Thirteen years in New York had brought many changes. Some of the
well-remembered landmarks were gone and new buildings in their places.
A prosperous looking saloon quite palatial in its entrance marked the
corner where he used to sell papers. It used to be a corner grocery
store. Saloons! Always and everywhere there were saloons! Michael
looked at them wonderingly. He had quite forgotten them in his exile,
for the college influence had barred them out from its vicinity.
The boy Mikky had been familiar enough with saloons, looking upon them
as a necessary evil, where drinking fathers spent the money that ought
to have bought their children food. He had been in and out of them
commonly enough selling his papers, warming his feet, and getting a
crust now and then from an uneaten bit on the lunch counter. Sometimes
there had been glasses to drain, but Mikky with his observing eyes had
early decided that he would have none of the stuff that sent men home
to curse their little children.
College influence, while there had been little said on the subject, had
filled the boy with horror for saloons and drunkards. He stood appalled
now as he turned at last into an alley where familiar objects,
doorsteps, turnings, cellars, met his gaze, with grog shops all along
the way and sentinelling every corner.
A strange feeling came over him as memory stirred by long-forgotten
sights awoke. Was this really the place, and was that opening beyond
the third steps the very blind alley where Janie used to live? Things
were so much dirtier, so much, worse in every way than he remembered
them.
He hurried on, not noticing the attention he was attracting from the
wretched little children in the gutters, though he scanned them all
eagerly, hurriedly, with the wild idea that Buck and the rest might be
among them.
Yes, the alley was there, dark and ill-smelling as ever, and in its dim
recesses on a dirty step a woman’s figure hunched; a figure he knew at
once that he had seen before and in that very spot. Who was she? What
had they called her? Sally? Aunt Sal?
He hurried up to where she sat looking curiously, apathetically at him;
her gray hair straggling down on her dirty cotton frock open at the
neck over shrivelled yellow skin; soiled old hands hanging carelessly
over slatternly garments; stockingless feet stuck into a great tattered
pair of men’s shoes. Nothing seemed changed since he saw her last save
that the hair had been black then, and the skin not so wrinkled. Aunt
Sally had been good natured always, even when she was drunk; her
husband, when he came home was always drunk also, but never good
natured. These things came back to the boy as he stood looking down at
the wreck of a woman before him.
The bleary eyes looked up unknowing, half resentful of his intrusion.
“Aunt Sally!” impulsively cried the boyish voice. “Aren’t you Aunt
Sally?”
The woman looked stupidly surprised.
“I be,” she said thickly, “but wot’s that to yous? I beant no hant o’
yourn.”
“Don’t you remember Mikky?” he asked almost anxiously, for now the
feeling had seized him that he must make her remember. He must find out
if he could whether anything was known of his origin. Perhaps she could
help him. Perhaps, after all, he might be able to trace his family, and
find at least no disgrace upon him.
“Mikky!” the woman repeated dully. She shook her head.
“Mikky!” she said again stolidly, “Wot’s Mikky?”
“Don’t you remember Mikky the little boy that sold papers and brought
you water sometimes? Once you gave me a drink of soup from your kettle.
Think!”
A dim perception came into the sodden eyes.
“Thur wus a Mikky long ago,” she mused. “He had hair like a h’angel,
bless the sweet chile; but he got shot an’ never come back. That war
long ago.”
Michael took off his hat and the little light in the dark alley seemed
to catch and tangle in the gleam of his hair.
The old woman started as though she had seen a vision.
“The saints presarve us!” she cried aghast, shrinking back into her
doorway with raised hands, “an’ who be yez? Yeh looks enough like the
b’y to be the father of ’im. He’d hair loike the verra sunshine itself.
Who be yez? Spake quick. Be ye man, b’y, er angel?”
There was something in the woman’s tone that went to the heart of the
lonely boy, even while he recoiled from the repulsive creature before
him.
“I am just Mikky, the boy, grown a little older,” he said gently, “and
I’ve come back to see the place where I used to live, and find the
people I used to know.”
“Y’ve lost yer way thin fer shure!” said the woman slightly recovering
her equilibrium. “The loikes uv yous nivver lived in dis place; fer ef
yous ain’t angel you’s gintulmun; an’ no gintulmun ivver cum from the
loikes o’ this. An’ besoides, the b’y Mikky, I tel’d yez, was shot an’
nivver comed back no more. He’s loikely up wid de angels where he
b’longs.”
“Yes, I was shot,” said Michael, “but I wasn’t killed. A good man sent
me to college, and I’ve just graduated and come back to look up my
friends.”
“Frinds, is it, ye’ll be afther a findin’? Thin ye’d bist look
ilsewhar, fer thur’s no one in this alley fit to be frinds with the
loikes uv you. Ef that’s wot they does with b’ys at co-lidge a pity
’tis more uv um can’t git shot an’ go there. But ef all yous tell is
thrue, moi advice to yez is, juist bate it as hoird as ivver yez kin
out’n yere, an’ don’t yez nivver set oies on this alley agin. Ye’d
better stay to co-lidge all the days uv yer loife than set fut here
agin, fer juist let ’em got holt uv yez an’ they’ll spile the pretty
face uv ye. Look thar!” she pointed tragically toward a wreck of
humanity that reeled into the alley just then. “Would yez loike to be
loike that? My mon come home loike that ivvery day of his loife, rist
his bones, an’ he nivver knowed whin he died.”
Maudlin tears rolled down the poor creature’s cheeks, for they could be
no tears of affection. Her man’s departure from this life could have
been but a relief. Michael recoiled from the sight with a sickening
sadness. Nevertheless he meant to find out if this woman knew aught of
his old friends, or of his origin. He rallied his forces to answer her.
“I don’t have to be like that,” he said, “I’ve come down to look up my
friends I tell you, and I want you to tell me if you know anything
about my parents. Did you ever hear anything about me? Did anybody know
who I was or how I came to be here?”
The old woman looked at him only half comprehending, and tried to
gather her scattered faculties, but she shook her grizzled head
hopelessly.
“I ain’t niver laid oies on yea before, an’ how cud I know whar yez cum
from, ner how yez cam to be here?” she answered.
He perceived that it would require patience to extract information from
this source.
“Try to think,” he said more gently. “Can you remember if anyone ever
belonged to the little boy they called Mikky? Was there ever any mother
or father, or—anybody that belonged to him at all.”
Again, she shook her head.
“Niver as Oi knows on. They said he just comed a wee babby to the
coourt a wanderin’ with the other childer, with scarce a rag to his
back, an’ a smile on him like the arch-angel, and some said as how he
niver had no father ner mother, but dthrapped sthraight frum the place
where de angels live.”
“But did no one take care of him, or ever try to find out about him?”
questioned Michael wistfully.
“Foind out, is it? Whist! An’ who would tak toime to foind out whin
ther’s so miny uv their own. Mikky was allus welcome to a bite an’ a
sup ef any uv us had it by. There wuz old Granny Bane with the
rheumatiks. She gave him a bed an’ a bite now an’ agin, till she died,
an afther that he made out to shift fer hisse’f. He was a moighty
indepindint babby.”
“But had he no other name? Mikky what? What was his whole name?”
pursued Michael with an eagerness that could not give up the sought-for
information.
The old woman only stared stupidly.
“Didn’t he have any other name?” There was almost despair in his tone.
Another shake of the head.
“Juist Mikky!” she said and her eyes grew dull once more.
“Can you tell me if there are any other people living here now that
used to know Mikky? Are there any other men or women who might
remember?”
“How kin Oi tell?” snarled the woman impatiently. “Oi can’t be
bothered.”
Michael stood in troubled silence and the woman turned her head to
watch a neighbor coming down the street with a basket in her hand. It
would seem that her visitor interested her no longer. She called out
some rough, ribaldry to the woman who glanced up fiercely and deigned
no further reply. Then Michael tried again.
“Could you tell me of the boys who used to go with Mikky?”
“No, Oi can’t,” she answered crossly, “Oi can’t be bothered. Oi don’t
know who they was.”
“There was Jimmie and Sam and Bobs and Buck. Surely you remember Buck,
and little Janie. Janie who died after Mikky went away?”
The bleared eyes turned full upon him again.
“Janie? Fine Oi remimber Janie. They had a white hurse to her, foiner’n
any iver cum to the coourt before. The b’ys stayed up two noights
selling to git the money fur it, an’ Buck he stayed stiddy while she
was aloive. Pity she doied.”
“Where is Buck?” demanded Michael with a sudden twinging of his heart
strings that seemed to bring back the old love and loyalty to his
friend. Buck had needed him perhaps all these years and he had not
known.
“That’s whot the _po_lice would like fer yez to answer, I’m thinkin’!”
laughed old Sal. “They wanted him bad fer breakin’ into a house an’
mos’ killin’ the lady an’ gittin’ aff wid de jewl’ry. He beat it dat
noight an’ ain’t none o’ us seen him these two year. He were a slick
one, he were awful smart at breakin’ an’ stealin’. Mebbe Jimmie knows,
but Jimmie, he’s in jail, serving his time fer shootin’ a man in the
hand durin’ a dhrunken fight. Jimmie, he’s no good. Never wuz. He’s
jest like his foither. Bobs, he got both legs cut aff, bein’ runned
over by a big truck, and he doied in the horspittle. Bobs he were
better dead. He’d uv gone loike the rist. Sam, he’s round these parts
mostly nights. Ye’ll hev to come at noight ef yez want to see him.
Mebbe he knows more ’bout Buck’n he’ll tell.”
Sick at heart Michael put question, after question but no more
information was forthcoming and the old woman showed signs of
impatience again. Carefully noting what she said about Sam and getting
a few facts as to the best time and place to find him Michael turned
and walked sadly out of the alley. He did not see the alert eyes of old
Sal following him, nor the keen expression of her face as she stretched
her neck to see which way he turned as he left the alley. As soon as he
was out of sight she shuffled down from her doorstep to the corner and
peered after him through the morning sunshine. Then she went slowly,
thoughtfully back to her doorstep.
“Now whut in the divil could he be a wantin’ wid Buck an’ Sammie?” she
muttered to herself. “All that story ’bout his bein’ Mikky was puttin’
it on my eye, I’ll giv warnin’ to Sammie this night, an’ ef Buck’s in
these pairts he better git out west some’res. The _po_lice uv got onto
’im. But hoiwiver did they know he knowed Mikky? Poor little angel
Mikky! I guv him the shtraight about Bobs an’ Jimmie, fer they wuz
beyant his troublin’ but he’ll niver foind Sammie from the directin’ I
sayed.”
Michael, sorrowing, horror-filled, conscience-stricken, took his way to
a restaurant and ate his dinner, thinking meanwhile what he could do
for the boys. Could he perhaps visit Jimmie in prison and make his life
more comfortable in little ways? Could he plan something for him when
he should come out? Could he help Sam? The old woman had said little
about Sam’s condition. Michael thought he might likely by this time
have built up a nice little business for himself. Perhaps he had a
prosperous news stand in some frequented place. He looked forward
eagerly to meeting him again. Sam had always been a silent child
dependent on the rest, but he was one of the little gang and Michael’s
heart warmed toward his former comrade. It could not be that he would
find him so loathsome and repulsive as the old woman Sal. She made him
heart-sick. Just to think of drinking soup from her dirty kettle! How
could he have done it? And yet, he knew no better life then, and he was
hungry, and a little child.
So Michael mused, and all the time with a great heart-hunger to know
what had become of Buck. Could he and Sam together plan some way to
find Buck and help him out of his trouble? How could Buck have done
anything so dreadful? And yet even as he thought it he remembered that
“pinching” had not been a crime in his childhood days, not unless one
was found out. How had these principles, or lack of principles been
replaced gradually in his own life without his realizing it at all? It
was all strange and wonderful. Practically now he, Michael, had been
made into a new creature since he left New York, and so gradually, and
pleasantly that he had not at all realized the change that was going on
in him.
Yet as he thought and marvelled there shot through him a thought like a
pang, that perhaps after all it had not been a good thing, this making
him into a new creature, with new desires and aims and hopes that could
never be fulfilled. Perhaps he would have been happier, better off, if
he had never been taken out of that environment and brought to
appreciate so keenly another one where he did not belong, and could
never stay, since this old environment was the one where he must stay
whether he would or no. He put the thought from him as unworthy at
once, yet the sharpness of the pang lingered and with it a vision of
Starr’s vivid face as he had seen her two nights before in her father’s
home, before he knew that the door of that home was shut upon him
forever.
Michael passed the day in idly wandering about the city trying to piece
together his old knowledge, and the new, and know the city in which he
had come to dwell.
It was nearing midnight, when Michael, by the advice of old Sal, and
utterly fearless in his ignorance, entered the court where his babyhood
had been spent.
The alley was dark and murky with the humidity of the summer night; but
unlike the morning hours it was alive with a writhing, chattering,
fighting mass of humanity. Doorways were overflowing. The narrow alley
itself seemed fairly thronging with noisy, unhappy men and women.
Hoarse laughs mingled with rough cursing, shot through with an
occasional scream. Stifling odors lurked in cellar doorways and struck
one full in the face unawares. Curses seemed to be the setting for all
conversation whether angry or jolly. Babies tumbled in the gutter and
older children fought over some scrap of garbage.
Appalled, Michael halted and almost turned back. Then, remembering that
this was where he had come from,—where he belonged,—and that his duty,
his obligation, was to find his friends, he went steadily forward.
There sat old Sal, a belligerent gleam in her small sodden eyes. Four
men on a step opposite, with a candle stood between them, were playing
cards. Sal muttered a word as Michael approached and the candle was
suddenly extinguished. It looked as if one had carelessly knocked it
down to the pavement, but the glare nickered into darkness and Michael
could no longer see the men’s faces. He had wondered if one of them was
Sam. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked again in the darkness the
four men were gone and the step was occupied by two children holding a
sleeping baby between them and staring at him in open mouthed
admiration.
The flickering weird light of the distant street lamps, the noise and
confusion, the odors and curses filled him anew with a desire to flee,
but he would not let himself turn back. Never had Michael turned from
anything that was his duty from fear or dislike of anything.
He tried to enter into conversation with old Sal again, but she would
have none of him. She had taken “a wee drapth” and was alert and
suspicious. In fact, the whole alley was on the alert for this elegant
stranger who was none of theirs, and who of course could have come but
to spy on some one. He wanted Sam, therefore Sam was hidden well and at
that moment playing a crafty game in the back of a cellar on the top of
an old beer barrel, by the light of a wavering candle; well guarded by
sentinels all along the difficult way. Michael could have no more found
him under those circumstances than he could have hoped to find a needle
in a haystack the size of the whole city of New York.
He wandered for two hours back and forth through the alley seeing
sights long since forgotten, hearing words unspeakable; following out
this and that suggestion of the interested bystanders; always coming
back without finding Sam. He had not yet comprehended the fact that he
was not intended to find Sam. He had taken these people into his
confidence just as he had always taken everyone into his confidence,
and they were playing him false. If they had been the dwellers on Fifth
Avenue he would not have expected them to be interested in him and his
plans and desires; but these were his very own people, at least the
“ownest” he had in the world, and among them he had once gone freely,
confidently. He saw no reason why they should have changed toward him,
though he felt the antagonism in the atmosphere as the night wore on,
even as he had felt it in the Endicott house the day before.
Heartsick and baffled at last he took his way slowly, looking back many
times, and leaving many messages for Sam. He felt as if he simply could
not go back to even so uncomfortable a bed an he called his own in his
new lodgings without having found some clew to his old comrades.
Standing at the corner of the alley opposite the flaunting lights of
the saloon he looked back upon the swarming darkness of the alley and
his heart filled with a great surging wave of pity, love, and sorrow.
Almost at his feet in a dark shadow of a doorway a tiny white-faced boy
crouched fast asleep on the stone threshold. It made him think of
little Bobs, and his own barren childhood, and a mist came before his
eyes as he looked up, up at the sky where the very stars seemed small
and far away as if the sky had nothing to do with this part of the
earth.
“Oh, God!” he said under his breath. “Oh, God! I must do something for
them!”
And then as if the opportunity came with the prayer there reeled into
view a little group of people, three or four men and a woman.
The woman was talking in a high frightened voice and protesting. The
men caught hold of her roughly, laughing and flinging out coarse jests.
Then another man came stealing from the darkness of the alley and
joined the group, seizing the woman by the shoulders and speaking words
to her too vile for repetition. In terrible fear the girl turned, for
Michael could see, now that she was nearer, that she was but a young
girl, and that she was pretty. Instantly he thought of Starr and his
whole soul rose in mighty wrath that any man should dare treat any girl
as he had seen these do. Then the girl screamed and struggled to get
away, crying: “It ain’t true, it ain’t true! Lem’me go! I won’t go with
you—”
Instantly Michael was upon them, his powerful arms and supple body
dashing the men right and left. And because of the suddenness of the
attack coming from this most unexpected quarter,—for Michael had stood
somewhat in the shadow—and because of the cowardliness of all bullies,
for the moment he was able to prevail against all four, just long
enough for the girl to slip like a wraith from their grasp and
disappear into the shadows.
Then when the men, dazed from surprise, though not seriously hurt,
discovered that their prey was gone and that a stranger from the higher
walks of life had frustrated their plans they fell upon him in their
wrath.
Michael brave always, and well trained in athletics, parried their
blows for an instant, but the man, the one who had come from the
shadows of the alley, whose face was evil, stole up behind and stabbed
him in the shoulder. The sudden faintness that followed made him less
capable of defending himself. He felt he was losing his senses, and the
next blow from one of the men sent him reeling into the street where he
fell heavily, striking his head against the curbing. There was a loud
cry of murder from a woman’s shrill voice, the padded rush of the
villains into their holes, the distant ring of a policeman’s whistle,
and then all was quiet as a city night could be. Michael lay white and
still with his face looking up to the faint pitying moon so far away
and his beautiful hair wet with the blood that was flowing out on the
pavement. There he lay on the edge of the world that was his own and
would not own him. He had come to his own and his own received him not.