Burnham Breaker | Page 4

trying to reassure him, "it's plenty good enough,
but it's red you see, and red won't do. Here, I have a white one. This is
just the thing," he added, tearing his own handkerchief into strips and
binding them carefully about the wounded hand. "There!" giving the
bandage a final adjustment; "that will be better for it. Now, then, you're
off to the circus; good-by."
The lad took a step or two forward, hesitated a moment, and then
turned back. The breaker boss and the screen-room boss were already
gone and he was alone with Mr. Burnham.

"Would it make any dif'rence to you," he asked, holding up the silver
coin, "if I spent this money for sumpthin' else, an' didn't go to the circus
with it?"
"Why, no!" said the man, wonderingly, "I suppose not; but I thought
you boys would rather spend your money at the circus than to spend it
in almost any other way."
"Oh! I'd like to go well enough. I al'ays did like a circus, an' I wanted to
go to this one, 'cause it's a big one; but they's sumpthin' else I want
worse'n that, an' I'm a-tryin' to save up a little money for it."
Robert Burnham's curiosity was aroused. Here was a boy who was
willing to forego the pleasures of the circus that he might gratify some
greater desire; a strong and noble one, the man felt sure, to call for such
a sacrifice. Visions of a worn-out mother, an invalid sister, a mortgaged
home, passed through his mind as he said: "And what is it you are
saving your money for, my boy, if I am at liberty to ask?"
"To'stablish my'dentity, sir."
"To do what?"
"To'stablish my'dentity; that's what Uncle Billy calls it."
"Why, what's the matter with your identity?"
"I ain't got any; I'm a stranger; I don't know who my 'lations are."
"Don't know--who--your relations are! Why, what's your name?"
"Ralph, that's all; I ain't got any other name. They call me Ralph
Buckley sometimes, 'cause I live with Uncle Billy; but he ain't my
uncle, you know,--I only call him Uncle Billy 'cause I live with him,
an'--an' he's good to me, that's all."
At the name "Ralph," coming so suddenly from the lad's lips, the man
had started, turned pale, and then his face flushed deeply. He drew the
boy down tenderly on the bench beside him, and said:--

"Tell me about yourself, Ralph; where do you say you live?"
"With Uncle Billy,--Bachelor Billy they call him; him that dumps at the
head, pushes the cars out from the carriage an' dumps 'em; don't you
know Billy Buckley?"
The man nodded assent and the boy went on:--
"He's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has; you don't know how
good he's been to me; but he ain't my uncle, he ain't no 'lation to me; I
ain't got no 'lations 'at I know of; I wish't I had."
The lad looked wistfully out through the open window to the far line of
hills with their summits veiled in a delicate mist of blue.
"But where did Billy get you?" asked Mr. Burnham.
"He foun' me; he foun' me on the road, an' he took me in an' took care
o' me, and he didn't know me at all; that's where he's so good. I was
sick, an' he hired Widow Maloney to tend me while he was a-workin',
and when I got well he got me this place a-pickin' slate in the breaker."
"But, Ralph, where had you come from when Billy found you?"
"Well, now, I'll tell you all I know about it. The first thing 'at I 'member
is 'at I was a-livin' with Gran'pa Simon in Philadelphy. He wasn't my
gran'pa, though; if he had 'a' been he wouldn't 'a' 'bused me so. I don't
know where he got me, but he treated me very bad; an' when I wouldn't
do bad things for him, he whipped me, he whipped me awful, an' he
shet me up in the dark all day an' all night, 'an didn't give me nothin' to
eat; an' I'm dreadful 'fraid o' the dark; an' I wasn't more'n jest about so
high, neither. Well, you see, I couldn't stan' it, an' one day I run away. I
wouldn't 'a' run away if I could 'a' stood it, but I couldn't stan' it no
longer. Gran'pa Simon wasn't there when I run away. He used to go off
an' leave me with Ole Sally, an' she wasn't much better'n him, only she
couldn't see very well, an' she couldn't follow me. I slep' with Buck the
bootblack that night, an' nex' mornin', early, I started out in the country.
I was 'fraid they'd find me if I stayed