Jerry's Reward — Reading Companion

Jefferson Square was a short street in Gaminsville, occupying just one block. It took only two things on one side of it to fill up the space from corner to corner. One was the Convent of the Good Shepherd, built on a large lot surrounded by a high brick wall; the other, a common where all the people around dumped cinders, rags, tin cans--in fact, anything on earth they wished to throw away. On the other side were dwelling-houses, and these were filled with children--lots of them. There surely were never so many children on one square before!

There were the Earlys, the Rickersons, the Bakers, the Adamses, the Mortons, and the Longs--twenty-one in all.

There were really twenty-eight; but the parents of seven children, though they were not what you might call poor, were not well-born like the others, so nobody counted them any more than they included them in the games that the twenty-one played. This was sad for the seven little outcasts, but the others never thought about that.

The twenty-one had splendid times together. It was play, play, play for ever--dolls, pin fairs, circuses, and games. Every afternoon they gathered in the Mortons' front gate, because it was wider and had three stone steps leading down from it, where all the children could sit.

One evening, the latter part of August, the sun had dipped down behind the world, leaving red splashes over a green sky. On seeing it the children played fast and furiously, for they knew only too well that when the sky looked like that they might at any moment be called indoors, made to eat their suppers and go to bed.

The oldest child of the lot was Henry Clay Morton. He was one of those boys who try to have their way in everything, and generally succeed; so, on this particular evening when he got tired playing "Grammammy Gray" and proposed "Lost My Handkerchief," the others consented without any fuss. The next thing to decide was who should be "ole man." They stood in a long row, and Henry Clay, pointing, began at the top and gave each child a word like this:

"Eeny, meany, miny, mo; Cracky, feeny, finy fo; Ommer neutcha, popper teucha; Rick, bick, ban, do.

"Oner-ry, oer-ry, ickery Ann; Phyllis and Phollis and Nicholas John; Queevy quavy, English Navy, Stinklum, stanklum, BUCK."

"Buck" was "ole man," and on this occasion happened to be Addison Gravison Rickerson, a little pudgy boy who was called "Addy Gravvy" for short. He took a handkerchief, and the children, joining hands, formed a big circle. Then skipping behind them he sang:

"Lost my hankshuff yesterday, Found it to-day, Filled it full 'er water, En dashed it away."

He sang the words twice, and then he let the handkerchief fall behind little Nell Morton, but she was watching, so she grabbed it and chased Addy Gravvy, trying to catch him before he could get round the circle into her place. He ran so fast he would have beaten her had not Willie Baker stuck out his foot, tripping him up so that little Nell easily caught him.

Addy Gravvy protested: "That's no fair, I won't go in the middle." For whoever got caught had to go in the middle until the close of the game.

"She is so little," explained Willie, "that she never could have caught anybody."

"Then she oughtn't to play," said Addy Gravvy.

At this the children all began talking at once, for Nell was a favourite, and matters were looking serious, when suddenly a shadow crossed the bar of light made by the Mortons' open front door.

"Paddy!" "Paddy!" cried a dozen frightened ones, and the little group took to their heels.

In two minutes the street was as silent as midnight, the only person left being a little old man whose back was bent almost double. He turned and looked after the children and gave a long, deep sigh.

Of course you wish to know all about the crooked man whose very shadow caused the children to stop their play and scamper to their homes.

You remember I told you that one side of Jefferson Square was occupied by the Convent of the Good Shepherd and the common? Well, this convent was a source of much interest and not a little awe to the children. They were always curious to know what was going on behind those high brick walls.

Nothing in the shape of a man, except the priests, was ever allowed inside the convent. You can judge, then, of the flutter it caused when one day at noon, as the children from their windows opposite were watching the penitents playing in the garden in their blue dresses and white caps, they saw a little man go boldly in their midst and with a shovel begin turning up the soil.

To be sure he was old and ugly; his back was bent like a hoop, and his long nose almost touched his toes as he leaned over his shovel--but all the same he was a man.

"I wonder who on earth he can be!" said Fanny Morton, and the nurse who was peering over her head thoughtlessly replied:

"One of Satan's own imps."

They did not see the newcomer for a long time after, then one morning the word passed that he was there. This time the big iron gates at the side were open, and he was wheeling barrows of coal into the convent cellar.

The next meeting was on the common where he was raking over old rubbish and abstracting rags and bits of iron. The children were about to speak to him when something in his brown and wrinkled face recalled the nurse-girl's remark about "Satan's imps," so they were afraid and ran home.

I do not know who started it, but soon he came to be known as "Paddy on the Turnpike," and just what this meant would be hard to say. While we all know that Paddys are common enough in cities, still there wasn't a turnpike for this one to be on within five miles of Jefferson Square.

Although the children were afraid of the old man, they could not help teasing him whenever they got a chance. It seemed reckless and brave to shout out something and then take to their heels. They dared not come too near, for the same nurse-girl, seeing the sensation that her first remark had created, added another more astonishing, to the effect that Paddy had traded his soul to the devil, and was hunting the rubbish on the common over, for sufficient money to buy it back. Which was, of course, sheer nonsense, and if the children had been as good as all children should be, they never for a moment would have believed such a stupid untruth.

By degrees they grew bolder. They would creep behind when he was bending over his ash pile, nearer and nearer. Then they would shout something about the devil and his bartered soul, thinking they were brave indeed. Once they approached so near that they almost touched him, but he turned around suddenly and reached out his rake as if he were going to rake them all in. At this a panic seized them, and they ran like young deer.

Finally Henry Clay Morton made a rhyme about him, and the others took it up. They never saw the old fellow without shouting to a sing-song tune that they had made themselves:

"Paddy on the Turnpike Couldn't count eleven, Put him on a leather bed, Thought he was in Heaven."

Not seeming to hear the children, the old man used to work in silence, gathering the bottles and rags and things and putting them in his bag. Once a week he sold all he had found and brought the money home to his wife.

Now Paddy and his wife lived in a little cottage on the far side of the common. And Paddy's wife was always sick. The poor woman had had a terrible accident in which she had been so badly crushed and twisted that she was never free from pain a single moment.

Paddy would rise early in the morning, and, before he left to go to his work, he would put her in her chair by the window so that she could look out on the common, and here she sat knitting socks all day long.

She did not know many people, so she was much alone. None of the neighbours in Jefferson Square were aware that such a person as Mrs. Paddy existed, though they might have seen her, if they had taken the trouble, every time they looked out of a front window; for she lived in plain view of all the dwellings on the Square.

But though none of the "well-bred" people ever knew of Mrs. Paddy's existence, sometimes the mother of the little outcasts who were too common to be the associates of fine ladies would drop in "to straighten things up a bit."

"Well, Mrs. Myer," she would say, "the top of the mornin' to ye. It's to market I've just been and the butcher sent ye a posy," and she would put a gay flower or two in the blue glass vase that stood on the sick woman's window-sill.

Or maybe one of the little outcasts would bring a bowl of steaming soup. "Mother thought you might like something to warm you up inside," the child would say, and Mrs. Paddy, unknown and unknowing of the fine world, would kiss and thank her with a smile that she must have learned from the angels.

But no other soul ever visited Mrs. Paddy, and knitting at her window, she led a solitary life indeed.

And the whole heart of Mrs. Paddy was bound up in Paddy, strange as that may seem. But, you must know, Paddy was a very different sort of a person from what the children imagined him. No matter what she was suffering, Mrs. Paddy had always a bright look for him, while, with her, Paddy would grow so tender and his knotty features would smooth out so, the children never would have recognised him.

And Paddy's thousand attentions could only have been prompted by a loving heart. He even grudged every penny that he had to spend on himself; and indeed he had often gone hungry that his Peggy might have some little comfort.

You see, before she was hurt--before that dreadful day when the heavy four-horse team knocked her down and all but crushed the life out of her--he used to spend most of his earnings in drink. In fact, to tell you the honest truth, he was almost always drunk. And sometimes--it makes the tears come into his eyes to think of it now--he used to beat her. When he was drunk, you know; never except when liquor had stolen his brains.

Well, after she was brought in mangled and bleeding, he was so sorry he had ever treated her unkindly that he nearly lost his mind. He prayed to God to let her stay with him long enough for him to prove how much he really loved her.

Afterwards when she lived, although but a crippled, suffering being, he was so afraid that he might forget himself and abuse her again, that he never touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee. The poor woman used to say that it was worth all the pain, and more, too, to have her husband always himself.

Giving up strong drink was not an easy task for him, and he often wanted it; but he shunned the society of his drinking friends, and never once went where he would be tempted.

He pretended not to hear the children's teasing, but it was only pretence. You see, he loved children dearly. He once had two little ones of his own, but God took them. For their dear sakes he had tender feelings toward all children, and it hurt him that these on Jefferson Square should run away from him every time he came near.

He also disliked their name for him; for his real name was Jerry, not Paddy at all. He could not help telling his Peggy about it, especially when they had been unusually thoughtless and teasing.

It was after one of such times that he said to her: "I think I'll have a little speech with 'em. I'll tell 'em that far from wanting to hurt 'em, I'll be their friend if they'll let me."

"Do, lovey," replied Mrs. Peggy, "for I'm hatin' to have 'em misjudge you."

So the very next day he pretended to be raking and sifting until they came nearer and nearer shouting their jibes and their jeers, when he quickly turned around and facing them began his speech:

"Don't fear me, chil--" was all the further he got when the rosy cheeks became as white as sheets and such scampering and rushing over one another you never saw in all your life.

After that it was three whole days before a single one of them was bold enough to come even in sight when he was bending over his work, and he missed them so that he resolved never to attempt any conversation with them again as long as he lived.

Things went on in this manner for some time. Then the hot summer was over and the green leaves died and fell to the ground with a rustle. All the children except the babies started to school. It became too cold to play out-of-doors in the afternoon, and soon the days got so short that there were no afternoons, and the children forgot it ever had been summer at all.

If a body had not already known it, he would never have guessed that the row of houses on one side of Jefferson Square contained twenty-eight children toasting their toes by blazing fires.

We should say twenty-one, for the entire family of outcasts had moved from the square to a more congenial neighbourhood, and Mrs. Paddy lost the only friends she had. Instead of the bright faces smiling and nodding to her every time they went in or out the front door, an ugly white card, with "For Rent" in big black letters, stared at her all day, reminding her sadly of the friends who were gone.

Paddy noticed her looking a little forlorn one morning, so he said:

"The cold weather doesn't agree with you, Peggy; there's too much air coming through the window cracks. I'll just move your chair away from it, and as close to the fire as may be."

He had to leave her alone a great deal those days, for bread was high and work scarce. To get either, a man had to start early so as to be handy for any odd jobs that came his way.

Peggy was sometimes so lonely that she missed even the naughty children, for in summer when they played on the common she could hear their young voices and it was company for her. Now all she could see was a bare brown waste with never a child in sight.

When Paddy was there bending over his ash heaps she didn't care, for every little while he would look up from his work, and wave his hand, and that was all she wanted.

Things got very desperate with the Paddys. Money became so scarce that they couldn't buy coal, but had to use half-burned cinders from the common instead. Peggy declared that they made a "real hot fire," and she would joke about their large coal cellar--meaning the common--"that never got empty--only fuller and fuller."

Paddy would come in shivering and shaking in his threadbare coat.

"And are you frozen entirely?" she would ask.

And he would answer: "I was mortal cold, but the sight of your gentle face has warmed my blood. Faith, it's better than all the fires!"

Whenever the sun came out she would make him take her to the window where she could warm herself in its rays. When her husband was working at the ash piles she would wave to him.

"On those days," said Paddy, "I always have luck. The people throw out more rags, and the cinders are in big lumps and only half burned."

Whenever he made a good find he waved his hand to her, but one day he waved both hands and his cap, and she knew he had been unusually fortunate.

He came straight in to show her. He had found a big silver dollar. It was tarnished and black from the flames, but it was a good one with a true ring.

"Whose can it be, I wonder!" exclaimed Peggy.

"If I knew I'd have to take it back," answered Paddy, "but, unfortunately, people don't often leave their visiting cards on their ash heaps."

This was not all. The very day after he found the dollar, Peggy, from her window, saw more frantic waving.

This time it was a silver spoon!

"I can find the owner of that, I'm sure," says Paddy. And he made the rounds of all the houses in the neighbourhood to see if they were missing any spoons, but nobody claimed it.

Peggy cleaned it and made it shine like new. At first she didn't like to use it--it was so beautiful--but her husband persuaded her that as long as they couldn't sell it, seeing that the owner might be found some day, she had better get the good of it. So she yielded, and declared that the soup had an extra richness all on account of the silver.

"It's luck coming our way, dear," says Paddy. "Money in our pockets and a silver spoon in our mouths--you'll see."

And it was so; though at first it took such a round-about path--- a little way luck has--that they quite mistook it for something else.

PEGGY OVERHEARS A STARTLING CONVERSATION

One cold morning in January Paddy built up a good fire, and, putting Peggy in her wheel chair, he placed everything in reach that she could possibly need.

"I'll not be back before dark, dearie," he said, "for outside of my convent work I have a job at the wharf that will keep me all the day." With this he kissed her on each pale cheek and on her sweet, patient mouth, and left.

The little cottage in which the Paddys lived, you will remember, was on the far side of the common. Behind it ran an alley where all sorts of people lived,--negroes, beggars, tramps, all of them poor and some of them desperate.

Peggy's cottage was at one end of the row, and the convent wall was built up close to the side of it, leaving a space just wide enough for one person to squeeze through. The walls of the cottage were so thin that whenever the children hid in the narrow passage during their play, the sick woman inside could hear every word they said--could almost hear them breathe.

On the morning in question Peggy was sitting by her fire knitting so fast that you could not tell needles from fingers nor fingers from needles, when she heard the sound of talking between the cottage and the convent wall. She could tell that the speakers were men.

"Now, why have they crept in that narrow crack to talk?" she mused.

"Are you sure she'll not go back on us?"

"She's safe enough; I've fixed her."

"Listen to me," said the first voice; "you are to bring a bundle to the side door at five o'clock. The nurse will let you in, and show you the closet under the staircase. There you'll stay until the house is locked up and everything settled for the night. After the children are asleep and the grown people quieted by the drugged coffee--say when the convent bell strikes ten--you will slip out and, unlocking the side door, let me in. I have a plan of the house, and know where everything of value is kept. We'll get a good, rich pull, and skip."

"You're certain no harm will come from spiking the drink?"

"Not if she obeys orders; it'll give 'em a bully night's rest; that's all."

"How'll I know when it's safe to come out?"

"She says if anything happens not down on the books she'll come past your hiding-place, and give two taps like this" (tapping). "In that case you'll wait till you hear further."

"You'll be there to help, if I get caught? You won't slump?"

"Me? Never! Ain't I always been a man of honour?"

"They say old Morton's mighty game when once roused."

"But he won't be if we can help it; in case he is, and shows fight, why then we'll have to----"