Divided Skates Part 7

"Because you must have been taking a little walk in the storm and got too tired to go very far. A kind man found you and brought you in here, and now if you'll please drink this hot soup you'll feel as fine as a fiddler!"

"Humph. I can fiddle--some, myself. Is the pie all gone? Oh! I mean--I--I--my head's funny."

"That will come right enough when you set your empty stomach to work.

Afterward you will tell me your name and where you live, and I'll send for your people. But the soup first."

Towsley sat up against the nurse's arm and obediently drank all the broth she offered him, even to the last drop. Then he lay back with a sigh of deep content and fell into a sound, refres.h.i.+ng sleep. When he awoke again the pretty nurse was gone and in her chair sat a gentleman gazing at him with a curious sort of stare, as if Towsley were some new kind of animal in whom the stranger was interested.

The stare nettled Towsley, who felt strangely cross and irritable. He knew he was saucy, but he couldn't help making a little grimace of disgust and demanding:

"Think you'll know me next time you see me, governor?"

"I certainly hope so. That's why I'm studying your face. Hm'm. I see you are decidedly better. Quite all right, in fact. Feeling prime, aren't you? Ready to run away again?"

"What you mean? How did you know I ran away?"

"By your clothes. A little lad who wears velvet blouses and fine hats had no business away from his home in such a storm as we have had.

Now, your people will probably have grieved themselves ill about you, and you're to tell me your name and address at once, so I can send them word where you are. The storm is over and people are beginning to get about again. The street cars should be running by to-morrow, as usual."

Towsley regarded the gentleman wistfully for a moment; then cried out, impatiently:

"I'll bet the fellows got a beat on me!"

"Eh? What?"

"Have the 'lines' been tied up? I thought they was goin' to be, last night."

"Eh! What? What do you know about 'lines,' and 'beats,' and such matters?"

"Well, I guess I know as much as the next one," answered the lad proudly. "Ain't I been on the _'Xpress_ since I was so high?"

measuring a short s.p.a.ce between his thin, and now--thanks to nurse Brady's attention--very white little hands.

"The d.i.c.kens you have! Then why were you masquerading in borrowed plumes, my lad? Your story and your clothing don't agree. What is your name? Give it right, now, mind."

"Why shouldn't I? I ain't ashamed of it, if it isn't pretty. I'm Towsley. Towsley Towhead, some the Alley folks call me. I'm one the boys on the _'Xpress_. That's who I am, and I can sell more'n any other fellow of my size on the whole force."

"I believe it. You look as sharp as a razor. But let's keep to facts.

You tacitly admitted that you ran away, and your velvet attire is certainly against you!"

There was something both whimsical and kindly in the doctor's expression, and Towsley's confidence was won.

"Don't you s'pose I know that? Don't you s'pose I reckoned I was a guy; and that all the fellows would laugh at me when they saw me? But I couldn't help it, could I? That old black man took my own clothes away and left these, and I couldn't go out without any, could I? She was a nice old lady and her pie was good. Pretty good, I mean. But she wasn't going to catch Towsley and adopt him, not if he could help himself! No, siree! So I waited till everybody was asleep, then I lit out."

"Smart boy! Tell me the whole story; from start to finish."

"Say, you tell me, first. Was I half dead in the snow? Did you find me and fetch me here, like I heard them say? 'Cause if you did, I--I--I'd like to do something back for you, yourself."

"Oh! that's all right, my lad. You'll have a chance. Don't fear."

"What do you mean, sir? What can I do?" asked Towsley eagerly.

"Did you ever hear, as you went along the street, somebody start humming or whistling a tune? any kind of a tune, but a catchy one the best. In a little while you'll hear another person pick it up and hum or whistle, just the same way; so on, till n.o.body knows how many have caught and heard the wandering melody and pa.s.sed it onward through a crowd. Did you ever notice anything like that?"

"Heaps of times. I've done it myself. Started it or picked it up, either."

"Well, that's like kindness. Pick it up, pa.s.s it along. Let everybody who hears it, catch on; understand? So, that's what I mean. You may never have a chance to do anything especially for me--and you may have dozens; but that doesn't matter. Keep it moving. The first time you have an opportunity to be decent to somebody else, why--just be decent, and say to yourself: 'That's because the doctor picked me out of a snow-drift.' The Lord will keep the account all straight, and settle it in His own good time. We don't have to worry about that part, fortunately; else our spiritual book-keeping would get sadly mixed."

They were both silent for a brief while, and the words made a deep impression upon Towsley's heart; a warm and gentle heart at all times, though not always a wise one in its judgments.

"Well, my boy. I'm waiting for your story, and I'm a pretty busy man.

Along about time for giving out the papers you wouldn't care to be hindered needlessly, would you?"

A brilliant smile broke over the sharp little face upon the pillow.

"No, I wouldn't, and you don't. Well, here it is;" and very briefly, but graphically, the alley vagrant sketched the story of his acquaintance with Miss Armacost and his flight from her house.

The doctor listened without interruption till after the tale was done; then he asked:

"How about that wandering melody of kindness, eh, my boy?"

"I don't know what you mean. I mean--I--I----"

Down in his warm heart Towsley did know, though he hated to acknowledge it. He tried to justify himself in his own eyes as well as in those of the good physician.

"She hadn't any right to take away my clothes. All the clothes I had.

She took away my name, too."

"Were they very good clothes, Towsley?"

"No. But they were _mine_!" fiercely.

"And the name. Is it a very honorable name, laddie?"

"It's just as honorable as I make it, sir! I needn't be an Alley boy always, just because--because--n.o.body knows who my folks were."

"No, indeed. That you need not. That you will not be, for you've the spirit to succeed. Only you need a little of the spirit of generosity, too. The wandering melody again, you see. We can never quite get away from it. Now, I'm going on my rounds through the wards. I'll stop in, after an hour or so, and see if you have any errand for me to do.

Good-by. Take a nap, then think it over. I'll be back again."

Towsley didn't nap at all. He lay wide-eyed and full of thought, staring at the white ceiling overhead, and occasionally touching a pansy which nurse Brady had laid beside him on his pillow. As he fondled and looked at the flower, more and more it gradually began to a.s.sume the face and features of a delicate little old lady whom he knew. It was a white pansy, with faint lavender patches on its lateral and lower petals; dashed, like all its kind, by little touches of darker hue. Yes, it was a face--Miss Lucy's face. Those two white upper leaves were her snowy curls under her every-day lace cap. The eyes, the keen, whimsical little mouth--all were there; and the newsboy looked and remembered--till the eyes seemed to gather tears and the pursed-up mouth to tremble like a child's--like Sarah Jane's, when she had been denied a share in her brothers' games.

Had there been tears in Miss Lucy's eyes, last night, behind those gleaming gla.s.ses? Had it been out of love, after all, that she had given him her dead nephew's pretty garments and her dead nephew's aristocratic name?

It was all very puzzling, and Towsley felt unequal to solving the riddle, although it was he who always was first among the fellows to find the answers to the printed riddles on the children's page of the weekly _Express_. He shut his eyes a moment, to see things a little better, and after the ceiling and the pansy were thus put out of sight he did begin to understand quite clearly.

Tears? He hated them. There should never any be shed for him, that he could prevent. On that point he made up his mind, and he shut his lids down tighter, so that nothing should alter his sudden resolution.

What was that sound?