The Island of Faith | Page 8

disliked it, until it _bled_!"
The small boy drew back from Rose-Marie. His expression was
vaguely puzzled--it seemed almost as if he did not comprehend what
her words meant.
"My pa beats me," he said suddenly, "always he beats me--when he's
drunk! An' sometimes he beats me when he ain't. He beats Ma, too, an'
he uster beat Jim, 'n' Ella. He don't dare beat Jim now, though"--this
proudly--"Jim's as big as he is now, an' Ella--nobody'd dast lay a hand
on Ella ..." almost as suddenly as he had started to talk, the boy
stopped.
For the moment the episode of the kitten was a forgotten thing. There
was only pity, only a blank sort of horror, on Rose-Marie's face.
"Doesn't your father love you--any of you?" she asked.
"Naw." The boy's mouth was a straight line--a straight and very bitter
line, for such a young mouth. "Naw, he only loves his booze. He hits
me all th' time--an' he's four times as big as me! An' so I hit whoever's
smaller'n I am. An' even if they cry I don't care. I hate things that's
little--that can't take care o' themselves. Everything had oughter be able
t' take care of itself!"
"Haven't you"--again Rose-Marie asked a question--"haven't you ever
loved anything that was smaller than you are? Haven't you ever had a
pet? Haven't you ever felt that you must protect and take care of some
one--or something? Haven't you?"
All at once the boy was smiling, and the smile lit up his small, dark
face as a candle, slowly flickering, brings cheer and brightness to a dull,
lonely room.
"I love Lily," he told her. "I wouldn't let nobody touch Lily! If Pa so
much as spoke mean to her--I'd kill him. I'd kill him with a knife!"
Rose-Marie shuddered inwardly at the thought. But her voice was very
even as she spoke.
"Who is Lily?" she asked.
The boy had slid down along the bench. He was so close to her that his
shabby coat sleeve touched her blue one.
"Lily's my kid sister," he said, and, miracle of miracles, his voice held a
note of tenderness. "Say--Miss, I'm sorry I hurt th' cat."

With a sudden feeling of warmth Rose-Marie moved just a fraction of
an inch closer to the boy. She knew, somehow, that his small, curiously
abject apology was in a way related to the "kid sister"; she knew,
almost instinctively, that this Lily who could make a smile come to the
dark little face, who could make a tenderness dwell in those hard young
eyes, was the only avenue by which she could reach this strange child.
She spoke to him suddenly, impulsively.
"I'd like to see your Lily; I'd like to see her, awfully," she told him.
"Will you bring her some time to call on me? I live at the Settlement
House."
A subtle change had come over the child's face. He slid, hurriedly, from
the bench.
"Oh," he said, "yer one o' them! You sing hymns 'n' pray 'n' tell folks t'
take baths. I know. Well, I can't bring Lily t' see you--not ever!"
Rose-Marie had also risen to her feet.
"Then," she said eagerly, "let me come and see Lily. Where do you
live?"
The boy's eyes had fallen. It was plain that he did not want to
answer--that he was experiencing the almost inarticulate
embarrassment of childhood.
"We live," he told her at last, "in that house over there." His pointing
finger indicated the largest and grimiest of the tenements that loomed,
dark and high, above the squalor of a side street. "But you wouldn't
wanter come--there!"
Rose-Marie caught her breath sharply. She was remembering how the
Superintendent had forbidden her to do visiting, how the Young Doctor
had laughed at her desire to be of service. She knew what they would
say if she told them that she was going into a tenement to see a strange
child named Lily. Perhaps that was why her voice had an excited ring
as she answered.
"Yes, I would come there!" she told the boy. "Tell me what floor you
live on, and what your name is, and when it would be best for me to
come?"
"My name's Bennie Volsky," the boy said slowly. "We're up five flights,
in th' back. D'yer really mean that you'll come--an' see Lily?"
Rose-Marie nodded soberly. How could the child know that her heart
was all athrob with the call of a great adventure?

"Yes, I mean it," she told him. "When shall I come?"
The boy's grubby hand shot out and rested upon her sleeve.
"Come to-morrow afternoon," he told her. "Say, yer all right!" He
turned, swiftly, and ran through the crowd, and in a moment had
disappeared like a small