Burnham Breaker | Page 4

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 aroun' the city. It was pirty near afternoon 'fore I got out where the fields is, an' then a woman, she give me sumpthin' to eat. I wanted to git away from the city fur's I could, an' day-times I walked fast, an' nights I slep' under the big trees, an' folks in the houses along the road, they give me things to eat. An' then a circus came along, an' the man on the tiger wagon he give me a ride, an' then I went everywhere with the circus, an' I worked for 'em, oh!