"It's all right, mudda, isn't it?"
He asked this after their campaign had been carried on for a good part
of a year, and when they were nearing Christmas. He was now supposed
to be seven. For reasons he could not explain the great game lost its
zest. In as far as he understood himself he hated the sneaking and the
secrecy. He hated the lying too, but lying was so much a part of their
everyday life that he might as well have hated bread.
"Of course it's all right," his mother snapped. "Haven't I said so time
and again? We get away with it, don't we? And if it wasn't all right we
shouldn't be able to do that."
Silenced by this reasoning, even if something in his heart was not
convinced by it, he prepared for the harvest of the festival. Christmas
was an exciting time, even to Tom Coburn. Perhaps it was more exciting
to him than to other boys, since he had so much to do with shops. As
long ago as the middle of November he had noted the first stirrings
of new energy. After that he had watched the degrees through which
they had ripened to a splendor in which toys, books, skis, skates,
sleds, and all the paraphernalia of young joyousness, made a bright
thing of the world. Where there was so much, the profusion went beyond
desire. One of these objects at a time, or two, or three, might have
found him envious; but he couldn't cope with such abundance. He could
concentrate, therefore, all the more on the pair of fur-lined mittens
which his mother promised him, if, as she expressed it, they could haul
it off.
By Christmas Eve they had not done so. They had hauled off other
things--a purse, a lady's shopping bag, several towels, a selection of
pen-trays, some pairs of stockings, a bottle of shoe-polish, a baby's
collapsible rubber bathtub, a hair-brush, an electric toaster, with
other articles of no great interest to a little boy. Moreover, only
some of these things were for personal use; the rest would be sold
discreetly after the next moving. It was in the nature of the case that
such grist as came to their mill should be more or less as it happened.
They could pick, but they couldn't choose, at least to no more than a
limited degree. Fur-lined mittens didn't come their way.
The little boy's heart began to ache with a great fear. Perhaps he
shouldn't get them. Unless he got them by Christmas Day the spell of
the occasion would be gone. To get them a week later wouldn't be the
same thing. It would not be Christmas. He couldn't remember having kept
a Christmas hitherto. He couldn't remember ever having longed for what
might be called an article of luxury. The yearning was new to him, and
because new, it consumed him. Whenever he thought that the happiness
might after all elude him he had to grind his teeth to keep back a sob,
but he could not prevent the filling of his eyes with tears.
It was not only Christmas Eve but late in the day before the mother
found her opportunity. At half-past five the counter where fur-lined
mittens were displayed was crowded with poor women who hadn't had
the money or the time to make their purchases earlier. In among them
pressed Tom Coburn's mother, making her selection, and asking the price.
"Now where's that boy? His hands grow so quick that I can't be sure of
anything without trying them on."
With a despairing smile at the saleswoman, she followed her usual
tactics of being elbowed from the counter, while she looked about
vainly for the boy. At the right moment she slipped into the pushing,
struggling mass of tired women, where she could count on being no
more remarked than a single crow in a flock. The mittens were in the
muff which was the prize of an earlier expedition. At a side door the
boy was waiting where she had left him. Without pausing for words she
whispered commandingly.
"Come along quick."
He went along quick, but also happily, projecting himself into the
"surprise" to which he would wake on Christmas morning.
They had reached the sidewalk when a hand was laid on the mother's
shoulder.
"Will you come back a minute, please?"
The words were so polite that for the first few seconds the boy was not
alarmed. A lady was speaking, a lady like any other lady, unless it was
that her manner was quieter, more forceful, more sure of itself, than
he was accustomed to among women. But what he never forgot during all
the rest of his life was the look on his mother's face. As he came to
analyze it later it was one of inner surrender. She had come to the
point which she had long foreseen as her objective. She had reached the
end. But in spite of surrender, and though she grew bloodlessly pale,
she was still determined to show fight.
"What do you want me for?"
"If you'll step this way I'll tell you."
"I don't know that I care to do that. I'm going home."
"You'd better come quietly. You won't gain anything by making a fuss."
A second lady, also forceful and sure of herself, having joined them
they pushed their way back through the throng. At the glove counter a
place was made for them. The saleswoman was beckoned to. The woman who
had stopped them at the door continued to take the lead.
"Now, will you show us what you've got in your muff?"
She produced the mittens. "Yes, I have got these. I bought and paid for
them."
The saleswoman gave her account of the incident. Women shoppers
gathered round. Floorwalkers came up.
"It's a lie; it's a lie!" the boy heard his mother cry out, as the girl
behind the counter told her tale. "If I didn't pay for them it was
because I forgot. Here's the money. I'll pay for them now. What do you
take me for?"
"No; you won't pay for them now. That's not the way we do business.
Just come along this way."
"I'm not going nowheres else. If you won't take the money you can go
without it. Leave me alone, and let me take my little boy home."
Her voice had the screaming helplessness of women in the grasp of
forces without pity. A floorwalker laid his hand on her shoulder,
compelling her to turn round.
"Don't you touch me," she shouted. "If I've got to go anywheres I can
go without your tearing the clothes off my back, can't I?"
For the little boy it was the last touch of humiliation. Rushing at the
floorwalker, he kicked him in the shins.
"Don't you hit my mudda. I won't let you."
A second floorwalker held the youngster back. Some of the crowd
laughed. Others declared it a monstrous thing that women of the sort
should have such fine-looking children.
Presently they were surging through the crowd again, toward a back
region of the premises. The boy, not crying but panting as if spent by
a long race, held his mother by the skirt; on the other side one of the
forceful women had her by the arm. He saw that his mother's hat had
been knocked to one side, and that a mesh of her dark hair had broken
loose. He remembered this picture, and how the shoppers, wherever they
passed, made a lane for them, shocked by the sight of their disgrace.
They came to an office, where their party, his mother, himself, the two
forceful women, and two floorwalkers, were shut in with an elderly man
who sat behind a desk. It was still the first of the forceful women who
took the lead.
"Mr. Corning, we've caught this woman shop-lifting."
"I haven't been," the boy heard his mother deny. "Honest to God, I
haven't been."
"We've been watching her for some time past," the forceful woman
continued, "but we never managed before to get her with the goods."
The elderly man was gray, pale-eyed, and mild-mannered. He listened
while the story was given him in detail.
"I'm afraid we must give you in charge," he said, gently, when the
facts were in.
"No, don't do that, don't do that," she implored, tearfully. "I've got
my little boy. He can't do without me."
"He hasn't done very well with you, has he?" the elderly man reasoned.
"A woman who's taught a boy of that age to steal...."
He was interrupted by the coming in of a policeman, summoned by
telephone. At sight of him the unhappy woman gave a loud inarticulate
gasp of terror. All that for seven years she had dreaded seemed now
about to come true. The boy felt terror too, but the knowledge that his
mother needed him nerved him to be a man.
"Don't you be afraid, mudda. If they put you in jail I'll go to jail
too. I won't let them take me away from you."
"You'd better come with me, missus," the policeman said, with gruff
kindliness, when the situation was explained to him. "The kid can come
too. 'Twon't be so bad. Lots of these cases. You'll live through it all
right, and it'll learn you to keep straight. One of these days you may
be glad that it happened."
They went out through a dimly lighted passageway, clogged with parcels
and packing-cases which men were loading into drays. It was dark by
this time, the streets being lighted as at night. The police-station
was not far away, and to it they were led through a series of byways
in which there were few foot-passengers. The policeman allowed them
to walk in front of him, so that the connection was not too obvious.
The boy held his mother's hand, which clutched at his with a nervous
loosening and tightening of the fingers. As the situation was beyond
words they made no attempt to speak.
"This way."
Within the police-station the officer turned them to the right, where
they entered a small bare room. Brilliantly lighted with unshaded
electrics, its glare was fierce upon the eyes. At a plain oak desk a
man in uniform was seated with a ledger in front of him. Another man in
uniform standing near the door picked his teeth to kill time.
"Shoplifting case," was the simple introduction of the party.
They stood before the man at the desk, who dipped his pen in the ink,
and barely glanced at them. What to the boy and his mother was as the
end of the world was to him all in the day's work.
"Name?"
She gave her name distinctly, and less to the lad's surprise than if
she hadn't often used pseudonyms. "Mrs. Theodore Whitelaw."
"Address?"
She gave the address correctly.
"Boy's name?"
She spoke carefully, as one who had prepared her statements. "He's been
known as Thomas Coburn. He's really Thomas Whitelaw. His father was my
second husband."
"If he's your second husband's child why is he called by your first
husband's name?"
She was prepared here too. "Because I'd given up using my second
husband's name. I was unhappily married."
"Is he dead?"
"Yes, he is."
Never having heard before so much of his private history, the boy
registered it all. It was exactly the sort of detail for which he had
been eager. It explained too that name of Whitelaw, allusions to which
had puzzled him. He was so engrossed by the fact that he was not Tom
Coburn but Tom Whitelaw as hardly to listen while it was explained
to his mother that she would spend the night in the Female House of
Detention, and be brought before the magistrate in the morning. If the
boy had no friends to whom to send him he would be well taken care of
elsewhere.
The phlegm to which she had for a few minutes schooled herself broke
down. "Oh, can't I keep him with me? He'll cry his eyes out without me."
She was given to understand that no child above the nursing age could
be put in prison even for its mother's sake. From his reverie as to Tom
Whitelaw he waked to what was passing.
"But I won't leave my mudda," he wailed, loudly. "I want to go to jail."
The kindly policeman put his arm about the boy's shoulder.
"You'll go to jail, sonny, when your time comes, if you set the right
way to work. Your momma's only going to spend the night, and I'll see
to it that you----"
In a side of the room a door opened noiselessly. A woman, wearing a
uniform, with a bunch of keys hanging at her side, stood there like
a Fate. She was a grave woman, strongly built, and with something
inexorable in her eyes. Even the boy guessed who she was, throwing
himself against her, and crying out, "Go 'way! go 'way! You won't take
my mudda away from me."
But the folly of resistance became evident. The mother herself
understood it so. Walking up to the woman with the keys, she said in an
undertone:
"For God's sake get me out of this. I can't look on while he breaks his
little heart. He's always been an angel."
That was all. She gave no backward look. Before the boy knew what was
about to happen, she had passed into a corridor, and the door had
closed behind her.
She was gone. He was left with these strange men. The need for being
brave was not unknown to him. Not unknown to him was the power of
calling to his aid a secret strength which had already carried him
through tight places. He could only express it to himself in the words
that he mustn't cry. Crying had come to stand for everything cowardly
and babyish. He was so prone to do it that the struggle against it
was the hardest he had to make. He struggled against it now; but he
struggled vainly. He was all alone. Even the three policemen were
talking together, while he stood deserted, and futile. His lips
quivered in spite of himself. The tears gathered. Disgraced as he was
anyhow, this weakness disgraced him more.
The room had an empty corner. Straight into it he walked, and turned
his back, his face within the angle. The head with an old cap on it
was bowed. The sturdy shoulders, muffled in a cheap top-coat, heaved
up and down. But the legs in their knickerbockers were both straight
and strong, and the feet firmly planted on the floor. Except for an
occasional strangled sound which he couldn't control, he betrayed
himself by nothing audible.
The three policemen, all of them fathers, glanced at him, but forbore
to glance at one another. One of them tried to say, "Poor kid!" but the
words stuck in his throat. It was the kindly fellow who had brought the
lad and the woman there who recovered himself first.
"All right, then, boys. The Swindon Street Home. One of you can 'phone
that we're on the way." He went over and laid his hand on the child's
shoulder. "Say, sonny, I'm goin' to take you out to see the Christmas
Tree."
The thought was a happy one. Tom Coburn had never seen any Christmas
Trees, though he had often heard of them. He had specially heard of the
community Christmas Tree which was new that year in that particular
city. It was to be a splendid sight, and against the fascination of
splendor even grief was not wholly proof. He looked shyly round, an
incredible wonder in his tear-stained, upturned face.
In the street they walked hand in hand, pausing now and then to admire
some brightly lighted window. The boy was in fairyland, but in spite of
fairyland long deep sighs welled up from the springs of his loneliness
and sorrow. To distract him the policeman took him into a druggist's
and bought him a cone of ice-cream. The boy licked it gratefully, as
they made their way to the open space consecrated to the Tree.
The night was brisk and frosty; the sky clear. In the streets there was
movement, light, gayety. At a spot on a bit of pavement a vendor was
showing a dancing toy, round which some scores of idlers were gathered.
The dancing was so droll that the little boy laughed. The policeman
bought him one.
When they came to the Christmas Tree the lad was in ecstasy. Nothing he
had ever dreamed of equalled these fruits of many-colored fires. A band
was playing, and suddenly the multitude broke into song.
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem!
Even the policeman joined in, humming the refrain in Latin.
Venite, adoremus;
Venite, adoremus;
Venite, adoremus,
Dominum.
Passing thus through marvels they came to the Swindon Street Home.
The night-nurse, warned by telephone, was expecting them. She was a
motherly woman who had once had a child, and knew well this precise
situation.
"Oh, come in, you poor little boy! Have you had your supper?"
He hadn't had his supper, though the cone of ice-cream had stilled the
worst pangs of hunger.
"Then you shall have some; and after that I'll put you in a nice comfy
bed."
"He's a fine kid," the policeman commended, before going away, "and
won't give you no trouble, will you, sonny?"
The boy caught him by the hand, looking up pleadingly into his face, as
if he would have kept him. But the policeman had children of his own,
and this was Christmas Eve.
"See you again, sonny," he said, cheerily, as he went out, "and a merry
Christmas!"
The night matron knew by experience all the sufferings of little boys
homesick for mothers who have got into trouble. She had dealt with them
by the hundred.
"Now, dear, while Mrs. Lamson is getting your supper we'll go to the
washroom and you'll wash your face and hands. Then you'll feel more
like eating, won't you?"
Deprived of his policeman, despair would have settled on him again,
had it not been for the night matron's hearty voice. The deeper his
woe, and it was very deep, the less he could resist friendliness. Just
as in that first agony, when he was only eight months old, he had
turned to the only love available, so now he yielded again. He was
not reconciled; he was not even comforted; he was only responsive and
grateful, thus getting the strength to go on.
Going on was only in letting the night matron scrub his face and hands,
and submitting patiently. As they went from the washroom to the dining
room he held her by the hand. He did this first because he couldn't
let her go, and then because the halls were big and bare and dark.
Never had he been in any place so vast, or so impersonal. He was used
to strangeness, as they moved so often, but not to strangeness on so
immense a scale. It was a relief to him, because it brought in a note
of hominess, to hear from an upper floor a forlorn little baby cry.
His supper toned him up. He could speak of his great sorrow. While the
night matron sat with him and helped him to porridge he asked, suddenly:
"Will they let me go to jail and stay with my mudda to-morrow?"
"You see, dear, your mother may not be in jail to-morrow. Perhaps
she'll be let out, and then you can go home with her."
"They didn't ought to put her in. I'm big. I could work for her, and
then she wouldn't have to take things no more."
"But bless you, darling, you'll be able to work for her as it is. They
won't keep her very long--not so very long--and I'll look after you
till she comes out. After that...."
"What's your name?" he asked, solemnly, as if he wished to nail her to
the bargain.
"Mrs. Crewdson's my name. I'm a widow. I like little boys. I like you
especially. I think we're going to be friends."
As a proof of this she took him to her own room, instead of to a
dormitory, where she gave him a bath, found a clean night-shirt which,
being too big, descended to his feet, and put him to sleep in a cot she
kept on purpose for homeless little children in danger of being too
lonely.
"You see, dear," she explained to him, "I don't go to bed all night. I
stay up to look after all the little children--there are a lot of them
in this house--who may want something. So you needn't be afraid. I'll
leave a light burning, and I'll be in and out all the time. If you wake
up and hear a noise, you'll know that that'll be me going about in the
rooms, but mostly I'll be in this room. Now, don't you want to say your
prayers?"
He didn't want to say his prayers because he had never said any. She
suggested, therefore, that he should kneel on the bed, put his hands
together, and repeat the words she told him to say, as she sat on the
edge of the cot.
"Dear God"--"Dear God"--"take care of me to-night"--"take care
of me to-night"--"and take care of my dear mother"--"and take
care of my dear mudda"--"and make us happy again"--"and make
us happy again"--"for Jesus Christ's sake"--"for Jesus Christ's
sake"--"Amen"--"Amen."
"God's up in the sky, isn't He?" he asked, as he hugged his dancing toy
to him and let her cover him up.
"God's everywhere where there's love, it seems to me, dear. I bring a
little bit of God to you, and you bring a little bit of God to me; and
so we have Him right here. That's a good thought to go to sleep on,
isn't it? So good-night, dear."
She kissed him as she supposed his mother would have done. He threw his
arms about her neck, drawing her face close to his. "Good night, dear,"
he whispered back, and almost before she rose from the bedside she knew
he was asleep.
Somewhere toward morning she came into the room and found him sitting
up in his cot.
"Will it soon be daytime, Mrs. Crewdson?"
"Yes, dear; not so very long now."
"And when daytime comes could I go to the jail?"
"Not too early, dear. They wouldn't let you in."
"Oh, but I don't want to go in. I only want to stand outside. Then if
my mudda looks out of the window, she'll see her little boy."
Throwing herself on her knees, she clasped him in her arms. "Oh, you
darling! How I wish God had given me a little son like you! I did have
one--he would have been just your age--only I--I lost him."
Touched by this tribute to himself, as well as by his friend's
bereavement, he brought out a fine manly phrase he had long been
saving for an adequate occasion.
"The hell you did, Mrs. Crewdson!"
Having thus expressed his sympathy, he nestled down to sleep again,
hugging his dancing toy.