The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 7

Before many weeks of this intercourse, Peter could not stroll east from his office without being greeted with yells of recognition. The elders, too, gave him "good-evening" pleasantly and smiled genially. The children had naturally told their parents about him of his wonderful presents, and great skill with knife and string.

"He can whittle anything you ask!"

"He knows how to make things you want!"

"He can tie a knot sixteen different kinds!"

"He can fold a newspaper into soldiers' and firemen's caps!"

"He's friends with the policeman!"

Such laudations, and a hundred more, the children sang of him to their elders.

"Oh," cried one little four-year-old girl, voicing the unanimous feeling of the children, "Mister Peter is just shplendid."

So the elders nodded and smiled when they met him, and he was pretty well known to several hundred people whom he knew not.

But another year pa.s.sed, and still no client came.

CHAPTER XII.

HIS FIRST CLIENT.

Peter sat in his office, one hot July day, two years after his arrival, writing to his mother. He had but just returned to New York, after a visit to her, which had left him rather discouraged, because, for the first time, she had pleaded with him to abandon his attempt and return to his native town. He had only replied that he was not yet prepared to acknowledge himself beaten; but the request and his mother's disappointment had worried him. While he wrote came a knock at the door, and, in response to his "come in," a plain-looking laborer entered and stood awkwardly before him.

"What can I do for you?" asked Peter, seeing that he must a.s.sist the man to state his business.

"If you please, sir," said the man, humbly, "it's Missy. And I hope you'll pardon me for troubling you."

"Certainly," said Peter. "What about Missy?"

"She's--the doctor says she's dying," said the man, adding, with a slight suggestion of importance, blended with the evident grief he felt: "Sally, and Bridget Milligan are dead already."

"And what can I do?" said Peter, sympathetically, if very much at sea.

"Missy wants to see you before she goes. It's only a child's wish, sir, and you needn't trouble about it. But I had to promise her I'd come and ask you. I hope it's no offence?"

"No." Peter rose, and, pa.s.sing to the next room, took his hat, and the two went into the street together.

"What is the trouble?" asked Peter, as they walked.

"We don't know, sir. They were all took yesterday, and two are dead already." The man wiped the tears from his eyes with his s.h.i.+rtsleeve, smearing the red brick dust with which it was powdered, over his face.

"You've had a doctor?"

"Not till this morning. We didn't think it was bad at first."

"What is your name?"

"Blackett, sir--Jim Blackett."

Peter began to see daylight. He remembered both a Sally and Matilda Blackett.--That was probably "Missy."

A walk of six blocks transferred them to the centre of the tenement district. Two flights of stairs brought them to the Blackett's rooms. On the table of the first, which was evidently used both as a kitchen and sitting-room, already lay a coffin containing a seven-year-old girl.

Candles burned at the four corners, adding to the bad air and heat. In the room beyond, in bed, with a tired-looking woman tending her, lay a child of five. Wan and pale as well could be, with perspiration standing in great drops on the poor little hot forehead, the hand of death, as it so often does, had put something into the face never there before.

"Oh, Mister Peter," the child said, on catching sight of him, "I said you'd come."

Peter took his handkerchief and wiped the little head. Then he took a newspaper, lying on a chair, twisted it into a rude fan, and began fanning the child as he sat on the bed.

"What did you want me for?" he asked.

"Won't you tell me the story you read from the book? The one about the little girl who went to the country, and was given a live dove and real flowers."

Peter began telling the story as well as he could remember it, but it was never finished. For while he talked another little girl went to the country, a far country, from which there is no return--and a very ordinary little story ended abruptly.

The father and mother took the death very calmly. Peter asked them a few questions, and found that there were three other children, the eldest of whom was an errand boy, and therefore away. The others, twin babies, had been cared for by a woman on the next floor. He asked about money, and found that they had not enough to pay the whole expenses of the double funeral.

"But the undertaker says he'll do it handsome, and will let the part I haven't money for, run, me paying it off in weekly payments," the man explained, when Peter expressed some surprise at the evident needless expense they were entailing on themselves.

While he talked, the doctor came in.

"I knew there was no chance," he said, when told of the death. "And you remember I said so," he added, appealing to the parents.

"Yes, that's what he said," responded the father.

"Well," said the doctor, speaking in a brisk, lively way peculiar to him, "I've found what the matter was."

"No?" said the mother, becoming interested at once.

"It was the milk," the doctor continued. "I thought there was something wrong with it, the moment I smelt it, but I took some home to make sure." He pulled a paper out of his pocket. "That's the test, and Dr.

Plumb, who has two cases next door, found it was just the same there."

The Blacketts gazed at the written a.n.a.lysis, with wonder, not understanding a word of it. Peter looked too, when they had satisfied their curiosity. As he read it, a curious expression came into his face.

A look not unlike that which his face had worn on the deck of the "Sunrise." It could hardly be called a change of expression, but rather a strengthening and deepening of his ordinary look.

"That was in the milk drunk by the children?" he asked, placing his finger on a particular line.

"Yes," replied the doctor. "The milk was bad to start with, and was drugged to conceal the fact. These carbonates sometimes work very unevenly, and I presume this particular can of milk got more than its share of the doctoring.

"There are almost no glycerides," remarked Peter, wis.h.i.+ng to hold the doctor till he should have had time to think.

"No," said the doctor. "It was skim milk."