Tales from Bohemia Part 10

The period between that day and the beginning of the engagement, which subsequently opened at Miner's Theatre, was spent by the girl in coaching her protege. He was a year younger than she, a fact which tended to increase the influence that she promptly obtained over him.

His sullenness having been overcome, he became a devoted and apt pupil. Having beheld himself in neat clothes and acquired habits of cleanliness, he speedily developed into a handsome youth of soft disposition and good behaviour.

The new song and dance "team" was successful. The boy quickly gained applause, and especially did he easily win the liking of such women as he met or appeared before. A new world was open to him. Naturally he enjoyed the easy conquests that he made in the curious, careless circle into which he had been brought.

He is still having his "fling." But he has been from the first most obedient and unquestioning to his benefactress. He goes nowhere, does nothing, without previously obtaining permission from her.

She is proud of the advancement that he has accomplished already, and she is determined to make him a conspicuous figure upon the stage.

What is it that actuates this girl in her endeavour to elevate this boy in the world? What the mystery that brought to the gamin this guardian angel in the form of a variety actress who mingles bright sayings with lack of grammar, who tells Rabelaisian anecdotes in one minute and philosophizes in slang about the issues of life the next?

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" I said, as the train plunged on through the darkness.

"I don't know whether I am or not. He's just a kid, you know. I suppose the proper end of such a romance is that we should marry. But then I wouldn't be married to a man that I couldn't look up to."

"But women don't invariably love that way. I'm sure you're in love with the boy. Have you never thought as to whether you were or not?"

"Have I? I should smile! I thought of it even on the first night, after I picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always regarded him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It seems kind of unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he was only older!"

"Ah, that wish is sure evidence that you love him!"

"One thing I do know is that, though he always obeys me, he doesn't care as much for me as I do for him."

"How do you know that?"

"He wouldn't think so much of other girls if he did. He doesn't look upon me as a woman for him to fall in love with. He regards me as an older sister. Why, he never even takes a girl to supper after the performance without asking my permission."

"And you give it?"

"Yes; but he never knows how I feel when I do."

"And how do you feel then?"

"The first time he asked me, it was like a knife going through me. I haven't got used to it yet."

She paused for a time before adding:

"But, anyhow, he's going to make a name for himself some day. He has it in him. I'm not the only one that thinks so. I'm trying now to get him to go to a school of acting, but he thinks variety is good enough for him. He'll get over that, though."

She spoke so tenderly and yet so proudly of him, that I could not without a pang of pity meditate upon the probable outcome of this attachment, which, according to the logic of realists, will be the boy's eventual success in life, long after he will have forgotten the hand that lifted him out of the depth in which he first opened his eyes.

He knows nothing of his parentage. His benefactress once sought, by means of Inspector Byrnes's penetrating eye, to pierce the clouds surrounding his origin, but the inspector smiled at the hopelessness of the attempt.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"I left him in New York," she said. "I suppose he'll blow in all his money as soon as he can possibly manage to do so."

And she laughed and did another "shuffle" with her feet upon the floor of the car.

VII. -- THE NEEDY OUTSIDER

There was animation at the Nocturnal Club at three o'clock in the morning. The city reporters who had been dropping in since midnight were now reinforced by telegraph editors, for the country editions of the big dailies were already being rushed in light wagons over the sounding stones to the railroad stations.

The cheery and urbane African--naturally called Delmonico by the habitues of the Nocturnal Club--found his time crowded in serving bottled beer, sandwiches, or boiled eggs to the groups around the tables.

To a large group in the back room Fetterson related how he had once missed the last car at the distant extremity of West Philadelphia, and, failing to find a cab west of Broad Street, had walked fifty blocks after midnight and had still succeeded in getting his report in the second edition and thus making a "beat on the town."

Then spoke up a needy outsider whom Fetterson had brought in at one o'clock.

I neglected to mention Fetterson's penchant for queer company. It is quite right that reporters know policemen, are on chaffing terms with night cabmen, and have large acquaintance with pugilists and even with "crooks." But Fetterson picks up the most remarkable and out-of-the-way--not to speak of out-at-elbows--specimens of mankind, craft in distress on the sea of humanity. The needy outsider was his latest acquisition.

It is enough to say of this dest.i.tute acquaintance of Fetterson's that he was a ragged man needing a shave. In daylight, in the country, you would have termed him a tramp. Hitherto he had sat in our group in silence. When he opened his mouth to discourse, it was natural that he should have a prompt and somewhat curious hearing.

"Speaking of walking," he said, "I have walked a bit in my time. Mostly, though, I've rode--on freight-cars. The longest straight tramp I ever made was from Harrisburg to Philadelphia once when the trains weren't running. The cold weather made walking unpleasant. But what do you think of a woman--no tramp woman, either--starting from Pittsburg to walk to Philadelphia?"

"Oh, there is a so-called actress who recently walked from San Francisco to New York," put in some one.

"Yes, but she took her time, and had all the necessaries of life on the way. She walked for an advertis.e.m.e.nt. The woman I speak of walked in order to get there. She walked because she hadn't the money to pay her fare. Her husband was with her, to be sure. He was a pal o' mine.

You see, it was a hard winter, years ago, and work was so scarce in Pittsburg that the husband had to remain idle until the two had begun to starve. He had some education, and had been an office clerk. At that time of his life he couldn't have stood manual labour. Still he tried to get it, for he was willing to do anything to keep a lining to his skin.

If you've never been in his predicament, you can't realize how it is and you won't believe it possible. But I've known more than one man to starve because he couldn't get work and wouldn't take public charity.

Starvation was the prospect of this young fellow and his wife. So they decided to leave Pittsburg and come to Philadelphia, where they thought it would be easier for the husband to get work.

"'But how can we get there?' the husband asked.

"She was a plucky girl and had known hards.h.i.+p, although she was frail to look at.

"'Walk,' she replied.

"And two days later they started."

The outsider paused and lighted a forbidding-looking pipe.

When he resumed his narrative he spoke in a lower tone. The recollections that he called up seemed to stir him within, although he was calm enough of exterior.

"I won't describe the experience of my pal on that trip. It was his first tramp. He knew nothing of the art of vagabondage. Of course they had to beg. That was tough, although he got used to it and to many tricks in the trade. They slept in barns and they ate when and where they could. It cut him to the heart to see his wife in such hunger and fatigue. But her spirits kept up better than his--or at least they seemed to. Often he repented of having started upon such a trip. But he kept that to himself.

"When the wife did at last give in to the cold, the hunger, and the weariness, it was to collapse all at once. It happened in the mountain country. In the evening of a cold, dull day they were trudging along on the railroad ties, keeping on the west-bound track so they could face approaching trains and get off the track in time to avoid being run down.

"'We'll stop in the town ahead,' the husband said. 'We can get warm in the station, and you shall have supper if we have to knock at every door in the town.'

"And the wife said:

"'Yes, we'll stop, for I feel, Harry, as if--as if I couldn't--go any fur--Harry, where are you?'

"She fell forward on the track. When the man picked her up she was unconscious. Clasping her in his arms, he set his teeth and fixed his eyes on the lights of the town ahead and hurried forward.