Tom Slade on a Transport.
by Percy Keese Fitzhugh.
CHAPTER I
TOM MEETS ONE FRIEND AND IS REMINDED OF ANOTHER
As Tom Slade went through Terrace Avenue on his way to the Temple Camp office, where he was employed, he paused beside a truck backed up against the curb in front of a certain vacant store. Upon it was a big table and wrestling with the table was Pete Connigan, the truckman--the very same Pete Connigan at whom Tom used to throw rocks and whom he had called a "mick." It reminded him of old times to see Pete.
The vacant store, too, aroused dubious memories, for there he had stolen many an apple in the days when Adolf Schmitt had his "cash grocery" on the premises, and used to stand in the doorway with his white ap.r.o.n on, shaking his fist as Tom scurried down the street and calling, "I"ll _strafe_ you, you young loafer!"
Tom had wondered what _strafing_ was, until long afterward he heard that poor Belgium was being _strafed_; and then he knew.
"Wal, ef "tain"t Tommy Slade!" said Pete, with a cordial grin of surprise. "I ain"t seen ye in two year! Ye"ve growed ter be a big, strappin" lad, ain"t ye?"
"h.e.l.lo, Pete," said Tom, shaking the Irishman"s brawny hand. "Glad to see you. I"ve been away working on a ship for quite a while. That"s one reason you haven"t seen me."
"Be gorry, the town"s gittin" big, an" that"s another reason. The last time I seen ye, ye wuz wid that Sweet Cap"ral lad, an" I knocked yer two sa.s.sy heads tergither for yez. Remember that?"
"Yes," laughed Tom, "and then I started running down the street and hollered, "Throw a brick, you Irish mick!"?"
"Ye did," vociferated Pete, "an" wid me afther ye."
"You didn"t catch me, though," laughed Tom.
"Wal, I got ye now," said Pete, grabbing him good-naturedly by the collar. And they sat down on the back of the truck to talk for a few moments.
"I"m glad I came this way," said Tom. "I usually go down Main Street, but I"ve been away from Bridgeboro so long, I thought I"d kinder stroll through this way to see how the town looked. I"m not in any particular hurry," he added. "I don"t have to get to work till nine. I was going to walk around through Terrace Court."
"Ben away on a ship, hev ye?" questioned Pete, and Tom told him the whole story of how he had given up the career of a hoodlum to join the Scouts, of the founding of Temple Camp by Mr. John Temple, of the summers spent there, of how he had later gotten a job on a steamer carrying supplies to the allies; how he had helped to apprehend a spy, how the ship had been torpedoed, how he had been rescued after two days spent in an open boat, of his roundabout journey back to Bridgeboro, and the taking up again of his prosaic duties in the local office of Temple Camp.
The truckman, his case-spike hanging from his neck, listened with generous interest to Tom"s simple, unboastful account of all that had happened to him.
"There were two people on that ship I got to be special friends with,"
he concluded. "One was a Secret Service man named Conne; he promised to help me get a job in some kind of war service till I"m old enough to enlist next spring. The other was a feller about my own age named Archer. He was a steward"s boy. I guess they both got drowned, likely.
Most all the boats got upset while they were launching them. I hope that German spy got drowned."
"Wuz he a German citizen?" Pete asked.
"Sure, he was! You don"t suppose an American citizen would be a spy for Germany, do you?"
"Be gorry, thar"s a lot uv German Amiricans, "n" I wouldn" trust "em,"
said Pete.
"Well, there"s some Irish people here that hate England, so they"re against the United States too," said Tom.
"Ye call me a thraiter, do ye!" roared Pete.
"I didn"t call you anything," Tom said, laughing and dodging the Irishman"s uplifted hand; "but I say a person is American or else he isn"t. It don"t make any difference where he was born. If he"s an American citizen and he helps Germany, then he"s worse than a spy--he"s a traitor and he ought to get shot."
"Be gorry, you said sumthin"!"
"He"s worse than anything else in the world," said Tom. "He"s worse than--than a murderer!"
Pete slapped him on the shoulder. "Bully fer you!" said he. "Fwhativer became uv yer fayther, lad?" he questioned after a moment.
"He died," said Tom simply. "It was after we got put out of Barrel Alley and after I got to be a scout. Mr. Ellsworth said maybe it was better--sort of----"
Pete nodded.
"An" yer bruther?"
"Oh, he went away long before that--even before my mother died. He went to work on a ranch out West somewhere--Arizona, I think."
""N" ye niver heard anny more uv him?"
"No--I wrote him a letter when my mother died, but I never got any answer. Maybe I sent it to the wrong place. Did you ever hear of a place called O"Brien"s Junction out there?"
"It"s a good name, I"ll say that," said Pete.
"Everybody used to say he"d make money some day. Maybe he"s rich now, hey?"
"I remimber all uv yez when yez used fer ter worrk fer Schmitt, here,"
said Pete.
"It reminded me of that when I came along."
"Yer fayther, he used fer ter drive th" wagon fer "im. Big Bill "n"
Little Bill, we used fer ter call him "n" yer bruther. Yer fayther wuzn"
fond uv worrk, I guess."
"He used to get cramps," said Tom simply.
"He used fer ter lick yez, I"m thinkin"."
"Maybe we deserved to get licked," said Tom. "Anyway _I_ did."
"Yer right, ye did," agreed Pete.
"My brother was better than I was. It made me mad when I saw him get licked. I could feel it way down in my fingers, kind of--the madness.
That"s why he went to live at Schmitt"s after my father got so he couldn"t work much. They always had lots to eat at Schmitt"s. I didn"t ever work there myself," he added with his customary blunt honesty, "because I was a hoodlum."
"Wal, I see ye"ve growed up ter be a foine lad, jist the same," said Pete consolingly, ""n" mebbe the lad as kin feel the tingles ter see"s bruther git licked unfair is as good as that same bruther, whativer!"
Tom said nothing, but gazed up at the windows of the apartment above the store where the Schmitts had lived. How he had once envied Bill his place in that home of good cheer and abundance! He remembered the sauerkraut and the sausages which Bill had told him of, and he had not believed Bill"s extravagant declaration that "at Schmitt"s you could have all you want to eat." To poor Tom, living with his wretched father in the two-room tenement in Barrel Alley, with nothing to eat at all, these accounts of the Schmitt household had seemed like a tale from the Arabian Nights. Once his father had sent him there to get fifty cents from thrifty and industrious Bill, and Tom remembered the shiny oilcloth on the kitchen floor, the snowy white fluted paper on the shelves, the stiff, spotless ap.r.o.n on the buxom form of Mrs. Schmitt, whom Mr.
Schmitt had called "Mooder."