Part 10

If I cannot recollect my behavior during that scene, I can correctly recollect my feelings. I was in a turmoil. Her face showed real, unaffected pleasure on seeing me, and that to me, if you will understand my social position then--was an incomparable boon. If people, the good, well intending people, would only realize that the hardest heart is very often the most ready to respond to genuine kindness and that, usually, it is only hard, because, through life, it had to be satisfied with the stereotyped prating which passes as a message from our all-loving and loving-all God!

Knowing the awkward propensities of my limbs and arms, it does not surprise me in the least that I stood there shuffling and wobbling, and never noticing the little hand held out to me in truest greeting.

She greeted me kindly, in evident surprise.

Most gingerly I took her dainty hand into my big, brawny paw. She spoke of the "chance meeting." Since then I have often felt certain that when I said "chance meeting," a twinkle danced for the time of a breath in her eyes. Afterward, I often accused her of it and was severely squelched for my presumption. Yet, yes, she was an angel, but also very much of a woman, and, between you and me, there are times when a true, little woman with staunch heart, level head and unwavering faith is of more practical benefit to a rough, big fellow like me than the angel who wouldn't dare take a chance of spoiling those snowy garments or to let the harp remain untwanged for a few moments.

Being more unfamiliar with etiquette than I am now, I had no little white lie ready, but blurted out that I had come there for the express purpose of seeing her. She seemed a trifle annoyed at this and I hastened to explain that I was there to see her home, so that she would not have to run the risk of being insulted again. When she learned this determination of mine to act henceforth as her body guard, she chided at first, declared it absolutely unnecessary, but then laughed, and told me it was very kind of me.

And all this time I was playing a part and, as I thought, so perfectly that she could not penetrate my disguise. But she could not be deceived. She quickly saw through my pretense of wishing to appear a fairly considerate man of the world, who, not having anything better to do, would do a chivalrous act merely for the sake of killing some of his superfluous time. The only wonder is that she permitted me to bother her.

Then, though no daisies or roses garlanded our path and though we walked along the crowded, not too clean, sidewalks in the precincts of the poor, began walks that one could turn into poetry, but which I cannot do, not having the essential gift of expression. All I could do in return for being permitted to be beside her was to devote myself entirely to the task of protecting her. Protect her against what?

You know the most glorious thing about love is that it is no respecter of persons. To rich and poor it comes alike; here to be received in passion and impurity, there to be welcomed in a better spirit and to be nested in an ever-loyal heart. But the bad thing about love is that it makes us lose our proper respect for truth. In short, it makes splendid liars out of us.

Where is there the young man who has not told her whom he adored that her eyes made the most brilliant star look like a tallow candle, or that her cheeks were as peaches?

In the same way did I magnify my knightly duty to myself. Surely the dangers along the journey to her home were trifling and few, but, thanks to my love-stirred imagination, I felt as serious as a plumed knight, and no proud queen in days of sword and lance had more devoted cavalier to fight, die or live for her. That now became my sole duty, and with such duty, to serve the best and truest, a man must grow better even in spite of himself.

Every day, rain or shine, I waited on the corner above the school to serve as permanent escort. Every day she told me it was not necessary to see her home, yet, every day she permitted me to do so. When one arrives in a strange land the smaller details are often not noticed, and, afterward, you can only re-see the grander pictures. I cannot tell you how and why the turns in our conversations occurred, but I can remember certain bits of talk and questions, very important to both of us.

For instance, on our third meeting she asked me if I were still one of Mike Callahan's ornamental fixtures. I felt then, as many of us have felt before and will feel again; I was ashamed to admit that I had severed my connection with the gang and had not been there since the night I had taken her home. You see, I still considered myself a "red-hot sport," and did not care to be identified with anything that was goody-goody. Since then I have learned that it is quite the thing among certain sets to speak lightly of one's religion and to laugh at being found out as an occasional church-goer. It makes such a rakish impression to intimate you are "really devilish."

So, to her question, I did not give a straightforward answer, but hummed and hawed and--lied.

"No, I ain't been there the last two nights, because--because, I wasn't feeling any too good, and--and, oh, yes, one night I went up to a show."

The greatest lies can be compressed into the smallest parcels, yet they always weigh the same.

She had a way of letting me know when my lies were too transparent. It was not what she said, but how she looked when she said it.

In reality I had stood away from Callahan's because I had taken a dislike to the place and everybody in it, but, of course, it would have never done to tell that to a little slip of a girl.

Apparently my explanation was not taken at its face value, for she merely said: "Oh, I see." Barely a second later she added: "Oh, I'm so glad."

The intuition of women is certainly wonderful. Even such an accomplished diplomat as myself was floored on the spot by a little girl.

Well, the days wore on, and our walks became to me walks in an unknown realm. Her little casual references to mother, brother, home, friends and daily work gave me a vista of a life not even imagined by me. To live as she, in well-regulated household and according to well-ordained schedule, had never been desired by me and, therefore, never been considered by me.

"If that kind of life turns out such fine little women, it can't be so bad after all, and may be worth trying," was my train of reasoning, and a dull but positive desire to try that sort of life began to rankle in my soul.

While I was engaged in these musings, she did not keep entirely quiet, but put me through the most severe kind of civil service. I had to answer so many questions--and truthfully, too, as she could tell a fabrication immediately--until I honestly believe every hour of my life was covered. The finish of it all was that I was made the subject of several of the most scathing lectures ever delivered. Those sermons fairly made my blood boil, and often, under my breath, I wished she were a man, that I could close the lecturing for good and all with a blow.

It is simply awful how impudent little people--and especially women--are. And the worst of it is that we big fellows have to stand it from them.

She had a peculiarly direct way of getting at things and never minced matters. The effect of it was that I began to shrink into myself.

A leering knave, I had stood on the pinnacle of wickedness; had grinned and sneered at decency, manhood and womanhood; had thought myself a "somebody" because the laws of God and man were unregarded by me, and because a chorus of fools and friends had always shouted an amen to my deeds, and now--now I awoke to the pitiful fact that I was not only a "nobody," but a despicable, contemptible thing, without the least of claims to the grandest title--man.

Yes, there was no denying the fact, the "somebody" had fallen, sadly fallen from his horse, and all his house of cards had been knocked into smithereens by a little bit of a schoolma'am.

*A KINDERGARTEN OF ONE.*

*CHAPTER XV.*

*A KINDERGARTEN OF ONE.*

Keeping away from Callahan's and from the sinister harvest which was often reaped there, had a depressing effect on my income. For a comparatively long time I lived on a few dollars, which came to me from outstanding loans, now determinedly collected. I learned then that if one keeps away from Callahan's and places like it, one can subsist on a remarkably small income. As it had been with me, it was always a case of "getting it easy and spending it easy."

My expenses became the object of much thinking and figuring. So much for room rent, so much for meals, including Bill's fare, and so much for shaves and incidentals were estimated at the lowest minimum and so as to last the longest until something should turn up. This something did not fail to turn up.

When the funds became dangerously low, I bethought myself of some of my swell friends, who had often evinced a desire to have me "train" them or keep them in condition. These propositions had been so frequent as to make me think that to be rich included being rich in ailments.

Some wanted me to make them thin, others desired more flesh to cover their bones, and they all came to me, I being such an authority on anatomy and physiology!

I communicated with many of these ailing swells and ere long made a fairly good living by my physical culture lessons. There is a heavy cloud on my conscience that on my balance-sheet a score of offenses are recorded against me in connection with the furtherance of my physical culture system. A frank confession is good for the soul, and I might as well confess right here that, only too frequently, I prescribed the identically same course for fat and lean.

This calling of mine was not without humor. I remember a "patient" who was troubled with too much embonpoint. He did not believe in the prescriptions of his physician, but rather preferred the physical culture system of "Professor" Kildare. He was a man of much weight in public affairs and in flesh. About 250 pounds in the flesh, if I remember right.

He lived in the immediate neighborhood of Madison Square, and for a long succession of many mornings a select audience, including several news-boys, a few policemen and myself, had the edifying spectacle of seeing these 250 absolutely-refusing-to-melt pounds chase around the square like mad at 5 A.M.

I do not think it did him very much harm and it did the audience an awful lot of good, if you will take laughter as an indication of increasing health.

No fear of want or need threatening me, I gave myself completely up to peeping into the better life. I fairly revelled in my new experience, and dreams by day and night were my only territory.

A few weeks of this and then a crisis came.

We had reached her house from our customary walk from the school. I had taken leave and had already taken a few steps, when she called me back.

"Mr. Kildare, I forgot something."

I was quickly back to the door waiting to hear what she had forgotten.

She took a small card from her bag and handed it to me.

"Mr. Kildare, you have been very kind and considerate and I would like to show you that I appreciate it. I am afraid you will find it rather tame, but I hope you will come."

I twirled the card between my fingers and without looking at it asked: "What is it?"

"Why, just a little social entertainment of our church."

"When and where does it take place?" I still kept on asking.

"I am not quite sure as to the date, but the card will tell you."

As it was said, I could do no less than refer to the card. Whether I held the card upside down or what I did, I do not know, but my secret was out and nothing could hide it any longer.

There I stood, to all appearances a man, intelligent and able-bodied, and not able to cipher or decipher even my own name.

I felt all go away from me. My fairy palace of bliss crumbled to pieces. What else could I do but slink away, to hide myself, my ignorance, my shame forever?

Why prolong the agony of this torturing moment?

I turned quickly without a word, intending to return to the dark "whence" from which I had come.

But before I had taken a step a little hand grasped my arm, and then and there took up its faithful guidance of me, and every fibre of my big, ungainly frame thrilled at this waking of the better life.

The memory of the following months--yes, years--but for the tingeing sadness would be a bit of most laughable humor.

The work of my little schoolma'am became doubled. Besides her class at school she saddled herself with this unwieldy, husky kindergarten of one. I know many youngsters--God bless them!--who like their school and studies, but they were not in it with me in the drilling of my A, B, C's. Never was the alphabet more quickly mastered. In a surprisingly short time "c-a-t, cat," and "r-a-t, rat," were spelled by me with the facility of a primary scholar.

Who would not have learned quickly with such a teacher?

My good old Bill did not fail to note this educational process and was sorely puzzled at it.

Our attic became a study; the washstand a student's desk, with a big, ungainly head bent close to a smoking oil lamp.

How I pored over my private lessons!

The pen in cramped fingers would trace those tantalizing letters, while the lips gruffly murmured the spelling. Naturally, arithmetic was also included in my curriculum, and often Bill had flung at him the maddening puzzle: "Seven into thirty-five goes how many times--yes, how many times?"

Bill always sat beside me during my studies and blinked a hundred questions at me.

"Say, Kil, what are you up to now? I am afraid it is some new sort of tomfoolery. If not, why can't I do it, too?"

I often answered and explained, but the situation was not fully grasped by my old pal until he met my teacher. And then? Why the rocks, the hillsides, trees and birds and flowers were all responsive to that little sprite, and Bill, in just one glance, saw that the fairy of our destinies had but begun her miracle of love.

But even dolls can be made to talk and parrots can imitate empty chatter. My teacher wanted me to have the means to lift myself out of my ditch. The little sculptor who was moulding this huge mass of the commonest clay into the semblance of a man wanted to waken that in me which would make me something apart from the thing I had been. Coming out of blackest darkness I was not led at once into the radius of the dazzling light, but, as with the tots in her class at school, she coached me, step by step, into the way of righteous intelligence.

Gradually I began to see--to see with the eyes of my soul--and I found a great world about me abounding in the evidences of an almighty and wise Creator. I began to understand and love this newer and better life, and began to hate the old life, which often tried to tempt me back to it.

Our lessons were carried on with much inconvenience and difficulty. The distance from school to home was little more than ten blocks, and during the time it took us to walk that length I had to report my lesson and to receive instructions for additional study. The inconvenience of this method was not at all conducive to learning, and one day I was asked by my teacher to come to her house to receive my lesson there.

I could hardly believe mine own ears. I was to see the very place in which she lived. It was beyond belief. Was it not a sacrifice on her part? Indeed it was, and I can never sufficiently emphasize the many sacrifices this sweet little girl underwent for me from the beginning to the very end.

Let us understand her position.

Marie Deering was the sole support of her mother and a young invalid brother. Besides these two she had only one other relative, an elder brother in a far western city. The father, a retired captain of engineers in the British army, had come to America to dispose of several inventions. Whatever the value of these inventions, the captain knew little of the ways of business and commerce, and soon found himself minus his inventions and balance of his savings. Disappointment and failing health combined to shorten his days, and the little family found themselves fatherless.

The burden to provide fell then on the shoulders of the daughter, and that, as all her other burdens, was borne with a fortitude worthy of a saint in heaven.

It goes without saying that the Deerings were refined people, and you can imagine what it meant to them to have a big, uncouth fellow intrude into their home circle. I shall never forget the horror-stricken countenance of Mrs. Deering when I appeared for my first lesson. It needed no interpreter to read the question in her eyes: "For goodness' sake, where did this come from, and what is it?"

But I immediately found a dear little ally in my teacher's invalid brother, who quickly discovered me a willing horse for many a wild and hazardous canter from kitchen to parlor.

This first glance into real home life fairly upset me. Since then I have seen many more luxurious places, but none where my heart felt so much at home. I noticed everything--the neatness, the taste of the modest decorations--and I set my teeth and said: "I, too, will have a home, a real home, and, perhaps, not only for myself, but----"

Ah, it was too early to dream that far.

To dream of things will never bring them. People who had known me had always given me credit for stubborn determination in wicked pursuits. I resolved to test the strength of my determination by applying it to a better end.

As soon as my mentor ascertained that my income came from practising my uniform system of physical culture, of which the only beneficiary was the inventor and professor, she counselled against it and told me to cease it.

This brought me face to face with my most novel experience. I looked for work--good, honest, hard work.

My luck surprised me.

Only a few months had passed since the beginning of my transformation, but it had been noticed by men whom I had thought indifferent to my fate.

I can say, with all the conviction possible, that, if a man determines without compromise to do right, he will find friends, all willing to help along, among those he had expected to be nothing more than mere acquaintances. And another thing. I also claim--and it has never disproven itself to me--that the man who really wants to work can always find it, friends or no friends. The rub is that "suitable" work cannot always be found so easily. It is this lack of "suitable" work which sends men to Bowery lodging-houses, there to keep themselves in high collars and cuffs by begging instead of soiling their tender hands by the first work offered to them.

I started out to do my hustling turn and had no trouble in finding work. Happily it was of the--to me--"suitable" kind.

I went to work at one of the steamboat piers as a baggageman--sometimes lovingly referred to as a "baggage-smasher." The wages were eight dollars a week, and that was a smaller amount than I had often "earned" in one night while employed in the dives.

On my first pay day, those eight dollars were recounted by me innumerable times, not because I was dissatisfied with the smallness of the amount, but because I felt good, really good, at having at length earned a week's wages by honest toil. Every one of those bills had its own meaning for me.

My teacher knew of my new employment, and, with my first pay I bought a little gift for her. It also gave me a pretext for explaining to her my future plans.

Much of her time had been taken up with me, and I owed all of my new life to her endeavor. Persistently she claimed that all her efforts were only a small return for the favor done for her by me, and that, besides, it was her duty to help me to gain a foothold on my new road of life. This argument failed to convince me, as my favor amounted to nothing, and I understood without difficulty that all the benefit I received from her unceasing toil with me was inspired by nothing else than the sweet, Christian spirit which ruled every one of her actions. I insisted that it would have been an imposition for me to be a trouble and bother to her any longer, especially when I had steady employment, which afforded me the time and means to attend evening schools and to study at home in spare hours. I wanted to thank her, and not be quite so conspicuous where, because of social differences, I felt I did not belong.

I mentioned something about coming from the gutter. As always, she had an answer, and a flattering one, ready. As to coming from the gutter, she expostulated, why, many a coin is dropped there and remains until some one picks it up and, by a little polishing, makes it as good as it ever was.

It was just like her. She always claimed to have found in me something good, something I could never have discovered. On the other hand, as soon as we resumed the lessons, she found that quite often her pupil could be severely trying.

It was the harrowing science of arithmetic which caused the most trouble, and even to this day--but that is a different story. I had a confirmed habit of becoming hopelessly muddled in my multiplication table. When floundering in the numerical labyrinth I would hear just the faintest little sigh, and, looking up, would see a dear little forehead showing the most cunning wrinkles of resignation. It was then that horrid wickedness would take possession of me, and I would intentionally make more mistakes just to see those eyes reproach me for my stupidity. I would also make errors in my spelling and reading to have the pleasure of being chided in her modulated voice.

My course of education had now run on for months and the beginning of winter gave us the chance to elaborate it. The free lectures of the Board of Education were a boon quickly taken advantage of by us. Almost every night we went to Cooper Union or some public school where an interesting lecture was announced. To be sure I was not at first a howling success as an attendant. I could stand the illustrated lectures, but astronomy and political economy without pictures always produced the lullaby effect on me, and I was often on the verge of snoring. All this disappointed my professor, but did not discourage her.

Summer came and my knowledge of botany was destined to be enriched. Strange are the paradoxes of fate. No class loves flowers as much as the poor, and no class has less of them than they. Ah, it is pitiful, I tell you, to wander through the streets inhabited by my people, and to see never a patch of green, a fragrant oasis, in this stretch of barren, joyless materialism. There is no time there for flowers, where even the cabbages in front of the dingy grocery stores look withered and seared, and where there is no other watchword than, "Work, work, or we will be homeless and starving." That one thought rules the brains of my fellows with an iron grasp. With the close of their daily toil their day's worry is not over. Listen to the talks on the stoops and in the doorways of the tenements and you will be the witness of much fretting. Often all this mind's botheration is not necessary. There is no actual want, no threatening danger of it. Yet, the poor find a gruesome pleasure in dwelling in the midst of their horrors, and the roll of their organ of misery churns along on an endless chain.