Lo, Michael! Part 20

"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 sc.r.a.ped, 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' n.o.buddy'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 a.s.sisted 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 to-night, 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 bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s-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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 to-morrow," 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.