In Pawn. Butler Ellis Parker

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СКАЧАТЬ cares, now demanded attention. A saint must specialize. One point had made itself clear to Harvey while he was reading his “Lives of the Saints” – that it was not enough for a saint to be good; a saint must do something. For a while, vaguely, Harvey had thought he might take up the specialty of being kind to all children. Now this seemed unsuitable. A saint who began his career by shifting the care and keep of his own son on to another could hardly expect to win praise by petting other children.

      Somewhere between Susan’s house and his own place the great solution came to him – stray dogs! The tender phrase, “Little Brother to the Stray Dogs,” formed itself in his mind as the one by which he would be known, and he saw himself done in marble, after his regretted death, with a small, appealing dog in his arms and a group of large, eager dogs grouped at his feet, their eyes on his face. One of his hands would rest on the head of one of the dogs pro-tectingly. He would be thin, of course. His long fasts and his diet of bread and water would fix that.

      Riverbank would be quite able to furnish the stray dogs. There were more stray dogs in Riverbank than could be counted. Since the City Council had withdrawn the bonus of twenty-five cents per dog that had formerly given the Dog Warden Schulig an active interest in dog-catching, Riverbank seemed to have become a haven for all the stray dogs in Iowa. There were plenty of stray dogs. The junkyard was a fine place in which to shelter stray dogs. It was quite possible that in time the rumor would get around that because of the purity of his heart, Harvey had come to understand dog language and could converse with dogs as one man converses with another. He might even be able to do it. Dod-baste it all, he would be a saint! He would do the job proper. Harvey was eager to reach the junkyard and make his final arrangements and begin.

      “The minute I get inside my gate,” he said to himself; “the minute I get inside my gate!”

      He turned the corner into Elm Street. He perspired with eagerness and haste. He reached the gate. He stopped there and looked up and down the street and made a gesture of renunciation with his fat hands, like one putting aside the world forever.

      Harvey pushed open the gate with something like solemnity and stopped short. Moses Shuder was sitting on the step of the shanty, the skirts of his long, black coat dabbling in the dust while his hands toyed with the ears of a spotted dog. Shuder looked up, his eyes appealing, as Harvey entered. He clasped his hands at his chest in the fashion that was one of his characteristics and a meek smile wrinkled his face without relieving the anxiety that showed on his countenance.

      “Misder Redink,” he said, arising.

      Then Harvey saw that at his feet lay a large, roughly squared chunk of lead. It was of a weight of some thirty pounds. Harvey knew it well. It had been his last purchase as a junkman, Lon bringing it to the yard in company with two boys known to Harvey only as Swatty and Bony. The chunk of lead should not have been at Moses Shuder’s feet; it should have been at the far end of the yard, where Lem had carried it.

      “What you doin’ with that hunk o’ lead?” Harvey demanded.

      “Misder Redink, please!” begged Shuder. “I want no trouble.”

      “Then you take that chunk o’ lead back where you got it,” said Harvey, his face flushing. “I don’t sell you nothin’. I don’t sell nobody nothin’. I’m out o’ this junk business – ”

      “Misder Redink, please!” begged Moses Shuder, more meekly than before. “I do not ask you to sell. Only my rights I ask it of any man. It is my lead. Misder Redink, please, I do not say you are a thief – ”

      “Well, dod-baste you!” cried Harvey, swelling. “Zhust a minute, please, Misder Redink,” begged Shuder. “Mit my own money I bought this lead, I assure you, and put it in my junkyard, Misder Redink, but that I should get you arrested I never so much as gave it a thought, Misder Redink, believe me! Why should I, Misder Redink? Do I blame you? No! If your boy stoled it from me – ”

      “What?” Harvey shouted, taking a step toward Shuder.

      “Please, Misder Redink! Should I say it if I did not see it with my own two eyes? Climbing over my fence.”

      “You’re a liar.”

      Shuder shrugged his shoulders.

      “No, Misder Redink; Rebecca could tell you the same story. I ain’t sore, Misder Redink. Boys would be boys, always. It is right I should watch my yard. But my lead is my lead, Misder Redink. That your boy Lemuel should steal it from me is nothing. But I should have my lead back, Misder Redink. Sure!”

      Shuder put his hands on the chunk of lead. At that moment a vast and uncontrollable rage filled Harvey and he raised his fat hand and brought it down on Shuder’s hat, crushing it over his eyes. He grasped Shuder by the shoulders and ran him out of the yard, giving him a final push that sent him sprawling in the street.

      Then, still raging, he turned while Shuder got to his feet. The spotted dog caught Harvey’s eye. He drew back his foot and kicked the dog, and the surprised animal yelped and leaped out of the yard and down the street.

      “There, dod-baste you!” Harvey panted, shaking his fist at Shuder, who stood safely in the middle of the street. “That’ll show you! An’ don’t you or your dog ever come into this yard again or I ‘ll handle you worse, a big sight!”

      Moses Shuder looked at his damaged hat. “Two dollars,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “But I should complain! What you do to me and my hat the law will take care of, and my lead the law will take care of, if you want it that way, Misder Redink, but that a man should kick a dog – ”

      “An’ I ‘ll kick your dog out o’ this yard every time it comes in,” shouted Harvey.

      Moses Shuder raised his hands.

      “It is not my dog,” he said. “It is a stray dog.”

      The saintly career of Saint Harvey, the “Little Brother to the Stray Dogs,” seemed to have begun inauspiciously.

      CHAPTER IV

      While Lorna Percy was in Susan Redding’s kitchen acting as a witness to the compact that placed Lem Redding in pawn to his aunt for a period that seemed likely to be extended indefinitely, another lady had come down the front stairs, and after greeting the young woman on the front porch, had occupied one of the chairs. This was Miss Henrietta Bates.

      “I thought Lorna was here,” she said, as she seated herself. “Did n’t I hear her voice?”

      “Miss Susan called her into the kitchen,” said the other. “I think she will be out in a moment.” Miss Henrietta held up an envelope.

      “See what I’ve got?” she said, smiling.

      “Not another letter from Bill?”

      “Just that,” said Henrietta. “And the dearest letter! There’s a part I want to read to you and Lorna. I don’t bore you with my Bill, do I, Gay?”

      “Bore? What an idea!”

      “Sometimes I’m afraid I do. If it wasn’t that his letters are so intelligent. They don’t seem to me like ordinary love-letters. They don’t seem to you like the common wishy-washy stuff men write, do they?”

      “Well, you know I have no experience in love-letters – ”

      “Poor Gay!” said Miss Bates, and laughed. “But I do think I’m fortunate in having a СКАЧАТЬ