to three newspaper offices, and now that he thought he had found the culprit, and that this culprit was mocking him, his fury knew no bounds. He put Solon down and darting forward seized Aleko by the arm and brought down his walking stick with force across the boy’s shoulders.
“You young limb!” he shouted. “You thieving little blackguard! From where did you steal that dog? Tell me! Tell me or I will pull your ears off!” and each word was accompaniedby a fresh blow. The poor boy twisted and writhed, but he had no chance in those strong hands.
“Leave me!” he screamed. “Let go! Why do you strike me? Leave me, I tell you! I never stole your dog …. I found him …. He knows me …. He came to me!”
“You can tell those lies to others! They will not pass with me,” cried the furious man, pushing Aleko away at last and stooping to pick up Solon. “How should my dog know a ragamuffin like you?”
Aleko, who had fallen on his knees beside the overturned basket, put up his arm to ward off further blows.
“But he does! It is I who bring the newspapers to your house, and he sees me every day. Ask Anneza if it be not true?”
“So much the worse if you know him! I suppose someone has put you up to steal the dog. Now, hark you! You are not to dare to come to my house or anywhere near it, and if ever I see your dirty face in our neighbourhood again, I shall hand you over to the police. So now you know!” and picking up the little dog under his arm he turned to go.
“The street is not yours!” burst out Aleko with sudden fury, rubbing his shoulder. “And I shall sell my newspapers there every day!”
“You will! Will you? Very well, when you want any change out of the beating you got just now, you can come to me for it! Do you hear?”
“I hear.”
“Well, remember it then!” and turning on his heel he walked quickly down the street.
Aleko was sore all over, sore in body and sore in mind. Wearily he staggered back to his cellar, threw himself on his mattress, and there in the dark, dropped his head on his arms and sobbed himself to sleep.