"SATAN, HE HAS 'EM ALL THE WEEK."
"THAT Black Dirk is a case," said Policeman Duffer, turning hastily
away from an unusually stupid man who could not be made to understand
where a certain street was. "He is the worst of the lot, I believe.
Jerry Tompkins is slyer, and Dick Bolton is quicker than lightning at
mischief—Nimble Dick they call him—he's a sort of ringleader—what he
does the rest are apt to do; but to my thinking Dirk is ahead of them
all for evil. The rest are kind of jolly; fun seems to be about half
that they are after: but Dirk, he's sullen; you never know how to take
him, nor when he may burst out on you. He's dangerous. I am always
looking out for something awful that he will do."
Poor Dirk! Yet he was the boy to whom Mrs. Roberts's desires had gone
out the most anxiously. It was over his image that she had lingered
that morning in her closet. Policeman Duller would have been greatly
astonished had he known there was that in his words which gave her
courage.
"Perhaps," she said to herself with quickening breath, "oh, perhaps the
poor boy is the most in danger of them all, and the Saviour, knowing
it, sees ways in which I may reach him, and so presses his poor, sullen
face on my memory."
"What does he do for a living?" she hastened to ask.
"Well, to the best of my knowledge, he loafs for a living. That's all
I've ever known him guilty of doing. He's got a drunken father—one
of the meanest kind of drunkards. If he would go and stay drunk all
the time, and leave them alone, they might manage; but he has spells
of getting half over it, and coming home and tearing around like all
possessed. Then they have times! I've been in there when it took all
my strength to manage him. If he would get killed in one of his rows,
I'd have some hope of the rest of 'em; but he won't. That kind of folks
never do get killed; it's the decent ones.
"A fellow was carried by here just now with a broken leg—a nice, decent
boy, works hard to help his sister. He's the sort now that gets his leg
broken, and gets laid up for the rest of the winter. How do you account
for that? He lives pretty near Black Dirk's. Of course, he's got a
drunken father—they all have in that row; but if I was going in for
benevolence, I'd twice as soon do something for young Calkins as for
any of your set; they're a bad lot. They aren't worth lifting a finger
for. Now, that's a fact."
"And yet," said Mrs. Roberts, her voice tremulous with a feeling that
just then surged over her, "how can I help remembering that if the Lord
Jesus had said that of us, and stayed up there in his glory, we should
have been utterly without help or hope to-day?"
Very much astonished was Policeman Duffer. Ladies on all sorts of
errands had consulted him; he had been presented with many tracts in
his day; but rarely had a clear-voiced, earnest-eyed woman quietly
confronted him with that name, as if it contained an unanswerable
argument. However, he was not embarrassed; it took a great deal to
embarrass him.
"I don't take much stock in him," he said, with a lofty toss of his
head, and a careless tone, as though the question were one easy to
dispose of. "I don't believe in him myself."
"Do you know him?"
Earnest eyes were raised to his face, fixed steadily on his face, while
the questioner waited quietly for an answer.
Policeman Duffer was embarrassed now; he was not used to being
confronted with such matter of fact questions.
"Do I know him?" with a confused little laugh. "Why, I reckon not,
ma'am; according to the popular notion, he is too faraway for folks to
be well acquainted."
"Then popular notion is mistaken; for I know him very well indeed,
and he is by no means faraway. But what I meant was, Have you studied
his life and character, and do you fully understand the arguments for
believing in him?"
"I study the folks who profess to belong to him, ma'am, and I find that
about as much as I can stand."
This was said with a saucy little laugh, and with the air of a man who
believed he had produced an unanswerable argument. The steady eyes did
not move from his face, and the voice which answered him had lost none
of its quietness.
"But do you think it is wise to spend your time in studying the
imperfect copies, without looking at the perfect pattern? You would not
take the child's careless imitation as a proof that his teacher could
not write. I thank you for helping me to-day. I wish you would help my
boys when you can; and I wish you would study my Master instead of me.
Good-morning."
"That's a queer party!" did Policeman Duffer exclaim, as he watched her
far down the street. "I would like to know who she is; she ain't like
the rest somehow. 'Her' boys! Much she knows about 'em. Her bears, she
might as well call 'em. What does she think she can do with that set in
her little hour—Sunday afternoon? Satan, he has 'em all the week, and
looks after 'em sharp; and then these Christians come in of a Sunday,
and mince a little, and think they can upset his doings by it. Shows
their sense! But she's a curious little party—sharp, without knowing
it. I'll keep an eye on her, and save her from scrapes if I can."
Meantime, all unconscious of his good intentions, Mrs. Roberts pursued
her way down the thronged avenue, and presently turned from it
entirely, and moved down one of the side streets with resolute steps. A
daring thought had come into her mind; she would try to find the alley
where one at least of her boys lived. It couldn't be worse than some
of the alleys at home which she had penetrated. She felt certain that
by following the policeman's directions she could find the place, and
possibly be able to minister to the boy with a broken limb.
At all events, it was necessary for her to know how her boys lived, and
where they lived, if she were to reach them. But there are alleys and
alleys, as the venturesome lady found to her cost. This one into which
she was plunging excelled anything in that line which she had ever
imagined—swarming with life in its most repulsive forms, and growing
every moment more terrifying to a well-dressed woman braving its
horrors alone.
She stopped in dismay at last, admitting, reluctantly, that the wisest
thing she could do was to turn round and go home. Possibly the wisest,
but not, it appeared, practicable. Where was home? Down which of the
cross-streets had she come? Did this one where she stood lead to it? Or
did it lead, as it appeared to her, in an entirely opposite direction?
She looked up and down and across for some familiar landmark, and
looked in vain, growing momentarily more frightened at the attention
she was attracting by standing irresolutely there.
Flossy Shipley, in her girlhood days, had been almost a hopeless
coward; and Flossy Roberts felt, by the throbbing of her heart, that
she had not yet outgrown her girlish character. Suddenly she gave a
little exclamation of delight, and with a spring forward, laid her hand
on the arm of one whom she recognized—none other than "Nimble Dick"
himself.
"I am so glad," she said to the amazed young scamp, a little quiver of
satisfaction in her voice, "so glad to have met you. Do you know you
are a friend in need? I have lost my way. I cannot decide which way to
turn to reach Fifth Avenue again. Will you help me please?"
When had Nimble Dick lost an opportunity for fun at the expense of
another? Here was a chance for a jolly lark! A woman scared to death
because she was in Green Alley. What would she think of Burk Street?
Suppose he should send her there—only three blocks away, through a
lovelier part of the city than she had seen yet? He would venture.
If the crowds here showed her too much attention, it would be worth
something to see how she got through Burk Street.
"Oh yes," he said briskly. "I can show you the way in a twinkling. You
just go down this alley till you come to the big house at the corner
that has the windows all knocked out of it; then you turn and go down
that street till you get to the third crossing; then turn again to the
right, and you'll be on Fifth Avenue before you know it."
Had Mrs. Roberts been looking at his face, she would have seen the
wicked light dancing in his eyes, over the thought that he had thus
mapped out for her a walk through the very worst portion of the
city—every step, of course, lending her further and further away from
Fifth Avenue.
The sights that she might see, and the mishaps which might occur to
her—a handsomely-dressed woman, alone—before she made her way through
the horrors of these streets, were too much even for Nimble Dick's
imagination, who knew the locality well. He did not try to calculate
them, but gave himself up to the enjoyment of imagining how long it
would be before she would reach home if she followed his directions.
"She won't see no swallowing serpents that I knows of," he reflected
gleefully; "but I'll miss my reckoning if she don't see what will scare
her worse than they would."
But Mrs. Roberts was already "scared." She felt her heart beating hard,
and knew that her cheeks were aglow with excitement and vague terror.
She was not used to walking such streets alone. She looked ahead at the
way pointed out, and could see that the swarming life grew more turbid
as far as her eye could reach. She felt that she could not brave its
terrors unprotected. Suddenly, she turned from looking down the alley,
and her hand—a small, delicately-gloved hand—was again laid on Nimble
Dick's arm. He could feel it trembling.
"I suppose I shall seem very foolish to you," she said gently, "but I
am afraid to walk down there alone. Would you mind going along with
me to protect me? I am only a woman, you know, and we are apt to be
cowards."
A very curious sensation came over Nimble Dick. He looked up the
alley, and down the alley, and was glad that not one of the "fellows"
was in sight. What was to become of his lark? But there was that hand
still resting on his arm, with a persuasive touch in it; and he had
never been appealed to for protection before—never in his life! Was it
possible that with him she would not be afraid? He turned and looked at
her searchingly, a scowl on his face: no, she was not "shamming;" her
eyes were full of anxious fear, and also of petition.
Nimble Dick was amazed at himself, and ashamed of himself. He did not
know how to account for his sudden change of intention, but he suddenly
turned in an opposite direction from the one which he had pointed out,
and said, "Come on, then; I'll show you a shorter way," and strode
forward.
"Oh, thank you!" she said, relief and gratitude in her voice. "I
shall be so much obliged to you for coming with me; I am quite
bewildered—cannot decide which way I came, or any about it. I was
trying to find the house of a young man who has been hurt. A policeman
told me that he lived in this street, and that his name is Calkins. I
was think about him, and walked on without noticing, until I did not
know where I was. Do you know anything of the man?"
"You are too far down for him," said Nimble Dick. "He's quality, and
lives at the upper end of the alley. That's his house away up there.
He's hurt bad, they say; but I s'pose he'll get well. He's got a
quality doctor, a regular swell, who never come into these alleys
before. He was going along when they brought Mark home, and he followed
them in, and he come there again last night and this morning. I dunno
what for, I'm sure. Mark Calkins can't pay no doctor's bills, if he
does work regular, and pay more rent than the rest of folks."
There was a curious mixture of complaint and satisfaction in Dick's
tone. Mrs. Roberts gathered from it that the young man, Mark Calkins,
in whom the policeman had tried to interest her, was superior to the
rest of the miserable people in the alley, and that they resented it
as an insult to themselves; but that, at the same time, the reflected
honour of having a "swell" doctor come into their midst, attendant upon
one who really belonged to their class, was very great.
Could she possibly get a little influence over them by following up the
injured young man, and giving what help was needful? She had hardly
meant to call, though trying to find the house. Her method of reasoning
had been something like this:
"The policeman said he lived about two blocks from my poor Dirk's home.
Since there has so recently been an accident, there may be something to
mark the house—a doctor passing in, possibly, or something that shall
give me a landmark, and I can have a glimpse of the outside of one of
the homes."
In her ignorance of life at that end of the social scale, she did not
know that a doctor passing in and out, even after an accident, was a
sufficiently rare occurrence to make much more of a mark than she was
looking for. So absorbed had she been over the boys belonging to her
class, that she had rather ignored the policeman's manliest hint to add
this one to her list. Yet, was it possibly an answer to her prayer, an
entering wedge of some sort, that might open the way to influence?
"Who is the doctor?" she asked her guide, as the possibility of making
an entrance through him occurred to her. "Do you know his name?"
Oh yes, Dick knew his name, and where he lived, and even the names of
some of his "swell" patients;—trust him for gaining information about
anything that came into the alley.
"It's Dr. Everett," he said promptly, that curious touch of
pride appearing again in his voice. "He lives away up among the
Twenty-thirders, and he goes to Cady's house to doctor, and lots of
them places where the big ones lives. I dunno how he happens to come
here."
Mrs. Roberts had never heard the name, but she reflected that she was
a new-comer, and wisely desisted from taking from the glory of Dr.
Everett by admitting that he was not known to all the world. He might
be a good doctor and a philanthropic one; his visits to this region
looked like it.
"Do you know where any of the boys in our class live?"
This was her next carefully-worded question. She did not know whether
to hint that she had heard of one who lived in that alley, or whether
this would be considered an insult.
"Well," said Nimble Dick, the sly twinkle coming back to his eyes that
the strangeness of the situation had driven away for a moment, "I
calculate that I know where I live myself; sometimes I do, anyhow."
"To be sure!" she said, laughing at his humour. "I should have said
where any of the others live. Of course you will give me your address,
after being so kind as to see me to—some point with which I am
acquainted."
She had nearly said a place of safety, but checked herself in time. I
am not sure, though, that Dick would have noticed it; he was lost in
astonishment over the idea of giving anybody his address.
"This is Dirk Colson's house," he said suddenly; "and he is one of our
fellows."
Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation. The house was one of the most
forlorn in the row, seeming, if the miserable state of the buildings
would admit of comparison, to be more out of repair than the others.
It came home to her just then, with a sudden, desolating force, that
human beings, such as she was trying to reach, and such as she hoped
would live in heaven for ever, called such earthly habitations as these
homes. What possible idea could they ever get of heaven by calling it
"home"?
"Do they have the whole of that house?"
She asked the question timidly, for the building looked very large, but
she was utterly unused to city tenement life.
"The 'whole' of that house?" Dick fairly shouted the sentence, and
bent himself double with laughter. "Well, I should say not, mum! As
near as I can calculate, about thirty-five different families have
that pleasure. The whole of the house! Oh, my! What a greeny!" And he
laughed again.
Mrs. Roberts exerted herself to laugh with him, albeit she was
horror-stricken. Thirty-five families in one house! How could they be
other than awful in their ways of living?
"I know almost nothing about great cities," she said; "my home was in a
much smaller one."
This was the truth, but not the whole truth. Instinct kept this
veritable lady, in the truest sense of the word, from explaining that
she knew nothing about the abject poor when she was speaking to one of
their number. Just at this moment occurred a diversion: they had been
making swift progress through the alley, Dick's long strides requiring
effort on his companion's part to keep by his side; but just ahead the
way was obstructed.