"That's what I used to say the first few times they pinched me; but
yer'll jolly well have to go if they send yer. Now what I was thinkin'
is this. It's in New York State that yer'd be a State ward. If you
was out o' this State there'd be all kinds o' laws that couldn't git
yer back again. Onst when I'd been doin' a bit o' socializin' in New
Jersey, and slipped back to Manhattan--well, you wouldn't believe the
fuss it took to git me across the river when the p'lice got wind it was
me. Never got me back at all! Thing died out before they was able to
fix up all the coulds and couldn'ts of the lor."
He allowed the boy to think this over before going on with his
suggestion.
"Now if you and me was to light out together to another State, they
wouldn't notice that we'd gone before we was safe beyond their
clutches. If we was to go to Boston, say! Boston's a good town. I
worked Boston onst, me and a chap named...."
The boy felt called on to speak. "I wouldn't be a socialist, not if it
gave me all Boston for my own."
The statement, coming as it did, had the vigor of an ultimatum.
Though but a repetition of what he had said a few days before, it was
a repetition with more force. It was also with more significance,
fundamentally laying down a condition which need not be discussed again.
After long silence Mr. Honeybun spoke somewhat wistfully. "Well, I
dunno as I'd count that agin yer. I sometimes thinks as I'll quit bein'
a socialist meself. Seems to me as if I'd like to git back with the old
gang, and be what they calls a orthodock. You know what a orthodock is,
don't yer?"
"It's a kind of religion, isn't it?"
"It ain't so much a kind of religion as it's a kind o' way o' thinkin'.
You're a orthodock when you don't think at all. Them what ain't got no
mind of their own, what just believes and talks and votes and lives the
way they're told to, they're the orthodocks. It don't matter whether
it's religion or politics or lor or livin', the people who don't know
nothink but just obeys other people what don't know nothink, is the
kind that gits into the least trouble."
"Yes, but what do you want to be like that for? You _have_ got a mind
of your own."
"Well, there's a good deal to be said, Kiddy. First there's you."
"Oh, if it's only me...."
"Yes, but when I'm yer next o' kin it isn't on'y you; it's you first
and last. I got to bring you up an orthodock, if I'm going to bring you
up at all. Yer can't think for yerself yet. You're too young. Stands to
reason. Why, I was twenty, and very near a trained gasfitter, before
I'd begun thinkin' on me own. What yer does when yer're growed up'll be
no concern o' mine. But till you _are_ growed up...."
Tom had heard of quicksands, and often dreamed that he was being
engulfed in one. He had the sensation now. Circumstances having pushed
him where he would not have ventured of his own accord, the treacherous
ground was swallowing him up. He couldn't help liking Honey Lem, since
he liked everyone in the world who was good to him; he was glad of his
society in these lonely nights, and of the sense of his comradeship
in the background even in the day; but between this gratitude and a
lifelong partnership he found a difference. There were so many reasons
why he didn't want permanent association with this fairy godfather, and
so many others why he couldn't find the heart to tell him so! He was
casting about for a method of escape when the fairy godfather continued.
"This 'ere socialism is ahead of its time. People don't understand
it. It don't do to be ahead o' yer time, not too far ahead, it don't.
Now I figure out that if I was to go back a bit, and git in among
them orthodocks, I might do 'em good like. Could explain to 'em. I
ain't sure but what I've took the wrong way, showin' 'em first, and
explainin' to 'em afterwards. Now if I was to stop showin' 'em at all,
and just explain to 'em, why, there'd be folks what when I told 'em
that nothink don't belong to nobody they'd git the 'ang of it. Begins
to seem to me as if I'd done me bit o' sufferin' for the cause. Seen
the inside o' pretty near every old jug round New York. It's aged me.
But if I was to sackerfice me opinions, and make them orthodocks feel
as I was one of 'em, I might give 'em a pull along like."
The next day being Sunday, they slept late into the morning. In the
afternoon Honey Lem had a new idea. Without saying what it was, he
took the boy to walk through Fourteenth Street, till they reached
Fifth Avenue. Here they climbed to the top of an electric bus going
northward, and Tom had a new experience. Except for having crossed
it in the market lorry, in the dimness and emptiness of dawn, this
stimulating thoroughfare was unknown to him.
Even on a Sunday afternoon in summer, when shops were shut, residences
closed, and saunterers relatively few, it added a new concept to those
already in his mental possession. It was that of magnificence. These
ornate buildings, these flashing windows, these pictures, jewels,
flowers, fabrics, furnishings, did more than appeal to his eye. They
set free a function of his being that had hitherto been sealed. The
first atavistic memory of which he had ever been aware was consciously
in his mind. Somewhere, perhaps in some life before he was born, rich
and beautiful things had been his accessories. He had been used to
them. They were not a surprise to him now; they came as a matter of
course. To see them was not so much a discovery as it was a return to
what he had been accustomed to. He was thinking of this, with an inward
grin of derision at himself for feeling so, when Honey went back to the
topic of the night before.
"The reason I said Boston is because they've got that great big college
there. If I'm to bring yer up, I'll have to send yer to college."