"One day I decided to run away. After I sold all my papers, I came to the cottage and slipped all the pennies under the door, and then ran away as fast as I could. I did not know where I was going, but I had heard so much about London that I thought it must be a very great place and that I could get papers to sell and do lots of other things; so, when a man found me sitting on the side of the road and asked me where I was going, I said, "To London." He laughed and said:
""Whom do you know there?"
""n.o.body," I replied, "but there are lots of people there and lots of work, and I don"t like the place where I live." The man took me to his house and kept me all night and paid my carfare to London next day.
"Many days and many nights I had no food to eat, nor no place to sleep. I did not like to beg, not because I thought it wrong, but because I was afraid. I saw boys carrying packages along the street, found out how they got it to do, and imitated them, earning occasionally a few pennies. I saved up enough with these pennies to buy a stock of London papers. By saving these pennies and eating little food, I was able to buy a larger stock of these papers each day. I had good luck, and by economy I managed to live and save. In a few days I was able to pay thru"pence a night for a lodging. One night when I made a big venture in spending all my money on a big stock of papers, I had an accident in which they were all spoiled. I dropped them in a pool of water--and I was penniless again! That night, late, I went up the white stone steps of a big house in Westminster and went to sleep. I had saved a few of the driest papers and used them as a pillow.
""Hi, little cove!" a policeman said, as he poked his baton under my armpit next morning. "What are you doing here?" I began to whimper, and he took pity on me and showed me the way to Dr. Barnardo"s Home; but when I got out of his sight, I went off in another direction, for I had heard that many boys got whipped down there. I got among a lot of boys on the banks of the river. They were diving for pennies. I thought it was a very hard way to earn money, but I did it too, and got about as much as the rest. I did not stay long on the river bank.
The boys were sharper than I was and could cheat me out of my pennies.
"One night I slept under an arch. Next morning I heard the loud sound of factory whistles. Everybody was aroused. Some of the people lying around were going to work there; and I thought I might get a job also, so I followed them. On the way we came to a coffee stall, and as I was nearly fainting with hunger, I stood in front of it to get the smell of the coffee and fresh bread, for that does a fellow a heap of good when he"s got nothing in his stomach. A man with a square paper hat on looked at me, and said:
""What"s up, little "un?"
"I said nothing was up except that I was hungry. Then he stepped up to the coffee-man and gave him some money, and I got a bun and a mug of coffee. It seemed to me that I had never been so happy in all my life as with the feeling I got from that bun and coffee--but then, I had been a good many days without food.
"There was no work to be had at the factory near the bridge, so I went back to the docks. At night I slept with a lot of other fellows under a big canvas cover that kept the rain from some goods lying at the docks ready to be shipped. I think there must have been as many fellows under that big cover as there were piles of goods. It was while there that I thought for the first time very seriously about my mother, and I began to cry. The other fellows heard me and kicked me from under the cover; but that did not help my crying, however. I smothered a good deal of it and walked up and down by the side of the river all night. My eyes were swollen, and I was feeling very badly when a sailor noticed me. He had been to sea and had just returned home. He talked a lot about life on a ship--said if he were a boy, he would not hang around the docks; he would go to sea.
""Where"s yer folks?" he said to me.
""Ain"t got none," I said.
""Where d"ye live, then?"
""I don"t live nowheres."
""Shiver my timbers," he said, "ye must have an anchorage in some of these parts? Where d"ye sleep nights?"
""Wherever I be when night comes on," I told him.
"The sailor laughed, and said I was a lucky dog to be at home anywheres.
""See here, young "un," the sailor said, "I"ve been up agin it in these parts myself when I was a kid, and up agin it stiff, too; and there ain"t nothing around here for the likes of ye. Take my advice and get out o" here. There"s a big ship down here by the docks--_Helvetia_. Sneak aboard, get into a scupper or a barrel or something, and ship for America."
"The idea of "sneaking aboard" got very big in my mind, and I went to Woolwich where the ship was lying; and I met a lot of other boys who were trying to sneak aboard, too. I thought my chances were slim, but I was going to have a try, anyway. These boys that were thinking of the same thing, tried to get me to do a lot of things that I knew were not right. There was stuff to steal and they knew how I could get it.
There were kind-hearted people around, and they wanted me to beg. When they said the ship was going to sail, I got aboard and hid on the lower deck.
"Two days after that I thought the ship was going to the bottom of the sea, and I didn"t care very much, for I had been vomiting, and it seemed as if my heart was breaking, and I was sick--so sick that I didn"t care whether I was dead or alive. One of the sailors heard me groaning and pulled me out by the leg. Then he looked at me and swore; caught me by the neck and dragged me before the captain. I was so sick I could not stand; but the captain was not angry. He was very funny, for he laughed very loudly, and said:
""Put the kid to work, and if he doesn"t do it, put a ten-inch hose on him!"
"Four of us altogether had stowed away on that ship. The other boys laughed a good deal at me because I got the easiest job of them all.
When I was able to stand on my feet, they made me clean a little bra.s.s cannon. I could clean it sitting down, and I liked the job when I was not sick. Every one was good to me, and I had a happy time the last few days of the voyage. Then I came to New York and met you."
This, in briefest outline, is the story of Johnnie Walker. I met him at a mission on the edge of the North River, and was as touched by his story as others had been before me. So I took him to my home, introduced him to the bathroom and to a new suit of clothes, and Johnnie entered upon the happiest days of his life. After a few weeks I handed him over to the Children"s Aid Society, and they sent him out West. He has always called me "father."
One evening I asked him what he knew about Jesus and he replied, "Ain"t "ee th" bloke as they swears about?"
His ideas of prayer were also dim, but he made an attempt. He wrote a letter to G.o.d and read it on his knees before going to bed.
He is now a prosperous farmer in the far West, living on a quarter section of land given to him by the Government, and on which he has made good his claim to American citizenship.
CHAPTER X
I MEET SOME OUTCASTS
A sharp contrast to this waif of the street is the case of a statesman under a cloud. I was sitting on a bench near the bunk-house one day at twilight, when I noticed a profile silhouetted against the window. I had seen only one profile like that in my life, and that was when I was a boy. I moved closer. The man sat like a statue. His face was very pale and he was gazing vacantly at the walls in the rear of the building. Finally, I went over and sat down beside him.
"Good evening," he said quietly, in answer to my salutation. I looked into his face--a face I knew when a boy, a face familiar to the law-makers of Victoria for a quarter of a century. I called him by name. At the sound of his own name, his paleness turned to an ashy yellow.
"In Heaven"s name," I said, "what are you doing here?" He looked at me with an expression of excruciating pain on his face, and said:
"I have travelled some thousands of miles in order to be alone; if you have any kindness, any pity, leave me."
"Pardon me," I said, "for intruding."
That night the Ex-Club invited him to take part in their deliberations. He refused, and his manner showed that he considered the invitation an insult. I had known this man as a brilliant orator, a religious leader, the champion of a sect. In a city across the sea I had sat as a barelegged boy on an upturned barrel, part of an immense crowd, listening to the flow of his oratory. Next day he left the bunk-house. Some weeks afterward I found him on a curbstone, preaching to whoever of the pedestrians would listen.
At the close of his address, I introduced myself again. He took me to his new lodging, and I put the questions that filled my mind. For answer he gave me the House of Commons Blue Book, which explained the charge hanging over him. Almost daily, for weeks, I heard him on his knees proclaim his innocence of the unmentionable crime with which he was charged. After some weeks of daily a.s.sociation, he said to me:
"I believe you are sent of G.o.d to guide me, and I am prepared to take your advice."
My advice was ready. He turned pale as I told him to pack his trunk and take the next ship for England.
"Face the storm like a man!" I urged, and he said:
"It will kill me, but I will do it."
He did it, and it swept him to prison, to shame, and to oblivion.
Nothing in the life of the bunk-house was more noticeable than the way men of intelligence grouped themselves together. Besides the Judge, there were an ex-lawyer, an ex-soldier of Victoria and a German Graf.
I named them the "Ex-Club." Every morning they separated as though forever. Every night they returned and looked at one another in surprise.
At election-time both political parties had access to the register, and every lodger was the recipient of two letters. Between elections a letter was always a matter of sensational interest; it lay on the clerk"s table, waiting to be claimed, and every lodger inspected it as he pa.s.sed. Scores of men who never expected a letter would pick it up, handle it in a wistful and affectionate manner, and regretfully lay it down again. I have often wished I could a.n.a.lyze the thoughts of these men as they tenderly handled these rare visitors conducted by Uncle Sam into the bunk-house.
It was a big letter with red seals and an aristocratic monogram that first drew attention to a new-comer who had signed himself "Hans Schwanen." "One-eyed Dutchy" had whispered to some of his friends that the recipient of the letter was a real German Graf.
He was about sixty years of age, short, rotund, corpulent. His head was bullet-shaped and set well down on his shoulders. His clothes were baggy and threadbare, his linen soiled and shabby. He had blue eyes, harsh red hair, and a florid complexion. When he arrived, he brought three valises. Everybody wondered what he could have in them.
The bouncer was consumed with a desire to examine the contents, and, as bouncer and general floor-manager of the house, expected that they would naturally be placed under his care. When, however, it was announced that the newcomer had engaged "One-eyed Dutchy" as his valet, the bouncer swore, and said "he might go to ----."
There was something peculiar and mysterious in a ten-cent guest of the Bismarck hiring a valet. The Germans called him Graf von Habernichts.
He kept aloof from the crowd. He had no friends and would permit no one to establish any intercourse with him.
His valet informed an intimate friend that the Graf received a check from Germany every three months. While it lasted, it was the valet"s duty to order, pay for, and keep a record of all food and refreshment.