A PRINCE
Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door of
"Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward. Three
times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he worked in
the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese, between
customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to be "dumplin's"
this night and that she would keep some warm for him, and because the
wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he broke into a run.
His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the
neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now,
dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering
the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence.
Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit
of humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence.
"Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid?
Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and
swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for
the hour was late, and the child a very small one.
"I lost--my Cynthia."
"Your--_what_?"
"My--my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice
trailed off in a wail.
Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was
visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of
her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round
and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to
run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of
the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony had
come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away and
for-g-got Cynthia!"
"Well, I guess she's somebody else's Cynthia now, kid. Things don't stay
long in the parks 'round here."
Dale seemed so very old and very wise that the tiny girl listened to his
verdict with blanching face. He knew, of course.
"Where d'you live?" demanded Dale. "Why, you're just a baby! Anybody
with you?"
The child pointed rather uncertainly to one of the intersecting streets.
"I come that way," she said, then, even while saying it, began to wonder
if that were the way she had come. The streets all looked so much
alike. She had run along the curb, so as to be as far away as possible
from the dark alley ways and the doors. And it had been a long way.
Her lip quivered though she would not cry. After Cynthia's fate, just to
be lost herself did not matter.
"Well, don't you know where you live? What's the street? I'll take you
home."
"22 Patchin Place," lisped the child.
Dale hesitated a moment to make sure of his bearings. "Well, then, come
along. I know where that is. And you forget 'bout your Cynthia. You've
got another doll, haven't you? If you haven't, you just ask Santa Claus
for one. Why, say, kiddo, what's this? You lame?" For the little girl
skipped jerkily at his side.
"That's just the way I'm made," the child answered, quite indifferent to
the shocked note in the boy's voice. "I can walk and run, but I go
crooked."
"What's your name?"
"Robin Forsyth." She made it sound like "Wobbin Force."
"Oh, Wobbin Force. Funny name, isn't it? And what's your Ma and Pa going
to say to you for running off?"
Putting a small hand trustingly into the boy's big one, the child
skipped along at his side. "Oh, nothing," she answered, lost in an
admiring contemplation of her rescuer. "What's they, anyway?"
"A Ma? Don't you know what your mother is?"
Little Robin met his astonishment with a ripple of laughter. "Oh a
_mother_! I had a lovely, lovely mother once but she's gone away--to
Heaven. And is a Pa a Jimmie?"
"A--what?" Dale had never met such a strange child.
"'Cause Jimmie's my Parent. I call him Parent sometimes and sometimes I
call him Jimmie."
If his companion had not been so very small Dale might have suspected an
attempt at "kidding." He glanced sidewise and suspiciously at her but
all he saw was a cherub face framed in a tilted sky-blue tam-o'shanter
and straggling ends of flaming red hair.
"Jimmie won't scold me. _He'd_ want me to try to find Cynthia." Robin
smothered a sigh. "He wasn't home anyway."
"D'you live all alone? You and your Jimmie?"
"Oh, yes, only Aunt Milly's downstairs and Grandpa Jones is 'cross the
hall, so I'm never 'fraid. They're not my really truly aunt's and
grandfather's--I just call them that. And Jimmie leaves the light
burning anyway. What's your name? And are you very old? Are you a man
like Jimmie?"
Dale, warming under the adoration he saw on the small face, felt very
big and very manly. He returned the little squeeze that tugged on his
hand.
"Oh, I'm a big fellow," he answered.
"You look awful nice," the little girl pursued. "Just like one of my
make-believe Princes. I wish you lived with Jimmie and me. I wouldn't
mind Cynthia then."
"But the Princes never lived with the little girls in the stories, you
know," argued Dale, finding it a very pleasant and unusual sensation to
act the rôle of a Prince even to a very small girl. "You have to find
me, you see."
Miss Robin jumped with joy. "Oh, goody, goody! I'll always make b'lieve
you are a Prince and I'll find you and you must find me, too. You will,
won't you?"
"You just bet I will," promised Dale, easily. "Here's your street." He
stopped to study the house numbers. Suddenly a door flew open wide and a
bareheaded man plunged into the street, almost tumbling upon them.
"Robin! Good gracious! I thought you were--stolen--lost--"
Robin, very calm, clasped him about his knee.
"I _was_ lost, Jimmie. But this very big boy brought me home. He's a
Prince--I mean he's my make-believe Prince."
"But, Robin--" The man turned from the child to Dale.
"I found her way down by Sheridan Square. She was hunting for her doll
she'd left there."
"While I was walking with Mr. Tony this afternoon I played in the park
and I forgot Cynthia."
"Good Heavens--and you went way off there all by yourself to find the
thing?"
In her pride of Dale, Robin overlooked the slur on Cynthia.
"I went alone," she repeated, "but I came home with my Prince."
Gradually Robin's father was recovering from his shock. The muscles of
his face relaxed; he ran his fingers through his thick hair, red like
the child's, with a gesture of throwing off some horrible nightmare. To
Dale he looked very boyish--with a little of Robin's own cherubic
expression.
"Well, say, you gave me a fright, child. And you must promise not to do
it again. Why, I can't ever leave you alone unless you do."
He turned to Dale, who stood, lingering, loath to leave the little Robin
under the doubtful protection her Jimmie offered. "I'm no end grateful
to you, my boy. If there's anything I can do for you--" He slipped one
hand mechanically into his pocket.
"_I_ don't want anything." Dale spoke curtly and stepped back. "It
wasn't any bother; it's a nice night to walk."
With a child's quick intuition Robin realized that her gallant Prince
was about to slip out of her sight. Her Jimmie had pulled his hand from
his pocket and was extending it to the boy. He was not even inviting him
to come in and smoke like he always invited Mr. Tony and Gerald and all
the others. But of course Princes wouldn't smoke, anyway.
She waited until her father had finished his thanks, then, stepping up
to Dale, she reached out two small arms and by holding on to Dale's,
drew herself up almost to the boy's chin. Upon it she pressed a shy,
warm kiss.
"Good-bye, Prince. You will hunt for me, won't you? Promise! Cross your
heart!"
Dale, flaming red, confused, promised that he would, then wheeled and
stalked off down the street. After he had rounded the corner he lifted
his arm and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his coat. Then he stuck
his hands deep in his pockets and whistled loudly. But after a moment,
at a recollection of sky-blue eyes underneath a sky-blue tam-o'shanter,
he chuckled softly. "A Prince! Gee, some Prince!" But his head
instinctively went higher at the honor thrust upon him.
When he returned from the store, Dale usually found his mother sitting
by the lamp crocheting. But tonight everything was different; scarcely
had he stopped at their landing before the little mother, quite
transformed, rushed to greet him and tell him the wonderful bit of good
fortune.
Before it his own adventure was forgotten.
"And it's only a beginning it is--it's the superintendent he'll be in no
time at all, at all," finished Mrs. Lynch.
"And we can move? And I can join the Boy Scouts? And go to camp next
summer? And have a pair of roller skates?"
Mrs. Lynch nodded her head to each question. Behind each note of her
voice rippled a laugh. "Yes, yes, yes. Sure, it's a wonderful night this
is."
"Where's Pop now?"
"Working with the extra shift," the wife answered, proudly.
"Any dumplings?" eagerly.
"And I was forgetting! Bless the heart of you, of course I saved the
biggest. 'Twas like a party tonight for I dressed your sister in the
beads. It's worn out she is, God love her, with the excitement and
trying to keep her wee eyes open 'til her Pop come home. Hushee or
you'll waken the lamb now."
Dale was deep in thought choosing the words with which he would tell the
good news to the "fellows" on the morrow, his mother was busying herself
with the "biggest" dumpling, when a peremptory knock came at the door.
With a quick cry Mrs. Lynch dropped her spoon--why should anything
intrude upon their joy this night?
A man stood on the threshold presenting a curious figure for he wore a
heavy coat over a white duck suit. Where had she seen such a suit
before? With a catch at her heart she remembered--at the hospital, that
time Dale had been run over. "Oh!" she cried. "My Dan!"
"Mrs. Lynch?" The hospital attendant spoke quickly as one would who had
a disagreeable task and must dispose of it without any delay. "Your
husband's had an accident--he's alive, but--you'd better come."
Mrs. Lynch stood very still in the centre of the room--her hand
clutching her throat as though to stifle the scream that tore it.
"My Dan--hurt!" She trembled but stood very straight. "Quick, Dale, we
must go to him. My Dan. No, no, you stay with Beryl. Oh, _hurry_!" she
implored the interne, rushing bareheaded past him down the stairway.
"_Hurry._"
For a few moments Dale stared at the half-open door. In his thirteen
years he had experienced the pinch of poverty, even hunger, the pain of
injury, but never this overwhelming fear of something, he did not know
what. Pop, his big, strong Pop--hurt! Pop, who could swing him even now,
that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no, no,
it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had cruelly
frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop been made
a boss?
"Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room. "Mom-ma,
what's they?" Glad of anything to do Dale rushed to quiet his little
sister. He bade her, brokenly, to "never mind and go to sleep," and he
pulled the old blanket up tight to her chin, his eyes so blinded with
tears that he did not see the waxen head pillowed close to Beryl's.
Then he sat in his mother's chair and dropped his head upon the table
and waited, his hands clenched at his side.
"I _won't_ cry! I _won't_ be a baby! Mom'll maybe need me. I'm big now!"
he muttered, finding a little comfort in the sound of his own voice.
* * * * *
Poor Robin's Prince; alas, he felt very young and helpless before the
trouble which he faced.
Big Dan Lynch, he who had been the fairest and sturdiest of the county
of Moira's girlhood, would never work again--as superintendent or even
foreman; the rest of his days must be spent in the wheeled chair sent up
by the sympathetic Miss Lewis of the Neighborhood Settlement House. It
was fixed with a contrivance so that he could move it about the small
room.
Little Beryl started school which made up for a great deal that had
suddenly been taken from her life, for mother never sat by the lamp,
now, or crocheted. She worked at the Settlement House all day and all
evening busied herself with her home tasks.
The "lucky dolly" Beryl hid away in paper wrappings. Somehow, young as
she was, she knew her mother could not bear the sight of it.
And Dale worked every day at Tony's, going to night school on the
evenings when he had used to go to the store. A tightening about the
lips, an older seriousness in the lad's eyes alone told what it had cost
him to give up his ambition to graduate with his class, perhaps at its
head.
Little Robin with the sky-blue eyes was quite forgotten!