Lo, Michael!

by Grace Livingston Hill

Contents

“But, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.”

—DANIEL, 10:13.

Chapter I

“Hi, there! Mikky! Look out!”

It was an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding, straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the crowd. With his bundle of papers held high, and the late morning sunlight catching his tangle of golden hair, Mikky flung himself toward the little one. The sharp crack of a revolver from the opposite curbstone was simultaneous with their fall. Then all was confusion.

It was a great stone house on Madison Avenue where the crowd had gathered. An automobile stood before the door, having but just come quietly up, and the baby girl three years old, in white velvet, and ermines, with her dark curls framed by an ermine-trimmed hood, and a bunch of silk rosebuds poised coquettishly over the brow vying with the soft roses of her cheeks came out the door with her nurse for her afternoon ride. Just an instant the nurse stepped back to the hall for the wrap she had dropped, leaving the baby alone, her dark eyes shining like stars under the straight dark brows, as she looked gleefully out in the world. It was just at that instant, as if by magic, that the crowd assembled.

Perhaps it would be better to say that it was just at that minute that the crowd focused itself upon the particular house where the baby daughter of the president of a great defaulting bank lived. More or less all the morning, men had been gathering, passing the house, looking up with troubled or threatening faces toward the richly laced windows, shaking menacing heads, muttering imprecations, but there had been no disturbance, and no concerted crowd until the instant the baby appeared.

The police had been more or less vigilant all the morning but had seen nothing to disturb them. The inevitable small boy had also been in evidence, with his natural instinct for excitement. Mikky with his papers often found himself in that quarter of a bright morning, and the starry eyes and dark curls of the little child were a vision for which he often searched the great windows as he passed this particular house: but the man with the evil face on the other side of the street, resting a shaking hand against the lamp post, and sighting the baby with a vindictive eye, had never been seen there before. It was Mikky who noticed him first: Mikky, who circling around him innocently had heard his imprecations against the rich, who caught the low-breathed oath as the baby appeared, and saw the ugly look on the man’s face. With instant alarm he had gone to the other side of the street, his eye upon the offender, and had been the first to see the covert motion, the flash of the hidden weapon and to fear the worst.

But a second behind him his street companions saw his danger and cried out, too late. Mikky had flung himself in front of the beautiful baby, covering her with his great bundle of papers, and his own ragged, neglected little body; and receiving the bullet intended for her, went down with her as she fell.

Instantly all was confusion.

A child’s cry—a woman’s scream—the whistle of the police—the angry roar of the crowd who were like a pack of wild animals that had tasted blood. Stones flew, flung by men whose wrongs had smothered in their breasts and bred a fury of hate and murder. Women were trampled upon. Two of the great plate glass windows crashed as the flying missiles entered the magnificent home, regardless of costly lace and velvet hangings.

The chauffeur attempted to run his car around the corner but was held up at once, and discreetly took himself out of the way, leaving the car in the hands of the mob who swarmed into it and over it, ruthlessly disfiguring it in their wrath. There was the loud report of exploding tires, the ripping of costly leather cushions, the groaning of fine machinery put to torture as the fury of the mob took vengeance on the car to show what they would like to do to its owner.

Gone into bankruptcy! He! With a great electric car like that, and servants to serve him! With his baby attired in the trappings of a queen and his house swathed in lace that had taken the eyesight from many a poor lace-maker! He! Gone into bankruptcy, and slipping away scot free, while the men he had robbed stood helpless on his sidewalk, hungry and shabby and hopeless because the pittances they had put away in his bank, the result of slavery and sacrifice, were gone,—hopelessly gone! and they were too old, or too tired, or too filled with hate, to earn it again.

The crowd surged and seethed madly, now snarling like beasts, now rumbling portentously like a storm, now babbling like an infant; a great emotional frenzy, throbbing with passion, goaded beyond fear, desperate with need; leaderless, and therefore the more dangerous.

The very sight of that luxurious baby with her dancing eyes and happy smiles “rolling in luxury,” called to mind their own little puny darling, grimy with neglect, lean with want, and hollow-eyed with knowledge aforetime. Why should one baby be pampered and another starved? Why did the bank-president’s daughter have any better right to those wonderful furs and that exultant smile than their own babies? A glimpse into the depths of the rooms beyond the sheltering plate glass and drapery showed greater contrast even than they had dreamed between this home and the bare tenements they had left that morning, where the children were crying for bread and the wife shivering with cold. Because they loved their own their anger burned the fiercer; and for love of their pitiful scrawny babies that flower-like child in the doorway was hated with all the vehemence of their untamed natures. Their every breath cried out for vengeance, and with the brute instinct they sought to hurt the man through his child, because they had been hurt by the wrong done to their children.

The policeman’s whistle had done its work, however. The startled inmates of the house had drawn the beautiful baby and her small preserver within the heavy carven doors, and borne them back to safety before the unorganized mob had time to force their way in. Amid the outcry and the disorder no one had noticed that Mikky had disappeared until his small band of companions set up an outcry, but even then no one heard.

The mounted police had arrived, and orders were being given. The man who had fired the shot was arrested, handcuffed and marched away. The people were ordered right and left, and the officer’s horses rode ruthlessly through the masses. Law and order had arrived and there was nothing for the downtrodden but to flee.

In a very short time the square was cleared and guarded by a large force. Only the newspaper men came and went without challenge. The threatening groups of men who still hovered about withdrew further and further. The wrecked automobile was patched up and taken away to the garage. The street became quiet, and by and by some workmen came hurriedly, importantly, and put in temporary protections where the window glass had been broken.

Yet through it all a little knot of ragged newsboys stood their ground in front of the house. Until quiet was restored they had evaded each renewed command of officer or passer-by, and stayed there; whispering now and again in excited groups and pointing up to the house. Finally a tall policeman approached them:

“Clear out of this, kids!” he said not unkindly. “Here’s no place for you. Clear out. Do you hear me? You can’t stay here no longer:”

Then one of them wheeled upon him. He was the tallest of them all, with fierce little freckled face and flashing black eyes in which all the evil passions of four generations back looked out upon a world that had always been harsh. He was commonly known as fighting Buck.

“Mikky’s in dare. He’s hurted. We kids can’t leave Mick alone. He might be dead.”

Just at that moment a physician’s runabout drew up to the door, and the policeman fell back to let him pass into the house. Hard upon him followed the bank president in a closed carriage attended by several men in uniform who escorted him to the door and touched their hats politely as he vanished within. Around the corners scowling faces haunted the shadows, and murmured imprecations were scarcely withheld in spite of the mounted officers. A shot was fired down the street, and several policemen hurried away. But through it all the boys stood their ground.

“Mikky’s in dare. He’s hurted. I seen him fall. Maybe he’s deaded. We kids want to take him away. Mikky didn’t do nothin’, Mikky jes’ tried to save der little kid. Mikky’s a good’un. You get the folks to put Mikky out here. We kids’ll take him away.”

The policeman finally attended to the fierce pleading of the ragamuffins. Two or three newspaper men joined the knot around them and the story was presently written up with all the racy touches that the writers of the hour know how to use. Before night Buck, with his fierce black brows drawn in helpless defiance was adorning the evening papers in various attitudes as the different snapshots portrayed him, and the little group of newsboys and boot-blacks and good-for-nothings that stood around him figured for once in the eyes of the whole city.

The small band held their place until forcibly removed. Some of them were barefoot, and stood shivering on the cold stones, their little sickly, grimy faces blue with anxiety and chill.

The doctor came out of the house just as the last one, Buck, was being marched off with loud-voiced protest. He eyed the boy, and quickly understood the situation.

“Look here!” he called to the officer. “Let me speak to the youngster. He’s a friend, I suppose, of the boy that was shot?”

The officer nodded.

“Well, boy, what’s all this fuss about?” He looked kindly, keenly into the defiant black eyes of Buck.

“Mikky’s hurted—mebbe deaded. I wants to take him away from dare,” he burst forth sullenly. “We kids can’t go off’n’ leave Mikky in dare wid de rich guys. Mikky didn’t do no harm. He’s jes tryin’ to save de kid.”

“Mikky. Is that the boy that took the shot in place of the little girl?”

The boy nodded and looked anxiously into the kindly face of the doctor.

“Yep. Hev you ben in dare? Did youse see Mikky? He’s got yaller hair. Is Mikky deaded?”

“No, he isn’t dead,” said the physician kindly, “but he’s pretty badly hurt. The ball went through his shoulder and arm, and came mighty near some vital places. I’ve just been fixing him up comfortably, and he’ll be all right after a bit, but he’s got to lie very still right where he is and be taken care of.”

“We kids’ll take care o’ Mikky!” said Buck proudly. “He tooked care of Jinney when she was sick, an’ we’ll take care o’ Mikky, all right, all right. You jes’ brang him out an’ we’ll fetch a wheelbarry an’ cart him off’n yer han’s. Mikky wouldn’t want to be in dare wid de rich guys.”

“My dear fellow,” said the doctor, quite touched by the earnestness in Buck’s eyes, “that’s very good of you, I’m sure, and Mikky ought to appreciate his friends, but he’s being taken care of perfectly right where he is and he couldn’t be moved. It might kill him to move him, and if he stays where he is he will get well. I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he added as he saw the lowering distress in the dumb eyes before him, “I’ll give you a bulletin every day. You be here tonight at five o’clock when I come out of the house and I’ll tell you just how he is. Then you needn’t worry about him. He’s in a beautiful room lying on a great big white bed and he has everything nice around him, and when I came away he was sleeping. I can take him a message for you when I go in tonight, if you like.”

Half doubtfully the boy looked at him.

“Will you tell Mikky to drop us down word ef he wants annythin’? Will you ast him ef he don’t want us to git him out?”

“Sure!” said the doctor in kindly amusement. “You trust me and I’ll make good. Be here at five o’clock sharp and again tomorrow at quarter to eleven.”

“He’s only a slum kid!” grumbled the officer. “’Tain’t worth while to take so much trouble. ’Sides, the folks won’t want um botherin’ ’round.”

“Oh, he’s all right!” said the doctor. “He’s a friend worth having. You might need one yourself some day, you know. What’s your name, boy? Who shall I tell Mikky sent the message?”

“Buck,” said the child gravely, “Fightin’ Buck, they calls me.”

“Very appropriate name, I should think,” said the doctor smiling. “Well, run along Buck and be here at five o’clock.”

Reluctantly the boy moved off. The officer again took up his stand in front of the house and quiet was restored to the street.

Meantime, in the great house consternation reigned for a time.

The nurse maid had reached the door in time to hear the shot and see the children fall. She barely escaped the bullet herself. She was an old servant of the family and therefore more frightened for her charge than for herself. She had the presence of mind to drag both children inside the house and shut and lock the door immediately, before the seething mob could break in.

The mistress of the house fell in a dead faint as they carried her little laughing daughter up the stairs and a man and a maid followed with the boy who was unconscious. The servants rushed hither and thither; the housekeeper had the coolness to telephone the bank president what had happened, and to send for the family physician. No one knew yet just who was hurt or how much. Mikky had been brought inside because he blocked the doorway, and there was need for instantly shutting the door. If it had been easier to shove him out the nurse maid would probably have done that. But once inside common humanity bade them look after the unconscious boy’s needs, and besides, no one knew as yet just exactly what part Mikky had played in the small tragedy of the morning.

“Where shall we take him?” said the man to the maid as they reached the second floor with their unconscious burden.

“Not here, Thomas. Here’s no place for him. He’s as dirty as a pig. I can’t think what come over Morton to pull him inside, anyway. His own could have tended to him. Besides, such is better dead!”

They hurried on past the luxurious rooms belonging to the lady of the mansion; up the next flight of stairs, and Norah paused by the bath-room door where the full light of the hall windows fell upon the grimy little figure of the child they carried.

Norah the maid uttered an exclamation.

“He’s not fit fer any place in this house. Look at his cloes. They’ll have to be cut off’n him, and he needs to go in the bath-tub before he can be laid anywheres. Let’s put him in the bath-room, and do you go an’ call Morton. She got him in here and she’ll have to bathe him. And bring me a pair of scissors. I’ll mebbe have to cut the cloes off’n him, they’re so filthy. Ach! The little beast!”

Thomas, glad to be rid of his burden, dropped the boy on the bath-room floor and made off to call Morton.

Norah, with little knowledge and less care, took no thought for the life of her patient. She was intent on making him fit to put between her clean sheets. She found the tattered garments none too tenacious in their hold to the little, half-naked body. One or two buttons and a string were their only attachments. Norah pulled them off with gingerly fingers, and holding them at arm’s length took them to the bath-room window whence she pitched them down into the paved court below, that led to the kitchen regions. Thomas could burn them, or put them on the ash pile by and by. She was certain they would never go on again, and wondered how they had been made to hold together this last time.

Morton had not come yet, but Norah discovering a pool of blood under the little bare shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white bath-tub and turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time, and getting blood on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was not unkind but she hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one arm she applied herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with the other hand. The shock of the water, not being very warm at first, brought returning consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long shuddering sigh. The eyelashes trembled for an instant on the white cheeks, and his eyes opened; gazed dazedly, then wildly, on the strange surroundings, the water, and the vigorous Irish woman who had him in her power. He threw his arms up with a struggling motion, gasped as if with sudden pain and lost consciousness again, relaxing once more into the strong red arm that held him. It was just at this critical moment that Morton entered the bath-room.

Morton was a trim, apple-cheeked Scotch woman of about thirty years, with neat yellow-brown hair coiled on the top of her head, a cheerful tilt to her freckled nose, and eyes so blue that in company with her rosy cheeks one thought at once of a flag. Heather and integrity exhaled from her very being, flamed from her cheeks, spoke from her loyal, stubborn chin, and looked from her trustworthy eyes. She had been with the bank president’s baby ever since the little star-eyed creature came into the world.

“Och! look ye at the poor wee’un!” she exclaimed. “Ye’re hurtin’ him, Norah! Ye shouldn’t have bathed him the noo! Ye should’ve waited the docther’s comin’. Ye’ll mebbe kin kill him.”

“Ach! Get out with yer soft talk!” said Norah, scrubbing the more vigorously. “Did yez suppose I’ll be afther havin’ all this filth in the nice clean sheets? Get ye to work an’ he’p me. Do ye hold ’im while I schrub!”

She shifted the boy into the gentler arm’s of the nurse, and went to splashing all the harder. Then suddenly, before the nurse could protest, she had dashed a lot of foamy suds on the golden head and was scrubbing that with all her might.

“Och, Norah!” cried the nurse in alarm. “You shouldn’t a done that! Ye’ll surely kill the bairn. Look at his poor wee shoulder a bleedin’, and his little face so white an’ still. Have ye no mercy at all, Norah? Rinse off that suds at once, an’ dry him softly. What’ll the docther be sayin’ to ye fer all this I can’t think. There, my poor bairnie,” she crooned to the child, softly drawing him closer as though he were conscious,—

“There, there my bairnie, it’ll soon be over. It’ll be all right in just a minute, poor wee b’y! Poor wee b’y! There! There—”

But Norah did her perfect work, and made the little lean body glistening white as polished marble, while the heavy hair hung limp like pale golden silk.

The two women carried him to a bed in a large room at the back of the house, not far from the nursery, and laid him on a blanket, with his shoulder stanched with soft linen rags. Morton was softly drying his hair and crooning to the child—although he was still unconscious—begging Norah to put the blanket over him lest he catch cold; and Norah was still vigorously drying his feet unmindful of Morton’s pleading, when the doctor entered with a trained nurse. The boy lay white and still upon the blanket as the two women, startled, drew back from their task. The body, clean now, and beautifully shaped, might have been marble except for the delicate blue veins in wrists and temples. In spite of signs of privation and lack of nutrition there was about the boy a showing of strength in well developed muscles, and it went to the heart to see him lying helpless so, with his drenched gold hair and his closed eyes. The white limbs did not quiver, the lifeless fingers drooped limply, the white chest did not stir with any sign of breath, and yet the tender lips that curved in a cupid’s bow, were not altogether gone white.

“What a beautiful child!” exclaimed the nurse involuntarily as she came near the bed. “He looks like a young god!”

“He’s far more likely to be a young devil,” said the doctor grimly, leaning over him with practised eyes, and laying a listening ear to the quiet breast. Then, he started back.

“He’s cold as ice! What have you been doing to him? It wasn’t a case of drowning, was it? You haven’t been giving him a bath at such a time as this, have you? Did you want to kill the kid outright?”

“Oauch, the poor wee b’y!” sobbed Morton under her breath, her blue eyes drenched with tears that made them like blue lakes. “He’s like to my own wee b’y that I lost when he was a baby,” she explained in apology to the trained nurse who was not, however, regarding her in the least.

Norah had vanished frightened to consult with Thomas. It was Morton who brought the things the doctor called for, and showed the nurse where to put her belongings; and after everything was done and the boy made comfortable and brought back to consciousness, it was she who stood at the foot of the bed and smiled upon him first in this new world to which he opened his eyes.

His eyes were blue, heavenly blue and dark, but they were great with a brave fear as he glanced about on the strange faces. He looked like a wild bird, caught in a kindly hand,—a bird whose instincts held him still because he saw no way of flight, but whose heart was beating frightfully against his captor’s fingers. He looked from side to side of the room, and made a motion to rise from the pillow. It was a wild, furtive motion, as of one who has often been obliged to fly for safety, yet still has unlimited courage. There was also in his glance the gentle harmlessness and appeal of the winged thing that has been caught.

“Well, youngster, you had a pretty close shave,” said the doctor jovially, “but you’ll pull through all right! You feel comfortable now?”

The nurse was professionally quiet.

“Poor wee b’y!” murmured Morton, her eyes drenched again.

The boy looked from one to another doubtfully. Suddenly remembrance dawned upon him and comprehension entered his glance. He looked about the room and toward the door. There was question in his eyes that turned on the doctor but his lips formed no words. He looked at Morton, and knew her for the nurse of his baby. Suddenly he smiled, and that smile seemed to light up the whole room, and filled the heart of Morton with joy unspeakable. It seemed to her it was the smile of her own lost baby come back to shine upon her. The tears welled, up and the blue lakes ran over. The boy’s face was most lovely when he smiled.

“Where is—de little kid?” It was Morton whose face he searched anxiously as he framed the eager question, and the woman’s intuition taught her how to answer.

“She’s safe in her own wee crib takin’ her morning nap. She’s just new over,” answered the woman reassuringly.

Still the eyes were not satisfied.

“Did she”—he began slowly—“get—hurted?”

“No, my bairnie, she’s all safe and sound as ever. It was your own self that saved her life.”

The boy’s face lit up and he turned from one to another contentedly. His smile said: “Then I’m glad.” But not a word spoke his shy lips.

“You’re a hero, kid!” said the doctor huskily. But the boy knew little about heroes and did not comprehend.

The nurse by this time had donned her uniform and rattled up starchily to take her place at the bedside, and Morton and the doctor went away, the doctor to step once more into the lady’s room below to see if she was feeling quite herself again after her faint.

The nurse leaned over the boy with a glass and spoon. He looked at it curiously, unknowingly. It was a situation entirely outside his experience.

“Why don’t you take your medicine?” asked the nurse.

The boy looked at the spoon again as it approached his lips and opened them to speak.

“Is—”

In went the medicine and the boy nearly choked, but he understood and smiled.

“A hospital?” he finished.

The nurse laughed.

“No, it’s only a house. They brought you in, you know, when you were hurt out on the steps. You saved the little girl’s life. Didn’t you know it?” she said kindly, her heart won by his smile.

A beautiful look rewarded her.

“Is de little kid—in this house?” he asked slowly, wonderingly. It was as if he had asked if he were in heaven, there was so much awe in his tone.

“Oh, yes, she’s here,” answered the nurse lightly. “Perhaps they’ll bring her in to see you sometime. Her father’s very grateful. He thinks it showed wonderful courage in you to risk your life for her sake.”

But Mikky comprehended nothing about gratitude. He only took in the fact that the beautiful baby was in the house and might come there to see him. He settled to sleep quite happily with an occasional glad wistful glance toward the door, as the long lashes sank on the white cheeks, for the first sleep the boy had ever taken in a clean, white, soft bed. The prim nurse, softened for once from her precise attention to duties, stood and looked upon the lovely face of the sleeping child, wondered what his life had been, and how the future would be for him. She half pitied him that the ball had not gone nearer to the vital spot and taken him to heaven ere he missed the way, so angel-like his face appeared in the soft light of the sick room, with the shining gold hair fluffed back upon the pillow now, like a halo.

Chapter II

Little Starr Endicott, sleeping in her costly lace-draped crib on her downy embroidered pillow, knew nothing of the sin and hate and murder that rolled in a great wave on the streets outside, and had almost touched her own little life and blotted it out. She knew not that three notable families whose names were interwoven in her own, and whose blood flowed in her tiny veins represented the great hated class of the Rich, and that those upon whom they had climbed to this height looked upon them as an evil to be destroyed; nor did she know that she, being the last of the race, and in her name representing them all, was hated most of all.

Starr Delevan Endicott! It was graven upon her tiny pins and locket, upon the circlet of gold that jewelled her finger, upon her brushes and combs; it was broidered upon her dainty garments, and coverlets and cushions, and crooned to her by the adoring Scotch nurse who came of a line that knew and loved an aristocracy. The pride of the house of Starr, the wealth of the house of Delevan, the glory of the house of Endicott, were they not all hers, this one beautiful baby who lay in her arms to tend and to love. So mused Morton as she hummed:

“O hush thee my babie, thy sire was a knight,
Thy mother a ladie, both gentle and bright—”

And what cared Morton that the mother in this case was neither gentle nor bright, but only beautiful and selfish? It did but make the child the dearer that she had her love to herself.

And so the little Starr lay sleeping in her crib, and the boy, her preserver, from nobody knew where, and of nobody knew what name or fame, lay sleeping also. And presently Delevan Endicott himself came to look at them both.

He came from the swirl of the sinful turbulent world outside, and from his fretting, petted wife’s bedside. She had been fretting at him for allowing a bank in which he happened to be president to do anything which should cause such a disturbance outside her home, when he knew she was so nervous. Not one word about the little step that had stood for an instant between her baby and eternity. Her husband reminded her gently how near their baby had come to death, and how she should rejoice that she was safe, but her reply had been a rush of tears, and “Oh, yes, you always think of the baby, never of me, your wife!”

With a sigh the man had turned from his fruitless effort to calm her troubled mind and gone to his little daughter. He had hoped that his wife would go with him, but he saw the hopelessness of that idea.

The little girl lay with one plump white arm thrown over her head, the curling baby fingers just touching the rosy cheek, flushed with sleep. She looked like a rosebud herself, so beautiful among the rose and lacey draperies of her couch. Her dark curls, so fine and soft and wonderful, with their hidden purple shadows, and the long dark curling lashes, to match the finely pencilled brows, brought out each delicate feature of the lovely little face. The father, as he looked down upon her, wondered how it could have been in the heart of any creature, no matter how wicked, to put out this vivid little life. His little Starr, his one treasure!

The man that had tried to do it, could he have intended it really, or was it only a random shot? The testimony of those who saw judged it intention. The father’s quickened heart-beats told him it was, and he felt that the thrust had gone deep. How they had meant to hurt him! How they must have hated him to have wished to hurt him so! How they would have hurt his life irretrievably if the shot had done its work. If that other little atom of human life had not intervened!

Where was the boy who had saved his child? He must go and see him at once. The gratitude of a lifetime should be his.

Morton divined his thought, as he stepped from the sacred crib softly after bending low to sweep his lips over the rosy velvet of little Starr’s cheek. With silent tread she followed her master to the door:

“The poor wee b’y’s in the far room yon,” she said in a soft whisper, and her tone implied that his duty lay next in that direction. The banker had often noticed this gentle suggestion in the nurse’s voice, it minded him of something in his childhood and he invariably obeyed it. He might have resented it if it had been less humble, less trustfully certain that of course that was the thing that he meant to do next. He followed her direction now without a word.

The boy had just fallen asleep when he entered, and lay as sweetly beautiful as the little vivid beauty he had left in the other room. The man of the world paused and instinctively exclaimed in wonder. He had been told that it was a little gamin who had saved his daughter from the assassin’s bullet, but the features of this child were as delicately chiseled, his form as finely modeled, his hair as soft and fine as any scion of a noble house might boast. He, like the nurse, had the feeling that a young god lay before him. It was so that Mikky always had impressed a stranger even when his face was dirty and his feet were bare.

The man stood with bowed head and looked upon the boy to whom he felt he owed a debt which he could never repay.

He recognized the child as a representative of that great unwashed throng of humanity who were his natural enemies, because by their oppression and by stepping upon their rights when it suited his convenience, he had risen to where he now stood, and was able to maintain his position. He had no special feeling for them, any of them, more than if they had been a pack of wolves whose fangs he must keep clear of, and whose hides he must get as soon as convenient; but this boy was different! This spirit-child with the form of Apollo, the beauty of Adonis, and the courage of a hero! Could he have come from the hotbeds of sin and corruption? It could not be! Sure there must be some mistake. He must be of good birth. Enquiry must be made. Had anyone asked the child’s name and where he lived?

Then, as if in answer to his thought, the dark blue eyes suddenly opened. He found them looking at him, and started as he realized it, as if a picture on which he gazed had suddenly turned out to be alive. And yet, for the instant, he could not summon words, but stood meeting that steady searching gaze of the child, penetrating, questioning, as if the eyes would see and understand the very foundation principles on which the man’s life rested. The man felt it, and had the sensation of hastily looking at his own motives in the light of this child’s look. Would his life bear that burning appealing glance?

Then, unexpectedly the child’s face lit up with his wonderful smile. He had decided to trust the man.

Never before in all his proud and varied experience had Delevan Endicott encountered a challenge like that. It beat through him like a mighty army and took his heart by storm, it flashed into his eyes and dazzled him. It was the challenge of childhood to the fatherhood of the man. With a strange new impulse the man accepted it, and struggling to find words, could only answer with a smile.

A good deal passed between them before any words were spoken at all, a good deal that the boy never forgot, and that the man liked to turn back to in his moments of self-reproach, for somehow that boy’s eyes called forth the best that was in him, and made him ashamed of other things.

“Boy, who is your father?” at last asked the man huskily. He almost dreaded to find another father owning a noble boy like this—and such a father as he would be if it were true that he was only a street gamin.

The boy still smiled, but a wistfulness came into his eyes. He slowly shook his head.

“Dead, is he?” asked the man more as if thinking aloud. But the boy shook his head again.

“No, no father,” he answered simply.

“Oh,” said the man, and a lump gathered in his throat. “Your mother?”

“No mother, never!” came the solemn answer. It seemed that he scarcely felt that either of these were deep lacks in his assets. Very likely fathers and mothers were not on the average desirable kindred in the neighborhood from which he came. The man reflected and tried again.

“Who are your folks? They’ll be worried about you. We ought to send them word you’re doing well?”

The boy looked amazed, then a laugh rippled out.

“No folks,” he gurgled, “on’y jest de kids.”

“Your brothers and sisters?” asked Endicott puzzled.

“None o’ dem,” said Mikky. “Buck an’ me’re pards. We fights fer de other kids.”

“Don’t you know it’s wrong to fight?”

Mikky stared.

Endicott tried to think of something to add to his little moral homily, but somehow could not.

“It’s very wrong to fight,” he reiterated lamely.

The boy’s cherub mouth settled into firm lines.

“It’s wronger not to, when de little kids is gettin’ hurt, an’ de big fellers what ought ter work is stole away they bread, an’ they’s hungry.”

It was an entirely new proposition. It was the challenge of the poor against the rich, of the weak against the strong, and from the lips of a mere babe. The man wondered and answered not.

“I’d fight fer your little kid!” declared the young logician. He seemed to know by instinct that this was the father of his baby.

Ah, now he had touched the responsive chord. The father’s face lit up. He understood. Yes, it was right to fight for his baby girl, his little Starr, his one treasure, and this boy had done it, given his life freely. Was that like fighting for those other unloved, uncared-for, hungry darlings? Were they then dear children, too, of somebody, of God, if nobody else? The boy’s eyes were telling him plainly in one long deep look, that all the world of little children at least was kin, and the grateful heart of the father felt that in mere decency of gratitude he must acknowledge so much. Poor little hungry babies. What if his darling were hungry! A sudden longing seized his soul to give them bread at once to eat. But at least he would shower his gratitude upon this one stray defender of their rights.

He struggled to find words to let the child know of this feeling but only the tears gathering quickly in his eyes spoke for him.

“Yes, yes, my boy! You did fight for my little girl. I know, I’ll never forget it of you as long as I live. You saved her life, and that’s worth everything to me. Everything, do you understand?”

At last the words rushed forth, but his voice was husky, and those who knew him would have declared him more moved than they had ever seen him.

The boy understood. A slender brown hand stole out from the white coverlet and touched his. Its outline, long and supple and graceful, spoke of patrician origin. It was hard for the man of wealth and pride to realize that it was the hand of the child of the common people, the people who were his enemies.

“Is there anything you would like to have done for you, boy?” he asked at last because the depth of emotion was more than he could bear.

The boy looked troubled.

“I was thinkin’, ef Buck an’ them could see me, they’d know ’twas all right. I’d like ’em fine to know how ’tis in here.”

“You want me to bring them up to see you?”

Mikky nodded.

“Where can I find them, do you think?”

“Buck, he won’t go fur, till he knows what’s comed o’ me,” said the boy with shining confidence in his friend. “He’d know I’d do that fur him.”

Then it seemed there was such a thing as honor and loyalty among the lower ranks of men—at least among the boys. The man of the world was learning a great many things. Meekly he descended the two flights of stairs and went out to his own front doorsteps.

There were no crowds any more. The police were still on duty, but curious passersby dared not linger long. The workmen had finished the windows and gone. The man felt little hope of finding the boys, but somehow he had a strange desire to do so. He wanted to see that face light up once more. Also, he had a curious desire to see these youngsters from the street who could provoke such loving anxiety from the hero upstairs.

Mikky was right, Buck would not go far away until he knew how it was with his comrade. He had indeed moved off at the officer’s word when the doctor promised to bring him word later, but in his heart he did not intend to let a soul pass in or out of that house all day that he did not see, and so he set his young pickets here and there about the block, each with his bunch of papers, and arranged a judicious change occasionally, to avoid trouble with the officers.

Buck was standing across the street on the corner by the church steps, making a lively show of business now and then and keeping one eye on the house that had swallowed up his partner. He was not slow to perceive that he was being summoned by a man upon the steps, and ran eagerly up with his papers, expecting to receive his coin, and maybe a glimpse inside the door.

“All about der shootin’ of der bank millionaire’s baby!” he yelled in his most finished voice of trade, and the father, thinking of what might have been, felt a pang of horror at the careless words from the gruff little voice.

“Do you know a boy named Buck?” he questioned as he deliberately paid for the paper that was held up to him, and searched the unpromising little face before him. Then marvelled at the sullen, sly change upon the dirty face.

The black brows drew down forbodingly, the dark eyes reminded Mm of a caged lion ready to spring if an opportunity offered. The child had become a man with a criminal’s face. There was something frightful about the defiant look with which the boy drew himself up.

“What if I does?”

“Only that there’s a boy in here,” motioning toward the door, “would like very much to see him for a few minutes. If you know where he is, I wish you’d tell him.”

Then there came a change more marvelous than before. It was as if the divine in the soul had suddenly been revealed through a rift in the sinful humanity. The whole defiant face became eager, the black eyes danced with question, the brows settled into straight pleasant lines, and the mouth sweetened as with pleasant thoughts.

“Is’t Mikky?” He asked in earnest voice. “Kin we get in? I’ll call de kids. He’ll want ’em. He allus wants der kids.” He placed his fingers in his mouth, stretching it into a curious shape, and there issued forth a shriek that might have come from the mouth of an exulting fiend, so long and shrill and sharp it was. The man on the steps, his nerves already wrought to the snapping point, started angrily. Then suddenly around the corner at a swift trot emerged three ragged youngsters who came at their leader’s command swiftly and eagerly.

“Mikky wants us!” explained Buck. “Now youse foller me, ’n don’t you say nothin’ less I tell you.”

They fell in line, behind the bank president, and followed awed within the portal that unlocked a palace more wonderful than Aladdin’s to their astonished gaze.

Up the stairs they slunk, single file, the bare feet and the illy-shod alike going silently and sleuth-like over the polished stairs. They skulked past open doors with frightened defiant glances, the defiance of the very poor for the very rich, the defiance that is born and bred in the soul from a face to face existence with hunger and cold and need of every kind. They were defiant but they took it all in, and for many a day gave details highly embellished of the palace where Mikky lay. It seemed to them that heaven itself could show no grander sights.

In a stricken row against the wall, with sudden consciousness of their own delinquencies of attire, ragged caps in hands, grimy hands behind them, they stood and gazed upon their fallen hero-comrade.

Clean, they had never perhaps seen his face before. The white robe that was upon him seemed a robe of unearthly whiteness. It dazzled their gaze. The shining of his newly-washed hair was a glory crown upon his head. They saw him gathered into another world than any they knew. It could have seemed no worse to them if the far heaven above the narrow city streets had opened its grim clouds and received their comrade from their sight. They were appalled. How could he ever be theirs again? How could it all have happened in the few short hours since Mikky flashed past them and fell a martyr to his kindly heart and saved the wicked rich man his child? The brows of Buck drew together in his densest frown. He felt that Mikky, their Mikky was having some terrible change come upon him.

Then Mikky turned and smiled upon them all, and in his dear familiar voice shouted, “Say, kids, ain’t this grand? Say, I jes’ wish you was all in it! Ef you, Buck, an’ the kids was here in this yer grand bed I’d be havin’ the time o’ me life!”

That turned the tide. Buck swallowed hard and smiled his darker smile, and the rest grinned sheepishly. Grandeur and riches had not spoiled their prince. He was theirs still and he had wanted them. He had sent for them. They gained courage to look around on the spotlessly clean room, on the nurse in her crackling dignity; on the dish of oranges which she promptly handed to them and of which each in awe partook a golden sphere; on the handful of bright flowers that Morton had brought but a few minutes before and placed on a little stand by the bed; on the pictures that hung upon the walls, the like of which they had never seen, before, and then back to the white white bed that held their companion. They could not get used to the whiteness and the cleanness of his clean, clean face and hands, and bright gold hair. It burned like a flame against the pillow, and Mikky’s blue eyes seemed darker and deeper than ever before. To Buck they had given their obedient following, and looked to him for protection, but after all he was one like themselves, only a little more fearless. To Mikky they all gave a kind of far-seeing adoration. He was fearless and brave like Buck, but he was something more. In their superstitious fear and ignorance he seemed to them almost supernatural.

They skulked, silently down the stairs like frightened rabbits when the interview was over, each clutching his precious orange, and not until the great doors had closed upon them, did they utter a word. They had said very little. Mikky had done all the talking.

When they had filed down the street behind their leader, and rounded the corner out of sight of the house, Buck gathered them into a little knot and said solemnly: “Kids. I bet cher Mik don’t be comin’ out o’ this no more. Didn’t you take notice how he looked jes’ like the angel top o’ the monnemunt down to the cemtary?”

The little group took on a solemnity that was deep and real.

“Annyhow, he wanted us!” spoke up a curly-headed boy with old eyes and a thin face. He was one whom Mikky had been won’t to defend. He bore a hump upon his ragged back.

“Aw! he’s all right fer us, is Mik,” said Buck, “but he’s different nor us. Old Aunt Sal she said one day he were named fer a ’n’angel, an’ like as not he’ll go back where he b’longs some day, but he won’t never fergit us. He ain’t like rich folks what don’t care. He’s our pard allus. Come on, fellers.”

Down the back alley went the solemn little procession, single file, till they reached the rear of the Endicott house, where they stood silent as before a shrine, till at a signal from their leader, each grimy right hand was raised, and gravely each ragged cap was taken off and held high in the air toward the upper window, where they knew their hero-comrade lay. Then they turned and marched silently away.

They were all in place before the door whenever the doctor came thereafter, and always went around by the way of the alley afterward for their ceremonial good night, sometimes standing solemnly beneath the cold stars while the shrill wind blew through their thin garments, but always as long as the doctor brought them word, or as long as the light burned in the upper window, they felt their comrade had not gone yet.

Chapter III

Heaven opened for Mikky on the day when Morton, with the doctor’s permission, brought Baby Starr to see him.

The baby, in her nurse’s arms, gazed down upon her rescuer with the unprejudiced eyes of childhood. Mikky’s smile flashed upon her and forthwith she answered with a joyous laugh of glee. The beautiful boy pleased her ladyship. She reached out her roseleaf hands to greet him.

The nurse held her down to the bed:

“Kiss the wee b’y, that’s a good baby. Kiss the wee b’y. He took care of baby and saved her life when the bad man tried to hurt her. Kiss the wee b’y and say ‘I thank you,’” commanded Morton.

The saving of her life meant nothing to little Starr, but she obediently murmured ‘I’ee tank oo!’ as the nurse had drilled her to do before she brought her, and then laid her moist pink lips on cheeks, forehead, eyes and mouth in turn, and Mikky, in ecstasy, lay trembling with the pleasure of it. No one had ever kissed him before. Kissing was not in vogue in the street where he existed.

Thereafter, every day until he was convalescent, Starr came to visit him.

By degrees he grew accustomed to her gay presence enough to talk with her freely as child with child. Her words were few and her tongue as yet quite unacquainted with the language of this world; but perhaps that was all the better, for their conversations were more of the spirit than of the tongue, Mikky’s language, of circumstance, being quite unlike that of Madison Avenue.

Starr brought her wonderful electric toys and dolls, and Mikky looked at them with wonder, yet always with a kind of rare indifference, because the child herself was to him the wonder of all wonders, an angel spirit stooped to earth. And every day, when the nurse carried her small charge away after her frolic with the boy, she would always lift her up to the bed and say:

“Now kiss the wee b’y, Baby Starr, and thank him again fer savin’ yer life.”

And Starr would lay her soft sweet mouth on his as tenderly and gravely as if she understood the full import of her obligation. At such times Mikky would watch her bright face as it came close to his, and when her lips touched his he would close his eyes as if to shut out all things else from this sacred ceremony. After Starr and Morton were gone the nurse was wont to look furtively toward the bed and note the still, lovely face of the boy whose eyes were closed as if to hold the vision and memory the longer. At such times her heart would draw her strangely from her wonted formality and she would touch the boy with a tenderness that was not natural to her.

There were other times when Mr. Endicott would come and talk briefly with the boy, just to see his eyes light and his face glow with that wonderful smile, and to think what it would be if the boy were his own. Always Mikky enjoyed these little talks, and when his visitor was gone he would think with satisfaction that this was just the right kind of a father for his little lovely Starr. He was glad the Baby Starr had a father. He had often wondered what it would be like to have a father, and now he thought he saw what the height of desire in a father might be. Not that he felt a great need for himself in the way of fathers. He had taken care of himself since he could remember and felt quite grown up and fathers usually drank; but a baby like that needed a father, and he liked Starr’s father.

But the dearest thing now in life for him was little Starr’s kisses.

To the father, drawn first by gratitude to the boy who had saved his child’s life, and afterwards by the boy’s own irresistible smile, these frequent visits had become a pleasure. There had been a little boy before Starr came to their home, but he had only lived a few weeks. The memory of that golden, fuzzy head, the little appealing fingers, the great blue eyes of his son still lingered bitterly in the father’s heart. When he first looked upon this waif the fancy seized him that, perhaps his own boy would have been like this had he lived, and a strange and unexpected tenderness entered his heart for Mikky. He kept going to the little invalid’s room night after night, pleasing himself with the thought that the boy was his own.

So strong a hold did this fancy take upon the man’s heart that he actually began to consider the feasibility of adopting the child and bringing him up as his own—this, after he had by the aid of detectives, thoroughly searched out all that was known of him and found that no one owned Mikky nor seemed to care what became of him except Buck and his small following. And all the time the child, well fed, well cared for, happier than he had ever dreamed of being in all his little hard life, rapidly convalesced.

Endicott came home one afternoon to find Mikky down in the reception room dressed in black velvet and rare old lace, with his glorious sheaf of golden hair which had grown during his illness tortured into ringlets, and an adoring group of ladies gathered about him, as he stood with troubled, almost haughty mien, and gravely regarded their maudlin sentimentalities.

Mrs. Endicott had paid no attention to the boy heretofore, and her sudden interest in him came from a chance view of him as he sat up in a big chair for the first time, playing a game with little Starr. His big eyes and beautiful hair attracted her at once, and she lost no time in dressing him up like a doll and making him a show at one of her receptions.

When her husband remonstrated with her, declaring that such treatment would ruin the spirit of any real boy, and spoil him for life, she shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and answered:

“Well, what if it does? He’s nothing but a foundling. He ought to be glad we are willing to dress him up prettily and play with him for a while.”

“And what would you do with him after you were done using him for a toy? Cast him aside?”

“Well, why not?” with another shrug of her handsome shoulders. “Or, perhaps we might teach him to be a butler or footman if you want to be benevolent. He would be charming in a dark blue uniform!”

The woman raised her delicate eyebrows, humming a light tune, and her husband turned from her in despair. Was it nothing at all to her that this child had saved the life of her baby?

That settled the question of adoption. His wife would never be the one to bring up the boy into anything like manhood. It was different with a girl—she must of necessity be frivolous, he supposed.

The next morning an old college friend came into his office, a plain man with a pleasant face, who had not gone from college days to a bank presidency. He was only a plain teacher in a little struggling college in Florida, and he came soliciting aid for the college.

Endicott turned from puzzling over the question of Mikky, to greet his old friend whom he had not seen for twenty years. He was glad to see him. He had always liked him. He looked him over critically, however, with his successful-business-man-of-New-York point of view. He noticed the plain cheap business suit, worn shiny in places, the shoes well polished but beginning to break at the side, the plentiful sprinkling of gray hairs, and then his eyes travelled to the kind, worn face of his friend. In spite of himself he could not but feel that the man was happier than himself.

He asked many questions, and found a keen pleasure in hearing all about the little family of the other, and their happy united efforts to laugh off poverty and have a good time anyway. Then the visitor told of the college, its struggles, its great needs and small funds, how its orange crop, which was a large part of its regular income, had failed that year on account of the frost, and they were in actual need of funds to carry on the work of the immediate school year. Endicott found his heart touched, though he was not as a rule a large giver to anything.

“I’d be glad to help you Harkness,” he said at last, “but I’ve got a private benevolence on my hands just now that is going to take a good deal of money, I’m afraid. You see we’ve narrowly escaped a tragedy at our house—” and he launched into the story of the shooting, and his own indebtedness to Mikky.

“I see,” said the Professor, “you feel that you owe it to that lad to put him in the way of a better life, seeing that he freely gave his life for your child’s.”

“Exactly!” said Endicott, “and I’d like to adopt him and bring him up as my own, but it doesn’t seem feasible. I don’t think my wife would feel just as I do about it, and I’m not sure I’d be doing the best after all for the boy. To be taken from one extreme to another might ruin him.”

“Well, Endicott, why don’t you combine your debt to the child with benevolence and send him down to us for a few years to educate.”

Endicott sat up interestedly.

“Could I do that; Would they take so young a child? He can’t be over seven.”

“Yes, we would take him, I think. He’d be well cared for; and his tuition in the prep department would help the institution along. Every little helps, you know.”

Endicott suddenly saw before him the solution of his difficulties. He entered eagerly into the matter, talking over rates, plans and so on. An hour later it was all settled. Mikky was to take a full course with his expenses all prepaid, and a goodly sum placed in the bank for his clothing and spending money. He was to have the best room the school afforded, at the highest price, and was to take music and art and everything else that was offered, for Endicott meant to do the handsome thing by the institution. The failure of the bank of which he was president had in no wise affected his own private fortune.

“If the boy doesn’t seem to develop an interest in some of these branches, put some deserving one in his place, and put him at something else,” he said. “I want him to have his try at everything, develop the best that is in him. So we’ll pay for everything you’ve got there, and that will help out some other poor boy perhaps, for, of course one boy can’t do everything. I’ll arrange it with my lawyer that the payments shall be made regularly for the next twelve years, so that if anything happens to me, or if this boy runs away or doesn’t turn out worthy, you will keep on getting the money just the same, and some one else can come in on it.”

Professor Harkness went away from the office with a smile on his face and in his pocket three letters of introduction to wealthy benevolent business men of New York. Mikky was to go South with him the middle of the next week.

Endicott went home that afternoon with relief of mind, but he found in his heart a most surprising reluctance to part with the beautiful boy.

When the banker told Mikky that he was going to send him to “college,” and explained to him that an education would enable him to become a good man and perhaps a great one, the boy’s face was very grave. Mikky had never felt the need of an education, and the thought of going away from New York gave him a sensation as if the earth were tottering under his feet. He shook his head doubtfully.

“Kin I take Buck an’ de kids?” he asked after a thoughtful pause, and with a lifting of the cloud in his eyes.

“No,” said Endicott. “It costs a good deal to go away to school, and there wouldn’t be anyone to send them.”

Mikky’s eyes grew wide with something like indignation, and he shook his head.

“Nen I couldn’t go,” he said decidedly. “I couldn’t take nothin’ great like that and not give de kids any. We’ll stick together. I’ll stay wid de kids. They needs me.”

“But Mikky—” the man looked into the large determined eyes and settled down for combat—“you don’t understand, boy. It would be impossible for them to go. I couldn’t send them all, but I can send you, and I’m going to, because you risked your life to save little Starr.”

“That wasn’t nothin’ t’all!” declared Mikky with fine scorn.

“It was everything to me,” said the man, “and I want to do this for you. And boy, it’s your duty to take this. It’s everybody’s duty to take the opportunities for advancement that come to them.”

Mikky looked at him thoughtfully. He did not understand the large words, and duty meant to him a fine sense of loyalty to those who had been loyal to him.

“I got to stay wid de kids,” he said. “Dey needs me.”

With an exasperated feeling that it was useless to argue against this calmly stated fact, Endicott began again gently:

“But Mikky, you can help them a lot more by going to college than by staying at home.”

The boy’s eyes looked unconvinced but he waited for reasons.

“If you get to be an educated man you will be able to earn money and help them. You can lift them up to better things; build good houses for them to live in; give them work to do that will pay good wages, and help them to be good men.”

“Are you educated?”

Thinking he was making progress Endicott nodded eagerly.

“Is that wot you does fer folks?” The bright eyes searched his face eagerly, keenly, doubtfully.

The color flooded the bank-president’s cheeks and forehead uncomfortably.

“Well,—I might—” he answered. “Yes, I might do a great deal for people, I suppose. I don’t know as I do much, but I could if I had been interested in them.”

He paused. He realized that the argument was weakened. Mikky studied his face.

“But dey needs me now, de kids does,” he said gravely, “Jimmie, he don’t have no supper most nights less’n I share; and Bobs is so little he can’t fight dem alley kids; n’ sometimes I gets a flower off’n the florist’s back door fer little sick Jane. Her’s got a crutch, and can’t walk much anyhow; and cold nights me an’ Buck we sleeps close. We got a box hid away where we sleeps close an’ keeps warm.”

The moisture gathered in the eyes of the banker as he listened to the innocent story. It touched his heart as nothing ever had before. He resolved that after this his education and wealth should at least help these little slum friends of Mikky to an occasional meal, or a flower, or a warm bed.

“Suppose you get Buck to take your place with the kids while you go to school and get an education and learn how to help them better.”

Mikky’s golden head negatived this slowly.

“Buck, he’s got all he kin do to git grub fer hisse’f an’ his sister Jane. His father is bad, and kicks Jane, and don’t get her nothin’ to eat. Buck he has to see after Janie.”

“How would it be for you to pay Buck something so that he could take your place? I will give you some money that you may do as you like with, and you can pay Buck as much as you think he needs every week. You can send it to him in a letter.”

“Would it be as much as a quarter?” Mikky held his breath in wonder and suspense.

“Two quarters if you like.”

“Oh! could I do that?” The boy’s face fairly shone, and he came and threw his arms about Endicott’s neck and laid his face against his. The man clasped him close and would fain have kept him there, for his well ordered heart was deeply stirred.

Thus it was arranged.

Buck was invited to an interview, but when the silver half dollar was laid in his grimy palm, and he was made to understand that others were to follow, and that he was to step up into Mikky’s place in the community of the children while that luminary went to “college” to be educated, his face wore a heavy frown. He held out the silver sphere as if it burned him. What! Take money in exchange for Mikky’s bright presence? Never!

It took a great deal of explanation to convince Buck that anything could be better “fer de kids” than Mikky, their own Mikky, now and forever. He was quick, however, to see where the good lay for Mikky, and after a few plain statements from Mr. Endicott there was no further demur on the part of the boy. Buck was willing to give up Mikky for Mikky’s good but not for his own. But it was a terrible sacrifice. The hard little face knotted itself into a fierce expression when he came to say good-bye. The long scrawny throat worked convulsively, the hands gripped each other savagely. It was like handing Mikky over to another world than theirs, and though he confidently promised to return to them so soon as the college should have completed the mysterious process of education, and to live with them as of yore, sleeping in Buck’s box alongside, and taking care of the others when the big alley kids grew troublesome, somehow an instinct taught them that he would never return again. They had had him, and they would never forget him, but he would grow into a being far above them. They looked vindictively at the great rich man who had perpetrated this evil device of a college life for their comrade. It was the old story of the helpless poor against the powerful rich. Even heart-beats counted not against such power. Mikky must go.

They went to the great station on the morning when Mikky was to depart and stood shivering and forlorn until the train was called. They listened sullenly while Professor Harkness told them that if they wished to be fit to associate with their friend when he came out of college they must begin at once to improve all their opportunities. First of all they must go to school, and study hard, and then their friend in college would be proud to call them friends. They did not think it worth while to tell the kindly but ignorant professor that they had no time for school, and no clothes to wear if they had the time or the inclination to go. Schools were everywhere, free, of course, but it did not touch them. They lived in dark places and casual crannies, like weeds or vermin. No one cared whether they went to school. No one suggested it. They would have as soon thought of entering a great mansion and insisting on their right to live there as to present themselves at school. Why, they had to hustle for a mere existence. They were the water rats, the bad boys, the embryo criminals for the next generation. The problem, with any who thought of them was how to get rid of them. But of course this man from another world did not understand. They merely looked at him dully and wished he would walk away and leave Mikky to them while he stayed. His presence made it seem as if their companion were already gone from them.

It was hard, too, to see Mikky dressed like the fine boys on Fifth Avenue, handsome trousers and coat, and a great thick overcoat, a hat on his shining crown of hair that had always been guiltless of cap, thick stockings and shining shoes on his feet that had always been bare and soiled with the grime of the streets—gloves on his hands. This was a new Mikky. “The kids” did not know him. In spite of their best efforts they could not be natural. Great lumps arose in their throats, lumps that never dared arise for hunger or cold or curses at home.

They stood helpless before their own consciousness, and Mikky, divining the trouble with that exquisite keenness of a spirit sent from heaven to make earth brighter, conceived the bright idea of giving each of his comrades some article of his apparel as a remembrance. Mr. Endicott came upon the scene just in time to keep Mikky from taking off his overcoat and enveloping Buck in its elegant folds. He was eagerly telling them that Bobs should have his undercoat, Jimmie his hat; they must take his gloves to Jane, and there was nothing left for Sam but his stockings and shoes, but he gave them all willingly. He seemed to see no reason why he could not travel hatless and coatless, bare of foot and hand, for had he not gone that way through all the years of his existence? It was a small thing to do, for his friends whom he was leaving for a long time.

The bright face clouded when he was told he could not give these things away, that it would not be fair to the kind professor to ask him to carry with him a boy not properly dressed. But he smiled again trustfully when Endicott promised to take the whole group to a clothing house and fit them out.

They bade Mikky good-bye, pressing their grimy noses against the bars of the station gate to watch their friend disappear from their bare little lives.

Endicott himself felt like crying as he came back from seeing the boy aboard the train. Somehow it went hard for him to feel, he should not meet the bright smile that night when he went home.

But it was not the way of “the kids” to cry when tragedy fell among them. They did not cry now—when he came back to them they regarded the banker with lowering brows as the originator of their bereavement. They had no faith in the promised clothing.

“Aw, what’s he givin’ us!” Buck had breathed under his breath. But to do Buck credit he had not wanted to take Mikky’s coat from him. When their comrade went from them into another walk in life he must go proudly apparelled.

Endicott led the huddled group away from the station, to a clothing house, and amused himself by fitting them out. The garments were not of as fine material, nor elegant a cut as those he had pleased himself by purchasing for Mikky’s outfit, but they were warm and strong and wonderful to their eyes, and one by one the grimy urchins went into a little dressing room, presently emerging with awe upon their faces to stand before a tall mirror surveying themselves.

Endicott presently bade the little company farewell and with a conscience at ease with himself and all mankind left them.

They issued from the clothing house with scared expressions and walked solemnly a few blocks. Then Buck called them to a halt before a large plate glass show-window.

“Take a good look at yersel’s, kids,” he ordered, “an’ we’ll go up to the Park an’ shine around, an’ see how ther swells feels, then we’ll go down to Sheeny’s an’ sell ’em.”

“Sell ’em! Can’t we keep ’em?” pitifully demanded Bobs who had never felt warm in winter in all his small life before.

“You wouldn’t hev ’em long,” sneered Buck. “That father o’ yourn would hey ’em pawned ’afore night; You better enjoy ’em a while, an’ then git the money. It’s safer!”

The children with wisdom born of their unhappy circumstances recognized this truth. They surveyed themselves gravely in their fleeting grandeur and then turned to walk up to the aristocratic part of town, a curious little procession. They finished by rounding the Madison Avenue block, marched up the alley, and gave the salute with new hats toward the window where their Prince and Leader used to be. He was no longer there, but his memory was about them, and the ceremony did their bursting little hearts good. Their love for Mikky was the noblest thing that had so far entered their lives.

Jimmie suggested that they must let Jane see them before they disposed forever of their elegant garments, so Bobs, minus coat, hat, stockings and shoes was sent to bid her to a secluded retreat at the far end of the alley. Bobs hurried back ahead of her little tapping crutch to don his fine attire once more before she arrived.

Little Jane, sallow of face, unkempt of hair, tattered of clothing and shivering in the cold twilight stood and watched the procession of pride as it passed and repassed before her delighted eyes. The festivity might have been prolonged but that the maudlin voice of Bobs’ father reeling into the alley struck terror to their hearts, and with small ceremony they scuttled away to the pawnshop, leaving little Jane to hobble back alone to her cellar and wonder how it would feel to wear a warm coat like one of those.

“Gee!” said Jimmie as they paused with one consent before the shop door, and looked reluctantly down at their brief glory, “Gee! I wisht we could keep jest one coat fer little Jane!”

“Couldn’t we hide it some’ere’s?” asked Sam, and they all looked at Buck.

Buck, deeply touched for his sister’s sake, nodded.

“Keep Jim’s,” he said huskily, “it’ll do her best.”

Then the little procession filed proudly in and gave up their garments to the human parasite who lived on the souls of other men, and came away bearing the one coat they had saved for Janie, each treasuring a pitiful bit of money which seemed a fortune in their eyes.

Little Jane received her gift with true spirit when it was presented, skilfully hid it from her inhuman father, and declared that each boy should have a turn at wearing the coat every Sunday at some safe hour, whereat deep satisfaction, reigned among them. Their grandeur was not all departed after all.

Meantime, Mikky, in his luxurious berth in a sleeper, smiled drowsily to think of the fine new clothes that his friends must be wearing, and then fell asleep to dream of little Starr’s kisses on his closed eyelids.

Chapter IV

Into a new world came Mikky, a world of blue skies, song birds, and high, tall pines with waving moss and dreamy atmosphere; a world of plenty to eat and wear, and light and joy and ease.

Yet it was a most bewildering world to the boy, and for the first week he stood off and looked at it questioningly, suspiciously. True, there were no dark cellars or freezing streets, no drunken fathers or frightened children, or blows, or hunger or privation; but this education he had come to seek that he might go back to his own world and better it, was not a garment one put on and exercised in so many times a day; it was not a cup from which one drank, nor an atmosphere that one absorbed. It was a strange, imperceptible thing got at in some mysterious way by a series of vague struggles followed by sudden and almost alarming perceptions. For a time it seemed to the boy, keen though his mind, and quick, that knowledge was a thing only granted to the few, and his was a mind that would never grasp it. How, for instance, did one know how to make just the right figures under a line when one added a long perplexity of numbers? Mikky the newsboy could tell like a flash how much change he needed to return to the fat gentleman who occasionally gave him a five-dollar bill to change on Broadway; but Mikky the scholar, though he knew figures, and was able to study out with labor easy words in his papers, had never heard of adding up figures in the way they did here, long rows of them on the blackboard. It became necessary that this boy should have some private instruction before he would be able to enter classes. Professor Harkness himself undertook the task, and gradually revealed to the child’s neglected understanding some of the simple rudiments that would make his further progress possible. The sum that was paid for his tuition made it quite necessary that the boy advance reasonably, for his benefactor had made it understood that he might some day visit the institution and see how he was getting on. So great pains were taken to enlighten Mikky’s darkness.

There was another thing that the boy could not understand, and that was the discipline that ruled everywhere. He had always been a law unto himself, his only care being to keep out of the way of those who would interfere with this. Now he must rise with a bell, stay in his room until another bell, eat at a bell, go to the hard bench in the schoolroom with another bell, and even play ball when the recreation bell rang. It was hard on an independent spirit to get used to all this, and while he had no mind to be disorderly, he often broke forth into direct disobedience of the law from sheer misunderstanding of the whole régime.

The boys’ dormitory was presided over by a woman who, while thorough in all housekeeping arrangements, had certainly mistaken her calling as a substitute mother for boys. She kept their clothes in order, saw to it that their rooms were aired, their stockings darned and their lights out at exactly half-past nine, but the grimness of her countenance forbade any familiarity, and she never thought of gaining the confidence of her rough, but affectionate charges. There was no tenderness in her, and Mikky never felt like smiling in her presence. He came and went with a sort of high, unconscious superiority that almost irritated the woman, because she was not great enough to see the unusual spirit of the child; and as a consequence she did not win his heart.

But he did not miss the lack of motherliness in her, for he had never known a mother and was not expecting it.

The professors he grew to like, some more, some less, always admiring most those who seemed to him to deal in a fair and righteous manner with their classes—fairness being judged by the code in use among “the kids” in New York. But that was before he grew to know the president. After that his code changed.

His first interview with that dignitary was on an afternoon when he had been overheard by the matron to use vile language among the boys at the noon hour. She hauled him up with her most severe manner, and gave him to understand that he must answer to the president for his conduct.

As Mikky had no conception of his offence he went serenely to his fate walking affably beside her, only wishing she would not look so sour. As they crossed the campus to the president’s house a blue jay flew overhead, and a mocking bird trilled in a live oak near-by. The boy’s face lighted with joy and he laughed out gleefully, but the matron only looked the more severe, for she thought him a hardened little sinner who was defying her authority and laughing her to scorn. After that it was two years before she could really believe anything good of Mikky.

The president was a noble-faced, white-haired scholar, with a firm tender mouth, a brow of wisdom, and eyes of understanding. He was not the kind who win by great athletic prowess, he was an old-fashioned gentleman, well along in years, but young in heart. He looked at the child of the slums and saw the angel in the clay.

He dismissed the matron with a pleasant assurance and took Mikky to an inner office where he let the boy sit quietly waiting a few minutes till he had finished writing a letter. If the pen halted and the kind eyes furtively studied the beautiful face of the child, Mikky never knew it.

The president asked the boy to tell him what he had said, and Mikky, with sweet assurance repeated innocently the terrible phrases he had used, phrases which had been familiar to him since babyhood, conveying statements of facts that were horrible, but nevertheless daily happenings in the corner of the world where he had brought himself up.

With rare tact the president questioned the boy, until he made sure there was no inherent rottenness in him: and then gently and kindly, but firmly laid down the law and explained why it was right and necessary that there should be a law. He spoke of the purity of God. Mikky knew nothing of God and listened with quiet interest. The president talked of education and culture and made matters very plain indeed. Then when the interview was concluded and the man asked the boy for a pledge of good faith and clean language from that time forth, Mikky’s smile of approval blazed forth and he laid his hand in that of the president readily enough, and went forth from the room with a great secret admiration of the man with whom he had just talked. The whole conversation had appealed to him deeply.

Mikky sought his room and laboriously spelled out with lately acquired clumsiness a letter to Buck:

“Dear Buck we mussent yuz endecent langwidg enay moor ner swar. God donte lyk it an’ it ain’t educated. I want you an’ me to be educate. I ain’t gone to, donte yoo ner let de kids.—
Mikky.”

In due time, according to previous arrangement about the monthly allowance, this letter reached Buck, and he tracked the doctor for two whole days before he located him and lay in wait till he came out to his carriage, when he made bold to hand over the letter to be read.

The doctor, deeply touched, translated as best he could. Buck’s education had been pitifully neglected. He watched the mystic paper in awe as the doctor read.

“Wot’s indecent langwidge?” he asked with his heavy frown.

The doctor took the opportunity to deliver a brief sermon on purity, and Buck, without so much as an audible thank you, but with a thoughtful air that pleased the doctor, took back his letter, stuffed it into his ragged pocket and went on his way. The man watched him wistfully, wondering whether Mikky’s appeal could reach the hardened little sinner; and, sighing at the wickedness of the world, went on his way grimly trying to make a few things better.

That night “the kids” were gathered in front of little Janie’s window, for she was too weak to go out with them, and Buck delivered a lesson in ethical culture. Whatever Mikky, their Prince, ordered, that must be done, and Buck was doing his level best, although for the life of him he couldn’t see the sense in it. But thereafter none of “the kids” were allowed to use certain words and phrases, and swearing gradually became eliminated from their conversation. It would have been a curious study for a linguist to observe just what words and phrases were cut out, and what were allowed to flourish unrebuked; but nevertheless it was a reform, and Buck was doing his best.

With his schoolmates Mikky had a curiously high position even from the first. His clothes were good and he had always a little money to spend. That had been one of Endicott’s wishes that the boy should be like other boys. It meant something among a group of boys, most of whom were the sons of rich fathers, sent down to Florida on account of weak lungs or throats. Moreover, he was brave beyond anything they had ever seen before, could fight like a demon in defense of a smaller boy, and did not shrink from pitching into a fellow twice his size. He could tell all about the great base-ball and foot-ball games of New York City, knew the pitchers by name and yet did not boast uncomfortably. He could swim like a duck and dive fearlessly. He could outrun them all, by his lightness of foot, and was an expert in gliding away from any hand that sought to hold him back. They admired him from the first.

His peculiar street slang did not trouble them in the least, nor his lack of class standing, though that presently began to be a thing of the past, for Mikky, so soon as he understood the way, marched steadily, rapidly, up the hill of knowledge, taking in everything that was handed out to him and assimilating it. It began to look as if there would not be any left over courses in the curriculum that might be given to some other deserving youth. Mikky would need them all. The president and the professors began presently to be deeply interested in this boy without a past; and everywhere, with every one, Mikky’s smile won his way; except with the matron, who had not forgiven him that her recommendation of his instant dismissal from the college had not been accepted.

The boys had not asked many questions about him, nor been told much. They knew his father and mother were dead. They thought he had a rich guardian, perhaps a fortune some day coming, they did not care. Mikky never spoke about any of these things and there was a strange reticence about him that made them dislike to ask him questions; even, when they came to know him well. He was entered under the name of Endicott, because, on questioning him Professor Harkness found he could lay no greater claim to any other surname, and called him that until he could write to Mr. Endicott for advice. He neglected to write at once and then, the name having become fastened upon the boy, he thought it best to let the matter alone as there was little likelihood of Mr. Endicott’s coming down to the college, and it could do no harm. He never stopped to think out possible future complications and the boy became known as Michael Endicott.

But his companions, as boys will, thought the matter over, and rechristened him “Angel”; and Angel, or Angel Endy he became, down to the end of his college course.

One great delight of his new life was the out-of-door freedom he enjoyed. A beautiful lake spread its silver sheet at the foot of the campus slope and here the boy revelled in swimming and rowing. The whole country round was filled with wonder to his city-bred eyes. He attached himself to the teacher of natural sciences, and took long silent tramps for miles about. They penetrated dense hammocks, gathering specimens of rare orchids and exquisite flowers; they stood motionless and breathless for hours watching and listening to some strange wild bird; they became the familiar of slimy coiling serpents in dark bogs, and of green lizards and great black velvet spiders; they brought home ravishing butterflies and moths of pale green and gold and crimson. Mikky’s room became a museum of curious and wonderful things, and himself an authority on a wide and varied range of topics.

The new life with plenty of wholesome plain food, plenty of fresh air, long nights of good sleep, and happy exercise were developing the young body into strength and beauty, even as the study and contact, with life were developing the mind. Mikky grew up tall and straight and strong. In all the school, even among the older boys, there was none suppler, none so perfectly developed. His face and form were beautiful as Adonis, and yet it was no pink and white feminine beauty. There was strength, simplicity and character in his face. With the acceptance of his new code of morals according to the president, had grown gradually a certain look of high moral purpose. No boy in his presence dared use language not up to the standard. No boy with his knowledge dared do a mean or wrong thing. And yet, in spite of this, not a boy in the school but admired him and was more or less led by him. If he had been one whit less brave, one shade more conscious of self and self’s interests, one tiny bit conceited, this would not have been. But from being a dangerous experiment in their midst Mikky became known as a great influence for good. The teachers saw it and marvelled. The matron saw it and finally, though grudgingly, accepted it. The president saw it and rejoiced. The students saw it not, but acknowledged it in their lives.

Mikky’s flame of gold hair had grown more golden and flaming with the years, so that when their ball team went to a near-by town to play, Mikky was sighted by the crowd and pointed out conspicuously at once.

“Who is that boy with the hair?” some one would ask one of the team.

“That? Oh, that’s the Angel! Wait till you see him play,” would be the reply. And he became known among outsiders as the Angel with the golden hair. At a game a listener would hear:

“Oh, see! see! There’ll be something doing now. The Angel’s at the bat!”

Yet in spite of all this the boy lived a lonely life. Giving of himself continually to those about him, receiving in return their love and devotion, he yet felt in a great sense set apart from them all. Every now and again some boy’s father or mother, or both, would come down for a trip through the South; or a sister or a little brother. Then that boy would be excused from classes and go off with his parents for perhaps a whole week; or they would come to visit him every day, and Michael would look on and see the love light beaming in their eyes. That would never be for him. No one had ever loved him in that way.

Sometimes he would close his eyes and try to get back in memory to the time when he was shot; and the wonder of the soft bed, the sweet room, and little Starr’s kisses. But the years were multiplying now and room and nurse and all were growing very dim. Only little Starr’s kisses remained, a delicate fragrance of baby love, the only kisses that the boy had ever known. One day, when a classmate had been telling of the coming of his father and what it would mean to him, Michael went into his room and locking his door sat down and wrote a stiff school boy letter to his benefactor, thanking him for all that he had done for him. It told briefly, shyly of a faint realization of that from which he had been saved; it showed a proper respect, and desire to make good, and it touched the heart of the busy man who had almost forgotten about the boy, but it gave no hint of the heart hunger which had prompted its writing.

The next winter, when Michael was seventeen, Delevan Endicott and his daughter Starr took a flying trip through the South, and stopped for a night and a day at the college.

The president told Michael of his expected coming. Professor Harkness had gone north on some school business.

The boy received the news quietly enough, with one of his brilliant smiles, but went to his room with a tumult of wonder, joy, and almost fear in his heart. Would Mr. Endicott be like what he remembered, kind and interested and helpful? Would he be pleased with the progress his protégé had made, or would he be disappointed? Would there be any chance to ask after little Starr? She was a baby still in the thoughts of the boy, yet of course she must have grown. And so many things might have happened—she might not be living now. No one would think or care to tell him.

Baby Starr! His beautiful baby! He exulted in the thought that he had flung his little useless life, once, between her lovely presence and death! He would do it again gladly now if that would repay all that her father had done for him. Michael the youth was beginning to understand all that that meant.

Those other friends of his, Buck, Jimmie, Bobs, and the rest, were still enshrined in his faithful heart, though their memory had grown dimmer with the full passing years. Faithfully every month the boy had sent Buck two dollars from his pocket money, his heart swelling with pleasure that he was helping those he loved, but only twice had any word come back from that far city where he had left them. In answer to the letter which the doctor had translated to them, there had come a brief laborious epistle, terse and to the point, written with a stub of pencil on the corner of a piece of wrapping paper, and addressed by a kindly clerk at the post office where Buck bought the stamped envelope. It was the same clerk who usually paid to the urchin his monthly money order, so he knew the address. For the inditing of the letter Buck went to night school two whole weeks before he could master enough letters and words to finish it to his satisfaction, It read:

“Deer Mik WE WunT

“Buck.”

The significant words filled the boy’s heart with pride over his friend whenever he thought of it, even after some time had passed. He had faith in Buck. Somehow in his mind it seemed that Buck was growing and keeping pace with him, and he never dreamed that if Buck should see him now he would not recognize him.

When Mikky had been in Florida several years another letter had come from Buck addressed in the same way, and little better written than the other. Night school had proved too strenuous for Buck; besides, he felt he knew enough for all practical purposes and it was not likely he would need to write many letters. This, however, was an occasion that called for one.

“Dear Mikky Jany is DEAD sHe sayd tell yo hur LUV beeryd hur in owr kote we giv hur ther wuz a angle wit pink wins on top uv the wite hurs an a wite hors we got a lot uv flowers by yur money so yo needn sen no mor money kuz we ken got long now til yo cum BUCK.”

After that, though Michael had written as usual every month for some time no reply had come, and the money orders had been returned to him as not called for. Buck in his simplicity evidently took it for granted that Mikky would not send the money and so came no more to the office, at least that was the solution Michael put upon it, and deep down in his heart he registered a vow to go and hunt up Buck the minute he was through at college, and free to go back to New York and help his friends. Meantime, though the years had dimmed those memories of his old life, and the days went rapidly forward in study, he kept always in view his great intention of one day going back to better his native community.

But the coming of Mr. Endicott was a great event to the boy. He could scarcely sleep the night before the expected arrival.

It was just before the evening meal that the through train from New York reached the station. Michael had been given the privilege of going down to meet his benefactor.

Tall and straight and handsome he stood upon the platform as the train rushed into the town, his cheeks glowing from excitement, his eyes bright with anticipation, his cap in his hand, and the last rays of the setting sun glowing in his golden hair, giving a touch like a halo round his head. When Endicott saw him he exclaimed mentally over his strength and manly beauty, and more than one weary tourist leaned from the open car window and gazed, for there was ever something strange and strong and compelling about Michael that reminded one of the beauty of an angel.

Chapter V

Michael met Mr. Endicott unembarrassed. His early life in New York had given him a self-poise that nothing seemed to disturb; but when the father turned to introduce his young daughter, the boy caught his breath and gazed at her with deepening color, and intense delight.

She was here then, his Starr! She had come to see him, and she looked just as he would have her look. He had not realized before that she would be grown up, but of course she would, and the change in her was not so great as to shock his memory. The clear white of her skin with its fresh coloring was the same. New York life had not made it sallow. The roses were in her cheeks as much as when she was a little child. Her eyes were the same, dark and merry and looked at him straightly, unabashed, with the ease of a girl trained by a society mother. The dark curls were there, only longer, hanging to the slender waist and crowned with a fine wide Panama hat. She gave him a little gloved hand and said: “I’m afraid I don’t remember you very well, but daddy has been telling me about you and I’m very glad to see you.”

She was only a little over twelve, but she spoke with ease and simplicity, and for the first time in his life Michael felt conscious of himself. She was so perfect, so lovely, so finished in every expression and movement. She looked at him intelligently, politely curious, and no longer with the baby eyes that wondered at nothing. He himself could not help wondering what she must think of him, and for a few minutes he grew shy before her.

Mr. Endicott was surprised and pleased at the appearance of the boy. The passing of the years had easily erased the tender feelings that Mikky the little street urchin had stirred in his heart. This visit to the school and college was not so much on account of the boy, to whom he had come to feel he had discharged his full duty, but because of the repeated invitations on the part of Professor Harkness and the president. It went not against him to see the institution to which he had from time to time contributed, in addition to his liberal allowance for the education of the boy. It was perfectly convenient for him to stop, being on the regular route he had laid out for his southern trip. His wife he had left at Palm Beach with her fashionable friends; and with Starr as his companion, the father was going through the orange belt on a tour of investigation with a view to investments. It suited him perfectly to stop off and receive the thanks of the college, therefore he stopped. Not that he was a heartless man, but there were so many things in his world to make him forget, and a little pleasant adulation is grateful to the most of us.

But when Michael in all his striking beauty stood before him with the deference of a more than son, his heart suddenly gave a great leap back to the day when he had first looked down upon the little white face on the pillow; when the blue eyes had opened and Mikky had smiled. Michael smiled now, and Endicott became aware at once of the subtle fascination of that smile. And now the thought presented itself. “What if this were my son! how proud I should be of him!”

Michael was indeed good to look upon even to the eyes of the city critic. Endicott had taken care to leave orders with his tailor for a full outfit to be sent to the boy, Spring and Fall, of suitable plain clothing for a school boy, little realizing how unnecessary it would have been to have dressed him so well. The tailor, nothing loth, had taken the measurements which were sent to him from year to year in answer to the letter of the firm, and had kept Michael looking as well as any rich man’s son need desire to look. Not that the boy knew nor realized. The clothes came to him, like his board and tuition, and he took them well pleased and wrote his best letter of thanks each year as Professor Harkness suggested; but he had no idea that a part at least of his power of leadership with all the boys of the school was due to his plain though stylishly cut garments. This fact would not have counted for anything with boys who had been living in Florida for years, for any plain decent clothes were thought fit, no matter how they were cut; but the patronage of the school was at least one-half made up of rich men’s sons who were sent South for a few years to a milder climate for their health. These as a rule, when they came, had exaggerated ideas of the importance of clothes and prevailing modes.

And so it was that Michael did not look like a dowdy country boy to his benefactor, but on the contrary presented a remarkable contrast with many of the boys with whom Endicott was acquainted at home. There was something about Michael even when he was a small lad that commanded marked attention from all who saw him. This attention Endicott and his daughter gave now as they walked beside him in the glow of the sunset, and listened as he pointed out the various spots of interest in the little college town.

The institution boasted of no carriage, and the single horse-car that travelled to the station belonged to the hotel and its guests. However, the walk was not long, and gave the travellers an opportunity to breathe the clear air and feel the stillness of the evening which was only emphasized by each separate sound now and again.

Starr, as she walked on the inside of the board sidewalk, and looked down at the small pink and white and crimson pea blossoms growing broad-cast, and then up at the tallness of the great pines, felt a kind of awe stealing upon her. The one day she had spent at Palm Beach had been so filled with hotels and people and automobiles that she had had no opportunity to realize the tropical nature of the land. But here in this quiet spot, where the tiny station, the post office, the grocery, and a few scattered dwellings with the lights of the great tourists’ hotel gleaming in the distance, seemed all there was of human habitation; and where the sky was wide even to bewilderment; she seemed suddenly to realize the difference from New York.

Michael had recovered his poise as soon as she no longer faced him, though he was profoundly conscious of her presence there on the other side of her father. But he talked easily and well. Yes, there was the hotel. It held five hundred guests and was pretty well filled at this season of the year. There were some distinguished people stopping there. The railroad president’s private car was on the track for a few hours last week. That car over on the siding belonged to a great steel magnate. The other one had brought the wife of a great inventor. Off there at the right toward the sunset were the school and college buildings. No, they could not be seen, until one passed the orange grove. Too bad there was no conveyance, but the one little car turned off toward the hotel at this corner, and the one beast of burden belonging to the college, the college Mule—Minus, by name, because there were so many things that he was not—was lame today and therefore could not be called into requisition to bring the guests from the station.

Mr. Endicott felt that he was drawing nearer to nature in this quiet walk than he had been since he was a boy and visited his grandfather’s farm. It rested and pleased him immensely, and he was charmed with the boy, his protégé. His frank, simple conversation was free from all affectation on the one hand, or from any hint of his low origin on the other hand. He felt already that he had done a good thing in sending this boy down here to be educated. It was worth the little money he had put into it.

Starr watched Michael shyly from the shelter of her father’s side and listened to him. He was not like the boys she met in New York. To begin with he was remarkably fine looking, and added to that there was a mingled strength and kindliness in his face, and above all about his smile, that made her feel instinctively that he was nobler than most of them. She could not think of a boy of her acquaintance who had a firm chin like that. This boy had something about him that made the girl know instantly that he had a greater purpose in life than his own pleasure. Not that she thought this all out analytically. Starr had never learned to think. She only felt it as she looked at him, and liked him at once. Moreover there was a sort of glamour over the boy in her eyes, for her father had just been telling her the story of how he had saved her life when she was barely two years old. She felt a prideful proprietorship in him that made her shy in his presence.

At the college president’s gate, just on the edge of the campus, the president came out with apologies. He had been detained on a bit of business at the county seat five miles away, and had driven home with a friend whose horse was very slow. He was sorry not to have done their honored guests the courtesy of being at the station on their arrival. Endicott walked with the president after the greetings, and Michael dropped behind with Starr eagerly pointing out to her the buildings.

“That’s the chapel, and beyond are the study and recitation rooms. The next is the dining hall and servant’s quarters, and over on that side of the campus is our dormitory. My window looks down on the lake. Every morning I go before breakfast for a swim.”

“Oh, aren’t you afraid of alligators?” exclaimed Starr shivering prettily.

Michael looked down at her fragile loveliness with a softened appreciation, as one looks at the tender precious things of life that need protection.

“No,” he answered without laughing, as some of the other boys would have done at her girlish fears, “they never bother us here, and besides, I’m sort of acquainted with them. I’m not afraid of them. Nothing will hurt you if you understand it well enough to look out for its rights.”

“Oh!” said Starr eyeing him in wonder. As if an alligator had rights! What a strange, interesting boy. The idea of understanding an alligator. She was about to ask how understanding the creature would keep one from being eaten up when Michael pointed to the crimsoning West:

“See!” he said eagerly as if he were pointing to a loved scene, “the sun is almost down. Don’t you love to watch it? In a minute more it will be gone and then it will be dark. Hear that evening bird? ‘Tit-wiloo! Tit-wiloo!’ He sings sometimes late at night.”

Starr followed his eager words, and saw the sun slipping, slipping like a great ruby disc behind the fringe of palm and pine and oak that bordered the little lake below the campus; saw the wild bird dart from the thicket into the clear amber of the sky above, utter its sweet weird call, and drop again into the fine brown shadows of the living picture; watched, fascinated as the sun slipped lower, lower, to the half now, and now less than half.

Breathless they both stood and let the two men go on ahead, while they watched the wonder of the day turn into night. The brilliant liquid crimson poured itself away to other lands, till only a rim of wonderful glowing garnet remained; then, like a living thing dying into another life, it too dropped away, and all was night.

“Why! How dark it is!” exclaimed Starr as she turned to her companion again and found she could scarcely see his face. “Why! How queer! Where is the twilight? Is anything the matter? I never saw it get dark all at once like this!” She peered around into the strange velvet darkness with troubled eyes.

Michael was all attention at once.

“No, that’s all right,” he assured her. “That’s the way we do here. Almost everybody from the north speaks about it at first. They can’t understand it. Its the difference in the position of the sun, nearer the equator, you know. I’ll show you all about it on the chart in the astronomical room if you care to see. We haven’t any twilight here. I should think twilight would be queer. You wouldn’t just know when night began and day ended. I don’t remember about it when I lived in New York. Look up there! That’s the evening star! It’s come out for you tonight—to welcome another—Starr!”

Oh, Michael, of unknown origin! Whence came that skill of delicate compliment, that grace of courtesy, that you, plucked from the slime of the gutter, set apart from all sweetening influences of loving contact with, womankind, should be able so gallantly and respectfully to guide the young girl through the darkness, touching her little elbow distantly, tactfully, reverently, exactly as the college president helps his wife across the road on Sabbath to the church? Is it only instinct, come down from some patrician ancestor of gallant ways and kind, or have you watched and caught the knack from the noble scholar who is your ideal of all that is manly?

They walked silently through the warm darkness until they came within the circle of light from the open door, and matron and teachers came out to welcome the young stranger and bring her into the house.

Michael lingered for a moment by the door, watching her as she went with the matron, her sweet face wreathed in smiles, the matron’s thin arm around her and a new and gentle look upon her severe countenance; watched until they mounted the stairs out of sight; then he went out of doors.

Taking off his cap he stood reverently looking up at the star, communing with it perhaps about the human Starr that had come back to him out of the shadows of the past.

And she was a star. No one who saw her but acknowledged it. He marvelled as he recalled the change wrought in the face of the matron and because of her gentleness to the little girl forgave her all that she had not been to his motherless boyhood.

Starr came down to dinner in a few minutes radiant in a little rosy frock of soft Eastern silk, girdled with a fringed scarf of the same and a knot of coral velvet in her hair. From the string of pearls about her white neck to the dainty point of her slipper she was exquisite and Michael watched her with open admiration; whereat the long lashes drooped shyly over the girl’s rosy cheeks and she was mightily pleased.

She sat at her father’s side to the right of the president, with Michael across the table. Well he bore the scrutiny of Endicott’s keen eyes which through all the conversation kept searching the intelligent face of the boy.

The evening passed like a dream, and Michael lay awake again that night thinking of all the pleasure in anticipation for the next day. At last, at last he had some people who in a way he might call his own. They had cared to come and see him after all the years! His heart swelled with joy and gratitude.

The guests attended chapel exercises with the students the next morning, and Michael saw with pride the eyes of his companions turn toward the beautiful young girl, and look at him almost with envy. The color mounted into his strong young face, but he sat quietly in his place and no one would have guessed to look at him, the tumult that was running riot in his veins. He felt it was the very happiest day of his life.

After chapel the guests were shown about the college buildings and campus. The president and Endicott walked ahead, Michael behind with Starr, answering her interested questions.

They had been through all the classrooms, the gymnasium, the dining hall, servants’ quarters and dormitories. They had visited the athletic ground, the tennis courts, and gone down by the little lake, where Michael had taken them out for a short row. Returning they were met by one of the professors who suggested their going to hear some of the classes recite, and as Mr. Endicott seemed interested they turned their steps toward the recitation hall.

“I think,” said Starr as they walked slowly across the campus together, “that you must be a very brave boy. To think of you saving my life that way when you were just a little fellow!”

She looked up, her pretty face full of childish feeling.

Michael looked down silently and smiled. He was wondering if any eyes were ever as beautiful as those before him. He had never had even a little girl look at him like that. The president’s daughter was fat and a romp. She never took time to look at the boys. The few other girls he knew, daughters of the professors, were quiet and studious. They paid little attention to the boys.

“I want to thank you for what you did,” went on Starr, “only I can’t think of any words great enough to tell you how I feel about it. I wish there was something I could do to show you how I thank you?”

She lifted her sweet eyes again to his. They were entering the large Hall of the college now.

“This way,” said Michael guiding her toward the chapel door which had just swung to behind the two men.

“Isn’t there something you would like that I could do for you?” persisted Starr earnestly, following him into the empty chapel where Mr. Endicott and the president stood looking at a tablet on the wall by the further door.

“Your father has done everything for me,” said Michael sunnily, with a characteristic sweep of his hand that seemed to include himself, his garments and his mental outfit. He turned upon her his blazing smile that spoke more eloquently than words could have done.

“Yes, but that is papa,” said Starr half impatiently, softly stamping her daintily shod foot. “He did that because of what you did for him in saving my life. I should like to do something to thank you for what you did for me. I’m worth something to myself you know. Isn’t there something I could do for you.”

She stood still, looking up into his face anxiously, her vivid childish beauty seeming to catch all the brightness of the place and focus it upon him. The two men had passed out of the further door and on to the recitation rooms. The girl and boy were alone for the moment.

“You have done something for me, you did a great deal,” he said, his voice almost husky with boyish tenderness. “I think it was the greatest thing that anybody ever did for me.”

“I did something for you! When? What?” questioned Starr curiously.

“Yes,” he said, “you did a great thing for me. Maybe you don’t remember it, but I do. It was when I was getting well from the shot there at your house, and your nurse used to bring you up to play with me every day; and always before you went away, you used to kiss me. I’ve never forgotten that.”

He said it quite simply as if it were a common thing for a boy to say to a girl. His voice was low as though the depths of his soul were stirred.

A flood of pretty color came into Starr’s cheeks.

“Oh!” she said quite embarrassed at the turn of the conversation, “but that was when I was a baby. I couldn’t do that now. Girls don’t kiss boys you know. It wouldn’t be considered proper.”

“I know,” said Michael, his own color heightening now, “I didn’t mean that. I wanted you to know how much you had done for me already. You don’t know what it is never to have been kissed by your mother, or any living soul. Nobody ever kissed me in all my life that I know of but you.”

He looked down at the little girl with such a grave, sweet expression, his eyes so expressive of the long lonely years without woman’s love, that child though she was Starr seemed to understand, and her whole young soul went forth in pity. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Oh!” she said, “That is dreadful! Oh!—I don’t care if it isn’t proper—”

And before he knew what she was about to do the little girl tilted to her tiptoes, put up her dainty hands, caught him about the neck and pressed a warm eager kiss on his lips. Then she sprang away frightened, sped across the room, and through the opposite door.

Michael stood still in a bewilderment of joy for the instant. The compelling of her little hands, the pressure of her fresh lips still lingered with him. A flood tide of glory swept over his whole being. There were tears in his eyes, but he did not know it. He stood with bowed head as though in a holy place. Nothing so sacred, so beautiful, had ever come into his life. Her baby kisses had been half unconscious. This kiss was given of her own free will, because she wanted to do something for him. He did not attempt to understand the wonderful joy that surged through his heart and pulsed in every fibre of his being. His lonely, unloved life was enough to account for it, and he was only a boy with a brief knowledge of life; but he knew enough to enshrine that kiss in his heart of hearts as a holy thing, not even to be thought about carelessly.

When he roused himself to follow her she had disappeared. Her father and the president were listening to a recitation, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had gone to her own room. Michael went down by himself in a thicket by the lake.

She met him shyly at dinner, with averted gaze and a glow on her cheeks, as if half afraid of what she had done, but he reassured her with his eyes. His glance seemed to promise he would never take advantage of what she had done. His face wore an exalted look, as if he had been lifted above earth, and Starr, looking at him wonderingly, was glad she had followed her impulse.

They took a horseback ride to the college grove that afternoon, Mr. Endicott, one of the professors, Starr and Michael. The president had borrowed the horses from some friends.

Michael sat like a king upon his horse. He had ridden the college mule bareback every summer, and riding seemed to be as natural to him as any other sport. Starr had been to a New York riding school, and was accustomed to taking her morning exercise with her father in the Park, or accompanied by a footman; but she sat her Florida pony as happily as though he had been a shiny, well-groomed steed of priceless value. Somehow it seemed to her an unusually delightful experience to ride with this nice boy through the beautiful shaded road of arching live-oaks richly draped with old gray moss. Michael stopped by the roadside, where the shade was dense, dismounted and plunged into the thicket, returning in a moment with two or three beautiful orchids and some long vines of the wonderful yellow jessamine whose exquisite perfume filled all the air about. He wreathed the jessamine about the pony’s neck, and Starr twined it about her hat and wore the orchids in her belt.

Starr had never seen an orange grove before and took great delight in the trees heavily loaded with fruit, green and yellow and set about by blossoms. She tucked a spray of blossoms in her dark hair under the edge of her hat, and Michael looked at her and smiled in admiration. Mr. Endicott, glancing toward his daughter, caught the look, and was reminded of the time when he had found the two children in his own drawing room being made a show for his wife’s guests, and sighed half in pleasure, half in foreboding. What a beautiful pair they were to be sure, and what had the future in store for his little girl?

On the way back they skirted another lake and Michael dismounted again to bring an armful of great white magnolia blossoms, and dainty bay buds to the wondering Starr; and then they rode slowly on through the wooded, road, the boy telling tales of adventures here and there; pointing out a blue jay or calling attention to the mocking bird’s song.

“I wish you could be here next week,” said the boy wistfully. “It will be full moon then. There is no time to ride through this place like a moonlight evening. It seems like fairyland then. The moonbeams make fairy ladders of the jessamine vines.”

“It must be beautiful,” said Starr dreamily. Then they rode for a few minutes in silence. They were coming to the end of the overarched avenue. Ahead of them the sunlight shone clearly like the opening of a great tunnel framed in living green. Suddenly Starr looked up gravely:

“I’m going to kiss you good-bye tonight when, we go away,” she said softly; and touching her pony lightly with the whip rode out into the bright road; the boy, his heart leaping with joy, not far behind her.

Before supper Mr. Endicott had a talk with Michael that went further toward making the fatherless boy feel that he had someone belonging to him than anything that had happened yet.

“I think you have done enough for me, sir,” said Michael respectfully opening the conversation as Endicott came out to the porch where the boy was waiting for him. “I think I ought to begin to earn my own living. I’m old enough now—” and he held his head up proudly. “It’s been very good of you all these years—I never can repay you. I hope you will let me pay the money back that you have spent on me, some day when, I can earn enough—”

Michael had been thinking this speech out ever since the president had told him of Endicott’s expected visit, but somehow it did not sound as well to him when he said it as he had thought it would. It seemed the only right thing to do when he planned it, but in spite of him as he looked into Mr. Endicott’s kind, keen eyes, his own fell in troubled silence. Had his words sounded ungrateful? Had he seen a hurt look in the man’s eyes?

“Son,” said Endicott after a pause, and the word stirred the boy’s heart strangely, “son, I owe you a debt you never can repay. You gave me back my little girl, flinging your own life into the chance as freely as if you had another on hand for use any minute. I take it that I have at least a father’s right in you at any rate, and I mean to exercise it until you are twenty-one. You must finish a college course first. When will that be? Three years? They tell me you are doing well. The doctor wants to keep you here to teach after you have graduated, but I had thought perhaps you would like to come up to New York and have your chance. I’ll give you a year or two in business, whatever seems to be your bent when you are through, and then we’ll see. Which would you rather do? Or, perhaps you’d prefer to let your decision rest until the time comes.”

“I think I’m bound to go back to New York, sir,” said Michael lifting his head with that peculiar motion all his own, so like a challenge. “You know, sir, you said I was to be educated so that I might help my friends. I have learned of course that you meant it in a broader sense than just those few boys, for one can help people anywhere; but still I feel as if it wouldn’t be right for me not to go back. I’m sure they’ll expect me.”

Endicott shrugged his shoulders half admiringly.

“Loyal to your old friends still? Well, that’s commendable, but still I fancy you’ll scarcely find them congenial now. I wouldn’t let them hang too closely about you. They might become a nuisance. You have your way to make in the world, you know.”

Michael looked at his benefactor with troubled brows. Somehow the tone of the man disturbed him.

“I promised,” he said simply. Because there had bean so little in his affections that promise had been cherished through the years, and meant much to Michael. It stood for Principle and Loyalty in general.

“Oh, well, keep your promise, of course,” said the man of the world easily. “I fancy you will find the discharge of it a mere form.”

A fellow student came across the campus.

“Endicott,” he called, “have you seen Hallowell go toward the village within a few minutes?”

“He just want, out the gate,” responded Michael pleasantly.

Mr. Endicott looked up surprised.

“Is that the name by which you are known?”

“Endicott? Yes, sir, Michael Endicott. Was it not by your wish? I supposed they had asked you. I had no other name that I knew.”

“Ah! I didn’t know,” pondered Endicott.

There was silence for a moment.

“Would you,—shall I—do you dislike my having it?” asked the boy delicately sensitive at once.

But the man looked up with something like tenderness in his smile.

“Keep it, son. I like it. I wish I had a boy like you. It is an old name and a proud one. Be worthy of it.”

“I will try, sir,” said Michael, as if he were registering a vow.

There was an early supper for the guests and then Michael walked through another sunset to the station with Starr. He carried a small box carefully prepared in which reposed a tiny green and blue lizard for a parting gift. She had watched the lizards scuttling away under the board sidewalks at their approach, or coming suddenly to utter stillness, changing their brilliant colors to gray like the fence boards that they might not be observed. She was wonderfully interested in them, and was charmed with her gift. The particular lizard in question was one that Michael had trained to eat crumbs from his hand, and was quite tame.

The two said little as they walked along together. Each was feeling what a happy time they had spent in one another’s company.

“I shall write and tell you how the lizard is,” said Starr laughing, “and you will tell me all about the funny and interesting things you are doing, won’t you?”

“If—I may,” said Michael wistfully.

At the station a New York acquaintance of the Endicotts’ invited them to ride in his private car which was on the side track waiting for the train to pick them up. Michael helped Starr up the steps, and carried the lizard into the car as well as the great sheaf of flowers she insisted on taking with her.

There were some ladies inside who welcomed Starr effusively; and Michael, suddenly abashed, laid down the flowers, lifted his cap and withdrew. A sudden blank had come upon him. Starr was absorbed by people from another world than his. He would have no opportunity to say good-bye—and she had promised—But then of course he ought not to expect her to do that. She had been very kind to him—

He was going down the steps now. An instant more and he would be on the cinders of the track.

A sudden rush, a soft cry, caused him to pause on the second step of the vestibuled car. It was Starr, standing just above him, and her eyes were shining like her namesake the evening star.

“You were going without good-bye,” she reproved, and her cheeks were rosy red, but she stood her ground courageously. Placing a soft hand gently on either cheek as he stood below her, his face almost on a level with hers, she tilted his head toward her and touched his lips with her own red ones, delicately as if a rose had swept them.

Simultaneously came the sound of the distant train.

“Good-bye, you nice, splendid boy!” breathed Starr, and waving her hand darted inside the car.

Mr. Endicott, out on the platform, still talking to the president, heard the oncoming train and looked around for Michael. He saw him coming from the car with his exalted look upon his face, his cap off, and the golden beams of the sun again sending their halo like a nimbus over his hair.

Catching his hand heartily, he said:

“Son, I’m pleased with you. Keep it up, and come to me when you are ready. I’ll give you a start.”

Michael gripped his hand and blundered out some words of thanks. Then the train was upon them, and Endicott had to go.

The two younger ladies in the car, meantime, were plying Starr with questions. “Who is that perfectly magnificent young man. Starr Endicott? Why didn’t you introduce him to us? I declare I never saw such a beautiful face on any human being before.”

A moment more and the private car was fastened to the train, and Starr leaning from the window waved her tiny handkerchief until the train had thundered away among the pines, and there was nothing left but the echo of its sound. The sun was going down but it mattered not. There was sunshine in the boy’s heart. She was gone, his little Starr, but she had left the memory of her soft kiss and her bright eyes; and some day, some day, when he was done with college, he would see her again. Meantime he was content.

Chapter VI

The joy of loving kindness in his life, and a sense that somebody cared, seemed to have the effect of stimulating Michael’s mind to greater energies. He studied with all his powers. Whatever he did he did with his might, even his play.

The last year of his stay in Florida, a Department of Scientific Farming was opened on a small scale. Michael presented himself as a student.

“What do you want of farming, Endicott?” asked the president, happening to pass through the room on the first day of the teacher’s meeting with his students. “You can’t use farming in New York.”

There was perhaps in the kindly old president’s mind a hope that the boy would linger with them, for he had become attached to him in a silent, undemonstrative sort of way.

“I might need it sometime,” answered Michael, “and anyway I’d like to understand it. You said the other day that no knowledge was ever wasted. I’d like to know enough at least to tell somebody else.”

The president smiled, wondered, and passed on. Michael continued in the class, supplementing the study by a careful reading of all the Agricultural magazines, and Government literature on the subject that came in his way. Agriculture had had a strange fascination for him ever since a noted speaker from the North had come that way and in an address to the students told them that the new field for growth today lay in getting back to nature and cultivating the earth. It was characteristic of Michael that he desired to know if that statement was true, and if so, why. Therefore he studied.

The three years flew by as if by magic. Michael won honors not a few, and the day came when he had completed his course, and as valedictorian of his class, went up to the old chapel for his last commencement in the college.

He sat on the platform looking down on the kindly, uncritical audience that had assembled for the exercises, and saw not a single face that had come for his sake alone. Many were there who were interested in him because they had known him through the years, and because he bore the reputation of being the honor man of his class and the finest athlete in school. But that was not like having some one of his very own who cared whether he did well or not. He found himself wishing that even Buck might have been there; Buck, the nearest to a brother he had ever had. Would Buck have cared that he had won highest rank? Yes, he felt that Buck would have been proud of him.

Michael had sent out three invitations to commencement, one to Mr. Endicott, one to Starr, and one addressed to Buck, with the inner envelope bearing the words “For Buck and ‘the kids,’” but no response had come to any of them. He had received back the one addressed to Buck with “Not Called For” in big pink letters stamped across the corner. It had reached him that morning, just before he came on the platform. He wished it had not come till night; it gave him a lonely, almost forsaken feeling. He was “educated” now, at least enough to know what he did not know; and there was no one to care.

When Michael sat down after his oration amid a storm of hearty applause, prolonged by his comrades into something like an ovation, some one handed him a letter and a package. There had been a mistake made at the post office in sorting the mail and these had not been put into the college box. One of the professors going down later found them and brought them up.

The letter was from Mr. Endicott containing a businesslike line of congratulations, a hope that the recipient would come to New York if he still felt of that mind, and a check for a hundred dollars.

Michael looked at the check awesomely, re-read the letter carefully and put both in his pocket. The package was tiny and addressed in Starr’s handwriting. Michael saved that till he should go to his room. He did not want to open it before any curious eyes.

Starr’s letters had been few and far between, girlish little epistles; and the last year they had ceased altogether. Starr was busy with life; finishing-school and dancing-school and music-lessons and good times. Michael was a dim and pleasant vision to her.

The package contained a scarf-pin of exquisite workmanship. Starr had pleased herself by picking out the very prettiest thing she could find. She had her father’s permission to spend as much as she liked on it. It was in the form of an orchid, with a tiny diamond like a drop of dew on one petal.

Michael looked on it with wonder, the first suggestion of personal adornment that had ever come to him. He saw the reminder of their day together in the form of the orchid; studied the beautiful name, “Starr Delevan Endicott,” engraved upon the card; then put them carefully back into their box and locked it into his bureau drawer. He would wear it the first time he went to see Starr. He was very happy that day.

The week after college closed Michael drove the college mule to the county seat, ten miles away, and bought a small trunk. It was not much of a trunk but it was the best the town afforded. In this he packed all his worldly possessions, bade good-bye to the president, and such of the professors as had not already gone North for their vacations, took a long tramp to all his old haunts, and boarded the midnight train for New York.

The boy had a feeling of independence which kept him from letting his benefactor know of his intended arrival. He did not wish to make him any unnecessary trouble, and though he had now been away from New York for fourteen years, he felt a perfect assurance that he could find his way about. There are some things that one may learn even at seven, that will never be forgotten.

When Michael landed in New York he looked about him with vague bewilderment for a moment. Then he started out with assurance to find a new spot for himself in the world.

Suitcase he had not, nor any baggage but his trunk to hinder him. He had discovered that the trunk could remain in the station for a day without charge. The handsome raincoat and umbrella which had been a part of the outfit the tailor had sent him that spring were all his encumbrances, so he picked his way unhampered across Liberty Street, eyeing his former enemies, the policemen, and every little urchin or newsboy with interest. Of course Buck and the rest would have grown up and changed some; they wouldn’t likely be selling papers now—but—these were boys such as he had been. He bought a paper off a little ragged fellow with a pinched face, and a strange sensation came over him. When he left this city he was the newsboy, and now he had money enough to buy a paper—and the education to read it! What a difference! Not that he wanted the paper at present, though it might prove interesting later, but he wanted the experience of buying it. It marked the era of change in his life and made the contrast tremendous. Immediately his real purpose in having an education, the uplift of his fellow-beings, which had been most vague during the years, took form and leapt into vivid interest, as he watched the little skinny legs of the newsboy nimbly scrambling across the muddy street under the feet of horses, and between automobiles, in imminent danger of his life.

Michael had thought it all out, just what he would do, and he proceeded to carry out his purpose. He had no idea what a fine picture of well-groomed youth and manly beauty he presented as he marched down the street. He walked like a king, and New York abashed him no more now that he had come back than it did before he went away. There are some spirits born that way. He walked like a “gentleman, unafraid.”

He had decided not to go to Mr. Endicott until he had found lodgings somewhere. An innate delicacy had brought him to this decision. He would not put one voluntary burden upon his kind benefactor. Born and bred in the slums, whence came this fineness of feeling? Who shall say?

Michael threaded his way through the maze of traffic, instinct and vague stirrings of memory guiding him to a quiet shabby street where he found a dingy little room for a small price. The dangers that might have beset a strange young man in the great city were materially lessened for him on account of his wide reading. He had read up New York always wherever he found an article or book or story that touched upon it; and without realizing it he was well versed in details. He had even pondered for hours over a map of New York that he found in the back of an old magazine, comparing it with his faint memories, until he knew the location of things with relation to one another pretty well. A stranger less versed might have gotten into most undesirable quarters.

The boy looked around his new home with a strange sinking of heart, after he had been out to get something to eat, and arranged for his trunk to be sent to his room. It was very tiny and not over clean. The wall paper was a dingy flowered affair quite ancient in design, and having to all appearances far outlived a useful life. The one window looked out to brick walls, chimneys and roofs. The noise of the city clattered in; the smells and the heat made it almost stifling to the boy who had lived for thirteen years in the sunshine of the South, and the freedom of the open.

The narrow bed looked uninviting, the bureau-washstand was of the cheapest, and the reflection Michael saw in its warped mirror would have made any boy with a particle of vanity actually suffer. Michael, however, was not vain. He thought little about himself, but this room was depressing. The floor was covered with a nondescript carpet faded and soiled beyond redemption, and when his trunk was placed between the bureau and the bed there would be scarcely room for the one wooden chair. It was not a hopeful outlook. The boy took off his coat and sat down on the bed to whistle.

Life, grim, appalling, spectral-like, uprose before his mental vision, and he spent a bad quarter of an hour trying to adjust himself to his surroundings; his previous sunny philosophy having a tough tussle with the sudden realities of things as they were. Then his trunk arrived.

It was like Michael to unpack it at once and put all his best philosophical resolves into practice.

As he opened the trunk a whiff of the South, exhaled. He caught his breath with a sudden keen, homesickness. He realized that his school days were over, and all the sweetness and joy of that companionful life passed. He had often felt alone in those days. He wondered at it now. He had never in all his experience known such aloneness as now in this great strange city.

The last thing he had put into his trunk had been a branch of mammoth pine needles. The breath of the tree brought back all that meant home to him. He caught it up and buried his face in the plumy tassels.

The tray of the trunk was filled with flags, pennants, photographs, and college paraphernalia. Eagerly he pulled them all out and spread them over the bumpy little bed. Then he grabbed for his hat and rushed out. In a few minutes he returned with a paper of tacks, another of pins, and a small tack hammer. In an hour’s time he had changed the atmosphere of the whole place. Not an available inch of bare wall remained with, its ugly, dirty wallpaper. College colors, pennants and flags were grouped about pictures, and over the unwashed window was draped Florida moss. Here and there, apparently fluttering on the moss or about the room, were fastened beautiful specimens of semi-tropical moths and butterflies in the gaudiest of colors. A small stuffed alligator reposed above the window, gazing apathetically down, upon the scene. A larger alligator skin was tacked on one wall. One or two queer bird’s nests fastened to small branches hung quite naturally here and there.

Michael threw down the hammer and sat down to survey his work, drawing a breath of relief. He felt more at home now with the photographs of his fellow students smiling down upon him. Opposite was the base-ball team, frowning and sturdy; to the right the Glee Club with himself as their leader; to the left a group of his classmates, with his special chum in the midst. As he gazed at that kindly face in the middle he could almost hear the friendly voice calling to him: “Come on, Angel! You’re sure to win out!”

Michael felt decidedly better, and fell to hanging up his clothes and arranging his effects on clean papers in the rheumatic bureau drawers. These were cramped quarters but would do for the present until he was sure of earning some money, for he would not spend his little savings more than he could help now and he would not longer be dependent upon the benefaction of Mr. Endicott.

When his box of books arrived he would ask permission to put some shelves over the window. Then he would feel quite cosy and at home.

So he cheered himself as he went about getting into his best garments, for he intended to arrive at Madison Avenue about the time that his benefactor reached home for the evening.

Michael knew little of New York ways, and less of the habits of society; the few novels that had happened in his way being his only instructors on the subject. He was going entirely on his dim memories of the habits of the Endicott home during his brief stay there. As it happened Mr. Endicott was at home when Michael arrived and the family were dining alone.

The boy was seated in the reception room gazing about him with the ease of his habitual unconsciousness of self, when Endicott came down bringing Starr with him. A second time the man of the world was deeply impressed with the fine presence of this boy from obscurity. He did not look out of place even in a New York drawing room. It was incredible; though of course a large part of it was due to his city-made clothing. Still, that would not by any means account for case of manner, graceful courtesy, and an instinct for saying the right thing at the right time.

Endicott invited the lad to dine with them and Starr eagerly seconded the invitation. Michael accepted as eagerly, and a few moments later found himself seated at the elegantly appointed table by the side of a beautiful and haughty woman who stared at him coldly, almost insultingly, and made not one remark to him throughout the whole meal. The boy looked at her half wonderingly. It almost seemed as if she intended to resent his presence, yet of course that could not be. His idea of this whole family was the highest. No one belonging to Starr could of course be aught but lovely of spirit.

Starr herself seemed to feel the disapproval of her mother, and shrink into herself, saying very little, but smiling shyly at Michael now and then when her mother was not noticing her.

Starr was sixteen now, slender and lovely as she had given promise of being. Michael watched her satisfied. At last he turned to the mother sitting in her cold grandeur, and with the utmost earnestness and deference in his voice said, his glance still half toward Starr:

“She is like you, and yet not!”

He said it gravely, as if it were a discovery of the utmost importance to them both, and he felt sure it was the key to her heart, this admission of his admiration of the beautiful girl.

Mrs. Endicott froze him with her glance.

From the roots of his hair down to the tips of his toes and back again he felt it, that insulting resentment of his audacity in expressing any opinion about her daughter; or in fact in having any opinion. For an instant his self-possession deserted him, and his face flushed with mingled emotions. Then he saw a look of distress on Starr’s face as she struggled to make reply for her silent mother:

“Yes, mamma and I are often said to resemble one another strongly,” and there was a tremble in Starr’s voice that roused all the manliness in the boy. He flung off the oppression that was settling down upon him and listened attentively to what Endicott was saying, responding gracefully, intelligently, and trying to make himself think that it was his inexperience with ladies that had caused him to say something inappropriate. Henceforth during the evening he made no more personal remarks.

Endicott took the boy to his den after dinner, and later Starr slipped in and they talked a little about their beautiful day in Florida together. Starr asked him if he still rode and would like to ride with her in the Park the next morning when she took her exercise, and it was arranged in the presence of her father and with his full consent that Michael should accompany her in place of the groom who usually attended her rides.

Mrs. Endicott came in as they were making this arrangement, and immediately called Starr sharply out of the room.

After their withdrawal Endicott questioned the boy carefully about his college course and his habits of living. He was pleased to hear that Michael had been independent enough to secure lodgings before coming to his house. It showed a spirit that was worth helping, though he told him that he should have come straight to him.

As Endicott was going off on a business trip for a week he told Michael to enjoy himself looking around the city during his absence, and on his return present himself at the office at an appointed hour when he would put him in the way of something that would start him in life.

Michael thanked him and went back to his hot little room on the fourth floor, happy in spite of heat and dinginess and a certain homesick feeling. Was he not to ride with Starr in the morning? He could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and of all he had to say to her.

Chapter VII

When Michael presented himself at the appointed hour the next morning he was shown into a small reception room by a maid, and there he waited for a full half hour. At the end of that time he heard a discreet rustle of garments in the distance, and a moment later, became aware of a cold stare from the doorway. Mrs. Endicott in an elaborate morning frock was surveying him fixedly through a jewelled lorgnette, her chin tilted contemptuously, and an expression of supreme scorn upon her handsome features. Woman of the world that she was, she must have noted the grace of his every movement as he rose with his habitual courtesy to greet her. Yet for some reason this only seemed to increase her dislike.

There was no welcoming hand held out in response to his good morning, and no answering smile displaced the severity of the woman’s expression as she stood confronting the boy, slowly paralyzing him with her glance. Not a word did she utter. She could convey her deepest meaning without words when she chose.

But Michael was a lad of great self-control, and keen logical mind. He saw no reason for the woman’s attitude of rebuke, and concluded he must be mistaken in it. Rallying his smile once more he asked:

“Is Miss Starr ready to ride, or have I come too early?”

Again the silence became impressive as the cold eyes looked him through, before the thin lips opened.

“My daughter is not ready to ride—with YOU, this morning or at any other time!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Michael now deeply astonished, and utterly unable to fathom the woman’s strange manner. “Have I misunderstood? I thought she asked me to ride with her this morning. May I see her, please?”

“No, you may not see Miss Endicott!” said the cold voice. “And I have come down to tell you that I consider your coming here at all a great impertinence. Certainly my husband has fully discharged any obligations for the slight service he is pleased to assume that you rendered a good many years ago. I have always had my doubts as to whether you did not do more harm than good at that time. Of course you were only a child and it was impossible that you should have done any very heroic thing at that age. In all probability if you had kept out of things the trouble never would have happened, and your meddling simply gave you a wound and a soft bed for a while. In my opinion you have had far more done for you than you ever deserved, and I want you to understand that so far as my daughter is concerned the obligation is discharged.”

Michael had stood immovable while the cruel woman uttered her harangue, his eyes growing wide with wonder and dark with a kind of manly shame for her as she went on. When she paused for a moment she saw his face was white and still like a statue, but there was something in the depth of his eyes that held her in check.

With the utmost calm, and deference, although his voice rang with honest indignation, Michael spoke:

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Endicott,” he said, his tone clear and attention-demanding, “I have never felt that there was the slightest obligation resting upon any of this family for the trifling matter that occurred when, as you say, I was a child. I feel that the obligation is entirely the other way, of course, but I cannot understand what you mean. How is my coming here at Mr. Endicott’s invitation an impertinence?”

The woman looked at him contemptuously as though it were scarcely worth the trouble to answer him, yet there was something about him that demanded an answer.

“I suppose you are ignorant then,” she answered cuttingly, “as you seem to be honest. I will explain. You are not fit company for my daughter. It is strange that you do not see that for yourself! A child of the slums, with nothing but shame and disgrace for an inheritance, and brought up a pauper! How could you expect to associate on a level with a gentleman’s daughter? If you have any respect for her whatever you should understand that it is not for such as you to presume to call upon her and take her out riding. It is commendable in you of course to have improved what opportunities have been given you, but it is the height of ingratitude in a dependent to presume upon kindness and take on the airs of an equal, and you might as well understand first as last that you cannot do it. I simply will not have you here. Do you understand?”

Michael stood as if rooted to the floor, horror and dismay growing in his eyes; and stupor trickling through his veins. For a minute he stood after she had ceased speaking, as though the full meaning of her words had been slow to reach his consciousness. Yet outwardly his face was calm, and only his eyes had seemed to change and widen and suffer as she spoke. Finally his voice came to him:

“Madam, I did not know,” he said in a stricken voice. “As you say, I am ignorant.” Then lifting his head with that fine motion of challenge to the world that was characteristic of him whenever he had to face a hard situation, his voice rang clear and undaunted:

“Madam, I beg your pardon. I shall not offend this way again. It was because I did not understand. I would not hurt your daughter in any way, for she has been the only beautiful thing that ever came into my life. But I will never trouble her again.”

The bow with which he left her and marched past her into the hall and out of the great door where once his boy life had been freely laid down for her child, could have been no more gracefully or dramatically effected if he had been some great actor. It was natural, it was full of dignity and reproach, and it left the lady feeling smaller and meaner than she had ever felt in all of her rose-colored, velvet-lined existence. Somehow all the contempt she had purposely prepared for the crushing of the lad, he had suddenly flung from him as a hated garment and walked from her presence, leaving it wrapped about herself.

“Well, really!” she gasped at last when she realized that he was gone and her eloquence not half finished, “Well, really! What right had he to go away like that without my permission. Impertinent to the end! One would suppose he was a grand Duke. Such airs! I always told Delevan it was a mistake to educate the masses. They simply don’t know their place and will not keep it.”

Nevertheless, the selfish woman was much shaken. Michael had made her feel somehow as if she had insulted a saint or a supernal being. She could not forget how the light had sifted through his wonderful hair and glinted through the depths of his great eyes, as he spoke those last words, and she resented the ease with which he had left her presence. It had been too much like the going of a victor, and not like one crushed back into his natural place. She was cross all day in consequence.

Starr meanwhile was lingering upstairs waiting for Michael. She had been purposely kept busy in a distant room at the back of the house by her mother, and was not told of his coming. As an hour went by beyond the appointed time she grew restless and disappointed; and then annoyed and almost angry that he should have so easily forgotten her; but she did not tell her mother, and the old Scotch nurse who would have been her confidante had been sent on an errand to another part of the city.

Thus, as the days went by, and Michael came no more to the house, the girl grew to think he did not want to come, and her slight disappointment and mortification were succeeded by a haughty resentment, for her mother’s teaching had not been without some result in her character.

Michael had gone into the door of the Endicott mansion a boy with a light heart and a happy vision of the future. He came out from there an hour later, a man, with a heavy burden on his heart, and a blank vision of the future. So much had the woman wrought.

As he walked from the house his bright head drooped, and his spirit was troubled within him. He went as one in a terrible dream. His face had the look of an angel newly turned out of paradise and for no fault of his own; an angel who bowed to the Supreme mandate, but whose life was crushed within him. People looked at him strangely, and wondered as they passed him. It was as if Sorrow were embodied suddenly, and looking through eyes intended for Love. For the first time Michael, beloved of all his companions for his royal unselfishness, was thinking of himself.

Yet even so there was no selfishness in his thought. It was only as if that which had always given him life and the breath of gladness had suddenly been withdrawn from him, and left him panting, gasping in a wide and unexpected emptiness.

Somehow he found his way to his room and locked the door.

Then the great spirit gave way and he flung himself upon the bed in supreme exhaustion. He seemed not to have another atom of strength left wherewith, to move or think or even breathe consciously. All his physical powers had oozed away and deserted him, now in this great crisis when life’s foundations were shaken to their depths and nothing seemed to be any more. He could not think it over or find a way out of the horror, he could only lie and suffer it, fact by fact, as it came and menaced him, slowly, cruelly throughout that length of day.

Gradually it became distinct and separated itself into thoughts so that he could follow it, as if it were the separate parts of some great dragon come to twine its coils about him and claw and crush and strangle the soul of him.

First, there was the fact like a great knife which seemed to have severed soul from body, the fact that he might not see Starr, or have aught to do with her any more. So deeply had this interdiction taken hold upon him that it seemed to him in his agitation he might no longer even think of her.

Next, following in stern and logical sequence, came the reason for this severing of soul from all it knew and loved; the fact of his lowly birth. Coming as it did, out of the blue of a trustful life that had never questioned much about his origin but had sunnily taken life as a gift, and thought little about self; with the bluntness and directness of an un-lovingkindness, it had seemed to cut and back in every direction, all that was left of either soul or body, so that there came no hope of ever catching things together again.

That was the way it came over and over again as the boy without a friend in the whole wide world to whom he could turn in his first great trouble, lay and took it.

Gradually out of the blackness he began to think a little; think back to his own beginning. Who was he? What was he? For the first time in his life, though he knew life more than most of the boys with whom he had associated, the thought of shame in connection with his own birth came to him, and burrowed and scorched its way into his soul.

He might have thought of such a possibility before perhaps, had not his very youngest years been hedged about by a beautiful fancy that sprang from the brain of an old Irish woman in the slums, whose heart was wide as her ways were devious, and who said one day when little Mikky had run her an errand, “Shure, an’ then Mikky, yer an angel sthraight frum hiven an’ no misthake. Yer no jest humans like the rist av us; ye must av dhropped doon frum the skoy.” And from that it had gone forth that Mikky was the child of the sky, and that was why no one knew who were his parents.

The bit of a fancy had guarded the boy’s weird babyhood, and influenced more than he knew his own thought of existence, until life grew too full to think much on it.

Out of the darkness and murk of the slums the soul of Mikky had climbed high, and his ambitions reached up to the limitless blue above him. It had never occurred to him once that there might be an embargo put upon his upward movements. He had taken all others to be as free hearted and generous as himself. Heir of all things, he had breathed the atmosphere of culture as though it were his right. Now, he suddenly saw that he had no business climbing. He had been seized just as he was about to mount a glorious height from which he was sure other heights were visible, when a rude hand had brushed him back and dropped him as though he had been some crawling reptile, down, down, down, at the very bottom of things. And the worst of all was that he might not climb back. He might look up, he might know the way up again, but the honor in him—the only bit of the heights he had carried back to the foot with him—forbade him to climb to the dizzy heights of glory, for they belonged to others: those whom fortune favored, and on whose escutcheon there was no taint of shame.

And why should it be that some souls should be more favored than others? What had he, for instance, to do with his birth? He would not have chosen shame, if shame there was. Yet shame or not he was branded with it for life because his origin was enveloped in mystery. The natural conclusion was that sin had had its part.

Then through the boy’s mind there tumbled a confusion of questions all more or less unanswerable, in the midst of which he slept.

He seemed to have wandered out into the open again with the pines he loved above him, and underneath the springy needles with their slippery resinous softness; and he lay looking up into the changeless blue that covered all the heights, asking all the tumultuous questions that throbbed through his heart, asking them of God.

Silently the noises of the city slunk away and dropped into the ceaseless calm of the southland he had left. The breeze fanned his cheek, the pines whispered, and a rippling bird song touched his soul with peace. A quietness came down upon his troubled spirit, and he was satisfied to take the burden that had been laid him and to bear it greatly. The peace was upon him when he awoke, far into the next morning.

The hot June sun streamed into his stuffy room and fell aslant the bed. He was sodden and heavy with the heat and the oppression of his garments. His head ached, and he felt as nearly ill as he had ever felt in his life. The spectre of the day before confronted him in all its torturing baldness, but he faced it now and looked it squarely in the eyes. It was not conquered yet, not by any means. The sharp pain of its newness was just as great, and the deep conviction was still there that it was because of wrong that this burden was laid upon him, but there was an adjustment of his soul to the inevitable that there had not been at first.

The boy lay still for a few minutes looking out upon a new life in which everything had to be readjusted to the idea of himself and his new limitations. Heretofore in his mind there had been no height that was not his for the climbing. Now, the heights were his, but he would not climb because the heights themselves might be marred by his presence. It was wrong, it was unfair, that things should be so; but they were so, and as long as Sin and Wrong were in the world they would be so.

He must look upon life as he had looked upon every contest through his education. There were always things to be borne, hard things, but that only made the conquest greater. He must face this thing and win.

And what had he lost that had been his before? Not the beautiful girl who had been the idol of his heart all these years. She was still there, alive and well, and more beautiful than ever. His devotion might yet stand between her and harm if need arose. True, he had lost the hope of companionship with her, but that had been the growth of a day. He had never had much of it before, nor expected it when he came North. It would have been a glory and a joy beyond expression, but one could live without those things and be true. There was some reason for it all somewhere in the infinite he was sure.

It was not like the ordinary boy to philosophize in this way, but Michael had never been an ordinary boy. Ever his soul had been open to the greatness of the universe and sunny toward the most trying surroundings. He had come out of the hardest struggle his soul had yet met, but he had come out a man. There were lines about his pleasant mouth that had not been there the day before, which spoke of strength and self-control. There were new depths in his eyes as of one who had looked down, and seen things unspeakable, having to number himself with the lowly.

A new thought came to him while he lay there trying to take in the change that had come to him. The thought of his childhood companions, the little waifs like himself who came from the offscourings of the earth. They had loved him he knew. He recalled slowly, laboriously, little incidents from his early history. They were dim and uncertain, many of them, but little kindnesses stood out. A bad cut on his foot once and how Buck had bathed it and bound it up in dirty rags, doing double duty with the newspapers for several days to save his friend from stepping. There was a bitter cold night way back as far as he could remember when he had had bad luck, and came among the others supperless and almost freezing. Buck had shared a crust and found a warm boiler-room where they crawled out of sight and slept. There were other incidents, still more blurred in his memory, but enough to recall how loyal the whole little gang had been to him. He saw once more their faces when they heard he was going away to college; blanched with horror at the separation, lighting with pleasure when he promised to return!

The years, how they had changed and separated! Where were they, these who really belonged to him; who were his rightful companions? What had the years done to them? And he had a duty toward them unperformed. How was it that he had been in the city all these hours and not even thought of going to look for those loyal souls who had stood by him so faithfully when they were all mere babies? He must go at once. He had lost his head over attempting to reach things that were not for him, and this shock had come to set him straight.

Gravely he rose at last, these thoughts surging through his brain.

The heat, the stifling air of the room, his recent struggling and the exhausting stupor made him reel dizzily as he got up, but his mettle was up now and he set his lips and went about making himself neat. He longed for a dip in the crystal waters of the little lake at college. The tiny wash-bowl of his room proved a poor substitute with its tepid water and diminutive towel.

He went out and breakfasted carefully as if it were a duty, and then, with his map in his pocket, started out to find his old haunts.

Chapter VIII

Thirteen years in New York had brought many changes. Some of the well-remembered landmarks were gone and new buildings in their places. A prosperous looking saloon quite palatial in its entrance marked the corner where he used to sell papers. It used to be a corner grocery store. Saloons! Always and everywhere there were saloons! Michael looked at them wonderingly. He had quite forgotten them in his exile, for the college influence had barred them out from its vicinity.

The boy Mikky had been familiar enough with saloons, looking upon them as a necessary evil, where drinking fathers spent the money that ought to have bought their children food. He had been in and out of them commonly enough selling his papers, warming his feet, and getting a crust now and then from an uneaten bit on the lunch counter. Sometimes there had been glasses to drain, but Mikky with his observing eyes had early decided that he would have none of the stuff that sent men home to curse their little children.

College influence, while there had been little said on the subject, had filled the boy with horror for saloons and drunkards. He stood appalled now as he turned at last into an alley where familiar objects, doorsteps, turnings, cellars, met his gaze, with grog shops all along the way and sentinelling every corner.

A strange feeling came over him as memory stirred by long-forgotten sights awoke. Was this really the place, and was that opening beyond the third steps the very blind alley where Janie used to live? Things were so much dirtier, so much, worse in every way than he remembered them.

He hurried on, not noticing the attention he was attracting from the wretched little children in the gutters, though he scanned them all eagerly, hurriedly, with the wild idea that Buck and the rest might be among them.

Yes, the alley was there, dark and ill-smelling as ever, and in its dim recesses on a dirty step a woman’s figure hunched; a figure he knew at once that he had seen before and in that very spot. Who was she? What had they called her? Sally? Aunt Sal?

He hurried up to where she sat looking curiously, apathetically at him; her gray hair straggling down on her dirty cotton frock open at the neck over shrivelled yellow skin; soiled old hands hanging carelessly over slatternly garments; stockingless feet stuck into a great tattered pair of men’s shoes. Nothing seemed changed since he saw her last save that the hair had been black then, and the skin not so wrinkled. Aunt Sally had been good natured always, even when she was drunk; her husband, when he came home was always drunk also, but never good natured. These things came back to the boy as he stood looking down at the wreck of a woman before him.

The bleary eyes looked up unknowing, half resentful of his intrusion.

“Aunt Sally!” impulsively cried the boyish voice. “Aren’t you Aunt Sally?”

The woman looked stupidly surprised.

“I be,” she said thickly, “but wot’s that to yous? I beant no hant o’ yourn.”

“Don’t you remember Mikky?” he asked almost anxiously, for now the feeling had seized him that he must make her remember. He must find out if he could whether anything was known of his origin. Perhaps she could help him. Perhaps, after all, he might be able to trace his family, and find at least no disgrace upon him.

“Mikky!” the woman repeated dully. She shook her head.

“Mikky!” she said again stolidly, “Wot’s Mikky?”

“Don’t you remember Mikky the little boy that sold papers and brought you water sometimes? Once you gave me a drink of soup from your kettle. Think!”

A dim perception came into the sodden eyes.

“Thur wus a Mikky long ago,” she mused. “He had hair like a h’angel, bless the sweet chile; but he got shot an’ never come back. That war long ago.”

Michael took off his hat and the little light in the dark alley seemed to catch and tangle in the gleam of his hair.

The old woman started as though she had seen a vision.

“The saints presarve us!” she cried aghast, shrinking back into her doorway with raised hands, “an’ who be yez? Yeh looks enough like the b’y to be the father of ’im. He’d hair loike the verra sunshine itself. Who be yez? Spake quick. Be ye man, b’y, er angel?”

There was something in the woman’s tone that went to the heart of the lonely boy, even while he recoiled from the repulsive creature before him.

“I am just Mikky, the boy, grown a little older,” he said gently, “and I’ve come back to see the place where I used to live, and find the people I used to know.”

“Y’ve lost yer way thin fer shure!” said the woman slightly recovering her equilibrium. “The loikes uv yous nivver lived in dis place; fer ef yous ain’t angel you’s gintulmun; an’ no gintulmun ivver cum from the loikes o’ this. An’ besoides, the b’y Mikky, I tel’d yez, was shot an’ nivver comed back no more. He’s loikely up wid de angels where he b’longs.”

“Yes, I was shot,” said Michael, “but I wasn’t killed. A good man sent me to college, and I’ve just graduated and come back to look up my friends.”

“Frinds, is it, ye’ll be afther a findin’? Thin ye’d bist look ilsewhar, fer thur’s no one in this alley fit to be frinds with the loikes uv you. Ef that’s wot they does with b’ys at co-lidge a pity ’tis more uv um can’t git shot an’ go there. But ef all yous tell is thrue, moi advice to yez is, juist bate it as hoird as ivver yez kin out’n yere, an’ don’t yez nivver set oies on this alley agin. Ye’d better stay to co-lidge all the days uv yer loife than set fut here agin, fer juist let ’em got holt uv yez an’ they’ll spile the pretty face uv ye. Look thar!” she pointed tragically toward a wreck of humanity that reeled into the alley just then. “Would yez loike to be loike that? My mon come home loike that ivvery day of his loife, rist his bones, an’ he nivver knowed whin he died.”

Maudlin tears rolled down the poor creature’s cheeks, for they could be no tears of affection. Her man’s departure from this life could have been but a relief. Michael recoiled from the sight with a sickening sadness. Nevertheless he meant to find out if this woman knew aught of his old friends, or of his origin. He rallied his forces to answer her.

“I don’t have to be like that,” he said, “I’ve come down to look up my friends I tell you, and I want you to tell me if you know anything about my parents. Did you ever hear anything about me? Did anybody know who I was or how I came to be here?”

The old woman looked at him only half comprehending, and tried to gather her scattered faculties, but she shook her grizzled head hopelessly.

“I ain’t niver laid oies on yea before, an’ how cud I know whar yez cum from, ner how yez cam to be here?” she answered.

He perceived that it would require patience to extract information from this source.

“Try to think,” he said more gently. “Can you remember if anyone ever belonged to the little boy they called Mikky? Was there ever any mother or father, or—anybody that belonged to him at all.”

Again, she shook her head.

“Niver as Oi knows on. They said he just comed a wee babby to the coourt a wanderin’ with the other childer, with scarce a rag to his back, an’ a smile on him like the arch-angel, and some said as how he niver had no father ner mother, but dthrapped sthraight frum the place where de angels live.”

“But did no one take care of him, or ever try to find out about him?” questioned Michael wistfully.

“Foind out, is it? Whist! An’ who would tak toime to foind out whin ther’s so miny uv their own. Mikky was allus welcome to a bite an’ a sup ef any uv us had it by. There wuz old Granny Bane with the rheumatiks. She gave him a bed an’ a bite now an’ agin, till she died, an afther that he made out to shift fer hisse’f. He was a moighty indepindint babby.”

“But had he no other name? Mikky what? What was his whole name?” pursued Michael with an eagerness that could not give up the sought-for information.

The old woman only stared stupidly.

“Didn’t he have any other name?” There was almost despair in his tone.

Another shake of the head.

“Juist Mikky!” she said and her eyes grew dull once more.

“Can you tell me if there are any other people living here now that used to know Mikky? Are there any other men or women who might remember?”

“How kin Oi tell?” snarled the woman impatiently. “Oi can’t be bothered.”

Michael stood in troubled silence and the woman turned her head to watch a neighbor coming down the street with a basket in her hand. It would seem that her visitor interested her no longer. She called out some rough, ribaldry to the woman who glanced up fiercely and deigned no further reply. Then Michael tried again.

“Could you tell me of the boys who used to go with Mikky?”

“No, Oi can’t,” she answered crossly, “Oi can’t be bothered. Oi don’t know who they was.”

“There was Jimmie and Sam and Bobs and Buck. Surely you remember Buck, and little Janie. Janie who died after Mikky went away?”

The bleared eyes turned full upon him again.

“Janie? Fine Oi remimber Janie. They had a white hurse to her, foiner’n any iver cum to the coourt before. The b’ys stayed up two noights selling to git the money fur it, an’ Buck he stayed stiddy while she was aloive. Pity she doied.”

“Where is Buck?” demanded Michael with a sudden twinging of his heart strings that seemed to bring back the old love and loyalty to his friend. Buck had needed him perhaps all these years and he had not known.

“That’s whot the police would like fer yez to answer, I’m thinkin’!” laughed old Sal. “They wanted him bad fer breakin’ into a house an’ mos’ killin’ the lady an’ gittin’ aff wid de jewl’ry. He beat it dat noight an’ ain’t none o’ us seen him these two year. He were a slick one, he were awful smart at breakin’ an’ stealin’. Mebbe Jimmie knows, but Jimmie, he’s in jail, serving his time fer shootin’ a man in the hand durin’ a dhrunken fight. Jimmie, he’s no good. Never wuz. He’s jest like his foither. Bobs, he got both legs cut aff, bein’ runned over by a big truck, and he doied in the horspittle. Bobs he were better dead. He’d uv gone loike the rist. Sam, he’s round these parts mostly nights. Ye’ll hev to come at noight ef yez want to see him. Mebbe he knows more ’bout Buck’n he’ll tell.”

Sick at heart Michael put question, after question but no more information was forthcoming and the old woman showed signs of impatience again. Carefully noting what she said about Sam and getting a few facts as to the best time and place to find him Michael turned and walked sadly out of the alley. He did not see the alert eyes of old Sal following him, nor the keen expression of her face as she stretched her neck to see which way he turned as he left the alley. As soon as he was out of sight she shuffled down from her doorstep to the corner and peered after him through the morning sunshine. Then she went slowly, thoughtfully back to her doorstep.

“Now whut in the divil could he be a wantin’ wid Buck an’ Sammie?” she muttered to herself. “All that story ’bout his bein’ Mikky was puttin’ it on my eye, I’ll giv warnin’ to Sammie this night, an’ ef Buck’s in these pairts he better git out west some’res. The police uv got onto ’im. But hoiwiver did they know he knowed Mikky? Poor little angel Mikky! I guv him the shtraight about Bobs an’ Jimmie, fer they wuz beyant his troublin’ but he’ll niver foind Sammie from the directin’ I sayed.”

Michael, sorrowing, horror-filled, conscience-stricken, took his way to a restaurant and ate his dinner, thinking meanwhile what he could do for the boys. Could he perhaps visit Jimmie in prison and make his life more comfortable in little ways? Could he plan something for him when he should come out? Could he help Sam? The old woman had said little about Sam’s condition. Michael thought he might likely by this time have built up a nice little business for himself. Perhaps he had a prosperous news stand in some frequented place. He looked forward eagerly to meeting him again. Sam had always been a silent child dependent on the rest, but he was one of the little gang and Michael’s heart warmed toward his former comrade. It could not be that he would find him so loathsome and repulsive as the old woman Sal. She made him heart-sick. Just to think of drinking soup from her dirty kettle! How could he have done it? And yet, he knew no better life then, and he was hungry, and a little child.

So Michael mused, and all the time with a great heart-hunger to know what had become of Buck. Could he and Sam together plan some way to find Buck and help him out of his trouble? How could Buck have done anything so dreadful? And yet even as he thought it he remembered that “pinching” had not been a crime in his childhood days, not unless one was found out. How had these principles, or lack of principles been replaced gradually in his own life without his realizing it at all? It was all strange and wonderful. Practically now he, Michael, had been made into a new creature since he left New York, and so gradually, and pleasantly that he had not at all realized the change that was going on in him.

Yet as he thought and marvelled there shot through him a thought like a pang, that perhaps after all it had not been a good thing, this making him into a new creature, with new desires and aims and hopes that could never be fulfilled. Perhaps he would have been happier, better off, if he had never been taken out of that environment and brought to appreciate so keenly another one where he did not belong, and could never stay, since this old environment was the one where he must stay whether he would or no. He put the thought from him as unworthy at once, yet the sharpness of the pang lingered and with it a vision of Starr’s vivid face as he had seen her two nights before in her father’s home, before he knew that the door of that home was shut upon him forever.

Michael passed the day in idly wandering about the city trying to piece together his old knowledge, and the new, and know the city in which he had come to dwell.

It was nearing midnight, when Michael, by the advice of old Sal, and utterly fearless in his ignorance, entered the court where his babyhood had been spent.

The alley was dark and murky with the humidity of the summer night; but unlike the morning hours it was alive with a writhing, chattering, fighting mass of humanity. Doorways were overflowing. The narrow alley itself seemed fairly thronging with noisy, unhappy men and women. Hoarse laughs mingled with rough cursing, shot through with an occasional scream. Stifling odors lurked in cellar doorways and struck one full in the face unawares. Curses seemed to be the setting for all conversation whether angry or jolly. Babies tumbled in the gutter and older children fought over some scrap of garbage.

Appalled, Michael halted and almost turned back. Then, remembering that this was where he had come from,—where he belonged,—and that his duty, his obligation, was to find his friends, he went steadily forward.

There sat old Sal, a belligerent gleam in her small sodden eyes. Four men on a step opposite, with a candle stood between them, were playing cards. Sal muttered a word as Michael approached and the candle was suddenly extinguished. It looked as if one had carelessly knocked it down to the pavement, but the glare nickered into darkness and Michael could no longer see the men’s faces. He had wondered if one of them was Sam. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked again in the darkness the four men were gone and the step was occupied by two children holding a sleeping baby between them and staring at him in open mouthed admiration.

The flickering weird light of the distant street lamps, the noise and confusion, the odors and curses filled him anew with a desire to flee, but he would not let himself turn back. Never had Michael turned from anything that was his duty from fear or dislike of anything.

He tried to enter into conversation with old Sal again, but she would have none of him. She had taken “a wee drapth” and was alert and suspicious. In fact, the whole alley was on the alert for this elegant stranger who was none of theirs, and who of course could have come but to spy on some one. He wanted Sam, therefore Sam was hidden well and at that moment playing a crafty game in the back of a cellar on the top of an old beer barrel, by the light of a wavering candle; well guarded by sentinels all along the difficult way. Michael could have no more found him under those circumstances than he could have hoped to find a needle in a haystack the size of the whole city of New York.

He wandered for two hours back and forth through the alley seeing sights long since forgotten, hearing words unspeakable; following out this and that suggestion of the interested bystanders; always coming back without finding Sam. He had not yet comprehended the fact that he was not intended to find Sam. He had taken these people into his confidence just as he had always taken everyone into his confidence, and they were playing him false. If they had been the dwellers on Fifth Avenue he would not have expected them to be interested in him and his plans and desires; but these were his very own people, at least the “ownest” he had in the world, and among them he had once gone freely, confidently. He saw no reason why they should have changed toward him, though he felt the antagonism in the atmosphere as the night wore on, even as he had felt it in the Endicott house the day before.

Heartsick and baffled at last he took his way slowly, looking back many times, and leaving many messages for Sam. He felt as if he simply could not go back to even so uncomfortable a bed an he called his own in his new lodgings without having found some clew to his old comrades.

Standing at the corner of the alley opposite the flaunting lights of the saloon he looked back upon the swarming darkness of the alley and his heart filled with a great surging wave of pity, love, and sorrow. Almost at his feet in a dark shadow of a doorway a tiny white-faced boy crouched fast asleep on the stone threshold. It made him think of little Bobs, and his own barren childhood, and a mist came before his eyes as he looked up, up at the sky where the very stars seemed small and far away as if the sky had nothing to do with this part of the earth.

“Oh, God!” he said under his breath. “Oh, God! I must do something for them!”

And then as if the opportunity came with the prayer there reeled into view a little group of people, three or four men and a woman.

The woman was talking in a high frightened voice and protesting. The men caught hold of her roughly, laughing and flinging out coarse jests. Then another man came stealing from the darkness of the alley and joined the group, seizing the woman by the shoulders and speaking words to her too vile for repetition. In terrible fear the girl turned, for Michael could see, now that she was nearer, that she was but a young girl, and that she was pretty. Instantly he thought of Starr and his whole soul rose in mighty wrath that any man should dare treat any girl as he had seen these do. Then the girl screamed and struggled to get away, crying: “It ain’t true, it ain’t true! Lem’me go! I won’t go with you—”

Instantly Michael was upon them, his powerful arms and supple body dashing the men right and left. And because of the suddenness of the attack coming from this most unexpected quarter,—for Michael had stood somewhat in the shadow—and because of the cowardliness of all bullies, for the moment he was able to prevail against all four, just long enough for the girl to slip like a wraith from their grasp and disappear into the shadows.

Then when the men, dazed from surprise, though not seriously hurt, discovered that their prey was gone and that a stranger from the higher walks of life had frustrated their plans they fell upon him in their wrath.

Michael brave always, and well trained in athletics, parried their blows for an instant, but the man, the one who had come from the shadows of the alley, whose face was evil, stole up behind and stabbed him in the shoulder. The sudden faintness that followed made him less capable of defending himself. He felt he was losing his senses, and the next blow from one of the men sent him reeling into the street where he fell heavily, striking his head against the curbing. There was a loud cry of murder from a woman’s shrill voice, the padded rush of the villains into their holes, the distant ring of a policeman’s whistle, and then all was quiet as a city night could be. Michael lay white and still with his face looking up to the faint pitying moon so far away and his beautiful hair wet with the blood that was flowing out on the pavement. There he lay on the edge of the world that was his own and would not own him. He had come to his own and his own received him not.

Chapter IX

Michael awoke in the hospital with a bandage around his head and a stinging pain in his shoulder whenever he tried to move.

Back in his inner consciousness there sounded the last words he heard before he fell, but he could not connect them with anything at first:

“Hit him again, Sam!”

Those were the words. What did they mean? Had he heard them or merely dreamed them? And where was he?

A glance about the long room with its rows of white beds each with an occupant answered his question. He closed his eyes again to be away from all those other eyes and think.

Sam! He had been looking for Sam. Had Sam then come at last? Had Sam hit him? Had Sam recognized him? Or was it another Sam?

But there was something queer the matter with his head, and he could not think. He put up his right arm to feel the bandage and the pain in his shoulder stung again. Somehow to his feverish fancy it seemed the sting of Mrs. Endicott’s words to him. He dropped his hand feebly and the nurse gave him something in a spoon. Then half dreaming he fell asleep, with a vision of Starr’s face as he had seen her last.

Three weeks he lay upon that narrow white bed, and learned to face the battalion of eyes from the other narrow beds around him; learned to distinguish the quiet sounds of the marble lined room from the rumble of the unknown city without; and when the rumble was the loudest his heart ached with the thought of the alley and all the horrible sights and sounds that seemed written in letters of fire across his spirit.

He learned to look upon the quiet monotonous world of ministrations as a haven from the world outside into which he must presently go; and in his weakened condition he shrank from the new life. It seemed to be so filled with disappointments and burdens of sorrow.

But one night a man in his ward died and was carried, silent and covered from the room. Some of his last moaning utterances had reached the ears of his fellow sufferers with a swift vision of his life and his home, and his mortal agony for the past, now that he was leaving it all.

That night Michael could not sleep, for the court and the alley, and the whole of sunken humanity were pressing upon his heart. It seemed to be his burden that he must give up all his life’s hopes to bear. And there he had it out with himself and accepted whatever should come to be his duty.

Meantime the wound on his head was healed, the golden halo had covered the scar, and the cut in his shoulder, which had been only a flesh, wound, was doing nicely. Michael, was allowed to sit up, and then to be about the room for a day or two.

It was in those days of his sitting up when the sun which crept in for an hour a day reached and touched to flame his wonderful hair, that the other men of the ward began to notice him. He seemed to them all as somehow set apart from the rest; one who was lifted above what held them down to sin and earth. His countenance spoke of strength and self-control, the two things that many of those men lacked, either through constant sinning or through constant fighting with poverty and trouble, and so, as he began to get about they sent for him to come to their bedsides, and as they talked one and another of them poured out his separate tale of sorrow and woe, till Michael felt he could bear no more. He longed for power, great power to help; power to put these wretched men on their feet again to lead a new life, power to crush some of the demons in human form who were grinding them down to earth. Oh! for money and knowledge and authority!

Here was a man who had lost both legs in a defective machine he was running in a factory. He was a skilled workman and had a wife and three little ones. But he was useless now at his trade. No one wanted a man with no legs. He might better be dead. Damages? No, there was no hope of that. He had accepted three hundred dollars to sign a release. He had to. His wife and children were starving and they must have the money then or perish. There was no other way. Besides, what hope had he in fighting a great corporation? He was a poor man, a stranger in this country, with no friends. The company had plenty who were willing to swear it was the man’s own fault.

Yonder was another who had tried to asphyxiate himself by turning on the gas in his wretched little boarding-house room because he had lost his position on account of ill health, and the firm wished to put a younger man in his place. He had almost succeeded in taking himself out of this life.

Next him was one, horribly burned by molten metal which he had been compelled to carry without adequate precautions, because it was a cheaper method of handling the stuff and men cost less than machinery. You could always get more men.

The man across from him was wasted away from insufficient food. He had been out of work for months, and what little money he could pick up in odd jobs had gone mostly to his wife and children.

And so it was throughout the ward. On almost every life sin,—somebody’s sin,—had left its mark. There were one or two cheery souls who, though poor, were blest with friends and a home of some kind and were looking forward to a speedy restoration; but these were the exception. Nearly all the others blamed someone else for their unhappy condition and in nearly every case someone else was undoubtedly to blame, even though in most cases each individual had been also somewhat responsible.

All this Michael gradually learned, as he began his practical study of sociology. As he learned story after story, and began to formulate the facts of each he came to three conclusions: First, that there was not room enough in the city for these people to have a fair chance at the great and beautiful things of life. Second, that the people of the cities who had the good things were getting them all for themselves and cared not a straw whether the others went without. Third, that somebody ought to be doing something about it, and why not he?

Of course it was absurd for a mere boy just out of college, with scarcely a cent to his name—and not a whole name to call his own—to think of attempting to attack the great problem of the people single-handed; but still he felt he was called to do it, and he meant to try.

He hadn’t an idea at this time whether anybody else had seen it just this way or not. He had read a little of city missions, and charitable enterprises, but they had scarcely reached his inner consciousness. His impression gathered from such desultory reading had been that the effort in that direction was sporadic and ineffective. And so, in his gigantic ignorance and egotism, yet with his exquisite sensitiveness to the inward call, Michael henceforth set himself to espouse the cause of the People.

Was he not one of them? Had he not been born there that he might be one of them, and know what they had to suffer? Were they not his kindred so far as he had any kindred? Had he not been educated and brought into contact with higher things that he might know what these other human souls might be if they had the opportunity? If he had known a little more about the subject he would have added “and if they would.” But he did not; he supposed all souls were as willing to be uplifted as he had been.

Michael went out from the hospital feeling that his life work was before him. The solemn pledge he had taken as a little child to return and help his former companions became a voluntary pledge of his young manhood. He knew very little indeed about the matter, but he felt much, and he was determined to do, wherever the way opened. He had no doubt but that the way would open.

“Now young man, take care of yourself,” said the doctor in parting from his patient a few days later, “and for the land’s sake keep away from back alleys at night. When you know a little more about New York you’ll learn that it’s best to keep just as far away from such places as possible. Don’t go fooling around under the impression that you can convert any of those blackguards. They need to be blown up, every one of them, and the place obliterated. Mind, I say, keep away from them.”

Michael smiled and thanked the doctor, and walked unsteadily down the hospital steps on feet that were strangely wobbly for him. But Michael did not intend to obey the doctor. He had been turning the matter over in his mind and he had a plan. And that very night about ten o’clock he went back to the alley.

Old Sal was sitting on her doorstep a little more intoxicated than the last time, and the young man’s sudden appearance by her side startled her into an Irish howl.

“The saints presarve us!” she cried tottering to her feet. “He’s cum back to us agin, sure he has! There’s no killin’ him! He’s an angel shure. B’ys rin! bate it! bate it! The angel’s here agin!”

There was a sound of scurrying feet and the place seemed to suddenly clear of the children that had been under foot. One or two scowling men, or curiously apathetic women in whose eyes the light of life had died and been left unburied, peered from dark doorways.

Michael stood quietly until the howling of Sal had subsided, and then he spoke in a clear tone.

“Can you tell if Sam has been around here tonight? Is he anywhere near here now?”

There was no answer for a minute but some one growled out the information that he might and then he might not have been. Some one else said he had just gone away but they didn’t know where. Michael perceived that it was a good deal as it had been before.

“I have brought a message for him, a letter,” he said, and he spoke so that anyone near-by might hear. “Will you give it to him when he comes. He will want to see it, I am sure. It is important. I think he will be glad to get it. It contains good news about an old friend of his.”

He held out the letter courteously to old Sal, and she looked down at its white crispness as though it had been a message from the lower regions sent to call her to judgment. A letter, white, square-cornered and clean, with clear, firm inscription, had never come within her gaze before. Old Sal had never learned to read. The writing meant nothing to her, but the whole letter represented a mystic communication from another world.

Instinctively the neighbors gathered nearer to look at the letter, and Sal, seeing herself the centre of observation, reached forward a dirty hand wrapped in a corner of her apron, and took the envelope as though it had been hot, eyeing it all the while fearfully.

Then with his easy bow and touching his hat to her as though she had been a queen, Michael turned and walked away out of the alley.

Old Sal stood watching him, a kind of wistful wonder in her bleary eyes. No gentleman had ever tipped his hat to her, and no man had ever done her reverence. From her little childhood she had been brought up to forfeit the respect of men. Perhaps it had never entered her dull mind before that she might have been aught but what she was; and that men might have given her honor.

The neighbors too were awed for the moment and stood watching in silence, till when Michael turned the corner out of sight, Sal exclaimed:

“Now that’s the angel, shure! No gintlemin would iver uv tipped his ’at to the loikes of Sal. Saints presarve us! That we should hev an angel in this alley!”

When Michael reached his lodging he found that he was trembling so from weakness and excitement that he could scarcely drag himself up the three flights to his room. So had his splendid strength been reduced by trouble and the fever that came with his wounds.

He lay down weakly and tried to think. Now he had done his best to find Sam. If Sam did not come in answer to his letter he must wait until he found him. He would not give up. So he fell asleep with the burden on his heart.

The letter was as follows:

Dear Sam:
You can’t have forgotten Mikky who slept with you in the boiler room, and with whom you shared your crusts. You remember I promised when I went away to college I would come back and try to make things better for you all? And now I have come and I am anxious to find the fellows and see what we can do together to make life better in the old alley and make up for some of the hard times when we were children. I have been down to the alley but can get no trace of you. I spent the best part of one night hunting you and then a slight accident put me in the hospital for a few days, but I am well now and am anxious to find you all. I want to talk over old times, and find out where Buck and Jim are; and hear all about Janie and little Bobs.
I am going to leave this letter with Aunt Sally, hoping she will give it to you. I have given my address below and should be glad to have you come and see me at my room, or if you would prefer I will meet you wherever you say, and we will go together and have something to eat to celebrate.
Hoping to hear from you very soon, I am as always,

Your brother and friend,

MIKKY.

“Address, Michael Endicott,
No —— West 23rd St.”

A few days later a begrimed envelope addressed in pencil was brought to the door by the postman. Michael with sinking heart opened it. It read:

MiKY ef yo be reely hym cum to KelLys karner at 10 tumoroW nite. Ef you are mIK youz thee old whissel an doante bring no une wit yer Ef yO du I wunt be thar.

SAM.

Michael seated on his lumpy bed puzzled this out, word by word, until he made fairly good sense of it. He was to go to Kelly’s corner. How memory stirred at the words. Kelly’s corner was beyond the first turn of the alley, it was at the extreme end of an alley within an alley, and had no outlet except through Kelly’s saloon. Only the “gang” knew the name, “Kelly’s Corner,” for it was not really a corner at all only a sort of pocket or hiding place so entitled by Buck for his own and “de kids” private purpose. If Michael had been at all inclined to be a coward since his recent hard usage in the vicinity of the alley he would have kept away from Kelly’s corner, for once in there with enemies, and alone, no policeman’s club, nor hospital ambulance would ever come to help. The things that happened at Kelly’s corner never got into the newspapers.

Memory and instinct combined to make this perfectly dear to Michael’s mind, and if he needed no other warning those words of the letter, “Don’t bring no one with you. If you do, I won’t be there,” were sufficient to make him wise.

Yet Michael never so much as thought of not keeping the appointment. His business was to find Sam, and it mattered as little to him now that danger stood in the way as it had the day when he flung his neglected little body in front of Starr Endicott and saved her from the assassin’s bullet. He would go, of course, and go alone. Neither did it occur to him to take the ordinary precaution of leaving his name and whereabouts at the police station to be searched for in case he did not turn up in reasonable time. It was all in the day’s work and Michael thought no more about the possible peril he was facing than he had thought of broken limbs and bloody noses the last hour before a football scrimmage.

There was something else in the letter that interested Michael and stirred the old memories. That old whistle! Of course he had not forgotten that, although he had not used it much among his college companions. It was a strange, weird, penetrating sound, between a call and whistle. He and Buck had made it up between them. It was their old signal. When Michael went to college he had held it sacred as belonging strictly to his old friends, and never, unless by himself in the woods where none but the birds and the trees could hear, had he let its echoes ring. Sometimes he had flung it forth and startled the mocking birds, and once he had let it ring into the midst of his astonished comrades in Florida when he was hidden from their view and they knew not who had made the sound. He tried it now softly, and then louder and louder, until with sudden fear he stopped lest his landlady should happen to come up that way and think him insane. But undoubtedly he could give the old signal.

The next night at precisely ten o’clock Michael’s ringing step sounded down the alley; firm, decisive, secure. Such assurance must Daniel have worn as he faced the den of lions; and so went the three Hebrew children into the fiery furnace.

“It’s him! It’s the angel!” whispered old Sal who was watching. “Oi tould yez he’d come fer shure!”

“He’s got his nerve with him!” murmured a girl with bold eyes and a coarse kind of beauty, as she drew further back into the shadow of the doorway. “He ain’t comin’ out again so pretty I guess. Not if Sam don’t like. Mebbe he ain’t comin’ out ’tall!”

“Angels has ways, me darlint!” chuckled Sal. “He’ll come back al roight, ye’ll see!”

On walked Michael, down the alley to the narrow opening that to the uninitiated was not an opening between the buildings at all, and slipped in the old way. He had thought it all out in the night. He was sure he knew just how far beyond Sal’s house it was; on into the fetid air of the close dark place, the air that struck him in the face like a hot, wet blanket as he kept on.

It was very still all about when he reached the point known as Kelly’s corner. It had not been so as he remembered it. It had been the place of plots, the hatching of murders and robberies. Had it so changed that it was still tonight? He stood for an instant hesitating. Should he wait a while, or knock on some door? Would it be any use to call?

But the instinct of the slums was upon him again, his birthright. It seemed to drop upon him from the atmosphere, a sort of stealthy patience. He would wait. Something would come. He must do as he had done with the birds of the forest when he wished to watch their habits. He must stand still unafraid and show that he was harmless.

So he stood three, perhaps five minutes, then softly at first and gradually growing clearer, he gave the call that he had given years before, a little barefoot, hungry child in that very spot many times.

The echo died away. There was nothing to make him know that a group of curious alley-dwellers huddled at the mouth of the trap in which he stood, watching with eyes accustomed to the darkness, to see what would happen; to block his escape if escape should be attempted.

Then out of the silence a sigh seemed to come, and out of the shadows one shadow unfolded itself and came forward till it stood beside him. Still Michael did not stir; but softly, through, half-open lips, breathed the signal once more.

Sibilant, rougher, with a hint of menace as it issued forth the signal was answered this time, and with a thrill of wonder the mantle of the old life fell upon Michael once more. He was Mikky—only grown more wise. Almost the old vernacular came to his tongue.

“Hi! Sam! That you?”

The figure in the darkness seemed to stiffen with sudden attention. The voice was like, and yet not like the Mikky of old.

“Wot yous want?” questioned a voice gruffly.

“I want you, Sam. I want to see if you look as you used to, and I want to know about the boys. Can’t we go where there’s light and talk a little? I’ve been days hunting you. I’ve come back because I promised, you know. You expected me to come back some day, didn’t you, Sam?”

Michael was surprised to find how eager he was for the answer to this question.

“Aw, what ye givin’ us?” responded the suspicious Sam. “D’yous s’pose I b’lieve all that gag about yer comin’ here to he’p we’uns? Wot would a guy like yous wid all dem togs an’ all dem fine looks want wid us? Yous has got above us. Yous ain’t no good to us no more.”

Sam scratched a match on his trousers and lit an old pipe that he held between his teeth, but as the match flared up and showed his own face a lowering brow, shifty eyes, a swarthy, unkempt visage, sullen and sly, the shifty eyes were not looking at the pipe but up at the face above him which shone out white and fine with its gold halo in the little gleam in the dark court. The watchers crowding at the opening of the passage saw his face, and almost fancied there were soft shadowy wings behind him. It was thus with old Sal’s help that Michael got his name again, “The Angel.” It was thus he became the “angel of the alley.”

“Sam!” he said, and his voice was very gentle, although he was perfectly conscious that behind him there were two more shadows of men and more might be lurking in the dark corners. “Sam, if you remember me you will know I couldn’t forget; and I do care. I came back to find you. I’ve always meant to come, all the time I was in college. I’ve had it in mind to come back here and make some of the hard things easier for”—he hesitated, and—“for us all.”

“How did yous figger yous was goin’ to do that?” Sam asked, his little shifty eyes narrowing on Michael, as he purposely struck another match to watch the effect of his words.

Then Michael’s wonderful smile lit up his face, and Sam, however much he may have pretended to doubt, knew in his deepest heart that this was the same Mikky of old. There was no mistaking that smile.

“I shall need you to help me in figuring that out, Sam. That’s why I was so anxious to find you.”

A curious grunt from behind Michael warned him that the audience was being amused at the expense of Sam, Sam’s brows were lowering.

“Humph!” he said, ungraciously striking a third match just in time to watch Michael’s face. “Where’s yer pile?”

“What?”

“Got the dough?”

“Oh,” said Michael comprehendingly, “no, I haven’t got money, Sam. I’ve only my education.”

“An’ wot good’s it, I’d like to know. Tell me those?”

“So much good that I can’t tell it all in one short talk,” answered Michael steadily. “We’ll have to get better acquainted and then I hope I can make you understand how it has helped. Now tell me about the others. Where is Buck?”

There was a dead silence.

“It’s hard to say!” at last muttered Sam irresponsibly.

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you any kind of an idea, Sam? I’d so like to hunt him up.”

The question seemed to have produced a tensity in the very atmosphere, Michael felt it.

“I might, an’ then agin’ I might not,” answered Sam in that tone of his that barred the way for further questions.

“Couldn’t you and I find him and—and—help him, Sam? Aunt Sally said he was in trouble.”

Another match was scratched and held close to his face while the narrow eyes of Sam seemed to pierce his very soul before Sam answered with an ugly laugh.

“Oh, he don’t need none o’ your help, you bet. He’s lit out. You don’t need to worry ’bout Buck, he kin take car’ o’ hisse’f every time.”

“But won’t he come back sometime?”

“Can’t say. It’s hard to tell,” non-committally.

“And Jim?” Michael’s voice was sad.

“Jim, he’s doin’ time,” sullenly.

“I’m sorry!” said Michael sadly, and a strange hush came about the dark group. Now why should this queer chap be sorry? No one else cared, unless it might be Jim, and Jim had got caught. It was nothing to them.

“Now tell me about Janie—and little Bobs—” The questioner paused. His voice was very low.

“Aw, cut it out!” snarled Sam irritably. “Don’t come any high strikes on their account. They’re dead an’ you can’t dig ’em up an’ weep over ’em. Hustle up an’ tell us wot yer wantin’ to do.”

“Well, Sam,” said Michael trying to ignore the natural repulsion he felt at the last words of his one-time friend, “suppose you take lunch with me tomorrow at twelve. Then we can talk over things and get back old times. I will tell you all about my college life and you must tell me all you are doing.”

Sam was silent from sheer astonishment. Take lunch! Never in his life had he been invited out to luncheon. Nor had he any desire for an invitation now.

“Where?” he asked after a silence so long that Michael began to fear he was not going to answer at all.

Michael named a place not far away. He had selected it that morning. It was clean, somewhat, yet not too clean. The fare was far from princely, but it would do, and the locality was none too respectable. Michael was enough of a slum child still to know that his guest would never go with him to a really respectable restaurant, moreover he would not have the wardrobe nor the manners. He waited Sam’s answer breathlessly.

Sam gave a queer little laugh as if taken off his guard. The place named was so entirely harmless, to his mind, and the whole matter of the invitation took on the form of a great joke.

“Well, I might,” he drawled indifferently. “I won’t make no promises, but I might, an’ then again I might not. It’s jes’ as it happens. Ef I ain’t there by twelve sharp you needn’t wait. Jes’ go ahead an’ eat. I wouldn’t want to spoil yer digestion fer my movements.”

“I shall wait!” said Michael decidedly with his pleasant voice ringing clear with satisfaction. “You will come, Sam, I know you will. Good night!”

And then he did a most extraordinary thing. He put out his hand, his clean, strong hand, warm and healthy and groping with the keenness of low, found the hardened grimy hand of his one-time companion, and gripped it in a hearty grasp.

Sam started back with the instant suspicion of attack, and then stood shamedly still for an instant. The grip of that firm, strong hand, the touch of brotherhood, a touch such as had never come to his life before since he was a little child, completed the work that the smile had begun, and Sam knew that Mikky, the real Mikky was before him.

Then Michael walked swiftly down that narrow passage,—at the opening of which, the human shadows scattered silently and fled, to watch from other furtive doorways,—down through the alley unmolested, and out into the street once more.

“The saints presarve us! Wot did I tell yez?” whispered Sal. “It’s the angel all right fer shure.”

“I wonder wot he done to Sam,” murmured the girl. “He’s got his nerve all right, he sure has. Ain’t he beautiful!”

Chapter X

Michael went early to his lunch party. He was divided between wondering if his strange guest would put in an appearance at all; if he did, what he should talk about; and how he would pilot him through the embarrassing experience of the meal. One thing he was determined upon. He meant to find out if possible whether Sam knew anything about his, Michael’s, origin. It was scarcely likely; and yet, Sam might have heard some talk by older people in the neighborhood. His one great longing was to find out and clear his name of shame if possible.

There was another thing that troubled Michael. He was not sure that he would know Sam even supposing that he came. The glimpse he had caught the night before when the matches were struck was not particularly illuminating. He had a dim idea that Sam was below the medium height; with thin, sallow face; small, narrow eyes; a slouching gait; and a head that was not wide enough from front to back. He had a feeling that Sam had not room enough in his brain for seeing all that ought to be seen. Sam did not understand about education. Would he ever be able to make him understand?

Sam came shuffling along ten minutes after twelve. His sense of dignity would not have allowed him to be on time. Besides, he wanted to see if Michael would wait as he had said. It was a part of the testing of Michael; not to prove if he were really Mikky, but to see what stuff he was made of, and how much he really had meant of what he said.

Michael was there, standing anxiously outside the eating house. He did not enjoy the surroundings nor the attention he was attracting. He was too well dressed for that locality, but these were the oldest clothes he had. He would have considered them quite shabby at college. He was getting worried lest after all his plan had failed. Then Sam slouched along, his hat drawn down, his hands in his pockets, and wearing an air of indifference that almost amounted to effrontery. He greeted Michael as if there had been no previous arrangement and this were a chance meeting. There was nothing about his manner to show that he had purposely come late to put him to the test, but Michael knew intuitively it was so.

“Shall we go in now?” said Michael smiling happily. He found he was really glad that Sam had come, repulsive in appearance though he was, hard of countenance and unfriendly in manner. He felt that he was getting on just a little in his great object of finding out and helping his old friends, and perhaps learning something more of his own history.

“Aw, I donno’s I care ’bout it!” drawled Sam, just as if he had not intended going in all the time, nor had been thinking of the “feed” all the morning in anticipation.

“Yes, you better,” said Michael putting a friendly hand on the others’ shoulder. If he felt a repugnance to touching the tattered, greasy coat of his one-time friend, he controlled it, remembering how he had once worn garments far more tattered and filthy. The greatness of his desire to uplift made him forget everything else. It was the absorption of a supreme task that had come upon the boy to the exclusion of his own personal tastes.

It was not that Michael was so filled with love for this miserable creature who used to be his friend, nor so desired to renew old associations after these long years of separation; it was the terrible need, the conditions of which had been called vividly to his experience, that appealed to his spirit like a call of authority to which he answered proudly because of what had once been done for him. It had come upon him without his knowledge, suddenly, with the revival of old scenes and memories, but as with all workers for humanity it had gone so deeply into his soul as to make him forget even that there was such a thing as sacrifice.

They passed into the restaurant. Michael in his well-made clothing and with his strikingly handsome face and gold hair attracting at once every eye in the place: Sam with an insolent air of assurance to cover a sudden embarrassment of pride at the company he was in.

Michael gave a generous order, and talked pleasantly as they waited. Sam sat in low-browed silence watching him furtively, almost disconcertingly.

It was when they had reached the course of three kinds of pie and a dab of dirty looking, pink ice cream professing to be fresh strawberry, that Michael suddenly looked keenly at his guest and asked:

“What are you doing now, Sam? In business for yourself?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed until they were almost eclipsed, though a keen steel glitter could be seen beneath the colorless lashes. A kind of mask, impenetrable as lead, seemed to have settled over his face, which had been gradually relaxing during the meal into a half indulgent grin of interest in his queer host.

“Yas, I’m in business fer myself,” he drawled at last after carefully scrutinizing the other’s face to be sure there was no underlying motive for the question.

“News-stand?” asked Michael.

“Not eggs-act-ly!”

“What line?”

Sam finished his mince pie and began on the pumpkin before he answered.

“Wal, ther’s sev’ral!”

“Is that so? Got more than one string to your bow? That’s a good thing. You’re better off than I am. I haven’t looked around for a job yet. I thought I’d get at it tomorrow. You see I wanted to look you fellows up first before I got tied down to anything where I couldn’t get off when I wanted to. Perhaps you can put me onto something. How about it?”

It was characteristic of Michael that he had not once thought of going to Endicott for the position and help offered him, since the setting down he had received from Mrs. Endicott. The time appointed for his going to Endicott’s office was long since passed. He had not even turned the matter over in his mind once since that awful night of agony and renunciation. Mrs. Endicott had told him that her husband “had done enough for him” and he realized that this was true. He would trouble him no more. Sometime perhaps the world would turn around so that he would have opportunity to repay Endicott’s kindness that he might not repay in money, but until then Michael would keep out of his way. It was the one poor little rag of pride he allowed himself from the shattering of all his hopes.

Sam narrowed his eyes and looked Michael through, then slowly widened them again, an expression of real interest coming into them.

“Say! Do you mean it?” he asked doubtfully. “Be you straight goods? Would you come back into de gang an not snitch on us ner nothin’?”

“I’m straight goods, Sam, and I won’t snitch!” said Michael quickly. He knew that he could hope for no fellow’s confidence if he “snitched.”

“Wal, say, I’ve a notion to tell yeh!”

Sam attacked his ice cream contemplatively.

“How would a bluff game strike you?” he asked suddenly as the last delectable mouthful of cream disappeared and he pulled the fresh cup of coffee toward him that the waiter had just set down.

“What sort?” said Michael wondering what he was coming on in the way of revelation, but resolving not to be horrified at anything. Sam must not suspect until he could understand what a difference education had made in the way of looking at things.

“Wal, there’s diffrunt ways. Cripple’s purty good. Foot all tied up in bloody rags, arm an’ hand tied up, a couple o’ old crutches. I could lend the clo’es. They’d be short fer yeh, but that’d be all the better gag. We cud swap an’ I’d do the gen’lman act a while.” He looked covetously at Michael’s handsome brown tweeds—“Den you goes fom house to house, er you stands on de corner—”

“Begging!” said Michael aghast. His eyes were on his plate and he was trying to control his voice, but something of his horror crept into his tones. Sam felt it and hastened on apologetically—

“Er ef you want to go it one better, keep on yer good cloes an’ have the asthma bad. I know a feller what’ll teach you how, an’ sell you the whistles to put in yer mouth. You’ve no notion how it works. You just go around in the subbubs tellin’ thet you’ve only been out of the ’orspittal two days an’ you walked all this way to get work an’ couldn’t get it, an’ you want five cents to get back—see? Why, I know a feller—course he’s been at it fer years an’ he has his regular beats—folks don’t seem to remember—and be can work the ground over ’bout once in six months er so, and he’s made’s high’s thirty-eight dollars in a day at asthma work.”

Sam paused triumphant to see what effect the statement had on his friend, but Michael’s face was toward his coffee cup.

“Seems sort of small business for a man!” he said at last, his voice steady with control. “Don’t believe I’d be good at that? Haven’t you got something that’s real work?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“Ef I thought you was up to it,” he murmured. “You’d be great with that angel face o’ yourn. Nobody’d ever suspect you. You could wear them clo’es too. But it’s work all right, an’ mighty resky. Ef I thought you was up to it—” He continued to look keenly at Michael, and Michael, with innate instinct felt his heart beat in discouraged thumps. What new deviltry was Sam about to propose?

“You used to be game all right!” murmured Sam interrogatively. “You never used to scare easy—”

“Wal, I’ll tell you,” in answer to Michael’s questioning eyes which searched his little sharp wizened face—Michael was wondering if there was anything in that face to redeem it from utter repulsiveness.

“You see it’s a reg’ler business, an’ you hev to learn, but I’d give you pinters, all you’d need to know, I’m pretty slick myself. There’s tools to open things, an’ you hev to be ready to ’xplain how you come thur an’ jolly up a parlor maid per’aps. It’s easy to hev made a mistake in the house, er be a gas man er a plumber wot the boss sent up to look at the pipes. But night work’s best pay after you get onto things. Thur’s houses where you ken lay your han’s on things goin’ into the thousands an’ lots ov um easy to get rid of without anybody findin’ out. There’s Buck he used to be great at it. He taught all the gang. The day he lit out he bagged a bit o’ glass wuth tree tousand dollars, ’sides a whole handful of fivers an’ tens wot he found lyin’ on a dressin’ table pretty as you please. Buck he were a slick one at it. He’d be pleased to know you’d took up the work—”

Sam paused and eyed Michael with the first friendly gleam he had shown in his eyes, and Michael, with his heart in a tumult of varied emotions, and the quick color flooding brow and cheek, tried to hold himself in check. He must not speak too hastily. Perhaps he had not understood Sam’s meaning.

“Where is Buck?” Michael looked Sam straight in the eye. The small pupils seemed to contract and shut out even his gaze.

“They ain’t never got a trace of Buck,” he said evasively.

“But don’t you know?” There was something in Michael’s look that demanded an answer.

“I might an’ I might not,” responded Sam sullenly.

Michael was still for several seconds watching Sam; each trying to understand the other.

“Do you think he will come back where I can see him?” he asked at length.

“He might, an’ he might not. ’t depends. Ef you was in th’ bizness he might. It’s hard to say. ’t depends.”

Michael watched Sam again thoughtfully.

“Tell me more about the business,” he said at last, his lips compressed, his brows drawn down into a frown of intensity.

“Thur ain’t much, more t’tell,” said Sam, still sullen. “I ain’t sure you’re up to it?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Ain’t sure you got de sand. You might turn faint and snitch.” Sam leaned forward and spoke in low rapid sentences. “Wen we’d got a big haul, ’sposen you’d got into de house an’ done de pinchin’, and we got the stuff safe hid, an’ you got tuk up? Would you snitch? Er would you take your pill like a man? That’s what I’d want to be sure. Mikky would a’ stood by the gang, but you—you’ve had a edicashun! They might go soft at college. I ain’t much use fer edicated persons myself. But I’ll give you a show ef you promise stiff not to snitch. We’ve got a big game on tonight up on Madison Avenue, an’ we’re a man short. Dere’s dough in it if we make it go all right. Rich man. Girl goin’ out to a party tonight. She’s goin’ to wear some dimons wurth a penny. Hed it in de paper. Brung ’em home from de bank this mornin’. One o’ de gang watched de feller come out o’ de bank. It’s all straight so fur. It’s a pretty big haul to let you in de first try, an’ you’ll hev to run all de risks; but ef you show you’re game we’ll make it a bargain.”

Michael held himself tensely and fought the desire to choke the fellow before him; tried to remember that he was the same Sam who had once divided a crust with him, and whom he had come to help; reflected that he might have been as bad himself if he had never been taken from the terrible environment of the slums and shown a better way; knew that if he for one fraction of a second showed his horror at the evil plot, or made any attempt to stop it all hope of reaching Sam, or Buck, or any of the others was at an end; and with it all hope of finding any stray links of his own past history. Besides, though honor was strong in him and he would never “snitch” on his companions, it would certainly be better to find out as much as possible about the scheme. There might be other ways besides “snitching” of stopping such things. Then suddenly his heart almost stopped beating, Madison Avenue! Sam had said Madison Avenue, and a girl! What if it were Starr’s jewels they were planning to take. He knew very little about such matters save what he had read. It did not occur to him that Starr was not yet “out” in society; that she would be too young to wear costly jewels and have her costume put in the paper. He only knew that his heart was throbbing again painfully, and that the fellow before him seemed too vile to live longer on the same earth with Starr, little, beautiful, exquisite Starr.

He was quite still when Sam had finished; his face was white with emotion and his eyes were blazing blue flames when he raised them to look at Sam. Then he became aware that his answer was awaited.

“Sam, do you mean burglary?” He tried to keep his voice low and steady as he spoke but he felt as if he had shouted the last word. The restaurant was almost empty now, and the waiters had retired behind the scenes amid a clatter of dishes.

“That’s about as pretty a word as you can call it, I guess,” said Sam, drawing back with a snarl as he saw the light in Michael’s eyes.

Michael looked him through for an instant, and if a glance can burn then surely Sam’s little soul shrank scorching into itself, but it was so brief that the brain which was only keen to things of the earth had not analyzed it. Michael dropped his glance to the table again, and began playing with his spoon and trying to get calm with a deep breath as he used to when he knew a hard spot in a ball game was coming.

“Well, why don’t you speak? You ’fraid?” It was said with a sneer that a devil from the pit might have given.

Then Michael sat up calmly. His heart was beating steadily now and he was facing his adversary.

“No! I’m not afraid, Sam, if there were any good reason for going, but you know I never could feel comfortable in getting my living off somebody else. It doesn’t seem fair to the other fellow. You see they’ve got a right to the things they own and I haven’t; and because I might be smart enough to catch them napping and sneak away with what they prize doesn’t make it right either. Now that girl probably thinks a lot of her diamonds, you see, and it doesn’t seem quite the manly thing for a big strong fellow like me to get them away from her, does it? Of course you may think differently, but I believe I’d rather do some good hard work that would keep my muscles in trim, than to live off some one else. There’s a kind of pretty gray moss that grows where I went to college. It floats along a little seed blown in the air first and lodges on the limb of a tree and begins to fasten itself into the bark, and grow and grow and suck life from the big tree. It doesn’t seem much at first, and it seems as if the big tree might spare enough juice to the little moss. But wait a few years and see what happens. The moss grows and drapes itself in great long festoons all over that tree and by and by the first thing you know that tree has lost all its green leaves and stands up here stark and dead with nothing on its bare branches but that old gray moss which has to die too because it has nothing to live on any longer. It never learned to gather any juice for itself. They call the moss a parasite. I couldn’t be a human parasite, Sam. You may feel differently about it, but I couldn’t. I really couldn’t.”

Michael’s eyes had grown dreamy and lost their fire as he remembered the dear South land, and dead sentinel pines with their waving gray festoons against the ever blue sky. As he talked he saw the whole great out-of-doors again where he had wandered now so many years free and happy; free from burdens of humanity which were pressing him now so sorely. A great longing to fly back to it all, to get away from the sorrow and the degradation and the shame which seemed pressing so hard upon him, filled his heart, leaped into his eyes, caught and fascinated the attention of the listening Sam, who understood very little of the peroration. He had never heard of a parasite. He did not know he had always been a human parasite. He was merely astonished and a trifle fascinated by the passion and appeal in Michael’s face as he spoke.

“Gosh!” he said in a tone almost of admiration. “Gosh! Is that wot edicashun done fer you?”

“Perhaps,” said Michael pleasantly, “though I rather think, Sam, that I always felt a bit that way, I just didn’t know how to say it.”

“Wal, you allus was queer!” muttered Sam half apologetically. “I couldn’t see it that way myself, as you say, but o’ course it’s your fun’ral! Ef you kin scratch up enough grub bein’ a tree, why that’s your own lookout. Moss is good ’nough fer me fer de present.”

Michael beamed his wonderful smile on Sam and answered: “Perhaps you’ll see it my way some day, Sam, and then we can get a job together!”

There was so much comraderie in the tone, and so much dazzling brilliancy in the smile that Sam forgot to be sullen.

“Wal, mebbe,” he chuckled, “but I don’t see no edicashun comin’ my way dis late day, so I guess I’ll git along de way I be.”

“It isn’t too late yet, Sam. There’s more than one way of getting an education. It doesn’t always come through college.”

After a little more talk in which Sam promised to find out if there was any way for Michael to visit Jim in his temporary retirement from the law-abiding world, and Michael promised to visit Sam in the alley again at an appointed time, the two separated.

Then Michael went forth to reconnoitre and to guard the house of Endicott.

With no thought of any personal danger, Michael laid his plans. Before sundown, he was on hand, having considered all visible and invisible means of ingress to the house. He watched from a suitable distance all who came and went. He saw Mr. Endicott come home. He waited till the evening drew near when a luxurious limousine stopped before the door; assured himself that only Mrs. Endicott had gone out. A little later Mr. Endicott also left the house. Starr had not gone out. He felt that he had double need to watch now as she was there alone with only the servants.

Up and down he walked. No one passed the Endicott house unwatched by him. None came forth or went in of whom he did not take careful notice.

The evening passed, and the master and mistress of the house returned. One by one the lights went out. Even in the servants’ rooms all was dark at last. The night deepened and the stars thickened overhead.

The policeman’s whistle sounded through the quiet streets and the city seemed at last to be sinking into a brief repose. It was long past midnight, and still Michael kept up his patrol. Up this side of the street, down that, around the corner, through the alley at the back where “de kids” had stood in silent respect uncovered toward his window years ago; back to the avenue again, and on around. With his cheery whistle and his steady ringing step he awakened no suspicion even when he came near to a policeman; and besides, no lurkers of the dark would steal out while he was so noisily in the neighborhood.

And so he watched the night through, till the morning broke and sunshine flooded the window of the room where Starr, unconscious of his vigil, lay a-sleeping.

Busy milk wagons were making their rounds, and sleepy workmen with dinner pails slung over their arms were striding to their day’s work through the cool of the morning, as Michael turned his steps toward his lodging. Broad morning was upon them and deeds of darkness could be no more. The night was passed. Nothing had happened. Starr was safe. He went home and to sleep well pleased. He might not companion with her, but it was his privilege to guard her from unsuspected evils. That was one joy that could not be taken from him by the taint that was upon him. Perhaps his being a child of the slums might yet prove to be a help to guard her life from harm.

Chapter XI

It was the first week in September that Michael, passing through a crowded thoroughfare, came face to face with Mr. Endicott.

The days had passed into weeks and Michael had not gone near his benefactor. He had felt that he must drop out of his old friend’s life until a time came that he could show his gratitude for the past. Meantime he had not been idle. His winning smile and clear eyes had been his passport; and after a few preliminary experiences he had secured a position as salesman in a large department store. His college diploma and a letter from the college president were his references. He was not earning much, but enough to pay his absolute expenses and a trifle over. Meantime he was gaining experience.

This Saturday morning of the first week of September he had come to the store as usual, but had found that on account of the sudden death of a member of the firm the store would be closed for the day.

He was wondering how he should spend his holiday and wishing that he might get out into the open and breathe once more the free air under waving trees, and listen to the birds, and the waters and the winds. He was half tempted to squander a few cents and go to Coney Island or up the Hudson, somewhere, anywhere to get out of the grinding noisy tempestuous city, whose sin and burden pressed upon his heart night and day because of that from which he had been saved; and of that from which he had not the power to save others.

Then out of an open doorway rushed a man, going toward a waiting automobile, and almost knocking Michael over in his progress.

“Oh! It is you, young man! At last! Well, I should like to know what you have done with yourself all these weeks and why you didn’t keep your appointment with me?”

“Oh!” said Michael, pleasure and shame striving together in his face. He could see that the other man was not angry, and was really relieved to have found him.

“Where are you going, son?” Endicotts tone had already changed from gruffness to kindly welcome. “Jump in and run down to the wharf with me while you give an account of yourself. I’m going down to see Mrs. Endicott off to Europe. She is taking Starr over to school this winter. I’m late already, so jump in.”

Michael seemed to have no choice and stepped into the car, which was whirled through the intricate maze of humanity and machinery down toward the regions where the ocean-going steamers harbor.

His heart was in a tumult at once, both of embarrassed joy to be in the presence of the man who had done so much for him, and of eager anticipation. Starr! Would he see Starr again? That was the thought uppermost in his mind. He had not as yet realized that she was going away for a long time.

All the spring time he had kept guard over the house in Madison Avenue. Not all night of course, but hovering about there now and then, and for two weeks after he had talked with Sam, nightly. Always he had walked that way before retiring and looked toward the window where burned a soft light. Then they had gone to the seashore and the mountains and the house had put on solemn shutters and lain asleep.

Michael knew all about it from a stray paragraph in the society column of the daily paper which he happened to read.

Toward the end of August he had made a round through Madison Avenue every night to see if they had returned home, and for a week the shutters had been down and the lights burning as of old. It had been good to know that his charge was back there safely. And now he was to see her.

“Well! Give an account of yourself. Were you trying to keep out of my sight? Why didn’t you come to my office?”

Michael looked him straight in the eye with his honest, clear gaze that showed no sowing of wild oats, no dissipation or desire to get away from friendly espionage. He decided in a flash of a thought that this man should never know the blow his beautiful, haughty wife had dealt him. It was true, all she had said, and he, Michael, would give the real reason why he had not come.

“Because I thought you had done for me far more than I deserved already, and I did not wish to be any further burden to you.”

“The dickens you did!” exclaimed Endicott. “You good-for-nothing rascal, didn’t you know you would be far more of a burden running off in that style without leaving a trace of yourself behind so I could hunt you up, than if you had behaved yourself and done as I told you? Here I have been doing a lot of unnecessary worrying about you. I thought you had fallen among thieves or something, or else gone to the dogs. Don’t you know that is a most unpardonable thing to do, run off from a man who has told you he wants to see you? I thought I made you understand that I had more than a passing interest in your welfare!”

The color came into the fine, strong face and a pained expression in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, sir! I didn’t think of it that way. I thought you felt some kind of an obligation; I never felt so, but you said you did; and I thought if I got out of your way I would trouble you no more.”

“Trouble me! Trouble me! Why, son, I like to be troubled once in a while by something besides getting money and spending it. You never gave me a shadow of trouble, except these last weeks when you’ve disappeared and I couldn’t do anything for you. You’ve somehow crept into my life and I can’t get you out. In fact, I don’t want to. But, boy, if you felt that way, what made you come to New York at all? You didn’t feel that way the night you came to my house to dinner.”

Michael’s eyes owned that this was true, but his firm lips showed that he would never betray the real reason for the change.

“I—didn’t—realize—sir!”

“Realize? Realize what?”

“I didn’t realize the difference between my station and yours, sir. There had never been anything during my years in school to make me know. I am a ‘child of the slums’”—unconsciously he drifted into quotations from Mrs. Endicott’s speech to him—“and you belong to a fine old family. I don’t know what terrible things are in my blood. You have riches and a name beyond reproach—” He had seen the words in an article he had read the evening before, and felt that they fitted the man and the occasion. He did not know that he was quoting. They had become a part of his thoughts.

“I might make the riches if I tried hard,” he held up his head proudly, “but I could never make the name. I will always be a child of the slums, no matter what I do!”

“Child of the fiddlesticks!” interrupted Endicott. “Wherever did you get all that, rot? It sounds as if you had been attending society functions and listening to their twaddle. It doesn’t matter what you are the child of, if you’re a mind to be a man. This is a free country, son, and you can be and climb where you please. Tell me, where did you get all these ideas?”

Michael looked down. He did not wish to answer.

“In a number of places,” he answered evasively.

“Where!”

“For one thing, I’ve been down to the alley where I used to live.” The eyes were looking into his now, and Endicott felt a strange swelling of pride that he had had a hand in the making of this young man.

“Well?”

“I know from what you’ve taken me—I can never be what you are!”

“Therefore you won’t try to be anything? Is that it?”

“Oh, no! I’ll try to be all that I can, but—I don’t belong with you. I’m of another class—”

“Oh, bosh! Cut that out, son! Real men don’t talk like that. You’re a better man now than any of the pedigreed dudes I know of, and as for taints in the blood, I could tell you of some of the sons of great men who have taints as bad as any child of the slums. Young man, you can be whatever you set out to be in this world! Remember that.”

“Everyone does not feel that way,” said Michael with conviction, though he was conscious of great pleasure in Endicott’s hearty words.

“Who, for instance?” asked Endicott looking at him sharply.

Michael was silent. He could not tell him.

“Who?” asked the insistent voice once more.

“The world!” evaded Michael.

“The world is brainless. You can make the world think what you like, son, remember that! Here we are. Would you like to come aboard?”

But Michael stood back.

“I think I will wait here,” he said gravely. It had come to him that Mrs. Endicott would be there. He must not intrude, not even to see Starr once more. Besides, she had made it a point of honor for him to keep away from her daughter. He had no choice but to obey.

“Very well,” said Endicott, “but see you don’t lose yourself again. I want to see you about something. I’ll not be long. It must be nearly time for starting.” He hurried away and Michael stood on the edge of the throng looking up at the great floating village.

It was his first view of an ocean-going steamer at close range and everything about it interested him. He wished he might have gone aboard and looked the vessel over. He would like to know about the engines and see the cabins, and especially the steerage about which he had read so much. But perhaps there would be an opportunity again. Surely there would be. He would go to Ellis Island, too, and see the emigrants as they came into the country, seeking a new home where they had been led to expect to find comfort and plenty of work, and finding none; landing most of them, inevitably, in the slums of the cities where the population was already congested and where vice and disease stood ready to prey upon them. Michael had been spending enough time in the alleys of the metropolis to be already deeply interested in the problem of the city, and deeply pained by its sorrows.

But his thoughts were not altogether of the masses and the classes as he stood in the bright sunlight and gazed at the great vessel about to plow its way over the bright waters. He was realizing that somewhere within those many little windowed cabins was a bright faced girl, the only one of womankind in all the earth about whom his tender thoughts had ever hovered. Would he catch a glimpse of her face once more before she went away for the winter? She was going to school, her father had said. How could they bear to send her across the water from them? A whole winter was a long time; and yet, it would pass. Thirteen years had passed since he went away from New York, and he was back. It would not be so long as that. She would return, and need him perhaps. He would be there and be ready when he was needed.

The fine lips set in a strong line that was good to see. There were the patient, fearless lines of a soldier in the boy’s face, and rugged strength in spite of his unusual beauty of countenance. It is not often one sees a face like Michael’s. There was nothing womanish in his looks. It was rather the completeness of strength and courage combined with mighty modelling and perfection of coloring, that made men turn and look after him and look again, as though they had seen a god; and made women exclaim over him. If he had been born in the circles of aristocracy he would have been the idol of society, the spoiled of all who knew him. He was even now being stared at by every one in sight, and more than one pair of marine glasses from the first cabin deck were pointed at him; but he stood deep in his thoughts and utterly unconscious of his own attraction.

It was only a moment before the first warning came, and people crowded on the wharf side of the decks, while others hurried down the gang plank. Michael watched the confusion with eagerness, his eyes searching the decks for all possible chance of seeing Starr.

When the last warning was given, and just as the gang plank was about to be hauled up, Mr. Endicott came hurrying down, and Michael suddenly saw her face in the crowd on the deck above, her mother’s haughtily pretty face just behind her.

Without in the least realizing what he was doing Michael moved through the crowd until he stood close behind Starr’s father, and then all at once he became aware that her starry eyes were upon him, and she recognized him.

He lifted his hat and stood in reverent attitude as though in the presence of a queen, his eyes glowing eloquently, his speaking face paying her tribute as plainly as words could have done. The noonday sun burnished his hair with its aureole flame, and more than one of the passengers called attention to the sight.

“See that man down there!” exclaimed a woman of the world close behind Mrs. Endicott. “Isn’t he magnificent! He has a head and shoulders like a young god!” She spoke as if her acquaintance with gods was wide, and her neighbors turned to look.

“See, mamma,” whispered Starr glowing rosily with pleasure, “they are speaking of Michael!”

Then the haughty eyes turned sharply and recognized him.

“You don’t mean to tell me that upstart has dared to come down and see us off. The impudence of him! I am glad your father had enough sense not to bring him on board. He would probably have come if he had let him. Come away, Starr. He simply shall not look at you in that way!”

“What! Come away while papa is standing there watching us out of sight. I simply couldn’t. What would papa think? And besides, I don’t see why Michael shouldn’t come if he likes. I think it was nice of him. I wonder why he hasn’t been to the house to explain why he never came for that horseback ride.”

“You’re a very silly ignorant little girl, or you would understand that he has no business presuming to come to our house; and he knows it perfectly well. I want you to stop looking in that direction at once. I simply will not have him devouring you with his eyes in that way. I declare I would like to go back and tell him what I think of him. Starr, stop I tell you, Starr!”

But the noise of the starting drowned her words, and Starr, her cheeks like roses and her eyes like two stars, was waving a bit of a handkerchief and smiling and throwing kisses. The kisses were for her father, but the smiles and the starry glances, and the waving bit of cambric were for Michael, and they all travelled through the air quite promiscuously, drenching the bright uncovered head of the boy with sweetness. His eyes gave her greeting and thanks and parting all in one in that brief moment of her passing: and her graceful form and dainty vivid face were graven on his memory in quick sweet blows of pain, as he realized that she was going from him.

Slowly the great vessel glided out upon the bright waters and grew smaller and smaller. The crowd on the wharf were beginning to break away and hurry back to business or home or society. Still Michael stood with bared head gazing, and that illumined expression upon his face.

Endicott, a mist upon his own glasses at parting from his beloved baby, saw the boy’s face as it were the face of an angel; and was half startled, turning away embarrassedly as though he had intruded upon a soul at prayer; then looked again.

“Come, son!” he said almost huskily. “It’s over! We better be getting back. Step in.”

The ride back to the office was a silent one. Somehow Endicott did not feel like talking. There had been some differences between himself and his wife that were annoying, and a strange belated regret that he had let Starr go away for a foreign education was eating into his heart. Michael, on his part, was living over again the passing of the vessel and the blessing of the parting.

Back in the office, however, all was different. Among the familiar walls and gloomy desks and chairs Endicott was himself, and talked business. He put questions, short, sharp and in quick succession.

“What are you doing with yourself? Working? What at? H’m! How’d you get there? Like it? Satisfied to do that all your life? You’re not? Well, what’s your line? Any ambitions? You ought to have got some notion in college of what you’re fit for. Have you thought what you’d like to do in the world?”

Michael hesitated, then looked up with his clear, direct, challenging gaze.

“There are two things,” he said, “I want to earn money and buy some land in the country, and I want to know about laws.”

“Do you mean you want to be a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you think you’d be a success as a lawyer?”

“Oh, I might not be a success, but I need to know law, I want to try to stop some things that ought not to be.”

“H’m!” grunted Endicott disapprovingly. “Don’t try the reform game, it doesn’t pay. However, if you feel that way you’ll probably be all right to start. That’ll work itself off and be a good foundation. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be a lawyer if you choose, but you can’t study law selling calico. You might get there some day, if you stick to your ambition, but you’d be pretty old before you were ready to practice if you started at the calico counter and worked your way up through everything you came to. Well, I can get you into a law office right away. How soon can you honorably get away from where you are? Two weeks? Well, just wait a minute.”

Endicott called up a number on the telephone by his side, and there followed a conversation, brief, pointed, but in terms that Michael could barely follow. He gathered that a lawyer named Holt, a friend of Mr. Endicott’s, was being asked to take him into his office to read law.

“It’s all right, son,” said Endicott as he hung up the receiver and whirled around from the ’phone. “You’re to present yourself at the office as soon as you are free. This is the address”—hurriedly scribbling something on a card and handing it to him.

“Oh, thank you!” said Michael, “but I didn’t mean to have you take any more trouble for me. I can’t be dependent on you any longer. You have done so much for me—”

“Bosh!” said Endicott, “I’m not taking any trouble. And you’re not dependent on me. Be as independent as you like. You’re not quite twenty-one yet, are you? Well, I told you you were my boy until you were of age, and I suppose there’s nothing to hinder me doing as I will with my own. It’s paid well all I’ve done for you so far, and I feel the investment was a good one. You’ll get a small salary for some office work while you’re studying, so after you are twenty-one you can set up for yourself if you like. Till then I claim the privilege of giving you a few orders. Now that’s settled. Where are you stopping? I don’t intend to lose sight of you again.”

Michael gave him the street and number. Endicott frowned.

“That’s not a good place. I don’t like the neighborhood. If you’re going to be a lawyer, you must start in right. Here, try this place. Tell the woman I sent you. One of my clerks used to board there.”

He handed Michael another address.

“Won’t that cost a lot?” asked Michael studying the card. “Not any more than you can afford,” said Endicott, “and remember, I’m giving orders until your majority.”

Michael beamed his brilliant smile at his benefactor.

“It is like a real father!” said the boy deeply moved. “I can never repay you. I can never forget it.”

“Well, don’t!” said Endicott. “Let’s turn to the other thing. What do you want land for?”

Michael’s face sobered instantly.

“For an experiment I want to try,” he said without hesitation, and then, his eyes lighting up, “I’ll be able to do it now, soon, perhaps, if I work hard. You see I studied agriculture in college—”

“The dickens you did!” exclaimed Endicott. “What did you do that for?”

“Well, it was there and I could, and I wanted to know about it.”

“H’m!” said Endicott. “I wonder what some of my pedigreed million-dollar friend’s sons would think of that? Well, go on.”

“Why, that’s all,” laughed Michael happily. “I studied it and I want to try it and see what I can do with it. I want to buy a farm.”

“How would you manage to be a farmer and a lawyer both?”

“Well, I thought there might he a little time after hours to work, and I could tell others how—”

“Oh, I see you want to be a gentleman farmer,” laughed Endicott. “I understand that’s expensive business.”

“I think I could make it pay, sir.” said Michael shutting his lips with that firm challenge of his. “I’d like to try.”

Endicott looked at him quizzically for a minute and then whirling around in his office chair he reached out his hand to a pigeon hole and took out a deed.

“I’ve a mind to let you have your try,” said Endicott, chuckling as if it were a good joke. “Here’s a little farm down in Jersey. It’s swampy and thick with mosquitoes. I understand it won’t grow a beanstalk. There are twelve acres and a tumble-down house on it. I’ve had to take it in settlement of a mortgage. The man’s dead and there’s nothing but the farm to lay hands on. He hasn’t even left a chick or child to leave his debt to. I don’t want the farm and I can’t sell it without a lot of trouble. I’ll give it to you. You may consider it a birthday present. If you’ll pay the taxes I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. That’ll be something for you to be independent about.”

He touched a bell and a boy appeared.

“Take this to Jowett and tell him to have a deed made out to Michael Endicott, and to attend to the transfer of the property, nominal sum. Understand?”

The boy said, “Yes, sir,” and disappeared with the paper.

“But I can’t take a present like that from you after all you have done for me,” gasped Michael, a granite determination showing in his blue eyes. “Nonsense,” said Endicott. “Other men give their sons automobiles when they come of age. Mayn’t I give you a farm if I like? Besides, I tell you it’s of no account. I want to get rid of it, and I want to see what you’ll make of it. I’d like to amuse myself seeing you try your experiment.”

“If you’ll let me pay you for it little by little—”

“Suit yourself after you have become a great lawyer,” laughed Endicott, “but not till then, remember. There, cut it out, son! I don’t want to be thanked. Here’s the description of the place and directions how to get there. It isn’t many miles away. If you’ve got a half holiday run down and look it over. It’ll keep you out of mischief. There’s nothing like an ambition to keep people out of mischief. Run along now, I haven’t another minute to spare, but mind you turn up at Holt’s office this day two weeks, and report to me afterwards how you like it. I don’t want to lose sight of you again.”

The entrance of another man on business cut short the interview, and Michael, bestowing an agonizingly happy grip on Endicott’s hand and a brilliant smile like a benediction, took his directions and hurried out into the street.

Chapter XII

With the precious paper in his hand Michael took himself with all swiftness to the DesBrosses Ferry. Would there be a train? It was almost two o’clock. He had had no lunch, but what of that? He had that in his heart which made mere eating seem unnecessary. The experiences of the past two hours had lifted him above, earth and its necessities for the time. And a farm, a real farm! Could it be true? Had his wish come true so soon? He could scarcely wait for the car to carry him or the boat to puff its way across the water. He felt as if he must fly to see his new possession. And Mr. Endicott had said he might pay for it sometime when he got to be a great lawyer. He had no doubt but that he would get there if such a thing were possible, and anyhow he meant to pay for that ground. Meantime it was his. He was not a poor nobody after all. He owned land, and a house.

His face was a mingling of delightful emotions as he stood by the rail of the ferry-boat and let his imagination leap on ahead of him. The day was perfect. It had rained the night before and everything, even the air seemed newly washed for a fresh trial at living. Every little wavelet sparkled like a jewel, and the sunlight shimmered on the water in a most alluring way. Michael forgot for the moment the sorrow and misery of the crowded city he was leaving behind him. For this afternoon at least he was a boy again wandering off into the open.

His train was being called as he stepped from the ferry-boat. The next boat would have missed it. He hurried aboard and was soon speeding through the open country, with now and again a glimpse of the sea, as the train came closer to the beach. They passed almost continuously beautiful resorts, private villas, great hotels, miles of cottages set in green terrace with glowing autumn flowers in boxes or bordering the paths.

Michael watched everything with deep interest. This was the land of his new possession. Whatever was growing here would be likely to grow on his place if it were properly planted and cared for. Ere this flowers had had little part in his farming scheme, but so soon as he saw the brilliant display he resolved that he must have some of those also. And flowers would sell as well if not better than vegetables if properly marketed.

That vivid hedge of scarlet and gold, great heavy-headed dahlias they were. He did not know the name, but he would find it out somehow. They would take up little room and would make his new place a thing of beauty. Farther on, one great white cottage spread its veranda wings on either side to a tall fringe of pink and white and crimson cosmos; and again a rambling gray stone piece of quaint architecture with low sloping roofs of mossy green, and velvet lawn creeping down even to the white beach sands, was set about with flaming scarlet sage. It was a revelation to the boy whose eyes had never looked upon the like before. Nature in its wildness and original beauty had been in Florida; New York was all pavements and buildings with a window box here and there. He as yet knew nothing of country homes in their luxury and perfection, save from magazine pictures. All the way along he was picking out features that he meant some day to transfer to his own little farm.

It was after three when he reached the station, and a good fifteen minutes walk to the farm, but every step of it was a delight.

Pearl Beach, they called the station. The beach was half a mile from the railroad, and a queer little straggling town mostly cottages and a few stores hovered between railroad and beach. A river, broad, and shallow, wound its silver way about the village and lost itself in the wideness of the ocean. Here and there a white sail flew across its gleaming centre, and fishermen in little boats sat at their idle task. What if his land should touch somewhere this bonny stream!

Too eager to wait for investigation he stopped a passing stranger and questioned him. Yes, the river was salt. It had tides with the sea, too. There was great fishing and sailing, and some preferred bathing there to the ocean. Yes, Old Orchard farm was on its bank. It had a river frontage of several hundred feet but it was over a mile back from the beach.

The stranger was disposed to delay and gossip about the death of the former owner of Old Orchard and its probable fate now that the mortgage had been foreclosed; but Michael with a happy light in his eyes thanked him courteously and hurried on. Wings were upon his feet, and his heart was light and happy. He felt like a bird set free. He breathed in the strong salt air with delight.

And then the burden of the city came to him again, the city with all its noise and folly and sin; with its smells and heat, and lack of air; with its crowded, suffering, awful humanity, herded together like cattle, and living in conditions worse than the beasts of the fields. If he could but bring them out here, bring some of them at least; and show them what God’s earth was like! Ah!

His heart beat wildly at the thought! It was not new. He had harbored it ever since his first visit to the alley. It was his great secret, his much hoped for experiment. If he might be able to do it sometime. This bit of a farm would open the way. There would be money needed of course, and where was it to come from? But he could work. He was strong. He would give his young life for his people—save them from their ignorance and despair. At least he could save some; even one would be worth while.

So he mused as he hurried on, eyes and mind open to all he saw.

There was no fence in front of Old Orchard farm. A white road bordered with golden rod and wild asters met the scraggly grass that matted and tangled itself beneath the gnarled apple trees. A grassy rutted wagon track curved itself in vistas between the trees up to the house which was set far back from the road. A man passing identified the place for Michael, and looked him over apprizingly, wondering as did all who saw him, at the power and strength of his beauty.

The house was weather-beaten unpainted clapboards, its roof of curled and mossy shingles possessing undoubted leakable qualities, patched here and there. A crazy veranda ambled across the front. It contained a long low room with a queer old-fashioned chimney place wide enough to sit in, a square south room that must have been a dining-room because of the painted cupboard whose empty shelves gazed ghastly between half-open doors, and a small kitchen, not much more than a shed. In the long low room a staircase twisted itself up oddly to the four rooms under the leaky roof. It was all empty and desolate, save for an old cot bed and a broken chair. The floors had a sagged, shaky appearance. The doors quaked when they were opened. The windows were cobwebby and dreary, yet it looked to the eyes of the new householder like a palace. He saw it in the light of future possibilities and gloried in it. That chimney place now. How would it look with a great log burning in it, and a rug and rocking chair before it. What would—Aunt Sally—perhaps—say to it when he got it fixed up? Could he ever coax her to leave her dirty doorstep and her drink and come out here to live? And how would he manage it all if he could? There would have to be something to feed her with, and to buy the rug and the rocking chair. And first of all there would have to be a bath-tub. Aunt Sally would need to be purified before she could enter the portals of this ideal cottage, when he had made it as he wanted it to be. Paint and paper would make wonderful transformations he knew, for he had often helped at remodelling the rooms at college during summer vacations. He had watched and been with the workmen and finally taken a hand. This habit of watching and helping had taught him many things. But where were paper and paint and time to use it coming from? Ah, well, leave that to the future. He would find a way. Yesterday he did not have the house nor the land for it to stand upon. It had come and the rest would follow in their time.

He went happily about planning for a bath-room. There would have to be water power. He had seen windmills on other places as he passed. That was perhaps the solution of this problem, but windmills cost money of course. Still,—all in good time.

There was a tumbled-down barn and chicken house, and a frowzy attempt at a garden. A strawberry bed overgrown with weeds, a sickly cabbage lifting its head bravely; a gaunt row of currant bushes; another wandering, out-reaching row of raspberries; a broken fence; a stretch of soppy bog land to the right, and the farm trailed off into desolate neglect ending in a charming grove of thick trees that stood close down to the river’s bank.

Michael went over it all carefully, noted the exposure of the land, kicked the sandy soil to examine its unpromising state, walked all around the bog and tried to remember what he had read about cranberry bogs; wondered if the salt water came up here, and if it were good or bad for cranberries; wondered if cow peas grew in Jersey and if they would do for a fertilizing crop as they did in Florida. Then he walked through the lovely woods, scenting the breath of pines and drawing in long whiffs of life as he looked up to the green roof over his head. They were not like the giant pines of the South land, but they were sweeter and more beautiful in their form.

He went down to the brink of the river and stood looking across.

Not a soul was in sight and nothing moved save a distant sail fleeing across the silver sheen to the sea. He remembered what the man had said about bathing and yielding to an irresistible impulse was soon swimming out across the water. It was like a new lease of life to feel the water brimming to his neck again, and to propel himself with strong, graceful strokes through the element where he would. A bird shot up into the air with a wild sweet note, and he felt like answering to its melody. He whistled softly in imitation of its voice, and the bird answered, and again and again they called across the water.

But a look toward the west where the water was crimsoning already with the setting sun warned him that his time was short, so he swam back to the sheltered nook where he had left his clothes, and improvising a towel from his handkerchief he dressed rapidly. The last train back left at seven. If he did not wish to spend the night in his new and uninhabitable abode he must make good time. It was later than he supposed, and he wished to go back to the station by way of the beach if possible, though it was out of his way. As he drew on his coat and ran his fingers through his hair in lieu of a brush, he looked wistfully at the bright water, dimpling now with hues of violet, pink, and gold and promising a rare treat in the way of a sunset. He would like to stay and watch it. But there was the ocean waiting for him. He must stand on the shore once and look out across it, and know just how it looked near his own house.

He hurried through the grove and across the farm to the eastern edge, and looking beyond the broken fence that marked the bounds of the bog land over the waste of salt grass he could see the white waves dimly tumbling, hurrying ever, to get past one another. He took the fence at a bound, made good time over the uncertain footing of the marsh grass and was soon standing on the broad smooth beach with the open stretch of ocean before him.

It was the first time he had ever stood on the seashore and the feeling of awe that filled him was very great. But beyond any other sensation, came the thought that Starr, his beautiful Starr, was out there on that wide vast ocean, tossing in a tiny boat. For now the great steamer that had seemed so large and palatial, had dwindled in his mind to a frail toy, and he was filled with a nameless fear for her. His little Starr out there on that fearful deep, with only that cold-eyed mother to take care of her. A wild desire to fly to her and bring her back possessed him; a thrilling, awesome something, he had never known before. He stood speechless before it; then raised his eyes to the roseate already purpling in streaks for the sunset and looking solemnly up he said, aloud:

“Oh, God, I love her!”

He stood facing the thought with solemn joy and pain for an instant, then turned and fled from it down the purpling sands; fleeing, yet carrying his secret with him.

And when he came opposite the little village he trod its shabby, straggling, ill-paved streets with glory in his face; and walking thus with hat in hand, and face illumined toward the setting sun, folks looked at him strangely and wondered who and what he was, and turned to look again. In that half-light of sunset, he seemed a being from another world.

A native watching, dropped his whip, and climbing down from his rough wagon spoke the thought that all the bystanders felt in common:

“Gosh hang it! I thought he was one o’ them glass angels stepped out of a church winder over to ’Lizabeth-town. We don’t see them kind much. I wonder now how he’d be to live with. Think I’d feel kinder creepy hevin’ him ’round all time, wouldn’t you?”

All the way home the new thought came surging over him, he loved her and she could never be his. It was deluging; it was beautiful; but it was agonizing. He recalled how beautiful she had been as she waved farewell. And some of her smiles had been for him, he was sure. He had known of course that the kisses were for her father, and yet, they had been blown freely his way, and she had looked her pleasure at his presence. There had been a look in her eyes such as she had worn that day in the college chapel when she had thrown precautions to the winds and put her arms about his neck and kissed him. His young heart thrilled with a deep joy over the memory of it. It had been wonderful that she had done it; wonderful! when he was what he was, a child of the slums! The words seemed burned upon his soul now, a part of his very life. He was not worthy of her, not worthy to receive her favor.

Yet he closed his eyes, leaning his head against the window frame as the train hurried along through the gathering darkness, and saw again the bright lovely face, the dainty fingers blowing kisses, the lips wreathed in smiles, and knew some of the farewell had been surely meant for him. He forgot the beautiful villas along the way, forgot to watch for the twinkling lights, or to care how the cottages looked at evening. Whenever the track veered toward the sea and gave a glimpse of gray sky and yawning ocean with here and there a point of light to make the darkness blacker, he seemed to know instinctively, and opening his eyes strained them to look across it. Out there in the blackness somewhere was his Starr and he might not go to her, nor she come to him. There was a wide stretch of unfathomable sea between them. There would always be that gray, impassable sky and sea of impossibility between them.

As he neared New York, however, these thoughts dropped from him; and standing on the ferry-boat with the million twinkling lights of the city, and the looming blackness of the huddled mass of towering buildings against the illuminated sky, the call of the people came to him. Over there in the darkness, swarming in the fetid atmosphere of a crowded court were thousands like himself, yes, like himself, for he was one of them. He belonged there. They were his kind and he must help them!

Then his mind went to the farm and his plans, and he entered back into the grind of life and assumed its burdens with the sweet pain of his secret locked in his inmost heart.

Chapter XIII

“Sam, have you ever been in the country?”

It was Michael who asked the question. They were sitting in a small dismal room that Michael had found he could afford to rent in a house on the edge of the alley. Not that he had moved there, oh, no! He could not have endured life if all of it that he could call his own had to be spent in that atmosphere. He still kept his little fourth floor back in the dismally respectable street. He had not gone to the place recommended by Endicott, because he found that the difference he would have to pay would make it possible for him to rent this sad little room near the alley; and for his purposes this seemed to him an absolute necessity at present.

The weather was growing too cold for him to meet with his new-old acquaintances of the alley out of doors, and it was little better indoors even if he could have endured the dirt and squalor of those apartments that would have been open to him. Besides, he had a great longing to show them something brighter than their own forlorn homes.

There was a settlement house three or four blocks away, but it had not drawn the dwellers in this particular alley. They were sunken too low, perhaps, or there were so many more hopeful quarters in which to work; and the city was so wide and deep and dark. Michael knew little about the settlement house. He had read of such things. He had looked shyly toward its workers now and then, but as yet knew none of them, though they had heard now and again of the “Angel-man of the alley,” and were curious to find him out.

But Michael’s enterprise was all his own, and his ways of working were his own. He had gone back into the years of his childhood and found out from his inner consciousness what it was he had needed, and now he was going to try to give it to some other little “kids” who were as forlorn and friendless as he had been. It wasn’t much that he could do, but what he could he would do, and more as soon as possible.

And so he had rented this speck of a room, and purified it. He had literally compelled Sam to help him. That compelling was almost a modern miracle, and wrought by radiant smiles, and a firm grip on Sam’s shoulder when he told him what he wanted done.

Together they had swept and scrubbed and literally scraped, the dirt from that room.

“I don’t see what you’re making sech a darned fuss about dirt fer!” grumbled Sam as he arose from his knees after scrubbing the floor for the fourth time. “It’s what we’re all made of, dey say, an’ nobuddy’ll know de diffrunce.”

“Just see if they won’t, Sam,” encouraged Michael as he polished off the door he had been cleaning. “See there, how nice that looks! You didn’t know that paint was gray, did you? It looked brown before, it was so thick with dirt. Now we’re ready for paint and paper!”

And so, in an atmosphere of soap and water they had worked night after night till very late; and Sam had actually let a well-planned and promising raid go by because he was so interested in what he was doing and he was ashamed to tell Michael of his engagement.

Sam had never assisted at the papering of a room before; in fact, it is doubtful if he ever saw a room with clean fresh paper on its walls in all his life, unless in some house he had entered unlawfully. When this one stood arrayed at last in its delicate newness, he stood back and surveyed it in awed silence.

Michael had chosen paper of the color of the sunshine, for the court was dark and the alley was dark and the room was dark. The souls of the people too were dark. They must have light and brightness if he would win them to better things. Besides, the paper was only five cents a roll, the cheapest he could find in the city. Michael had learned at college during vacations how to put it on. He made Sam wash and wash and wash his hands before he was allowed to handle any of the delicate paper.

“De paper’ll jest git dirty right away,” grumbled Sam sullenly, albeit he washed his hands, and his eyes glowed as they used to when a child at a rare “find” in the gutter.

“Wot’ll you do when it gits dirty?” demanded Sam belligerently.

“Put on some clean,” said Michael sunnily. “Besides, we must learn to have clean hands and keep it clean.”

“I wish we had some curtains,” said Michael wistfully. “They had thin white curtains at college.”

“Are you makin’ a college fer we?” asked Sam looking at him sharply.

“Well, in a way, perhaps,” said Michael smiling. “You know I want you to have all the advantages I had as far as I can get them.”

Sam only whistled and looked perplexed but he was doing more serious thinking than he had ever done in his life before.

And so the two had worked, and planned, and now tonight, the work was about finished.

The walls reflected the yellow of the sunshine, the woodwork was painted white enamel. Michael had, just put on the last gleaming coat.

“We can give it another coat when it looks a little soiled,” he had remarked to Sam, and Sam, frowning, had replied: “Dey better hev dere han’s clean.”

The floor was painted gray. There was no rug. Michael felt its lack and meant to remedy it as soon as possible, but rugs cost money. There was a small coal stove set up and polished till it shone, and a fire was laid ready to start. They had not needed it while they were working hard. The furniture was a wooden table painted gray with a cover of bright cretonne, two wooden chairs, and three boxes. Michael had collected these furnishings carefully and economically, for he had to sacrifice many little comforts that he might get them.

On the walls were two or three good pictures fastened by brass tacks; and some of the gray moss and pine branches from Michael’s own room. In the central wall appeared one of Michael’s beloved college pennants. It was understood by all who had yet entered the sacred precincts of the room to be the symbol of what made the difference between them and “the angel,” and they looked at it with awe, and mentally crossed themselves in its presence.

At the windows were two lengths of snowy cheese-cloth crudely hemmed by Michael, and tacked up in pleats with brass-headed tacks. They were tied back with narrow yellow ribbons. This had been the last touch and Sam sat looking thoughtfully at the stiff angular bows when Michael asked the question:

“Have you ever been in the country?”

“Sure!” said Sam scornfully. “Went wid de Fresh Air folks wen I were a kid.”

“What did you think of it?”

“Don’t tink much!” shrugged Sam. “Too empty. Nothin’ doin’! Good ’nough fer kids. Never again fer me.”

It was three months since Michael had made his memorable first visit down to Old Orchard Farm. For weeks he had worked shoulder to shoulder every evening with Sam and as yet no word of that plan which was nearest his heart had been spoken. This was his first attempt to open the subject.

That Sam had come to have a certain kind of respect and fondness for him he was sure, though it was never expressed in words. Always he either objected to any plan Michael suggested, or else he was extremely indifferent and would not promise to be on hand. He was almost always there, however, and Michael had come to know that Sam was proud of his friendship, and at least to a degree interested in his plans for the betterment of the court.

“There are things in the country; other things, that make up for the stir of the city,” said Michael thoughtfully. This was the first unpractical conversation he had tried to hold with Sam. He had been leading him up, through the various stages from dirt and degradation, by means of soap and water, then paper and paint, and now they had reached the doorway of Nature’s school. Michael wanted to introduce Sam to the great world of out-of-doors. For, though Sam had lived all his life out-of-doors, it had been a world of brick walls and stone pavements, with little sky and almost no water. Not a green thing in sight, not a bird, nor a beast except of burden. The first lesson was waiting in a paper bundle that stood under the table. Would Sam take it, Michael wondered, as he rose and brought it out unwrapping the papers carefully, while Sam silently watched and pretended to whistle, not to show too much curiosity. “What tings?” at last asked Sam.

“Things like this,” answered Michael eagerly setting out on the table an earthen pot containing a scarlet geranium in bloom. It glowed forth its brilliant torch at once and gave just the touch to the little empty clean room that Michael had hoped it would do. He stood back and looked at it proudly, and then looked at Sam to see if the lesson had been understood. He half expected to see an expression of scorn on the hardened sallow face of the slum boy, but instead Sam was gazing open-mouthed, with unmitigated admiration.

“Say! Dat’s all right!” he ejaculated. “Where’d you make de raise? Say! Dat makes de paper an’ de paint show up fine!” taking in the general effect of the room.

Then he arose from the box on which he had been sitting and went and stood before the blossom.

“Say! I wisht Jim eud see dat dere!” he ejaculated after a long silence, and there was that in the expression of his face that brought the quick moisture to Michael’s eyes.

It was only a common red geranium bought for fifteen cents, but it had touched with its miracle of bright life the hardened soul of the young burglar, and opened his vision to higher things than he had known. It was in this moment of open vision that his heart turned to his old companion who was uncomplainingly taking the punishment which rightfully belonged to the whole gang.

“We will take him one tomorrow,” said Michael in a low voice husky with feeling. It was the first time Sam had voluntarily mentioned Jim and he had seemed so loth to take Michael to see him in jail that Michael had ceased to speak of the matter.

“There’s another one just like this where I bought this one. I couldn’t tell which to take, they were both so pretty. We’ll get it the first thing in the morning before anybody else snaps it up, and then, when could we get in to see Jim? Would they let us in after my office hours or would we have to wait till Sunday? You look after that will you? I might get off at four o’clock if that’s not too late.”

“Dey’ll let us in on Sunday ef you ask, I reckon,” said Sam much moved. “But it’s awful dark in prison. It won’t live, will it? Dere’s only one streak o’ sun shines in Jim’s cell a few minutes every day.”

“Oh, I think it’ll live,” said Michael hastily, a strange choking sensation in his throat at thought of his one-time companion shut into a dark prison. Of course, he deserved to be there. He had broken the laws, but then no one had ever made him understand how wrong it was. If some one had only tried perhaps Jim would never have done the thing that put him in prison.

“I’m sure it will live,” he said again cheerfully. “I’ve heard that geraniums are very hardy. The man told me they would live all winter in the cellar if you brought them up again in the spring.”

“Jim will be out again in de spring,” said Sam softly. It was the first sign of anything like emotion in Sam.

“Isn’t that good!” said Michael heartily. “I wonder what we can do to make it pleasant for him when he comes back to the world. We’ll bring him to this room, of course, but in the spring this will be getting warm. And that makes me think of what I was talking about a minute ago. There’s so much more in the country than in the city!”

“More?” questioned Sam uncomprehendingly.

“Yes, things like this to look at. Growing things that you get to love and understand. Wonderful things. There’s a river that sparkles and talks as it runs. There are trees that laugh and whisper when the wind plays in their branches. And there are wonderful birds, little live breaths of air with music inside that make splendid friends when you’re lonely. I know, for I made lots of bird-friends when I went away from you all to college. You know I was pretty lonely at first.”

Sam looked at him with quick, keen wonder, and a lighting of his face that made him almost attractive and sent the cunning in his eyes slinking out of sight. Had this fine great-hearted creature really missed his old friends when he went away? Had he really need of them yet, with all his education—and—difference? It was food for thought.

“Then there’s the sky, so much of it,” went on Michael, “and so wide and blue, and sometimes soft white clouds. They make you feel rested when you look at them floating lazily through the blue, and never seeming to be tired; not even when there’s a storm and they have to hurry. And there’s the sunset. Sam, I don’t believe you ever saw the sunset, not right anyway. You don’t have sunsets here in the city, it just gets dark. You ought to see one I saw not long ago. I mean to take you there some day and we’ll watch it together. I want to see if it will do the same thing to you that it did to me.”

Sam looked at him in awe, for he wore his exalted look, and when he spoke like that Sam had a superstitious fear that perhaps after all he was as old Sal said, more of angel than of man.

“And then, there’s the earth, all covered with green, plenty of it to lie in if you want to, and it smells so good; and there’s so much air,—enough to breathe your lungs full, and with nothing disagreeable in it, no ugly smells nor sounds. And there are growing things everywhere. Oh, Sam! Wouldn’t you like to make things like this grow?”

Sam nodded and put forth his rough forefinger shamedly to touch the velvet of a green leaf, as one unaccustomed might touch a baby’s cheek.

“You’ll go with me, Sam, to the country sometime, won’t you? I’ve got a plan and I’ll need you to help me carry it out. Will you go?”

“Sure!” said Sam in quite a different voice from any reluctant assent he had ever given before. “Sure, I’ll go!”

“Thank you, Sam,” said Michael more moved than he dared show, “And now that’s settled I want to talk about this room. I’m going to have five little kids here tomorrow early in the evening. I told them I’d show them how to whittle boats and we’re going to sail them in the scrub bucket. They’re about the age you and I were when I went away to college. Perhaps I’ll teach them a letter or two of the alphabet if they seem interested. They ought to know how to read, Sam.”

“I never learned to read—” muttered Sam half belligerently. “That so?” said Michael as if it were a matter of small moment. “Well, what if you were to come in and help me with the boats. Then you could pick it up when I teach them. You might want to use it some day. It’s well to know how, and a man learns things quickly you know.”

Sam nodded.

“I don’t know’s I care ’bout it,” he said indifferently, but Michael saw that he intended to come.

“Well, after the kids have gone, I won’t keep them late you know, I wonder if you’d like to bring some of the fellows in to see this?”

Michael glanced around the room.

“I’ve some pictures of alligators I have a fancy they might like to see. I’ll bring them down if you say so.”

“Sure!” said Sam trying to hide his pleasure.

“Then tomorrow morning I’m going to let that little woman that lives in the cellar under Aunt Sally’s room, bring her sewing here and work all day. She makes buttonholes in vests. It’s so dark in her room she can’t see and she’s almost ruined her eyes working by candle light.”

“She’ll mess it all up!” grumbled Sam; “an’ she might let other folks in an’ they’d pinch the picters an’ the posy.”

“No, she won’t do that. I’ve talked to her about it. The room is to be hers for the day, and she’s to keep it looking just as nice as it did when she found it. She’ll only bring her work over, and go home for her dinner. She’s to keep the fire going so it will be warm at night, and she’s to try it for a day and see how it goes. I think she’ll keep her promise. We’ll try her anyway.”

Sam nodded as to a superior officer who nevertheless was awfully foolish.

“Mebbe!” he said.

“Sam, do you think it would be nice to bring Aunt Sally over now a few minutes?”

“No,” said Sam shortly, “she’s too dirty. She’d put her fingers on de wall first thing—”

“But Sam, I think she ought to come. And she ought to come first. She’s the one that helped me find you—”

Sam looked sharply at Michael and wondered if he suspected how long that same Aunt Sally had frustrated his efforts to find his friends.

“We could tell her not to touch things, perhaps—”

“Wal, you lemme tell her. Here! I’ll go fix her up an’ bring her now.” And Sam hurried out of the room.

Michael waited, and in a few minutes Sam returned with Aunt Sally. But it was a transformed Aunt Sally. Her face had been painfully scrubbed in a circle out as far as her ears, and her scraggy gray hair was twisted in a tight knot at the back of her neck. Her hands were several shades cleaner than Michael had ever seen them before, and her shoes were tied. She wore a small three-cornered plaid shawl over her shoulders and entered cautiously as if half afraid to come. Her hands were clasped high across her breast. She had evidently been severely threatened against touching anything.

“The saints be praised!” she ejaculated warmly after she had looked around in silence for a moment “To think I should ivver see the loikes uv this in de alley. It lukes loike a palace. Mikky, ye’re a Nangel, me b’y! An’ a rale kurtin, to be shure! I ain’t seen a kurtin in the alley since I cummed. An’ will ye luke at the purty posy a blowin’ as foine as ye plaze! Me mither had the loike in her cottage window when I was a leetle gal! Aw, me pure auld mither!”

And suddenly to Michael’s amazement, and the disgust of Sam, old Sal sat down on the one chair and wept aloud, with the tears streaming down her seamed and sin-scarred face.

Sam was for putting her out at once, but Michael soothed her with his cheery voice, making her tell of her old home in Ireland, and the kind mother whom she had loved, though it was long years since she had thought of her now.

With rare skill he drew from her the picture of the little Irish cottage with its thatched roof, its peat fire, and well-swept hearth; the table with the white cloth, the cat in the rocking chair, the curtain starched stiffly at the window, the bright posy on the deep window ledge; and, lastly, the little girl with clean pinafore and curly hair who kissed her mother every morning and trotted off to school. But that was before the father died, and the potatoes failed. The school days were soon over, and the little girl with her mother came to America. The mother died on the way over, and the child fell into evil hands. That was the story, and as it was told Michael’s face grew tender and wistful. Would that he knew even so much of his own history as that!

But Sam stood by struck dumb and trying to fancy that this old woman had ever been the bright rosy child she told about. Sam was passing through a sort of mental and moral earthquake.

“Perhaps some day we’ll find another little house in the country where you can go and live,” said Michael, “but meantime, suppose you go and see if you can’t make your room look like this one. You scrub it all up and perhaps Sam and I will come over and put some pretty paper on the walls for you. Would you like that? How about it, Sam?”

“Sure!” said Sam rather grudgingly. He hadn’t much faith in Aunt Sally and didn’t see what Michael wanted with her anyway, but he was loyal to Michael.

Irish blessings mingled with tears and garnished with curses in the most extraordinary way were showered upon Michael and at last when he could stand no more, Sam said:

“Aw, cut it out, Sal. You go home an’ scrub. Come on, now!” and he bundled her off in a hurry.

Late as it was, old Sal lit a fire, and by the light of a tallow candle got down on her stiff old knees and began to scrub. It seemed nothing short of a miracle that her room could ever look like that one she had just seen, but if scrubbing could do anything toward it, scrub she would. It was ten years since she had thought of scrubbing her room. She hadn’t seemed to care; but tonight as she worked with her trembling old drink-shaken hands the memory of her childhood’s home was before her vision, and she worked with all her might.

So the leaven of the little white room in the dark alley began to work. “The Angel’s quarters” it was named, and to be called to go within its charmed walls was an honor that all coveted as time went on. And that was how Michael began the salvation of his native alley.

Chapter XIV

Michael had been three months with the new law firm and was beginning to get accustomed to the violent contrast between the day spent in the atmosphere of low-voiced, quiet-stepping, earnest men who moved about in their environment of polished floors, oriental rugs, leather chairs and walls lined with leather-covered law books; and the evening down in the alley where his bare, little, white and gold room made the only tolerable spot in the neighborhood.

He was still occupying the fourth floor back at his original boarding house, and had seen Mr. Endicott briefly three or four times, but nothing had been said about his lodgings.

One morning he came to the desk set apart for him in the law office, and found a letter lying there for him.

“Son:” it said, “your board is paid at the address given below, up to the day you are twenty-one. If you don’t get the benefit it will go to waste. Mrs. Semple will make you quite comfortable and I desire you to move to her house at once. If you feel any obligation toward me this is the way to discharge it. Hope you are well, Yours, Delevan Endicott.’”

Michael’s heart beat faster with varied emotions. It was pleasant to have some one care, and of course if Mr. Endicott wished it so much he would manage it somehow—perhaps he could get some night work or copying to do—but he would never let him bear his expenses. That could not be.

He hurried off at the noon hour to find his benefactor and make this plain with due gratitude. He found, however, that it was not so easy to change this man’s mind, once made up. Endicott would not hear to any change in arrangements. He had paid the board for the remaining months of Michael’s minority and maintained his right to do so if he chose. Neither would he let Michael refund him any of the amount.