Michael O'Halloran Part 69

"Well I can try," said Junior, "and if I don't like it I can come back."

"I don't know about that," objected Peter. "Of course I'd have other help hired; your room would be occupied and your work contracted for----"

"Well I hadn't figured on that," he said. "I supposed I could go and try it, and if I didn't like it I could come home. Couldn't I come home Ma?"

Nancy slowly became a greenish white colour; but the situation had been discussed so often, it worried her dreadfully; now that it had to be met, evasion would do no good. Peter grimly watched her. He knew she was struggling with a woman's inborn impulse to be the haven of her children, her son, her first-born, especially. He was surprised to hear her saying: "Why I hardly think so Junior, it wouldn't be a right start in life. You must figure that whatever kind of work you find, or whoever you work for, there will be things you won't like or think fair, but if you are going to be your own man, you must begin like a man; and of course a man doesn't go into business with his mind made up to run for his mother's petticoats, the first thing that displeases him. No, I guess if you go, you must start with your mind made up to stay till the October term of school opens, anyway."

"Then we'll call that settled," said Peter. "You may go with Mickey on the Monday morning car and we probably won't see you again till you are one of the leading business men of Multiopolis, and drive out in your automobile. Have you decided which make you'll get?"

"Well from what I've learned driving yours, if I were buying one myself, I'd get a Glide-by," said Junior. "They strike me as the best car on the market."

Peter glanced sharply at his son. When he saw that the answer was perfectly sincere, his heart almost played him the trick he had expected from his wife.

"All right Ma, gather up his clothes and get them washed, and have him ready," said Peter.

"I thought maybe you'd take me in the car and sort of look around with me," said Junior.

"I don't see how I am going to do it, with both our work piled on me,"

said Peter. "And besides, I'm a farmer born and bred; I wouldn't have the first idea about how to get a boy a job in the city or what he ought to do or have. Mickey is on to all that; he'll go with you, won't you Mickey?"

"Sure!" said Mickey. "And you can save a lot by using my room. It is high, but it's clean"--Junior scowled but Mickey proceeded calmly--"and while it gets hot in the daytime, if you open the door at night, and push the bed before the window, it soon cools off, while very hottest times I always take to the fire-escape. It's nice and cool there."

"Of course! That will be the ticket," said Peter heartily. "A boy starting with everything to learn couldn't expect to earn much, and when you haven't Ma and me to depend on for your board you'll be glad to have the bed free. Thank you Mickey, that's fine!"

Junior did not look as if he thought it were. Presently he asked: "How much money ought I to take to start on, Mickey?"

"Hully gee!" said Mickey. "Why your fare in! You're going to make money, kid, not to spend it. If I was turned loose there with just one cent I'd be flying by night, and if I hadn't the cent, I'd soon earn it."

"How could you Mickey?" asked Junior eagerly.

"With or without?" queried Mickey.

"Both!" exclaimed Junior.

"Well, 'without,'" said Mickey, "I'd keep my lamps trimmed and burning, and I'd catch a lady falling off a car, or pick up a purse, or a kid, or run an errand. 'With,' there'd be only one thing I'd think of, because papers are my game. I'd buy one for a penny and sell it for two; buy two, sell for four; you know the multiplication table, don't you? But of course you don't want a street job, you want in a factory or a store. If you could do what you like best, what would it be Junior?"

Junior opened his mouth several times and at last admitted he hadn't thought that far: "Why I don't know."

"Well," said Mickey calmly, "there's making things, that's factories.

There's selling them, that's stores. There's doctors, and lawyers, that's professional, like my boss. And there's office-holders, like the men he is after, but of course you'd have to be old enough to vote and educated enough to do business, and have enough money earned at something else to buy your office; that's too far away. Now if you don't like the street, there's the other three. The quickest money would be in the first two. If you were making things, what would you make?"

"Automobiles!" said Junior.

"All right!" said Mickey, "we can try them first. If we can't find a factory that you'd like, what would you rather sell?"

"Automobiles," said Junior promptly.

"Gee!" said Mickey. "I see where we hit that business at both ends. If we miss, what next?"

"I don't know," said Junior. "I'll make up my mind when I have looked around some."

"You can come closer deciding out here, than you can in the rush of the streets," said Mickey. "There, you'll be rustling for your supper, and you'll find boys hunting jobs thick as men at a ball game, and lots of them with dads to furnish their room and board."

Junior hesitated, but Mickey excused himself and without having been told what to do, he accomplished half a day's work for Mrs. Harding, then began some of Peter's jobs and afterward turned his attention to hearing Peaches' lesson and setting her new copy. When Junior paid his fare Monday morning, Mickey, judging by the change he exhibited, realized that both his mother and father had given him, to start on, a dollar to spend. Mickey would have preferred that he be penniless. He decided as they ran cityward that the first thing was to part Junior from his money, so he told him he would be compelled to work in the forenoon, and for a while in the afternoon, and left him to his own devices on the street, with a meeting-place agreed on at noon.

When Mickey reached the spot he found Junior with a pocket full of candy, eating early peaches, and instead of hunting work, he had attended three picture shows. Mickey could have figured to within ten cents of what was left of one of Junior's dollars; but as the cure did not really begin until the money disappeared, the quicker it went the better. As he ate his sandwich and drank his milk, he watched Junior making a dinner of meat, potatoes, pie and ice-cream, and made a mental estimate of the remains of the other dollar. As a basis for a later "I told you so," he remonstrated, and pointed out the fact that there were hundreds of unemployed men of strength, skilled artisans with families to support, looking for work that minute.

"I know your dad signed up that contract with Jud Jason," he said, "'cause I saw him, and that means that he's got no use for you for three months; so you must take care of yourself for that long at least, if you got any ginger in you. Of course," explained Mickey, "I know that most city men think country boys won't stick, and are big cowards, but I'm expecting you to show them just where they are mistaken. I know you're not lazy, and I know you got as much sand and grit as any city boy, but you must _prove it_ to the rest of them. You must show up!"

"Sure!" said Junior. "I'll convince them!"

By night the last penny of the second dollar was gone, so Junior borrowed his fare to his room from Mickey, who was to remain with him to show him the way back and forth, and to spend an early hour in search of employment. It was Mickey's first night away from Peaches, and while he knew she was safe, he felt that when night came she would miss him. The thought that she might cry for him tormented him to speech. He pointed out to Junior very clearly that he would have to mark corners and keep his eyes open because he need not expect that he could leave her longer than that. Junior agreed with him, for he had promised Peaches in saying good-bye to keep Mickey only one night.

He had treated himself to candy and unusual fruits until his money was gone, while by night these and a walk of miles on hot pavement had bred such an appet.i.te that he felt he had not eaten a full meal in years, so when Mickey brought out the remains of the food Mrs. Harding had given him, her son felt insulted. But Mickey figured a day on the basis of what he had earned, what he had expended, what he must save to be ready when the great surgeon came, and prepared exactly as he would have done for himself and Peaches. On reaching the tenement and climbing until his legs ached, Junior faced stifling heat, but Mickey opened the window and started a draft by setting the door wide. While they ate supper, Mickey talked unceasingly, but Junior was sulkily silent. He tried the fire-escape, but one glance from the rickety affair, hung a mile above the ground it seemed to him, was enough, so he climbed back in the window and tossed on the bed.

Junior did his first real thinking that night. He was ravenous before morning and aghast at what he was offered for breakfast. He was eager to find work and he knew for what his first day's wage would go. In justice to his own sense of honour and in justice to Junior, mere common fairness, such as he would have wanted in like case, for the first few days Mickey honestly and unceasingly hunted employment. With Junior at his elbow he suffered one rebuff after another, until it was clear to him that it was impossible for a country boy unused to the ways of the city to find or to hold a job at which he could survive, even with his room provided, while the city swarmed with unemployed men. Everywhere they found the work they would have liked done by an Italian, Greek, Swede, German, or Polander who seemed strong as oxen, oblivious, as no doubt they were, to treatment Junior never had seen accorded a balky mule, and able to live on a chunk of black bread, a bit of cheese, and a few cents' worth of stale beer. When Mickey had truly convinced himself of what he had believed, with a free conscience he then began allowing Junior to find out for himself exactly what he was facing. By that time Junior had lost himself on the way to Mickey's rooms, spent a night wandering the streets, and breakfastless was waiting before the Iriquois.

Mickey listened sympathetically, supplied a dime, which seemed to be all he had, for breakfast, and said as he entered the building: "Well kid, 'til we can find a job you'll just have to go up against the street. If I can live and save money at it, you ought to be smart enough to _live_. Go to it 'til I get my day's work done. You just can't go home, because they'll think you don't amount to anything; the fellows will make game of you, and besides Jud is doing wonderfully well, your father said so. He seemed so tickled over him, I guess the fact is he is getting more help from him that he ever did from Junior boy, so your job there isn't open. Go at whatever you can see that needs to be done, 'til I get my work over and we'll try again. I'll be out about three, and you can meet me here."

Empty and disheartened Junior squeezed the dime and hurried toward the nearest restaurant. But the transaction had been witnessed by a boy as hungry as he, and hardened to the street. How Junior came to be sprawling on the sidewalk he never knew; only that his hand involuntarily opened in falling and he threw it out to catch himself, so he couldn't find the dime. Before noon he was sick and reeling with sleeplessness and hunger. He was waiting when it was Mickey's time to lunch, but he did not come, and in desperation Junior really tried the street. At last he achieved a nickel by s.n.a.t.c.hing a dropped bundle from under a car. He sat a long time in a stairway looking at it, and then having reached a stage where he was more sick, and less hungry, he hunted a telephone booth and tried to get his home, only to learn that the family was away. Gladdened by the thought that they might be in the city, he walked miles, watching the curb before stores where they shopped, searching for their car, and he told himself that if he found it, nothing could separate him from the steering gear until he sped past all regulation straight to his mother's cupboard.

He had wanted ham and chicken in the beginning; later helping himself to cold food in the cellar seemed a luxury; then crackers and cookies in the dining-room cupboard would have satisfied his wildest desire; and before three o'clock, Junior, in mad rebellion, remembered his mother's slop bucket. How did she dare put big pieces of bread and things good enough for any one to eat in feed for pigs and poultry! If he ever reached home he resolved he would put a stop to that.

At three to Mickey's cheerful, "Now we'll find a job or make it," he answered: "No we will find a square meal or steal it," and then he told. Mickey watched him reflectively, but as he figured the case, it was not for him to suggest retreat. He condoled, paid for the meal, and started hunting work again, with Junior silent and dogged beside him.

To the surprise of both, almost at once they found a place for a week with a florist.

Junior went to work. After a few tasks bunglingly performed, he was tried on messenger service and started with his carfare to deliver a box containing a funeral piece. He had no idea where he was to go, or what car line to take. In his extremity a bootblack came to his aid. He safely delivered the box at a residence where the owner was leaving his door for his car. He gave Junior half a dollar. Junior met the first friendly greeting he had encountered in Multiopolis, as he reached the street.

Two boys larger than he walked beside him and talked so frankly, that before he reached his car line, he felt he had made friends. They offered to show him a shorter cut to the car line just by going up an alley and out on a side street. At the proper place for seclusion, the one behind knocked him senseless, and the one before wheeled and relieved him of money, and both fled. Junior lay for a time, then slowly came back, but he was weak and ill. He knew without investigating what had happened, and preferring the mercy that might be inside to that of the alley, he crawled into a back door. It proved to be a morgue. A workman came to his a.s.sistance, felt the lump on his head, noticed the sickness on his face, and gave him a place to rest.

Junior was dubious from the start about feeling better, as he watched the surroundings. The proprietor came past and inquired who he was and why he was there. Junior told him, and showed the lumps behind his ear and on his forehead, to prove his words.

The man was human. He gave Junior another nickel and told him which car to take from his front door. He had to stand aside and see five pieces of charred humanity from a cleaning-establishment explosion, carried through the door before he had a chance to leave it. He reached the florist's two hours late and in spite of his story and his perfectly discernible b.u.mps to prove it, he was discharged as a fool for following strangers into an alley.

On the streets once more and penniless, he started to walk the miles to his room. When he found the building he thought it would be cooler to climb the fire-escape and sit on it until he decided what to do, then he could open the door from the inside. At the top he thrust a foot, head, and shoulders into the room and realized he had selected the wrong escape. He tried to draw back, but two men leaped for him, and as he was doubled in the window he could not make a swift movement.

He was landed in the middle of the room, cursed for a prowling thief, his protestations silenced, his pockets searched, and when they yielded nothing, his body stripped of its clean, wholesome clothing and he was pitched down the stairs. He appealed to several people, and found that the less he said the safer he was. He s.n.a.t.c.hed a towel from a basket of clothes before a door, twisted it around him, and ran down the street to Mickey's front entrance. With all his remaining breath he sped up flight after flight of stairs and at last reached the locked door, only to find that the key was in the pocket of his stolen trousers, and he could not force his way with his bare hands. He could only get to his clothing by trying the fire-escapes again. He was almost too sick to see or cling to the narrow iron steps, but that time he counted carefully, and looked until he was sure before he entered. He found his clothes, and in the intense heat dressed himself, but he could not open the door. He sat on the fire-escape to think.

Presently he espied one of the men who had robbed him watching him from another escape, and being afraid and beaten sore, he crept into the heat, and lay on the bed beside the window. After a while a breath of air came in, and Junior slept the sleep of exhaustion. When he awoke it was morning, his head aching, his mouth dry, and the room cooler.

Glancing toward the door he saw it standing open and then noticed the disorder of the room, and of himself, and sat up to find he was on the floor, once more disrobed, and the place stripped of every portable thing in it, even the bed, little stove, and the trunk filled with clothes and a few personal possessions sacred to Mickey because they had been his mother's. The men had used the key in Junior's pocket to enter while he slept, drugged him, and carried away everything. He crept to the door and closed it, then sank on the floor and cried until he again became unconscious. It was four o'clock that afternoon when Mickey looked in and understood the situation. He bent over Junior's bruised and battered body, stared at his swollen, tear-stained face, and darting from the room, brought water, and then food and clothing.

Redressed and fed, Junior lay on the floor and said to Mickey: "Go to the nearest 'phone and call father. Tell him I'm sick, to come in a hurry with the car."

"Sure!" said Mickey. "But hadn't we better wait 'til morning now, and get you rested and fed up a little?"

"No," said Junior. "The sooner he sees the fix I'm in the better he will realize that I'm not a quitter; but that this ain't just the place for me. Mickey, did you ever go through this? Why do I get it so awful hard?"

"It's because the regulars can tell a mile off you are country, Junior," said Mickey. "All my life I've been on the streets so they knew me for city born, and supposed I'd friends to trace them and back me if they abused me; and then, I always look ahead sharp, and don't trust a living soul about alleys. You say the next escape but one? I've got to find them, and get back my things. I want mother's, and Lily and I can't live this winter with no bed, and no stove, and nothing at all."