Calvary Alley Part 7

The boy stood staring miserably at the wall with eyes in which fear and hurt pride struggled for mastery.

"Yer Honor!" the policeman broke in. "It's three times lately I've found him sleepin' in doorways after midnight. Him and the gang is a bad lot, yer Honor, a sc.r.a.ppin' an' hoppin' freights an' swipin' junk, an' one thing an' another."

"I never swiped no junk," Dan said hopelessly, "I never swiped nothink in my life."

"Is there no definite charge against this boy?"

"Well, sir," said Mason, "he is always a-climbin' up the steeple of the cathedral."

Dan, sullen, frightened, and utterly unable to defend himself, looked from the officer to the janitor with the wide, distrustful eyes of a cornered coyote.

Suddenly a voice spoke out in his behalf, a shrill, protesting, pa.s.sionate voice.

"He ain't no worser nor n.o.body else! Ast Mammy, ast Uncle Jed! He's got to sleep somewheres when his maw fergits to come home! Ever'body goes an'

picks on Danny 'cause he ain't got n.o.body to take up fer him. 'T ain't fair!" Nance ended her tirade in a burst of tears.

"There, there," said the judge, "it's going to be fair this time. You stop crying now and tell me your name?"

"Nance Molloy," she gulped, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

"How old are you?"

"'Leven, goin' on twelve."

"Well, take that gum out of your mouth and stop crying."

He consulted his papers and then looked at her over his gla.s.ses.

"Nancy," he said, "are you in the habit of slipping into the cathedral when the janitor is not around?"

"Yes, sir."

"What for?"

"Lookin' at the pretties, an' seein' if there's any nickels under the seats."

"You want to buy candy, I suppose?"

"No, sir, a bureau."

Even the tired-looking probation officer looked up and smiled.

"What does a little girl like you want with a bureau?" asked the judge.

"So's I won't have to keep me duds under the bed."

"That's a commendable ambition. But what about these other charges; truancy from school, fighting with the boys, throwing mud, and so on?"

"I never th'ow mud, 'ceptin' when I'm th'owin' back," explained Nance.

"A nice distinction," said the judge. "Is this child's mother present?"

Mrs. Snawdor, like a current that has been restrained too long, surged eagerly forward, and overflowed her conversational banks completely.

"Well, I ain't exactly her mother, but I'm just the same as her mother.

You ast anybody in Calvary Alley. Ast Mr. Burks here, ast Mrs. Smelts what I been to her ever since she was a helpless infant baby. When Bud Molloy lay dyin' he says to the brakeman, 'You tell my wife to be good to Nance,'"

"So she's your stepchild?"

"Yes, sir, an' Bud Molloy was as clever a man as ever trod shoe-leather.

So was Mr. Yager. n.o.body can't say I ever had no trouble with my two first. They wasn't what you might call as smart a man as Snawdor, but they wasn't no fool."

It was a peculiarity of Mrs. Snawdor's that she always spoke of her previous husbands as one, notwithstanding the fact that the virtues which she attributed to them could easily have been distributed among half a dozen.

"Well, well," said the judge impatiently, "what have you to say about the character of this little girl?"

Mrs. Snawdor s.h.i.+fted her last husband's hat from the right side of her head to the left, and began confidentially:

"Well I'll tell you, Jedge, Nance ain't so bad as whut they make her out.

She's got her faults. I ain't claimin' she ain't. But she ain't got a drop of meanness in her, an' that's more than I can say for some grown folks present." Mrs. Snawdor favored Mr. Mason with such a sudden and blighting glance that the janitor quailed visibly.

"Do you have trouble controlling her?" asked the judge.

"Nothin' to speak of. She's a awful good worker, Nance is, when you git her down to it. But her trouble is runnin'. Let anything happen in the alley, an' she's up an' out in the thick of it. I'm jes' as apt to come home an' find her playin' ball with the baby in her arms, as not. But I don't have to dress her down near as often as I used to."

"Then you wouldn't say she was a bad child?"

Mrs. Snawdor's emphatic negative was arrested in the utterance by Mr.

Mason's accusing eye.

"Well, I never seen no child that was a angel," she compromised.

"Does Nancy go to school?" the judge asked.

"Well, I was threatenin' her the other day, if she didn't behave herself, I was goin' to start her in again."

"I ain't been sence Christmas," volunteered Nance, still sniffling.

"You shet yer mouth," requested Mrs. Snawdor with great dignity.

"Why hasn't she been to school since Christmas?" the judge proceeded sternly.

"Well, to tell you the truth, it was on account of Mr. Snawdor. He got mad 'bout the vaccination. He don't believe in it. Says it gives you the rheumatism. He's got a iron ring on ever' one of the childern. Show yours to the jedge, Nance! He says ef they has to vaccinate 'em to educate 'em, they ain't goin' to de neither one."

"But don't you know that we have compulsory education in this State?

Hasn't the truant officer been to see you?"

Mrs. Snawdor looked self-conscious and cast down her eyes.