Chapter 5

"And that," said First Sergeant Price, "means getting to the party about four hours late. Baby-talk and nonsense! By that time they might have burned the place and killed all the people in it. Let's see, now: there's a railroad bridge close along here, somewhere."

They scouted till they found the bridge. But behold, its floor was of cross-ties only--of sleepers to carry the rails, laid with wide breaks between, gaping down into deep, dark space whose bed was the roaring river.

"Nevertheless," said First Sergeant Price, whose spirits ever soar at the foolish onslaughts of trouble--"nevertheless, we're _not_ going to ride twenty miles farther for nothing. There's a railroad yard on the other side. This bridge, here, runs straight into it. You two men go over, get a couple of good planks, and find out when the next train is due."

The two Troopers whom the Sergeant indicated gave their horses to a comrade and started away across the trestle.

For a moment those who stayed behind could distinguish the rays of their pocket flash-lights as they picked out their slimy foothold. Then the whirling night engulfed them, lights and all.

The Sergeant led the remainder of the detail down into the lee of an abutment, to avoid the full drive of the storm. Awhile they stood waiting, huddled together. But the wait was not for long. Presently, like a code signal spelled out on the black overhead, came a series of steadily lengthening flashes--the pocket-light glancing between the sleepers, as the returning messengers drew near.

Scrambling up to rail level, the Sergeant saw with content that his emissaries bore on their shoulders between them two new pine "two-by-twelves."[72-1]

"No train's due till five o'clock in the morning," reported the first across.

"Good! Now lay the planks. In the middle of the track. End to end. So."

The Sergeant, dismounting, stood at John G.'s wise old head, stroking his muzzle, whispering into his ear.

"Come along, John, it's all right, old man!" he finished with a final caress.

Then he led John G. to the first plank.

"One of you men walk on each side of him. Now, John!"

Delicately, nervously, John G. set his feet, step by step, till he had reached the centre of the second plank.

Then the Sergeant talked to him quietly again, while two Troopers picked up the board just quitted to lay it in advance.

And so, length by length, they made the passage, the horse moving with extremest caution, shivering with full appreciation of the unaccustomed danger, yet steadied by his master's presence and by the friend on either hand. As they moved, the gale wreaked all its fury on them. It was growing colder now, and the rain, changed to sleet, stung their skins with its tiny, sharp-driven blades. The skeleton bridge held them high suspended in the very heart of the storm. Once and again a sudden more violent gust bid fair to sweep them off their feet. Yet, slowly progressing, they made their port unharmed.

Then came the next horse's turn. More than a single mount they dared not lead over at once, lest the contagious fears of one, reacting on another, produce panic. The horse that should rear or shy, on that wide-meshed footing, would be fairly sure to break a leg, at best. So, one by one, they followed over, each reaching the farther side before his successor began the transit.

And so, at last, all stood on the opposite bank, ready to follow John G. once more, as he led the way to duty.

"Come along, John, old man. You know how you'd hate to find a lot of dead women and babies because we got there too late to save them! Make a pace, Johnny boy!"

The First Sergeant was talking gently, leaning over his pommel. But John G. was listening more from politeness than because he needed a lift. His stride was as steady as a clock.

It was three hours after midnight on that bitter black morning as they entered the streets of the town. And the streets were as quiet, as peaceful, as empty of men, as the heart of the high woods.

"Where's their mob?" growled the Sergeant.

"Guess its mother's put it to sleep," a cold, wet Trooper growled back.

"Well, we _thought_ there was going to be trouble," protested the local power, roused from his feather bed. "It really did look like serious trouble, I assure you. And we could not have handled serious trouble with the means at our command. Moreover, there may easily be something yet. So, gentlemen, I am greatly relieved you have come. I can sleep in peace now that you are here. Good-night! _Good_-night!"

All through the remaining hours of darkness the detail patrolled the town. All through the lean, pale hours of dawn it carefully watched its wakening, guarded each danger-point. But never a sign of disturbance did the passing time bring forth.

At last, with the coming of the business day, the Sergeant sought out the principal men of the place, and from them ascertained the truth.

Threats of a jail delivery there had been, and a noisy parade as well, but nothing had occurred or promised beyond the power of an active local officer to handle. Such was the statement of one and all.

"I'll just make sure," said the Sergeant to himself.

Till two o'clock in the afternoon the detail continued its patrols. The town and its outskirts remained of an exemplary peace. At two o'clock the Sergeant reported by telephone to his Captain:--

"Place perfectly quiet, sir. Nothing seems to have happened beyond the usual demonstration of a sympathizing crowd over an arrest. Unless something more breaks, the Sheriff should be entirely capable of handling the situation."

"Then report back to Barracks at once," said the voice of the Captain of "A" Troop. "There's _real_ work waiting here."

The First Sergeant, hanging up the receiver, went out and gathered his men.

Still the storm was raging. Icy snow, blinding sheets of sharp-fanged smother, rode on the racing wind. Worse overhead, worse underfoot, would be hard to meet in years of winters.

But once again men and horses, without an interval of rest, struck into the open country. Once again on the skeleton bridge they made the precarious crossing. And so, at a quarter to nine o'clock at night, the detail topped Greensburg's last ice-coated hill and entered the yard of its high-perched Barracks.

As the First Sergeant slung the saddle off John G.'s smoking back, Corporal Richardson, farrier of the Troop, appeared before him wearing a mien of solemn and grieved displeasure.

"It's all very well," said he,--"all very well, no doubt. But eighty-six miles in twenty-four hours, in weather like this, is a good deal for any horse. And John G. is twenty-two years old, as perhaps you may remember. _I've brought the medicine._"

Three solid hours from that very moment the two men worked over John G., and when, at twelve o'clock, they put him up for the night, not a wet hair was left on him. As they washed and rubbed and bandaged, they talked together, mingling the Sergeant's trenchantly humorous common sense with the Corporal's mellow philosophy. But mostly it was the Corporal that spoke, for twenty-four hours is a fair working day for a Sergeant as well as a Troop horse.

"I believe in my soul," said the Sergeant, "that if a man rode into this stable with his two arms shot off at the shoulder, you'd make him groom his horse with his teeth and his toes for a couple of hours before you'd let him hunt a doctor."

"Well," rejoined Corporal Richardson, in his soft Southern tongue, "and what if I did? Even if that man died of it, he'd thank me heartily afterward. You know, when you and I and the rest of the world, each in our turn, come to Heaven's gate, there'll be St. Peter before it, with the keys safe in his pocket. And over the shining wall behind--_from the inside_, mind you--will be poking a great lot of heads--innocent heads with innocent eyes--heads of horses and of all the other animals that on this earth are the friends of man, put at his mercy and helpless.

"And it's clear to me--over, John! so, boy!--that before St. Peter unlocks the gate for a single one of us, he'll turn around to that long row of heads, and he'll say:--

"'Blessed animals in the fields of Paradise, is this a man that should enter in?'

"And if the animals--they that were placed in his hands on earth to prove the heart that was in him--if the immortal animals have aught to say against that man--never will the good Saint let him in, with his dirty, mean stain upon him. Never. _You'll_ see, Sergeant, when your time comes. _Will you give those tendons another ten minutes?_"

Next morning John G. walked out of his stall as fresh and as fit as if he had come from pasture. And to this very day, in the stable of "A" Troop, John G., handsome, happy, and able, does his friends honor.

MYRA KELLY

Friends[B] [77-1]

"My mamma," reported Morris Mowgelewsky, choosing a quiet moment during a writing period to engage his teacher's attention, "my mamma likes you shall come on mine house for see her."

[B] From _Little Aliens_, copyright, 1910, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.

"Very well, dear," answered Miss Bailey with a patience born of many such messages from the parents of her small charges. "I think I shall have time to go this afternoon."

"My mamma," Morris began again, "she says I shall tell you 'scuse how she don't send you no letter. She couldn't to send no letter the while her eyes ain't healthy."

"I am sorry to hear that," said Teacher, with a little stab of regret for her prompt acceptance of Mrs. Mowgelewsky's invitation; for of all the ailments which the children shared so generously with their teacher, Miss Bailey had learned to dread most the many and painful disorders of the eye. She knew, however, that Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not one of those who utter unnecessary cries for help, being in this regard, as in many others, a striking contrast to the majority of parents with whom Miss Bailey came in contact.

To begin with, Mrs. Mowgelewsky had but one child--her precious, only Morris. In addition to this singularity she was thrifty and neat, intensely self-respecting and independent of spirit, and astonishingly outspoken of mind. She neither shared nor understood the gregarious spirit which bound her neighbors together and is the lubricant which makes East Side crowding possible without bloodshed. No groups of chattering, gesticulating matrons ever congregated in her Monroe Street apartment. No love of gossip ever held her on street corners or on steps. She nourished few friendships and fewer acquaintanceships, and she welcomed no haphazard visitor. Her hospitalities were as serious as her manner; her invitations as deliberate as her slow English speech.

And Miss Bailey, as she and the First Readers followed the order of studies laid down for them, found herself again and again, trying to imagine what the days would be to Mrs. Mowgelewsky if her keen, shrewd eyes were to be darkened and useless.

At three o'clock she set out with Morris, leaving the Board of Monitors[78-1] to set Room 18 to rights with no more direct supervision than an occasional look and word from the stout Miss Blake, whose kingdom lay just across the hall. And as she hurried through the early cold of a November afternoon, her forebodings grew so lugubrious that she was almost relieved at last to learn that Mrs. Mowgelewsky's complaint was a slow-forming cataract, and her supplication, that Miss Bailey would keep a watchful eye upon Morris while his mother was at the hospital undergoing treatment and operation.

"But of course," Miss Bailey agreed, "I shall be delighted to do what I can, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, though it seems to me that one of the neighbors----"

"Neighbors!" snorted the matron; "What you think the neighbors make mit mine little boy? They got four, five dozens childrens theirselves. They ain't got no time for look on Morris. They come maybe in mine house und break mine dishes, und rubber on what is here, und set by mine furniture und talks. What do they know over takin' care on mine house? They ain't ladies. They is educated only on the front. Me, I was raised private und expensive in Russia; I was ladies. Und you ist ladies. You ist Krisht[79-1]--that is too bad--but that makes me nothings. I wants _you_ shall look on Morris."

"But I can't come here and take care of him," Miss Bailey pointed out. "You see that for yourself, don't you, Mrs. Mowgelewsky? I am sorry as I can be about your eyes, and I hope with all my heart that the operation will be successful. But I shouldn't have time to come here and take care of things."

"That ain't how mine mamma means," Morris explained. He was leaning against Teacher and stroking her muff as he spoke. "Mine mamma means the money."

"That ist what I means," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, nodding her ponderous head until her quite incredible wig slipped back and forth upon it. "Morris needs he shall have money. He could to fix the house so good like I can. He don't needs no neighbors rubberin'. He could to buy what he needs on the store. But ten cents a day he needs. His papa works by Harlem. He is got fine jobs, und he gets fine moneys, but he couldn't to come down here for take care of Morris. Und the doctor he says I shall go _now_ on the hospital. Und any way," she added sadly, "I ain't no good; I couldn't to see things. He says I shall lay in the hospital three weeks, may be--that is twenty-one days--und for Morris it is two dollars und ten cents. I got the money." And she fumbled for her purse in various hiding-places about her ample person.

"And you want me to be banker," cried Miss Bailey; "to keep the money and give Morris ten cents a day--is that it?"

"Sure," answered Mrs. Mowgelewsky.

"It's a awful lot of money," grieved Morris. "Ten cents a day is a awful lot of money for one boy."

"No, no, my golden one," cried his mother. "It is but right that thou shouldst have plenty of money, und thy teacher, a Christian lady, though honest--und what neighbor is honest?--will give thee ten cents every morning. Behold, I pay the rent before I go, und with the rent paid und with ten cents a day thou wilt live like a landlord."

"Yes, yes," Morris broke in, evidently repeating some familiar warning, "und every day I will say mine prayers und wash me the face, und keep the neighbors out, und on Thursdays und on Sundays I shall go on the hospital for see you."

"And on Saturdays," broke in Miss Bailey, "you will come to my house and spend the day with me. He's too little, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, to go to the synagogue alone."

"That could be awful nice," breathed Morris. "I likes I shall go on your house. I am lovin' much mit your dog."

"How?" snorted his mother. "Dogs! Dogs ain't nothing but foolishness. They eats something fierce, und they don't works."

"That iss how mine mamma thinks," Morris hastened to explain, lest the sensitive feelings of his Lady Paramount should suffer. "But mine mamma she never seen _your_ dog. He iss a awful nice dog; I am lovin' much mit him."

"I don't needs I shall see him," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, somewhat tartly. "I seen, already, lots from dogs. Don't you go make no foolishness mit him. Don't you go und get chawed off of him."

"Of course, of course not," Miss Bailey hastened to assure her; "he will only play with Rover if I should be busy or unable to take him out with me. He'll be safer at my house than he would be on the streets, and you wouldn't expect him to stay in the house all day."

After more parley and many warnings the arrangement was completed. Miss Bailey was intrusted with two dollars and ten cents, and the censorship of Morris. A day or so later Mrs. Mowgelewsky retired, indomitable, to her darkened room in the hospital, and the neighbors were inexorably shut out of her apartment. All their offers of help, all their proffers of advice were politely refused by Morris, all their questions and visits politely dodged. And every morning Miss Bailey handed her Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl his princely stipend, adding to it from time to time some fruit or other uncontaminated food, for Morris was religiously the strictest of the strict, and could have given cards and spades to many a minor rabbi[82-1] on the intricacies of Kosher law.

The Saturday after his mother's departure Morris spent in the enlivening companionship of the antiquated Rover, a collie who no longer roved farther than his own back yard, and who accepted Morris's frank admiration with a noble condescension and a few rheumatic gambols. Miss Bailey's mother was also hospitable, and her sister did what she could to amuse the quaint little child with the big eyes, the soft voice, and the pretty foreign manners. But Morris preferred Rover to any of them, except perhaps the cook, who allowed him to prepare a luncheon for himself after his own little rites.

Everything had seemed so pleasant and so successful that Miss Bailey looked upon a repetition of this visit as a matter of course, and was greatly surprised on the succeeding Friday afternoon when the Monitor of the Goldfish Bowl said that he intended to spend the next day at home.

"Oh, no!" she remonstrated, "you mustn't stay at home. I'm going to take you out to the Park and we are going to have all kinds of fun. Wouldn't you rather go and see the lions and the elephants with me than stay at home all by yourself?"

For some space Morris was a prey to silence, then he managed by a consuming effort:

"I ain't by mineself."

"Has your father come home?" said Teacher.

"No, ma'am."

"And surely it's not a neighbor. You remember what your mother said about the neighbors, how you were not to let them in."

"It ain't neighbors," said Morris.

"Then who----?" began Miss Bailey.

Morris raised his eyes to hers, his beautiful, black, pleading eyes, praying for the understanding and the sympathy which had never failed him yet. "It's a friend," he answered.

"Nathan Spiderwitz?" she asked.

Morris shook his head, and gave Teacher to understand that the Monitor of the Window Boxes came under the ban of neighbor.

"Well, who is it, dearest?" she asked again. "Is it any one that I know?"

"No, ma'am."

"None of the boys in the school?"

"No, ma'am."

"Have you known him long?"

"No, ma'am."

"Does your mother know him?"

"Oh, Teacher, _no_, ma'am! Mine mamma don't know him."

"Well, where did you meet him?"

"Teacher, on the curb. Over yesterday on the night," Morris began, seeing that explanation was inevitable, "I lays on mine bed, und I thinks how mine mamma has got a sickness, und how mine papa is by Harlem, und how I ain't got nobody beside of me. Und, Teacher, it makes me cold in mine heart. So I couldn't to lay no more, so I puts me on mit mine clothes some more, und I goes by the street, the while peoples is there, und I needs I shall see peoples. So I sets by the curb, und mine heart it go und it go so I couldn't to feel how it go in mine inside. Und I thinks on my mamma, how I seen her mit bandages on the face, und mine heart it goes some more. Und, Teacher, Missis Bailey, I cries over it."

"Of course you did, honey," said Teacher, putting her arm about him. "Poor, little, lonely chap! Of course you cried."

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am; it ain't fer boys they shall cry, but I cries over it. Und soon something touches me by mine side, und I turns und mine friend he was sittin' by side of me. Und he don't say nothings, Teacher; no, ma'am; he don't say _nothings_, only he looks on me, und in his eyes stands tears. So that makes me better in mine heart, und I don't cries no more. I sets und looks on mine friend, und mine friend he sets und looks on me mit smilin' looks. So I goes by mine house, und mine friend he comes by mine house, too, und I lays by mine bed, und mine friend he lays by mine side. Und all times in that night sooner I open mine eyes und thinks on how mine mamma is got a sickness, und mine papa is by Harlem, mine friend he is by mine side, und I don't cries. I don't cries never no more the whiles mine friend is by me. Und I couldn't to go on your house to-morrow the whiles I don't know if mine friend likes Rover."

"Of course he'd like him," cried Miss Bailey. "Rover would play with him just as he plays with you."

"No, ma'am," Morris maintained; "mine friend is too little for play mit Rover."

"Is he such a little fellow?"

"Yiss, ma'am; awful little."

"And has he been with you ever since the day before yesterday?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"Does he seem to be happy and all right?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."

"But," asked Miss Bailey, suddenly practical, "what does the poor little fellow eat? Of course ten cents would buy a _lot_ of food for one boy, but not so very much for two."

"Teacher, no, ma'am," says Morris; "it ain't so very much."

"Well, then," said Miss Bailey, "suppose I give you twenty cents a day as long as a little strange friend is with you."

"That could to be awful nice," Morris agreed; "und, Missis Bailey," he went on, "sooner you don't needs all yours lunch mine friend could eat it, maybe."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she cried; "It's ham to-day."

"That don't make nothins mit mine friend," said Morris, "he likes ham."

"Now, Morris," said Miss Bailey very gravely, as all the meanings of this announcement spread themselves before her, "this is a very serious thing. You know how your mother feels about strangers, and you know how she feels about Christians, and what will she say to you--and what will she say to me--when she hears that a strange little Christian is living with you? Of course, dearie, I know it's nice for you to have company, and I know that you must be dreadfully lonely in the long evenings, but I'm afraid your mother will not be pleased to think of your having somebody to stay with you. Wouldn't you rather come to my house and live there all the time until your mother is better. You know," she added as a crowning inducement, "Rover is there."

But Morris betrayed no enthusiasm. "I guess," said he, "I ain't lovin' so awful much mit Rover. He iss too big. I am likin' little dogs mit brown eyes, what walks by their legs und carries things by their mouths. Did you ever see dogs like that?"

"In the circus," answered Teacher. "Where did you see them?"

"A boy by our block," answered Morris, "is got one. He is lovin' much mit that dog und that dog is lovin' much mit him."

"Well, now, perhaps you could teach Rover to walk on his hind legs, and carry things in his mouth," suggested Teacher; "and as for this new little Christian friend of yours----"

"I don't know _be_ he a Krisht," Morris admitted with reluctant candor; "he ain't said nothin' over it to me. On'y a Irisher lady what lives by our house, she says mine friend is a Irisher."

"Very well, dear; then of course he's a Christian," Miss Bailey assured him, "and I shan't interfere with you to-morrow--you may stay at home and play with him. But we can't let it go on, you know. This kind of thing never would do when your mother comes back from the hospital. She might not want your friend in the house. Have you thought of that at all, Morris? You must make your friend understand it."

"I tells him," Morris promised; "I don't know can he understand. He's pretty little, only that's how I tells him all times."

"Then tell him once again, honey," Miss Bailey advised, "and make him understand that he must go back to his own people as soon as your mother is well. Where are his own people? I can't understand how any one so little could be wandering about with no one to take care of him."

"Teacher, I'm takin' care of him," Morris pointed out.