Lo, Michael! Part 17

CHAPTER XI

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

The days had pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude for the past. Meantime he had not been idle. His winning smile and clear eyes had been his pa.s.sport; 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 embarra.s.sed joy to be in the presence of the man who had done so much for him, and of eager antic.i.p.ation. 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 seash.o.r.e 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 d.i.c.kens 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 pa.s.sing 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 cla.s.s--"

"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 ma.s.ses and the cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.s. Thirteen years had pa.s.sed 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.