by Leroy Scott
CHAPTER VI
TOM IS SEEN AT WORK
It was toward four o'clock of the day before Thanksgiving--an afternoonof genial crispness. The low-hung sun, visible in the tenement districtsonly in westward streets, was softened to a ruddy disk by the lightNovember haze. Before the entrance to the club-house of the Mission weremassed two or three hundred children. Here was childhood's every size;and here were rags and dirt--well-worn and well-mended decency--thecheap finery of poverty's aristocracy. There was much pushing andelbowing in a struggle to hold place or to gain nearer the entrance, andthe elbowed and elbowing pelted each other with high-keyed words. But,on the whole, theirs was a holiday mood; the faces, lighted by the redsunlight that flowed eastward through the deep street, were eagerlyexpectant.
Across the way stood a boy, near the size of the largest children in thecrowd. He wore a red sweater, and his hands were thrust into the pocketsof baggy trousers voluminously rolled up at the bottom. He was watchingthe nervous group, with curiosity and a species of crafty meditation inhis gleaming, black-browed eyes. It was Tom. Had David seen him there,he might have thought the boy had paused for a moment while out on anerrand for his employer; but if Tom was on an errand it was evidentlynot one of driving importance, for he remained standing in his placeminute after minute.
Presently he crossed the street and drew up to a be-shawled girl whoseblack stockings were patched with white skin. He gave her a light jabwith his elbow. "Hey, sister--what's de row?" he asked.
She turned to him a thin face that ordinarily must have been listless,but that was now quickened by excitement. "It's the children'sThanksgiving party," she explained.
"What you wearin' out de pavement for? Why don't you go in?"
"It ain't time for the doors to open yet."
Tom fell back and stood in the outskirts of the crowd, occasionallysliding the tip of his tongue through the long groove of his mouth, thesame meditative look upon his watchful face. Soon the door swung openand the crowd surged forward, to be halted by a low, ringing voice:"Come, children!--please let's all get into line first, and march inorderly."
Two middle-aged women, enclosed in a subdued air of wealth, appearedthrough the door, and marched down the three steps and among thechildren. The boy's eyes closed to bright slits, his lips drew back fromhis teeth. The next instant a third woman appeared at the top of thesteps--young, tall, fresh-looking, gracefully dignified.
"Ain't she a queen!" Tom ejaculated to himself.
She paused a moment and bent over to speak to a child, and the boydiscovered that the rich, low-pitched voice he had heard was hers. Asshe stood so, the front of her tailored coat swung open, and the boycaught a glimpse of a silver-mounted bag, hooked with a silver clasp toher belt. A brighter gleam sprang into his eyes.
She came down the steps, pushed in among the children, and with the twoother women began to form the group into a double line. Tom, withquick-squirming movements, edged through to the inner circle of theexcited crowd, in which she was tightly buried up to her shoulders. Atintervals he gave sharp upward glances at her face; she was entirelyabsorbed in making ordered lines of this entanglement. The rest of thetime his eyes were fastened on her belt. Presently the children werethrown turbulently about her by one of those waves of motion that sweepthrough crowds, and he managed to be pressed against her, the left sideof his coat held open to shield off possible eyes. His right hand creptdeftly forward under her coat--found the bag--loosened it.
But suddenly a child's shoulder was jammed against his closed hand,driving it against the young woman's side, and for an instant holding itcaptive. She glanced down and saw Tom's arm. Instantly her firm graspclosed about the wrist and jerked out the hand, which dropped the bag.Like a flash Tom delivered a blow upon her wrist. She gave a sharp cryof pain, but her grip did not break. As he struck again she caught himabout the wrist with her free hand. He jerked and twisted violently,but her hands had a firm, out-of-doors strength. He was prisoner.
Startled cries of "Pick-pocket!" and "Get a cop!" sprang up in theshrill voices of the children. The young woman, very pale but composed,looked sternly down at Tom.
"So, young man, I've caught you in the very act," she said slowly.
He looked sullenly at the pavement.
"What shall I do with you?"
Tom raised his shoulders. "Dat's your biz," he answered gruffly.
"Arrest him!" "They've gone for a policeman!" shouted the childishvoices.
At this the boy sent up a quick glance at the young woman. Despite itsseverity, kindness was in her face. He dropped his head, the sullennessseemed to go out of him, and his body began to tremble. The next instanthis sleeve was against his face and he was blubbering.
"I couldn't help it!" he sobbed.
"You couldn't help it!" she exclaimed.
"No! It was because o' me brudder. I've never stole before. Honest,lady. But me poor brudder's been sick for t'ree mont's. I tried to finda job. I can't find none. Our money's all gone, an' dere ain't no onebut me. What can I do, lady?"
The young woman looked at him questioningly. One of Tom's sharp eyespeeped up at her, and saw sympathy struggling with unbelief. Hisblubbering increased. "It's de God's trut', lady! You can send me tohell, if it ain't. Me brudder's sick--dere's nuttin' to eat, an' nomedicine, an' nobody'd gimme work. So help me God!"
At this instant the cry rose, "Here's the policeman!" and almost at oncethe officer, pressing through the alley that opened among the children,had his hand on Tom's collar. "So you was caught with the goods on," hecried, giving the boy a rough shake. "Well, you chase along with me!Come along, lady. It's only two blocks to the station."
He jerked Tom forward and started away. But the young woman, who stillheld one of Tom's wrists, did not move. "Will you wait, please?" shesaid quietly, a flash in her brown eyes. "What right have you to touchthis boy?"
"Why, didn't he nab your pocket-book?"
"I'm not saying," she said, looking at him very steadily. "You canarrest him only on complaint. I am the only one who can make acomplaint. And I make none. Please let go!"
The policeman stared, but his hand dropped from Tom's collar.
"Thank you," she said.
She called one of the women to her side. "You can easily get on withoutme, Mrs. Hartwell," she said in a low voice. "The most important thingfor me is to look into this boy's case. I'm going to have him take me tohis brother--if there is a brother."
Tom overheard the last sentence. His face paled. "Please don't take meto me brudder," he begged, a new ring in his voice. "He t'inks I'mhonest. He'll t'row me out when you tell him! Don't take me. What's deuse? I told you de trut'."
"If there is a brother, I want to talk with him," she answered. Sherequested the policeman to follow at a distance, and then asked Tom tolead them to his home.
"An' see that you take us to the right place, too," said the officer,with a warning look. "An' don't try to get away, for I'll be watchin'you."
They started off. The young woman did not take Tom's arm, for the samereason that she asked the policeman to follow several yards behind--thatthere might be no apparent capture, and no curious trailing crowd.
Tom's body palpitated with the dread of facing David--of what Davidwould say to him, of the way David would look at him, but most of all ofthe change in David's attitude toward him, when these accusers shouldmake plain to David that for two weeks he had been lying and stealing.He thought of escape--to get away from this young woman would be an easymatter; but a glance at the officer behind assured him that to try wouldmean merely the exchange of a kind captor for a harsh one. He preferredhis chances with the young woman. So he led them on, his dread swellingwith every step that brought them nearer to David.
The policeman was left waiting at the tenement entrance. Tom guided theyoung woman to his door, paused chokingly there, then led her into thelittle, dingy room, which was filled with a deeper hue of the comingtwilight. David was lying in a doze, his face turned upward.
She glanced at the bed, saw only that a man was sleeping there, thenglanced about. The poverty of the room and the sick figure confirmedTom's story. She put a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Please wakenyour brother," she whispered.
She stepped nearer the bed, but Tom hung fearfully back. And now she sawfor the first time David's face with some distinctness. Shestarted--bent over him--stared down at the face on the pillow. Shetrembled backward a pace. One hand reached out and caught a chair.
Tom, seeing his chance to escape, slipped out and took refuge in theMorgan's flat. The closing door roused David from his light sleep. Heslowly opened his eyes--opened them upon the white face looking downupon him. The face seemed unreal, merely the face in a frequent dream.He closed his eyes, then opened them. The face was still there.... Agreat, wild, dizzy thrill went through him.
Slowly his haggard face rose from the pillow and he rested upon hiselbow. "Miss Chambers!" he whispered, at length.
For moments she could only stare back at him--the friend once admired,who by his own confession had stolen the money of tenement children, hadgambled it away, had counted on the guilt falling upon Morton. Then hervoice, straining at steadiness, came out, and haltingly spoke thenearest thing that did not require thought--an explanation of herpresence.
Her words hardly reached his mind. There was only one thing, the dizzy,impossible fact--she was before him! His body was chill, fire; his mindwas chaos.
"You have been sick long?" she asked.
He took control of himself by a supreme effort. "For two weeks. It'snothing--just the grip."
"The boy told me for three months."
"That's just an invention of Tom's." He was conscious that, at hiswords, a look of doubt flitted across her face.
She had wondered, as he had done, what her attitude toward him shouldbe, if chance ever brought them together--what it should be if he werestriving to live honorably--what, if he had slipped down and were livingby thievery. At this moment, without conscious thought, her attitude wasestablished. But, though decision was against him, he was helpless, inneed.
"Is there anything at all that I can do for you?" she asked.
He shook his head. If there was one person above all others from whom hecould not accept service, that person was the woman he loved and who, hewas certain, beneath her courteous control, must despise him. He hadalways known she believed him guilty, yet he had not half fore-measuredthe pain the eye-knowledge of it would give him. He longed to tell herthe truth, as he often had longed before, and as he often wouldagain--but he dared not, for to tell one person was to endanger, perhapsdestroy, all the good of his act. Besides, even if he were to tell, whowould believe him? She? No. She would believe, as the rest of the worldwould believe, that his statement was a dastardly attempt to whitenhimself by blackening the memory of his sainted friend.
"You are certain I can do nothing?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Pardon me for being insistent, but--" she hesitated, white with thestress of the situation, then forced herself to go on--"the boy saidthat--that you had--nothing. Are you sure I can not do some little thingfor you?"
At this moment David forgot that he was penniless, forgot that he had nowork for the time when he left his bed, and probably could find none;remembered only how he loved this woman, and how low he was in her eyes.
"The boy was not telling the truth," he said. "We have plenty. We neednothing--thank you."
She could not speak of the past; her delicacy forbade her. She could notquery into his present intentions; her judgment on him, subconsciouslyrendered upon circumstantial evidence, and supported by his past, madethat unnecessary. And, furthermore, the whirling confusion within hermade speech on both impossible. The one surface fact her emotions couldallow her speech upon, that she had spoken of. She felt she must getaway as quickly as she could.
She rose. His wide, love-hungry eyes gathered in every one of her lastmotions and expressions. He did not know when, if ever, he would see heragain.
There was a sharp knock at the door. She held out her hand to him. Hewas not expecting this, but he laid his wasted hand tremblingly withinit.
"Good-bye," she said.
Impulsively his soul reached out for some shred of her regard. "I'mtrying to live honest now!" he burst out, in subdued agony.
She regarded him an instant. "I'm glad of it," she said quietly.
The sharp knock sounded once more.
"Good-bye," she repeated.
"Good-bye," he said in a dry whisper.
She turned toward the door, his love-hungry eyes gathering in the lastof her.... Yes, he was utterly beyond the pale.