THAT BOY
WILLIAM had gone away with his family for a holiday, and he was not
enjoying it. For one reason it was not the sea. Last summer they had
gone to the sea and William had enjoyed it. He had several times been
rescued from a watery grave by passers-by. He had lost several pairs
of new shoes and stockings by taking them off among the rocks and then
roaming so far afield barefoot that he forgot where he had left them
and so came home without them. He got wet through every day as a matter
of course. Through the house where his family stayed his track was
marked by a trail of sand and seaweed and small deceased crabs. He had
upon one occasion floated out to sea in a boat which he had found on
the beach and loosened from its moorings, and narrowly escaped being
run down by a steamer. At the end of the holiday by the sea Mrs. Brown
had said weakly, "Let it be somewhere inland next year."
William found things monotonous inland. There were no crabs and nothing
to do. Robert and Ethel, his grown-up brother and sister, had joined
a tennis club and were out all day. Not that William had much use for
Robert and Ethel. He preferred them out all day as a matter of fact.
"All I say _is_," he said aggrievedly to his mother, "that no one
cares whether I'm havin' a nice time or not. You think that s' long
as father can go golfin'--or _tryin'_ to golf--and those two playin'
tennis--or what they _call_ tennis"--he added scornfully, "and you can
sit knittin', it's all _right_. You don't think of _me_. No one thinks
of me. I might just as well not be here. All I say _is_," he ended, "I
might jus' as well be _dead_ for all the trouble some people take to
make me happy."
His mother looked at his scowling freckled countenance.
"Well, dear," she said, "there are plenty of books about the house that
you haven't read."
"_Books_," said William scornfully. "Sir Walter Scott's ole things--I
don't call that _books_."
"You can go for walks."
"_Walks!_" said William. "It's no use goin' walks without 'Jumble'."
His father lowered his newspaper. "Your arithmetic report was vile," he
said. "You might occupy your time with a few sums. I'll set them for
you."
William turned upon his parent a glance before which most men would
have quailed. Even William's father, inured as he was by long
experience to that glare of William's, retired hastily behind his
paper. Then, with a short and bitter laugh, William turned on his heel
and left the room. That was the last straw. He'd finished with them.
He'd simply finished with them.
He put his head in at the window as he went towards the gate.
"I'm goin' out, mother," he said in a voice which expressed stern
sorrow rather than anger.
"All right, dear," said Mrs. Brown sweetly.
"I may not be coming back--never," he added darkly.
"All right, dear," said William's mother.
William walked with slow dignity down to the gate.
"All I say _is_," he remarked pathetically to the gatepost as he
passed, "I might as well be _dead_ for all anyone thinks of tryin' to
make my life a bit happier."
He walked down to the village--a prey to black dejection. What people
came away for holidays _for_ beat him. At home there was old Jumble to
take for a walk and throw sticks for, and the next-door cat to tease
and the butcher's boy to fight, and various well-known friends and
enemies to make life interesting. Here there was--well, all he said
_was_, he might as well be _dead_.
A char-à-banc stood outside the post-office, and people were taking
their places in it. William looked at it contemptuously. He began to
listen in a bored fashion to the conversation of two young men.
"I'm awfully glad you ran down," one of them was saying to the other;
"we can have a good tramp together. To tell you the truth I'd got so
bored that I'd taken a ticket for this char-à-banc show.... Can't stand
'em really."
"Will they give you your money back?" said the other.
"It doesn't matter," said the first.
Then he met William's dark, unflinching gaze and said carelessly,
"Here, kid, like a ticket for the char-à-banc trip?"
William considered the question. Anything that would take him away from
the immediate vicinity of his family seemed at that moment desirable.
"Does it come back?" he said.
"It's _supposed_ to," said the young man.
[Illustration: "ALL I SAY _IS_," WILLIAM SAID PUGNACIOUSLY, TRYING TO
SCOWL UP AT BOTH SIDES AT ONCE, "THAT THERE'S NOT MUCH _ROOM_."]
That seemed rather a drawback. William felt that he would have
preferred to go away from his family on something that did not come
back. However, this was better than nothing.
"All right," he said graciously, "I don't mind going."
The young man handed him the ticket.
* * * * *
William sat in the middle of a seat between a very fat lady and a very
fat gentleman.
"Not much _room_," he remarked bitterly to the world in general.
The fat lady and the fat gentleman turned crushing glances upon him
simultaneously. William received and returned them. He even enlarged
upon his statement.
"All I say _is_," he said pugnaciously, trying to scowl up at both
sides at once, "that there's not much _room_."
The fat lady put up lorgnettes and addressed the fat gentleman over
William's head.
"What a very rude little boy!" she said.
Being apparently agreed upon that point they became friendly and
conversed together for the rest of the journey, ignoring the
subterranean rumbles of indignation that came from the small boy
between them.
At last the char-à-banc stopped at a country village. The driver
explained that the church was an excellent example of Early Norman
architecture. This left William cold. He did not even glance at it.
The driver went on to remark that an excellent meal could be obtained
at the village inn. Here William's expression kindled into momentary
animation only to fade again into despair. For William had spent his
last twopence that morning upon a stick of liquorice. It had caused
a certain amount of friction between himself and his elder brother.
William had put it--partially sucked--upon a chair while he went to
wash his hands, and Robert had come in from tennis and inadvertently
sat down upon it. Being in a moist condition it had adhered to Robert's
white flannel trousers. Even when detached the fact of its erstwhile
adherence could not be concealed. William had considered Robert's
attitude entirely unreasonable.
"Well, I don't know what he's got to be mad about.... I didn't make him
sit down on it, did I? He talks about me spoilin' his trousers--well,
wot about him spoilin' my liquorice? All I say _is_--who wants to eat
it, now he's been sittin' on it?"
Robert had unkindly taken this statement at its face value and thrown
the offending stick of liquorice into the fire.
William sadly extricated himself from the char-à-banc, thinking
bitterly of the vanished twopence, and liquorice, and the excellent
meal to be obtained from the village inn. He regarded himself at that
moment as a martyr whose innocence and unjust persecution equalled that
of any in the pages of the Church History book.
An elderly lady in _pince-nez_ looked at him pityingly.
"What's the matter, little boy?" she said. "You look unhappy."
William merely smiled bitterly.
"Is your mother with you?" she went on.
"Nope," said William, thrusting his hands into his pockets and scowling
still more.
"Your father, then?"
"Huh!" said William, as though bitterly amused at the idea.
"You surely haven't come alone!" said the lady.
William gave vent to the dark emotions of his soul.
"All I say _is_," he said, "that if you knew my family you'd be jolly
glad to go anywhere alone if you was me."
The lady made little clicking noises with her tongue expressive of
sorrow and concern.
"Dear, dear, dear!" she said. "And are you going to have tea now?"
William assumed his famous expression of suffering patience.
"I've got no money. It's not much use goin' to have tea anywhere when
you haven't got no money."
"Haven't they given you any money for your tea?" said the lady
indignantly.
"Not _they!_" said William with a bitter laugh.
"_They_ wun't of let me come if they'd known. _They_ wun't of paid
anything for me. It was a frien' gave me the ticket jus' to giv' me a
bit of pleasure," he said pathetically, "but _they_ wun't even give me
money for my tea."
"Perhaps," said the lady, "you had a late lunch and they thought----"
"Huh!" ejaculated William. "I din' have _any_ lunch worth speakin' of."
He thrust aside the mental picture of two helpings of steak and three
of rice pudding.
"You _poor_ child," said the lady. "Come along. _I'll_ give you your
tea."
"Thanks," said William humbly and gratefully, trudging off with her in
the direction of the village inn.
He felt torn between joy at the immediate prospect of a meal and pity
for his unhappy home life. William, generally speaking, had only to say
a thing to believe it. He saw himself now as the persecuted victim of
a cruel and unsympathetic family, and the picture was not without a
certain pleasure. William enjoyed filling the centre of the stage in
any capacity whatsoever.
[Illustration: "LITTLE BOY," SHE SAID SOULFULLY, "YOU MUST TELL ME
_ALL_.... IF I REPORTED THE CASE TO THE SOCIETY FOR PREVENTION OF
CRUELTY TO CHILDREN----"]
"I suppose," said the lady uncertainly, as William consumed boiled eggs
with relish, "that your family are _kind to you_."
"You needn't s'pose that," said William, his mouth full of
bread-and-butter, his scowling gaze turned on her lugubriously. "You
jus' needn't s'pose that. Not with _my_ family."
"They surely aren't _cruel_ to you?" said the lady in horror.
"_Crule_," said William with a shudder, "jus' isn't the word. All I say
_is_, crule isn't the word."
The lady leant across the table.
"Little boy," she said soulfully, "you must tell me _all_. I want to
_help_ you. I go about the world helping people, and I'm going to help
you. Don't be frightened. You know people can be put in prison for
being cruel to children. If I reported the case to the Society for
Prevention of Cruelty to Children----"
William was slightly taken aback.
"Oh, I wun't like you to do that!" he said hastily. "I wun't like to
get them into trouble."
"Ah," she said, "but you must think of your happiness, not theirs!"
She watched, fascinated, as William finished a third plate of
bread-and-butter, and yet his hunger seemed to be unappeased. She was
not acquainted with the digestive capacity of an average healthy boy of
eleven.
"I can see you've been starved," she said, "and I could tell at once
from your expression that you were unhappy. Have you any brothers and
sisters?"
William, who had now reached the second stage of his tea, put half a
cake into his mouth, masticated and swallowed it before replying.
"Two," he said briefly, "one each. Grown up. But they jus' care for
nothin' but their own pleasure. Why," he went on warming to his theme,
"this morning I bought a few sweets with jus' a bit of money I happened
to have, an' he took them from me and threw them into the fire. Jus'
threw them into the fire."
The lady made the sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue.
"Dear! dear! dear!" she said again. "How very unkind!"
William somewhat reluctantly refused the last piece of cake. He had,
as a matter of fact, done full justice to the excellent meal provided
by the village inn. It had given him a feeling of gentle, contented
melancholy. He was basking in the thought of his unhappy home life.
"I'm sorry to keep reminding you of it," said the lady, "but I feel
I really want to get to the bottom of it. There's generally only one
explanation of an unhappy home. I've investigated so many cases. Does
your father drink?"
William nodded sadly.
"Yes," he said. "That's it."
"Oh," breathed the lady, "your _poor_ mother!"
But William wanted no division of sympathy.
"Mother drinks, too," he said.
"You _poor_, poor child!" said the lady.
William wondered whether to make Robert and Ethel drink, too, then
decided not to. As an artist he knew the value of restraint.
"Never mind," said the lady, "you shall have _one_ happy afternoon, at
any rate."
She took him to the village shop and bought him chocolates, and sweets,
and bananas, and a top. William found some difficulty in retaining an
expression suggestive of an unhappy home life, but he managed it fairly
successfully.
He began to feel very sleepy on the way home. He had had a lovely time.
His pockets were full of sweets and chocolates, and he held his top in
his hand. He even felt that he could forgive his family. He'd heap
coals of fire on Robert's head by giving him a chocolate.... He was
almost asleep when the char-à-banc drew up at the post-office. Everyone
began to descend. He took a polite and distant farewell of the elderly
lady and set off for his home. But he found that the elderly lady was
coming with him.
"Where do you live?" she said.
"Oh," said William vaguely, "jus' somewhere along here."
"I'm coming to see your father," said the lady in a determined voice.
William was aghast.
"Oh--er--I wun't do that if I was you!" he said.
"I often find," she said, "that a drunkard does not realise what
unhappiness he makes in his home. I often find that a few words of
warning are taken to heart----"
"You'd better _not_," said William desperately. "He dun't mind _wot_
he does! He'd throw knives at you or shoot you or cut your head off
soon as not. He'll be jus' mad drunk when we get in. He went off to the
public-house jus' after breakfast. You'd better not come _near_ our
house.... All I say _is_, you might jus' as well be _dead_ as coming to
our house."
"But what about you?"
"Oh, I'm used to it," said William valiantly. "I don't mind. Please,
you'd better not come," he urged. "I'm thinkin' of _you_----"
"I shan't feel that I've done my duty till I've at any rate tried to
make him see his sin."
They were in the street now in which William's family were living.
William looked pale and desperate. Matters seemed to have gone beyond
his control. Suddenly he had an idea. He would lead her past the house
and on and on till one or other of them dropped from fatigue. She'd
have to go home some time. She couldn't go on all night. He could say
he'd forgotten where he lived. He began to dislike her intensely. Fussy
ole thing! Believing everything everyone said to her! Interfering with
other people's drunken fathers! He was creeping cautiously and silently
past his house by the side of his unsuspecting companion, when a shrill
cry reached him.
"William! Hi! William! Where have you been? Mother says come in at
once!"
It was Ethel leaning out of an upstairs window. The sight of her pretty
white-clad figure brought no pleasure to her brother's heart. He put
out his tongue at her and sadly opened the garden gate.
"You'd better not come in," he said faintly to his companion, in a last
feeble attempt to avert the catastrophe which Fate seemed determined to
bring upon him, "he gets _vilent_ about this time of day."
With firm set lips his companion followed him.
"I must do my _duty_," she said sternly.
* * * * *
Mr. Brown looked up from the evening paper as his younger son entered.
At first he merely noticed that his younger son looked unusually
sheepish. Then he noticed that his son was followed by a tall, thin
lady of prim appearance and uncertain age, wearing _pince-nez_. Mr.
Brown groaned inwardly. Had William killed her cat or merely broken one
of her windows?
"Er--good evening," he said.
"Good evening," said the visitor. "I have been spending the afternoon
with your little boy."
Mr. Brown sent William a speaking glance. He didn't mind what
caricatures William picked up outside the house, but he wished he'd
keep them there. William refused to meet his father's glance. He sat on
the edge of a chair looking rather pale, his cap in his hand, measuring
with his eye the distance between the chair and the half-open door.
"Very kind of you," murmured Mr. Brown.
"He has told me something of the state of things in his home," burst
out the visitor. "I saw at once that he was unhappy and half-starved."
Mr. Brown's jaw dropped. William very slowly and cautiously tiptoed to
the door.
"He told me about you and his mother. I was sure--I am sure--that you
don't realise what you are doing--what your--er--failing--means to this
innocent child."
Mr. Brown raised a hand to his brow.
"Your conscience, you see," said the visitor triumphantly, "troubles
you. Why should the memory of childhood mean to that dear boy blows and
curses and unkindness--and just because you are a slave to your baser
appetites?"
Mr. Brown removed his hand from his brow.
"You'll pardon my interrupting you," he said feebly, "but perhaps you
would be good enough to give me some slight inkling of what you are
talking about."
"Ah, you _know_," she said fervently, "in your soul--in your
conscience--you know! Why pretend to me? I have had that dear child's
company all afternoon and know what he has suffered." Here Mrs. Brown
entered and the visitor turned to her. "And you," she went on, "you
must be his mother. Can't you--won't you--give it up for the sake of
your child?" Her voice quivered with emotion.
"I think, my dear," said Mr. Brown, "that you had better send for a
doctor. This lady is not well."
"But who _is_ she?" said Mrs. Brown.
"I don't know," said her husband; "she's someone William found."
The someone William found flung out her arms.
"Won't you?" she cried eloquently. "Can't you--for the sake of your own
happiness as well as his--give it up?"
They stared at her.
"Madam," said Mr. Brown despairingly, "what do you wish us to give up?"
"_Drink_," she answered dramatically.
Mr. Brown sat down heavily.
"_Drink!_" he echoed.
Mrs. Brown gave a little scream.
"_Drink!_" she said. "But we're both teetotalers."
It was the turn of the visitor to sit down heavily.
"Surely," she said, "that boy did not deceive me!"
"Madam," said that boy's father bitterly, "it is more than probable."
* * * * *
When the visitor, protesting, apologising, expostulating, and still
not quite convinced, had been escorted to the door and seen off the
premises, Mr. Brown turned grimly to his wife.
"Now," he said, "where is that boy?"
But a long and energetic search of house and garden failed to reveal
any traces of him. It was not till an hour later that William, inspired
more by the pangs of hunger than by pangs of conscience, emerged from
the boot cupboard in the kitchen and surrendered himself to justice.