Three People | Page 6

be he than the man who sold him the rum," her
companion answered, solemnly. "Well, Mary, have you time to stay
here awhile, or must you go at once?"
"I'll take time, sir. Feelings is feelings, if I be poor; and I can't leave the
boy and all, like this."
"Very well. You shall not suffer for your kind act. I'll go at once to
notify the Coroner and the proper authorities, and meantime my mother
will probably step around. Shall I have this fellow taken to the station?"
"No," said Mary, with another disgusted look at the drunken man. "Let
the beast sleep it out; he's beyond hurting anybody, and she wouldn't

want him sent to the station."
* * * * *
"It was the most solemnly awful sight I ever saw," said John Birge,
telling it all over to his friend McElroy. "I never shall forget that
woman's prayer. It was the most tremendous temperance lecture I ever
heard."
"Is the woman buried?"
"Yes, this afternoon. They hurry such matters abominably, McElroy.
Mother saw, though, that things were decent, and did what she could.
We mean to keep an eye on the boy. He has great wild eyes, and a head
that suggests great possibilities of good or evil, as the case may be. We
would like to get him into one of the Children's Homes, and look after
him. I meant to go around there this very evening and see what I could
do. What do you say to going with me now?"
"Easy enough thing to accomplish, I should think. I presume his father
will be glad to get rid of him; but it's storming tremendously, is it not?"
"Pretty hard. It does four-fifths of the time in Albany, you know.
Wouldn't you venture?"
"Why, it strikes me not, unless it were a case of life and death, or
something of that sort. I should like to assist in rescuing the waif, but
won't it do to-morrow?"
"I presume so. We'll go to-morrow after class, then. Well, take the
rocking chair and an apple, and make yourself comfortable. I say,
McElroy, when I get into my profession I'll preach temperance, shall
not you?"
* * * * *
Rain and wind and storm were over by the next afternoon; the sun
shone out brilliantly, trying to glorify even the upper end of Rensselaer

Street through which the two young men were sauntering, in search of
the waif on whom John Birge meant to keep an eye.
"I'm strangely interested in the boy," Birge was saying. "That prayer
was something so strange, so fearfully solemn, and the circumstances
connected with my stumbling upon them at all were so sad. I was sorry
after I left that I had not tried to impress upon the little fellow's mind
the solemn meaning of his mother's last words. I half went back to have
a little talk with him, but then I thought there would be sufficient
opportunity for that in the future. Here, this is the cellar. Be careful
how you tread, these steps are abominable. Hallo! Why, what on
earth!"
They descended the stairs; they knocked at the door, but they received
no answer; they tried the door, it was locked; they looked in at the
rickety window, the miserable stove, the rags, even the straw, were
gone--no trace of human residence was to be seen.
It does not take long to move away from Rensselaer Street. Tode and
his father were gone; and neither then nor afterward for many a day,
though John Birge and his companion made earnest search, were they
to be found. The "sufficient opportunity" was gone, too, and young
Birge kept no eye on the boy; but there was an All-seeing eye looking
down on poor Tode all the while.
CHAPTER III.
WOLFIE.
Mr. Hastings started on a journey. It was midwinter, so he muffled
himself in overcoat and furs, and carried his great fur-lined traveling
cloak, all nicely rolled and strapped, ready for extra occasions.
He was not in the very best humor when the night express reached
Albany, and he had finally changed his quarters from the Central to the
Hudson River Railroad. His arrangements had not been made for
spending the night on the train at all; his plan was to be fairly settled
under the blankets in a New York hotel by this time, but there had been

detention after detention all along his route. So the great man settled
himself with what grace he could, and unstrapped the fur-lined cloak,
and made other preparations for passing a night in the cars, his face,
meanwhile, wearing an ominous frown.
It was not so much the sitting-up all night that troubled him, for Mr.
Hastings was in excellent health, and an excellent