The Bishop's Shadow Part 23

Theodore glanced at her indifferently. His thoughts were still dwelling on his great disappointment--the sorrowful ending of the hopes and longings of so many weeks. It seemed to him that he had now nothing to which to look forward; nothing that was worth working for.

Then suddenly there flashed into his mind the words he had heard the bishop speak to a man who came to him one day in great sorrow.

"My life is spoiled," the man had said. "All my hopes and plans are destroyed. What shall I do?"

And the bishop had answered, "My son, you must forget yourself, and your broken hopes and plans, and think of others. Do something for somebody else--and keep on doing."

"That's what he would say to me, I s'pose," thought the boy. "I wonder what I can do. There's Tommy O'Brien, I 'spect he'd be glad 'nough to see most anybody."

He turned and went slowly and reluctantly back up the stairs. He didn't want to see Tommy O'Brien. He didn't want to see anybody just then, but still he went on to Tommy's door. As he approached it, he heard loud, angry voices mingled with the crying of a baby. He knocked, but the noise within continued, and after a moment's pause he pushed open the door and went in.

The three women who lived in the room were all standing with red, angry faces, each trying to outscold the others. Three or four little children, with frightened eyes, were huddled together in one corner, while a baby cried unheeded on the floor, its mother being too much occupied with the quarrel to pay any attention to her child. The women glanced indifferently at Theodore as he entered, and kept on with their loud talk. Theo crossed over to Tommy's cot. The sick boy had pulled his pillow over his head and was pressing it close to his ears to shut out the racket.

"Le'me 'lone!" he exclaimed, as Theodore tried to lift the pillow. His face was drawn with pain and there were dark hollows beneath his heavy eyes. Such a weary, suffering face it was that a great flood of pity surged over Theodore's heart at sight of it. Then Tommy opened his eyes and as he saw who had pulled aside his pillow a faint smile crept around his pale lips.

"Oh!" he cried. "It's you. I thought 'twas some o' them a-pullin' off my piller. Can't you make 'em stop, Tode? They've been a-fightin' off an' on all day." He glanced at the noisy women as he spoke.

"What's the row about?" asked Theo.

"'Cause Mis' Carey said Mis' Green's baby was cross-eyed. Mis' Green got so mad at that that she's been scoldin' 'bout it ever since an'

leavin' the baby to yell there by itself on the floor--poor little beggar! Seem's if my head'll split open with all the noise," sighed Tommy, wearily, then he brightened up as he inquired, "What d' you come for, Tode?"

"Just to talk to you a little," replied Theo. "S'pose you get awful tired layin' here all the time, don't ye, Tommy?"

The unexpected sympathy in the voice and look touched the lonely heart of the little cripple. His eyes filled with tears, and he reached up one skinny little hand and laid it on the rough, strong one of his visitor as he answered,

"Oh, you don't know--you don't know anything about it, Tode. I don't b'lieve dyin' can be half so bad's livin' this way. She wishes I'd die. She's said so lots o' times," he nodded toward his aunt, who was one of the women in the room, "an' I wish so too, 'f I've got to be this way always."

"Ain't ye never had no doctor, Tommy?" asked Theo, with a quick catch in his breath as he realised dimly what it would be to have such a life to look forward to.

"No--she says she ain't got no money for doctors," replied the boy, soberly.

"I'll"--began Theodore, then wisely concluding to raise no hopes that might not be realised, he changed his sentence to, "I'll find out if there's a doctor that will come for nothin'. I believe there is one. Can ye read, Tommy?"

The sick boy shook his head. "How could I?" he answered. "Ain't n.o.body ter show me nothin'."

"Wonder 'f I couldn't," said Theo, thoughtfully. "I c'n tell ye the letters anyhow, an' that'll be better'n nothin'."

A bit of torn newspaper lay on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and pointed out A, O and S, to Tommy. By the time the little cripple had thoroughly mastered those three letters so that he could pick them out every time, the women had given up their quarrel.

Mrs. Green had taken up her baby and was feeding it, and the other women, with sullen faces, had resumed their neglected duties.

"Oh dear! Must you go?" Tommy exclaimed as Theo got off the cot on which he had been sitting. "But you was real good to come, anyhow. When'll ye come again an' tell me some more letters?"

"I'll show ye one ev'ry day if I can get time. Then in three weeks you'll know all the big ones an' some o' the little ones that are just like the big ones. Now don't ye forget them three."

"You bet I won't. I shall say 'em a hundred times 'fore to-morrow,"

rejoined the little fellow, and his eyes followed his new friend eagerly until the door closed behind him.

As for Theodore himself, half the weight seemed to have been lifted from his own heart as he went down the stairs again.

"I'll run outside a minute 'fore I go to supper," he said to himself. "The air was awful thick in that room. Reckon that's one thing makes Tommy feel so bad."

He walked briskly around two or three squares, and as he came back to the house he noticed that the girl and the baby still sat where he had seen them an hour before. The baby's cry had ceased, but it began again as Theo was pa.s.sing the two. He stopped and looked at them. The girl's eyes rested on his face with a dull, indifferent glance.

"What makes it cry? Is it sick?" the boy asked, nodding toward the baby.

The girl shook her head.

"What ails it then?"

"Starvin'."

The girl uttered the word in a lifeless tone as if it were a matter of no interest to her.

"Where's yer mother?" pursued the boy.

"Dead."

"An' yer father?"

"Drunk."

"Ain't there n.o.body to look out for ye?"

Again the girl shook her head.

"Ain't ye had anything to eat to-day?"

"No."

"What d'ye have yesterday?"

"Some crusts I found in the street. Do go off an' le'me 'lone. We're most dead, an' I'm glad of it," moaned the girl, drearily.

"You gi' me that baby an' come along. I'll get ye somethin' to eat,"

cried Theo, and as the girl looked up at him half doubtfully and half joyfully, he seized the bundle of shawl and baby and hurried with it up to Nan's room, the girl dragging herself slowly along behind him.

Nan cast a doubtful and half dismayed glance at the two strangers as Theodore ushered them in, but the boy exclaimed,

"They're half starved, Nan. We _must_ give 'em somethin' to eat,"

and when she saw the baby's little pinched face she hesitated no longer, but quickly warmed some milk and fed it to the little one while the girl devoured the bread and milk and meat set before her with a ravenous haste that confirmed what she had said.

Then, refreshed by the food, she told her pitiful story, the old story of a father who spent his earnings in the saloon, leaving his motherless children to live or die as might be. Nan's heart ached as she listened, and Theodore's face was very grave. When the girl had gone away with the baby in her arms, Theo said, earnestly,

"Nan, I've got to earn more money."

"How can you?" Nan asked. "You work so hard now, Theo."

"I must work harder, Nan. I can't stand it to see folks starvin' an'

not help 'em. I'll pay you for what these two had you know."