His Family - Ernest Poole [37]
"I see you have." Deborah's voice was low. "You've made a hard plucky fight, Mrs. Berry. Are there any empty rooms left in this building?"
"Yes, two upstairs. What do you want to know for?"
"I'm going to rent them for you. I'll arrange it to-night with the janitor, on condition that you promise to move your children to-morrow upstairs and keep them there until this is over. Will you?"
"Yes."
"That's sensible. And I'll have one of the visiting nurses here within an hour."
"Thanks."
"And later on we'll have a talk."
"All right--"
"Good-night, Mrs. Berry."
"Good-night, Miss Gale, I'm much obliged.... Say, wait a minute! Will you?" The wife had followed them out on the landing and she was clutching Deborah's arm. "Why can't the nurse give him something," she whispered, "to put him to sleep for good and all? It ain't right to let a man suffer like that! I can't stand it! I'm--I'm--" she broke off with a sob. Deborah put one arm around her and held her steadily for a moment.
"The nurse will see that he sleeps," she said. "Now, John," she added, presently, when the woman had gone into the room, "I want you to get your things together. I'll have the janitor move them upstairs. You sleep there to-night, and to-morrow morning come to see me at the school."
"All right, Miss Deborah, much obliged. I'll be all right. Good-night, sir--"
"Good-night, my boy," said Roger, and suddenly he cleared his throat. He followed his daughter down the stairs. A few minutes she talked with the janitor, then joined her father in the court.
"I'm sorry I took you up there," she said. "I didn't know the man was sick."
"Who are they?" he asked.
"Poor people," she said. And Roger flinched.
"Who is this boy?"
"A neighbor of theirs. His mother, who was a widow, died about two years ago. He was left alone and scared to death lest he should be 'put away' in some big institution. He got Mrs. Berry to take him in, and to earn his board he began selling papers instead of coming to our school. So our school visitor looked him up. Since then I have been paying his board from a fund I have from friends uptown, and so he has finished his schooling. He's to graduate next week. He means to be a stenographer."
"How old is he?"
"Seventeen," she replied.
"How was he crippled? Born that way?"
"No. When he was a baby his mother dropped him one Saturday night when she was drunk. He has never been able to sit down. He can lie down or he can stand. He's always in pain, it never stops. I learned that from the doctor I took him to see. But whenever you ask him how he feels you get the same answer always: 'Fine, thank you.' He's a fighter, is John."
"He looks it. I'd like to help that boy--"
"All right--you can help him," Deborah said. "You'll find him quite a tonic."
"A what?"
"A tonic," she repeated. And with a sudden tightening of her wide and sensitive mouth, Deborah added slowly, "Because, though I've known many hungry boys, Johnny Geer is the hungriest of them all--hungry to get on in life, to grow and learn and get good things, get friends, love, happiness, everything!" As she spoke of this child in her family, over her strong quiet face there swept a fierce, intent expression which struck Roger rather cold. What a fight she was making, this daughter of his, against what overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:
"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."
"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see Isadore Freedom."
"Who's he?"
"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something tremendous. He came from Russian Poland--and the first American word he learned over there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that--very solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the wilderness."
"How does the flame earn his living?"
"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to