Calvary Alley | Page 8

a right to come ahead when I
signals it from the tower to stop. I been handin' out laws to engines fer
goin' on thirty year, an' I never seen one yet that bust over a law that
didn't come to grief. You keep on the track, Sister, an' watch the signals
an' obey orders an' you'll find it pays in the end. An' now, buck up, an'

don't be scared. We'll see what we can do to git you off."
"Who's skeered?" said Nance, with a defiant toss of her head. "I ain't
skeered of nothin'."
But that night when Mrs. Snawdor and Uncle Jed had gone to work,
and Mr. Snawdor had betaken himself out of ear-shot of the wailing
baby, Nance's courage began to waver. After she had finished her work
and crawled into bed between Fidy and Lobelia, the juvenile court,
with its unknown terrors, rose before her. All the excitement of the day
died out; her pride in sharing the punishment with Dan Lewis vanished.
She lay staring up into the darkness, swallowing valiantly to keep down
the sobs, fiercely resolved not to let her bed-fellows witness the
break-down of her courage.
"What's the matter, Nance?" asked Fidy.
"I'm hot!" said Nance, crossly. "It feels like the inside of a oven in
here!"
"I bet Maw forgot to open the window into the shaft," said Fidy.
"Windows don't do no good," said Nance; "they just let in smells.
Wisht I was a man! You bet I would be up at Slap Jack's! I'd set under a
'lectric fan, an' pour cold things down me an' listen at the 'phoney-graf
ever' night. Hush! Is that our baby?"
A faint wail made her scramble out of bed and rush into the back room
where she gathered a hot, squirming bundle into her arms and peered
anxiously into its wizened face. She knew the trick babies had of dying
when the weather was hot! Two other beloved scraps of humanity had
been taken away from her, and she was fiercely determined to keep this
one. Lugging the baby to the window, she scrambled over the sill.
The fire-escape was cluttered with all the paraphernalia that doubles the
casualty of a tenement fire, but she cleared a space with her foot and sat
down on the top step. Beside her loomed the blank warehouse wall, and
from the narrow passage-way below came the smell of garbage. The

clanging of cars and the rumbling of trucks mingled with the nearer
sounds of whirring sewing machines in Lavinski's sweat-shop on the
floor below. From somewhere around the corner came, at intervals, the
sharp cry of a woman in agony. With that last sound Nance was all too
familiar. The coming and going of a human life were no mystery to her.
But each time the cry of pain rang out she tried in vain to stop her ears.
At last, hot, hungry, lonesome, and afraid, she laid her dirty face
against the baby's fuzzy head and they sobbed together in undisturbed
misery.
When at last the child fell into a restless sleep, Nance sat patiently on,
her small arms stiffening under their burden, and her bare feet and legs
smarting from the stings of hungry mosquitos.
By and by the limp garments on the clothes line overhead began to stir,
and Nance, lifting her head gratefully to the vagrant breeze, caught her
breath. There, just above the cathedral spire, white and cool among
fleecy clouds, rose the full August moon. It was the same moon that at
that moment was turning ocean waves into silver magic; that was
smiling on sleeping forests and wind-swept mountains and dancing
streams. Yet here it was actually taking the trouble to peep around the
cathedral spire and send the full flood of its radiance into the most
sordid corners of Calvary Alley, even into the unawakened soul of the
dirty, ragged, tear-stained little girl clasping the sick baby on Snawdor's
fire-escape.
[Illustration: "Her tense muscles relaxed; she forgot to cry"]
Something in Nance responded. Her tense muscles relaxed; she forgot
to cry. With eyes grown big and wistful, she watched the shining orb.
All the bravado, the fear, and rebellion died out of her, and in hushed
wonder she got from the great white night what God in heaven meant
for us to get.

CHAPTER III

THE CLARKES AT HOME
While the prodigal son of the house of Clarke was engaged in breaking
stained-glass windows in Calvary Alley, his mother was at home
entertaining the bishop with a recital of his virtues and
accomplishments. Considering the fact that Bishop Bland's dislike for
children was notorious, he was bearing the present ordeal with unusual
fortitude.
They were sitting on the spacious piazza at Hill-crest, the country home
of