he himself found something to hush up when he recounted the incident to honey in the evening. he told of meeting mrs. danker's niece on the ice-coated hill, and helping her down to the door. of his sensations as she clung to him he said nothing. he said nothing of the kiss in the dark hallway. during the rest of the evening, and after he had gone to bed, he wondered why. they all hushed these things up, and he did as the rest; but what was the basic reason?
as his first emotional encounter the subject was sufficiently in his mind next day to make him duller than usual at school. on his way home from school it so preoccupied his thought that he forgot to look for the fat boy. it was the fat boy who first saw him, hailing him as he approached. there was already between them that acceptance of each other which is the first stage of friendship.
"what's your name?"
"tom whitelaw. what's yours?"
"guy ansley. how old are you?"
"sixteen. how old are you?"
"i'm sixteen, too. what's your father do?"
"i haven't got a father. i live with—" it was difficult to explain—"with a man who kind o' takes care of me."
"a guardian?"
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"something like that. what does your father do?"
"he's a corporation lawyer. makes big money, too." as tom began to move along the fat boy went with him, keeping step. "what's your guardian do?"
"he does anything that'll give him a job. mostly he's a stevedore."
"what's a stevedore? sounds as if it had something to do with bull-fighting."
"it's a longshoreman. he loads and unloads ships."
they stopped at the corner of pinckney street the puffy countenance fell. tom could follow his companion's progression of bewilderments.
"where do you live?"
"i live in grove street."
it was the minute of suspense. all had been confessed. the countenance that had fallen went absolutely blank. to himself the tall, proud, sensitive lad was saying that his future life was staked on the response the fat boy chose to make. if he showed signs of wriggling out of an embarrassing situation he, tom whitelaw, would range himself forever with the enemies of the rich.
the fat boy spoke at last.
"so you're that kind of fellow."
"yes, i'm that kind of fellow."
this was mere marking time. the decision was still to come. it came with an air on the fat boy's part of heroic resolution.
"well, i don't care."
tom breathed again, breathed with bravado. "neither do i."
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in the stress of so much big-heartedness the girlish voice became a croak. "i know guys who think that if another guy isn't rich they must treat him as so much dirt. i'm not that sort. i'm democratic. i wouldn't turn down a fellow just because he lived in grove street. if i liked him i'd stick to him. i'm not snobbish. how do you know you couldn't give him a peg up, and he'd be grateful to you all his life?"
thinking this over afterward, tom found it hard to disengage the bitter from the sweet; but he had not much chance to think it over. any spare minute he found pre-empted by maisie danker, who seemed to camp in the dark hallway. if she was not there when he entered, she appeared before he could go upstairs. the ice having melted in the street, she had other needs of protection, an errand to do in the crowded region of bowdoin square, a shop to visit across the common which was so wide and lonesome in winter twilights, a dance hall to locate in case they ever made up their minds to visit it. she was always timid, clinging, laughing, adorable. the embodiment of gayety, she made him gay, which was again a new sensation. never before had he felt young as he felt young with her. the minutes they spent swamped in the throngs of the lighted streets, between five and seven on a winter's afternoon, were his first minutes of escape from a world of care. care had been his companion since he could remember anything; and now his companion was this exquisite thing, all lightsomeness and joy.
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he was later than usual in returning from school one afternoon, because a teacher had given him a commission to carry out which took some two hours of his time. as it had sent him toward the south end of the city, he had the common to traverse on his way home. snow had recently fallen; but through the main avenues under the trees the paths had been cleared. on the frog pond the drifts had been swept up, so that there could be a little skating. as tom passed by he could hear the scraping and grinding of skates, and the hoarse shouts of hobbledehoys. at any other time he would have stopped, either to look on peacefully, or to take part in some bit of free-for-all, rough-and-tumble skylarking in the snow. but maisie might be waiting. she might even have given up waiting, which would take all his pleasure from the afternoon.
to reach home more quickly he followed a short cut, scarcely shoveled out, on the slope of the common below beacon hill. here there were no foot passengers but himself. neither, for some little distance, were there any trees. there was only the white shroud of the snow, freezing to a crust. a misty moon drifted through a tempest of scudding clouds, while wherever in the offing there was a group of elms the electric lights danced through their tossing branches as if they were wind-blown lanterns.
in spite of his hurry, the boy came to a standstill. it was a minute at which to fancy himself lost in moosonee or labrador. his voyageur guides had failed him; his dog team had run away; his pemmican—he supposed it would be pemmican—had given out. he
[pg 202]
was homeless, starving, abandoned, alone but for the polar bears.
it was not a polar bear that he saw come floundering down the hillside, but it might have been a black one. it was certainly black; its nature was certainly animal. it rolled and tumbled and panted and grunted, and now and then it moaned. for a few minutes it remained stationary, with internal undulations; then it scrambled a few paces, as an elephant might scramble whose feet had been sawn off. a dying mammoth would also have emitted just these raucous groans.
suddenly it squealed. the squeal was like that of a pig when the knife is thrust into its throat. it was girlish, piercing, and yet had a masculine shriek in it. tom whitelaw knew what was happening. it had happened to himself so often in the days when he was different from other boys that his fists seemed to clench and his feet to spring before his mind had given the command. in clearing the fifty odd yards of snow between him and the wallowing monster, he chose a form of words which young hooligans would understand as those of authority.
"what in hell are yez doin' to that kid? are yez puttin' a knife in him? leave him be, or i'll knock the brains out of every one of yez."
he was in among them, laying about him before they knew what had landed in their midst. they were not brutal youngsters; they were only jocose in the manner of their kind. having spied the fat boy coming down to watch the skating, it was as natural for them to jump on him as it would be for a pack of
[pg 203]
dogs who chanced to see a sloth. with the courage of the mob, and also with its rapidity of thought-transfer, they had closed in silently and rushed him. he was on his back in a second. in a second they were clambering all over him. when he staggered to his feet they let him run, only to catch him and pull him down again. so staggering, so running, so coming down like a lump of jelly in the snow, he had reached the top of the hill, his tormentors hanging to him as if their teeth were in his flesh, at the minute when tom first perceived the black mass.
the fat boy had not lacked courage. he had fought. that is, he had kicked and bitten and scratched, with the fury of vicious helplessness. he had not cried for mercy. he had not cried out at all. he had struggled for breath; he had nearly strangled; but his pantings and gruntings were only for breath just as were theirs. strong in spite of his unwieldiness, he was not without the moral spunk which can perish at a pinch, but will not give in.
none of them had struck him. that would have been thought cowardly. they had only plastered him with snow, in his mouth, in his ears, in his eyes, and down below his collar. this he could have suffered, still without a plea, had not their play become fiercer. they began to tear open his clothing, to wrench it off the buttons. they stuffed snow inside his waistcoat, inside his shirt, inside his trousers. he was naked to the cold. and yet it was not the cold that drew from him that piglike squeal; it was the indignity. he was guy ansley, a rich man's son, in his native sanctified
[pg 204]
old boston a young lordling; but these muckers had mauled the last rag of honor out of him.
they were good-natured little demons, with no more notion of his tragedy than if he had been a snowman. as soon as the strapping young giant had leaped in among them, they ran off with screams of laughter. most of them were tired of the fun in any case; a few lingered at a distance to "call names," but even they soon disappeared. tom could only help the lumbering body to its feet.
cleaning him of snow was more difficult, and since it was melting next his skin, it had to be done at once. the shirt and underclothing being wet, and a keen wind blowing, his teeth were soon chattering. even when buttoned tightly in his outer clothes he was dank and clammy within. it helped him a little that tom should strip off his own overcoat and exchange with him; but nothing could really warm him till he got into his own bed.
they would have run all of the short distance to louisburg square only that young ansley was not a runner at any time, and at this time was exhausted. tom could only drag him along as a dead weight. except for the brief observations necessary to what they had to do, they hardly spoke a word. speech was nearly impossible. the only aim of importance was covering the ground.
the old manservant who admitted them in louisburg square went dumb with dismay. having brought his charge into the hall, tom was obliged to take the lead.
[pg 205]
"he's been tumbling in the snow. he's got wet. he may have caught a chill. better call his mother."
the fat boy spoke. "mother's in new york. so's father. here, pilcher, help me up to my room."
as the two went up the stairs, tom was left standing in the hall. a voice at the head of the stairs arrested his attention because it was a girl's. since knowing maisie danker, all girls' voices had begun to interest him. this voice was clear, silvery, peremptory, a little sharp, like the note of a crystal bell. pilcher explained something, whereupon the owner of the voice ran down. on the red carpet of the stairs, with red-damasked paper as a background, her white figure was spiritlike beneath a dim oriental hall light.
"i'm hildred ansley," she said, with a cool air of self-possession. "i see my brother's had an accident. pilcher is putting him to bed. i'm sure we're very much obliged to you."
she was only a child, perhaps fourteen, but a competent child, who knew what to say. not pretty, as maisie was, she had presence and personality. in this she was helped by her height, since she was tall, and would be taller, and more by her intelligence. it was the first time he had ever had occasion to observe that some faces were intelligent, though it was not quite easy to say why. "little miss ansley knows what's what," he commented silently, but aloud he said that if he were in her place he would send for a doctor. though her brother had had no bones broken, he might easily have caught a bad cold.
"thank you! i'll do it at once."
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she made her way to a table, somewhat belittered with caps and gloves, behind the stairs, at the back of the hall. taking up the receiver, she called a number, politely and yet with a ring of command. while she was speaking he noticed his surroundings.
if to him they seemed baronial it was because his experience had been cramped. louisburg square is not baronial; it is only dignified. for the early nineteenth century its houses were spacious; for the early twentieth they are a little narrow, a little steep, a little lacking in imaginative outlet. but to tom whitelaw, with memories that went back to the tenements of new york, to whom the homes of the tollivants and the quidmores had meant reasonable comfort, who found the sharing of one room with george honeybun endurable, these walls with their red paper, these stairs with their red carpet, this lofty gloom, this sense of wealth, were all that he dreamed of as palatial.
when miss ansley returned from the telephone, he asked if he might have his overcoat. her brother had worn it upstairs on going to his room. "that's his," he explained, pointing to the soggy burberry he had thrown down on a carved settle.
"oh, certainly! i'll run up and get it. i won't ask you to go upstairs to the drawing-room; but if you don't mind taking a seat in here...."
throwing open the door of the dining room, which was on the ground floor, she switched on the light. tom entered and stood still. so this was the sort of place in which rich people took their meals!
it was a glow of rich gleaming lights, lights from mahogany, lights from silver, lights from porcelain.
[pg 207]
in the center of the table lay a round piece of lace, on which stood a silver dish with nothing in it. he knew without being told, though he had never thought of it before, that it needed nothing in it. there were things so beautiful as to fulfil their purpose merely in being beautiful. from above a black-marble mantelpiece a man looked down at him with jovial eyes, a man in a high collar and huge black neckerchief, who might have been the grandfather or great-grandfather of guy and hildred ansley. he had the fat good humor of the one and the bright intelligence of the other, the source in his genial self of types so widely different.
young miss ansley tripped in with the coat across her arm. "i'm sure my father and mother will want to thank you when they come back. guy's been very naughty. he's always forbidden to leave the square when he goes out of doors. he wouldn't have done it if papa and mamma hadn't been away. i can't make him mind me. but you must come back when everybody's here, so that you can be thanked properly. i suppose you live somewhere near us?"
tom found it easiest to answer indirectly. "your brother knows everything about me. i've seen him once or twice in the square, and i've told him who i am."
"that'll be very nice."
she held out her hand, and he accepted his dismissal. but before having closed the door behind him, he turned round to her as she stood under the oriental lamp.
"i hope your brother will soon be all right again.
[pg 208]
i think they ought to give him a hot drink. he's—he's got big stuff in him when you come to find it out. he'll make his way."
the transformation in her was electric. she ceased to be starched and competent, with a manner that put a thousand miles between him and her. the intelligence he had already noted in her face was aflame with a radiance beyond beauty.
"oh, i'm so glad you can say that! no one outside the family has ever said it before. he's a lamb!—and hardly anybody knows it."
she held out her hand again. as he took it he saw that her eyes, which he thought must be dark, were shining with a mist of tears.
going down the hill he repeated the two names: maisie danker! hildred ansley! they called up concepts so different that it was hard to think them of a common flesh. though maisie danker was a woman and hildred ansley but a child, there were points at which you could compare them. in the comparison the advantages lay so richly with the girl in louisburg square that he fell back on the fact, stressing it with emphasis, that maisie was the prettier. "after all," he reflected, with comfort in the judgment, "that's all that matters—to a man."
