“I’ll not shake hands with you, Bruce, but I’d like to, and so would all
the men at the quarters,” was Mr. Trask’s greeting as he seated himself
beside the bed of the injured boy. “I don’t think that arm of yours will
stand much shaking for some weeks to come, but we’re all proud of you
nevertheless.” The boy’s face flushed with pleasure, and his eyes grew
dim for the chief had never spoken to him in such a strain before, and
besides he had fancied for a month or two past that his superior rather
looked down upon him as a boy who was good for nothing except to bed
down horses and make himself generally useful about the quarters. To be
sure he did not quite understand why Mr. Trask should say that all the
men wanted to shake hands with him, for he had but a hazy remembrance of
the events of the previous day, and did not know that his name had been
published in the papers with an account of his bravery in saving a boy’s
life. He did not know what to say, so he simply remarked, “thank you
sir.”
The chief was silent for a moment and then went on, “well I suppose
you’ve had enough of the fire department by this time, but when you get
well I’ll see to it that you don’t lose anything by what you did
yesterday. I had a talk with Mr. Dewsnap, and he’ll find a good position
somewhere in case you don’t want to come back to the quarters again.”
Bruce’s lips quivered and an expression of dismay came into his face:
“What!” he cried piteously, “leave the department the minute I begin to
like it! Why, chief, what have I done that you should want to treat me
in that way?”
“Then you’re not scared of the service by finding yourself laid up in a
hospital, are you?” said the chief inquiringly.
“Scared out of it?” echoed the boy, “Why should I be scared out of it? I
don’t remember everything that happened yesterday but I know that fire
was the grandest thing I was ever at in my life. Why, I wouldn’t take
all the money in the world for my experience yesterday.
“I used to hear my father tell about fires, and going into burning
buildings and up on the tops of high roofs but I never had any idea of
what the service really was until I found myself following the men with
that big, cold, clammy hose in my hand. Please Chief Trask, let me stay
at the quarters. I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll only let me go to
fires with the men.”
“That’s right, my boy!” cried the chief heartily. “I like to hear you
talk that way. I’ve been thinking for some time past that you were
getting tired of the monotony of the thing and were looking out for a
chance to better yourself, and then when you got hurt yesterday, I was
afraid it had taken all the ambition out of you. But don’t be afraid,
you can stay with us as long as you like, and as soon as you’re well
again, I’ll see to it that you go out on the truck along with the rest
of the men.
“That’s all I ask for, Chief,” said Bruce, eagerly, trying to raise his
head from the pillow as he spoke, and then letting it fall again from
sheer weakness. “The work was getting rather tiresome down there and I
hated to be left alone when all the men were away at fires. But if
you’ll only let me go with them, I won’t ask anything more of you.”
Then Chief Trask went away promising to come again soon, and Skinny, who
had watched him closely through his small squirrel eyes, now turned and
said: “Hay boss, dat was de chief of de bat’lion, I’ve seen him lots of
times.” And it was evident from the boy’s manner that he regarded his
friend and preserver with much greater respect than before.
A church clock in the neighborhood had just finished striking eleven,
when Miss Ingraham the day-nurse, came to Bruce’s bedside and said,
“There’s a young lady down stairs who wishes to see you; do you feel
well enough to talk any more?”
A young lady to see him! Bruce wondered, who could it possibly be, and
then a look came into his face that made the young lady in the white cap
and plaid dress smile, for she guessed from it that it was someone in
whom he was deeply interested, so she simply said “I’ll send for her to
come up,” and three minutes later Bruce’s heart gave a great bound and
then seemed to stand almost still as he saw Laura Van Kuren pause for a
moment in the doorway and then walk directly towards his bed.
“Bruce,” she said, as she bent down beside him, “are you very much hurt?
Oh I was so, so sorry when I read in the paper that you were precarious,
and so I came right down to see you.”
Of course Bruce had not the slightest idea of what she meant by his
being precarious, for he did not know that his exploit had been
mentioned in the papers at all, but then Laura often used long words
which she found in her favorite books, and he had become accustomed to
this peculiarity of hers, and seldom inquired what she meant when the
language happened to seem vague and unintelligible.
“No, I’m not badly hurt,” he answered cheerfully, “but I say, though, it
was splendid of you to come down and see me and I’m ever so much obliged
to you. Did you come all alone? Where’s Harry?”
“I came down here all alone,” replied the young girl solemnly, “and you
mustn’t tell Harry a word about it, because I’d get into awful trouble
if you did. Now promise you’ll never say a word about it.”
Bruce promised readily enough, and then Laura went on: “It would be
awful if you had died without finding out the secret of your birth. Only
think, you might go to Heaven and never know your own relations when you
saw them there and they might be the very nicest people there too.”
[Illustration: Laura visits Bruce in the hospital.—_Page 190._]
Bruce could not help laughing at the young girl’s serious manner of
talking about what she persisted in calling the mystery of his birth.
His mind was full of the fire department just then, and of the bright
prospects which Chief Trask had opened to him by promising to allow him
to go to all the fires just as if he were a regular member of the
company. So he told Laura that at that moment he had no opportunity to
pursue the investigations in which she seemed to take so much interest,
but he assured her that the moment he found himself well enough to leave
the hospital he would continue his search for the tall dark man with the
scar across his face whom they both agreed was in some way identified
with his early life.
At the end of fifteen minutes Laura went away promising to write him a
letter as soon as possible, and leaving him with the cheering assurance
that Harry would be down as soon as he had either learned his lessons or
escaped from his tutor. Indeed during the whole of her visit she was
haunted by an awful fear that her brother had clambered down the
wisteria vine and might enter the door at any moment.
Harry did not appear until an hour or more after his sister had gone.
Mr. Reed was with him, and they had stopped to buy a basket of fruit as
a present for the injured boy. Harry was overflowing with sympathy, and
Mr. Reed was very much more cordial than he had ever been before.
“I suppose,” said the tutor as he and his pupil were taking their leave,
“that you have not many friends in town to come to visit.”
“Oh, I’ve had two callers already this morning before you came,” replied
Bruce; “Chief Trask came first and then—”
The boy stopped short, colored, hesitated, and then went on, “and there
was another friend of mine who came. She just went away a little while
ago.”
Both his visitors noticed his hesitation and Harry wondered if it could
be possible that his sister had been down there ahead of him, but he
said nothing to Mr. Reed of his suspicions. He resolved however to get
at the truth of the matter so that he might have something fresh to
taunt his sister with the next time they quarrelled.
It is doubtful if the whole city of New York contained a happier boy
than the one who was lying, sorely wounded and with his eyes inflamed
and almost blinded, in a narrow white cot in a common hospital ward. The
sun was shining brightly through the tall windows, and the distant hum
and roar of the great city sounded faintly in his ears. He knew that it
would be many weeks, perhaps months, before he could hope to resume the
career which had been interrupted so suddenly the day before, and to a
boy who had never known a day’s illness in his life the prospect of a
long, irksome confinement was anything but pleasant. Nevertheless, Bruce
Decker felt that he had a great deal to make him happy just then.
First of all he realized that he had done his duty in facing danger the
first time that he was called upon, and Chief Trask’s encouraging words
had sounded more agreeably in his ears than anything that he had ever
heard before. Moreover, the fact that not only the chief but Harry and
Laura Van Kuren had come at once to his bedside was another reason for
his contented state of mind. But beside all this the memory of the
exciting events of the day before filled his mind. There had come over
him while he stood with a hose in his hand amid the smoke and blaze of
the burning building an overwhelming sense of the importance and dignity
of his calling, and it had seemed to him at that moment that he was no
longer a mere boy, tolerated at the quarters because he could run
errands and take care of horses, but a fireman in the truest sense of
the word—one whose duty it was to go without fear wherever his chief led
him, and to be ready, if necessary, to sacrifice his life (as his father
had done before him) to save another’s. And now as he rested quietly in
his bed the soldierly feeling had full possession of his soul. If he had
ever cherished any serious thought of leaving the department and seeking
employment in some other walk of life, that feeling was now entirely
submerged by one of loyal devotion to the department which he had
served, and to which he would return as soon as he could leave his bed,
with a steadfast purpose far deeper than the enthusiasm which had
influenced him before.
Taking all these things into consideration, it is not to be wondered at
that a right-minded, brave young lad like Bruce Decker should have been
positively happy in spite of his hurts as he lay there, one of
twenty-four patients in the casualty ward. But although he did not know
it, he had another reason for thankfulness, for he had attached to
himself a new friend—a friend who was bound to prove of infinite service
to him in untangling some of the threads which had caused him so much
anxious thought of late. That new friend was lying in the cot next to
him, silently watching him through a pair of sharp blue eyes.
Skinny the Swiper was a child of the New York streets, one of those boys
who could not remember having had any home or kindred, and who, from his
earliest recollection, had been living as best he could by selling
papers, blacking boots, or doing anything that he could turn his hand
to. His wits, naturally sharp, had been developed to a remarkable degree
of precocity by his rough contact with the world until they had made him
more than a match for any of the lads with whom he consorted. He had
known very little kindness in his dozen years of life, and possibly it
was for that reason that his heart went out in gratitude to the boy who
had saved him, but Skinny was a lad of few words, and although he looked
searchingly at the other and probably thought a great deal, it was not
until late in the afternoon that he ventured to speak of what was
uppermost in his thoughts. Then he raised himself slightly on his elbow
and said: “Hay, boss, I seen dat young lady before, onct.”
Bruce did not like the idea of discussing such a superior being as Laura
Van Kuren with a grimy little boy of the streets, and besides he did not
believe that Skinny had ever seen her, so he answered rather curtly,
“No, I guess you’re mistaken; that young lady doesn’t live in the same
street with you.”
“Who said she did?” demanded the boy. “But I seen her all de same.
Besides I don’t live in no street at all.”
“Well, where did you see her then?”
“I seen her way up near de Harlem. Her folks has got a big house dere,
an’ one day when I was walkin’ by I stopped ter look troo de railin’ and
she come up and gimme some grapes. She’s a jim dandy, dat young lady
is.”
“But how came you away up there?” inquired Bruce, in some amazement.
“I went up dere fer a man wot useter git me to run errands onct in a
while, and dat’s de way I seen her,” replied Skinny.
“What sort of errands did you have to do up there? I should think that
would be pretty far out of your beat,” continued Bruce, with an idle
curiosity to learn something of his new friend.
“Oh! I went up dere lots o’ times on most partick’ler business,”
responded Skinny. “Dere was a bloke useter send me ter carry letters to
a big house dat had evergreens in front of it and a porch over de door.
Deres was an’ old gent lived dere, but now he’s gone ter Yurrup or
Africky or some place or nudder.”
And now it was Bruce’s turn to be interested. “Was there a side door to
the house, with vines hanging over it?” he asked.
“Cert,” replied Skinny, “an’ an old gent dat giv me a quarter two or
tree times. An’ twict he sent me in de kitchen an’ de lady wot cooked
dere gimme a steak an’ pertaters an’ coffee. Dey never watched me
needer, an’ I mighter swiped some spoons on’y dey used me so white.”
Bruce’s head, which had been lifted slightly from the pillow during this
conversation, now fell back from sheer weariness, and for a few moments
the boy remained absolutely quiet, wondering if it could be possible
that he had found in this street Arab someone who could enlighten him in
regard to the mystery which had puzzled him so much and awakened such a
deep interest in the heart of Laura Van Kuren.
“Who was the man who used to send you up there on errands?” inquired
Bruce, after a brief silence.
“I never knowed his name. He was a bloke dat useter hang out at a place
in Eldridge street, and he seen me around dere an’ gimme a job now an’
den. We useter call him Scar-Faced Charley.”
“Well, what sort of a looking man was he?” persisted Bruce, trying not
to betray the deep interest that he felt.
“He was a tall feller, an’ had a black beard an’ a scar acrost his
face,” said Skinny.
Bruce asked no more questions, and the young newsboy soon after fell
into a doze, leaving the other free to pursue his thought. It seemed to
him now that he had at last found a clue to the identity of the man who
had known his father, and whom he never doubted for a moment was the
same one who had sent Skinny on errands to Mr. Dexter’s house. The more
he thought of it the more excited he became, and in his weak condition
the excitement soon made itself manifest in his face, so that Miss
Ingraham, pausing for a moment beside his cot, noticed the condition of
her patient, felt of his pulse, and then called the doctor to see if any
change for the worse had taken place. The boy seemed to be on the verge
of a fever, so the doctor gave him a quieting draught and bade him
compose his mind, if possible, and go to sleep.
The next day Bruce awoke feeling calmer and refreshed. The fever of the
day before had left him, and when Miss Ingraham made her morning rounds
she found him looking so much better that she smiled encouragingly upon
him, and told him that he was on the high road to recovery.
“Is there anything you would like me to do for you?” said the nurse,
kindly.
“Yes,” replied the boy timidly, “if it is not too much trouble for you,
I would like to have you write me a letter. I can’t use my hands yet and
there’s a friend of mine to whom I wish to write.”
The nurse, who was accustomed to requests of this sort, brought pen and
paper to his bedside, sat down and said: “Well, what shall I write?”
“You may begin with Dear Miss Laura,” said Bruce and Miss Ingraham
smiled to herself as she wrote it. The letter, which was concocted
between them, read as follows:
“DEAR MISS LAURA:
Something happened just after you went away yesterday that I thought
would interest you. In the bed next to mine is a small boy whom I
pulled out of the building that was on fire. As soon as you had gone
he told me that he had seen you before, but I did not believe him. I
asked him where and he said up near the Harlem river where you live.
Then I asked him how he came to be up there, and he said that a man
used to send him on errands to a house which I am sure from his
description is Mr. Dexter’s. I asked him who the man was but he did
not know. All he could tell me was that he was a tall, dark man with
a black beard and a scar across his face. What do you think of that?
It looks to me as if I could run him down with the help of Skinny,
the boy who told me that, and as soon as I get well again I will
start after him.
Thanking you for your great kindness in coming to see me, I am,
Yours very respectfully,
BRUCE DECKER.”
Then, having cautioned Miss Ingraham not to reveal to anybody the
contents of his letter, he begged her to stamp and mail it to the
address which he gave her, and this she readily promised to do.