Read Ebook: Three People by Pansy

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1726 lines and 86476 words, and 35 pages

The neighbor watcher was the first to break the stillness.

"Well, I never in all my life!" she ejaculated, 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 pushing 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 sturdy 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?"

"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?"

"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 assist in rescuing the waif, but won't it do to-morrow?"

"I presume so. We'll go to-morrow after class, 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 circumstances 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.

WOLFIE.

Mr. Hastings started on a journey. It was midwinter, so he muffled 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 passing 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 circumstances 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."

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!"

"No, we ain't exactly," said Tode. "But it wouldn't take long to get aboard if that is what you want, particularly if you've got a fire in there."

And he peered curiously in at the drowsy passengers. It was just at this point that Mr. Hastings threw his furry cloak away from him, and settled among his other wraps for a night's rest. The action caught Tode's eye.

"My! ain't that fellow comfortable?" chuckled he to himself. "Got a wolf there that he don't appear to need. If he'd lend it to me I wouldn't mind keeping him company for a spell. S'pose I try it?"

And suiting the action to the word he pushed open the door, and walked boldly forward among the sleepy people, halted at the stove, and while the delicious sense of warmth crept slowly over him he kept one eye on Mr. Hastings until he felt sure, just as the train got fairly into motion, that the gentleman had fairly commenced his nap, then he slid himself into the empty seat, and used his hands and his wits in so disposing of the "wolf" that it would cover his cuddled up body completely, and at the same time look like nothing but an innocent cloak thrown carelessly on the seat; and he chuckled as distinctly as he dared when he heard the conductor's voice calling "tickets" to the sleepy people, and presently the door opened, and shut with a slam, and the silence that followed showed that he considered his business with that car finished.

And Tode went straightway to the land of dreams. The night wore on, the restless traveler near the stove dozed and wakened and attended to the dampers, thereby all unknowingly contributing his mite to Tode's warm journey. The train halted now and again at a station, and a few sleepy people stumbled off, and a few wide-awake ones came on, but still seats were comparatively plenty and no one disturbed the fur cloak. In the course of time Tode's sleep grew less sound; he twisted around as much as his limits would allow, and punched an imaginary bed-fellow with his elbow, muttering meanwhile:

"Keep still now. Which of you is joggling?"

The joggling continued, and at last the boy twisted and punched himself awake and into a sitting posture, and finally the look of unmixed astonishment with which he took in his surroundings, gave way to one of unmistakable fun.

"Here's a go!" he at last informed himself. "I've come a journey and no mistake; made a night of it sure as I live. Lucky I waked up first of this crowd. If somebody had sat down on Wolfie now by mistake, there might have been trouble. Guess I'll look about me."

"Who are you with, my lad?"

Tode chuckled inwardly at this question, but added promptly enough,

"A man in there," nodding his head toward the car which contained Mr. Hastings.

"Humph! the man must be crazy to let his servant travel in such a suit as that in this bitter weather."

This remark was addressed to his companion as the two passed into the next car. Tode chuckled outright this time; he had a new idea.

"That's the talk," he informed himself. "I'm his servant; just it prezackly--much obliged. I hadn't thought of that arrangement before, but I like the plan first rate. Maybe Wolfie and I will get another night or so together by the means."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet