The Beginning of the Search
"O Bo'sn, Bo'sn! Where did you leave him? You never left him
before--never, not once! Oh, if you could only talk!" cried poor Glory,
at last lifting her head and releasing the dog whom she had hugged till
he choked.
His brown eyes looked back into her own pleading ones as if he, too,
longed for the gift of speech and he licked her cheek as if he would
comfort her. Then he threw back his own head, howled dismally, and
dejectedly curled himself down beneath the captain's hammock.
Little Take-a-Stitch pondered a moment what she had best do in order to
find her grandfather and, having decided, made haste to dress. The cold
water from the spigot in the corner refreshed her and seemed to clear
her thoughts, but she did not stop to eat anything, though she offered a
crust of the dry loaf to the dog. He, also, refused the food and the
little girl understood why. Patting him on the head she exclaimed:
"We both of us can't eat till he comes, can we, Bo'sn dear? Well, smart
doggie, put on your sharpest smeller an' help to track him whichever way
he went. You smell an' I'll look, an' 'twixt us we'll hunt him
quick's-a-wink. Goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn Beck! Come along an' find
grandpa!"
Up sprang the terrier, all his dejection gone, and leaped and barked as
joyfully as if he fully understood what she had said. Then, waiting just
long enough to lock the tiny door and hide the key in its accustomed
place, so that if the captain came home before she did he could let
himself in, she started down the Lane, running at highest speed with
Bo'sn keeping pace. So running, she passed the basement window where
Meg-Laundress was rubbing away at her tub full of clothes and tossed
that good woman a merry kiss.
"Guess the old cap'n's back, 'less Glory never 'd look that gay,"
thought Meg, and promptly reported her thought to Posy Jane who was just
setting out for her day's business. She was already over-late and was
glad to accept Meg's statement as fact and thus save the time it would
have taken to visit the littlest house and learn there how matters
really stood. It thus happened that neither of Glory's best friends knew
the truth of the case nor that the child had set off on a hopeless
quest, without food or money or anything save her own strong love and
will to help her.
"But we're goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn, an' we don't mind a thing else.
Don't take so very long to get to that old 'Harbor,' an' maybe he might
have a bite o' somethin' saved up 'at he could give us, though we don't
neither of us want to eat 'fore we get him back, do we, doggie?" cried
the child as they sped along and trying not to notice that empty feeling
in her stomach.
But they had gone no further than the end of the Lane before they
collided with Nick, the parson, just entering it. He had finished his
morning's sale of papers and was feeling hungry for his own breakfast
and, as Take-a-Stitch ran against him, demanded rather angrily, "What
you mean, Goober Glory, knockin' a feller down that way?"
"O Nick! Have you seen grandpa?"
"Seen the cap'n? How should I? Ain't this his time o' workin' on his
frames?"
Glory swiftly told her trouble and Nick's face clouded in sympathy.
Finally he suggested, "They was a old blind feller got run over on
Broadway yest'day. Likely 'twas him an' that's why. 'Twas in the paper
all right, 'cause I heard a man say how't somethin' must be done to stop
such accidentses. Didn't hear no name but, 'course, 'twas the cap'n.
Posy Jane always thought he'd get killed, runnin' round loose, like he
did, without nobody but a dog takin' care."
Glory had clutched Nick's shoulder and was now shaking him with what
little strength seemed left to her after hearing his dreadful words. As
soon as she could recover from that queer feeling in her throat, and was
able to speak, she indignantly denied the possibility of this terrible
thing being true.
"'Tis no such thing, Nick Dodd, an' you know it! Wasn't I there, right
alongside, when't happened? Wasn't I a-listenin' to them very chimes
a-ringin' what he listens to every time he gets a chanst? Don't you
s'pose I'd know my own grandpa when I saw him? Huh!"
"_Did_--you see him, Glory Beck? How'd come them amberlance fellers
let a kid like you get nigh enough to see a thing? Hey?"
Glory gasped as the remembrance came that she had not really seen the
injured man but that the slight glimpse of his clothing and his white
hair had been, indeed, very like her grandfather's. Still, this awful
thing could not, should not be true! Better far that dreaded place, Snug
Harbor, where, at least, he would be alive and well cared for.
"Oh, I got nigh. I got nigh enough to get knocked down my own self, an'
be picked up by one them 'finest' p'licemens, what marches on Broadway.
He shook me fit to beat an' set me on the sidewalk an' scolded me hard,
but I didn't care, 'cause I was so glad to keep alive an' not be tooken
off to a hospital, like that old man was. Huh! You needn't go thinkin'
nor sayin' that was Grandpa Simon Beck, 'cause I know better. I shan't
have it that 'twas, so there."
Glory's argument but half-convinced herself and only strengthened Nick's
opinion. However, his own mind was troubled. He felt very guilty for
having guided Miss Bonnicastle to the littlest house, and the
quarter-dollar earned by that treacherous deed seemed to burn through
his pocket into his very flesh. Besides that coin, he had others in
store, having had a successful morning, and the feeling of his affluence
added to another feeling slowly awakening within him. This struggling
emotion may have been generosity and it may have been remorse. Whatever
it was, it prompted him to say, "Look-a-here, Glory, I'll help ye. I've
got to go get somethin' t'eat, first off. Then, listen, you hain't got
no money, have ye?"
"What o' that? I've got eyes, an' I've got Bo'sn. I'm goin' to the ferry
an' I'm goin' tell the ferry man just how 'tis. That I must--I must be
let go over to that Staten Island on that boat, whether or no. Me an' a
dog won't take up much room, an', if he won't let me, I'll wait round
till I get some sort o' job an' earn the money to pay. You needn't
think, Nick Parson, that a teeny thing like a few centses will keep me
from grandpa. I'd go to Toni an' ask him only--only--I don't know a
thing what come o' that fifty-five cents the lady paid for the goobers,
an' so I s'pose he'd be mad an' wouldn't trust me. Besides, grandpa
always said to 'Pay as you go,' an' now I seem--I seem--to want to do
what he told more'n ever. O Nick Dodd! What if--what if--he shouldn't
never--never come--no--more!"
Poor Glory's courage gave way at last and, without ado, she flung
herself upon Nick as she had done upon Bo'sn and clung to him as
chokingly.
"Now, this is a purty fix, now ain't it?" thought the victim of her
embrace, casting a wary eye up and down the Lane, lest any mate should
see and gibe at him, and call him a "softy." Besides, for Glory to
become sentimental--if this was sentiment--was as novel as for him to be
generous. So, to relieve the situation, the newsboy put these two new
things together and wrenched himself free, saying, "Quit it, Glory Beck!
I got to breathe same's another, ain't I? You look a-here. See that
cash? Well, I'll tell ye, I'll go fetch my grub----Had any yerself,
Glory Beck?"
The question was spoken like an accusation and Glory resented it,
answering quickly, "I don't know as that's anythin' to you, Nick
Parson!"
"'Course. But I'll fetch enough fer two an' I'll tell ye, I'll go to
that 'Snug Harbor' my own self, a payin' my own way, I will. I can
afford it an' you can't. If so be the cap'n 's there, I'll fetch him out
lickety-cut. If he ain't, why then, 'twas him was killed. See?"
"No, I don't see. Maybe they wouldn't let a boy in, anyhow."
"Pooh! They're sure to. Ain't I on the papers? Don't newsboys go
anywhere they want, same's other press folks? Hey?"
Glory admitted that they did. She had often seen them jumping on and off
of street cars at the risk of their lives and without hindrance from the
officials. Also, the lad's offer to share his breakfast with her was too
tempting to be declined. As he hurried away toward his poor home, she
sat down on the threshold of the warehouse before which they had talked
to wait, calling after him, "Don't forget a bite for Bo'sn, Nick!"
"All right!" he returned, and disappeared within his own cellar doorway.
Already Glory's heart was happier. She would not allow herself to think
it possible that her grandfather was hurt, and Nick's willingness to
help was a comfort. Maybe he would even take her with him, though she
doubted it. However, she put the question to him as he reappeared with
some old scraps in a torn newspaper, but while they were enjoying these
as best they could and sharing the food with Bo'sn, Nick unfolded a
better plan.
"Ye see, Take-a-Stitch, it's this way--no use wastin' eight cents on a
old ferry when four'll do. You look all over Broadway again. Then, if he
ain't anywheres 'round there, go straight to them other crony captains
o' hisn an' see. Bein's he can't tell difference 'twixt night an' day,
how'd he know when to come back to the Lane, anyway?"
"He always come 'fore," answered Glory, sorrowfully.
It was a new thing for Nick to take the lead in anything which concerned
the little girl, who was the recognized leader of all the Lane children,
and it made him both proud and more generous. Yielding to a wild impulse
that now seized him, with a gesture of patronage, he drew from his
pocket Miss Bonnicastle's quarter and dropped it in Glory's lap.
She stared at it, then almost gasped the question, "What--what's it for,
Nick Dodd?"
"Fer--you!" cried the boy. He might have added that it was "conscience
money," and that the unpleasant burning in his pocket had entirely
ceased the instant he had rid himself of the ill-gotten coin, because at
the time he had guided Miss Laura to the littlest house he had not
tarried to learn how fruitless her visit was; else he might have felt
less like a traitor. As it was, he tossed his head and answered loftily,
"Don't do fer girls to go trav'lin' round 'ithout cash. You ain't
workin' to-day an'--an' ye may need it. Newspaper men--well, we can
scrape along 'most anyhow. Hello, here's Buttons!"
A cheery whistle announced the arrival of the third member of this
intimate trio, and presently Billy came in sight around the Elbow, his
freckled face as gay as the morning despite the facts that he still
carried some unsold papers under his arm and that he had just emerged
from a street fight, rather the worse for that event.
Glory's fastidiousness was shocked, and, forgetting her own trouble in
disgust at his carelessness, she exclaimed, "You bad Billy Buttons!
There you've gone lost two more your buttons what I sewed with my
strongest thread this very last day ever was! An' your jacket----What
you been doin' with yourself, Billy Buttons?"
The newcomer seated himself between his friends, though in so doing he
crowded Nick from the door-sill to the sidewalk, and composedly helped
himself to what was left of their scanty breakfast. Better than nothing
he found it and answered, as he ate, Glory's repeated inquiry, "What
doin'? Why, scrappin', 'course. Say, parson, you hear me? They's a new
feller come on our beat an' you chuck him, soon's ye see him. I jest
punched him to beat, but owe him 'nother, 'long o' this tear. Sew it,
Take-a-Stitch?"
"Can't, Billy. I've got to hunt grandpa. Oh, Billy, Billy, he hain't
never come home!"
The newsboy paused in the munching of a crust and whistled, but this
time in dismay rather than good cheer. Then he demanded, "What ye givin'
us?"
The others explained, both talking at once, though Master Buttons soon
silenced his partner in trade that he might better hear the girl's own
story. When she had finished, and now with a fresh burst of tears, he
whistled again; then ordered:
"Quit snivelin', Glory Beck! A man ain't dead till he dies, is he?
More'n likely 'twas the old cap'n got hurt but that ain't nothin'. Why,
them hospitals is all chuck full o' smash-up folks, an' it's jest meat
fer them doctor-fellers to mend 'em again. He ain't dead, an' don't you
believe it; but dead or alive we'll find him 'fore dark.
"Fer onct," continued Billy, "the parson's showed some sense. He might's
well do the 'Harbor,' 'cause that's only one place an' he can't blunder
much--seems if. You take the streets, same's he said; and I--if you'll
put a needle an' thread through me, bime-by, after he's found, I'll go
find him an' call it square. I'll begin to the lowest down end the city
hospitals they is an' I'll interview 'em, one by one, clean up to the
Bronx. If Cap'n Beck is in any one, I'll fetch him out, judge, an' don't
you forget it."
This division of the search pleased Glory and, springing up, the trio
separated at once, nor did they meet again till nightfall. Alas! when
reassembled then in the littlest house none had good news to tell.
"They ain't been no new old cap'ns tooken in to that 'Harbor' this hull
week. Th' sailor what keeps the gate said so an' was real decent. Said
he'd heard o' Cap'n Beck, he had, an' if he'd a-come he'd a-knowed. Told
me better call ag'in, might get there yet, an' I'll go," reported Nick,
putting a cheerful tone into his words for pity of Glory's downcast
face.
"Didn't do a quarter th' hospitals they is, but he ain't in none them I
have," said Billy. "But I'll tell ye. They's a man on our force reports
all the accidentses an' I'll see him to-night, when I go for my papers,
an' get him to hunt, too. He's worth while an' me an' him's sort o'
pardners. I give him p'ints an' he 'lows I'll be a reporter myself, when
I'm bigger. An' say, I sold a pape' to a man couldn't stop fer change
an' I've got three cream-puffs in this bag. That's fer our suppers, an'
me an' Nick's goin' to stay right here all night an' take care of ye,
Take-a-Stitch, an' leave the door open, so cap'n can come straight in if
he happens 'long 'fore mornin'."
"An' I've been to every single place he ever sung at, every single. An'
to all the captains, an'--an'--every, everywhere! An' he ain't! But I
will find him. I will!" cried Glory, resolutely. "An' you're
dear, dear darlin' boys to help me so, an' I love you, I love you!"
"All right, but needn't bother to hug me!" protested Buttons.
"Ner me!" cried Nick, retreating as far from the grateful child as the
limited space would permit. "An' now choose corners. This is mine."
Down he dropped in the inner point of the triangular floor and almost
before his head had made itself a pillow of his arm he was sound asleep.
Billy flung himself beside his mate and, also, slept; and though Glory
intended to keep her eyes wide open "till grandpa comes," she placed
herself near them and rested her own tired head on Billy's shoulder,
and, presently, followed their example.
Half an hour later, the Lane policeman sauntered by, glanced into the
dim interior, and saw the group of indistinct forms huddled together in
dreamless slumber on their bed of bare boards. Then he softly closed the
door upon them, murmuring in pity, "Poor little chummies! Life's goin'
to be as hard for 'em as the floor they lie on. But the Lane'd seem
darker 'n 'tis if they wasn't in it."