Three People Part 2

"For Jesus' sake."

The next time she added these words of her own accord; and again and again was the solemn cry repeated, until there came a sudden changing of the purple shadows into solemn ashy gray, and with one half-murmured effort, "not a drop of rum" and "for Jesus' sake," the voice was forever hushed.

The neighbor watcher was the first to break the stillness.

"Well, I never in all my life!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, speaking solemnly. "For the land's sake! I wish every rum-seller in the world could a heard her.

Well, her troubles is over, Mr. Birge. Now, what's to be done next?"

"Is she anything to you, Mary, except an acquaintance?"

"I'm thankful to say she ain't. If she had been I'd expect to die of shame for letting her die in this hole. She's a neighbor of mine, at least I live around the corner; but I don't know much about her, only that her man comes home drunk about every night, and tears around like a wild beast."

Which last recalled to John's remembrance the reason of his being in that room.

"Is that her husband lying out there?" he asked, nodding toward the door.

"Yes, it is. Been there long enough to know something by this time, I should think, too."

"It seems to me the first thing to be done is to get him in here; it isn't decent to leave him in this storm."

"It's decenter than he deserves, in my opinion, enough sight," Mary muttered.

Nevertheless they went toward the door, and with infinite pains and much fearful swearing from the partially roused man, they succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng and pulling and dragging him inside the cellar on the floor, when he immediately sank back into heavy sleep.

"Isn't he a picture of a man, now?" said the st.u.r.dy Mary, with a face and gesture of intense disgust.

"I would rather be he than the man who sold him the rum," her companion answered, solemnly. "Well, Mary, have you time to stay here awhile, or must you go at once?"

"I'll _take_ time, sir. Feelings is feelings, if I be poor; and I can't leave the boy and all, like this."

"Very well. You shall not suffer for your kind act. I'll go at once to notify the Coroner and the proper authorities, and meantime my mother will probably step around. Shall I have this fellow taken to the station?"

"No," said Mary, with another disgusted look at the drunken man. "Let the beast sleep it out; he's beyond hurting anybody, and _she_ wouldn't want him sent to the station."

"It was the most solemnly awful sight I ever saw," said John Birge, telling it all over to his friend McElroy. "I never shall forget that woman's prayer. It was the most tremendous temperance lecture I ever heard."

"Is the woman buried?"

"Yes, this afternoon. They hurry such matters abominably, McElroy.

Mother saw, though, that things were decent, and did what she could. We mean to keep an eye on the boy. He has great wild eyes, and a head that suggests great possibilities of good or evil, as the case may be. We would like to get him into one of the Children's Homes, and look after him. I meant to go around there this very evening and see what I could do. What do you say to going with me now?"

"Easy enough thing to accomplish, I should think. I presume his father will be glad to get rid of him; but it's storming tremendously, is it not?"

"Pretty hard. It does four-fifths of the time in Albany, you know.

Wouldn't you venture?"

"Why, it strikes me not, unless it were a case of life and death, or something of that sort. I should like to a.s.sist in rescuing the waif, but won't it do to-morrow?"

"I presume so. We'll go to-morrow after cla.s.s, then. Well, take the rocking chair and an apple, and make yourself comfortable. I say, McElroy, when I get into my profession I'll preach temperance, shall not you?"

Rain and wind and storm were over by the next afternoon; the sun shone out brilliantly, trying to glorify even the upper end of Rensselaer Street through which the two young men were sauntering, in search of the waif on whom John Birge meant to keep an eye.

"I'm strangely interested in the boy," Birge was saying. "That prayer was something so strange, so fearfully solemn, and the circ.u.mstances connected with my stumbling upon them at all were so sad. I was sorry after I left that I had not tried to impress upon the little fellow's mind the solemn meaning of his mother's last words. I half went back to have a little talk with him, but then I thought there would be sufficient opportunity for that in the future. Here, this is the cellar.

Be careful how you tread, these steps are abominable. Hallo! Why, what on earth!"

They descended the stairs; they knocked at the door, but they received no answer; they tried the door, it was locked; they looked in at the rickety window, the miserable stove, the rags, even the straw, were gone--no trace of human residence was to be seen.

It does not take long to move away from Rensselaer Street. Tode and his father were gone; and neither then nor afterward for many a day, though John Birge and his companion made earnest search, were they to be found.

The "sufficient opportunity" was gone, too, and young Birge kept no eye on the boy; but there was an All-seeing eye looking down on poor Tode all the while.

CHAPTER III.

WOLFIE.

Mr. Hastings started on a journey. It was midwinter, so he m.u.f.fled himself in overcoat and furs, and carried his great fur-lined traveling cloak, all nicely rolled and strapped, ready for extra occasions.

He was not in the very best humor when the night express reached Albany, and he had finally changed his quarters from the Central to the Hudson River Railroad. His arrangements had not been made for spending the night on the train at all; his plan was to be fairly settled under the blankets in a New York hotel by this time, but there had been detention after detention all along his route. So the great man settled himself with what grace he could, and unstrapped the fur-lined cloak, and made other preparations for pa.s.sing a night in the cars, his face, meanwhile, wearing an ominous frown.

It was not so much the sitting-up all night that troubled him, for Mr.

Hastings was in excellent health, and an excellent traveler, and really did not so much mind the fatigue; but he was a man accustomed to carrying out his plans and intentions to the very letter, and it jarred upon him to have even snow and ice audacious enough to interfere.

There were other travelers that night who had no fur-lined cloaks. One in particular, who sat near the stove, and made such good use of the dampers that Mr. Hastings had no use for his cloak, even after unstrapping it, but flung it into a great furry heap on the nearest seat behind him, and knew not then, nor ever, that the insignificant little act was one of the tiny links in the chain of circ.u.mstances that were molding Tode Mall's life.

Tode Mall started on a journey that very evening. He didn't pack his valise, nor take his overcoat, nor ride to the depot in a carriage. In fact, his father kicked him out of the cellar like a foot-ball, and bade him good-by in these words:

"There! get out. And don't let me ever see a sight of your face again."

Tode rolled over once in the snow, then got up and shook himself, and made prompt answer:

"All right! I'm agreed."

He then stuffed his hands into the ragged pockets of his ragged jacket, and marched off up town, and because he happened to roll over and come up with his face turned in the direction of the depot, is the only known reason why he walked _up_ town instead of _down_.

Apparently he didn't take his father's late treatment very much to heart.

"He's drunk," he said, philosophically. "That's what's the matter with him. In about two hours he'll be over this part of the carouse and be snoring, then I'll slip back all right, if I don't freeze beforehand.

Ain't it cold, though. I must travel faster than this."

On he went aimlessly, reached the depot presently, and followed the crowd who crossed the river, for no better reason than that a great many people seemed to be going that way. Following a portion of this same crowd brought him at last to a platform of the departing train, just as the steam-horse was giving a premonitory snort, and the official called out for the second time:

"All aboard!"