life resumed itself next day as if there had been no dramatic interlude. proud of the scrap, as he named it, which had taken place in his room, guy made the best of it for all concerned. his version was tactful, hurting nobody's feelings. the trick on the old man was a merry one, and after a fight about its humor tad whitelaw and the whitelaw baby had run off together to let the old fellow out. spit castle's tapir nose had got badly hurt in the scrimmage, and bled all over the sofa. the splash of ink on the wall was further evidence that guy's room was a rendezvous of sports. but sports being sports the honors had been even on the whole, and no hard feeling left behind. tad and the whitelaw baby would now, guy predicted, be better friends.
but of that there was no sign. there was no sign of anything at all. when the whitelaw baby met the whitelaw baby's brother they passed in exactly the same way as heretofore. you would not have said that the one was any more conscious of the other than two strangers who pass in piccadilly or fifth avenue. in tad there was no show of resentment; in tom there was none of pride. as far as tom was concerned, there was only a humiliated sense of regret.
and then, in april, life again took another turn. coming back one day to his rooms, tom found a
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message requesting him to call a number which he knew to be mrs. danker's. his first thought was of maisie, with whom his letters had begun to be infrequent. mrs. danker told him, however, that honey had had an accident. it was a bad accident, how bad she didn't know. giving him the name of the hospital to which he had been taken, she begged him to go to him at once. after all the years they had lived with mrs. danker she considered them almost as relatives.
the hospital, near the foot of grove street, preserved the air of the sedate old boston of the middle nineteenth century. its low dome, its pillared façade, its grounds, its fine old trees, had been familiar to tom ever since he had lived on beacon hill. in less than an hour after ringing up mrs. danker he was in the office asking for news.
news was scanty. expecting everyone to understand what he meant to honey and honey meant to him, he had looked for the reception which friends in trouble and excitement give to the friend who brings his anxiety to mix with theirs. it would be, "oh, come in. poor fellow, he's suffering terribly. it happened thus and so." but to the interne in the office, a young man wearing a white jacket, honey was not so much as a name. his case was but one among other cases. a good many came in a day. in a week, or a month, or a year, there was no keeping account of them, except as they were registered. individual suffering was lost sight of in the immense amount of it. but the interne was polite, and said that if tom would sit down he would find out.
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among the hardest minutes tom had ever gone through were those in the little reception room. not only was there suspense; there was remorse. he had treated honey like a cad. he had never been decent to him. he had never really been grateful. there had never been a minute, in the whole of the nearly six years they had lived together, in which he had not been sorry, either consciously or subconsciously, at being mixed up with an ex-convict. it was the ex-convict he had always seen before he had seen the friend.
a second interne wearing a white jacket came to question him, to ask him who he was, and the nature of his business with the patient. if he was only a friend he could hardly expect to see him. the man was under opiates, he needed to be kept quiet.
"what's happened? what's the matter with him? i can't find out."
the interne didn't know exactly. he had been crushed. he was injured internally. the cause of the accident he hadn't heard.
"could i see his nurse?"
there was more difficulty about that, but in the end he was taken upstairs, where the nurse came out to the corridor to speak to him. she was a competent, businesslike woman, with none of the emotion at contact with pain which tom thought must be part of a nurse's equipment. but she could tell him nothing definite. not having been on duty when the case had been brought in, she had heard no more than the facts essential to what she had to do.
"do you think he'll die?"
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"you'd have to ask the doctor that. he's not dead now. that's about as much as i can say." at sight of the big handsome fellow's distress she partly relented. "you may come in and look at him. you mustn't try to speak to him."
he followed her into a long ward, with an odor of disinfectant. white beds, mostly occupied, lined each wall. here and there was one surrounded by a set of screens, partially secluding a sufferer. at one such set they stopped. through an opening between two screens tom was allowed to look at honey who lay with face upturned, and no sign of pain on the features. he slept as tom had seen him sleep hundreds of times when he expected to get up again next morning. the difference was in the expectation of getting up. blinded by tears, tom tiptoed away.
when he came next day the effect of the opiate had worn off, and yet not wholly. honey turned his head at his approach and smiled. sitting beside the bed, tom took the big, calloused hand lying outside the coverlet, and held it in his own relatively tender one. more than ever it was borne in on him at whose cost that tenderness had been maintained. honey liked to have his hand held. a part of the wall of aloofness with which he had kept himself surrounded seemed to have broken down.
a little incoherently he told what had happened. he had been stowing packing-cases in the hold of a big ship. the packing-cases were lowered by a crane. the crane as a rule was a good old thing, slow paced, gentle, safe. but this time something seemed to have gone wrong with her. though his
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back was turned, honey knew by the shadow above him that she was at her work. when he had got into its niche the case with which he was busy he would swing round and seize the new one. and then he heard a shout. it was a shout from the dock, and didn't disturb him. he was about to turn when something fell. it struck him in the back. it was all he knew. he thought he remembered the blow, but was not certain whether he did or not. when he "came to" he had already been moved to the shed, and was waiting for the ambulance. he seemed not to have a body any more. he was only a head, like one of them there angels in a picture, with wings beneath their chins.
he laughed at that, and with the laugh the nurse took tom away; but when he came back on the following day honey's mind was clearer.
"i've made me will long ago," he said, when tom had given him such bits of news as he asked for. "it's all legal and reg'lar. had a lawyer fix it up. never told yer nothink about it. everythink left to you."
"oh, honey, don't let us talk about that. you'll be up and around in a week or so."
"sure i'll be up and around. yer don't think a little thing like this is goin' to bust me. why, i don't feel 'ardly nothink, not below the neck. all the same, it can't do no harm for you to know what's likely to be what. if i was to croak, which i don't intend to, yer'd have about sixteen hundred dollars what i've saved to finish yer eddication on. the will is in the bottom of me trunk at danker's."
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on another day he said, "if anyone was to pop up and say i owed 'em that money, because i took it from 'em...."
he held the sentence there, leaving tom to wonder if he had thoughts of restitution, or possibly of repentance.
"i don't owe 'em nothink," he ended. "belonged to me just as much as it belonged to them. nothink don't belong to nobody. i never was able to figger it out just the way i wanted to, because i ain't never had no eddication; but gord's lor i believes it is. never could get the 'ang o' the lor o' man, not nohow."
to comfort him, tom suggested that perhaps when he got through college he might be able to take the subject up.
"i wouldn't bind yer to it, kiddy. tough job! why, when i give up socializin' to try and win over some o' them orthodocks i thought as they'd jump to 'ear me. not a bit of it! the more i told 'em that nothink didn't belong to nobody the more they said i was a nut."
having lain silent for a minute he continued, with that light in his face which corresponded to a wink of the blind eye: "i don't bind yer to nothink, kiddy. that's what i've always wanted yer to feel. you're a free boy. when i'm up and around again, and yer've got yer eddication, and have gone out on yer own, yer won't have me a-'angin' on yer 'ands. no, sir! i'll be off—free as a bird—back with the old gang again—and yer needn't be worried a-thinkin' i'll miss you—nor nothink!"
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it was a few days after this that the businesslike nurse who had first admitted him hinted that, if she were tom, honey would have a clergyman come to visit him. a few days more and it might be too late.
honey with a clergyman! it was something tom had never thought of. the incongruous combination made him smile. nevertheless, it was what people who were dying had—a clergyman come to visit them. if a clergyman could do honey any good....
"honey," he suggested, artfully, next day, "now that you're pinned to bed for awhile, and have got the time, wouldn't you like to see a clergyman sometimes, and talk things over?"
there was again that light in the face which took the place of a wink. "what things?"
tom was nonplussed. "well, i suppose, things about your soul."
"what'd a clergyman know about my soul? he might know about his own, but i know all about mine that i've got to know. 'tain't much—but it's enough."
tom was relieved. he didn't want to disturb honey by bringing in a stranger nor was he more sure than honey that any good could be done by it. he was more relieved still when honey explained himself further.
"do yer suppose i've come to where i am now without thinkin' them things out, when gord give me a genius for doin' it? i don't say i've did it as well as them as has had more eddication; but gord takes us with the eddication what we've got. eddication's a fine thing; i don't say contrairy; but i don't believe
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as it makes no diff'rence to gord. if you and me was before him—me not knowin' 'ardly nothink, and you stuffed as you are with learnin' till you're bustin' out with it—i don't believe as gord'd say as there was a pinch o' snuff between us—not to him there wouldn't be." a little wearily he made his confession of faith. "gord made me; gord knows me; gord'll take me just the way i am and make the best o' me, without no one else buttin' in."
it was the middle of an afternoon. if anything, honey was better. all spring was blowing in at the windows, while the trees were in april green, and the birds jubilant with the ecstasy of mating.
"beats everythink the way i dream," honey confided, in a puzzled tone. "always dreamin' o' my mother. haven't 'ardly thought of her these years and years. didn't 'ardly know her. died when i was a little kid; and yet...."
he lay still, smiling into the air. tom was glad to find him cheerful, reminiscent. never in all the years he had known him had honey talked so much of his early life as within the last few days.
"used to take us children into the country to see a sister she had livin' there.... little village in cheshire called king's clavering.... see that little cottage now.... thatched it was.... set a few yards back from the lane.... had flowers in the garden ... musk ... and poppies ... and london pride ... and canterbury bells ... and old
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man's love ... and cherry pie ... and raggedy jack ... and sailor's sweetheart ... funny how all them names comes back to me...."
again he lay smiling. tom also smiled. it was the first day he had had any hope. it was difficult not to have hope when honey was so free from pain, and so easy in his mind. as to pain he had not had much since the accident had benumbed him; but there had always been something he seemed to want to say. to-day he had apparently said everything, and so could spend the half-hour of tom's visit on memories of no importance.
"always had custard for tea, my mother's sister had. lord, how us young ones'd...."
the recollection brought a happy look. tom was glad. with pleasant thoughts honey would not have the wistful yearning in his eyes which he had turned on him lately whenever he went away.
"there was a hunt in cheshire. onst i saw a lord—a dook, i think he was—ridin' to 'ounds. sat his 'orse as if he was part of him, he did...."
this too died away without sequence, though the happy look remained. the smile grew rapt, distant perhaps, as memory took him back to long forgotten trifles. just outside the window a robin fluted in a tree.
honey turned his head slightly to say: "have i been asleep, kid?"
"no; you haven't had your eyes shut."
"oh, but i must have. couldn't dream if i was wide awake. i saw ma—just as plain as—" he recovered himself with a light laugh—"wouldn't it
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bust yer braces to 'ear me sayin' ma? but that's what us childern used to call...."
once more he turned in profile, lying still, silent, radiant, occupied. the robin sang on. tom looked at his watch. it was time for him to be stealing away. now that honey was better, he didn't mind going without a farewell, because he could explain himself next time. he was glancing about for the nurse when honey said, softly, casually, as if greeting an acquaintance:
"hello—ma!"
he lifted both hands, but they dropped back, heavily. tom, who had half risen, fell on his knees by the bedside, seizing the hand nearest him in both his own.
"honey! honey! speak to me!"
but honey's good eye closed gently, while the head sagged a little to one side. the robin was still singing.
two letters received within a few days gave tom the feeling of not being quite left alone.
dear mr. whitelaw
in telling you how deeply we feel for you in your great bereavement i wish i could make you understand how sincerely we are all your friends. i want to say this specially, as i know you have no family. family counts for much; but friends count for something too. it is george sand who says: "our relations are the friends given us by nature; our friends are the relations given us by god." will you not think of us in this way?—especially of guy and me. whenever you are lonely i wish you would turn
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to us, in thought at least, when it can't be in any other way. when it can be—our hearts will always be open.
very sincerely yours,
hildred ansley.
the other letter ran:
dear tom
now that you have got this great big incubous off your hands i should think you would try to do your duty by me and what you owe me. it seems to me i've been patient long enough. it is not as if you were the only peanut in the bag. there are others. i do not say this purposely. it is rung from me. i have done all i mean to do here, and will beat it whenever i get a good chance. i should think you would be educated by now. i graduated from high school at sixteen, and i guess i know as much as the next one. i've got a gentleman friend here, a swell fellow too, a travelling salesman, and he makes big money, and he says that if a fellow isn't hitting the world by fifteen he'll always be a quitter. think this over and let me know. with passionate love.
maisie.
