"My mother ain"t been to see me," whined Looney, with unrestrained sobs; "and Clem says "e"s wrote to tell "er she"d best not come no more, "cos I"m so bad."
His mother had been for years at the school herself, and after serving in a brief series of situations, had calculated the profit and loss, and gone on the streets.
"Mine didn"t come neither," said Alfred. "Matron says they"re all like that. But never you mind, "ere"s a nice sweet for you instead."
He took the sweet out of his own mouth. Looney received it cautiously, and his great watery eyes gazed at Alfred with the awe of a biologist who watches a new law of nature at work.
Next day after dinner Lizzie and Alfred met in the hall, as brothers and sisters were allowed to meet for an hour on Sundays. They sat side by side with their backs to the long tablecloths left on for tea.
"She never come," said Alfred after the growing shyness of meeting had begun to pa.s.s off.
"You don"t know what _I"ve_ got!" she answered, holding up her clenched fist.
"I s"pose she won"t never come no more," said Alfred.
"Look!" she answered, opening her fingers and disclosing a damp penny, the bribe of one of the nurses.
"Matron says she"s cruel, and "as forgot about us, same as they all do,"
said Alfred.
Then Lizzie took up her old wail. The penny dropped and rolled in a fine curve along the boards.
"There, don"t "e cry, Liz," he said. And they sat huddled together overcome by the dull exhaustion of childish grief. The chapel bell began to ring. Alfred took a corner of her white pinafore, wetted it, and tried to wash off the marks of tears. And as they hurried away Lizzie stooped and picked up the penny.
A few minutes later they were at service in their brick and iron chapel, which suburban residents sometimes attended instead of going to church in the evening.
"My soul doth magnify the Lord," they sang, following the choir, of which the head-master was justly proud. And the chaplain preached on the text, "Thou hast clothed me in scarlet, yea, I have a goodly heritage,"
demonstrating that there was no peculiar advantage about scarlet, but that dark blue would serve quite as well for thankfulness, if only the children would live up to its ideal.
"This is a wonderful inst.i.tution," said the chaplain"s friend after service, as they sat at tea by the fire. "It is a kind of little Utopia in itself, a modern Phalanstery. How Plato would have admired it! I"m sure he"d have enjoyed this afternoon"s service."
"Yes, I daresay he would," said the chaplain. "But you must excuse me for an hour or so. I make a point of running through the infirmary and ophthalmic ward on Sundays. Oh yes, we have a permanent ward for ophthalmia. Please make yourself comfortable till I come back."
His friend spent the time in jotting down heads for an essay on the advantages of communal nurture for the young. He was a lecturer on social subjects, and liked to be able to appeal to experience in his lectures.
V
Next morning came a letter written in a large and careful hand: "My dear Alfred,--I hope these few lines find you well, as they don"t leave me at present. I fell down the office stairs last night and got a twist to my inside, so can"t come to-day. Kiss Liz from me, and tell her to be good.
From your loving mother, Mrs. Reeve."
Day followed day, and the mother did not come. The children lived on, almost without thought of change in the daily round, the common task.
It was early in Christmas week, and the female officers were doing their best to excite merriment over the decorations. Snow was falling, but the flakes, after hesitating for a moment, thawed into sludge on the surface of the asphalte yard. Seeing Alfred shivering about under the shed, the superintendent sent him to the office for a plan of the school drainage, which had lately been reconstructed on the most sanitary principles. The boy found the plan on the table, under a little bra.s.s dog which someone had given the superintendent as a paper-weight.
"A dog!" he said to himself, taking it up carefully. It was a setter with a front paw raised as though it sighted game. Alfred stroked its back and felt its muzzle. Then he pushed it along the polished table, and thought of all the things he could make it do, if only he had it for a bit. He put it down, patted its head again with his cold hand, and took up the plan. But somehow the dog suddenly looked at him with a friendly smile, and seemed to move its tail and silky ears. He caught it up, glanced round, slipped it up his waistcoat, and ran as hard as he could go.
"Thank you my boy," said the superintendent, taking the plan. "You"ve not been here long, have you?"
"Oh yes, sir, a tremenjus long time!" said Alfred, shaking all over, whilst the dog"s paw kept scratching through his shirt.
"My memory isn"t what it was," sighed the superintendent to himself, and he thought of the days when he had struggled to learn the name at least of every boy in his charge.
That afternoon Alfred went into school filled with mixed shame, apprehension, and importance, such as Eve might have felt if she could have gone back to a girls" school with the apple. Lessons began with a "combined recitation" from Shakespeare.
"Now," said the teacher, "go on at "Mercy on me.""
""Methinks n.o.body should be sad but I,"" shouted seventy mouths, opening like one in a unison of sing-song.
"Now, you there!" cried the teacher. "You with your hand up your waistcoat! You"re not attending. Go on at "Only for wantonness.""
""By my Christendom,"" Alfred blurted out, almost bringing dog and all to light in his terror:
""So I were out of prison and kept sheep, I should be merry as the day is long.
And so I should be here, but that I doubt--""
"That"ll do," said the teacher, "Now attend."
The seventy joined in with "My uncle practises," and Alfred turned from red to white.
At tea the table jammed the hidden dog against his chest. When he sought relief by sitting back over the form, Clem corrected the irregular posture with a pin. At bedtime he undressed in terror lest the creature should jump out and patter on the boards as live things will. But at last the gas was turned off at the main, and he cautiously groped for his pet among his little heap of clothes under the bed. That night Clem"s most outrageous story could not attract him. He roamed Elysian fields with his dog. Like all toys, it was something better than alive.
And certainly no mortal setter ever played so many parts. It hunted rats up the nightgown sleeves, and caught burglars by the throat as they stole into bed. It tracked murderers over the sheet"s pathless waste.
It coursed deer up and down the hills and valleys of his knees. It drove sheep along the lanes of the striped blanket. It rescued drowning sailors from the vasty deep around the bed. It dug out frozen travellers from the snowdrifts of the pillow. And at last it slept soundly, kennelled between two warm hands, and continued its adventures in dreams.
At the first note of the bugle Alfred sprang up in bed, sure that the drill-sergeant would come to pull him out first. As he marched listlessly up and down the yard at drill, the wind blew pitilessly, and the dog gnawed at him till he was red and sore. At meals and in school he was sure that secret eyes were watching him. He searched everywhere for some hole where he might hide the thing. But the building was too irreproachable to shelter a mouse.
Next day was Christmas Eve. He had heard from the "permanents" that at Christmas each child received an apple, an orange, and twelve nuts in a paper bag. He hungered for them. Even the ordinary meals had become the chief points of interest in life, and the days were named from the dinners. He was forgetting the scanty and uncertain food of his home, now that dinner came as regularly as in a rich man"s house or the Zoo.
And Christmas promised something far beyond the ordinary. There was to be pork. At Christmas, at all events, he would lay himself out for perfect enjoyment, undisturbed by terrors. He would take the dog back, and be at peace again.
Just before tea-time he saw the superintendent pa.s.s over to the infants"
side. He stole along the sounding corridors to the office, and noiselessly opened the door. There was somebody there. But it was only Looney, who, being able to count like a calculating machine because no other thoughts disturbed him, had been set to tie up in bundles of a hundred each certain pink and blue envelopes which lay in heaps on the floor. Each envelope contained a Christmas card with a text, and every child on Christmas morning found one laid ready on its plate at breakfast. A wholesale stationer supplied them, and a benevolent lady paid the bill.
"Leave me alone," cried Looney from habit, "I ain"t doin" nuffin."
"All right," said Alfred airily; "I"ve only come to fetch somethink."
But just at that moment he heard the superintendent"s footstep coming along the pa.s.sage. There was no escape and no time for thought. With the instinct of terror he put the dog down noiselessly beside Looney on the carpet, drew quickly back, and stood rigid beside the door as it opened.
"Hullo!" said the superintendent, "what are you doing here?"
"Nothink, sir, only somethink," Alfred stammered.
"What"s the meaning of that?" said the superintendent.
"I wanted to speak to that boy very pertikler, sir," said Alfred.
The superintendent looked at Looney. But Looney in turning round had caught sight of the dog at his side, and was gazing at it open-mouthed, as a countryman gazes at a pigeon produced from a conjuror"s hat.
Suddenly he pounced upon it as though he was afraid it would fly away, and kept it close hidden under his hands.