Kitabı oku: «Divided Skates», sayfa 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE WANDERING KINDNESS
On the morning of the blizzard, at that dark hour which comes just before daylight, Dr. Frank Winthrop left his own house for a visit to the hospital. There were no cars running, and he would not think of rousing his coachman, or even his horses, to breast such a storm; for his errand might be a prolonged one, and was, indeed, a case of life or death. At ten o’clock he had left a patient in a most critical condition, and was now returning to further attend the sufferer. His ulster was fastened tightly about him, his head thrust deeply into his collar, his hands in his pockets, and with teeth grimly set he faced the night.
“Two miles, if it’s a block! Well, it’s useless to try and see one’s way. The street lamps, such as are still burning, make an occasional glimmer in the fog of snowflakes and are almost more misleading than none at all. But I’ve walked the route so often, I’ll just trust to my feet to find their own road, and to Providence that I may reach my man in time!”
Robust and determined as the good physician was, he was almost overcome by the cold and the struggle through the unbroken drifts; while his whole person soon became so covered with the flying flakes that he looked like a great snow-man itself, suddenly made alive and set in motion. But the hope of easing pain gave him courage to persevere; and finally he came within a short distance of the great building whose dimly lighted windows made a dull redness through the storm.
“There she is, the blessed old house of comfort! Her wards are like to be full this night. And that was the very hardest walk I ever took. I hope, I pray, it has not been for nothing.”
Just then his foot stumbled against some half-buried obstruction, and stooping, the doctor touched the object with his hands.
“Oh! as I feared! A human being. A child – a boy. Overcome and maybe frozen. Poor little chap, poor little chap!”
Unbuttoning his overcoat the physician struck a match within the shelter of its flap, and by its flare scanned the small face from which he had brushed away the snow. Then he uttered another exclamation of surprise and lifting the little, rigid figure in his arms, folded his great-coat about it and started forward with renewed energy.
“Whatever is a child like this doing down here in this part of town? If it weren’t for his clothes I might think he was a newsboy headed for Newspaper Square, yonder; but newsboys don’t wear velvet attire, or hats with wide brims and drooping feathers, like a girl’s ‘picture’ headgear. Thank God, we’re almost there!”
On such a night, more than ever alert, the attendant at the door of the accident ward opened it wide to the slightest summons of the good doctor, who staggered into the light and warmth, shaking the snow from him in clouds and ordering:
“Promptest attention. Child overcome in the snow. Call nurse Brady. She’ll know.”
The nurse was instantly at hand, and received the new “case” from the attendant; while the physician took off his own snow-covered ulster and brushed the melting flakes from his beard. All the while his keen eyes were studying the child’s countenance and following his motionless figure as, with that haste which is never waste, the trained nurse carried it away toward the great ward where so many other “cases” were receiving the care which should save life.
Finding, by brief question and answer, that the patient he had come especially to see was neither better nor worse, Dr. Winthrop followed nurse Brady and her new charge; watching and directing as it seemed necessary, and finally announcing:
“I’ll have him put in a private room; this ward is so full already, and there’ll be more coming right along. A boy who wears velvet and feathers must belong to some rich family, who’ll gladly pay for every attention. Poor, little, bedraggled bird of paradise!”
So it happened that when Towsley opened his eyes, a few hours later, it was in a room whose comfort quite equalled that of the one from which he had fled, even though its furnishings were much plainer. And over his pillow leaned another woman wearing a snowy cap, far daintier in shape than had adorned Miss Lucy’s gray curls. There were no gleaming glasses shading the kindly eyes which regarded him, and no sternness in the lips that said slowly and gently:
“So my little patient is better. I am so glad of that.”
After a long, silent stare into nurse Brady’s face, Towsley asked:
“Be you? Where’s I at?”
“In a nice warm bed, all safe and sound, with a fine breakfast waiting for you.”
“Where’s it at, I say?”
“The hospital.”
“What for?”
“Because you must have been taking a little walk in the storm and got too tired to go very far. A kind man found you and brought you in here, and now if you’ll please drink this hot soup you’ll feel as fine as a fiddler!”
“Humph. I can fiddle – some, myself. Is the pie all gone? Oh! I mean – I – I – my head’s funny.”
“That will come right enough when you set your empty stomach to work. Afterward you will tell me your name and where you live, and I’ll send for your people. But the soup first.”
Towsley sat up against the nurse’s arm and obediently drank all the broth she offered him, even to the last drop. Then he lay back with a sigh of deep content and fell into a sound, refreshing sleep. When he awoke again the pretty nurse was gone and in her chair sat a gentleman gazing at him with a curious sort of stare, as if Towsley were some new kind of animal in whom the stranger was interested.
The stare nettled Towsley, who felt strangely cross and irritable. He knew he was saucy, but he couldn’t help making a little grimace of disgust and demanding:
“Think you’ll know me next time you see me, governor?”
“I certainly hope so. That’s why I’m studying your face. Hm’m. I see you are decidedly better. Quite all right, in fact. Feeling prime, aren’t you? Ready to run away again?”
“What you mean? How did you know I ran away?”
“By your clothes. A little lad who wears velvet blouses and fine hats had no business away from his home in such a storm as we have had. Now, your people will probably have grieved themselves ill about you, and you’re to tell me your name and address at once, so I can send them word where you are. The storm is over and people are beginning to get about again. The street cars should be running by to-morrow, as usual.”
Towsley regarded the gentleman wistfully for a moment; then cried out, impatiently:
“I’ll bet the fellows got a beat on me!”
“Eh? What?”
“Have the ‘lines’ been tied up? I thought they was goin’ to be, last night.”
“Eh! What? What do you know about ‘lines,’ and ‘beats,’ and such matters?”
“Well, I guess I know as much as the next one,” answered the lad proudly. “Ain’t I been on the ’Xpress since I was so high?” measuring a short space between his thin, and now – thanks to nurse Brady’s attention – very white little hands.
“The dickens you have! Then why were you masquerading in borrowed plumes, my lad? Your story and your clothing don’t agree. What is your name? Give it right, now, mind.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I ain’t ashamed of it, if it isn’t pretty. I’m Towsley. Towsley Towhead, some the Alley folks call me. I’m one the boys on the ’Xpress. That’s who I am, and I can sell more’n any other fellow of my size on the whole force.”
“I believe it. You look as sharp as a razor. But let’s keep to facts. You tacitly admitted that you ran away, and your velvet attire is certainly against you!”
There was something both whimsical and kindly in the doctor’s expression, and Towsley’s confidence was won.
“Don’t you s’pose I know that? Don’t you s’pose I reckoned I was a guy; and that all the fellows would laugh at me when they saw me? But I couldn’t help it, could I? That old black man took my own clothes away and left these, and I couldn’t go out without any, could I? She was a nice old lady and her pie was good. Pretty good, I mean. But she wasn’t going to catch Towsley and adopt him, not if he could help himself! No, siree! So I waited till everybody was asleep, then I lit out.”
“Smart boy! Tell me the whole story; from start to finish.”
“Say, you tell me, first. Was I half dead in the snow? Did you find me and fetch me here, like I heard them say? ’Cause if you did, I – I – I’d like to do something back for you, yourself.”
“Oh! that’s all right, my lad. You’ll have a chance. Don’t fear.”
“What do you mean, sir? What can I do?” asked Towsley eagerly.
“Did you ever hear, as you went along the street, somebody start humming or whistling a tune? any kind of a tune, but a catchy one the best. In a little while you’ll hear another person pick it up and hum or whistle, just the same way; so on, till nobody knows how many have caught and heard the wandering melody and passed it onward through a crowd. Did you ever notice anything like that?”
“Heaps of times. I’ve done it myself. Started it or picked it up, either.”
“Well, that’s like kindness. Pick it up, pass it along. Let everybody who hears it, catch on; understand? So, that’s what I mean. You may never have a chance to do anything especially for me – and you may have dozens; but that doesn’t matter. Keep it moving. The first time you have an opportunity to be decent to somebody else, why – just be decent, and say to yourself: ‘That’s because the doctor picked me out of a snow-drift.’ The Lord will keep the account all straight, and settle it in His own good time. We don’t have to worry about that part, fortunately; else our spiritual book-keeping would get sadly mixed.”
They were both silent for a brief while, and the words made a deep impression upon Towsley’s heart; a warm and gentle heart at all times, though not always a wise one in its judgments.
“Well, my boy. I’m waiting for your story, and I’m a pretty busy man. Along about time for giving out the papers you wouldn’t care to be hindered needlessly, would you?”
A brilliant smile broke over the sharp little face upon the pillow.
“No, I wouldn’t, and you don’t. Well, here it is;” and very briefly, but graphically, the alley vagrant sketched the story of his acquaintance with Miss Armacost and his flight from her house.
The doctor listened without interruption till after the tale was done; then he asked:
“How about that wandering melody of kindness, eh, my boy?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I mean – I – I – ”
Down in his warm heart Towsley did know, though he hated to acknowledge it. He tried to justify himself in his own eyes as well as in those of the good physician.
“She hadn’t any right to take away my clothes. All the clothes I had. She took away my name, too.”
“Were they very good clothes, Towsley?”
“No. But they were mine!” fiercely.
“And the name. Is it a very honorable name, laddie?”
“It’s just as honorable as I make it, sir! I needn’t be an Alley boy always, just because – because – nobody knows who my folks were.”
“No, indeed. That you need not. That you will not be, for you’ve the spirit to succeed. Only you need a little of the spirit of generosity, too. The wandering melody again, you see. We can never quite get away from it. Now, I’m going on my rounds through the wards. I’ll stop in, after an hour or so, and see if you have any errand for me to do. Good-by. Take a nap, then think it over. I’ll be back again.”
Towsley didn’t nap at all. He lay wide-eyed and full of thought, staring at the white ceiling overhead, and occasionally touching a pansy which nurse Brady had laid beside him on his pillow. As he fondled and looked at the flower, more and more it gradually began to assume the face and features of a delicate little old lady whom he knew. It was a white pansy, with faint lavender patches on its lateral and lower petals; dashed, like all its kind, by little touches of darker hue. Yes, it was a face – Miss Lucy’s face. Those two white upper leaves were her snowy curls under her every-day lace cap. The eyes, the keen, whimsical little mouth – all were there; and the newsboy looked and remembered – till the eyes seemed to gather tears and the pursed-up mouth to tremble like a child’s – like Sarah Jane’s, when she had been denied a share in her brothers’ games.
Had there been tears in Miss Lucy’s eyes, last night, behind those gleaming glasses? Had it been out of love, after all, that she had given him her dead nephew’s pretty garments and her dead nephew’s aristocratic name?
It was all very puzzling, and Towsley felt unequal to solving the riddle, although it was he who always was first among the fellows to find the answers to the printed riddles on the children’s page of the weekly Express. He shut his eyes a moment, to see things a little better, and after the ceiling and the pansy were thus put out of sight he did begin to understand quite clearly.
Tears? He hated them. There should never any be shed for him, that he could prevent. On that point he made up his mind, and he shut his lids down tighter, so that nothing should alter his sudden resolution.
What was that sound?
Towsley’s eyes opened with a snap. He was sure that they had not been closed a second, but the nurse laughed when he so declared; he always afterward believed that some sort of magic had been used to change things about in that little hospital bedroom.
For there on the tiny dresser was lightly tossed a rich fur robe that looked as if it had just slipped off somebody’s slender shoulders. It was an old-fashioned robe, Towsley saw that, and the bonnet which had fallen to the floor beside it was quite out of style, also.
“Regular old timer, ain’t it! And she’s an old timer, too, but – the tears! Shucks! He wished nobody would ever cry. He hated tears!” again thought Towsley. And then he stole his hand around the neck of the little old lady who was kneeling beside his cot, and remarked, generously:
“Oh! I say, Miss Lucy, please don’t. It’s all right. I didn’t behave very – very gentlemanly, I guess, but if you like I’m willing to try it over again. I’ll be your little boy if you want me, and if I have to be ‘Lionel,’ just make it Towsley, too, can’t you?”
“Oh! you darling! I didn’t know that it could be possible; that in so short a time a stranger child could creep so closely into my affection. I’ve been hearing such a lot about you, from Molly, you know. Oh! my dear, I am so thankful that you did not perish. So thankful that my eyes have been opened to see how lonely and selfish a life I’ve led. Just to think, to think, that I have at last a dear little human boy to love and to love me! All day I’ve thought about you and seemed to feel that it was Lionel, our own Lionel, who had wandered out into the storm to suffer so; and – and – ”
This was too much for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet been transformed into the gentleman he aspired to become, and in a way that was more honest than courteous he forestalled another hysterical outburst on the part of his overwrought benefactress.
“Hold on, Miss Lucy. It’s all right. I ain’t dead nor dyin’. It’s the wandering melody of the kindness, as the doctor said. Don’t you know? He was good to me, and I’ll be good to you, and you’ll be good to somebody else; and that’s the way it goes. I can tell you of a lot of fellows to be kind to. Whistling Jerry, and Battles, and Shiner. Oh! there are a plenty to fill the house full, but there won’t any of them stand being cried over. It would scare the life out of ’em. A kick or a blow – that they wouldn’t mind, being used to it, you see, but tears – they’d scat! like kittens with a dog after them. They would, indeed.”
“Oh!” gasped Miss Lucy, rising from her knees – “Oh! but I’ve nothing to do with these – these boys with the objectionable names. It is yourself only, my child, whom I want to live with me. Just you; to be my one, only, little precious boy.”
“Then, I guess we’d better drop it. I was only trying to be good to you.”
CHAPTER V.
LIONEL TOWSLEY GOES HOME
“Towsley, boy! you’re quite well enough to go home. Especially as there is, just outside the hospital gate, a red-plumed sleigh waiting, with great fox robes big enough to wrap a dozen newsboys in; with horses in a tinkling harness, and more red plumes at their heads; and a coachman named Jefferson sitting up front with a mighty fur collar on and a Christmas favor in his hat, and – I’ve lost my breath, telling the wonders! For you, my snow-bank youngster!”
The genial doctor entered the room just in time to witness the little scene between Miss Armacost and her protégé; and knowing both parties fairly well, he judged that the best way out of a difficulty was to get rid of the difficulty. Which he did in the manner above.
For there was never a newsboy on Newspaper Square, not even the independent Master Towsley, who could resist the charm of a sleigh ride; especially in a city where sleighing was a rare occurrence, and where enormous prices were asked and obtained for any sort of vehicle that would glide over the snow.
Towsley forgot everything but the prospect before him. Even the objectionable velvet suit and girlish hat would be endurable under the circumstances. What if some fellow of his own craft did see and laugh at him? He laughs best who laughs last, and in this case that would be the boy in the sleigh. So he clapped his hands and cried out, excitedly:
“Oh! may I? And will Miss Lucy please go away, and somebody send me back my clothes?”
“Certainly. Everybody shall clear out except you and me,” said the physician, pulling a brown paper parcel from beneath his arm and tossing it upon the foot of the cot.
So Miss Armacost and nurse Brady went away and the doctor closed the door behind them. Then he unfastened the mysterious parcel and spread before Towsley’s wondering gaze a complete suit for a boy of Towsley’s size. Everything was there, down to the shoes and stockings, though all were of coarse material.
“Oh, ginger! Ain’t that prime? For me? Are they for me, doctor?”
“If they fit.”
“Oh! they’ll fit. Anything fits me.”
“Velvet knickers and plumed hats?”
The lad, who had tried to spring out of bed, and had succeeded only in climbing out rather slowly and shakily, looked up with a twinkle in his eye; then he answered very seriously:
“Yes, sir; even them. I’d hate ’em. I’d hate to have the fellows see me in ’em; but I’d wear them forever, rather than make her cry again. I can’t get over that. To s’pose that she, a rich lady living on the Avenue, should cry over an Alley kid! It ain’t nice to think about, her saying I’ve got to be her only, ‘one precious.’ I’ll about die of lonesomeness; but – it’s the wandering kindness, you know, sir. I’ll pass it on, and maybe it’ll all come right. Do you s’pose she’ll make me sit in front of a window and be dressed up, and make myself a show for the fellows to come and gibe at?”
“Those shoes all right, eh? Look here, Towsley. I’m not a ‘supposing’ sort of a man. I’ve no time to speculate over things. I have to take them as they come and keep hustling. That’s pretty much the way it is in the newspaper business, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You just believe it.”
“I do. Well, though I rarely give away advice – that being a luxury I dare not afford, in general – I’m going to present you with a bit now, as a kind of keepsake: Don’t you stop to worry or ‘s’pose’ anything. Life’s too short. Just keep hustling. Do right, as near as you can, straight along and all the time, and let results take care of themselves or leave them to the Lord who will do it for us. And remember one other thing: If you do a kindness to anybody you have to like them. Fact; you can’t help it. You will like them, whether or no. Now I didn’t care a nickel about you till I tumbled over you in the snow-drift. Never heard of you, indeed. But then I had a chance to help you, and right away I liked you. So I’ve been down-town, this afternoon, and bought you this outfit. Between you and me, Towsley, I shouldn’t care for the velvets, either. But they must have been all that Miss Armacost had on hand and so she gave them to you. These I’m not giving; I’m simply advancing. Men like us don’t care to accept what we can’t pay for, you know. Anything that Miss Lucy will offer you, you’ll have a chance to repay: by love, and attention, and the deference that a son of her own house would render a gentlewoman who befriended him. But you’ll have no further use for me, and so I’m merely lending you this suit. If you should ever be able, as you may, to collect what I’ve spent on it – about five dollars – you just remember the wandering kindness and send it along. I’d get a scrap of paper, if I were you, and write it down: ‘Five dollars received of Dr. Frank Winthrop’; and when you use something for some needy person, consider that it is so much toward the liquidation of the debt and write it opposite: ‘Paid Dr. Frank Winthrop, so and so.’ Understand?”
“Yes. I will repay, too. Though I’d rather do it to you, yourself.”
“Doubtless. Yet that doesn’t matter. The real thing is to be systematic and exact in our charities. Slovenliness or carelessness in such things is worse than a bad habit – it’s a sin. Now, how are you? A trifle queer in the legs, eh? Things in the room look a bit hazy? That’s all right. Effect of an active boy lying in bed. The air will set you straight. My! but you are a dandy in that suit! Fits you like a duck’s bill in the mud, doesn’t it?”
Towsley laughed, so gayly and loudly that anxious Miss Lucy tiptoed to the outside of the closed door and asked, eagerly:
“Can’t I come in yet?”
The jolly doctor gave a nod of his head and Towsley opened to admit his friend. In all his little life he had never been so well, so completely clothed as he was at that moment; and the consciousness of being suitably dressed went far toward giving him the ease of manner which belonged to the “gentleman” whom he aspired to become.
The alteration in his appearance was so great and his bow so correctly made that Miss Lucy cried out in delight and surprise, and was about to throw her arms about the child and caress him before them all.
But the wise doctor prevented that, by saying in his quick way:
“All ready, Miss Armacost; and I fancy your horses and coachman won’t be sorry. If this young fellow gives you any trouble just let me know. I’ll attend to his case, short order; with a dose of picra or some other disagreeable stuff! But I wish you both the compliments of the season and – this way out, please. Say good-by to nurse Brady, Towsley Lionel Armacost, and don’t forget that but for her care you might not be starting on a sleigh-ride now.”
Then he was gone, and they had to hurry along the halls and down the stairs to follow him toward that outer door, before which stood the chestnuts, jingling their bells and pawing balls of the light snow, in their impatience to be trotting over the white roads and up to the park where other horses were flying about, as merry, apparently, as the people whom they carried.
So with a mere nod of his head, old Jefferson whisked the newsboy into a corner of the cushioned seat and Miss Armacost followed without assistance; but her doing so made Towsley remember something and sent a blush to his pale cheek. That was, the manner in which real gentlemen helped their women folk on any similar occasion.
“To Druid Hill!” said Miss Lucy, briefly; and Jefferson drove briskly away.
For some time neither of the occupants of that warm back seat said a word. Each was too thoroughly engrossed by his and her own thoughts; but finally Miss Lucy stole a glance toward her small companion and inquired:
“Do you like sleighing, Lionel?”
“Yes, Miss Armacost. Only – it all seems like – like make-believe. I keep wondering when I’ll wake up. And I wish – I wish Battles and Shiner were here. I don’t believe that Shiner ever had a sleigh-ride in his life – Never; not once.”
“Indeed?” asked the lady, coldly.
“No, ma’am. I mean, no, Miss Lucy. And he ain’t much more’n a baby, Shiner ain’t. Not near as old as I am.”
“How old are you, my dear?”
“I guess I’m going on eight. Molly thinks I am. You know Molly; the girl that took me to your house or run me into you on her skate. She’s a dreadful nice girl, Molly is; but I don’t believe she ever had a sleigh-ride, either. Poor Molly.”
The lad’s eyes were shining from his own pleasure; his pale face was rapidly taking on a healthy glow; he was a very presentable little fellow, indeed, in his modern suit of well-shaped clothing, so Miss Armacost thought, but – he was also spoiling her ride for her as thoroughly as he could. Spoiling it without the slightest intention or desire on his own part to do so.
“Molly spent the greater part of yesterday with me, Lionel.”
“She did? What for?”
“Because I was in trouble, of more sorts than one; and her kind heart sent her – in the first place. After she came I begged her to stay. I am already very fond of Molly; she is so gay and cheerful.”
Towsley’s face became radiant.
“Oh, jimmeny! Ain’t that prime! Have you adopted her, too?”
“No, indeed. She has no need for such an action on my part. She has both parents living. But our plumbing went to wreck, yesterday, in the unlooked-for cold snap, and her father came to our rescue. He had to work there all day, and when he found I was grieving so about your – your running away into the storm, he told Molly and she came. She very kindly brought me some of their own dinner, hot and steaming; and I assure you it did taste fine! I was almost really hungry, for once.”
