Sentimental Tommy | Page 4

Then up came
Thrums, and--But the thing has happened before; in a word, Blücher.
Nevertheless, Tommy just managed it, for he got the girl out of the
street and on to another stair no more than in time to escape a ragged
rabble, headed by Shovel, who, finding their quarry gone, turned on

their leader viciously, and had gloomy views of life till his cap was
kicked down a sewer, which made the world bright again.
Of the tales told by Tommy that day in words Scotch and cockney, of
Thrums, home of heroes and the arts, where the lamps are lit by a
magician called Leerie-leerie-licht-the-lamps (but he is also friendly,
and you can fling stones at him), and the merest children are allowed to
set the spinning-wheels a-whirling, and dagont is the swear, and the
stairs are so fine that the houses wear them outside for show, and you
drop a pail at the end of a rope down a hole, and sometimes it comes up
full of water, and sometimes full of fairies--of these and other wonders,
if you would know, ask not a dull historian, nor even go to Thrums, but
to those rather who have been boys and girls there and now are exiles.
Such a one Tommy knows, an unhappy woman, foolish, not very
lovable, flung like a stone out of the red quarry upon a land where it
cannot grip, and tearing her heart for a sight of the home she shall see
no more. From her Tommy had his pictures, and he colored them
rarely.
Never before had he such a listener. "Oh, dagont, dagont!" he would
cry in ecstasy over these fair scenes, and she, awed or gurgling with
mirth according to the nature of the last, demanded "'Nother, 'nother!"
whereat he remembered who and what she was, and showing her a
morsel of the new one, drew her to more distant parts, until they were
so far from his street that he thought she would never be able to find
the way back.
His intention had been, on reaching such a spot, to desert her promptly,
but she gave him her hand in the muff so confidingly that against his
judgment he fell a-pitying the trustful mite who was wandering the
world in search of a mother, and so easily diddled on the whole that the
chances were against her finding one before morning. Almost
unconsciously he began to look about him for a suitable one.
They were now in a street much nearer to his own home than the spurts
from spot to spot had led him to suppose. It was new to him, but he
recognized it as the acme of fashion by those two sure signs; railings
with most of their spikes in place, and cards scored with, the word

"Apartments." He had discovered such streets as this before when in
Shovel's company, and they had watched the toffs go out and in, and it
was a lordly sight, for first the toff waggled a rail that was loose at the
top and then a girl, called the servant, peeped at him from below, and
then he pulled the rail again, and then the door opened from the inside,
and you had a glimpse of wonder-land with a place for hanging hats on.
He had not contemplated doing anything so handsome for the girl as
this, but why should he not establish her here? There were many
possible mothers in view, and thrilling with a sense of his generosity he
had almost fixed on one but mistrusted the glint in her eye and on
another when she saved herself by tripping and showing an undarned
heel.
He was still of an open mind when the girl of a sudden cried, gleefully,
"Ma-ma, ma-ma!" and pointed, with her muff, across the street. The
word was as meaningless to Tommy as mother had been to her, but he
saw that she was drawing his attention to a woman some thirty yards
away.
"Man--man!" he echoed, chiding her ignorance; "no, no, you blether,
that ain't a man, that's a woman; that's woman--woman."
"Ooman--ooman," the girl repeated, docilely, but when she looked
again, "Ma-ma, ma-ma," she insisted, and this was Tommy's first
lesson that however young you catch them they will never listen to
reason.
She seemed of a mind to trip off to this woman, and as long as his own
mother was safe, it did not greatly matter to Tommy whom she chose,
but if it was this one, she was going the wrong way about it. You
cannot snap them up in the street.
The proper course was to track her to her house, which he proceeded to
do, and his quarry, who was looking about her anxiously, as if