by Leroy Scott
CHAPTER IV
AN UNINVITED GUEST
Black day followed black day, and grudged penny followed grudged penny,till at length there came a day when it seemed the blackness couldbecome no blacker and when his remaining pennies were less than hisfingers. On this day he sat long at his window, his wasted,despair-tightened face looking out upon the patched undergarmentsswinging from lines and upon the boxes and barrels and bottles andpapers and rags that littered the deep bottom of the yard, grimlythinking over the prophecy of Kate Morgan. One of the two months she hadgiven his honesty was gone. By the time the second had passed----? Heshiveringly wondered.
This day he ate no evening meal. For a week now one meal had been hisdaily ration, and that meal pitiably poor and pitiably small. He satabout his room till his nickel clock--which Kate Morgan had brought inone day and deposited upon the wash-stand with her undebatable air offinality--reported quarter past nine, when he rose and walked down intothe street. It had been one of those warm days that sometimes come inmid-November--benign messages of remembrance, as it were, from departedsummer--and now the people of the tenements filled the streets, for onthe packed East Side the street, on warm days, is parlor to the parentand the lover, and nursery to the child.
As David stepped forth he did not notice that he was watched by a pairof keen, boyish eyes from under the rim of a battered slouch hat, andhad he noticed he would not have been aware that these same eyes hadwatched him before. It was a Wednesday evening and David, entangledamong the people, like a vessel in a sargasso sea, pursued a slow coursetoward the Mission, never observing that a boy in a battered hatfollowed him a way then turned back.
He took his place in the shadowed doorway and waited for Helen Chambersto appear. In a few minutes she came out, Dr. Franklin with her asusual. There was also a second man, gray-haired and slightly stooped,whom David recognised as an older brother of Mr. Chambers, and whom heremembered as a clear-visioned, gentle old philosopher greatly loved byhis niece. As they passed, David leaned from the shadow to follow herwith his eyes, and the light from the street lamp fell across his face.Dr. Franklin, chancing this instant to look in David's direction,excused himself to Helen and her uncle, who moved forward a few paces,and stepped to the doorway. David pressed frantically back into theshadow.
"Good evening," said Dr. Franklin, holding out a firm, cordial hand,into which David laid his limp fingers. "I've seen you about severaltimes since the evening you called. I've been looking for a chance toinvite you to the Mission."
David hardly heard him. He was thinking, wildly, "Suppose she shouldstep to his side? Suppose he should draw me into the light?" It was amoment of blissful, agonising consternation.
"Perhaps I'll come," he managed to whisper. He feared lest his whisperhad reached her, and lest she had recognised his voice. But she did notlook around.
"I shall expect you. Good night."
Dr. Franklin rejoined Helen and her uncle, and David's hearing, whichstrained after him, heard him explain as they moved away: "A man whocame to the Mission in Mr. Morton's time. He often stands about theMission, looking at it, but he never comes in."
As soon as they were out of sight David, a-tremble at the narrowness ofhis escape, slipped from the door and hurried away. As he went, the oldquestion besieged him. If, a minute ago, he had been drawn into thelight, would she have spoken to him? And if she had, would it not havebeen coldly, with disdain?
By the time he reached his tenement he had regained part of his lostcomposure. As he slipped the key into his door, he heard a suddenscrambling sound within. All his senses were instantly called toalertness. He threw open the door, and sprang into the darkened room.
In the same instant a vague figure leaped through the open window outupon the landing of the fire-escape. David crossed the little room at abound, caught the coat-tails of the escaping figure, dragged itbackwards. The figure turned like a flash, threw something over David'shead--a sack, David thought--sprang upon David, and tied the somethinground his neck with a fierce embrace. David staggered backward under theweight of his adversary, and the two went to the floor in the narrowspace between the bed and the wall.
Instantly the figure, with a jerk and a catlike squirm, tried to breakaway, but David's arms, gripped about its body, held it fast. Then itresumed its choking embrace of David's neck. The sack about his head washeavy; the air hardly came through it. He began to gasp. He triedfrantically to throw the figure off, but it held its place. Then onehand fell upon a mop of hair. He clutched it and pushed fiercely upward.The embrace broke, and two fists began to beat his face through thesack. An instant later David managed to scramble to his feet and throwoff the sack--and he then saw that the writhing, kicking figure he hadcaptured reached midway between his waist and shoulders.
His right hand still fastened in his captive's hair, David lighted thegas. There, at the end of his arm, was a boy with the figure of fourteenand the face of twenty. His clothes, baggy and torn, were for the latterage; the trousers were rolled up six years at the bottom. The face waswrinkled in a scowl, and the eyes gleamed defiance. He was pantingheavily. On the floor lay what David had thought was a sack; it was hisown overcoat.
"Why you're nothing but a boy!" David cried.
"A boy! Nuttin'! If I'd been in form, I'd 'a' showed you!"
David locked the door, cut off escape by standing before the window, anddisentangled his fingers from the boy's locks. He then saw that theboy's dirty yellow hair flowed upward from his forehead in a cow-lick.
The boy put his hands in his pockets and continued his defiant stare.
"Now, sir, what were you doing in here?" David demanded.
"What you t'ink?" the boy returned coolly. "You t'ink I come to collectde rent?"
"You tried to steal my coat."
"Gee, you're wise! How'd you guess it?"
David regarded the little fellow steadily for a minute or more. He nownoticed that the figure before him was very thin, and he remembered thatonce the embrace had been broken the boy had been a mere child even tohis own weak strength.
"What did you want that coat for?" he asked.
"It's like dis, cul," the boy answered in a tone of confidence. "I ownsa swell clo'es-joint on Fift' Avenoo, an' I'm out gittin' in me fallstock."
"What's your name?" David demanded.
"Reggie Vanderbilt."
David did not try another question. He scrutinised the boy in silence,wondering what he should do with this young thief who, instead ofshowing the proper caught-in-the-act penitence, persisted in wearing theair of one who is master of the situation. David now took note that theboy's coat-collar was turned up and that the coat was held closed by abutton near the throat and a safety pin at the bottom. The gaping frontof the coat showed him a white line. He stepped forward, and with aquick hand loosened the button at the throat. It was as he hadguessed--nothing but a mere rag of an undershirt that left the chesthalf bare--and the bare chest was rippled with ribs.
"Keep out o' dere!" the boy snapped, jerking away.
David was silent; then he said accusingly: "You're hungry!"
"Well, if I am--it's me own bellyache!"
"You tried to take that coat because you're hungry?"
"I did, did I?"
"Didn't you?"
"Oh, come stop jabbin' me in de ear wid your questions," the boyreturned sharply. "What you t'ink I took it for? To buy me goil aautomobile?"
He was silent for several moments, his bright eyes on David; then hethrew off his defiant look. "Hungry?" he sniffed. "You don't know whatde woid means! Me--well, me belly don't have to look it up in nodictionary. I ain't chawed nuttin' but wind for a mont'."
"You were going to sell it?"
"Nix. Pawn it."
David looked from the boy to the coat, and from the coat to the boy. Onehand, in his pocket, mechanically fingered his fortune--seven coppers.After a minute he picked up the coat, put it across his arm, and openedthe door.
"Come on," he said.
The boy did not budge. "Where you goin' to take me?" he askedsuspiciously.
"Nowhere. You're going to take me."
"Where?"
"To the pawnshop," said David.
The boy gave a sneer of disgust, and an outward push with an open, dirtyhand. "Oh, say now, cul, don't feed me dat infant's food! D'you t'ink Ican't see t'rough dat steer? I'm wise to where--to de first cop!"
He shuffled from his place against the wall. "Well, you got me. Come on.Let's go."
He stepped through the door and stood quietly till David had the key inthe lock. Then suddenly he darted toward the stairway. David sprangafter him and caught his coat-tail just as he was taking three stairs atone step. David fastened his right hand upon the boy's sleeve, and sideby side they marched down the four flights of stairs and into thestreet.
"Now take me to the pawnshop," David directed.
The boy gave a knowing grunt but said nothing. He walked quietly alongtill they sighted a policeman standing on a corner half a block ahead.Then he began to drag backward, and David had fairly to push him. Asthey came up to the officer David glanced down, and saw tenseness,alertness, fear--the look of the captured animal that watches for achance to escape.
The officer noticed David's grip on the boy's sleeve. "What you caughtthere?" he demanded.
"Just a friend of mine," David answered, and passed on.
After a few paces the boy peered stealthily up, an uncomprehending lookin his face. "Say, pard, you're a queer guy!" he said; and a momentlater he added: "You needn't hold me. I'll go wid you."
David withdrew his hand, and a little further on the boy led David forthe first time in his life into a pawnbroker's shop. David threw thecoat upon the counter and asked for as much as could be advanced uponit.
A large percentage of pledges are never redeemed, and the less advancedon an unredeemed pledge the greater the pawnbroker's profit when it issold. The money-lender looked the coat over. "A dollar and a half," hesaid.
"Ah, git out wid your plunk and a half!" the boy cut in. "Dat's stealin'widout takin' de risks. T'ree."
"It ain't worth it," returned the usurer.
The boy picked up the coat. "Come on," he said to David, and startedout.
"Two!" called out the pawnbroker.
The boy walked on.
"Two and a half!"
The boy returned and threw the coat upon the counter.
Twenty minutes later they were back in the room, and several groceryparcels lay on the bed. With a gaze that was three parts wonderment andone part suspicion, the boy watched David cooking over the gas stove. Hemade no reply to David's remarks save when one was necessary, and thenhis answer was no more than a monosyllable.
At length the supper was ready. The table was the soap-box cupboard, soplaced that one of them might have the edge of the bed as his chair. Onthis table were a can of condensed milk, a mound of sliced bread, and acube of butter in its wooden dish. On the gas stove stood a frying-panof eggs and bacon and a pot of coffee.
After the boy, at David's invitation, had blackened a basin of waterwith his hands, they sat down. David gave the boy two eggs and severalstrips of bacon, and served himself a like portion. Then they setto--one taste of eggs or bacon to three or four bites of bread. The boynever stopped, and David paused only to refill the coffee cups from timeto time and to pour into them a pale string of condensed milk. And theboy never spoke, save once there oozed through his bread-stuffed mouththe information that his "belly was scairt most stiff."
Presently the boy's plate was clean to shininess--polished by pieces ofbread with which he had rubbed up the last blotch of grease, the lastsmear of yellow. He looked over at the frying-pan in which was a fifthegg, and an extra strip of bacon. David caught the stare, and quicklyturned the egg and bacon into the boy's plate.
The boy looked from the plate to David. "You don't want it?" he askedfearfully.
"No."
He waited for no retraction. A few minutes later, after having finishedthe egg and meat and the remaining slices of bread, he leaned back witha profound sigh, and steadily regarded David.
At length he said, abruptly: "Me name's Tom."
"Thanks," said David. "What's your last name?"
The boy's defiance and suspicion had fallen from him. "Jenks I callsmeself. But I dunno. Me old man had a lot o' names--Jones, Simmons,Hall, an' some I forget. He changed 'em for his healt'--see? So I ain'twise to which me real name is."
Under David's questioning he became communicative about his history."You had to be tough meat to live wid me old man. Me mudder wasn't builtto stand de wear and tear, an' about de time I was foist chased off toschool, she went out o' biz. I stayed wid me old man till I was twelve.He hit de booze hard, an' kep' himself in form by poundin' me. He washell. Since den I been woikin' for meself."
It was now twelve by Kate Morgan's clock--an hour past David's bed-time."Where do you live?" he asked Tom.
"In me clo'es," Tom answered, grinning. David found himself liking thatgrin, which pulled the face to one side like a finger in a corner of themouth.
"Where are you going to stay to-night?"
"Been askin' meself de same question." He stood up. "But I guess I'dbetter be chasin' meself so you can git to bed."
"Don't go just yet," said David. He looked at his narrow bed, thenlooked at Tom. "Suppose you stay with me to-night. I guess we can doubleup in the bed there."
Tom's mouth fell agape. "Me--sleep--in--your--bed?"
"Of course--why not?"
The boy sank back into his chair. "Well, say, you are a queer guy!" heburst out. He stared at David, then slowly shook his head. "I won't doit. Anyhow, I couldn't sleep in a bed. It'd keep me awake. But I'm upagin it, an' I'll stay if you'll let me sleep on de floor."
"But there are no extra bed-clothes."
"Wouldn't want 'em if dere was. I'd be too hot."
So it was settled. Ten minutes later the room was dark, David was inbed, and Tom was lying in the space between the bed's foot and the wall,with David's coat for extra covering and with Browning's poems and avolume of Moliere as a pillow. There was deep silence for another tenminutes, then a cautious whisper rose from the foot of the bed.
"Are you asleep?"
"No," said David.
"Say, why didn't you have me pinched?" the voice asked.
No answer.
The voice rose again. "Why did you gimme dat extry egg?"
No answer.
"Why did you ask me to stay here? Ain't you afraid I'll skin out widyour clo'es?"
Again there was no answer. But presently David said: "Better go tosleep, Tom."
There was a brief, deep silence; then once more the voice came from thefoot of the bed. "I ain't just wise to you," said the voice, and therewas a note of huskiness in it, "but say, pard, you gits my vote!"