About the time the small hand of the cathedral clock got around to four, Nance Molloy came skipping home from school. She had been kept in for a too spirited resentment of an older girl's casual observation that both of her shoes were for the same foot. To her, as to Dan, these trying conventions in the matter of foot-gear were intolerable. No combination seemed to meet the fastidious demands of that exacting sixth grade.

"h.e.l.lo, Dan!" she said, coming to a halt at sight of the obstructed pavement. "What's all this for?"

"Put out," said Dan laconically.

"Didn't yer maw never come back?"

"Nope."

Nance climbed up beside him on the bedclothes and took her seat.

"What you goin' to do?" she asked in a business-like tone.

"Dunno." Dan did not turn his head to look at her, but he felt a dumb comfort in her presence. It was as if her position there beside him on the pillory made his humiliation less acute. He shifted the water pitcher, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder:

"They all want to divide the things an' take keer of 'em 'til she comes,"

he said, "but I ain't goin' to let 'em."

"I wouldn't neither," agreed Nance. "Old man Smelts an' Mr. Gorman'd have what they took in hock before mornin'. There's a coal shed over to Slap Jack's ain't full. Why can't you put yer things in there for to-night?"

"He wouldn't let me. He's a mean old Dutchman."

"He ain't, neither! He's the nicest man in the alley, next to Uncle Jed an' that there old man with the fiddle. Mr. Jack an' me's friends. He gives me pretzels all the time. I'll go ast him."

A faint hope stirred in Dan as she slid down from her perch and darted into the saloon next door. She had wasted no time in conjecture or sympathy; she had plunged at once into action. When she returned, the fat saloonkeeper lumbered in her wake:

"Dose tings is too many, already," he protested. "I got no place to put my coal once de cold vedder comes."

"It ain't come yet," said Nance. "Besides his mother'll be here to-morrow, I 'spect."

"Mebbe she vill, und mebbe she von't," said the saloonkeeper astutely. "I don't want dat I should mess up myself mid dis here piziness."

"The things ain't goin' to hurt your old coal shed none!" began Nance, firing up; then with a sudden change of tactics, she slipped her hand into Mr. Jack's fat, red one, and lifted a pair of coaxing blue eyes.

"Say, go on an' let him, Mr. Jack! I told him you would. I said you was one of the nicest men in the alley. You ain't goin' to make me out a liar, are you?"

"Vell, I leave him put 'em in for to-night," said the saloonkeeper grudgingly, his Teuton caution overcome by Celtic wile.

The conclave of women a.s.sembled in the hall of Number One, to carry out Mrs. Snawdor's threat of "taking a hand," were surprised a few minutes later, to see the objects under discussion being pa.s.sed over the fence by Mr. Jack and Dan under the able generalship of the one feminine member of the alley whose counsel had been heeded.

When the last article had been transferred to the shed, and a veteran padlock had been induced to return to active service, the windows of the tenement were beginning to glow dully, and the smell of cabbage and onions spoke loudly of supper.

Nance, notwithstanding the fourth peremptory summons from aloft, to walk herself straight home that very minute, still lingered with Dan.

"Come on home with me," she said. "You can sleep in Uncle Jed's bed 'til five o'clock."

"I kin take keer of myself all right," he said. "It was the things that pestered me."

"But where you goin' to git yer supper?"

"I got money," he answered, making sure that his nickel was still in his pocket. "Besides, my mother might come while I was there."

"Well, don't you fergit that to-morrow we go to Mis' Purdy's."

Dan looked at her with heavy eyes.

"Oh! I ain't got time to fool around with that business. I don't know where I'll be at by to-morrow."

"You'll be right here," said Nance firmly, "and I ain't goin' to budge a step without you if I have to wait all afternoon."

"Well, I ain't comin'," said Dan.

"I'm goin' to wait," said Nance, "an' if I git took up fer not reportin', it'll be your fault."

Dan slouched up to the corner and sat on the curbstone where he could watch the street cars. As they stopped at the crossing, he leaned forward eagerly and scanned the pa.s.sengers who descended. In and out of the swinging door of the saloon behind him pa.s.sed men, singly and in groups.

There were children, too, with buckets, but they had to go around to the side. He wanted to go in himself and buy a sandwich, but he didn't dare.

The very car he was waiting for might come in his absence.

At nine o'clock he was still waiting when two men came out and paused near him to light their cigars. They were talking about Skeeter Newson, the notorious pickpocket, who two days before had broken jail and had not yet been found. Skeeter's exploits were a favorite topic of the Calvary Micks, and Dan, despite the low state of his mind, p.r.i.c.ked his ears to listen.

"They traced him as far as Chicago," said one of the men, "but there he give 'em the slip."

"Think of the nerve of him taking that Lewis woman with him," said the other voice. "By the way, I hear she lives around here somewhere."

"A bad lot," said the first voice as they moved away.

Dan sat rigid with his back to the telegraph pole, his feet in the gutter, his mouth fallen open, staring dully ahead of him. Then suddenly he reached blindly for a rock, and staggered to his feet, but the figures had disappeared in the darkness. He sat down again, while his breath came in short, hard gasps. It was a lie! His mother was not bad! He knew she was good. He wanted to shriek it to the world. But even as he pa.s.sionately defended her to himself, fears a.s.sailed him.

Why had they always lived so differently from other people? Why was he never allowed to ask questions or to answer them or to know where his mother went or how they got their living? What were the parcels she always kept locked up in the trunk in the closet? Events, little heeded at the time of occurrence, began to fall into place, making a hideous and convincing pattern. Dim memories of men stole out of the past and threw distorted shadows on his troubled brain. There was Bob who had once given him a quarter, and Uncle d.i.c.k who always came after he was in bed, and Newt--his neck stiffened suddenly. Newt, whom his mother used always to be talking about, and whose name he had not heard now for so long that he had almost forgotten it. Skeeter Newson--Newt--"The Lewis Woman." He saw it all in a blinding flash, and in that awful moment of realization he pa.s.sed out of his childhood and entered man's estate.

Choking back his sobs, he fled from the scene of his disgrace. In one alley and out another he stumbled, looking for a hole in which he could crawl and pour out his pent-up grief. But privacy is a luxury reserved for the rich, and Dan and his kind cannot even claim a place in which to break their hearts.

It was not until he reached the river bank and discovered an overturned hogshead that he found a refuge. Crawling in, he buried his face in his arms and wept, not with the tempestuous abandonment of a lonely child, but with the dry, soul-racking sobs of a disillusioned man. His mother had been the one beautiful thing in his life, and he had worshiped her as some being from another world. Other boys' mothers had coa.r.s.e, red hands and loud voices; his had soft, white hands and a sweet, gentle voice that never scolded.

Sometimes when she stayed at home, they had no money, and then she would lie on the bed and cry, and he would try to comfort her. Those were the times when he would stay away from school and go forth to sell things at the p.a.w.n shop. The happiest nights he could remember were the ones when he had come home with money in his pocket, to a lighted lamp in the window, and a fire on the hearth and his mother's smile of welcome. But those times were few and far between; he was much more used to darkened windows, a cold hearth, and an almost empty larder. In explanation of these things he had accepted unconditionally his mother's statement that she was a lady.

As he fought his battle alone there in the dark, all sorts of wild plans came to him. Across the dark river the sh.o.r.e lights gleamed, and down below at the wharf, a steamboat was making ready to depart. He had heard of boys who slipped aboard ships and beat their way to distant cities. A fierce desire seized him to get away, anywhere, just so he would not have to face the shame and disgrace that had come upon him. There was no one to care now where he went or what became of him. He would run away and be a tramp where n.o.body could ask questions.

With quick decision he started up to put his plan into action when a disturbing thought crossed his mind. Had Nance Molloy meant it when she said she wouldn't report to the probation officer if he didn't go with her? Would she stand there in the alley and wait for him all afternoon, just as he had waited so often for some one who did not come? His reflections were disturbed by a hooting noise up the bank, followed by a shower of rocks. The next instant a mongrel pup scurried down the levee and dropped shivering at his feet.

The yells of the pursuers died away as Dan gathered the whimpering beast into his arms and examined its injuries.

"Hold still, old fellow. I ain't goin' to hurt you," he whispered, tenderly wiping the blood from one dripping paw. "I won't let 'em git you. I'll take care of you."

The dog lifted a pair of agonized eyes to Dan's face and licked his hands.

"You lemme tie it up with a piece of my sleeve, an' I'll give you somethin' to eat," went on Dan. "Me an' you'll buy a sandich an' I'll eat the bread an' you can have the meat. Me an you'll be partners."

Misery had found company, and already life seemed a little less desolate.