The Forerunner Part 42

He asked her to help him, but he did not say "I will do this"--only "I may."

In the steady bright June suns.h.i.+ne, in the sifting dust of a city corner, in the dissonant, confused noise of the traffic below, they stood and looked at one another.

His eyes brightened and deepened as he watched her changing color.

Softly he drew her towards him. "Even if you do not love me now, you shall in time, you shall, my darling!"

But she drew back from him with a frightened start, a look of terror.

"What has happened!" she cried. "It's so still!"

They both rushed to the window. The avenue immediately below them was as empty as midnight, and as silent. A great stillness widened and spread for the moment around one vacant motionless open car. Without pa.s.senger, driver, or conductor, it stood alone in the glaring s.p.a.ce; and then, with a gasp of horror, they both saw.

Right under their eyes, headed towards them, under the middle of the long car--a little child.

He was quite still, lying face downward, dirty and tumbled, with helpless arms thrown wide, the great car holding him down like a mouse in a trap.

Then people came rus.h.i.+ng.

She turned away, choking, her hands to her eyes.

"Oh!" she cried, "Oh! It's a child, a little child!"

"Steady, Mary, steady!" said he, "the child's dead. It's all over.

He's quite dead. He never knew what hit him." But his own voice trembled.

She made a mighty effort to control herself, and he tried to take her in his arms, to comfort her, but she sprang away from him with fierce energy.

"Very well!" she said. "You are right! The child is dead. We can not save him. No one can save him. Now come back--come here to the window--and see what follows. I want to see with my own eyes--and have you see--what is done when your cars commit murder! Child murder!"

She held up her watch. "It's 12:10 now," she said.

She dragged him back to the window, and so evident was the struggle with which she controlled herself, so intense her agonized excitement, that he dared not leave her.

"Look!" she cried. "Look! See the them crowd now!"

The first horrified rush away from the instrument of death was followed by the usual surging mult.i.tude.

From every direction people gathered thickly in astonis.h.i.+ng numbers, hustling and pus.h.i.+ng about the quiet form upon the ground; held so flat between iron rails and iron wheels, so great a weight on so small a body! The car, still empty, rose like an island from the pus.h.i.+ng sea of heads. Men and women cried excited directions. They tried with swarming impotent hands to lift the huge ma.s.s of wood and iron off the small broken thing beneath it, so small that it did not raise the crus.h.i.+ng weight from the ground.

A whole line of excited men seized the side rail and strove to lift the car by it, lifting only the rail.

The crowd grew momently, women weeping, children struggling to see, men pus.h.i.+ng each other, policemen's helmets rising among them. And still the great car stood there, on the body of the child.

"Is there no means of lifting these monsters?" she demanded. "After they have done it, can't they even get off."

He moistened his lips to answer.

"There is a jacking crew," he said. "They will be here presently."

"Presently!" she cried. "Presently! Couldn't these monsters use their own power to lift themselves somehow? not even that?"

He said nothing.

More policemen came, and made a scant s.p.a.ce around the little body, covering it with a dark cloth. The motorman was rescued from many would be avengers, and carried off under guard.

"Ten minutes," said she looking at her watch. "Ten minutes and it isn't even off him yet!" and she caught her breath in a great sob.

Then she turned on the man at her side: "Suppose his mother is in that crowd! She may be! Their children go to this school, they live all about below here, she can't even get in to see! And if she could, if she knew it was her child, she can't _get him out_!"

Her voice rose to a cry.

"Don't, Mary," said he, hoa.r.s.ely. "It's--it's horrible! Don't make it worse!"

She kept her eyes on her watch-face, counting the minutes She looked down at the crowd shudderingly, and said over and over, under breath, "A little child! A little soft child!"

It was twelve minutes and a-half before the jacking crew drove up, with their tools. It was a long time yet before they did their work, and that crushed and soiled little body was borne to a near-by area grating and laid there, wrapped in its dingy shroud, and guarded by a policeman.

It was a full half hour before the ambulance arrived to take it away.

She drew back then and crouched sobbing by the sofa. "O the poor mother! G.o.d help his mother!"

He sat tense and white for a while; and when she grew quieter he spoke.

"You were right, Mary. I--naturally, I never--visualized it! It is horrible! I am going to have those fenders on every car of the four systems!"

She said nothing. He spoke again.

"I hate to leave you feeling so, Dear. Must I go?"

She raised a face that was years older, but did not look at him.

"You must go. And you must never come back. I cannot bear to see your face again!"

And she turned from him, shuddering.

BEFORE WARM FEBRUARY WINDS

Before warm February winds Arouse an April dream-- Or sudden rifts of azure sky Suggest the bluebird's gleam;

Before the reddening woods awake, Before the brooks are free-- Here where all things are sold and hired, The driven months we see.

Wither along our snow-soiled streets, Or under gla.s.s endure, Fruits of the days that have not come, Exotic--premature.

I hear in raw, unwelcome dawns The sordid sparrows sing, And in the florist's windows watch The forced and purchased spring.