eugene had faithfully promised the sergeant that he would go for a walk in the park the next morning, and there the sergeant accordingly met him at eleven o’clock.
the boy was strolling along the southern part of the fens; and as he halted near the agassiz bridge, the sergeant caught up with him.
“good-morning,” he said cheerily. “where’s your nurse with the good name to-day?”
“good-morning,” said eugene with a bright look at him. “virtue ann had sweeping to do; and she says that i am now sufficiently old to go out unattended, though it is not the custom to do so in my country until one is older.”
“you’re big enough to go alone,” said the sergeant. “we think here that it makes a[pg 70] mollycoddle of a boy to have some one at his heels watching him all the time. have you paid your respects to john o’reilly this morning?”
“no; i have just arrived from home. i shall go there later.”
“no news from france yet i suppose?”
“oh, no! it is not time.”
“well, you’ll have to wait. there’s nothing like patience in this life. don’t you want to come down this path with me, and see the rest of my colony of cats? this is where they live.”
“it will give me great pleasure,” said eugene.
the sergeant turned abruptly from the road to a shady path leading to a duck-pond. stationing himself midway in it, he gave a whistle that eugene noticed was quite different from his call for king boozy.
the boy stood aside; and presently he saw little gray heads peeping cautiously from between the leaves, and heard a number of timid voices giving tentative mews of welcome.
cats
then the cats came fast enough, young and old, gay and sober.
[pg 71]
“it isn’t feeding-time,” said the sergeant; “when it is they just tumble over each other to get to me,—and they’re a little afraid of you.”
eugene drew still farther back; and then the cats came fast enough,—young and old, gay and sober ones, purring contentedly and waving their tails, as they circled in and out about the sergeant, and jumped up to rub themselves against him.
“those are sisters,” said the sergeant, indicating two young gray pussies who were walking about with tails held proudly aloft; “and that is the old mother, the queen of the gang,” he added, laughing at an austere maltese cat who was cuffing the ears of a kitten; “she makes them stand round.”
eugene addressed a complimentary remark to the maltese cat, who stared at him suspiciously from eyes that looked like white currants in the strong light of the sun.
“you can’t deceive her,” said the sergeant, as the cat turned away from eugene to join the band about their patron. “she knows you[pg 72] don’t like her. you can fool a human being quicker than you can an animal; and an animal won’t lie as often as a human being, though they will do it sometimes. you needn’t try to catch them, little one,” he went on, addressing a child who came suddenly racing down a path; “they won’t let any one but the park police lay a hand on them.”
every cat had disappeared at the advent of the child, and with a disappointed face she went back the way she had come.
“would you like to see the cats’ winter bedfellows?” said the sergeant, addressing eugene.
“i should like it remarkably well,” said the boy; and he followed the sergeant to the duck-pond.
on arriving there the sergeant gave a third variety of whistle, and a host of glossy creatures rushed ashore, quacking and gabbling reproachfully at their friend, who stood merely looking at them without offering them food.
“they’re annoyed with me,” he said; and he laughed, as the ducks one and all struck[pg 73] the ground sharply with their beaks, and turning their backs on him filed into the pond.
“you greedy things,” he went on; “your thoughts don’t get much higher than good living, though you’re pretty kind to the cats in winter. do you know ducks and cats all sleep together after it gets cold?”
“really!” ejaculated eugene. “is that a possible thing?”
“yes,” said the sergeant; “they sleep in boxes filled with hay. my wife says it is ‘sweet’ to see the ducklings and kittens brought up together. she has a very kind heart for animals, has my wife.”
“i can well imagine that mrs. hardy is always kind,” said eugene.
the sergeant glanced at him sharply. the boy spoke in the tones of ordinary politeness, not warmly by any means.
“do you keep no pigeons?” eugene went on.
“yes, a few,” said the sergeant.
“and where is the place that they live,—the pigeonnier, as one says in france?”
[pg 74]
“in the top of the duck-house. they have no house of their own.”
“in france nearly every country house has a pigeonnier,” said eugene.
“we’ll get one here in time,” said the sergeant. “now, if you want to inspect the rest of my menagerie, let us go back to the bridge.”
“what have you there?” asked eugene as they paced slowly up the path.
“a flock of twenty-one geese. see, there they are out on the marshes. hello, they’re having a quarrel with the wild geese.”
“have you wild ones also?”
“a few only. hear how they’re screaming. what tempers! i’ll whistle, and perhaps i’ll catch their attention.”
the sergeant whistled in vain. the wind was blowing over the marshes, and the geese were too much engaged in their dispute to heed his voice that only reached them faintly.
“they remind me of the prairie fowl out west,” said the sergeant. “they were mighty fond of dancing round each other, but they always wound up with a row. now, i haven’t[pg 75] anything more to show you this morning. i believe i’ll walk up boylston street way with you a bit. come over some feeding-time to see these creatures. they’re more interesting then. don’t bring your nurse, though, down here. these cats just hate women.”
“for the same reason that the king does?” asked eugene.
“yes; they’ve mostly been turned out-of-doors by women, and they don’t forget it. i’m sorry it’s so, for i am fond of women myself; but animals, and cats especially, don’t forget an injury; that is, the most of them don’t. they’re very like us, some forgive and some don’t; and they’re just as full of contradictions as we are. some of them will put up with things from the few people they like best that they won’t put up with from a stranger. for instance, a dog will let his master cuff him round, when he’d bite a stranger that would lay a finger on him. that’s just the way we are with our own families. my wife and i will take things from each other that we wouldn’t from other people. by the way,[pg 76] there are some fine boys coming along that i’d like to introduce you to. do you see them? that is a grand fellow, that one with the foot-ball under his arm.”
eugene shrank back, and made a gesture of dissent.
“you’ll like them,” said the sergeant earnestly; and before eugene could speak he had addressed the boys, who halted before him.
“we are going to run races on the long path,” said one of them.
“you ought to cut over the ground like a north dakota jack-rabbit,” said the sergeant turning to eugene.
the french lad tried to speak, but could not. he had so long been cut off from the society of other boys that getting among them again was like taking a plunge into a cold bath. however, one boy, to whom the sergeant nodded in a significant way, took eugene under his protection; and with unconcealed delight the sergeant stood watching the round dozen of them kick up their heels, and scamper over the level road toward their racing-ground.
[pg 77]
eugene, to the sergeant’s pride, kept up with the best of them. “he is long and lean, just like a greyhound,” muttered the man as he went contentedly on his tour of inspection through the park; “but he looks a little underfed. i wish he could get some of bess’s roast beef occasionally.”
when the sergeant went home to his dinner at one o’clock, he told his wife about meeting eugene.
“i’m glad you sent him to play,” she said. “his nurse has been here, and we were talking about him. it’s a shame to have the child so like an old man.”
“yes; it is,” said the sergeant absently. “what have you got for dinner, bess? i’m fearfully hungry, and i smell something good.”
“steak and onions and apple-pie,” said his wife. “stephen, i want that boy.”
“you want that boy!” said her husband in a dazed manner. “what do you mean?”
“just exactly what i say,” she replied with great composure. “i want him to come here. his nurse has heard of a good situation, and[pg 78] it is too bad to keep her on there living with him when they have so little money.”
her husband sat down to the table, and began to carve the steak. “bess,” he said remonstratingly, “you couldn’t get him here—that little thoroughbred, proud fellow. he looks down on us.”
“why does he look down on us?” asked mrs. hardy.
“well, i guess he thinks we don’t belong to the aristocracy.”
“aren’t you as good a man as there is in this city?” asked mrs. hardy earnestly.
“i shouldn’t wonder if i am,” said the sergeant with great complacency, “though i might be better than i am. but, bess, you don’t understand.”
“i understand this much,” she said. “here is a lonely child in a big city, without a soul but a poor ignorant nurse to look after him. if you take him by force, and put him somewhere where he doesn’t want to go, he’ll pine to death. if we can coax him here, and make him happy till something is arranged”—
[pg 79]
“that’s all very fine,” said the sergeant; “i see what you’re after, bess. you’ve taken a great fancy to that boy. you’ll get him here, and fall to petting him; then, when he’s sent for to go to france, you’ll break your heart.”
“i don’t believe he will ever be sent for,” said mrs. hardy calmly.
the sergeant laid aside his knife and fork, and brought his hand down on the table. “now understand, bess, once for all, i’m not going to bring up other people’s children. if i had a son of my own it would be different. how do we know how this little shaver will turn out? his head is crammed full of notions, and he thinks no more of telling a lie than i do of telling the truth.”
“some one has to bring him up,” said mrs. hardy; “and he only tells stories out of politeness. he will get over it.”
“i told you before that he’s different from us,” said the sergeant irritably. “don’t tease, bess.”
“no, i won’t, stephen,” she said quietly; “perhaps you are right, only”—
[pg 80]
“only what?” asked her husband.
“only i’m lonely here all day without you,” she said in a low voice.
“will you give me a cup of tea?” asked her husband. “you’re not crying, are you?” he went on suspiciously.
“no, stephen; i cried enough last night to last me for a long time.”
“you don’t usually have a crying-spell oftener than once in six weeks,” he remarked with assumed cheerfulness. “i guess some one will look out for that boy. i daresay there are lots of rich people in this city that would adopt him if they knew what a grand family he comes of.”
“rich people aren’t as kind as poor ones, stephen, you know that.”
“yes, i do,” he said warmly. “i notice it isn’t the best-dressed people that give nickels to the beggars in the streets. it’s the shabby woman that takes out her purse when she passes some poor wretch. she’s been there, or near enough to pity—not that i approve of encouraging begging,” he added in an official manner.
[pg 81]
“it must be terrible not to have enough to eat,” said mrs. hardy with a shudder.
the sergeant shuddered too. “bess,” he said, “it’s easy enough to say that, but not one person in a million can feel it. most people haven’t the slightest idea what starvation is. i’ve told you about my getting lost out west on the plains. all the man went out of me two days after we ate our last bite of food. i was nothing but a beast. i could have eaten you if you had been there. the pain and the sickness and the dreams of food were awful, and for weeks after we were found i could digest only the simplest things. do you suppose that boy ever goes hungry?”
“meat is rather expensive in boston,” said mrs. hardy. “i think by what the girl says they don’t get much of that.”
the sergeant finished his dinner in silence; and in silence he buckled on his belt, and took his helmet and went to the front door. then he came back again.
“bess,” he said gruffly, “you said last night what a good husband i’d been to you.”
[pg 82]
“yes, stephen,” she replied; “and i say it again, now and always, and i don’t care who hears me.”
“well, you’ve been a good wife to me,” he returned; “and i don’t care who hears me say it, either. get that boy here if you like—maybe it is a good move. we’re always having to do things in the dark in this life, and then some way or other light shines on us; but bess”—and he hesitated, and looked at her from under drooping eyelids as shyly as if he were a boy himself.
she went up quickly to him, and laid a hand on his broad chest. “i know what you want to say, stephen, you are jealous; you are afraid i’ll think more of that little boy than i do of you.”
“that’s about the figure of it,” he replied.
“aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she said, “not only to mention such a thing to me, but to dare to think it to yourself. you a big, strong man to be jealous of that little delicate lad. you know just as well as i do why i like him.”
[pg 83]
the sergeant’s face cleared. “you like him for the same reason that you like the cats,” he said. “he’s been cast out, and he hasn’t any one to take an interest in him. well, pet him all you like, and have him here if you can get him, i don’t care;” and the sergeant serenely kissed her, and then wended his way back to the park.
