Michael O'Halloran
Chapter X
The Wheel of Life
"What are your plans for this summer, Leslie?" asked Mr. Winton over his
paper at breakfast.
"The real question is, what are yours?"
"I have none," said Mr. Winton. "I can't see my way to making any for myself.
Between us, strictly, Swain has been hard hit. He gave me my chance in life. It
isn't in my skin to pack up and leave for the sea-shore or the mountains on the
results of what he helped me to, and allow him to put up his fight alone.
If you understood, you'd be ashamed of me if I did, Leslie."
"But I do understand, Daddy!" cried the girl. "What makes you think I don't?
All my life you've been telling me how you love Mr. Swain and what a splendid
big thing he did for you when you were young. Is the war making business awfully
hard for you men?"
"Close my girl," said Mr. Winton. "Bed rock close!"
"That is what cramps Mr. Swain?" she continued.
"It is what cramps all of us," said Mr. Winton. "It hit him with peculiar
force because he had made bad investments. He was running light anyway in an
effort to recoup. All of us are on a tension brought about by the result of
political changes, to which we were struggling to adjust ourselves, when the war
began working greater hardships and entailing millions of loss and expenses."
"I see, and that's why I said the real question was, 'what are your plans?'"
explained Leslie, "because when I find out, if perchance they should involve
staying on the job this summer, why I wanted to tell you that I'm on the job
too. I've thought out the grandest scheme."
"Yes, Leslie? Tell me!" said Mr. Winton.
"It's like this," said Leslie. "Everybody is economizing, shamelessly—and
that's a bully word, Daddy, for in most instances it is shameless. Open faced
'Lord save me and my wife, and my son John and his wife.' In our women's clubs
and lectures, magazines and sermons, we've had a steady dose all winter of hard
times, and economy, and I've tried to make my friends see that their efforts at
economy are responsible for the very hardest crux of the hard times."
"You mean, Leslie—?" suggested Mr. Winton eagerly.
"I mean all of us quit using eggs, dealers become frightened, eggs soar
higher. Economize on meat, packers buy less, meat goes up. All of us discharge
our help, army of unemployed swells by millions. It works two ways and every
friend I've got is economizing for herself, and with every stroke for herself
she is weakening her nation's financial position and putting a bigger burden on
the man she is trying to help."
"Well Leslie—" cried her father.
"The time has come for women to find out what it is all about, then put their
shoulders to the wheel of life and push. But before we gain enough force to
start with any momentum, women must get together and decide what they want, what
they are pushing for."
"Have you decided what you are pushing for?"
"Unalterably!" cried the girl.
"And what is it?" asked her father.
"My happiness! My joy in life!" she exclaimed.
"And exactly in what do you feel your happiness consists, Leslie?" he asked.
"You and Douglas! My home and my men and what they imply!" she answered
instantly. "As I figure it, it's homes that count, Daddy. If the nation
prospers, the birth rate of Americans has got to keep up, or soon the immigrants
will be in control everywhere, as they are in places, right now. Births imply
homes. Homes suggest men to support them, women to control them. If the present
unrest resolves itself into a personal question, so far as the women are
concerned at least, if you are going to get to primal things, whether she
realizes it or no, what each woman really wants she learns, as Nellie
Minturn learned when she took her naked soul into the swamp and showed it to her
God—what each woman wants is her man, her cave, and her baby. If the
world is to prosper, that is woman's work, why don't you men who are
doing big things realize it, and do yourselves what women are going to be
forced from home to do, mighty soon now, if you don't!"
"Well Leslie!" cried Mr. Winton.
"You said that before Daddy!" exclaimed the girl. "Yet what you truly want of
a woman is a home and children. Children imply to all men what I am to you. If
some men have not reared their children so that they receive from them what you
get from me, it is time for the men to realize this, and change their
methods of rearing their daughters and sons. A home should mean to every
man what your home does to you. If all men do not get from their homes what you
do, in most cases it is their own fault. Of course I know there are women
so abominably obsessed with self, they refuse to become mothers, and prefer a
café, with tangoing between courses, to a home; such women should have first
the ducking stool, and if that isn't efficacious, extermination; they are a
disgrace to our civilization and the weakest spot we have. They are at the
bottom of the present boiling discontent of women who really want to be home
loving, home keeping. They are directly responsible for the fathers, sons,
brothers, and lovers with two standards of morals. A man reared in the right
kind of a home, by a real mother, who goes into other homes of the same kind,
ruled by similar mothers, when he leaves his, and marries the right girl and
establishes for himself a real home, is not going to go wrong. It is the
sons, lovers, and husbands of the women who refuse home and children, and carry
their men into a perpetual round of what they deem pleasure in their youth, who
find life desolate when age begins to come, and who instantly rebel strongest
against the very conditions they have made. I've been listening to you all my
life, Daddy, and remembering mother, reading, thinking, and watching for what
really pays, and believe me, I've found out. I gave Nellie Minturn the
best in my heart the other day, but you should see what I got back. Horrors,
Daddy! Just plain horrors! I said to Douglas that night when I read him the
letter I afterward showed you, that if, as she suggested, I was 'ever faintly
tempted to neglect home life for society,' in her I would have all the 'horrible
example' I'd ever need, and rest assured I shall."
"Poor woman!" exclaimed Mr. Winton.
"Exactly!" cried Leslie. "And the poorest thing about it is that she
is not to blame in the least. You and my mother could have made the same
kind of a woman of me. If you had fed me cake instead of bread; if you had given
me candy instead of fruit; if you had taken me to the show instead of
entertaining me at home; if you had sent me to summer resorts instead of
summering with me in the country, you'd have had another Nellie on your hands.
The world is full of Nellies, but where one woman flees too strict and
monotonous a home, to make a Nellie out of herself, ten are taken out and
deliberately moulded, drilled and fashioned into Nellies by their own parents. I
have lain awake at nights figuring this, Daddy; some woman is urging me every
day to join different movements, and I've been forced to study this out. I know
the cause of the present unrest among women."
"And it is—?" suggested Mr. Winton.
"It is the rebound from the pioneer lives of our grandmothers! They and their
mothers were at one extreme; we are at the widest sweep of the other. They were
forced to enter the forest and in most cases defend themselves from savages and
animals; to work without tools, to live with few comforts. In their
determination to save their children from hardships, they lost sense, ballast
and reason. They have saved them to such an extent they have lost them.
By the very method of their rearing, they have robbed their children of love
for, and interest in, home life, and with their own hands sent them to cafés
and dance halls, when they should be at their homes training their children for
the fashioning of future homes. I tell you, Daddy—"
"Leslie, tell me this," interposed Mr. Winton. "Did you get any small part of
what you have been saying to me, from me? Do you feel what I have tried to teach
you, and the manner in which I have tried to rear you, have put your love for me
into your heart and such ideas as you are propounding into your head?"
"Of course, Daddy!" cried the girl. "Who else? Mother was dear and wonderful,
but I scarcely remember her. What you put into the growth of me, that is what is
bound to come out, when I begin to live independently."
"This is the best moment of my life!" said Mr. Winton. "From your birth you
have been the better part of me, to me; and with all my heart I have
tried to fashion you into such a woman for a future home, as your mother
began, and you have completed for me. Other things have failed me; I count you
my success, Leslie!"
"Oh Daddy!" cried the happy girl.
"Now go back to our start," said Mr. Winton. "You have plans for the summer,
of course! I realized that at the beginning. Are you ready to tell me?"
"I am ready to ask you," she said.
"Thank you," said Mr. Winton. "I appreciate the difference. Surely a man does
enjoy counting for something with his women."
"Spoiled shamelessly, dearest, that's what you are," said Leslie. "A spoiled,
pampered father! But to conclude. Mr. Swain helped you. Pay back, Daddy, no
matter what the cost; pay back. You help him, I'll help
you! My idea was this: for weeks I've foreseen that you wouldn't like to
leave business this summer. Douglas is delving into that investigation Mr.
Minturn started him on and he couldn't be dragged away. He's perfectly
possessed. Of course where my men are, like Ruth, 'there will be I also,' so for
days I've been working on a plan, and now it's all finished and waiting your
veto or approval."
"Thrilling, Leslie! Tell quickly. I'm all agog!"
"It's this: let's not go away and spend big sums on travel, dress, and close
the house, and throw our people out of work. Do you realize, Daddy, how long
you've had the same housekeeper, cook, maid and driver? Do you know how badly
I'd feel to let them go, and risk getting them back in the fall? My scheme is to
rent, for practically nothing, a log cabin I know, a little over an hour's run
from here—a log cabin with four rooms and a lean-to and a log stable, beside a
lake where there is grand fishing and swimming."
"But Leslie—" protested Mr. Winton.
"Now listen!" cried the girl. "The rent is nominal. We get the house, stable,
orchard, garden, a few acres and a rented cow. The cabin has two tiny rooms
above, one for you, the other for Douglas. Below, it has a room for me, a
dining-room and a kitchen. The big log barn close beside has space in the
hay-mow for the women, and in one side below for our driver, the other for the
cars. Over the cabin is a grapevine. Around it there are fruit trees. There is a
large, rich garden. If I had your permission I could begin putting in vegetables
tomorrow that would make our summer supply. Rogers—"
"You are not going to tell me Rogers would touch a garden?" queried Mr.
Winton.
"I am going to tell you that Rogers has been with me in every step of my
investigations," replied Leslie. "Yesterday I called in my household and gave
them a lecture on the present crisis; I found them a remarkably well- informed
audience. They had a very distinct idea that if I economized by dismissing them
for the summer, and leaving the house with a caretaker, what it would mean to
them. Then I took my helpers into the car and drove out the Atwater
road—you know it well Daddy, the road that runs smooth over miles of country
and then instead of jumping into a lake as it seems to be going to, it swings
into corduroy through a marsh, runs up on a little bridge spanning the channel
between two lakes, lifts to Atwater lake shore, than which none is more
lovely—you remember the white sand floor and the clean water for
swimming—climbs another hill, and opposite beautiful wood, there stands the log
cabin I told you of, there I took them and explained. They could clean up in a
day; Rogers could plant the garden and take enough on one truck load, for a
beginning. We may have wood for the fireplace by gathering it from the forest
floor. Rogers again!"
"Are you quite sure about Rogers?"
"Suppose you ride with him going down and ask him yourself," suggested
Leslie. "Rogers is anxious to hold his place. You see it's like this: all of
them get regular wages, have a chance at the swimming, rowing, gardening and the
country. The saving comes in on living expenses. Out there we have the cow,
flour, fish, and poultry from the neighbours, fresh eggs, butter and the
garden—I can cut expenses to one-fourth; lights altogether. Moonshine and
candles will serve; cooking fuel, gasoline. Daddy will you go to-night and see?"
"No, I won't go to-night and see, I'll go swim and fish," said Mr. Winton.
"Great Heavens, Leslie, do you really mean to live all summer beside a
lake, where a man can expand, absorb and exercise? I must get out my fishing
tackle. I wonder what Douglas has! I've tried that lake when bass were slashing
around wild thorn and crab trees shedding petals and bugs. It is man's sport
there! I like black bass fishing. I remember that water. Fine for swimming! Not
the exhilaration of salt, perhaps, but grand, clean, old northern Indiana water,
cooled by springs. I love it! Lord, Leslie! Why don't we own that place?
Why haven't we homed there, and been comfortable for years?"
"I shall go ahead then?" queried Leslie.
"You shall go a-hurry, Miss, hurry!" cried Mr. Winton. "I'll give you just
two days. One to clean, the other to move; to-morrow night send for me. I want a
swim; and cornbread, milk, and three rashers of bacon for my dinner and nothing
else; and can't the maids have my room and let me have a blanket on the hay?"
"But father, the garden!" cautioned Leslie.
"Oh drat the garden!" cried Mr. Winton.
"But if you go dratting things, I can't economize," the girl reminded him.
"Rogers and I have that garden down on paper, and it's late now."
"Leslie, don't the golf links lie half a mile from there?"
"Closer Daddy," said the girl, "right around the corner."
"I don't see why you didn't think of it before," he said. "Have you told
Douglas?"
"Not a word!" exclaimed Leslie. "I'm going to invite him out when everything
is in fine order."
"Don't make things fine," said Mr. Winton. "Let's have them rough!"
"They will be rough enough to suit you, Daddy," laughed Leslie, "but a few
things have got to be done."
"Then hurry, but don't forget the snake question."
"People are and have been living there for generations; common care is all
that is required," said Leslie. "I'll be careful, but if you tell Bruce until I
am ready, I'll never forgive you."
Mr. Winton arose. "'Come to me arms,'" he laughed, spreading them wide. "I
wonder if Douglas Bruce knows what a treasure he is going to possess!"
"Certainly not!" said Leslie emphatically. "I wouldn't have him know for the
world! I am going to be his progressive housekeeping party, to which he is
invited every day, after we are married, and each day he has got a new surprise
coming, that I hope he will like. The woman who endures and wears well in
matrimony is the one who 'keeps something to herself.' It's my opinion that
modern marriage would be more satisfactory if the engaged parties would not come
so nearly being married, for so long before they are. There is so little left
for afterward, in most cases, that it soon grows monotonous."
"Leslie, where did you get all of this?" he asked.
"I told you. From you, mostly," explained the girl, "and from watching my
friends. Go on Daddy! And send Rogers back soon! I want to begin buying radish
seed and onion sets."
So Leslie telephoned Douglas Bruce that she would be very busy with
housekeeping affairs the coming two days. She made a list of what would be
required for that day, left the maids to collect it, and went to buy seeds and a
few tools; then returning she divided her forces and leaving part to pack the
bedding, old dishes and things absolutely required for living, she took the
loaded car and drove to Atwater Lake.
The owner of the land, a cultured, refined gentleman, who spoke the same
brand of English used by the Wintons, and evinced a knowledge of the same books,
was genuinely interested in Leslie and her plans. It was a land owner's busiest
season, but he spared a man an hour with a plow to turn up the garden, and came
down himself and with practiced hand swung the scythe, and made sure about the
snakes. Soon the maids had the cabin walls swept, the floors scrubbed, the
windows washed, and that was all that could be done. The seeds were earth
enfolded in warm black beds, with flower seeds tucked in for borders. The cut
grass was raked back, and spread to dry for the rented cow.
When nothing further was to be accomplished there, they returned to
Multiopolis to hasten preparations for the coming day. It was all so good Leslie
stopped at her father's office and poured a flood of cloverbloom, bird notes and
water shimmer into his willing ears.
She seldom went to Douglas Bruce's offices, but she ran up a few moments to
try in person to ease what she felt would be disappointment in not spending the
evening with her. The day would be full far into the night with affairs at home,
he would notice the closing of the house, and she could not risk him spoiling
her plans by finding out what they were, before she was ready. She found him
surrounded with huge ledgers, delving and already fretting for Mickey. She stood
laughing in his doorway, half piqued to find him so absorbed in his work, and so
full of the boy he was missing, that he seemed to take her news that she was too
busy to see him that night with quite too bearable calmness; but his earnestness
about coming the following night worked his pardon, so Leslie left laughing to
herself over the surprise in store for him.
Bruce bent over his work, praying for Mickey. Everything went wrong without
him. He was enough irritated by the boy who was not Mickey, that when the boy
who was Mickey came to his door, he was delighted to see him. He wanted to say:
"Hello, little friend. Come get in the game, quickly!" but two considerations
withheld him: Mickey's manners were a trifle too casual; at times they irritated
Douglas, and if he took the boy into his life as he hoped to, he would come into
constant contact with Leslie and her friends, who were cultured people of homing
instincts. Mickey's manners must be polished, and the way to do it was not to
drop to his level, but to improve Mickey. And again, the day before, he had told
Mickey to sit down and wait until an order was given him. To invite him to "get
in the game" now, was good alliteration; it pleased the formal Scotch ear as did
many another United States phrase of the street, so musical, concise and packed
with meaning as to become almost classic; but in his heart he meant as Mickey
had suspected, "to do him good"; so he must lay his foundations with care. What
he said was a cordial and cheerful, "Good morning!"
"Noon," corrected Mickey. "Right ye are! Good it is! What's my job? 'Scuse
me! I won't ask that again!"
"Plenty," Douglas admitted, "but first, any luck with the paper route?"
"All over but killing the boy I sold it to, if he doesn't do right. I ain't
perfectly crazy about him. He's a papa's boy and pretty soft; but maybe he'll
learn. It was a fine chance for me, so I soaked it."
"To whom did you sell, Mickey?" asked Douglas.
"To your driver, for his boy," answered Mickey. "We talked it over last
night. Say, was your driver 'the same continued,' or did you detect glimmerings
of beefsteak and blood in him this morning?"
"Why?" asked Douglas curiously.
"Oh he's such a stiff," explained Mickey. "He looks about as lively as a
salted herring."
"And did you make an effort to enliven him, Mickey?"
"Sure!" cried Mickey. "The operation was highly successful! The patient made
a fine recovery. Right on the job, right on the street, right at the thickest
traffic corner, right at 'dead man's crossing,' he let out a whoop that split
the features of a copper who hadn't smiled in years. It was a double play and it
worked fine. What I want to know is whether it was fleeting or holds over."
"It must be 'over,' Mickey," said Douglas. "Since you mention it, he opened
the door with the information that it was a fine morning, while I recall that
there was colour on his face, and light in his usually dull eyes."
"Good!" cried Mickey. "Then there's some hope that his kid may go and do
likewise."
"The boy who takes your route has to smile, Mickey?"
"Well you see most of my morning customers are regulars, so they are used to
it," said Mickey. "The minute one goes into his paper, he's lost 'til knocking
off time; but if he starts on a real-wide-a-wake-soulful smile, he's a chance of
reproducing it, before the day is over, leastwise he has more chance than
if he never smiles."
"So it is a part of the contract that the boy smiles at his work?" questioned
Douglas.
"It is so!" exclaimed Mickey. "I asked Mr. Chaffner at the
Herald office what was a fair price for my route. You see I've sold the
Herald from the word go, and we're pretty thick. So he told me what he
thought. It lifted my lid, but when I communicated it to Henry, casual like, he
never batted an eye, so I am going to try his boy 'til I'm satisfied. If he can
swing the job it's a go."
"Your customers should give you a vote of thanks!"
"And so they will!" cried Mickey. "You see the men who buy of me are the top
crust of Multiopolis, the big fine men who can smile, and open their heads and
say a pleasant word, and they like to. It does them good! I live on it! I always
get my papers close home as I can so I have time coming down on the cars to take
a peep myself, and nearly always there are at least three things on the first
page that hit you in the eye. Once long ago I was in the Herald office
with a note to Chaffner the big chief, and I gave him a little word jostle as I
passed it over. He looked at me and laughed good natured like, so I handed him
this: 'Are you the big stiff that bosses the make-up?' He says, 'Mostly! I can
control it if I want to.' 'All right for you,' I said. 'I live by selling your
papers, but I could sell a heap more if I had a better chance.' 'Chance in what
way?' said he. 'Building your first page,' said I. He said, 'Sure. What is it
that you want?' 'I'll show you,' said I. 'I'll give you the call I used this
morning.' Then I cut loose and just like on the street I cried it, and he yelled
some himself. 'What more do you want?' he asked me. 'A lot,' I said. 'You see I
only got a little time on the cars before my men begin to get on, and my time is
precious. I can't read second, third, and forty- eleventh pages hunting up
eye-openers. I must get them first page, 'cause I'm short time, and got
my pack to hang on to. Now makin'-up, if you'd a-put that "Germans driven from
the last foot of Belgian soil," first, it would a-been better, 'cause that's
what every living soul wants. Then the biggest thing about ourselves.
Place it prominent in big black letters, where I get it quick and easy, and then
put me in a scream. Get me a laugh in my call, and I'll sell you out all by
myself. Folks are spending millions per annum for the glad scream at night,
they'll pay just the same morning, give them a chance. I live on a laugh,' said
I, to Chaffner. He looked me over and he said: 'When you get too big for the
papers, you come to me and I'll make a top-notch reporter out of you.' 'Thanks
Boss,' said I, 'you couldn't graft that job on to me, with asphaltum and a buzz
saw. I'm going to be on your front page 'fore you know it, but it's going to be
a poetry piece that will raise your hair; I ain't going to frost my cake, poking
into folks' private business, telling shameful things on them that half kills
them. Lots of times I see them getting their dose on the cars, and they just
shiver, and go white, and shake. Nix on the printing about shame, and sin, and
trouble in the papers for me!' I said, and he just laughed and looked at me
closer and he said, 'All right! Bring your poetry yourself, and if they don't
let you in, give them this,' and he wrote a line I got at home yet."
"Is that all about Chaffner?" asked Douglas.
"Oh no!" said Mickey. "He said, 'Well here is a batch of items being written
up for first page to-morrow. According to you, I should give "Belgian citizens
flocking back to search for devastated homes," the first place?' 'That's got the
first place in the heart of every man in God's world. Giving it first place is
putting it where it belongs.' 'Here's the rest of it,' said he, 'what do you
want next?' 'At the same glance I always take, this,' said I, pointing to
where it said, 'Movement on foot to eliminate graft from city offices.' 'You
think that comes next?' said he. 'Sure!' said I. 'Hits the pocketbook! Sure!
Heart first! Money next!' 'Are you so sure it isn't exactly the reverse?' asked
he. 'Know it!' said I. 'Watch the crowds any day, and every clip you'll see that
loving a man's country, and his home, and his kids, and getting fair play, comes
before money.' 'Yes, I guess it does!' he said thoughtful like, 'least it
should. We'll make it the policy of this paper to put it that way anyhow.
What next?' 'Now your laugh,' said I. 'And while you are at it, make it a
scream!' 'All right,' he said, 'I haven't anything funny in yet, but I'll get
it. Now show me where you want these spaced.' So I showed him, and every single
time you look, you'll see Mr. Herald is made up that way, and you ought
to hear me trolling out that Belgian line, soft and easy, snapping in the graft
quicklike, and then yelling out the scream. You bet it catches them! If I can't
get that kid on to his job, 'spect I'll have to take it back myself; least if he
can't get on, he's doomed to get off. I gave him a three days' try, and if he
doesn't catch by that time, he never will."
"But how are you going to know?" asked Douglas.
"I'm going down early and follow him and drill him like a Dutch recruit, and
he'll wake up my men, and interest them and fetch the laugh or he'll stop!"
"You think you got a fair price?" asked Douglas.
"Know it! All it's worth, and it looks like a margin to me," said Mickey.
"That's all right then, and thank you for telling me about the papers," said
Douglas. "I enjoyed it immensely. I see you are a keen student of human nature."
"'Bout all the studying I get a chance at," said Mickey.
"You'll have opportunity at other things now," said Douglas. "Since you
mention it, I see your point about the papers, and if that works on business men
going to business, it should work on a jury. I think I've had it in mind,
that I was to be a compendium of information and impress on a judge or jury what
I know, and why what I say is right. You give me the idea that a better
way would be to impress on them what they know. Put it like this: first
soften their hearts, next touch their pockets, then make them laugh; is that the
idea?"
"Duck again! You're doing fine! I ain't made my living selling men papers for
this long not to know the big boys some, and more. Each man is different,
but you can cod him, or bluff him, or scare him, or let down the floodgates;
some way you can put it over if you take each one separate, and hit him where he
lives. See? Finding his dwelling place is the trouble."
"Mickey, I do see," cried Douglas. "What you tell me will be invaluable to
me. You know I am from another land so I have personal ways of thinking and the
men I'm accustomed to are different. What I have been centring on is myself, and
what I can do."
"Won't work here! What you got to get a bead on here is the other
fellow, and how to do him. See?"
"Take these books and fly," said Douglas. "I've spent one of the most
profitable hours of my life, but concretely it is an hour, and we're going to
the Country Club to-night and may stay as long as we choose and we're going to
have a grand time. You like going to the country, don't you?"
"Ain't words for telling," said Mickey, gathering his armload of books and
racing down the hall.
When the day's work was finished, with a load of books to deliver before an
office closed, they started on the run to the club house. Bruce waited in the
car while Mickey sped in with the books, and returning, to save opening the door
and crossing before the man he was fast beginning to idolize, Mickey took one of
his swift cuts across the back end of the car. While his hand was outstretched
and his foot uplifted to enter, from a high-piled passing truck toppled a box,
not a big box, but large enough to knock Mickey senseless and breathless when it
struck him between the shoulders. Douglas had Mickey in the car with orders for
the nearest hospital, toward which they were hurrying, when the boy opened his
eyes and sat up. He looked inquiringly at Douglas, across whose knees he had
found himself.
"Wha—what happened?" he questioned with his first good indrawing of
recovered breath.
"A box fell from a truck loaded past reason and almost knocked the life out
of you!" cried Douglas.
"'Knocked the life out of me?'" repeated Mickey.
"You've been senseless for three blocks, Mickey."
A slow horror spread over Mickey's face.
"Wha—what was you going to do?" he wavered.
"Running for a hospital," said Douglas.
"S'pose my head had been busted, and I'd been stretched on the glass table
and maybe laid up for days or knocked out altogether?" demanded Mickey.
"You'd have had the best surgeon in Multiopolis, and every care, Mickey,"
assured Douglas.
"Ugh!" Mickey collapsed utterly.
"Must be hurt worse than I thought," was Douglas' mental comment. "He
couldn't be a coward!"
But Mickey almost proved that very thing by regaining his senses again, and
immediately falling into spasms of long-drawn, shuddering sobbing. Douglas held
him carefully, every moment becoming firmer in his conviction of one of two
things: either he was hurt worse or he was—He would not let himself think it;
but never did boy appear to less advantage. Douglas urged the driver to speed.
Mickey heard and understood.
"Never mind," he sobbed. "I'm all right Mr. Bruce; I ain't hurt. Not much!
I'll be all right in a minute!"
"If you're not hurt, what is the matter with you?"
"A minute!" gasped Mickey, as another spasm of sobbing caught him.
"I am amazed!" cried Douglas. "A little jolt like that! You are acting like a
coward, Mickey!"
The word straightened Mickey.
"Coward! Who? Me!" he cried. "Me that's made my way since I can remember?
Coward, did you say?"
"Of course not, Mickey!" cried Douglas. "Excuse me. I shouldn't have said
that. But it is unlike you. What the devil is the matter with you?"
"I helped carry in a busted head and saw the glass table once," he cried.
"Inch more and it would a-been my head—and I might have been knocked out for
days. O Lord! What will I do?"
"Mickey you're not afraid?" asked Douglas.
"'Fraid? Me? 'Bout as good as coward!"
"What is the matter with you?" demanded Douglas.
Mickey stared at him amazedly.
"O Lord!" he panted. "You don't s'pose I was thinking about myself, do
you?"
"I don't know what to think!" exclaimed Douglas.
"Sure! How could you?" conceded Mickey.
He choked back another big dry sob.
"Gimme a minute to think!" he said. "O God! What have I been doing? I see now
what I'm up against!"
"Mickey," said Douglas Bruce, suddenly filled with compassion, "I am
beginning to understand. Won't you tell me?"
"I guess I got to," panted Mickey. "But I'm afraid! O Lord, I'm so afraid!"
"Afraid of me, Mickey?" asked Douglas gently now.
"Yes, afraid of you," said Mickey, "and afraid of her. Afraid of her, more
than you."
"You mean Miss Winton?" pursued Douglas.
"Yes, I mean Miss Winton," replied Mickey. "I guess I don't risk her, or you
either. I guess I go to the Nurse Lady. She's used to folks in trouble. She's
trained to know what to do. Why sure! That's the thing!"
"Your back hurts, Mickey?" questioned Douglas.
"My back hurts? Aw forget my back!" cried Mickey roughly. "I ain't hurt,
honest I ain't."
Douglas took a long penetrating look at the small shaking figure, then he
said softly: "I wish you wanted to confide in me, Mickey! I can't tell you how
glad I'd be if you'd trust me; but if you have some one else you like better,
where is it you want to be driven?"
"Course there ain't any one I like better than you, 'cept—"
he caught a name on the tip of his tongue and paused. "You see it's like this:
I've been to this Nurse Lady before, and I know exactly what she'll say and
think. If you don't think like I do, and if you go and take—"
"Gracious Heaven Mickey, you don't think I'd try to take anything you wanted,
do you?" demanded Douglas.
"I don't know what you'd do," said Mickey. "I only know what one Swell
Dame I struck wanted to do."
"Mickey," said Douglas, "when I don't know what you are thinking about, I
can't be of much help; but I'd give considerable if you felt that you had come
to trust me."
"Trust you? Sure I trust you, about myself. But this is—" cried Mickey.
"This is about some one else?" asked Douglas casually.
Mickey leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bent with intense
thinking.
"Much as you are doing for me," he muttered, "if you really care, if it makes
a difference to you—of course I can trust you, if you don't think
as I do!"
"You surely can!" cried Douglas Bruce. "Now Mickey, both of us are too shaken
to care for the country; take me home with you and let's have supper together
and become acquainted. We can't know each other on my ground alone. I must meet
you on yours, and prove that I'm really your friend. Let's go where you live and
have supper."
"Go where I live? You?" cried Mickey.
"Yes! You come from where you live fresh and clean each day, so can I. Take
me home with you. I want to go dreadfully, Mickey. Please?"
"Well, I ain't such a cad I'm afraid for you to see how I live," he said.
"Though you wouldn't want to come more than once; that ain't what I was thinking
about."
"Think all you like, Mickey," said Douglas. "Henry, drive to the end of the
car line where you've gone before."
On the way he stopped at a grocery, then a café, and at each place piles of
tempting packages were placed in the car. Mickey's brain was working fast. One
big fact was beginning to lift above all the others. His treasure was slipping
from him, and for her safety it had to be so. If he had been struck on the head,
forced to undergo an operation, and had lain insensible for hours—Mickey could
go no further with that thought. He had to stop and proceed with the other part
of his problem. Of course she was better off with him than where she had been;
no sane person could dispute that; she was happy and looking improved each day
but—could she be made happier and cared for still better by some one else, and
cured without the long wait for him to earn the money? If she could, what would
be the right name for him, if he kept her on what he could do? So they came at
last as near as the car could go to Mickey's home in Sunrise Alley. At the foot
of the last flight Mickey paused, package laden.
"Now I'll have to ask you to wait a minute," he said.
He ascended, unlocked the door and stepped inside. Peaches' eyes gleamed with
interest at the packages, but she waved him back. As Mickey closed the door she
cried: "My po'try piece! Say it, Mickey!"
"You'll have to wait again," said Mickey. "I got hit in the back with a box
and it knocked the poetry out of me. You'll have to wait 'til after supper
to-night, and then I'll fix the grandest one yet. Will that do?"
"Yes, if the box hit hard, Mickey," conceded Peaches.
"It hit so blame hard, Miss Chicken, that it knocked me down and knocked me
out, and Mr. Bruce picked me up and carried me three blocks in his car before I
got my wind or knew what ailed me."
Peaches' face was tragic; her hands stretched toward him. Mickey was young,
and his brain was whirling so it whirled off the thought that came first.
"And if it had hit me hard enough to bust my head, and I'd been
carried to a hospital to be mended and wouldn't a-knowed what hurt me for days,
like sometimes, who'd a-fed and bathed you, Miss?"
Peaches gazed at him wordless.
"You close your mouth and tell me, Miss," demanded Mickey, brutal with
emotion. "If I hadn't come, what would you have done?"
Peaches shut her mouth and stared while it was closed. At last she ventured a
solution.
"You'd a-told our Nurse Lady," she said.
Mickey made an impatient gesture.
"Hospitals by the dozen, kid," he said, "and not a chance in a hundred I'd
been took to the 'Star of Hope,' and times when your head is busted, you don't
know a thing for 'most a week. What would you do if I didn't come
for a week?"
"I'd have to slide off the bed if it killed me, and roll to the cupboard, and
make the things do," said Peaches.
"You couldn't get up to it to save your life," said Mickey, "and there's
never enough for a week, and you couldn't get to the water—what would you
do?"
"Mickey, what would I do?" wavered Peaches.
"Well, I know, if you don't," said Mickey, "and I ain't going to tell you;
but I'll tell you this much: you'd be scared and hurt worse than you ever was
yet; and it's soon going to be too hot for you here, so I got to move you to a
cooler place, and I don't risk being the only one knowing where you are another
day; or my think-tank will split. It's about split now. I don't want to do it,
Miss, but I got to, so you take your drink and lemme straighten you, and wash
your face, and put your pretties on; then Mr. Douglas Bruce, that we work for
now, is coming to see you and he's going to stay for supper—Now cut it out!
Shut right up! Here, lemme fix you, and you see, Miss, that you act a
lady girl, and don't make me lose my job with my boss, or we can't pay
our rent. Hold still 'til I get your ribbon right, and slip a fresh nightie on
you. There!"
"Mickey—" began Peaches.
"Shut up!" said Mickey in desperation. "Now mind this, Miss! You belong to
me! I'm taking care of you. You answer what he says to you pretty or
you'll not get any supper this night, and look at them bundles he got. Sit up
and be nice! This is a party!"
Mickey darted around arranging the room, then he flung the door wide and
called: "Ready!"
Douglas Bruce climbed the stairs and entered the door. As Mickey expected,
his gaze centred and stopped. Mickey began taking packages from his hands; still
gazing Douglas yielded them. Then he stepped forward when Mickey placed the
chair, and said: "Mr. Douglas Bruce, this is Lily. This is Lily Peaches
O'Halloran. Will you have a chair?" He turned to Peaches, putting his arm around
her as he bent to kiss her.
"He's all right, Flowersy-girl," he said. "We like to have him come.
He's our friend. Our big, nice friend who won't let a soul on earth get us. He
doesn't even want us himself, 'cause he's got one girl. His girl is the
Moonshine Lady that sent you the doll. Maybe she will come some day too, and
maybe she'll make the Precious Child a new dress."
Peaches clung to Mickey and past him peered at her visitor, and the visitor
smiled his most winning smile. He recognized Leslie's ribbon, and noted the
wondrous beauty of the small white face, now slowly flushing the faintest pink
with excitement. Still clinging she smiled back. Wordless, Douglas reached over
to pick up the doll. Then the right thought came at last.
"Has the Precious Child been good to-day?" he asked.
Peaches released Mickey, dropping back against her pillows, her smile now
dazzling. "Jus' as good!" she said.
"Fine!" said Douglas, straightening the long dress.
"An' that's my slate and lesson," said Peaches.
"Fine!" he said again as if it were the only adjective he knew. Mickey
glanced at him, grinning sympathetically, "She does sort of knock you out!" he
said.
"'Sort' is rather poor. Completely, would be better," said Douglas. "She's
the loveliest little sister in all the world, but she doesn't resemble you. Is
she like your mother?"
"Lily isn't my sister, only as you wanted me for a brother," said Mickey.
"She was left and nobody was taking care of her. She's my find and you bet your
life I'm going to keep her!"
"Oh! And how long have you had her, Mickey?"
"Now that's just what the Orphings' Home dame asked me," said Mickey with
finality, "and we are nix on those dames and their askings. Lily is mine,
I tell you. My family. Now you visit with her, while I get supper."
Mickey pushed up the table, then began opening packages and setting forth
their contents. Watching him as he moved swiftly and with assurance, his head
high, his lips even, a slow deep respect for the big soul in the little body
began to dawn in the heart of Douglas Bruce. Understanding of Mickey came in
rivers swift and strong, so while he wondered and while he watched entranced,
over and over in his head went the line: "Fools rush in where angels fear to
tread." With every gentle act of Mickey for the child Douglas' liking for him
grew. When he went over the supper and with the judgment of a nurse selected the
most delicate and suitable food for her, in the heart of the Scotsman swelled
the marvel and the miracle that silenced criticism.