Chapter 10

"You look well enough, Theo," Nan said, "plenty well enough. Now go on, and oh, I do _hope_ it will be all right."

"I know 'twill," cried the boy, joyously, as he tucked the money carefully into an inside pocket. "Oh, Nan!"

He looked at her with such a happy face that her own beamed a bright response. Then he ran off and Nan stood in the doorway watching him as he went down the stairs, closely followed by his inseparable companion, Tag.

"The dear boy! He is fairly pale," said Nan, to herself, as she turned back into her room. "It is strange how he loves that bishop--and what a different boy he is, too, since he came home. I don't see how the bishop can help loving him. Oh, I do hope nothing will happen to spoil his visit. He has looked forward to it so long."

The boy felt as if he were walking on air as he went rapidly through the crowded streets, seeing nothing about him, so completely were his thoughts occupied with the happiness before him. As he got farther up town the crowd lessened, and when he turned into the street on which the bishop lived, the passers-by were few.

At last he could see the house. In a few minutes he would reach it. Then his joyous anticipations suddenly vanished and he began to be troubled.

What if Brown wouldn't let him in, he thought, or--what if the bishop should refuse to see him or to listen to his story?

As these thoughts came to him his eager pace slackened and for a moment he was tempted to turn back. Only for a moment, however. He _knew_ that the bishop would not refuse to see him, and as for Brown, if Brown refused to admit him, he would go to the servants' door and ask for Mrs. Martin.

So thinking, he pushed open the iron gate and went slowly up the walk.

"Stay here, Tag. Lie down, sir!" he ordered, and the dog obediently dropped down on the steps, keeping his bright eyes fastened on his master, as the boy rang the bell. Theo could almost hear his heart beat as he waited. Suddenly the door swung open and there was Brown gazing severely at him.

"Well--what do _you_ want?" questioned the man, brusquely.

"I want--Don't you know me, Brown? I want to see--Mrs. Martin."

The boy's voice was thick and husky, and somehow he could not utter the bishop's name to Brown standing there with that cold frown on his face.

"Oh--you want to see Mrs. Martin, do you? Well, I think you've got cheek to come here at all after leaving the way you did," Brown growled. He held the door so that the boy could not enter, and seemed more than half inclined to shut it in his face.

"Oh, please, Brown, _do_ let me in," pleaded the boy, with such a heart-broken tone in his voice, that Brown relented--he wasn't half so gruff as he pretended to be--and answered, grudgingly,

"Well, come in, if you must, an' I'll find out if Mrs. Martin will see you."

With a sudden gleam of joy in his eyes, Theodore slipped in.

"Come along!" Brown called over his shoulder, and the boy followed to the housekeeper's sitting-room. The door of the room stood open, and Mrs. Martin sat by the window with a newspaper in her hand. She glanced up over her spectacles as Brown's tall figure appeared at the door.

"Mrs. Martin, this boy says he wants to see you," he announced, and then sauntered indifferently away to his own quarters.

Mrs. Martin took off her glasses as she called, "Come in, boy, and tell me what you want."

Theo walked slowly toward her hoping that she would recognise him, but she did not. Indeed it was a wonder that Brown had recognised him, so different was his appearance in his rough worn clothes, from that of the handsomely dressed lad, whose sudden departure had so grieved the kindhearted housekeeper.

"Don't you know me, Mrs. Martin?" the boy faltered, sorrowfully, as he paused beside her chair.

"No, I'm sure I--why! You don't mean to say that you are our deaf and dumb boy!" exclaimed the good woman, as she peered earnestly into the grey eyes looking down so wistfully into hers.

"Yes, I'm the bad boy you were so good to, but I've been keepin' straight ever since I was here, Mrs. Martin," he answered, earnestly. "I have, truly."

"Bless your dear heart, child," cried the good woman, springing up hastily and seizing the boy's hands. "I'm sure you have. I guess _I_ know a bad face when I see one, and it don't look like yours. Sit down, dear, and tell me all about it."

In the fewest possible words Theo told his story, making no attempt to excuse anything. The housekeeper listened with keen interest, asking a question now and then, and reading in his face the confirmation of all he said. He did not say very much about the bishop, but the few words that he did say and the look in his eyes as he said them, showed her what a hold upon the boy's heart her master had so unconsciously gained, and her own interest in the friendless lad grew deeper.

When his story was told, she wiped her eyes as she said, slowly, "And to think that you've been working all these weeks to save up that money! Well, well, how glad the dear bishop will be! He's said all the time that you were a good boy."

"Oh, has he?" cried Theo, his face all alight with sudden joy. "I was afraid he'd think I was all bad when he found out how I'd cheated him."

"No, no!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "He was grieved over your going off so, and he has tried his best to find you, but you see he didn't know where to look for you."

"Did he try to find me, Mrs. Martin? Oh, I'm so glad! And can I see him now, please?"

The boy's voice trembled with eagerness as he spoke.

The housekeeper's kind face was full of pity and sympathy as she exclaimed, "Why, my boy, didn't you know? The bishop is in California. He went a week ago to stay three months."

All the glad brightness faded from the boy's face as he heard this. He did not speak, but he turned aside, and brushed his sleeve hastily across his eyes. Mrs. Martin laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she said, "and he will be too, when he knows of your coming. I will write him all about it."

Still the boy stood silent. It seemed to him that he could not bear it. It had not once occurred to him that the bishop might be away, and now there was no possibility of seeing him for three long months. It seemed an eternity to the boy. And to think that he was there--at home--a week ago!

"If they hadn't stole that five dollars from me, I might 'a' seen him last week," the boy said to himself, bitter thoughts of Dick Hunt rising in his heart. At last he turned again to the housekeeper and at the change in his face her eyes filled with quick tears.

He took from his pocket the little roll of money and held it out, saying in a low unsteady voice, "You send it to him--an' tell him--won't you?"

"I'll write him all about it," the housekeeper repeated, "and don't you be discouraged, dear. He'll want to see you just as soon as he gets home, I know he will. Tell me where you live, so I can send you word when he comes."

In a dull, listless voice the boy gave the street and number, and she wrote the address on a slip of paper.

"Remember, Theodore, I shall write the bishop all you have told me, and how you are trying to find the Finney boy and to help others just as he does," said the good woman, knowing instinctively that this would comfort the boy in his bitter disappointment.

He brightened a little at her words but he only said, briefly,

"Yes--tell him that," and then he went sorrowfully away.

Mrs. Martin stood at the window and looked after him as he went slowly down the street, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, while Tag, well aware that something was wrong, trotted beside him with drooping ears and tail.

"Tell me that that's a bad boy!" the good woman said to herself. "I know better! I don't care what that Mr. Gibson said. I never took much stock in Mr. Gibson myself, anyhow. He always had something to say against anybody that the bishop took an interest in. There--I wish I'd told Theodore that he was here only as a substitute, and had to leave when the regular secretary was well enough to come back. I declare my heart aches when I think of that poor little fellow's face when I told him that the bishop was gone. Ah well, this is a world of disappointment!" and with a sigh she turned away from the window.

Nan sat in a rocking-chair with Little Brother in her arms, when Theodore opened her door.

"Oh Theo--what is it? What is the matter?" she cried, as she saw his face.

He dropped wearily into a seat and told her in a few words the result of his visit.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "And it seems so hard to think that you would have seen the bishop if you hadn't lost that five dollars!"

The boy sighed, but made no reply. He could not talk about it then, and presently he got up and went out.

XI. THEO'S NEW BUSINESS

Theodore went slowly down the stairs, but stopped on the outside steps and stood there with his hands in his pockets looking listlessly up and down the street. There was another big tenement house opposite, and on its steps sat a girl of ten or eleven with a baby in her lap. The baby kept up a low wailing cry, but the girl paid no attention to it. She sat with her head leaning against the house, and seemed to notice nothing about her.

Theodore glanced at her indifferently. His thoughts were still dwelling on his great disappointment--the sorrowful ending of the hopes and longings of so many weeks. It seemed to him that he had now nothing to which to look forward; nothing that was worth working for. Then suddenly there flashed into his mind the words he had heard the bishop speak to a man who came to him one day in great sorrow.

"My life is spoiled," the man had said. "All my hopes and plans are destroyed. What shall I do?"

And the bishop had answered, "My son, you must forget yourself, and your broken hopes and plans, and think of others. Do something for somebody else--and keep on doing."

"That's what he would say to me, I s'pose," thought the boy. "I wonder what I can do. There's Tommy O'Brien, I 'spect he'd be glad 'nough to see most anybody."

He turned and went slowly and reluctantly back up the stairs. He didn't want to see Tommy O'Brien. He didn't want to see anybody just then, but still he went on to Tommy's door. As he approached it, he heard loud, angry voices mingled with the crying of a baby. He knocked, but the noise within continued, and after a moment's pause he pushed open the door and went in.

The three women who lived in the room were all standing with red, angry faces, each trying to outscold the others. Three or four little children, with frightened eyes, were huddled together in one corner, while a baby cried unheeded on the floor, its mother being too much occupied with the quarrel to pay any attention to her child. The women glanced indifferently at Theodore as he entered, and kept on with their loud talk. Theo crossed over to Tommy's cot. The sick boy had pulled his pillow over his head and was pressing it close to his ears to shut out the racket.

"Le'me 'lone!" he exclaimed, as Theodore tried to lift the pillow. His face was drawn with pain and there were dark hollows beneath his heavy eyes. Such a weary, suffering face it was that a great flood of pity surged over Theodore's heart at sight of it. Then Tommy opened his eyes and as he saw who had pulled aside his pillow a faint smile crept around his pale lips.

"Oh!" he cried. "It's you. I thought 'twas some o' them a-pullin' off my piller. Can't you make 'em stop, Tode? They've been a-fightin' off an' on all day." He glanced at the noisy women as he spoke.

"What's the row about?" asked Theo.

"'Cause Mis' Carey said Mis' Green's baby was cross-eyed. Mis' Green got so mad at that that she's been scoldin' 'bout it ever since an' leavin' the baby to yell there by itself on the floor--poor little beggar! Seem's if my head'll split open with all the noise," sighed Tommy, wearily, then he brightened up as he inquired, "What d' you come for, Tode?"

"Just to talk to you a little," replied Theo. "S'pose you get awful tired layin' here all the time, don't ye, Tommy?"

The unexpected sympathy in the voice and look touched the lonely heart of the little cripple. His eyes filled with tears, and he reached up one skinny little hand and laid it on the rough, strong one of his visitor as he answered,

"Oh, you don't know--you don't know anything about it, Tode. I don't b'lieve dyin' can be half so bad's livin' this way. She wishes I'd die. She's said so lots o' times," he nodded toward his aunt, who was one of the women in the room, "an' I wish so too, 'f I've got to be this way always."

"Ain't ye never had no doctor, Tommy?" asked Theo, with a quick catch in his breath as he realised dimly what it would be to have such a life to look forward to.

"No--she says she ain't got no money for doctors," replied the boy, soberly.

"I'll"--began Theodore, then wisely concluding to raise no hopes that might not be realised, he changed his sentence to, "I'll find out if there's a doctor that will come for nothin'. I believe there is one. Can ye read, Tommy?"

The sick boy shook his head. "How could I?" he answered. "Ain't nobody ter show me nothin'."

"Wonder 'f I couldn't," said Theo, thoughtfully. "I c'n tell ye the letters anyhow, an' that'll be better'n nothin'."

A bit of torn newspaper lay on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and pointed out A, O and S, to Tommy. By the time the little cripple had thoroughly mastered those three letters so that he could pick them out every time, the women had given up their quarrel. Mrs. Green had taken up her baby and was feeding it, and the other women, with sullen faces, had resumed their neglected duties.

"Oh dear! Must you go?" Tommy exclaimed as Theo got off the cot on which he had been sitting. "But you was real good to come, anyhow. When'll ye come again an' tell me some more letters?"

"I'll show ye one ev'ry day if I can get time. Then in three weeks you'll know all the big ones an' some o' the little ones that are just like the big ones. Now don't ye forget them three."

"You bet I won't. I shall say 'em a hundred times 'fore to-morrow," rejoined the little fellow, and his eyes followed his new friend eagerly until the door closed behind him.

As for Theodore himself, half the weight seemed to have been lifted from his own heart as he went down the stairs again.

"I'll run outside a minute 'fore I go to supper," he said to himself. "The air was awful thick in that room. Reckon that's one thing makes Tommy feel so bad."

He walked briskly around two or three squares, and as he came back to the house he noticed that the girl and the baby still sat where he had seen them an hour before. The baby's cry had ceased, but it began again as Theo was passing the two. He stopped and looked at them. The girl's eyes rested on his face with a dull, indifferent glance.

"What makes it cry? Is it sick?" the boy asked, nodding toward the baby.

The girl shook her head.

"What ails it then?"

"Starvin'."

The girl uttered the word in a lifeless tone as if it were a matter of no interest to her.

"Where's yer mother?" pursued the boy.

"Dead."

"An' yer father?"

"Drunk."

"Ain't there nobody to look out for ye?"

Again the girl shook her head.

"Ain't ye had anything to eat to-day?"

"No."

"What d'ye have yesterday?"

"Some crusts I found in the street. Do go off an' le'me 'lone. We're most dead, an' I'm glad of it," moaned the girl, drearily.

"You gi' me that baby an' come along. I'll get ye somethin' to eat," cried Theo, and as the girl looked up at him half doubtfully and half joyfully, he seized the bundle of shawl and baby and hurried with it up to Nan's room, the girl dragging herself slowly along behind him.

Nan cast a doubtful and half dismayed glance at the two strangers as Theodore ushered them in, but the boy exclaimed,

"They're half starved, Nan. We _must_ give 'em somethin' to eat," and when she saw the baby's little pinched face she hesitated no longer, but quickly warmed some milk and fed it to the little one while the girl devoured the bread and milk and meat set before her with a ravenous haste that confirmed what she had said.

Then, refreshed by the food, she told her pitiful story, the old story of a father who spent his earnings in the saloon, leaving his motherless children to live or die as might be. Nan's heart ached as she listened, and Theodore's face was very grave. When the girl had gone away with the baby in her arms, Theo said, earnestly,

"Nan, I've got to earn more money."

"How can you?" Nan asked. "You work so hard now, Theo."

"I must work harder, Nan. I can't stand it to see folks starvin' an' not help 'em. I'll pay you for what these two had you know."

Nan looked at him reproachfully. "Don't you think I want to help too?" she returned. "Do you think I've forgotten that meal you gave Little Brother an' me?"

"That was nothin'. Anyhow you've done lots more for me than ever I did for you," the boy answered, earnestly, "but, Nan, how _can_ rich folks keep their money for themselves when there are people--babies, Nan--starvin' right here in this city?"

"I suppose the rich folks don't know about them," replied the girl, thoughtfully, as she set the table for supper.

"I've got to talk it over with Mr. Scott," Theo said, as he drew his chair up to the table.

"You talk everything over with Mr. Scott now, don't you, Theo?"

"'Most everything. He's fine as silk, Mr. Scott is. He rings true every time, but he ain't"--

He left his sentence unfinished, but Nan knew of whom he was thinking.

The next afternoon Theodore walked slowly through the business streets, with eyes and ears alert, for some opening of which he might take advantage to increase his income. Past block after block he wandered till he was tired and discouraged. Finally he sat down on some high stone steps to rest a bit, and while he sat there a coloured boy came out of the building. He had a tin box and some rags in his hands, and he began in an idle fashion to clean the brass railing to the steps. Theodore fell into conversation with him, carelessly and indifferently at first, but after a little with a sudden, keen interest as the boy began to grumble about his work.

"I ain't a-goin' ter clean these yer ol' railin's many more times," he said. "It's too much work. I c'n git a place easy where the' ain't no brasses to clean, an' I'm a-goin' ter, too. All the office boys hates ter clean brasses."

"What do ye clean 'em with?" Theodore inquired.

The boy held out the tin box. "This stuff an' soft rags. Say--you want ter try it?"

He grinned as he spoke, but to his surprise his offer was accepted. "Gi' me your rags," cried Theo, and he proceeded to rub and polish energetically, until one side of the railings glittered like gold.

"Yer a gay ol' cleaner!" exclaimed the black boy, as he lolled in blissful idleness on the top step. "Now go ahead with the other rail."

But Theodore threw down the rags.

"Not much," he answered. "I've done half your work an' you can do the other half."

"Oh, come now, finish up the job," remonstrated the other. "'Tain't fair not to, for you've made that one shine so. I'll have ter put an extry polish on the other to match it."

But Theodore only laughed and walked off saying to himself,

"Rather think this'll work first-rate."

He went straight to a store, and asked for "the stuff for shining up brass," and bought a box of it. Then he wondered where he could get some clean rags.

"Per'aps Mrs. Hunt'll have some," he thought, "an' anyhow I want to see Jim."

So home he hastened as fast as his feet would carry him.

Good Mrs. Hunt was still a little cool to Theodore, though she could see for herself how steady and industrious he was now, and how much he had improved in every way; but she had never gotten over her first impression of him, founded not only on his appearance and manners when she first knew him, but also on Dick's evil reports in regard to him. Now that Dick himself had gone so far wrong, his mother went about with a heartache all the time, and found it hard sometimes to rejoice as she knew she ought to do in the vast change for the better in this other boy.

"Is Jim here?" Theodore asked when Mrs. Hunt opened the door in response to his knock.

"Yes--what's wanted, Tode?" Jimmy answered for himself before his mother could reply.

"Can you stay out o' school to-morrow?" Theo questioned.

"No, he can't, an' you needn't be temptin' him," broke in the mother, quickly.

"Oh, come now, ma, wait till ye hear what he wants," remonstrated Jimmy, in whose eyes Theo was just about right.

"I wanted him to run my stand to-morrow," said Theodore. "I've got somethin' else to 'tend to. There's plenty o' fellers that would like to run it for me, but ye see I can't trust 'em an' I _can_ trust Jim every time."

Jimmy drew himself up proudly. "Oh, ma, do let me stay out an' do it," he cried, eagerly.

"It's Friday, an' we don't have much to do Fridays anyhow, in our school."

"We-ell, I s'pose then you might stay out just this once," Mrs. Hunt said, slowly, being fully alive to the advantages to Jimmy of such a friendly feeling on Theo's part. She recognized Theodore's business ability, and would have been only too glad to see her own boy develop something of the same kind. She was haunted with a dread that he might become idle and vicious as Dick had done.

"All right, then," Theodore responded, promptly. "You be ready to go down with me at seven o'clock, Jim, an' I'll see you started all right before I leave you. Oh, Mrs. Hunt, there's one more thing I want. Have you any clean old rags?"

"For what?"

"Any kind o' soft white cotton stuff or old flannel will do," replied the boy, purposely leaving her question unanswered. "I'll pay you for 'em, of course, if you let me have 'em."

"Well, I guess I ain't so stingy as all that comes to," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, sharply. "D'ye want 'em now?"

"I'll come for 'em after supper," answered the boy, thinking that it was best to make sure of them, lest he be delayed for want of them in the morning.

When later that evening, he knocked at her door, Mrs. Hunt had the pieces ready for him, and the next morning, Jimmy was waiting in the hall when Theo came from Nan's room with his big basket, and the two boys went down the street carrying the basket between them. As soon as its contents had been arranged as attractively as possible on the clean white marbled oilcloth with which the stand was covered, and the coffee made and ready to serve, Theo handed Jimmy two dollars in dimes, nickels and pennies, to make change, and set off with the box of paste in his pocket, and the roll of rags under his arm.

Jimmy watched him out of sight, and then with a proud sense of responsibility awaited the appearance of his customers.

Theodore walked rapidly on till he reached the business streets where most of the handsome stores and offices were. Then he slackened his pace and went on slowly, glancing keenly at each building until he came to one that had half a dozen brass signs on the front.

"Here's a good place to make a try," he said to himself, and going into the first office on the ground floor he asked as politely as he knew how,

"Can I shine up your brass signs for you?"

There were several young men in the outer office. One of them answered carelessly, "Yes indeed, shine 'em up, boy, and see 't you make a good job of it."

"I will that, sir," responded Theodore, blithely, and set to work with a will.

There had been much wet weather and the signs were badly discoloured. It took hard, steady rubbing for nearly an hour to get them into good shining order, but Theodore worked away vigourously until they gleamed and glittered in the morning sunlight. Then he went again into the office.