NATE TIERNEY.
The heated spell was succeeded by a week of chilling rains. These made
the children appreciate the arcade leading from the park to the
school-house, and one afternoon they were romping up and down its cement
roadway, just after school was out. Even Mrs. Hemphill's younger brood
was there, for the delight of the youngsters in their classes, which
embraced lessons in carpentry, husbandry, electrical science, cookery,
sewing, nursing, and so on, had so infected them that they simply could
not be kept at home.
Joyce's school, planned to the least detail, under the Madame's
instruction, was not quite like any other known. Text-books were used,
to be sure, and classes were, in a sort, graded, but books played a
smaller part than usual in the teachings of each day, and every task of
the pupils was so put into actual practice as to make it a lesson of
experience, if possible.
For instance, little Tirza Hemphill, before she learned to rattle off
her table of dry measure, as other school children do, had discovered
its scale for herself, by practical application. A series of measures
was set out in a row, from pint to bushel, while a great box of shelled
corn stood by, and she was told to begin with the smallest in order to
find out for herself how many times it must be emptied into the next to
fill it, and so on to the bushel. The increased size of the receptacle
here, made it necessary to take the rest on trust, but being assured by
actual measurement that the pints, quarts, and bushels were correct, she
was prepared to believe the rest.
As to the classes in needle-work, cookery, and house service, they
answered the purpose of recesses between the book lessons, and were
considered great fun by the girls, while the boys equally enjoyed their
hammering, out-door husbandry, and telegraph operating.
It took room, but they had plenty of that in Littleton, and one part of
the ample school grounds was the farm and garden. It took tools, and
they cost money, but some were very primitive, often made by the more
ingenious lads, themselves; and when Wolly of the unpronounceable
surname actually made a little wheeled cultivator, the harrow being the
tooth from a broken horse-rake, and the two wheels a relic from a
defunct doll-wagon, he was considered the hero of the school. It took a
stove and kitchen, but they used the one in the Social-house, going to
and fro in procession, with a teacher in charge.
It was indeed a novel school, and one just out from a stiff, starched,
eastern graded Grammar school might have raised his hands in holy
horror. Still there was no lack of method, nor of discipline, and each
class, be it held out-doors or in, was made to understand that good work
was required. All was orderly enough, even when the noon class went
through the ceremony of serving a neat meal, and eating it in quiet
decency.
The older pupils were intensely interested in the banking class, the
teacher acting as president, and two or three being chosen as cashier,
teller, and clerk. They were furnished with neatly stamped coins and
bills, such as are sold for toy money, and the rest of the class became
depositors and learned how to draw and deposit, to count readily, to
make change, to make out checks, to compute interest, discount bills,
buy drafts, etc., etc.
Once Mr. Dalton asked Joyce, with that cynicism which belonged to him,
"Why do you have the poor little beggars taught this sort of business?
That they may learn to value the money they may never possess?" and she
had flashed around upon him with the answer,
"They will possess it! Do you for an instant believe our scholars are to
be kept in bondage to one solitary trade? They will not all be
glass-blowers, I can promise you."
In fact, already these little financiers were substituting real money
for the spurious pretense, and Saturday mornings they came to deposit
their penny savings in the bank kept by their teacher, or to draw, with
interest, their savings of weeks. In order to encourage frugality, this
interest was compounded, after the principal had been left in bank for
three months, silver to be returned where only copper had been
deposited. Behind all this stood Joyce's useful millions and the
Madame's guiding hand.
It was not a great while before the mothers began to come in with their
petty savings, also, and after a long talk with Mr. Barrington, one day,
a real banking institution was incorporated, with the stock issued in
dollar shares. Mr. Barrington, as president, headed the list of
stockholders with a hundred, Miss Lavillotte following with
seventy-five, while Mr. Dalton, Madame Bonnivel, and Larry Driscoll were
all down for fifty, or less.
It was a delightful little bank, where pennies stood for dollars, where
everyone had confidence in everybody else, where no other banks could
make or break, and where the assets were so in excess of the liabilities
that it could not be touched by panic. Every three months there was to
be a change of clerks, though the officers were retained. This was to
give each scholar an opportunity of learning all the practical routine
of a bank, also, to offer facilities for the handling and counting of
money.
I have enlarged upon the bank more than its relative importance
warrants. Really, the domestic economy classes were given greater
prominence in the school, and the changes these well-taught children
gradually introduced into their sordid home life were many and
excellent.
Mother Flaherty was so electrified over the tin of light, sweet rolls
her little grand-daughter made for supper, one evening, that she caught
it up with the dish-towel and ran a block to Mrs. Hemphill's, to display
the golden-brown beauties before allowing one of the family to touch
them. But, a few days later, Mrs. Hemphill, not to be outdone, invited
Mother Flaherty in to tea, and they were served to a neat little meal by
Tirza and Polly, where every article, from the smoking-hot croquettes to
the really delicate custard and cakes, was the work of these two little
girls. It was an honest rivalry, which hurt nobody, and the men, better
fed at their evening meal, began to linger at home to join in the
children's geographical and other games, picked up at school, or to
accompany their families over to the Social-house, to listen to the
orchestra made up of their older sons, to hear Miss Lavillotte play and
sing, to witness an exhibition of kinetoscope pictures, or sometimes
just to meet other friends and simply bask in the light and ease of the
pretty rooms. They almost forgot Lon's place, even, as they gazed
contentedly about, and enjoyed the bright open fire in the immense hall
grate, which these cool nights made welcome.
While the pendulum of our narrative has been swinging back and forth
through these many months of effort, the children whom we left playing
in the arcade are still awaiting us, enjoying their out-door freedom,
but well protected by its roof from the damp weather. Their modes of
playing are not quite the same as those of a year ago. There is
boisterousness, to be sure, but less cruelty, and far less profanity.
The dogs join merrily in the frolics, now, with no dread of old tin-can
attachments, and even little crippled Dosey Groesbeck lingers about on
his crutches, not expecting them to be knocked from under him, as used
to be the case.
They are cleaner, also, for it is not true that the poor naturally love
dirt. They get used to it, because often they have no conveniences for
bathing, and sometimes every drop of water must be sought at a distant
hydrant, and carried up two or three rickety flights of stairs before
available for use. This makes it so precious that they learn to do
without it. Joyce never forgot the picture of one little waif of two
years, brought in from the streets, taking its first warm bath in a tub,
an embodiment of delight, splashing, laughing, dipping, screaming, in a
very ecstasy of happiness. Repeatedly, the attendant tried to remove
her, only to yield to her cries and entreaties against her own judgment,
until the little creature had to be forcibly removed and consoled with a
new wonder--a delicious cup of warm, creamy milk in which sweet cracker
had been crumbled. Accepting her change of heavens with tranquillity,
the new Ariadne fell asleep in the warm enveloping blanket, worn out
with sheer pleasure.
So the Littleton children, having the bathing facilities of the rich, if
not on so gorgeous a scale, were a really trim, decent lot to-day, and
their merry voices reached Nate Tierney, going rapidly along the street,
outside, making him waver, hesitate, then turn in, with a smile on his
honest face. He was a favorite with the younglings. With cries of "Nate!
Nate!" "Hello, Nate!" "Be on my side, Nate!" they surrounded him, and
dragged him into their game of Indian-and-white man, a willing captive.
"Well now," he laughed, "do you think it's quite fair to turn a feller
into an injun off hand, like that? However, if I've got to be one, I'll
be an awful one, you bet: A red, ramping, roaring old Apache, that'll
think nothing o' scalping and tomahawking everything he can ketch. Be
off now, or I'll snatch the whole pack of you, and make you run the
gauntlet. One--two--three--GO."
They were off, shrieking with excited fun, all white men for the minute,
with one big Indian driving them before him. The arcade could not
contain them in this wild rush for safety, and they streamed into and
across the park, Nate at their backs, giving the most approved Apache
war-whoop between his shouts of laughter.
As he stopped in the street beyond, out of breath, calling merrily,
between his gasps, that they weren't playing fair to run so far and
leave him all alone, he noticed his friend, Hapgood, just turning in at
the door of his now neat cottage, further down the block. He stopped
yelling to give the man a critical stare.
"Off his base a bit, hey?" he muttered. "Stepped into Lon's as he come
by, and didn't stop at one glass, nuther. If Bill warn't sech an
all-round good feller I'd call him a fool! A man 'ts got jest a wife
might look into a glass now and then. Like as not she could bring him to
time, if he went too far. When he's got wife and children both, he
oughter go it easy and stop off short and quick; but when he's got
children and no wife, and just a slim little gal like Lucy to look after
things, why, he ought never even to look toward a green door? I ain't no
teetotaller, goodness knows! But men 't ain't got no sense oughtn't to
be fathers. Guess that's why I'm an old bach," laughing a little.
The children, swarming back with taunting cries, broke in upon his
meditations, and dragged him into one more race. He was bounding nimbly
after them, the young pack in full cry, when he saw something that froze
his blood, and stopped him as suddenly as if by a wall of rock. It was
Lucy, wild-eyed and white-faced, dashing out of the house-door, while
close at her heels raced her father, a stick of stove wood raised in
air, as if to strike. Liquor and passion had made him an utter maniac
for the minute. Clasped close in the poor girl's arms was the little
baby, its head pressed so tightly against her breast that it could not
cry out. Lucy, flying for life, was evidently too spent and breathless
to make a sound, either.
With a hoarse cry of horror, Nate took a great leap forward and flung
himself, with the fury of a mad bull, between the girl and her natural
protector, meeting Hapgood's onslaught with head down and hands
extended. The latter, blind with his insensate fury, plunged ahead,
unable to stop himself if he would. It looked as if Nate's skull would
be laid open with the billet of wood.
But just as Hapgood would have felled the obstruction, neither knowing
nor caring what it might be, he stubbed his toe and went down like a
log, the stick flying out of his hand, and hitting the ground harmlessly
just beyond. In an instant Nate had grasped it, and stood over the
prostrate inebriate in his turn. It is well said, "Beware the fury of a
patient man." Slow Nate Tierney was white to his lips, now, beneath the
bronze of years, and the knotted veins of his temples throbbed
perceptibly. For perhaps the first time in his life he was thoroughly
angry.
"Lie there, you brute! You scum!" he cried in a deep harsh voice,
unrecognizable as his own. "You'll chase your own children, will you?
You'll hit your little Lucy with sticks like this, will you? And she
savin' the poor baby in her arms. Dog! I've a mind to brain you where
you lie."
The scared children, looking on, wondered if this could indeed be Nate.
The drunken man on the ground, winking and blinking through bleared
eyes, tried to remember if he had ever seen that marble-faced avenger
before. Lucy, peering fearfully through the front window behind locked
doors, hardly knew which to dread the more, her passionate unreasoning
father, or this new and strange edition of her good-natured old friend.
Nobody spoke or moved for an instant, while Nate stood there, the man's
life in his hand, then slowly he lowered the uplifted weapon, caught
Hapgood by the collar, and dragged him to his feet.
"I won't soil my hands with the killing of you, Bill Hapgood!" he
muttered. "The cage is the place for mad dogs, and there you go. Now
march!"
"Now Nate, what you up to?" whined the other, pretty well sobered by all
this. "Le' go o' me, can't you? 'Tain't any of your funerals, is it?"
"It may be if I kill you," was the grim answer. "March!" and he gave the
wretched Hapgood a smart tap with his improvised billy that sent him on
several paces.
Then, to his utter discomfiture, out popped Lucy, red with indignation.
"Nate Tierney, what you doing with my father? Where you going to take
him to? Let him alone, I say. Let him alone!" Her voice rang out
shrilly, as she came forward, trembling with anger, and her
knight-errant looked up at her in a daze of wonderment. Could this be
Lucy?
"I'm a-goin' to take him where he won't have a chance at you again very
soon, child," he answered gently. "I'm a-goin' to put him in the
lock-up."
"The lock-up!" shrieked Lucy.
"The lock-up?" yelled the children.
"The lock-up!" roared the prisoner, galvanized into action by this
supreme horror. With one mighty effort he wrenched himself loose and
turned upon Nate, fighting like a tiger.
It was a short battle. Taken by surprise Tierney was for a minute
overpowered, but as he felt his only weapon, the stick, slipping from
his grasp he put forth all his strength and caught it back with a
desperate grip. Half fallen backward in the struggle he made a wild pass
in the air. He heard a crashing noise that seemed to rend his own soul
apart. Then the thud of a heavy body as it fell. And then, heaven and
earth seemed to stand still for one awful minute as, feeling no further
resistance, he raised himself and looked down upon his friend, William
Hapgood. Inert and still he lay, with his skull crushed in just above
the left temporal bone.