It was the first week in September that Michael, passing through a
crowded thoroughfare, came face to face with Mr. Endicott.
The days had passed into weeks and Michael had not gone near his
benefactor. He had felt that he must drop out of his old friend’s life
until a time came that he could show his gratitude for the past.
Meantime he had not been idle. His winning smile and clear eyes had
been his passport; and after a few preliminary experiences he had
secured a position as salesman in a large department store. His college
diploma and a letter from the college president were his references. He
was not earning much, but enough to pay his absolute expenses and a
trifle over. Meantime he was gaining experience.
This Saturday morning of the first week of September he had come to the
store as usual, but had found that on account of the sudden death of a
member of the firm the store would be closed for the day.
He was wondering how he should spend his holiday and wishing that he
might get out into the open and breathe once more the free air under
waving trees, and listen to the birds, and the waters and the winds. He
was half tempted to squander a few cents and go to Coney Island or up
the Hudson, somewhere, anywhere to get out of the grinding noisy
tempestuous city, whose sin and burden pressed upon his heart night and
day because of that from which he had been saved; and of that from
which he had not the power to save others.
Then out of an open doorway rushed a man, going toward a waiting
automobile, and almost knocking Michael over in his progress.
“Oh! It is you, young man! At last! Well, I should like to know what
you have done with yourself all these weeks and why you didn’t keep
your appointment with me?”
“Oh!” said Michael, pleasure and shame striving together in his face.
He could see that the other man was not angry, and was really relieved
to have found him.
“Where are you going, son?” Endicotts tone had already changed from
gruffness to kindly welcome. “Jump in and run down to the wharf with me
while you give an account of yourself. I’m going down to see Mrs.
Endicott off to Europe. She is taking Starr over to school this winter.
I’m late already, so jump in.”
Michael seemed to have no choice and stepped into the car, which was
whirled through the intricate maze of humanity and machinery down
toward the regions where the ocean-going steamers harbor.
His heart was in a tumult at once, both of embarrassed joy to be in the
presence of the man who had done so much for him, and of eager
anticipation. Starr! Would he see Starr again? That was the thought
uppermost in his mind. He had not as yet realized that she was going
away for a long time.
All the spring time he had kept guard over the house in Madison Avenue.
Not all night of course, but hovering about there now and then, and for
two weeks after he had talked with Sam, nightly. Always he had walked
that way before retiring and looked toward the window where burned a
soft light. Then they had gone to the seashore and the mountains and
the house had put on solemn shutters and lain asleep.
Michael knew all about it from a stray paragraph in the society column
of the daily paper which he happened to read.
Toward the end of August he had made a round through Madison Avenue
every night to see if they had returned home, and for a week the
shutters had been down and the lights burning as of old. It had been
good to know that his charge was back there safely. And now he was to
see her.
“Well! Give an account of yourself. Were you trying to keep out of my
sight? Why didn’t you come to my office?”
Michael looked him straight in the eye with his honest, clear gaze that
showed no sowing of wild oats, no dissipation or desire to get away
from friendly espionage. He decided in a flash of a thought that this
man should never know the blow his beautiful, haughty wife had dealt
him. It was true, all she had said, and he, Michael, would give the
real reason why he had not come.
“Because I thought you had done for me far more than I deserved
already, and I did not wish to be any further burden to you.”
“The dickens you did!” exclaimed Endicott. “You good-for-nothing
rascal, didn’t you know you would be far more of a burden running off
in that style without leaving a trace of yourself behind so I could
hunt you up, than if you had behaved yourself and done as I told you?
Here I have been doing a lot of unnecessary worrying about you. I
thought you had fallen among thieves or something, or else gone to the
dogs. Don’t you know that is a most unpardonable thing to do, run off
from a man who has told you he wants to see you? I thought I made you
understand that I had more than a passing interest in your welfare!”
The color came into the fine, strong face and a pained expression in
his eyes.
“I’m sorry, sir! I didn’t think of it that way. I thought you felt some
kind of an obligation; I never felt so, but you said you did; and I
thought if I got out of your way I would trouble you no more.”
“Trouble me! Trouble me! Why, son, I like to be troubled once in a
while by something besides getting money and spending it. You never
gave me a shadow of trouble, except these last weeks when you’ve
disappeared and I couldn’t do anything for you. You’ve somehow crept
into my life and I can’t get you out. In fact, I don’t want to. But,
boy, if you felt that way, what made you come to New York at all? You
didn’t feel that way the night you came to my house to dinner.”
Michael’s eyes owned that this was true, but his firm lips showed that
he would never betray the real reason for the change.
“I—didn’t—realize—sir!”
“Realize? Realize what?”
“I didn’t realize the difference between my station and yours, sir.
There had never been anything during my years in school to make me
know. I am a ‘child of the slums’”—unconsciously he drifted into
quotations from Mrs. Endicott’s speech to him—“and you belong to a fine
old family. I don’t know what terrible things are in my blood. You have
riches and a name beyond reproach—” He had seen the words in an article
he had read the evening before, and felt that they fitted the man and
the occasion. He did not know that he was quoting. They had become a
part of his thoughts.
“I might make the riches if I tried hard,” he held up his head proudly,
“but I could never make the name. I will always be a child of the
slums, no matter what I do!”
“Child of the fiddlesticks!” interrupted Endicott. “Wherever did you
get all that, rot? It sounds as if you had been attending society
functions and listening to their twaddle. It doesn’t matter what you
are the child of, if you’re a mind to be a man. This is a free country,
son, and you can be and climb where you please. Tell me, where did you
get all these ideas?”
Michael looked down. He did not wish to answer.
“In a number of places,” he answered evasively.
“Where!”
“For one thing, I’ve been down to the alley where I used to live.” The
eyes were looking into his now, and Endicott felt a strange swelling of
pride that he had had a hand in the making of this young man.
“Well?”
“I know from what you’ve taken me—I can never be what you are!”
“Therefore you won’t try to be anything? Is that it?”
“Oh, no! I’ll try to be all that I can, but—I don’t belong with you.
I’m of another class—”
“Oh, bosh! Cut that out, son! Real men don’t talk like that. You’re a
better man now than any of the pedigreed dudes I know of, and as for
taints in the blood, I could tell you of some of the sons of great men
who have taints as bad as any child of the slums. Young man, you can be
whatever you set out to be in this world! Remember that.”
“Everyone does not feel that way,” said Michael with conviction, though
he was conscious of great pleasure in Endicott’s hearty words.
“Who, for instance?” asked Endicott looking at him sharply.
Michael was silent. He could not tell him.
“Who?” asked the insistent voice once more.
“The world!” evaded Michael.
“The world is brainless. You can make the world think what you like,
son, remember that! Here we are. Would you like to come aboard?”
But Michael stood back.
“I think I will wait here,” he said gravely. It had come to him that
Mrs. Endicott would be there. He must not intrude, not even to see
Starr once more. Besides, she had made it a point of honor for him to
keep away from her daughter. He had no choice but to obey.
“Very well,” said Endicott, “but see you don’t lose yourself again. I
want to see you about something. I’ll not be long. It must be nearly
time for starting.” He hurried away and Michael stood on the edge of
the throng looking up at the great floating village.
It was his first view of an ocean-going steamer at close range and
everything about it interested him. He wished he might have gone aboard
and looked the vessel over. He would like to know about the engines and
see the cabins, and especially the steerage about which he had read so
much. But perhaps there would be an opportunity again. Surely there
would be. He would go to Ellis Island, too, and see the emigrants as
they came into the country, seeking a new home where they had been led
to expect to find comfort and plenty of work, and finding none; landing
most of them, inevitably, in the slums of the cities where the
population was already congested and where vice and disease stood ready
to prey upon them. Michael had been spending enough time in the alleys
of the metropolis to be already deeply interested in the problem of the
city, and deeply pained by its sorrows.
But his thoughts were not altogether of the masses and the classes as
he stood in the bright sunlight and gazed at the great vessel about to
plow its way over the bright waters. He was realizing that somewhere
within those many little windowed cabins was a bright faced girl, the
only one of womankind in all the earth about whom his tender thoughts
had ever hovered. Would he catch a glimpse of her face once more before
she went away for the winter? She was going to school, her father had
said. How could they bear to send her across the water from them? A
whole winter was a long time; and yet, it would pass. Thirteen years
had passed since he went away from New York, and he was back. It would
not be so long as that. She would return, and need him perhaps. He
would be there and be ready when he was needed.
The fine lips set in a strong line that was good to see. There were the
patient, fearless lines of a soldier in the boy’s face, and rugged
strength in spite of his unusual beauty of countenance. It is not often
one sees a face like Michael’s. There was nothing womanish in his
looks. It was rather the completeness of strength and courage combined
with mighty modelling and perfection of coloring, that made men turn
and look after him and look again, as though they had seen a god; and
made women exclaim over him. If he had been born in the circles of
aristocracy he would have been the idol of society, the spoiled of all
who knew him. He was even now being stared at by every one in sight,
and more than one pair of marine glasses from the first cabin deck were
pointed at him; but he stood deep in his thoughts and utterly
unconscious of his own attraction.
It was only a moment before the first warning came, and people crowded
on the wharf side of the decks, while others hurried down the gang
plank. Michael watched the confusion with eagerness, his eyes searching
the decks for all possible chance of seeing Starr.
When the last warning was given, and just as the gang plank was about
to be hauled up, Mr. Endicott came hurrying down, and Michael suddenly
saw her face in the crowd on the deck above, her mother’s haughtily
pretty face just behind her.
Without in the least realizing what he was doing Michael moved through
the crowd until he stood close behind Starr’s father, and then all at
once he became aware that her starry eyes were upon him, and she
recognized him.
He lifted his hat and stood in reverent attitude as though in the
presence of a queen, his eyes glowing eloquently, his speaking face
paying her tribute as plainly as words could have done. The noonday sun
burnished his hair with its aureole flame, and more than one of the
passengers called attention to the sight.
“See that man down there!” exclaimed a woman of the world close behind
Mrs. Endicott. “Isn’t he magnificent! He has a head and shoulders like
a young god!” She spoke as if her acquaintance with gods was wide, and
her neighbors turned to look.
“See, mamma,” whispered Starr glowing rosily with pleasure, “they are
speaking of Michael!”
Then the haughty eyes turned sharply and recognized him.
“You don’t mean to tell me that upstart has dared to come down and see
us off. The impudence of him! I am glad your father had enough sense
not to bring him on board. He would probably have come if he had let
him. Come away, Starr. He simply shall not look at you in that way!”
“What! Come away while papa is standing there watching us out of sight.
I simply couldn’t. What would papa think? And besides, I don’t see why
Michael shouldn’t come if he likes. I think it was nice of him. I
wonder why he hasn’t been to the house to explain why he never came for
that horseback ride.”
“You’re a very silly ignorant little girl, or you would understand that
he has no business presuming to come to our house; and he knows it
perfectly well. I want you to stop looking in that direction at once. I
simply will not have him devouring you with his eyes in that way. I
declare I would like to go back and tell him what I think of him.
Starr, stop I tell you, Starr!”
But the noise of the starting drowned her words, and Starr, her cheeks
like roses and her eyes like two stars, was waving a bit of a
handkerchief and smiling and throwing kisses. The kisses were for her
father, but the smiles and the starry glances, and the waving bit of
cambric were for Michael, and they all travelled through the air quite
promiscuously, drenching the bright uncovered head of the boy with
sweetness. His eyes gave her greeting and thanks and parting all in one
in that brief moment of her passing: and her graceful form and dainty
vivid face were graven on his memory in quick sweet blows of pain, as
he realized that she was going from him.
Slowly the great vessel glided out upon the bright waters and grew
smaller and smaller. The crowd on the wharf were beginning to break
away and hurry back to business or home or society. Still Michael stood
with bared head gazing, and that illumined expression upon his face.
Endicott, a mist upon his own glasses at parting from his beloved baby,
saw the boy’s face as it were the face of an angel; and was half
startled, turning away embarrassedly as though he had intruded upon a
soul at prayer; then looked again.
“Come, son!” he said almost huskily. “It’s over! We better be getting
back. Step in.”
The ride back to the office was a silent one. Somehow Endicott did not
feel like talking. There had been some differences between himself and
his wife that were annoying, and a strange belated regret that he had
let Starr go away for a foreign education was eating into his heart.
Michael, on his part, was living over again the passing of the vessel
and the blessing of the parting.
Back in the office, however, all was different. Among the familiar
walls and gloomy desks and chairs Endicott was himself, and talked
business. He put questions, short, sharp and in quick succession.
“What are you doing with yourself? Working? What at? H’m! How’d you get
there? Like it? Satisfied to do that all your life? You’re not? Well,
what’s your line? Any ambitions? You ought to have got some notion in
college of what you’re fit for. Have you thought what you’d like to do
in the world?”
Michael hesitated, then looked up with his clear, direct, challenging
gaze.
“There are two things,” he said, “I want to earn money and buy some
land in the country, and I want to know about laws.”
“Do you mean you want to be a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think you’d be a success as a lawyer?”
“Oh, I might not be a success, but I need to know law, I want to try to
stop some things that ought not to be.”
“H’m!” grunted Endicott disapprovingly. “Don’t try the reform game, it
doesn’t pay. However, if you feel that way you’ll probably be all right
to start. That’ll work itself off and be a good foundation. There’s no
reason why you shouldn’t be a lawyer if you choose, but you can’t study
law selling calico. You might get there some day, if you stick to your
ambition, but you’d be pretty old before you were ready to practice if
you started at the calico counter and worked your way up through
everything you came to. Well, I can get you into a law office right
away. How soon can you honorably get away from where you are? Two
weeks? Well, just wait a minute.”
Endicott called up a number on the telephone by his side, and there
followed a conversation, brief, pointed, but in terms that Michael
could barely follow. He gathered that a lawyer named Holt, a friend of
Mr. Endicott’s, was being asked to take him into his office to read
law.
“It’s all right, son,” said Endicott as he hung up the receiver and
whirled around from the ’phone. “You’re to present yourself at the
office as soon as you are free. This is the address”—hurriedly
scribbling something on a card and handing it to him.
“Oh, thank you!” said Michael, “but I didn’t mean to have you take any
more trouble for me. I can’t be dependent on you any longer. You have
done so much for me—”
“Bosh!” said Endicott, “I’m not taking any trouble. And you’re not
dependent on me. Be as independent as you like. You’re not quite
twenty-one yet, are you? Well, I told you you were my boy until you
were of age, and I suppose there’s nothing to hinder me doing as I will
with my own. It’s paid well all I’ve done for you so far, and I feel
the investment was a good one. You’ll get a small salary for some
office work while you’re studying, so after you are twenty-one you can
set up for yourself if you like. Till then I claim the privilege of
giving you a few orders. Now that’s settled. Where are you stopping? I
don’t intend to lose sight of you again.”
Michael gave him the street and number. Endicott frowned.
“That’s not a good place. I don’t like the neighborhood. If you’re
going to be a lawyer, you must start in right. Here, try this place.
Tell the woman I sent you. One of my clerks used to board there.”
He handed Michael another address.
“Won’t that cost a lot?” asked Michael studying the card. “Not any more
than you can afford,” said Endicott, “and remember, I’m giving orders
until your majority.”
Michael beamed his brilliant smile at his benefactor.
“It is like a real father!” said the boy deeply moved. “I can never
repay you. I can never forget it.”
“Well, don’t!” said Endicott. “Let’s turn to the other thing. What do
you want land for?”
Michael’s face sobered instantly.
“For an experiment I want to try,” he said without hesitation, and
then, his eyes lighting up, “I’ll be able to do it now, soon, perhaps,
if I work hard. You see I studied agriculture in college—”
“The dickens you did!” exclaimed Endicott. “What did you do that for?”
“Well, it was there and I could, and I wanted to know about it.”
“H’m!” said Endicott. “I wonder what some of my pedigreed
million-dollar friend’s sons would think of that? Well, go on.”
“Why, that’s all,” laughed Michael happily. “I studied it and I want to
try it and see what I can do with it. I want to buy a farm.”
“How would you manage to be a farmer and a lawyer both?”
“Well, I thought there might he a little time after hours to work, and
I could tell others how—”
“Oh, I see you want to be a gentleman farmer,” laughed Endicott. “I
understand that’s expensive business.”
“I think I could make it pay, sir.” said Michael shutting his lips with
that firm challenge of his. “I’d like to try.”
Endicott looked at him quizzically for a minute and then whirling
around in his office chair he reached out his hand to a pigeon hole and
took out a deed.
“I’ve a mind to let you have your try,” said Endicott, chuckling as if
it were a good joke. “Here’s a little farm down in Jersey. It’s swampy
and thick with mosquitoes. I understand it won’t grow a beanstalk.
There are twelve acres and a tumble-down house on it. I’ve had to take
it in settlement of a mortgage. The man’s dead and there’s nothing but
the farm to lay hands on. He hasn’t even left a chick or child to leave
his debt to. I don’t want the farm and I can’t sell it without a lot of
trouble. I’ll give it to you. You may consider it a birthday present.
If you’ll pay the taxes I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. That’ll be
something for you to be independent about.”
He touched a bell and a boy appeared.
“Take this to Jowett and tell him to have a deed made out to Michael
Endicott, and to attend to the transfer of the property, nominal sum.
Understand?”
The boy said, “Yes, sir,” and disappeared with the paper.
“But I can’t take a present like that from you after all you have done
for me,” gasped Michael, a granite determination showing in his blue
eyes. “Nonsense,” said Endicott. “Other men give their sons automobiles
when they come of age. Mayn’t I give you a farm if I like? Besides, I
tell you it’s of no account. I want to get rid of it, and I want to see
what you’ll make of it. I’d like to amuse myself seeing you try your
experiment.”
“If you’ll let me pay you for it little by little—”
“Suit yourself after you have become a great lawyer,” laughed Endicott,
“but not till then, remember. There, cut it out, son! I don’t want to
be thanked. Here’s the description of the place and directions how to
get there. It isn’t many miles away. If you’ve got a half holiday run
down and look it over. It’ll keep you out of mischief. There’s nothing
like an ambition to keep people out of mischief. Run along now, I
haven’t another minute to spare, but mind you turn up at Holt’s office
this day two weeks, and report to me afterwards how you like it. I
don’t want to lose sight of you again.”
The entrance of another man on business cut short the interview, and
Michael, bestowing an agonizingly happy grip on Endicott’s hand and a
brilliant smile like a benediction, took his directions and hurried out
into the street.