Heaven opened for Mikky on the day when Morton, with the doctor’s
permission, brought Baby Starr to see him.
The baby, in her nurse’s arms, gazed down upon her rescuer with the
unprejudiced eyes of childhood. Mikky’s smile flashed upon her and
forthwith she answered with a joyous laugh of glee. The beautiful boy
pleased her ladyship. She reached out her roseleaf hands to greet him.
The nurse held her down to the bed:
“Kiss the wee b’y, that’s a good baby. Kiss the wee b’y. He took care
of baby and saved her life when the bad man tried to hurt her. Kiss the
wee b’y and say ‘I thank you,’” commanded Morton.
The saving of her life meant nothing to little Starr, but she
obediently murmured ‘I’ee tank oo!’ as the nurse had drilled her to do
before she brought her, and then laid her moist pink lips on cheeks,
forehead, eyes and mouth in turn, and Mikky, in ecstasy, lay trembling
with the pleasure of it. No one had ever kissed him before. Kissing was
not in vogue in the street where he existed.
Thereafter, every day until he was convalescent, Starr came to visit
him.
By degrees he grew accustomed to her gay presence enough to talk with
her freely as child with child. Her words were few and her tongue as
yet quite unacquainted with the language of this world; but perhaps
that was all the better, for their conversations were more of the
spirit than of the tongue, Mikky’s language, of circumstance, being
quite unlike that of Madison Avenue.
Starr brought her wonderful electric toys and dolls, and Mikky looked
at them with wonder, yet always with a kind of rare indifference,
because the child herself was to him the wonder of all wonders, an
angel spirit stooped to earth. And every day, when the nurse carried
her small charge away after her frolic with the boy, she would always
lift her up to the bed and say:
“Now kiss the wee b’y, Baby Starr, and thank him again fer savin’ yer
life.”
And Starr would lay her soft sweet mouth on his as tenderly and gravely
as if she understood the full import of her obligation. At such times
Mikky would watch her bright face as it came close to his, and when her
lips touched his he would close his eyes as if to shut out all things
else from this sacred ceremony. After Starr and Morton were gone the
nurse was wont to look furtively toward the bed and note the still,
lovely face of the boy whose eyes were closed as if to hold the vision
and memory the longer. At such times her heart would draw her strangely
from her wonted formality and she would touch the boy with a tenderness
that was not natural to her.
There were other times when Mr. Endicott would come and talk briefly
with the boy, just to see his eyes light and his face glow with that
wonderful smile, and to think what it would be if the boy were his own.
Always Mikky enjoyed these little talks, and when his visitor was gone
he would think with satisfaction that this was just the right kind of a
father for his little lovely Starr. He was glad the Baby Starr had a
father. He had often wondered what it would be like to have a father,
and now he thought he saw what the height of desire in a father might
be. Not that he felt a great need for himself in the way of fathers. He
had taken care of himself since he could remember and felt quite grown
up and fathers usually drank; but a baby like that needed a father, and
he liked Starr’s father.
But the dearest thing now in life for him was little Starr’s kisses.
To the father, drawn first by gratitude to the boy who had saved his
child’s life, and afterwards by the boy’s own irresistible smile, these
frequent visits had become a pleasure. There had been a little boy
before Starr came to their home, but he had only lived a few weeks. The
memory of that golden, fuzzy head, the little appealing fingers, the
great blue eyes of his son still lingered bitterly in the father’s
heart. When he first looked upon this waif the fancy seized him that,
perhaps his own boy would have been like this had he lived, and a
strange and unexpected tenderness entered his heart for Mikky. He kept
going to the little invalid’s room night after night, pleasing himself
with the thought that the boy was his own.
So strong a hold did this fancy take upon the man’s heart that he
actually began to consider the feasibility of adopting the child and
bringing him up as his own—this, after he had by the aid of detectives,
thoroughly searched out all that was known of him and found that no one
owned Mikky nor seemed to care what became of him except Buck and his
small following. And all the time the child, well fed, well cared for,
happier than he had ever dreamed of being in all his little hard life,
rapidly convalesced.
Endicott came home one afternoon to find Mikky down in the reception
room dressed in black velvet and rare old lace, with his glorious sheaf
of golden hair which had grown during his illness tortured into
ringlets, and an adoring group of ladies gathered about him, as he
stood with troubled, almost haughty mien, and gravely regarded their
maudlin sentimentalities.
Mrs. Endicott had paid no attention to the boy heretofore, and her
sudden interest in him came from a chance view of him as he sat up in a
big chair for the first time, playing a game with little Starr. His big
eyes and beautiful hair attracted her at once, and she lost no time in
dressing him up like a doll and making him a show at one of her
receptions.
When her husband remonstrated with her, declaring that such treatment
would ruin the spirit of any real boy, and spoil him for life, she
shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and answered:
“Well, what if it does? He’s nothing but a foundling. He ought to be
glad we are willing to dress him up prettily and play with him for a
while.”
“And what would you do with him after you were done using him for a
toy? Cast him aside?”
“Well, why not?” with another shrug of her handsome shoulders. “Or,
perhaps we might teach him to be a butler or footman if you want to be
benevolent. He would be charming in a dark blue uniform!”
The woman raised her delicate eyebrows, humming a light tune, and her
husband turned from her in despair. Was it nothing at all to her that
this child had saved the life of her baby?
That settled the question of adoption. His wife would never be the one
to bring up the boy into anything like manhood. It was different with a
girl—she must of necessity be frivolous, he supposed.
The next morning an old college friend came into his office, a plain
man with a pleasant face, who had not gone from college days to a bank
presidency. He was only a plain teacher in a little struggling college
in Florida, and he came soliciting aid for the college.
Endicott turned from puzzling over the question of Mikky, to greet his
old friend whom he had not seen for twenty years. He was glad to see
him. He had always liked him. He looked him over critically, however,
with his successful-business-man-of-New-York point of view. He noticed
the plain cheap business suit, worn shiny in places, the shoes well
polished but beginning to break at the side, the plentiful sprinkling
of gray hairs, and then his eyes travelled to the kind, worn face of
his friend. In spite of himself he could not but feel that the man was
happier than himself.
He asked many questions, and found a keen pleasure in hearing all about
the little family of the other, and their happy united efforts to laugh
off poverty and have a good time anyway. Then the visitor told of the
college, its struggles, its great needs and small funds, how its orange
crop, which was a large part of its regular income, had failed that
year on account of the frost, and they were in actual need of funds to
carry on the work of the immediate school year. Endicott found his
heart touched, though he was not as a rule a large giver to anything.
“I’d be glad to help you Harkness,” he said at last, “but I’ve got a
private benevolence on my hands just now that is going to take a good
deal of money, I’m afraid. You see we’ve narrowly escaped a tragedy at
our house—” and he launched into the story of the shooting, and his own
indebtedness to Mikky.
“I see,” said the Professor, “you feel that you owe it to that lad to
put him in the way of a better life, seeing that he freely gave his
life for your child’s.”
“Exactly!” said Endicott, “and I’d like to adopt him and bring him up
as my own, but it doesn’t seem feasible. I don’t think my wife would
feel just as I do about it, and I’m not sure I’d be doing the best
after all for the boy. To be taken from one extreme to another might
ruin him.”
“Well, Endicott, why don’t you combine your debt to the child with
benevolence and send him down to us for a few years to educate.”
Endicott sat up interestedly.
“Could I do that; Would they take so young a child? He can’t be over
seven.”
“Yes, we would take him, I think. He’d be well cared for; and his
tuition in the prep department would help the institution along. Every
little helps, you know.”
Endicott suddenly saw before him the solution of his difficulties. He
entered eagerly into the matter, talking over rates, plans and so on.
An hour later it was all settled. Mikky was to take a full course with
his expenses all prepaid, and a goodly sum placed in the bank for his
clothing and spending money. He was to have the best room the school
afforded, at the highest price, and was to take music and art and
everything else that was offered, for Endicott meant to do the handsome
thing by the institution. The failure of the bank of which he was
president had in no wise affected his own private fortune.
“If the boy doesn’t seem to develop an interest in some of these
branches, put some deserving one in his place, and put him at something
else,” he said. “I want him to have his try at everything, develop the
best that is in him. So we’ll pay for everything you’ve got there, and
that will help out some other poor boy perhaps, for, of course one boy
can’t do everything. I’ll arrange it with my lawyer that the payments
shall be made regularly for the next twelve years, so that if anything
happens to me, or if this boy runs away or doesn’t turn out worthy, you
will keep on getting the money just the same, and some one else can
come in on it.”
Professor Harkness went away from the office with a smile on his face
and in his pocket three letters of introduction to wealthy benevolent
business men of New York. Mikky was to go South with him the middle of
the next week.
Endicott went home that afternoon with relief of mind, but he found in
his heart a most surprising reluctance to part with the beautiful boy.
When the banker told Mikky that he was going to send him to “college,”
and explained to him that an education would enable him to become a
good man and perhaps a great one, the boy’s face was very grave. Mikky
had never felt the need of an education, and the thought of going away
from New York gave him a sensation as if the earth were tottering under
his feet. He shook his head doubtfully.
“Kin I take Buck an’ de kids?” he asked after a thoughtful pause, and
with a lifting of the cloud in his eyes.
“No,” said Endicott. “It costs a good deal to go away to school, and
there wouldn’t be anyone to send them.”
Mikky’s eyes grew wide with something like indignation, and he shook
his head.
“Nen I couldn’t go,” he said decidedly. “I couldn’t take nothin’ great
like that and not give de kids any. We’ll stick together. I’ll stay wid
de kids. They needs me.”
“But Mikky—” the man looked into the large determined eyes and settled
down for combat—“you don’t understand, boy. It would be impossible for
them to go. I couldn’t send them all, but I _can_ send you, and I’m
going to, because you risked your life to save little Starr.”
“That wasn’t nothin’ t’all!” declared Mikky with fine scorn.
“It was everything to me,” said the man, “and I want to do this for
you. And boy, it’s your duty to take this. It’s everybody’s duty to
take the opportunities for advancement that come to them.”
Mikky looked at him thoughtfully. He did not understand the large
words, and duty meant to him a fine sense of loyalty to those who had
been loyal to him.
“I got to stay wid de kids,” he said. “Dey needs me.”
With an exasperated feeling that it was useless to argue against this
calmly stated fact, Endicott began again gently:
“But Mikky, you can help them a lot more by going to college than by
staying at home.”
The boy’s eyes looked unconvinced but he waited for reasons.
“If you get to be an educated man you will be able to earn money and
help them. You can lift them up to better things; build good houses for
them to live in; give them work to do that will pay good wages, and
help them to be good men.”
“Are you educated?”
Thinking he was making progress Endicott nodded eagerly.
“Is that wot you does fer folks?” The bright eyes searched his face
eagerly, keenly, doubtfully.
The color flooded the bank-president’s cheeks and forehead
uncomfortably.
“Well,—I might—” he answered. “Yes, I might do a great deal for people,
I suppose. I don’t know as I do much, but I could if I had been
interested in them.”
He paused. He realized that the argument was weakened. Mikky studied
his face.
“But dey needs me now, de kids does,” he said gravely, “Jimmie, he
don’t have no supper most nights less’n I share; and Bobs is so little
he can’t fight dem alley kids; n’ sometimes I gets a flower off’n the
florist’s back door fer little sick Jane. Her’s got a crutch, and can’t
walk much anyhow; and cold nights me an’ Buck we sleeps close. We got a
box hid away where we sleeps close an’ keeps warm.”
The moisture gathered in the eyes of the banker as he listened to the
innocent story. It touched his heart as nothing ever had before. He
resolved that after this his education and wealth should at least help
these little slum friends of Mikky to an occasional meal, or a flower,
or a warm bed.
“Suppose you get Buck to take your place with the kids while you go to
school and get an education and learn how to help them better.”
Mikky’s golden head negatived this slowly.
“Buck, he’s got all he kin do to git grub fer hisse’f an’ his sister
Jane. His father is bad, and kicks Jane, and don’t get her nothin’ to
eat. Buck he has to see after Janie.”
“How would it be for you to pay Buck something so that he could take
your place? I will give you some money that you may do as you like
with, and you can pay Buck as much as you think he needs every week.
You can send it to him in a letter.”
“Would it be as much as a quarter?” Mikky held his breath in wonder and
suspense.
“Two quarters if you like.”
“Oh! could I do that?” The boy’s face fairly shone, and he came and
threw his arms about Endicott’s neck and laid his face against his. The
man clasped him close and would fain have kept him there, for his well
ordered heart was deeply stirred.
Thus it was arranged.
Buck was invited to an interview, but when the silver half dollar was
laid in his grimy palm, and he was made to understand that others were
to follow, and that he was to step up into Mikky’s place in the
community of the children while that luminary went to “college” to be
educated, his face wore a heavy frown. He held out the silver sphere as
if it burned him. What! Take money in exchange for Mikky’s bright
presence? Never!
It took a great deal of explanation to convince Buck that anything
could be better “fer de kids” than Mikky, their own Mikky, now and
forever. He was quick, however, to see where the good lay for Mikky,
and after a few plain statements from Mr. Endicott there was no further
demur on the part of the boy. Buck was willing to give up Mikky for
Mikky’s good but not for his own. But it was a terrible sacrifice. The
hard little face knotted itself into a fierce expression when he came
to say good-bye. The long scrawny throat worked convulsively, the hands
gripped each other savagely. It was like handing Mikky over to another
world than theirs, and though he confidently promised to return to them
so soon as the college should have completed the mysterious process of
education, and to live with them as of yore, sleeping in Buck’s box
alongside, and taking care of the others when the big alley kids grew
troublesome, somehow an instinct taught them that he would never return
again. They had had him, and they would never forget him, but he would
grow into a being far above them. They looked vindictively at the great
rich man who had perpetrated this evil device of a college life for
their comrade. It was the old story of the helpless poor against the
powerful rich. Even heart-beats counted not against such power. Mikky
must go.
They went to the great station on the morning when Mikky was to depart
and stood shivering and forlorn until the train was called. They
listened sullenly while Professor Harkness told them that if they
wished to be fit to associate with their friend when he came out of
college they must begin at once to improve all their opportunities.
First of all they must go to school, and study hard, and then their
friend in college would be proud to call them friends. They did not
think it worth while to tell the kindly but ignorant professor that
they had no time for school, and no clothes to wear if they had the
time or the inclination to go. Schools were everywhere, free, of
course, but it did not touch them. They lived in dark places and casual
crannies, like weeds or vermin. No one cared whether they went to
school. No one suggested it. They would have as soon thought of
entering a great mansion and insisting on their right to live there as
to present themselves at school. Why, they had to hustle for a mere
existence. They were the water rats, the bad boys, the embryo criminals
for the next generation. The problem, with any who thought of them was
how to get rid of them. But of course this man from another world did
not understand. They merely looked at him dully and wished he would
walk away and leave Mikky to them while he stayed. His presence made it
seem as if their companion were already gone from them.
It was hard, too, to see Mikky dressed like the fine boys on Fifth
Avenue, handsome trousers and coat, and a great thick overcoat, a hat
on his shining crown of hair that had always been guiltless of cap,
thick stockings and shining shoes on his feet that had always been bare
and soiled with the grime of the streets—gloves on his hands. This was
a new Mikky. “The kids” did not know him. In spite of their best
efforts they could not be natural. Great lumps arose in their throats,
lumps that never dared arise for hunger or cold or curses at home.
They stood helpless before their own consciousness, and Mikky, divining
the trouble with that exquisite keenness of a spirit sent from heaven
to make earth brighter, conceived the bright idea of giving each of his
comrades some article of his apparel as a remembrance. Mr. Endicott
came upon the scene just in time to keep Mikky from taking off his
overcoat and enveloping Buck in its elegant folds. He was eagerly
telling them that Bobs should have his undercoat, Jimmie his hat; they
must take his gloves to Jane, and there was nothing left for Sam but
his stockings and shoes, but he gave them all willingly. He seemed to
see no reason why he could not travel hatless and coatless, bare of
foot and hand, for had he not gone that way through all the years of
his existence? It was a small thing to do, for his friends whom he was
leaving for a long time.
The bright face clouded when he was told he could not give these things
away, that it would not be fair to the kind professor to ask him to
carry with him a boy not properly dressed. But he smiled again
trustfully when Endicott promised to take the whole group to a clothing
house and fit them out.
They bade Mikky good-bye, pressing their grimy noses against the bars
of the station gate to watch their friend disappear from their bare
little lives.
Endicott himself felt like crying as he came back from seeing the boy
aboard the train. Somehow it went hard for him to feel, he should not
meet the bright smile that night when he went home.
But it was not the way of “the kids” to cry when tragedy fell among
them. They did not cry now—when he came back to them they regarded the
banker with lowering brows as the originator of their bereavement. They
had no faith in the promised clothing.
“Aw, what’s he givin’ us!” Buck had breathed under his breath. But to
do Buck credit he had not wanted to take Mikky’s coat from him. When
their comrade went from them into another walk in life he must go
proudly apparelled.
Endicott led the huddled group away from the station, to a clothing
house, and amused himself by fitting them out. The garments were not of
as fine material, nor elegant a cut as those he had pleased himself by
purchasing for Mikky’s outfit, but they were warm and strong and
wonderful to their eyes, and one by one the grimy urchins went into a
little dressing room, presently emerging with awe upon their faces to
stand before a tall mirror surveying themselves.
Endicott presently bade the little company farewell and with a
conscience at ease with himself and all mankind left them.
They issued from the clothing house with scared expressions and walked
solemnly a few blocks. Then Buck called them to a halt before a large
plate glass show-window.
“Take a good look at yersel’s, kids,” he ordered, “an’ we’ll go up to
the Park an’ shine around, an’ see how ther swells feels, then we’ll go
down to Sheeny’s an’ sell ’em.”
“Sell ’em! Can’t we keep ’em?” pitifully demanded Bobs who had never
felt warm in winter in all his small life before.
“You wouldn’t hev ’em long,” sneered Buck. “That father o’ yourn would
hey ’em pawned ’afore night; You better enjoy ’em a while, an’ then git
the money. It’s safer!”
The children with wisdom born of their unhappy circumstances recognized
this truth. They surveyed themselves gravely in their fleeting grandeur
and then turned to walk up to the aristocratic part of town, a curious
little procession. They finished by rounding the Madison Avenue block,
marched up the alley, and gave the salute with new hats toward the
window where their Prince and Leader used to be. He was no longer
there, but his memory was about them, and the ceremony did their
bursting little hearts good. Their love for Mikky was the noblest thing
that had so far entered their lives.
Jimmie suggested that they must let Jane see them before they disposed
forever of their elegant garments, so Bobs, minus coat, hat, stockings
and shoes was sent to bid her to a secluded retreat at the far end of
the alley. Bobs hurried back ahead of her little tapping crutch to don
his fine attire once more before she arrived.
Little Jane, sallow of face, unkempt of hair, tattered of clothing and
shivering in the cold twilight stood and watched the procession of
pride as it passed and repassed before her delighted eyes. The
festivity might have been prolonged but that the maudlin voice of Bobs’
father reeling into the alley struck terror to their hearts, and with
small ceremony they scuttled away to the pawnshop, leaving little Jane
to hobble back alone to her cellar and wonder how it would feel to wear
a warm coat like one of those.
“Gee!” said Jimmie as they paused with one consent before the shop
door, and looked reluctantly down at their brief glory, “Gee! I wisht
we could keep jest one coat fer little Jane!”
“Couldn’t we hide it some’ere’s?” asked Sam, and they all looked at
Buck.
Buck, deeply touched for his sister’s sake, nodded.
“Keep Jim’s,” he said huskily, “it’ll do her best.”
Then the little procession filed proudly in and gave up their garments
to the human parasite who lived on the souls of other men, and came
away bearing the one coat they had saved for Janie, each treasuring a
pitiful bit of money which seemed a fortune in their eyes.
Little Jane received her gift with true spirit when it was presented,
skilfully hid it from her inhuman father, and declared that each boy
should have a turn at wearing the coat every Sunday at some safe hour,
whereat deep satisfaction, reigned among them. Their grandeur was not
all departed after all.
Meantime, Mikky, in his luxurious berth in a sleeper, smiled drowsily
to think of the fine new clothes that his friends must be wearing, and
then fell asleep to dream of little Starr’s kisses on his closed
eyelids.