He came to me with the card of one of our nurses, a lanky, slipshod sort
of fellow of nineteen or thereabouts. The nurse had run across him begging
in a tenement. When she asked him why he did that, he put a question
himself: "Where would a fellow beg if not among the poor?" And now there
he stood, indifferent, bored if anything, shiftless, yet with some
indefinite appeal, waiting to see what I would do. She had told him that
he had better go and see me, and he had come. He had done his part; it was
up to me now.
He was a waiter, he said, used to working South in the winter, but it was
then too late. He had been ill. He suppressed a little hacking cough that
told its own story; he was a "lunger." Did he tramp? Yes, he said, and I
noticed that his breath smelled of whisky. He made no attempt to hide the
fact.
I explained to him that I might send him to some place in the country
where he could get better during the winter, but that it would be so
much effort wasted if he drank. He considered a while, and nodded in his
curious detached way; he guessed he could manage without it, if he had
plenty of hot coffee. The upshot of it was that he accepted my condition
and went.
[Illustration: "THERE HE STOOD, INDIFFERENT, BORED IF ANYTHING,
SHIFTLESS."]
Along in midwinter our door-bell was rung one night, and there stood
Peter. "Oh! did you come back? Too bad!" It slipped out before I had time
to think. But Peter bore with me. He smiled reassurance. "I did not run
away. The place burned down; we were sent back."
It was true; I remembered. But the taint of whisky was on his breath. "You
have been drinking again," I fretted. "You spent your money for that--"
"No," said he; "a man treated me."
"And did you have to take whisky?"
There was no trace of resentment in his retort: "Well, now, what would he
have said if I'd took milk?" It was as one humoring a child.
He went South on a waiter job. From St. Augustine he sent me a letter that
ended: "Write me in care of the post-office; it is the custom of the town
to get your letters there." Likely it was the first time in his life that
he had had a mail address. "This is a very nice place," ran his comment on
the old Spanish town, "but for business give me New York."
The _Wanderlust_ gripped Peter, and I heard from him next in the
Southwest. For years letters came from him at long intervals, showing that
he had not forgotten me. Once another tramp called on me with greeting
from him and a request for shoes. When "business" next took Peter to New
York and he called, I told him that I valued his acquaintance, but did not
care for that of many more tramps. He knew the man at once.
"Oh," he said, "isn't he a rotter? I didn't think he would do that." They
were tramping in Colorado, he explained, and one night the other man told
him of his mother. Peter, in the intimacy of the camp-fire, spoke of me.
The revelation of the other's baseness was like the betrayal of some
sacred rite. I would not have liked to be in the man's place when next
they met, if they ever did.
Some months passed, and then one day a message came from St. Joseph's
Home: "I guess I am up against it this time." He did not want to trouble
me, but would I come and say good-by? I went at once. Peter was dying, and
he knew it. Sitting by his bed, my mind went back to our first
meeting--perhaps his did too--and I said: "You have been real decent
several times, Peter. You must have come of good people; don't you want me
to find them for you?" He didn't seem to care very much, but at last he
gave me the address in Boston of his only sister. But she had moved, and
it was a long and toilsome task to find her. In the end, however, a friend
located her for me. She was a poor Irish dressmaker, and Peter's old
father lived with her. She wrote in answer to my summons that they would
come, if Peter wanted them very much, but that it would be a sacrifice.
He had always been their great trial--a born tramp and idler.
Peter was chewing a straw when I told him. I had come none too soon. His
face told me that. He heard me out in silence. When I asked if he wanted
me to send for them, he stopped chewing a while and ruminated.
"They might send me the money instead," he decided, and resumed his
straw.