Burnham Breaker Part 9

"I'll tell you what to do," said Joe; "I'll write your name jest as good as I can, an' then you can put your solemn cross on top of it, an' that'll make it jest as legal as it can be got."

So they arranged it in that way. Joe signed Jack Murphy's name in his very best style, and then Jack took the pen and under Joe's explicit directions, drew one line horizontally through the name and another line perpendicularly between the two words of it, and Joe wrote above it: "his solem mark." This completed the resolutions, and the committee hurried back with them to the impatient a.s.sembly.

The meeting was called to order again, and Joe Foster read the resolutions.

"That's jest the way I feel about it," said Ralph, "jest the way that paper reads. He couldn't 'a' been no better to us, no way. Boys," he continued, earnestly, forgetting for the time being his position, "do you 'member 'bout his comin' into the screen-room last Tuesday an'

givin' us each a quarter to go t' the circus with? Well, I'd cut my han' that day on a piece o' coal, an' it was a-bleedin' bad, an' he see it, an' he asked me what was the matter with it, an' I told 'im, an' he took it an' washed it off, he did, jest as nice an' careful; an' then what d'ye think he done? W'y he took 'is own han'kerchy, his own han'kerchy, mind ye, an' tore it into strips an' wrapped it roun'

my han' jest as nice--jest as nice--"

And here the memory of this kindness became so vivid in Ralph's mind that he broke down and cried outright.

"It was jes' like 'im," said one in the crowd; "he was always a-doin'

sumpthin' jes' like that. D'ye 'member that time w'en I froze my ear, an' he give me money to buy a new cap with ear-laps on to it?"

The recital of this incident called from another the statement of some generous deed, and, in the fund of kindly reminiscence thus aroused, the resolutions came near to being wholly forgotten. But they were remembered, finally, and were called up and adopted, and it was agreed that the chairman should carry them and present them to whoever should be found in charge at the house. Then, with Ralph and Joe Foster leading the procession, they started toward the city. Reaching Laburnum Avenue, they marched down that street in twos until they came to the Burnham residence. There was a short consultation there, and then they all pa.s.sed in through the gate to the lawn, and Ralph and Joe went up the broad stone steps to the door. A kind-faced woman met them there, and Ralph said: "We've come, if you please, the breaker boys have come to--to--" The woman smiled sweetly, and said: "Yes, we've been expecting you; wait a moment and I will see what arrangements have been made for you."

Joe Foster nudged Ralph with his elbow, and whispered:--

"The res'lutions, Ralph, the res'lutions; now's the time; give 'em to her."

But Ralph did not hear him. His mind was elsewhere. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light in the hall, and he saw the winding staircase with its richly carved posts, the beauty of the stained-gla.s.s windows, the graceful hangings, the broad doors, the pictures, and the flowers, there came upon him a sense of strange familiarity with the scene. It seemed to him as though sometime, somewhere, he had seen it, known it all before. The feeling was so sudden and so strong that it made him faint and dizzy.

The kind-featured woman saw the pallor on his face and the tremor on his lips, and led him to a chair. She ascribed his weakness to sorrow and excitement, and the dread of looking on a dead face.

"Poor boy!" she said. "I don't wonder at it; he was more than generous to us all."

But Joe, afraid that the resolutions he had labored on with so much diligence would be forgotten, spoke of them again to Ralph.

"Oh, yes," said Ralph, with a wan smile, "oh, yes! here's the res'lutions. That's the way the breaker boys feel--the way it says in this paper; an' we want Mrs. Burnham to know."

"I'll take it to her," said the woman, receiving from Ralph's hands the awkwardly folded and now sadly soiled paper. "You will wait here a moment, please."

She pa.s.sed up the broad staircase, by the richly colored window at the landing, and was lost to sight; while the two boys, sitting in the s.p.a.cious hall, gazed, with wondering eyes, upon the beauty which surrounded them.

The widow of Robert Burnham sat in the morning-room of her desolated home, talking calmly with her friends.

After the first shock incident upon her husband's death had pa.s.sed away, she had made no outcry, she grew quiet and self-possessed, she was ready for any consultation, gave all necessary orders, spoke of her dead husband's goodness to her with a smile on her face, and looked calmly forth into the future. The shock of that terrible message from the mines, two days ago, had paralyzed her emotional nature, and left her white-faced and tearless.

She had a smile and a kind word for every one as before; she had eaten mechanically; but she had lain with wide-open eyes all night, and still no one had seen a single tear upon her cheeks. This was why they feared for her; they said,

"She must weep, or she will die."

Some one came into the room and spoke to her.

"The breaker boys, who asked to come this morning, are here."

"Let them come in," she said, "and pa.s.s through the parlors and look upon him; and let them be treated with all kindness and courtesy."

"They have brought this paper, containing resolutions pa.s.sed by them, which they would like to have you read."

Mrs. Burnham took the paper, and asked the woman to wait while she read it. There was something in the fact that these boys had pa.s.sed resolutions of sympathy that touched her heart. She unfolded the soiled paper and read:--

Wee, the braker Boys of burnham braker in ma.s.s meeting met Did pa.s.s thease res'lutions. first the braker Boys is all vary sory indede Cause mister Burnham dide.

second Wee have A grate dele of sympathy for his wife and his little girl, what has got to get along now without him. third wee are vary Proud of him cause he dide a trying to save John Welshes life and pat Morys life and the other mens lifes. fourth he was vary Good indede to us Boys, and they ain't one of us but what liked him vary mutch and feel vary bad. fift Wee dont none of us ixpect to have no moar sutch good Times at the braker as wee did Befoar. sixt Wee aint scollers enougth to rite it down just what wee feel, but wee feel a hunderd times more an what weave got rote down.

JOE FOSTER, comity,

PAT DONNELLY, comity,

his solem mark

JACK + MURFY comity.

The widow laid aside the paper, put her face in her hands, and began to weep. There was something in the honest, unskilled way in which these boys had laid their hearts open before her in this time of general sorrow, that brought the tears into her eyes at last, and for many minutes they flowed without restraint. Those who were with her knew that the danger that had menaced her was pa.s.sed.

After a little she lifted her head.

"I will see the boys," she said. "I will thank them in person. Tell them to a.s.semble in the hall."

The message was given, and the boys filed into the broad hall, and stood waiting, hats in hand, in silence and in awe.

Down the wide staircase the lady came, holding her little girl by the hand, and at the last step they halted. As Ralph looked up and saw her face, pallid but beautiful, and felt the influence of her gracious yet commanding presence, there came over him again that strange sensation as of beholding some familiar sight. It seemed to him that sometime, somewhere, he had not only seen her and known her, but that she had been very close to him. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to cry out to her for some word, some look of recognition. Then she began to speak. He held himself firmly by the back of a chair, and listened as to a voice that had been familiar to him in some state of being prior to his life on earth.

"Boys," said the lady, "I come to thank you in person for your a.s.surances of sympathy for me and for my little daughter, and for your veneration for the dead. I know that his feeling toward you was very kind, that he tried to lighten your labors as he could, that he hoped for you that you would all grow into strong, good men. I do not wonder that you sorrow at his loss. This honest, simple tribute to his memory that you have given to me has touched me deeply.

"I cannot hope to be as close to you as he was, but from this time forth I shall be twice your friend. I want to take each one of you by the hand as you pa.s.s by, in token of our friendship, and of my faith in you, and my grat.i.tude toward you."

So, one by one, as they pa.s.sed into the room beyond, she held each boy's hand for a moment and spoke to him some kind word, and every heart in her presence went out to her in sympathy and love.

Last of all came Ralph. As leader of the party he had thought it proper to give precedence to the rest. The lady took his hand as he came by, the same hand that had received her husband's tender care; but there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown eyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate lips, as she looked down on him, that brought swift tenderness for him to her heart. She bent over and lifted up his face to hers, and kissed his lips, and then, unable longer to restrain her emotion, she turned and hastened up the stairway, and was lost to sight.

For many minutes Ralph stood still, in gratified amazement. It was the first time in all his life, so far as memory served him, that any one had kissed him. And that this grief-stricken lady should be the first--it was very strange, but very beautiful, indeed. He felt that by that kiss he had been lifted to a higher level, to a clearer, purer atmosphere, to a station where better things than he had ever done before would be expected of him now; he felt, indeed, as though it were the first long reach ahead to attain to such a manhood as was Robert Burnham's. The repet.i.tion of this name in his mind brought him to himself, and he turned into the parlor just as the last one of the other boys was pa.s.sing out. He hurried across the room to look upon the face of his friend and employer. It was not the unpleasant sight that he had feared it might be. The dead man's features were relaxed and calm. A smile seemed to be playing about the lips. The face had all its wonted color and fulness, and one might well have thought, looking on the closed eye-lids, that he lay asleep.

Standing thus in the presence of death, the boy had no fear. His only feeling was one of tenderness and of deep sorrow. The man had been so kind to him in life, so very kind. It seemed almost as though the lips might part and speak to him. But he was dead; this was his face, this his body; but he, himself, was not here. Dead! The word struck harshly on his mind and roused him from his reverie. He looked up; the boys had all gone, only the kind-faced woman stood there with a puzzled expression in her eyes. She had chanced to mark the strong resemblance between the face of the dead man and that of the boy who looked upon it; a resemblance so striking that it startled her. In the countenance of Robert Burnham as he had looked in life, one might not have noticed it, but--

"Sometimes, in a dead man's face, To those that watch it more and more, A likeness, hardly seen before, Comes out, to some one of his race."

It was so here. The faces of the dead man and of the living boy were the faces of father and son.

Ralph turned away, at last, from the lifeless presence before him, from the searching eyes of the woman, from the hall with its dim suggestions of something in the long ago, and went out into the street, into the sunlight, into the busy world around him; but from that time forth a shadow rested on his young life that had never darkened it before,--a shadow whose cause he could not fathom and whose gloom he could not dispel.

CHAPTER V.

IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER.