Part 2

“I awready got a rake,” Bojus explained. “If I had a lawn-mo’ I could make th’ee, fo’, fi’ dolluhs a day. See that spring sun settin’ up there a-gittin’ ready to shine so hot? She’s goin’ to bring up the grass knee-high, honey, ’less somebody take a lawn-mo’ an’ cut it down. I kin take a lawn-mo’ an’ walk ’long all vese resident’al streets; git a dozen jobs a day if I kin do ’em. I truly would like to git me a nice good lawn-mo’, but I ain’ got no money. I got a diamon’ ring, though. I give a diamon’ ring fer a good lawn-mo’.”

“Diamon’ ring?” Mr. Tuttle inquired with some interest. “Le’ss see it.”

“Gran’ big diamon’ ring,” Bojus said, and held forth his right hand for inspection. Upon the little finger appeared a gem of notable dimensions, for it was a full quarter of an inch in width, but no one could have called it lustrous; it sparkled not at all. Yet its dimness might have been a temporary condition that cleaning would relieve, and what struck Mr. Tuttle most unfavourably was the fact that it was set in a metal of light colour.

“Why, it ain’t even gold,” he said. “That’s a perty pore sample of a diamon’ ring I expect, Bojus. Nobody’d want to wear a diamon’ ring with the ring part made o’ silver. Truth is, I never see no diamon’ ring jest made o’ silver, before. Where’d you git it?”

“Al Joles.”

“Wha’d you give Al Joles fer it?”

“Nothin’,” said Bojus, and laughed. “Al Joles, he come to where my cousin Mamie live, las’ Feb’uary an ’bo’de with ’er week or so, ’cause he tryin’ keep ’way f’m jail. One day he say this city too hot; he got to leave, an’ Mamie tuck an’ clean up after him an’ she foun’ this ring in a crack behine the washstan’. Al Joles drop it an’ fergit it, I reckon. He had _plenty_ rings!”

“I reckon!”

“Al Joles show Mamie fo’ watches an’ a whole big han’ful o’ diamon’ pins and rings an’ chains. Say he got ’em in Chicago an’ he tuck ’em all with him when he lit out. Mamie she say this ring worf fi’, six thousan’ dolluhs.”

“Then what fer’d she take and give it to you, Bojus?”

“She di’n’,” said Bojus. “She tuck an’ try to sell it to Hillum’s secon’ han’ joolry sto’ an’ Hillum say he won’ bargain fer it ’count its bein’ silvuh. So she trade it to me fer a nice watch chain. I like silvuh ring well as gol’ ring. ’S the diamon’ counts: diamon’ worf fi’, six thousan’ dolluhs, I ain’ carin’ what jes’ the _ring_ part is.”

“Well, it’s right perty,” Tuttle observed, glancing at it with some favour. “I don’t hardly expect you could trade it fer no lawn-mower, though. I expect——” But at this moment a symptom of his indisposition interrupted his remarks. A slight internal convulsion caused him to shudder heavily; he fanned his suddenly bedewed forehead with his hat, and seemed to eat an impalpable but distasteful food.

“You feel sick, Mist’ Tuttle?” Bojus inquired sympathetically, for his companion’s appearance was a little disquieting. “You feel bad?”

“Well, I do,” Tuttle admitted feebly. “I eat a hambone yestiddy that up and disagreed on me. I ain’t be’n feelin’ none too well all morning, if the truth must be told. The fact is, what I need right now—and I need it right bad,” he added—“it’s a little liquor.”

“Yes, suh; I guess so,” his friend agreed. “That’s somep’n ain’ goin’ hurt nobody. I be willin’ use a little myse’f.”

“You know where any is?”

“Don’t I!” the negro exclaimed. “I know whur plenty _is_, but the trouble is: How you an’ me goin’ git it?”

“Where is it?”

“Ri’ dow’ my cousin Mamie’ celluh. My cousin Mamie’ celluh plum full o’ Whi’ Mule. Man say he goin’ buy it off her but ain’ show up with no money. Early ’s mawn’ I say, ‘Mamie, gi’ me little nice smell o’ you’ nice whisky?’ No, suh! Take an’ fretten me with a brade-knife! Mad ’cause man ain’ paid ’er, I reckon.”

“Le’ss go on up there and ast her again,” Tuttle suggested. “She might be feelin’ in a nicer temper by this time. Me bein’ sick, and it’s Sunday and all, why, she ought to show some decency about it. Anyways, it wouldn’t hurt anything to jest try.”

“No, suh, tha’s so, Mist’ Tuttle,” the negro agreed with ready hopefulness. “If she say no, she say no; but if she say yes, we all fix fine! Le’ss go!”

They went up the street, walking rather slowly, as Mr. Tuttle, though eager, found his indisposition increased with any rapidity of movement; then they turned down an alley, followed it to another alley, and at the intersection of that with another, entered a smoke-coloured cottage of small pretensions, though it still displayed in a front window the card of a Red Cross subscriber to the “drive” of 1918.

“Mamie!” Bojus called, when they had closed the door behind them. “Mamie!”

Then, as they heard the response to this call, both of them had the warming sense of sunshine rushing over them: the world grew light and bright and they perceived that luck did not always run against worthy people. Mamie’s answer was not in words, yet it was a vocal sound and human: somewhere within her something quickened to the call and endeavoured to speak. Silently they opened the door of her bedroom and looked upon her where she reposed.

She had consoled herself for her disappointment; she was peaceful indeed; and the callers at once understood that for several hours, at least, she could deny them nothing they would ask. They paused but a moment to gaze, and then, without a word of comment upon their incredible good fortune, they exchanged a single hurried glance, and forthwith descended to the cellar.

An hour later they were singing there, in that cool dimness. They sang of romantic love, of maternal sacrifices, of friendship; and this last theme held them longest, for Tuttle prevailed upon his companion to join him many, many times in a nineteenth century tribute to brotherly affection. With their hands resting fondly upon each other’s shoulders, they sang over and over:

Comrades, comrades, _ev_-er since we was boys, Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys, Comrades when manhood was _daw_-ning——

Our own, our native land, somewhat generally lawless in mood of late, has produced few illegal commodities more effective than the ferocious liquid rich in fusel oil and known as White Mule. Given out of the imaginative heart of a race that has a genius for naming things, this perfect name tells everything of the pale liquor it so precisely labels. The silence of the mule is there, the sinister inertia of his apparent complete placidity as he stands in an interval of seeming patience;—for this is the liquor as it rests in the bottle. And the mule’s sudden utter violence is there, with a hospital cot as a never-remote contingency for those who misunderstand.

Over-confidence in himself was not a failing of the experienced Tuttle; and he well knew the potencies of the volcanic stuff with which he dealt. His sincere desire was but to rid himself of the indisposition and nervousness that depressed him, and he indulged himself to-day with a lighter hand than usual. He wished to be at ease in body and mind, to be happy and to remain happy; therefore he stopped at the convivial, checking himself firmly, and took a little water. Not so the less calculating Bojus who had nothing of the epicure about him. Half an hour after the two friends had begun to sing “Comrades,” Bojus became unmusical in execution, though his impression was that he still sang; and a little later Mr. Tuttle found himself alone, so far as song, conversation and companionship were concerned. Bojus still lived, but had no animation.

His more cautious friend, on the contrary, felt life freshening within him; his physical uncertainties had disappeared from his active consciousness; he was a new man, and said so. “Hah!” he said with great satisfaction and in a much stronger voice than he had dared to use earlier in the day. “I’m a new man!” And he slapped himself on the chest, repeatedly. Optimism came to him; he began to believe that he was at the end of all his troubles, and he decided to return to the fresh air, the sunshine and an interesting world. “Le’ss git outdoors and see what all’s goin’ _on_!” he said heartily.

But first he took some precautions for the sake of friendship. Fearing that all might not go well with Bojus if Mamie were the first to be stirring and happened to look into her cellar, he went to the top of the stairs and locked the door there upon the inside. Then he came down again and once more proved his moderation by placing only one flask of Mamie’s distillation in his pocket. He could have taken much more if he wished, but he sometimes knew when to say no. In fact, he now said it aloud and praised himself a little. “No! No, sir!” he said to some applicant within him. “I know what’s good fer you and what ain’t. If you take any more you’re liable to go make a hog of yourself again. Why, jest look how you felt when you woke up this morning! I’m the man that knows and I’m perty smart, too, if you ever happen to notice! You take and let well enough alone.”

He gave a last glance at Bojus, a glance that lingered with some interest upon the peculiar diamond ring; but he decided not to carry it away with him, because Bojus might be overwhelmingly suspicious later. “No, sir,” he said. “You come along now and let well enough alone. We want to git out and see what’s goin’ on all over town!”

The inward pleader consented, he placed a box against the wall, mounted it and showed a fine persistence in overcoming what appeared to be impossibilities as he contrived to wriggle himself through a window narrower than he was. Then, emerging worm-like upon a dirty brick path beside the cottage, he arose brightly and went forth from that quarter of the city.

It suited his new mood to associate himself now with all that was most brilliant and prosperous; and so, at a briskish saunter he walked those streets where stood fine houses in brave lawns. It was now an hour and more after noon, the air was lively yet temperate in the sunshine, and the wealth he saw in calm display about him invigorated him. Shining cars passed by, proud ladies at ease within them; rich little children played about neat nursemaids as they strolled the cement pavements; haughty young men strode along, flashing their walking-sticks; noble big dogs with sparkling collars galloped over the bright grass under tall trees; and with all of this, Tuttle now felt himself congenial, and even intimate. Moreover, he had the conviction that some charming and dramatic adventure was about to befall him; it seemed to be just ahead.

The precise nature of this adventure remained indefinite in his imagination for a time, but gradually the thought of eating (abhorrent to him earlier in the day) again became pleasant, and he sketched some little scenes climaxing in banquets. “One these here millionaires could do it easy as not,” he said, speaking only in fancy and not vocally. “One of ’em might jest as well as not look out his big window, see me, and come down his walk and say, ‘Step right in, Mr. Tuttle. We got quite a dinner-party to-day, but they’s always room fer you, Mr. Tuttle. Now what’d you like to have to eat? Liver and chili and baked beans and ham and eggs and a couple of ice-cold muskmelons? We can open three or four cans o’ sardines fer you, too, if you’d like to have ’em. You only got to say the word, Mr. Tuttle.’”

He began to regret Bojus’s diamond ring a little; perhaps he could have traded it for a can of sardines at a negro restaurant he knew; but the regret was a slight one; he worried himself little about obtaining food, for people will always give it. However, he did not ask for it among the millionaires, whose servants are sometimes cold-hearted; but turned into an unpretentious cross-street and walked a little more slowly, estimating the houses. He had not gone far when he began to smell his dinner.

The odour came from the open front door of a neat white frame house in a yard of fair size; and here, near the steps of the small veranda, a man of sixty and his wife were discussing the progress of a row of tulips about to bloom. Their clothes new-looking, decorous and worn with a little unfamiliarity, told everybody that this man and his wife had been to church; that they dined at two o’clock on Sunday, owned their house, owned a burial lot in the cemetery, paid their bills, and had something comfortable in a safety deposit box. Tuttle immediately walked into the yard, took off his hat and addressed the wife.

“Lady,” he said, in a voice hoarser from too much singing than he would have liked to make it, “Lady, I be’n out o’ work fer some time back. I took sick, too, and I be’n in the hospital. What I reely wish to ast fer is work, but the state of unemployment in this city is awful bad. I don’t ast fer no money; all I want is a chance to work.”

“On Sunday?” she said reprovingly. “Of course there isn’t any work on Sunday.”

Tuttle stepped a little closer to her—a mistake—and looked appealing. “Then how’m I a-goin’ to git no nourishment?” he asked. “If you can’t give me no work, I ain’t eat nothin’ at all since day before yestiddy and I’d be truly thankful if you felt you could spare me a little nourishment.”

But she moved back from him, her nostrils dilating slightly and her expression unfavourable. “I’d be glad to give you all you want to eat,” she said coldly, “but I think you’d better sign the pledge first.”

“Ma’am?” said Tuttle in plaintive astonishment.

“I think you’ve been drinking.”

“No, lady! No!”

“I’m sure you have. I don’t believe in doing anything for people that drink; it doesn’t do them any good.”

“Lady——” Tuttle began, and he was about to continue his protest to her, when her husband interfered.

“Run along!” he said, and tossed the applicant for nourishment a dime.

Tuttle looked sadly at the little round disk of silver as it lay shining in his asphalt coloured palm; then he looked at the donor and murmured: “I ast fer bread—and they give me a stone!”

“Go along!” said the man.

Tuttle went slowly, seeming to be bowed in thoughtful melancholy; he went the more reluctantly because there was a hint of fried chicken on the air; and before he reached the pavement a buxom fair woman, readily guessed to be of Scandinavian descent, appeared in the doorway. “Dinner’s served, Mrs. Pinney,” she called briskly.

Tuttle turned and looked at Mrs. Pinney with eloquence, but she shook her head disapprovingly. “You ought to sign the pledge!” she said.

“Yes, lady,” he said, and abruptly turned away. He walked out into the street, where a trolley car at that moment happened to stop for another passenger, jumped on the step, waved his hand cordially, and continued to wave it as the car went down the street.

“Well of _all_!” Mrs. Pinney exclaimed, dumfounded, but her husband laughed aloud.

“That’s a good one!” he said. “Begged for ‘nourishment’ and when I gave him a dime went off for a street-car ride! Come on in to dinner, ma; I guess he’s passed out of our lives!”

Nothing was further from Mr. Tuttle’s purpose, however; and Mr. and Mrs. Pinney had not finished their dinner, half an hour later, when he pushed the bell-button in their small vestibule, and the buxom woman opened the door, but not invitingly, for she made the aperture a narrow one when she saw who stood before her.

“Howdydo,” he said affably. “Ole lady still here, isn’t she?”

“What you want?” the woman inquired.

“Jest ast her to look this over,” he said, and proffered a small paper-bound Bible, open, with a card between the leaves. “I’ll wait here,” he added serenely, as she closed the door.

She took the Bible to the dining-room, and handed it to Mrs. Pinney, remarking, “That tramp’s back. He says to give you this. He’s waitin’.”

The Bible was marked with a rubber stamp: “Presented by Door of Hope Rescue Mission 337 South Maryland Street,” and the card was a solemn oath and pledge to refrain from intoxicants, thenceforth and forever. It was dated that day, and signed, in ink still almost wet, “Arthur T. De Morris.”

Mrs. Pinney stared at the pledge, at first frowningly, then with a tendency toward a slight emotion; and without speaking she passed it to her husband for inspection, whereupon he became incredulous enough to laugh.

“That’s about the suddenest conversion on record, I guess!” he said. “Used the dime to get down to the Door of Hope and back before our dinner was over. It beats all!”

“You don’t think it could be genuine, Henry?”

“Well, no; not in twenty minutes.”

“It _could_ be—just possibly,” she said gently. “We never know when the right word _may_ touch some poor fellow’s heart.”

“Now, ma,” he remonstrated, “don’t you go and get one of your spells of religious vanity. That was about as tough an old soak as I ever saw, and I’m afraid it’ll take more than one of your ‘right words’ to convert him.”

“Still——” she said, and a gentle pride showed in her expression. “We can’t tell. It seems a little quick, of course, but he may have been just at the spiritual point for the right word to reach him. Anyhow, he did go right away and get a pledge and sign it—and got a Bible, too. It might be—I don’t say it probably is, but it just might be the beginning of a new life for him, and it wouldn’t be right to discourage him. Besides he must really be hungry: he’s proved that, anyhow.” She turned to the woman in waiting. “Give him back the Bible and his card, Tilly,” she said, “and take him out in the kitchen and let him have all he wants to eat. Tell him to wait when he gets through; and you let me know; I’ll come and talk to him. His name’s Mr. De Morris, Tilly, when you speak to him.”

Tilly’s expression was not enthusiastic, but she obeyed the order, conducted the convert to the kitchen and set excellent food before him in great plenty; whereupon Mr. Tuttle, being not without gallantry, put his hat on the floor beside his chair, and thanked her warmly before he sat down. His appetite was now vigorous, and at first he gave all his attention to the fried chicken, but before long he began to glance appreciatively, now and then, at the handmaiden who had served him. She was a well-shaped blonde person of thirty-five or so, tall, comely, reliable looking, visibly energetic, and, like her kitchen, incredibly clean. His glances failed to interest her, if she took note of them; and presently she made evident her sense of a social gulf. She prepared a plate for herself, placed it upon a table across the room from him and sat there, with her profile toward him, apparently unconscious of his presence.

“Plenty room at my table,” he suggested hospitably. “_I_ jest as soon you eat over here.”

“No,” she said discouragingly.

Not abashed, but diplomatic, he was silent for a time, then he inquired casually, “Do all the work here?”

“Yep.”

“Well, well,” he said. “You look too young fer sech a rough job. Don’t they have nobody ’tend the furnace and cut the grass?”

“Did,” said Tilly. “Died last week.”

“Well, ain’t that too bad! Nice pleasant feller was he?”

“Coloured man,” said Tilly.

“You Swedish?” Tuttle inquired.

“No. My folks was.”

“Well sir, that’s funny,” Tuttle said genially, “I knowed they was _some_p’n Swedish about you, because I always did like Swedish people. I don’t know why, but I always did taken a kind o’ likin’ to Swedish people, and Swedish people always taken kind of a likin’ to me. My ways always seem to suit Swedish people—after we git well acquainted I mean. The better Swedish people git acquainted with me the more they always seem to taken a likin’ to me. I ast a Swedish man oncet why it was he taken sech a likin’ to me and he says it was my ways. ‘It’s jest your ways, George,’ he says. ‘It’s because Swedish people like them ways you got, George,’ he says.” Here Tuttle laughed deprecatingly and added, “I guess he must ’a’ be’n right, though.”

Tilly made no response; she did not even glance at him, but continued gravely to eat her dinner. Then, presently, she said, without any emphasis: “I thought your name was Arthur.”

“What?”

“That pledge you signed,” Tilly said, still not looking at him, but going on with her dinner;—“ain’t it signed Arthur T. De Morris?”

For the moment Mr. Tuttle was a little demoralized, but he recovered himself, coughed, and explained. “Yes, that’s my _name_,” he said. “But you take the name George, now, it’s more kind of a nickname I have when anybody gits real well acquainted with me like this Swedish man I was tellin’ you about; and besides that, it was up in _Dee_-troit. Most everybody I knowed up in _Dee_-troit, they most always called me George fer a nickname like. You know anybody in _Dee_-troit?”

“No.”

“Married?” Tuttle inquired.

“No.”

“Never be’n?” he said.

“No.”

“Well, now, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically. “It ain’t the right way to live. I’m a widower myself, and I ain’t never be’n the same man since I lost my first wife. She was an Irish lady from Chicago.” He sighed; finished the slice of lemon pie Tilly had given him, and drank what was left of his large cup of coffee, holding the protruding spoon between two fingers to keep it out of his eye. He set the cup down, gazed upon it with melancholy, then looked again at the unresponsive Tilly.

She had charm for him; and his expression, not wholly lacking a kind of wistfulness, left no doubt of it. No doubt, too, there fluttered a wing of fancy somewhere in his head: some picture of what might-have-been trembled across his mind’s-eye’s field of vision. For an instant he may have imagined a fireside, with such a competent fair creature upon one side of it, himself on the other, and merry children on the hearth-rug between. Certainly he had a moment of sentiment and sweet longing.

“You ever think about gittin’ married again?” he said, rather unfortunately.

“I told you I ain’t been married.”

“Excuse _me_!” he hastened to say. “I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean when I says ‘again’ I was thinkin’ about myself. I mean I was astin’ you: You think about gittin’ married at all?”

“No.”

“I s’pose not,” he assented regretfully; and added in a gentle tone: “Well, you’re a mighty fine-lookin’ woman; I never see no better build than what you got on you.”

Tilly went out and came back with Mrs. Pinney, who mystified him with her first words. “Well, De Morris?” she said.

“What?” he returned blankly, then luckily remembered, and said, “Oh, yes, ma’am?”

“I _hope_ you meant it when you signed that pledge, De Morris.”

“Why, lady, of course I did,” he assured her warmly. “If the truth must be told, I don’t never drink hardly at all, anyways. Now we got prohibition you take a poor man out o’ work, why where’s _he_ goin’ to git any liquor, lady? It’s only rich people that’s usually able to git any reel good stew on, these days, if I’m allowable to used the expression, so to speak. But that’s the unfairness of it, and it makes poor people ready to break out most anytime. Not that it concerns me, because I put all that behind me when I signed the pledge like you told me to. If the truth must be told, I was goin’ to sign the pledge some time back, but I kep’ kind o’ puttin’ it off. Well, lady, it’s done now, and I’m thankful fer it.”

“I do hope so, I’m sure,” Mrs. Pinney said earnestly. “And I want to help you; I’ll be glad to. You said you wanted some work.”

“Yes’m,” he said promptly, and if apprehension rose within him he kept it from appearing upon the surface. Behind Mrs. Pinney stood Tilly, looking straight at him with a frigid skepticism of which he was fully conscious. “Yes’m. Any honest work I can turn my hand to, that’s all I ast of anybody. I’d be glad to help wash the dishes if it’s what you had in your mind, lady.”

“No. But if you’ll come back to-morrow morning about nine or ten o’clock, I’ll give you two dollars for cutting the grass. It isn’t a _very_ large yard, and you can get through by evening.”

“I ain’t got no lawn-mower, lady.”