Tales from Bohemia Part 14

"Oh, I never heard of him. I guess he died long ago."

"And Tommy Hackett's father, who's he?"

"He's the boss down at the freight station. Agent, I think they call him."

"Where does this Mrs. Coates live?"

"She lives with the Hacketts. Would you like to see the house? Me and d.i.c.k has to go past it on the way home. We'll show you."

"Yes, I would like to see the house."

The boys arose, one of them rather sleepily. They led the way across the railway company's lot, then along a spa.r.s.ely built up street, and around the corner into a more populous but quiet highway. At the corner was a grocery and dry-goods store; beyond that were neat and airy two-story houses, fronted by a yard closed in by iron fences. One of these houses had a little piazza, on which sat two children. From the open half-door and from two windows came light.

"That's Hackett's house," said one of the boys.

"Thanks, very much," replied the tramp, continuing to walk with them.

The boys looked surprised at his not stopping at the house, but they said nothing.

At the next corner the tramp spoke up:

"I think I'll go back now. Good night, youngsters."

The boys trudged on, and the tramp retraced his steps. When he reached the Hacketts' house, he paused at the gate. The children, a boy of eight and a girl of six, looked at him curiously from the piazza.

"Are you Mr. Hackett's little boy and girl?" he asked.

The girl stepped back to the hall door and stood there. The boy looked up at the tramp and answered, "Yes, sir."

"Is your mother in?"

"No, she's across the street at Mrs. Johnson's."

"Grandmother's in, though," continued the boy. "Would you like to see her?"

"No, no! Don't call her. I just wanted to see your mother."

"Do you know mamma?" inquired the girl.

"Well--no. I knew her brother, your uncle."

"We haven't any uncle--except Uncle George, and he's papa's brother,"

said the boy.

"What! Not an uncle Will--Uncle Will Kershaw?"

"O--h, yes," a.s.sented the boy. "Did you know him before he died? That was a long time ago."

The tramp made no other outward manifestation of his surprise than to be silent and motionless for a time. Presently he said, in a trembling voice:

"Yes, before he died. Do you remember when he died?"

"Oh, no. That was when mamma was a girl. She and grandmother often talk about it, though. Uncle Will started West, you know, when he was fifteen years old. He was standing on a bridge out near Pittsburg one day, and he saw a little girl fall into the river. He jumped in to save her, but he was drowned, 'cause his head hit a stone and that stunned him. They didn't know it was Uncle Will or who it was, at first, but mamma read about it in the papers and Grandpa Coates went out to see if it wasn't Uncle Will. Grandpa 'dentified him and they brought him back here, but, what do you think, the doctor wouldn't allow them to open his coffin, and so grandma and mamma couldn't see him. He's buried up in the graveyard next Grandpa Kershaw, and there's a little monument there that tells all about how he died trying to save a little girl from drownin'.

I can read it, but Mamie can't. She's my little sister there."

The tramp had seated himself on the piazza step. He was looking vacantly before him. He remained so until the boy, frightened at his silence, moved further from him, toward the door. Then the tramp arose suddenly.

"Well," he said, huskily, "I won't wait to see your mamma. You needn't tell her about me bein' here. But, say--could I just get a look at--at your grandma, without her knowing anythin about it?"

The boy took his sister's hand and withdrew into the doorway. Then he said, "Why, of course. You can see her through the window."

The tramp stood against the edge of the piazza upon his toes, and craned his neck to see through one of the lighted windows. So he remained for several seconds. Once during that time he closed his eyes, and the muscles of his face contracted. Then he opened his eyes again. They were moist.

He could see a gentle old lady, with smooth gray hair, and an expression of calm and not unhappy melancholy. She was sitting in a rocking-chair, her hands resting on the arms, her look fixed unconsciously on the paper on the wall. She was thinking, and evidently her thoughts, though sad, perhaps, were not keenly painful.

The tramp read that much upon her face. Presently, without a word, he turned quickly about and hurried away, closing the gate after him.

When the two children told about their visitor later, their mother said:

"You mustn't talk to strange men, Tommy. You and Mamie should have come right in to grandma."

Their father said: "He was probably looking for a chance to steal something. I'll let the dog out in the yard to-night."

And their grandmother: "I suppose he was only a man who likes to hear children talk, and perhaps, poor fellow, he has no little ones of his own."

The tramp knew the way to the cemetery. But first he found the house where he had lived as a boy. It looked painfully rickety and surprisingly small. So he hastened from before it and went up by a back street across the town creek and up a hill, where at last he stood before the cemetery gate. It was locked; so he climbed over the wall. He went still further up the hill, past tombstones that looked very white, and trees that looked very green in the moonlight. At the top of the hill he found his father's grave. Beside it was another mound, and at the head of this, a plain little pillar. The moon was high now and the tramp was used to seeing in the night. Word by word he could slowly read upon the marble this inscription:

"William Albert, beloved son of the late Thomas Kershaw and his wife Rachel; born in Brickville, August 2, 1862; drowned in the Allegheny River near Pittsburg, July 27, 1877, while heroically endeavouring to save the life of a child."

The tramp laughed, and then uttered a sigh.

"I wonder," he said, aloud, "what poor bloke it is that's doin' duty for me under the ground here."

And at the thought that he owed an excellent posthumous reputation to the unknown who had happened to resemble him fifteen years before, he laughed louder. Having no one near to share his mirth, he looked up at the amiable moon, and nodded knowingly thereat, as if to say:

"This is a fine joke we're enjoying between ourselves, isn't it?"

And by and by he remembered that he was being waited for, and he strode from the grave and from the cemetery.

By the railroad the short tramp, having smoked all the refuse tobacco in his possession, was growing impatient. Already the expected coal-train had heralded its advent by whistle and puff and roar when his a.s.sociate had joined him.

"Found out all you wanted to know?" queried the stout little vagabond, starting down the embankment to mount the train.

"Yep," answered the tall vagrant, contentedly.

The small man grasped the iron rod attached to the side of one of the moving coal-cars and swung his foot into the iron stirrup beneath. His companion mounted the next car in the same way.

"Are you all right, Kersh?" shouted back the small tramp, standing safe above the "b.u.mpers."