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_ In a corner of Frau Nirlanger's bedroom, sheltered from
draughts and glaring light, is a little wooden bed,
painted blue and ornamented with stout red roses that are
faded by time and much abuse. Every evening at eight
o'clock three anxious-browed women hold low-spoken
conclave about the quaint old bed, while its occupant
sleeps and smiles as he sleeps, and clasps to his breast
a chewed-looking woolly dog. For a new joy has come to
the sad little Frau Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident,
was the cause of bringing it to her. The queer little
blue bed, with its faded roses, was brought down from the
attic by Frau Knapf, for she is one of the three foster
mothers of the small occupant of the bed. The occupant
of the bed is named Bennie, and a corporation formed for
the purpose of bringing him up in the way he should go is
composed of: Dawn O'Hara Orme, President and Distracted
Guardian; Mrs. Konrad Nirlanger, Cuddler-in-chief and
Authority on the Subject of Bennie's Bed-time; Mr. Blackie
Griffith, Good Angel, General Cut-up and Monitor off'n
Bennie's Neckties and Toys; Dr. Ernst von Gerhard, Chief
Medical Adviser, and Sweller of the Exchequer, with the
Privilege of Selecting All Candies. Members of the
corporation meet with great frequency evenings and Sundays,
much to the detriment of a certain Book-in-the-making with
which Dawn O'Hara Orme was wont to struggle o' evenings.
Bennie had been one of those little tragedies that
find their way into juvenile court. Bennie's story was
common enough, but Bennie himself had been different.
Ten minutes after his first appearance in the court room
everyone, from the big, bald judge to the newest
probation officer, had fallen in love with him. Somehow,
you wanted to smooth the hair from his forehead, tip his
pale little face upward, and very gently kiss his smooth,
white brow. Which alone was enough to distinguish
Bennie, for Juvenile court children, as a rule, are
distinctly not kissable.
Bennie's mother was accused of being unfit to care
for her boy, and Bennie was temporarily installed in the
Detention Home. There the superintendent and his plump
and kindly wife had fallen head over heels in love with
him, and had dressed him in a smart little Norfolk
suit and a frivolous plaid silk tie. There were
delays in the case, and postponement after postponement,
so that Bennie appeared in the court room every Tuesday
for four weeks. The reporters, and the probation
officers and policemen became very chummy with Bennie,
and showered him with bright new pennies and certain
wonderful candies. Superintendent Arnett of the
Detention Home was as proud of the boy as though he were
his own. And when Bennie would look shyly and
questioningly into his face for permission to accept the
proffered offerings, the big superintendent would chuckle
delightedly. Bennie had a strangely mobile face for such
a baby, and the whitest, smoothest brow I have ever seen.
The comedy and tears and misery and laughter of the
big, white-walled court room were too much for Bennie.
He would gaze about with puzzled blue eyes; then, giving
up the situation as something too vast for his
comprehension, he would fall to drawing curly-cues on a
bit of paper with a great yellow pencil presented him by
one of the newspaper men.
Every Tuesday the rows of benches were packed with a
motley crowd of Poles, Russians, Slavs, Italians, Greeks,
Lithuanians--a crowd made up of fathers, mothers,
sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, and
enemies of the boys and girls whose fate was in the hands
of the big man seated in the revolving chair up in front.
But Bennie's mother was not of this crowd; this pitiful,
ludicrous crowd filling the great room with the stifling,
rancid odor of the poor. Nor was Bennie. He sat, clear-eyed
and unsmiling, in the depths of a great chair on the
court side of the railing and gravely received the
attentions of the lawyers, and reporters and court room
attaches who had grown fond of the grave little figure.
Then, on the fifth Tuesday, Bennie's mother appeared.
How she had come to be that child's mother God only
knows--or perhaps He had had nothing to do with it. She
was terribly sober and frightened. Her face was swollen
and bruised, and beneath one eye there was a puffy
green-and-blue swelling. Her sordid story was common
enough as the probation officer told it. The woman had
been living in one wretched room with the boy. Her
husband had deserted her. There was no food, and little
furniture. The queer feature of it, said the probation
officer, was that the woman managed to keep the boy
fairly neat and clean, regardless of her own condition,
and he generally had food of some sort, although the
mother sometimes went without food for days. Through the
squalor and misery and degradation of her own life Bennie
had somehow been kept unsullied, a thing apart.
"H'm! " said judge Wheeling, and looked at Bennie.
Bennie was standing beside his mother. He was very
quiet, and his eyes were smiling up into those of the
battered creature who was fighting for him. "I guess
we'll have to take you out of this," the judge decided,
abruptly. "That boy is too good to go to waste."
The sodden, dazed woman before him did not
immediately get the full meaning of his words. She still
stood there, swaying a bit, and staring unintelligently
at the judge. Then, quite suddenly, she realized it.
She took a quick step forward. Her hand went up to her
breast, to her throat, to her lips, with an odd, stifled
gesture.
"You ain't going to take him away! From me! No, you
wouldn't do that, would you? Not for--not for always!
You wouldn't do that--you wouldn't--"
Judge Wheeling waved her away. But the woman dropped
to her knees.
"Judge, give me a chance! I'll stop drinking. Only
don't take him away from me! Don't, judge, don't! He's all
I've got in the world. Give me a chance. Three months!
Six months! A year!"
"Get up!" ordered judge Wheeling, gruffly, "and stop
that! It won't do you a bit of good."
And then a wonderful thing happened. The woman rose
to her feet. A new and strange dignity had come into her
battered face. The lines of suffering and vice were
erased as by magic, and she seemed to grow taller,
younger, almost beautiful. When she spoke again it was
slowly and distinctly, her words quite free from the blur
of the barroom and street vernacular.
"I tell you you must give me a chance. You cannot
take a child from a mother in this way. I tell you, if
you will only help me I can crawl back up the road that
I've traveled. I was not always like this. There was
another life, before--before--Oh, since then there have
been years of blackness, and hunger, and cold and--worse!
But I never dragged the boy into it. Look at him!"
Our eyes traveled from the woman's transfigured face
to that of the boy. We could trace a wonderful likeness
where before we had seen none. But the woman went on in
her steady, even tone.
"I can't talk as I should, because my brain isn't
clear. It's the drink. When you drink, you forget. But
you must help me. I can't do it alone. I can remember
how to live straight, just as I can remember how to talk
straight. Let me show you that I'm not all bad. Give me
a chance. Take the boy and then give him back to me when
you are satisfied. I'll try--God only knows how I'll
try. Only don't take him away forever, Judge! Don't do
that!"
Judge Wheeling ran an uncomfortable finger around his
collar's edge.
"Any friends living here?"
"No! No!"
"Sure about that?"
"Quite sure."
"Now see here; I'm going to give you your chance. I
shall take this boy away from you for a year. In that
time you will stop drinking and become a decent,
self-supporting woman. You will be given in charge of
one of these probation officers. She will find work for
you, and a good home, and she'll stand by you, and you
must report to her. If she is satisfied with you at the
end of the year, the boy goes back to you."
"She will be satisfied," the woman said, simply. She
stooped and taking Bennie's face between her
hands kissed him once. Then she stepped aside and stood
quite still, looking after the little figure that passed
out of the court room with his hand in that of a big,
kindly police officer. She looked until the big door had
opened and closed upon them.
Then--well, it was just another newspaper story. It
made a good one. That evening I told Frau Nirlanger
about it, and she wept, softly, and murmured: "Ach, das
arme baby! Like my little Oscar he is, without a
mother." I told Ernst about him too, and Blackie,
because I could not get his grave little face out of my
mind. I wondered if those who had charge of him now
would take the time to bathe the little body, and brush
the soft hair until it shone, and tie the gay plaid silk
tie as lovingly as "Daddy" Arnett of the Detention Home
had done.
Then it was that I, quite unwittingly, stepped into
Bennie's life.
There was an anniversary, or a change in the board of
directors, or a new coat of paint or something of the
kind in one of the orphan homes, and the story fell to
me. I found the orphan home to be typical of its kind--a
big, dreary, prison-like structure. The woman at
the door did not in the least care to let me in. She was
a fish-mouthed woman with a hard eye, and as I told my
errand her mouth grew fishier and the eye harder.
Finally she led me down a long, dark, airless stretch of
corridor and departed in search of the matron, leaving me
seated in the unfriendly reception room, with its
straight-backed chairs placed stonily against the walls,
beneath rows of red and blue and yellow religious
pictures.
Just as I was wondering why it seemed impossible to
be holy and cheerful at the same time, there came a
pad-padding down the corridor. The next moment the
matron stood in the doorway. She was a mountainous,
red-faced woman, with warts on her nose.
"Good-afternoon," I said, sweetly. ("Ugh! What a
brute!") I thought. Then I began to explain my errand
once more. Criticism of the Home? No indeed, I assured
her. At last, convinced of my disinterestedness she
reluctantly guided me about the big, gloomy building.
There were endless flights of shiny stairs, and endless
stuffy, airless rooms, until we came to a door which she
flung open, disclosing the nursery. It seemed to me that
there were a hundred babies--babies at every stage of
development, of all sizes, and ages and types. They glanced
up at the opening of the door, and then a dreadful thing
happened.
Every child that was able to walk or creep scuttled
into the farthest corners and remained quite, quite still
with a wide-eyed expression of fear and apprehension on
every face.
For a moment my heart stood still. I turned to look
at the woman by my side. Her thin lips were compressed
into a straight, hard line. She said a word to a nurse
standing near, and began to walk about, eying the
children sharply. She put out a hand to pat the head of
one red-haired mite in a soiled pinafore; but before her
hand could descend I saw the child dodge and the tiny
hand flew up to the head, as though in defense.
"They are afraid of her!" my sick heart told me.
"Those babies are afraid of her! What does she do to
them? I can't stand this. I'm going."
I mumbled a hurried "Thank you," to the fat matron as
I turned to leave the big, bare room. At the head of the
stairs there was a great, black door. I stopped before
it--God knows why!--and pointed toward it.
"What is in that room?" I asked. Since then I have
wondered many times at the unseen power that prompted me
to put the question.
The stout matron bustled on, rattling her keys as she
walked.
"That--oh, that's where we keep the incorrigibles."
"May I see them?" I asked, again prompted by that
inner voice.
"There is only one." She grudgingly unlocked the
door, using one of the great keys that swung from her
waist. The heavy, black door swung open. I stepped into
the bare room, lighted dimly by one small window. In the
farthest corner crouched something that stirred and
glanced up at our entrance. It peered at us with an ugly
look of terror and defiance, and I stared back at it, in
the dim light. During one dreadful, breathless second I
remained staring, while my heart stood still. Then--
"Bennie!" I cried. And stumbled toward him. "Bennie--
boy!"
The little unkempt figure, in its soiled
knickerbocker suit, the sunny hair all uncared for, the
gay plaid tie draggled and limp, rushed into my arms with
a crazy, inarticulate cry.
Down on my knees on the bare floor I held him close--
close! and his arms were about my neck as though they
never should unclasp.
"Take me away! Take me away!" His wet cheek was
pressed against my own streaming one. "I want my mother!
I want Daddy Arnett! Take me away!"
I wiped his cheeks with my notebook or something,
picked him up in my arms, and started for the door. I
had quite forgotten the fat matron.
"What are you doing?" she asked, blocking the doorway
with her huge bulk.
"I'm going to take him back with me. Please let me!
I'll take care of him until the year is up. He shan't
bother you any more."
"That is impossible," she said, coldly. "He has been
sent here by the court, for a year, and he must stay
here. Besides, he is a stubborn, uncontrollable child."
"Uncontrollable! He's nothing of the kind! Why
don't you treat him as a child should be treated, instead
of like a little animal? You don't know him! Why, he's
the most lovable--I And he's only a baby! Can't you
see that? A baby!"
She only stared her dislike, her little pig eyes
grown smaller and more glittering.
"You great--big--thing! " I shrieked at her, like an
infuriated child. With the tears streaming down my
cheeks I unclasped Bennie's cold hands from about my
neck. He clung to me, frantically, until I had to push
him away and run.
The woman swung the door shut, and locked it. But
for all its thickness I could hear Bennie's helpless
fists pounding on its panels as I stumbled down the
stairs, and Bennie's voice came faintly to my ears,
muffled by the heavy door, as he shrieked to me to take
him away to his mother, and to Daddy Arnett.
I blubbered all the way back in the car, until
everyone stared, but I didn't care. When I reached the
office I made straight for Blackie's smoke-filled
sanctum. When my tale was ended he let me cry all over
his desk, with my head buried in a heap of galley-proofs
and my tears watering his paste-pot. He sat calmly by,
smoking. Finally he began gently to philosophize. "Now
girl, he's prob'ly better off there than he ever was at
home with his mother soused all the time. Maybe he give
that warty matron friend of yours all kinds of trouble,
yellin' for his ma."
I raised my head from the desk. "Oh, you can talk!
You didn't see him. What do you care! But if you could
have seen him, crouched there--alone--like a little
animal! He was so sweet--and lovable--and--and--he
hadn't been decently washed for weeks--and his arms clung
to me--I can feel his hands about my neck!--"
I buried my head in the papers again. Blackie went
on smoking. There was no sound in the little room except
the purr-purring of Blackie's pipe. Then:
"I done a favor for Wheeling once," mused he.
I glanced up, quickly. "Oh, Blackie, do you think--"
"No, I don't. But then again, you can't never tell.
That was four or five years ago, and the mem'ry of past
favors grows dim fast. Still, if you're through waterin'
the top of my desk, why I'd like t' set down and do a
little real brisk talkin' over the phone. You're
excused."
Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my heart.
To this day I do not know what secret string the
resourceful Blackie pulled. But the next afternoon I
found a hastily scrawled note tucked into the roll of my
typewriter. It sent me scuttling across the hall to the
sporting editor's smoke-filled room. And there on a
chair beside the desk, surrounded by scrap-books, lead
pencils, paste-pot and odds and ends of newspaper office
paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair
was parted very smoothly on one side, and under his
dimpled chin bristled a very new and extremely lively
green-and-red plaid silk tie.
The next instant I had swept aside papers, brushes,
pencils, books, and Bennie was gathered close in my arms.
Blackie, with a strange glow in his deep-set black eyes
regarded us with an assumed disgust.
"Wimmin is all alike. Ain't it th' truth? I used t'
think you was different. But shucks! It ain't so. Got
t' turn on the weeps the minute you're tickled or mad.
Why say, I ain't goin' t' have you comin' in here an'
dampenin' up the whole place every little while! It's
unhealthy for me, sittin' here in the wet."
"Oh, shut up, Blackie," I said, happily. "How in the
world did you do it?"
"Never you mind. The question is, what you goin' t'
do with him, now you've got him? Goin' t' have a French
bunny for him, or fetch him up by hand? Wheeling
appointed a probation skirt to look after the crowd of
us, and we got t' toe the mark."
"Glory be!" I ejaculated. "I don't know what I shall
do with him. I shall have to bring him down with me
every morning, and perhaps you can make a sporting editor
out of him."
"Nix. Not with that forehead. He's a high-brow.
We'll make him dramatic critic. In the meantime, I'll be
little fairy godmother, an' if you'll get on your bonnet
I'll stake you and the young 'un to strawberry shortcake
an' chocolate ice cream."
So it happened that a wondering Frau Knapf and a
sympathetic Frau Nirlanger were called in for
consultation an hour later. Bennie was ensconced in my
room, very wide-eyed and wondering, but quite content.
With the entrance of Frau Nirlanger the consultation was
somewhat disturbed. She made a quick rush at him and
gathered him in her hungry arms.
"Du baby du!" she cried. "Du Kleiner! And she was
down on her knees, and somehow her figure had melted into
delicious mother-curves, with Bennie's head just fitting
into that most gracious one between her shoulder and
breast. She cooed to him in a babble of French and
German and English, calling him her lee-tel Oscar.
Bennie seemed miraculously to understand. Perhaps he was
becoming accustomed to having strange ladies snatch him
to their breasts.
"So," said Frau Nirlanger, looking up at us. "Is he
not sweet? He shall be my lee-tel boy, nicht? For one
small year he shall be my own boy. Ach, I am but lonely
all the long day here in this strange land. You will let
me care for him, nicht? And Konrad, he will be very angry,
but that shall make no bit of difference. Eh, Oscar?"
And so the thing was settled, and an hour later three
anxious-browed women were debating the weighty question
of eggs or bread-and-milk for Bennie's supper. Frau
Nirlanger was for soft-boiled eggs as being none too
heavy after orphan asylum fare; I was for bread-and-milk,
that being the prescribed supper dish for all the orphans
and waifs that I had ever read about, from "The Wide,
Wide World" to "Helen's Babies," and back again. Frau
Knapf was for both eggs and bread-and-milk with a dash of
meat and potatoes thrown in for good measure, and a slice
or so of Kuchen on the side. We compromised on one egg,
one glass of milk, and a slice of lavishly buttered
bread, and jelly. It was a clean, sweet, sleepy-eyed
Bennie that we tucked between the sheets. We three women
stood looking down at him as he lay there in the quaint
old blue-painted bed that had once held the plump little
Knapfs.
"You think anyway he had enough supper? mused the
anxious-browed Frau Knapf.
"To school he will have to go, yes?" murmured Frau
Nirlanger, regretfully.
I tucked in the covers at one side of the bed, not
that they needed tucking, but because it was such a
comfortable, satisfying thing to do.
"Just at this minute," I said, as I tucked, "I'd
rather be a newspaper reporter than anything else in the
world. As a profession 'tis so broadenin', an' at the
same time, so chancey." _
Read next: CHAPTER XIII - THE TEST
Read previous: CHAPTER XI - VON GERHARD SPEAKS
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