the next two or three nights were occasions for the interchange of confidence. during the days the new pals saw little of each other, and sometimes nothing at all. with the late afternoon they could "clean themselves," and take a little relaxation. for this there was no great range of opportunity. relaxation for lemuel honeybun had hitherto run in directions from which he now felt himself cut off. he knew of no others, while the boy knew of none of any kind.
"i tell yer, goody," tom overheard, through the open door of the room back of pappa's, one day while he was climbing the stairs, "i ain't a-goin' to go while i've got this job on me hands. the lord knows i didn't seek it. it's just one of them things that's give yer as a dooty, and i'm goin' to put it through. when quidmore's come back, and it's all over, i'll be right on the job with the old gang again; but till he does it's nix. yer can't mean to think that i don't miss the old bunch. why, i'd give me other eye...."
tom heard no more; but the tone of regret worried him. true, if he wanted to break the bond this might be his chance. on the other hand, the thought of being again without a friend appalled him. while waiting in the hope that quidmore might come back,
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the present arrangement was at least a cosy one. nevertheless, he felt it due to his spirit of independence to show that he could stand alone. he waited till they were again lying feet to feet by the wall, and the air through the open window was cool enough to allow of their being comfortable, before he felt able to take an offhand, man-to-man tone.
"you know, honey, if you want to beat it back to your old crowd, i can get along all right. don't hang round here on my account."
"lord love you, kiddy, i know how to sackerfice meself. if i'm to be yer next o' kin, i'll be it and be damned. done 'arder things than this in me life, and pulled 'em off, too. i'll stick to yer, kid, as long as yer wants me, if i never have another nice time in my life, and never see another quart bottle."
the pathos of the life for which he might be letting himself in turned his thoughts backward over his career.
"why, if i'd 'a stuck at not puttin' others before meself i might still 'a been a gasfitter in liverpool, eng. that's where i was born. true 'eart-of-oak englishman i was. some people thinks they can tell it in the way i talk. been over 'ere so long, though, seems to me i 'andle the yankee end of it pretty good. englishman i met the other day—steward on one of the cunarders he was—said he wouldn't 'a knowed me from a born new yorker. always had a gift for langwidges. used to know a frenchman onst; and i'll be 'anged if i wasn't soon parley-vooin' with him till he'd thought i was his mother's son. but it's doin' my dooty by others as has brought me
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where i am, and i don't make no complaint of it. job over at the gansevoort whenever i wants one, which ain't always. quite a tidy little sum in the savings bank in brooklyn. friends as'll stick by me as long as i'll stick by them. and if i hadn't lost me eye—but how was i to know that that low-down butler was a-layin' for me at the silver-pantry door, and' d let me have it anywhere he could 'it me?... and when that eyeball cracked, why, i yelled fit to bring the whole p'lice-force in new york right atop o' me."
tom was astounded. "but you said you lost your eye saving a young lady's life."
mr. honeybun's embarrassment lasted no more than the time needed for finding the right words.
"oh, did i? well, that was the other side of it. yer've heard that there's always two sides to a story, haven't yer? i can't tell yer both sides to onst, now can i?"
he judged it best, however, to revert to the autobiographical. the son of a dock hand in liverpool, he had been apprenticed to a gasfitter at the age of seventeen.
"but my genius was for somethink bigger. i didn't know just what it'd be, but i could see it ahead o' me, all wuzzy-like. after a bit i come to know it was to fight agin the lor o' proputty. used to seem to me orful to look around and see that everythink was owned by somebody. took to goin' to meetin's, i did. found out that me and me class was the uninherited. 'gord,' i says to meself then, 'i'll inherit somethink, or i'll bust all liverpool.' well, i did
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inherit somethink—inherited a good warm coat what a guy had left to mark his seat in the midland station. got away with it, too. knowin' it was mine as much as his, i walks up and throws it over my arm. ten minutes later i was a-wearin' of it in lime street. that was the beginnin', and havin' started in, i begun to inherit quite a lot o' things. 'nothink's easier,' says i, 'onst you realizes that the soul o' man is free, and that nothink don't belong to nobody.' fightin' for me class, i was. tried to make 'em see as they ought to stop bein' the uninherited, and get a move on—and the first thing i know i was landed in walton jail. you're not asleep, kiddy, are you?"
not being asleep, tom came in for the rest of the narrative. released from walton jail, mr. honeybun had "made tracks" for america.
"wanted to git away from a country where everythink was owned, and find the land o' the free. but free! lord love yer, i hadn't been landed a hour before i see everythink owned over 'ere as much as it is in a back'ard country like old england. let me tell you this, kid. any man that thinks that by comin' to america he'll git somethink for nothink'll find hisself sold. i ain't had nothink except what i've worked for—or collared. same old lor o' proputty what's always been a injustice to the pore. had to begin all over agin the same old game of fightin' it. but what's a few months in chokey when you're doin' it for yer feller creeters, to show 'em what their rights is?"
a few nights later tom was startled by a new point of view as to his position.
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"i've been thinkin', kiddy, that since yer used to be a state ward, yer'll have to be a state ward agin, if the state knows you're knockin' round loose."
the boy cried out in alarm. "oh, but i won't be. i'll kill myself first."
he could not understand this antipathy, this horror. in a mechanical way the state had been good to him. the tollivants had been good to him, too, in the sense that they had not been unkind. but he could not return to the status. it was the status that dismayed him. in harfrey it had made him the single low-caste individual in a prim and high-caste world, giving everyone the right to disdain him. they couldn't help disdaining him. they knew as well as he did that in principle he was a boy like any other; but by all the customs of their life he was a little pariah. herding with thieves and murderers, it was still possible to respect himself; but to go back and hang on to the outer fringe of the organized life of a christian society would have ravaged him within. he said so to honeybun energetically.
"that's the way i figured that yer'd feel. so long as you're on'y waitin'—or yer can say that you're on'y waitin'—till yer pop comes back, it won't matter much. it'll be when school begins that it'll go agin yer. there's sure to be some pious woman sneepin' round that'll tell someone as you're not in school when you're o' school age, and then, me lad, yer'll be back as a state ward on some down-homer's farm."
tom lashed the bed in the darkness. "i won't go! i won't go!"
"that's what i used to say the first few times they
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pinched me; but yer'll jolly well have to go if they send yer. now what i was thinkin' is this. it's in new york state that yer'd be a state ward. if you was out o' this state there'd be all kinds o' laws that couldn't git yer back again. onst when i'd been doin' a bit o' socializin' in new jersey, and slipped back to manhattan—well, you wouldn't believe the fuss it took to git me across the river when the p'lice got wind it was me. never got me back at all! thing died out before they was able to fix up all the coulds and couldn'ts of the lor."
he allowed the boy to think this over before going on with his suggestion.
"now if you and me was to light out together to another state, they wouldn't notice that we'd gone before we was safe beyond their clutches. if we was to go to boston, say! boston's a good town. i worked boston onst, me and a chap named...."
the boy felt called on to speak. "i wouldn't be a socialist, not if it gave me all boston for my own."
the statement, coming as it did, had the vigor of an ultimatum. though but a repetition of what he had said a few days before, it was a repetition with more force. it was also with more significance, fundamentally laying down a condition which need not be discussed again.
after long silence mr. honeybun spoke somewhat wistfully. "well, i dunno as i'd count that agin yer. i sometimes thinks as i'll quit bein' a socialist meself. seems to me as if i'd like to git back with the old gang, and be what they calls a orthodock. you know what a orthodock is, don't yer?"
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"it's a kind of religion, isn't it?"
"it ain't so much a kind of religion as it's a kind o' way o' thinkin'. you're a orthodock when you don't think at all. them what ain't got no mind of their own, what just believes and talks and votes and lives the way they're told to, they're the orthodocks. it don't matter whether it's religion or politics or lor or livin', the people who don't know nothink but just obeys other people what don't know nothink, is the kind that gits into the least trouble."
"yes, but what do you want to be like that for? you have got a mind of your own."
"well, there's a good deal to be said, kiddy. first there's you."
"oh, if it's only me...."
"yes, but when i'm yer next o' kin it isn't on'y you; it's you first and last. i got to bring you up an orthodock, if i'm going to bring you up at all. yer can't think for yerself yet. you're too young. stands to reason. why, i was twenty, and very near a trained gasfitter, before i'd begun thinkin' on me own. what yer does when yer're growed up'll be no concern o' mine. but till you are growed up...."
tom had heard of quicksands, and often dreamed that he was being engulfed in one. he had the sensation now. circumstances having pushed him where he would not have ventured of his own accord, the treacherous ground was swallowing him up. he couldn't help liking honey lem, since he liked everyone in the world who was good to him; he was glad of his society in these lonely nights, and of the sense of his comradeship in the background even in the day;
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but between this gratitude and a lifelong partnership he found a difference. there were so many reasons why he didn't want permanent association with this fairy godfather, and so many others why he couldn't find the heart to tell him so! he was casting about for a method of escape when the fairy godfather continued.
"this 'ere socialism is ahead of its time. people don't understand it. it don't do to be ahead o' yer time, not too far ahead, it don't. now i figure out that if i was to go back a bit, and git in among them orthodocks, i might do 'em good like. could explain to 'em. i ain't sure but what i've took the wrong way, showin' 'em first, and explainin' to 'em afterwards. now if i was to stop showin' 'em at all, and just explain to 'em, why, there'd be folks what when i told 'em that nothink don't belong to nobody they'd git the 'ang of it. begins to seem to me as if i'd done me bit o' sufferin' for the cause. seen the inside o' pretty near every old jug round new york. it's aged me. but if i was to sackerfice me opinions, and make them orthodocks feel as i was one of 'em, i might give 'em a pull along like."
the next day being sunday, they slept late into the morning. in the afternoon honey lem had a new idea. without saying what it was, he took the boy to walk through fourteenth street, till they reached fifth avenue. here they climbed to the top of an electric bus going northward, and tom had a new experience. except for having crossed it in the market lorry, in the dimness and emptiness of dawn, this stimulating thoroughfare was unknown to him.
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even on a sunday afternoon in summer, when shops were shut, residences closed, and saunterers relatively few, it added a new concept to those already in his mental possession. it was that of magnificence. these ornate buildings, these flashing windows, these pictures, jewels, flowers, fabrics, furnishings, did more than appeal to his eye. they set free a function of his being that had hitherto been sealed. the first atavistic memory of which he had ever been aware was consciously in his mind. somewhere, perhaps in some life before he was born, rich and beautiful things had been his accessories. he had been used to them. they were not a surprise to him now; they came as a matter of course. to see them was not so much a discovery as it was a return to what he had been accustomed to. he was thinking of this, with an inward grin of derision at himself for feeling so, when honey went back to the topic of the night before.
"the reason i said boston is because they've got that great big college there. if i'm to bring yer up, i'll have to send yer to college."
the opening was obvious. "but, honey, you don't have to bring me up."
"how can i be yer next o' kin if i don't bring ye' up, a young boy like you? be sensible, kiddy. yer ch'ice is between me and the state, and i'd be a lot better nor that, wouldn't i? the state won't be talkin' o' sendin' yer to college, mind that now."
there was no controverting the fact. as a state ward, he would not go to college, and to college he meant to go. if he could not go by one means he must
[pg 179]
go by another. since honey would prove a means of some sort, he might be obliged to depend on him.
the bus was bowling and lurching up the slope by which fifth avenue borders the park, when honey rose, clinging to the backs of the neighboring seats. "we'll git out at the next corner."
having reached the ground, he led the way across the street, scanning the houses opposite.
"there it is," he said, with choked excitement, when he had found the façade he was looking for. "that big brown front, with the high steps, and the swell bow-winders. that's where the whitelaw baby used to live."
face to face with the spot, tom felt a flickering of interest. he listened with attention while honey explained how the baby carriage had for the last time been lifted down by two footmen, and how it was wheeled away by the nurse.
"nash, her name was. i seen her come out one day, when goody and me was standin' 'ere. nice little thing she seemed, english, same as i be. yes, goody and me'd sniggle and snaggle ourselves every which way to see how we could cook up a yarn that'd ketch on to some o' that money. we sure did read the papers them days! there wasn't nothink about the whitelaw baby what we didn't know. now, if yer've looked long enough at the 'ouse, kid, i'll show yer somethink else."
they went into the park by the same little opening through which the whitelaw baby had passed, not to return. like a detective reconstructing the action of a crime, he followed the path miss nash had taken,
[pg 180]
almost finding the marks of the wheels in the gravel. going round the shoulder of a little hill, they came to a fan-shaped elm, in the shade of which there was a seat. beyond the seat was a clump of lilac, so grouped as to have a hollow like a horseshoe in its heart, with a second seat close by. honey revived the scene as if he had witnessed it. miss nash had sat here; her baby carriage had stood there. the other nurse, name o' miss messenger, had put her baby beneath the elm, and taken her seat where she could watch it. all he was obliged to leave out was the actual exchange of the image for the baby, which remained a mystery.
"this 'ere laylock bush ain't the same what was growin' 'ere then. that one was picked down, branch by branch, and carried off for tokens. had a sprig of it meself at one time. i always thinks them little memoriums is instructive. i recolleck there was a man 'anged in liverpool, and the 'angman, a friend of my guv'nor's, give me a bit of the chap's shirt, what he'd left in his cell when he changed to a clean one to be 'anged in. well, i kep' that bit o' shirt for years. always reminded me not to murder no one. wish i had it now. funny it'd be, wouldn't it, if you turned out to be the whitelaw baby? he'd a' been just about your age."
tom threw himself sprawling on the seat where miss nash had read juliet allingham's sin, and laughed lazily. "i couldn't be, because his name was harry, and mine's tom."
"oh, a little thing like that wouldn't invidiate your claim."
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"but i haven't got a claim. you don't suppose my mother stole me, do you? that's the very thing she used to tell me not to...."
the laugh died on his lips. as honey stood looking down at him there was a light in his blue-gray eye like the striking of a match. tom knew that the same thought was in both their minds. why should a woman have uttered such a warning if she had not been afraid of a suspicion? a flush that not only reddened his tanned cheeks, but mounted to the roots of his bushy, horizontal eyebrows, made him angry with himself. he sprang to his feet.
"look here, honey! aren't there animals in this park? let's go and find them."
to his relief, honey pressed no question as to his mother and stolen babies as they went off to the zoo.
