Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
“But, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.”
—DANIEL, 10:13.
Chapter I
“Hi, there! Mikky! Look out!”
It was an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in
the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding,
straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the
crowd. With his bundle of papers held high, and the late morning
sunlight catching his tangle of golden hair, Mikky flung himself toward
the little one. The sharp crack of a revolver from the opposite
curbstone was simultaneous with their fall. Then all was confusion.
It was a great stone house on Madison Avenue where the crowd had
gathered. An automobile stood before the door, having but just come
quietly up, and the baby girl three years old, in white velvet, and
ermines, with her dark curls framed by an ermine-trimmed hood, and a
bunch of silk rosebuds poised coquettishly over the brow vying with the
soft roses of her cheeks came out the door with her nurse for her
afternoon ride. Just an instant the nurse stepped back to the hall for
the wrap she had dropped, leaving the baby alone, her dark eyes shining
like stars under the straight dark brows, as she looked gleefully out
in the world. It was just at that instant, as if by magic, that the
crowd assembled.
Perhaps it would be better to say that it was just at that minute that
the crowd focused itself upon the particular house where the baby
daughter of the president of a great defaulting bank lived. More or
less all the morning, men had been gathering, passing the house,
looking up with troubled or threatening faces toward the richly laced
windows, shaking menacing heads, muttering imprecations, but there had
been no disturbance, and no concerted crowd until the instant the baby
appeared.
The police had been more or less vigilant all the morning but had seen
nothing to disturb them. The inevitable small boy had also been in
evidence, with his natural instinct for excitement. Mikky with his
papers often found himself in that quarter of a bright morning, and the
starry eyes and dark curls of the little child were a vision for which
he often searched the great windows as he passed this particular house:
but the man with the evil face on the other side of the street, resting
a shaking hand against the lamp post, and sighting the baby with a
vindictive eye, had never been seen there before. It was Mikky who
noticed him first: Mikky, who circling around him innocently had heard
his imprecations against the rich, who caught the low-breathed oath as
the baby appeared, and saw the ugly look on the man’s face. With
instant alarm he had gone to the other side of the street, his eye upon
the offender, and had been the first to see the covert motion, the
flash of the hidden weapon and to fear the worst.
But a second behind him his street companions saw his danger and cried
out, too late. Mikky had flung himself in front of the beautiful baby,
covering her with his great bundle of papers, and his own ragged,
neglected little body; and receiving the bullet intended for her, went
down with her as she fell.
Instantly all was confusion.
A child’s cry—a woman’s scream—the whistle of the police—the angry roar
of the crowd who were like a pack of wild animals that had tasted
blood. Stones flew, flung by men whose wrongs had smothered in their
breasts and bred a fury of hate and murder. Women were trampled upon.
Two of the great plate glass windows crashed as the flying missiles
entered the magnificent home, regardless of costly lace and velvet
hangings.
The chauffeur attempted to run his car around the corner but was held
up at once, and discreetly took himself out of the way, leaving the car
in the hands of the mob who swarmed into it and over it, ruthlessly
disfiguring it in their wrath. There was the loud report of exploding
tires, the ripping of costly leather cushions, the groaning of fine
machinery put to torture as the fury of the mob took vengeance on the
car to show what they would like to do to its owner.
Gone into bankruptcy! He! With a great electric car like that, and
servants to serve him! With his baby attired in the trappings of a
queen and his house swathed in lace that had taken the eyesight from
many a poor lace-maker! He! Gone into bankruptcy, and slipping away
scot free, while the men he had robbed stood helpless on his sidewalk,
hungry and shabby and hopeless because the pittances they had put away
in his bank, the result of slavery and sacrifice, were gone,—hopelessly
gone! and they were too old, or too tired, or too filled with hate, to
earn it again.
The crowd surged and seethed madly, now snarling like beasts, now
rumbling portentously like a storm, now babbling like an infant; a
great emotional frenzy, throbbing with passion, goaded beyond fear,
desperate with need; leaderless, and therefore the more dangerous.
The very sight of that luxurious baby with her dancing eyes and happy
smiles “rolling in luxury,” called to mind their own little puny
darling, grimy with neglect, lean with want, and hollow-eyed with
knowledge aforetime. Why should one baby be pampered and another
starved? Why did the bank-president’s daughter have any better right to
those wonderful furs and that exultant smile than their own babies? A
glimpse into the depths of the rooms beyond the sheltering plate glass
and drapery showed greater contrast even than they had dreamed between
this home and the bare tenements they had left that morning, where the
children were crying for bread and the wife shivering with cold.
Because they loved their own their anger burned the fiercer; and for
love of their pitiful scrawny babies that flower-like child in the
doorway was hated with all the vehemence of their untamed natures.
Their every breath cried out for vengeance, and with the brute instinct
they sought to hurt the man through his child, because they had been
hurt by the wrong done to their children.
The policeman’s whistle had done its work, however. The startled
inmates of the house had drawn the beautiful baby and her small
preserver within the heavy carven doors, and borne them back to safety
before the unorganized mob had time to force their way in. Amid the
outcry and the disorder no one had noticed that Mikky had disappeared
until his small band of companions set up an outcry, but even then no
one heard.
The mounted police had arrived, and orders were being given. The man
who had fired the shot was arrested, handcuffed and marched away. The
people were ordered right and left, and the officer’s horses rode
ruthlessly through the masses. Law and order had arrived and there was
nothing for the downtrodden but to flee.
In a very short time the square was cleared and guarded by a large
force. Only the newspaper men came and went without challenge. The
threatening groups of men who still hovered about withdrew further and
further. The wrecked automobile was patched up and taken away to the
garage. The street became quiet, and by and by some workmen came
hurriedly, importantly, and put in temporary protections where the
window glass had been broken.
Yet through it all a little knot of ragged newsboys stood their ground
in front of the house. Until quiet was restored they had evaded each
renewed command of officer or passer-by, and stayed there; whispering
now and again in excited groups and pointing up to the house. Finally a
tall policeman approached them:
“Clear out of this, kids!” he said not unkindly. “Here’s no place for
you. Clear out. Do you hear me? You can’t stay here no longer:”
Then one of them wheeled upon him. He was the tallest of them all, with
fierce little freckled face and flashing black eyes in which all the
evil passions of four generations back looked out upon a world that had
always been harsh. He was commonly known as fighting Buck.
“Mikky’s in dare. He’s hurted. We kids can’t leave Mick alone. He might
be dead.”
Just at that moment a physician’s runabout drew up to the door, and the
policeman fell back to let him pass into the house. Hard upon him
followed the bank president in a closed carriage attended by several
men in uniform who escorted him to the door and touched their hats
politely as he vanished within. Around the corners scowling faces
haunted the shadows, and murmured imprecations were scarcely withheld
in spite of the mounted officers. A shot was fired down the street, and
several policemen hurried away. But through it all the boys stood their
ground.
“Mikky’s in dare. He’s hurted. I seen him fall. Maybe he’s deaded. We
kids want to take him away. Mikky didn’t do nothin’, Mikky jes’ tried
to save der little kid. Mikky’s a good’un. You get the folks to put
Mikky out here. We kids’ll take him away.”
The policeman finally attended to the fierce pleading of the
ragamuffins. Two or three newspaper men joined the knot around them and
the story was presently written up with all the racy touches that the
writers of the hour know how to use. Before night Buck, with his fierce
black brows drawn in helpless defiance was adorning the evening papers
in various attitudes as the different snapshots portrayed him, and the
little group of newsboys and boot-blacks and good-for-nothings that
stood around him figured for once in the eyes of the whole city.
The small band held their place until forcibly removed. Some of them
were barefoot, and stood shivering on the cold stones, their little
sickly, grimy faces blue with anxiety and chill.
The doctor came out of the house just as the last one, Buck, was being
marched off with loud-voiced protest. He eyed the boy, and quickly
understood the situation.
“Look here!” he called to the officer. “Let me speak to the youngster.
He’s a friend, I suppose, of the boy that was shot?”
The officer nodded.
“Well, boy, what’s all this fuss about?” He looked kindly, keenly into
the defiant black eyes of Buck.
“Mikky’s hurted—mebbe deaded. I wants to take him away from dare,” he
burst forth sullenly. “We kids can’t go off’n’ leave Mikky in dare wid
de rich guys. Mikky didn’t do no harm. He’s jes tryin’ to save de kid.”
“Mikky. Is that the boy that took the shot in place of the little
girl?”
The boy nodded and looked anxiously into the kindly face of the doctor.
“Yep. Hev you ben in dare? Did youse see Mikky? He’s got yaller hair.
Is Mikky deaded?”
“No, he isn’t dead,” said the physician kindly, “but he’s pretty badly
hurt. The ball went through his shoulder and arm, and came mighty near
some vital places. I’ve just been fixing him up comfortably, and he’ll
be all right after a bit, but he’s got to lie very still right where he
is and be taken care of.”
“We kids’ll take care o’ Mikky!” said Buck proudly. “He tooked care of
Jinney when she was sick, an’ we’ll take care o’ Mikky, all right, all
right. You jes’ brang him out an’ we’ll fetch a wheelbarry an’ cart him
off’n yer han’s. Mikky wouldn’t want to be in dare wid de rich guys.”
“My dear fellow,” said the doctor, quite touched by the earnestness in
Buck’s eyes, “that’s very good of you, I’m sure, and Mikky ought to
appreciate his friends, but he’s being taken care of perfectly right
where he is and he couldn’t be moved. It might kill him to move him,
and if he stays where he is he will get well. I’ll tell you what I’ll
do,” he added as he saw the lowering distress in the dumb eyes before
him, “I’ll give you a bulletin every day. You be here tonight at five
o’clock when I come out of the house and I’ll tell you just how he is.
Then you needn’t worry about him. He’s in a beautiful room lying on a
great big white bed and he has everything nice around him, and when I
came away he was sleeping. I can take him a message for you when I go
in tonight, if you like.”
Half doubtfully the boy looked at him.
“Will you tell Mikky to drop us down word ef he wants annythin’? Will
you ast him ef he don’t want us to git him out?”
“Sure!” said the doctor in kindly amusement. “You trust me and I’ll
make good. Be here at five o’clock sharp and again tomorrow at quarter
to eleven.”
“He’s only a slum kid!” grumbled the officer. “’Tain’t worth while to
take so much trouble. ’Sides, the folks won’t want um botherin’
’round.”
“Oh, he’s all right!” said the doctor. “He’s a friend worth having. You
might need one yourself some day, you know. What’s your name, boy? Who
shall I tell Mikky sent the message?”
“Buck,” said the child gravely, “Fightin’ Buck, they calls me.”
“Very appropriate name, I should think,” said the doctor smiling.
“Well, run along Buck and be here at five o’clock.”
Reluctantly the boy moved off. The officer again took up his stand in
front of the house and quiet was restored to the street.
Meantime, in the great house consternation reigned for a time.
The nurse maid had reached the door in time to hear the shot and see
the children fall. She barely escaped the bullet herself. She was an
old servant of the family and therefore more frightened for her charge
than for herself. She had the presence of mind to drag both children
inside the house and shut and lock the door immediately, before the
seething mob could break in.
The mistress of the house fell in a dead faint as they carried her
little laughing daughter up the stairs and a man and a maid followed
with the boy who was unconscious. The servants rushed hither and
thither; the housekeeper had the coolness to telephone the bank
president what had happened, and to send for the family physician. No
one knew yet just who was hurt or how much. Mikky had been brought
inside because he blocked the doorway, and there was need for instantly
shutting the door. If it had been easier to shove him out the nurse
maid would probably have done that. But once inside common humanity
bade them look after the unconscious boy’s needs, and besides, no one
knew as yet just exactly what part Mikky had played in the small
tragedy of the morning.
“Where shall we take him?” said the man to the maid as they reached the
second floor with their unconscious burden.
“Not here, Thomas. Here’s no place for him. He’s as dirty as a pig. I
can’t think what come over Morton to pull him inside, anyway. His own
could have tended to him. Besides, such is better dead!”
They hurried on past the luxurious rooms belonging to the lady of the
mansion; up the next flight of stairs, and Norah paused by the
bath-room door where the full light of the hall windows fell upon the
grimy little figure of the child they carried.
Norah the maid uttered an exclamation.
“He’s not fit fer any place in this house. Look at his cloes. They’ll
have to be cut off’n him, and he needs to go in the bath-tub before he
can be laid anywheres. Let’s put him in the bath-room, and do you go
an’ call Morton. She got him in here and she’ll have to bathe him. And
bring me a pair of scissors. I’ll mebbe have to cut the cloes off’n
him, they’re so filthy. Ach! The little beast!”
Thomas, glad to be rid of his burden, dropped the boy on the bath-room
floor and made off to call Morton.
Norah, with little knowledge and less care, took no thought for the
life of her patient. She was intent on making him fit to put between
her clean sheets. She found the tattered garments none too tenacious in
their hold to the little, half-naked body. One or two buttons and a
string were their only attachments. Norah pulled them off with gingerly
fingers, and holding them at arm’s length took them to the bath-room
window whence she pitched them down into the paved court below, that
led to the kitchen regions. Thomas could burn them, or put them on the
ash pile by and by. She was certain they would never go on again, and
wondered how they had been made to hold together this last time.
Morton had not come yet, but Norah discovering a pool of blood under
the little bare shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white
bath-tub and turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time,
and getting blood on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was
not unkind but she hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one
arm she applied herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with
the other hand. The shock of the water, not being very warm at first,
brought returning consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long
shuddering sigh. The eyelashes trembled for an instant on the white
cheeks, and his eyes opened; gazed dazedly, then wildly, on the strange
surroundings, the water, and the vigorous Irish woman who had him in
her power. He threw his arms up with a struggling motion, gasped as if
with sudden pain and lost consciousness again, relaxing once more into
the strong red arm that held him. It was just at this critical moment
that Morton entered the bath-room.
Morton was a trim, apple-cheeked Scotch woman of about thirty years,
with neat yellow-brown hair coiled on the top of her head, a cheerful
tilt to her freckled nose, and eyes so blue that in company with her
rosy cheeks one thought at once of a flag. Heather and integrity
exhaled from her very being, flamed from her cheeks, spoke from her
loyal, stubborn chin, and looked from her trustworthy eyes. She had
been with the bank president’s baby ever since the little star-eyed
creature came into the world.
“Och! look ye at the poor wee’un!” she exclaimed. “Ye’re hurtin’ him,
Norah! Ye shouldn’t have bathed him the noo! Ye should’ve waited the
docther’s comin’. Ye’ll mebbe kin kill him.”
“Ach! Get out with yer soft talk!” said Norah, scrubbing the more
vigorously. “Did yez suppose I’ll be afther havin’ all this filth in
the nice clean sheets? Get ye to work an’ he’p me. Do ye hold ’im while
I schrub!”
She shifted the boy into the gentler arm’s of the nurse, and went to
splashing all the harder. Then suddenly, before the nurse could
protest, she had dashed a lot of foamy suds on the golden head and was
scrubbing that with all her might.
“Och, Norah!” cried the nurse in alarm. “You shouldn’t a done that!
Ye’ll surely kill the bairn. Look at his poor wee shoulder a bleedin’,
and his little face so white an’ still. Have ye no mercy at all, Norah?
Rinse off that suds at once, an’ dry him softly. What’ll the docther be
sayin’ to ye fer all this I can’t think. There, my poor bairnie,” she
crooned to the child, softly drawing him closer as though he were
conscious,—
“There, there my bairnie, it’ll soon be over. It’ll be all right in
just a minute, poor wee b’y! Poor wee b’y! There! There—”
But Norah did her perfect work, and made the little lean body
glistening white as polished marble, while the heavy hair hung limp
like pale golden silk.
The two women carried him to a bed in a large room at the back of the
house, not far from the nursery, and laid him on a blanket, with his
shoulder stanched with soft linen rags. Morton was softly drying his
hair and crooning to the child—although he was still
unconscious—begging Norah to put the blanket over him lest he catch
cold; and Norah was still vigorously drying his feet unmindful of
Morton’s pleading, when the doctor entered with a trained nurse. The
boy lay white and still upon the blanket as the two women, startled,
drew back from their task. The body, clean now, and beautifully shaped,
might have been marble except for the delicate blue veins in wrists and
temples. In spite of signs of privation and lack of nutrition there was
about the boy a showing of strength in well developed muscles, and it
went to the heart to see him lying helpless so, with his drenched gold
hair and his closed eyes. The white limbs did not quiver, the lifeless
fingers drooped limply, the white chest did not stir with any sign of
breath, and yet the tender lips that curved in a cupid’s bow, were not
altogether gone white.
“What a beautiful child!” exclaimed the nurse involuntarily as she came
near the bed. “He looks like a young god!”
“He’s far more likely to be a young devil,” said the doctor grimly,
leaning over him with practised eyes, and laying a listening ear to the
quiet breast. Then, he started back.
“He’s cold as ice! What have you been doing to him? It wasn’t a case of
drowning, was it? You haven’t been giving him a bath at such a time as
this, have you? Did you want to kill the kid outright?”
“Oauch, the poor wee b’y!” sobbed Morton under her breath, her blue
eyes drenched with tears that made them like blue lakes. “He’s like to
my own wee b’y that I lost when he was a baby,” she explained in
apology to the trained nurse who was not, however, regarding her in the
least.
Norah had vanished frightened to consult with Thomas. It was Morton who
brought the things the doctor called for, and showed the nurse where to
put her belongings; and after everything was done and the boy made
comfortable and brought back to consciousness, it was she who stood at
the foot of the bed and smiled upon him first in this new world to
which he opened his eyes.
His eyes were blue, heavenly blue and dark, but they were great with a
brave fear as he glanced about on the strange faces. He looked like a
wild bird, caught in a kindly hand,—a bird whose instincts held him
still because he saw no way of flight, but whose heart was beating
frightfully against his captor’s fingers. He looked from side to side
of the room, and made a motion to rise from the pillow. It was a wild,
furtive motion, as of one who has often been obliged to fly for safety,
yet still has unlimited courage. There was also in his glance the
gentle harmlessness and appeal of the winged thing that has been
caught.
“Well, youngster, you had a pretty close shave,” said the doctor
jovially, “but you’ll pull through all right! You feel comfortable
now?”
The nurse was professionally quiet.
“Poor wee b’y!” murmured Morton, her eyes drenched again.
The boy looked from one to another doubtfully. Suddenly remembrance
dawned upon him and comprehension entered his glance. He looked about
the room and toward the door. There was question in his eyes that
turned on the doctor but his lips formed no words. He looked at Morton,
and knew her for the nurse of his baby. Suddenly he smiled, and that
smile seemed to light up the whole room, and filled the heart of Morton
with joy unspeakable. It seemed to her it was the smile of her own lost
baby come back to shine upon her. The tears welled, up and the blue
lakes ran over. The boy’s face was most lovely when he smiled.
“Where is—de little kid?” It was Morton whose face he searched
anxiously as he framed the eager question, and the woman’s intuition
taught her how to answer.
“She’s safe in her own wee crib takin’ her morning nap. She’s just new
over,” answered the woman reassuringly.
Still the eyes were not satisfied.
“Did she”—he began slowly—“get—hurted?”
“No, my bairnie, she’s all safe and sound as ever. It was your own self
that saved her life.”
The boy’s face lit up and he turned from one to another contentedly.
His smile said: “Then I’m glad.” But not a word spoke his shy lips.
“You’re a hero, kid!” said the doctor huskily. But the boy knew little
about heroes and did not comprehend.
The nurse by this time had donned her uniform and rattled up starchily
to take her place at the bedside, and Morton and the doctor went away,
the doctor to step once more into the lady’s room below to see if she
was feeling quite herself again after her faint.
The nurse leaned over the boy with a glass and spoon. He looked at it
curiously, unknowingly. It was a situation entirely outside his
experience.
“Why don’t you take your medicine?” asked the nurse.
The boy looked at the spoon again as it approached his lips and opened
them to speak.
“Is—”
In went the medicine and the boy nearly choked, but he understood and
smiled.
“A hospital?” he finished.
The nurse laughed.
“No, it’s only a house. They brought you in, you know, when you were
hurt out on the steps. You saved the little girl’s life. Didn’t you
know it?” she said kindly, her heart won by his smile.
A beautiful look rewarded her.
“Is de little kid—in this house?” he asked slowly, wonderingly. It was
as if he had asked if he were in heaven, there was so much awe in his
tone.
“Oh, yes, she’s here,” answered the nurse lightly. “Perhaps they’ll
bring her in to see you sometime. Her father’s very grateful. He thinks
it showed wonderful courage in you to risk your life for her sake.”
But Mikky comprehended nothing about gratitude. He only took in the
fact that the beautiful baby was in the house and might come there to
see him. He settled to sleep quite happily with an occasional glad
wistful glance toward the door, as the long lashes sank on the white
cheeks, for the first sleep the boy had ever taken in a clean, white,
soft bed. The prim nurse, softened for once from her precise attention
to duties, stood and looked upon the lovely face of the sleeping child,
wondered what his life had been, and how the future would be for him.
She half pitied him that the ball had not gone nearer to the vital spot
and taken him to heaven ere he missed the way, so angel-like his face
appeared in the soft light of the sick room, with the shining gold hair
fluffed back upon the pillow now, like a halo.