it's all right, mudda, isn't it?"
he asked this after their campaign had been carried on for a good part of a year, and when they were nearing christmas. he was now supposed to be seven. for reasons he could not explain the great game lost its zest. in as far as he understood himself he hated the sneaking and the secrecy. he hated the lying too, but lying was so much a part of their everyday life that he might as well have hated bread.
"of course it's all right," his mother snapped. "haven't i said so time and again? we get away with it, don't we? and if it wasn't all right we shouldn't be able to do that."
silenced by this reasoning, even if something in his heart was not convinced by it, he prepared for the harvest of the festival. christmas was an exciting time, even to tom coburn. perhaps it was more exciting to him than to other boys, since he had so much to do with shops. as long ago as the middle of november he had noted the first stirrings of new energy. after that he had watched the degrees through which they had ripened to a splendor in which toys, books, skis, skates, sleds, and all the paraphernalia of young joyousness, made a bright thing of the world. where there was so much, the profusion went beyond desire. one of these objects
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at a time, or two, or three, might have found him envious; but he couldn't cope with such abundance. he could concentrate, therefore, all the more on the pair of fur-lined mittens which his mother promised him, if, as she expressed it, they could haul it off.
by christmas eve they had not done so. they had hauled off other things—a purse, a lady's shopping bag, several towels, a selection of pen-trays, some pairs of stockings, a bottle of shoe-polish, a baby's collapsible rubber bathtub, a hair-brush, an electric toaster, with other articles of no great interest to a little boy. moreover, only some of these things were for personal use; the rest would be sold discreetly after the next moving. it was in the nature of the case that such grist as came to their mill should be more or less as it happened. they could pick, but they couldn't choose, at least to no more than a limited degree. fur-lined mittens didn't come their way.
the little boy's heart began to ache with a great fear. perhaps he shouldn't get them. unless he got them by christmas day the spell of the occasion would be gone. to get them a week later wouldn't be the same thing. it would not be christmas. he couldn't remember having kept a christmas hitherto. he couldn't remember ever having longed for what might be called an article of luxury. the yearning was new to him, and because new, it consumed him. whenever he thought that the happiness might after all elude him he had to grind his teeth to keep back a sob, but he could not prevent the filling of his eyes with tears.
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it was not only christmas eve but late in the day before the mother found her opportunity. at half-past five the counter where fur-lined mittens were displayed was crowded with poor women who hadn't had the money or the time to make their purchases earlier. in among them pressed tom coburn's mother, making her selection, and asking the price.
"now where's that boy? his hands grow so quick that i can't be sure of anything without trying them on."
with a despairing smile at the saleswoman, she followed her usual tactics of being elbowed from the counter, while she looked about vainly for the boy. at the right moment she slipped into the pushing, struggling mass of tired women, where she could count on being no more remarked than a single crow in a flock. the mittens were in the muff which was the prize of an earlier expedition. at a side door the boy was waiting where she had left him. without pausing for words she whispered commandingly.
"come along quick."
he went along quick, but also happily, projecting himself into the "surprise" to which he would wake on christmas morning.
they had reached the sidewalk when a hand was laid on the mother's shoulder.
"will you come back a minute, please?"
the words were so polite that for the first few seconds the boy was not alarmed. a lady was speaking, a lady like any other lady, unless it was that her manner was quieter, more forceful, more sure of itself, than he was accustomed to among women. but
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what he never forgot during all the rest of his life was the look on his mother's face. as he came to analyze it later it was one of inner surrender. she had come to the point which she had long foreseen as her objective. she had reached the end. but in spite of surrender, and though she grew bloodlessly pale, she was still determined to show fight.
"what do you want me for?"
"if you'll step this way i'll tell you."
"i don't know that i care to do that. i'm going home."
"you'd better come quietly. you won't gain anything by making a fuss."
a second lady, also forceful and sure of herself, having joined them they pushed their way back through the throng. at the glove counter a place was made for them. the saleswoman was beckoned to. the woman who had stopped them at the door continued to take the lead.
"now, will you show us what you've got in your muff?"
she produced the mittens. "yes, i have got these. i bought and paid for them."
the saleswoman gave her account of the incident. women shoppers gathered round. floorwalkers came up.
"it's a lie; it's a lie!" the boy heard his mother cry out, as the girl behind the counter told her tale. "if i didn't pay for them it was because i forgot. here's the money. i'll pay for them now. what do you take me for?"
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"no; you won't pay for them now. that's not the way we do business. just come along this way."
"i'm not going nowheres else. if you won't take the money you can go without it. leave me alone, and let me take my little boy home."
her voice had the screaming helplessness of women in the grasp of forces without pity. a floorwalker laid his hand on her shoulder, compelling her to turn round.
"don't you touch me," she shouted. "if i've got to go anywheres i can go without your tearing the clothes off my back, can't i?"
for the little boy it was the last touch of humiliation. rushing at the floorwalker, he kicked him in the shins.
"don't you hit my mudda. i won't let you."
a second floorwalker held the youngster back. some of the crowd laughed. others declared it a monstrous thing that women of the sort should have such fine-looking children.
presently they were surging through the crowd again, toward a back region of the premises. the boy, not crying but panting as if spent by a long race, held his mother by the skirt; on the other side one of the forceful women had her by the arm. he saw that his mother's hat had been knocked to one side, and that a mesh of her dark hair had broken loose. he remembered this picture, and how the shoppers, wherever they passed, made a lane for them, shocked by the sight of their disgrace.
they came to an office, where their party, his mother, himself, the two forceful women, and two
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floorwalkers, were shut in with an elderly man who sat behind a desk. it was still the first of the forceful women who took the lead.
"mr. corning, we've caught this woman shop-lifting."
"i haven't been," the boy heard his mother deny. "honest to god, i haven't been."
"we've been watching her for some time past," the forceful woman continued, "but we never managed before to get her with the goods."
the elderly man was gray, pale-eyed, and mild-mannered. he listened while the story was given him in detail.
"i'm afraid we must give you in charge," he said, gently, when the facts were in.
"no, don't do that, don't do that," she implored, tearfully. "i've got my little boy. he can't do without me."
"he hasn't done very well with you, has he?" the elderly man reasoned. "a woman who's taught a boy of that age to steal...."
he was interrupted by the coming in of a policeman, summoned by telephone. at sight of him the unhappy woman gave a loud inarticulate gasp of terror. all that for seven years she had dreaded seemed now about to come true. the boy felt terror too, but the knowledge that his mother needed him nerved him to be a man.
"don't you be afraid, mudda. if they put you in jail i'll go to jail too. i won't let them take me away from you."
"you'd better come with me, missus," the police
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man said, with gruff kindliness, when the situation was explained to him. "the kid can come too. 'twon't be so bad. lots of these cases. you'll live through it all right, and it'll learn you to keep straight. one of these days you may be glad that it happened."
they went out through a dimly lighted passageway, clogged with parcels and packing-cases which men were loading into drays. it was dark by this time, the streets being lighted as at night. the police-station was not far away, and to it they were led through a series of byways in which there were few foot-passengers. the policeman allowed them to walk in front of him, so that the connection was not too obvious. the boy held his mother's hand, which clutched at his with a nervous loosening and tightening of the fingers. as the situation was beyond words they made no attempt to speak.
"this way."
within the police-station the officer turned them to the right, where they entered a small bare room. brilliantly lighted with unshaded electrics, its glare was fierce upon the eyes. at a plain oak desk a man in uniform was seated with a ledger in front of him. another man in uniform standing near the door picked his teeth to kill time.
"shoplifting case," was the simple introduction of the party.
they stood before the man at the desk, who dipped his pen in the ink, and barely glanced at them. what to the boy and his mother was as the end of the world was to him all in the day's work.
"name?"
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she gave her name distinctly, and less to the lad's surprise than if she hadn't often used pseudonyms. "mrs. theodore whitelaw."
"address?"
she gave the address correctly.
"boy's name?"
she spoke carefully, as one who had prepared her statements. "he's been known as thomas coburn. he's really thomas whitelaw. his father was my second husband."
"if he's your second husband's child why is he called by your first husband's name?"
she was prepared here too. "because i'd given up using my second husband's name. i was unhappily married."
"is he dead?"
"yes, he is."
never having heard before so much of his private history, the boy registered it all. it was exactly the sort of detail for which he had been eager. it explained too that name of whitelaw, allusions to which had puzzled him. he was so engrossed by the fact that he was not tom coburn but tom whitelaw as hardly to listen while it was explained to his mother that she would spend the night in the female house of detention, and be brought before the magistrate in the morning. if the boy had no friends to whom to send him he would be well taken care of elsewhere.
the phlegm to which she had for a few minutes schooled herself broke down. "oh, can't i keep him with me? he'll cry his eyes out without me."
she was given to understand that no child above
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the nursing age could be put in prison even for its mother's sake. from his reverie as to tom whitelaw he waked to what was passing.
"but i won't leave my mudda," he wailed, loudly. "i want to go to jail."
the kindly policeman put his arm about the boy's shoulder.
"you'll go to jail, sonny, when your time comes, if you set the right way to work. your momma's only going to spend the night, and i'll see to it that you——"
in a side of the room a door opened noiselessly. a woman, wearing a uniform, with a bunch of keys hanging at her side, stood there like a fate. she was a grave woman, strongly built, and with something inexorable in her eyes. even the boy guessed who she was, throwing himself against her, and crying out, "go 'way! go 'way! you won't take my mudda away from me."
but the folly of resistance became evident. the mother herself understood it so. walking up to the woman with the keys, she said in an undertone:
"for god's sake get me out of this. i can't look on while he breaks his little heart. he's always been an angel."
that was all. she gave no backward look. before the boy knew what was about to happen, she had passed into a corridor, and the door had closed behind her.
she was gone. he was left with these strange men. the need for being brave was not unknown to him. not unknown to him was the power of calling
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to his aid a secret strength which had already carried him through tight places. he could only express it to himself in the words that he mustn't cry. crying had come to stand for everything cowardly and babyish. he was so prone to do it that the struggle against it was the hardest he had to make. he struggled against it now; but he struggled vainly. he was all alone. even the three policemen were talking together, while he stood deserted, and futile. his lips quivered in spite of himself. the tears gathered. disgraced as he was anyhow, this weakness disgraced him more.
the room had an empty corner. straight into it he walked, and turned his back, his face within the angle. the head with an old cap on it was bowed. the sturdy shoulders, muffled in a cheap top-coat, heaved up and down. but the legs in their knickerbockers were both straight and strong, and the feet firmly planted on the floor. except for an occasional strangled sound which he couldn't control, he betrayed himself by nothing audible.
the three policemen, all of them fathers, glanced at him, but forbore to glance at one another. one of them tried to say, "poor kid!" but the words stuck in his throat. it was the kindly fellow who had brought the lad and the woman there who recovered himself first.
"all right, then, boys. the swindon street home. one of you can 'phone that we're on the way." he went over and laid his hand on the child's shoulder. "say, sonny, i'm goin' to take you out to see the christmas tree."
the thought was a happy one. tom coburn had
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never seen any christmas trees, though he had often heard of them. he had specially heard of the community christmas tree which was new that year in that particular city. it was to be a splendid sight, and against the fascination of splendor even grief was not wholly proof. he looked shyly round, an incredible wonder in his tear-stained, upturned face.
in the street they walked hand in hand, pausing now and then to admire some brightly lighted window. the boy was in fairyland, but in spite of fairyland long deep sighs welled up from the springs of his loneliness and sorrow. to distract him the policeman took him into a druggist's and bought him a cone of ice-cream. the boy licked it gratefully, as they made their way to the open space consecrated to the tree.
the night was brisk and frosty; the sky clear. in the streets there was movement, light, gayety. at a spot on a bit of pavement a vendor was showing a dancing toy, round which some scores of idlers were gathered. the dancing was so droll that the little boy laughed. the policeman bought him one.
when they came to the christmas tree the lad was in ecstasy. nothing he had ever dreamed of equalled these fruits of many-colored fires. a band was playing, and suddenly the multitude broke into song.
o come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
o come ye, o come ye, to bethlehem!
even the policeman joined in, humming the refrain in latin.
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venite, adoremus;
venite, adoremus;
venite, adoremus,
dominum.
passing thus through marvels they came to the swindon street home. the night-nurse, warned by telephone, was expecting them. she was a motherly woman who had once had a child, and knew well this precise situation.
"oh, come in, you poor little boy! have you had your supper?"
he hadn't had his supper, though the cone of ice-cream had stilled the worst pangs of hunger.
"then you shall have some; and after that i'll put you in a nice comfy bed."
"he's a fine kid," the policeman commended, before going away, "and won't give you no trouble, will you, sonny?"
the boy caught him by the hand, looking up pleadingly into his face, as if he would have kept him. but the policeman had children of his own, and this was christmas eve.
"see you again, sonny," he said, cheerily, as he went out, "and a merry christmas!"
the night matron knew by experience all the sufferings of little boys homesick for mothers who have got into trouble. she had dealt with them by the hundred.
"now, dear, while mrs. lamson is getting your supper we'll go to the washroom and you'll wash your face and hands. then you'll feel more like eating, won't you?"
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deprived of his policeman, despair would have settled on him again, had it not been for the night matron's hearty voice. the deeper his woe, and it was very deep, the less he could resist friendliness. just as in that first agony, when he was only eight months old, he had turned to the only love available, so now he yielded again. he was not reconciled; he was not even comforted; he was only responsive and grateful, thus getting the strength to go on.
going on was only in letting the night matron scrub his face and hands, and submitting patiently. as they went from the washroom to the dining room he held her by the hand. he did this first because he couldn't let her go, and then because the halls were big and bare and dark. never had he been in any place so vast, or so impersonal. he was used to strangeness, as they moved so often, but not to strangeness on so immense a scale. it was a relief to him, because it brought in a note of hominess, to hear from an upper floor a forlorn little baby cry.
his supper toned him up. he could speak of his great sorrow. while the night matron sat with him and helped him to porridge he asked, suddenly:
"will they let me go to jail and stay with my mudda to-morrow?"
"you see, dear, your mother may not be in jail to-morrow. perhaps she'll be let out, and then you can go home with her."
"they didn't ought to put her in. i'm big. i could work for her, and then she wouldn't have to take things no more."
"but bless you, darling, you'll be able to work for
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her as it is. they won't keep her very long—not so very long—and i'll look after you till she comes out. after that...."
"what's your name?" he asked, solemnly, as if he wished to nail her to the bargain.
"mrs. crewdson's my name. i'm a widow. i like little boys. i like you especially. i think we're going to be friends."
as a proof of this she took him to her own room, instead of to a dormitory, where she gave him a bath, found a clean night-shirt which, being too big, descended to his feet, and put him to sleep in a cot she kept on purpose for homeless little children in danger of being too lonely.
"you see, dear," she explained to him, "i don't go to bed all night. i stay up to look after all the little children—there are a lot of them in this house—who may want something. so you needn't be afraid. i'll leave a light burning, and i'll be in and out all the time. if you wake up and hear a noise, you'll know that that'll be me going about in the rooms, but mostly i'll be in this room. now, don't you want to say your prayers?"
he didn't want to say his prayers because he had never said any. she suggested, therefore, that he should kneel on the bed, put his hands together, and repeat the words she told him to say, as she sat on the edge of the cot.
"dear god"—"dear god"—"take care of me to-night"—"take care of me to-night"—"and take care of my dear mother"—"and take care of my dear
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mudda"—"and make us happy again"—"and make us happy again"—"for jesus christ's sake"—"for jesus christ's sake"—"amen"—"amen."
"god's up in the sky, isn't he?" he asked, as he hugged his dancing toy to him and let her cover him up.
"god's everywhere where there's love, it seems to me, dear. i bring a little bit of god to you, and you bring a little bit of god to me; and so we have him right here. that's a good thought to go to sleep on, isn't it? so good-night, dear."
she kissed him as she supposed his mother would have done. he threw his arms about her neck, drawing her face close to his. "good night, dear," he whispered back, and almost before she rose from the bedside she knew he was asleep.
somewhere toward morning she came into the room and found him sitting up in his cot.
"will it soon be daytime, mrs. crewdson?"
"yes, dear; not so very long now."
"and when daytime comes could i go to the jail?"
"not too early, dear. they wouldn't let you in."
"oh, but i don't want to go in. i only want to stand outside. then if my mudda looks out of the window, she'll see her little boy."
throwing herself on her knees, she clasped him in her arms. "oh, you darling! how i wish god had given me a little son like you! i did have one—he would have been just your age—only i—i lost him."
touched by this tribute to himself, as well as by his friend's bereavement, he brought out a fine manly
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phrase he had long been saving for an adequate occasion.
"the hell you did, mrs. crewdson!"
having thus expressed his sympathy, he nestled down to sleep again, hugging his dancing toy.
