THE TIN TROLLEY CAR.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12849, 6 July 1907, Page 4

THE TIN TROLLEY CAR.

By Ralph Bfroenobbk. Situated in the centre of Horway, .Massachusetts, Elton's Pharmacy, as the approaching pedestrian might read tno name on the gilded mortar and pestle overhanging its doorway, aid a- fairly remunerative business. Drugs are almost inevitably remunerative, a soda, fountain even more so, and for the holiday trade, always an important asset in his yearly profits, Emmanuel Eaton successfully dispensed a miscellaneous collection of combs, brushes, razors, fancy soaps, and toilet knick-knacks in general. A prosperous merchant of remedies nicely calculated to relieve man or beast, a skilful compoimder of prescriptions, learned in Latin, and reinforced on occasion by a certain bulky «lume that little Emmanuel, Jun., •eady regarded with awe as the repository of miraculous secrets, Emmanuel Eaton was ac much a part of Hanvay as tho railway station or the email cluster of shoo factories that had grown up just within the town limits. On Saturday nighte the workers in these factories took their pleasure promenading the main street of the town, and the cigar and sodi business especially prospered. On these buey evenings little Emmanuel woe put to bed early—at least he vanished to those higher regions over the store ■where Mrs Eaton kept house. But on other nighte the occasional visitor was often entertained by his presence. The tops of the long glass cases made en admirable playground on which processions of cork stoppers marched gallantly—\ very army of them, the big stoppers pompously in the van and the little stoppers bringing up the end of the procession far along the counter. And on these evenings, Emmanuel, Sen., read the daily paper in his revolving chair behind the prescription desk, or emerged to make en occasional sale or gossip with n chance caller. It was all very old-fashioned, primitive even to the cash drawer, with it* circular compartments for the small 'change, and its long compartments for bills. But Harway itself was primitive. The grocer, to bfe sure, had a

cash register on which hie clerks thumped like piano players whenever they cold even five cents' worth of eager. The telephone had'only recently been introduced; this invention Emmanuel Eaton had adopted ac he had earlier adopted the electric light; he believed in progress—the more co since his marriage, 6omewhat past the usual accredited heyday of the blood, to the young woman who for many years had taught in the public schools of the city before coming into a small inheritance. Of tho immutable design of Providence in this union, Emmanuel, Juni, wa» the visible sign end token. To-night, however, father and son were far more widely separated than by the length of the shiny glass show case. The cork stopper soldiers marched ne usual in solid phalanx across its smooth surface, but the little boy's thoughts were busy with an unexpected rebuff—:* thing unheard of— the refusal of a perfectly natural request. The cork brigade marched waveringly. their ordered ranks arranged with but. a half-hearted generalship, and seen through a mist of rebellious tears. As if a feller could be exnected to play all the time with just cork stoppers t They might do for passengers in a trolley car; and for people waiting to get on when the cor stopped, and for a conductor *nd a motorman—but you couldn't play that without having a trolley car. Emmanuel, Jun., etopped arranging hie soldiers and drummed listlessly on the show case. Outside a- real trolley car crashed through the lighted space in front of the shop; its bells jangled deliciously, and sparks flew vividly from the trolley. Emmanuel, Jun., of course, had no wish to own c real trolley car, but in imagination he flattened his round nose against the window pane of Mam Pritchett's toy shop, and saw tho unattainable glories of a tin trolley car. Two irrepressible, tears formed in his blue eyes and fell, liko tho first hint of a summer shower, on the glass show caee. But Emmanuel, Jun., was made of eterner stuff than weeps at a tragedy. He kicked himself mentally and resumed marshalling his regiments. But it was an unexplainebly mean parent who wouldn't buy his boy that trolley car, who had not only refused, but refused with surprising, altogether unaccountable harshness. Had Emmanuel been a real gentleman it is probable that ho would have led his army to a revolution.

Mr Eaton, in hie revolving chair behind the prescription dock, laid down hie newspaper and took up a letter. It was an official, business-like paper, and bore the heading, "Tigre and Crowe, Bankers and Hβ read it eeriouslv, knitting hie brows thoughtfully, his blue eyes, the same ehado of blue as his littlo eon's, following the few lines with pitiful anxiety. Additional margins—so the note brusquely intimated—were necessary to protect certain trades that Mr Emmanuel Eaton hnd made through the medium of Messrs Tigre and Crowe. Additional margins! Emmanuel Eaton opened the prescription desk end removed a sheet of paper covered with figures. Patiently, with a dull pencil, he went over the figures, cursing Messrs Tigre and Crowe in hie heart. Ho remembered the hesitation with which he had first cent for their "Hints to Investors" and "Daily Market Letter." Tho bold dash of courage with which he had given them his first order to execute; the elation of success; the next order; the succeeding upe and downs of his petty speculative enterprises. Not even hie wife knew' of them; fortune was to be kept concealed as a turprite for her. Again he went methodically up end down the row of figures. And now nothing was left— but her own inheritance. ' If he borrowed a little, only a fraction of that —it would provide the additional margin. A' little luck to-morrow, and hv could quit even, and be done with stock markets forever. The temptation grew as he pondered it. Fart of his wife's money was in his own bankj in his own name; she had insisted on putting it there; it had been her way of showing her perfect confidence in her husband, and she had said laughingly that there was not enough of it to make it worth whilo for her to open 3, separate bank account. Emmanuel Eaton, Jun., inarched, hie cork stopper brigade solidly across the show case. He had forgotten the tin trolley car, but now and then, even in the midst of war's alarms, he sighed solemnly. Regiment after regiment defiled bravely; Washington, Lincoln, General Grant, and Admiral Dpwey marched side by side against Cornwallis and Aguinaldo. More troops' were necessary. The small boy climbed down from the high stool on which he superintended the manoeuvres. Hβ went back to the square drawers that contained the inexhaustible supply of corks. In this case* of drawers one was a different shape from the others. It caught Emmanuel, Jr.'s, attention. Suddenly the memory of the tin trolley car came back to him overwhelmingly; somebody eleo was sur« to see it and buy it, perhaps it was gone already. Ho glanced towards his father, but the apothecary's head was bent over a small narrow book in which he was writing. Emmanuel. Jr., opened the drawer that was different. Ho stood on tiptoe and peeped into it. There were round receptacles in which were dimes, quartene, nickels, pennies; long, narrow receptacles, in which were a few bank notes. Impulsively the small boy reached out a fat thumb and) forefinger and removed a bill from the top of the pile-—a wonderful piece of paper that would surely be accepted' by Mam Pritchett as the equivalent of the tin , trolley car. He closed the drawer silently and climbed back on his high stool with a hand full of cork stoppore. Mechanically he began arranging his new battalions, but the game no longer interested him. Suppose somebody should have bought the tin trolley car'? Mam Pritchett (as the school children called her) opened her shop next m:s\ning at the usual hour—that is to say, she unlocked tho door, and, attuning her ear to catch any faint tinkle of the alarm bell attached to it, roturned cheerfully to her breakfast. Tn such society as she frequented Mrs Pritchett was known .as a widow woman; the bonoe of the late Mr Pritchett slumbered, in c>cean depths. his " relic,' , as she was fond of styling herself, had drifted inland, come to anchor in Harway, and adopted a precarious commerce in sweets, toys, and tho various articles, such as a spool of cotton or a package of needles, that the beet ordered household sometimes needs in a hurry. But the public school just opposite her was her salvation and chief dependence. Emmanuel Eaton, Jr., glued his nose to the dingy pane through which Mara Pritchett displayed her commercial snductions. It was there—the tin trolley car. One hand doubled up in his trousers' pocket, he pushed vigorouelv against the door of the shop. The bell rang violently. The small boy looked up and met the grim gaze of Mam Pritchett looking down at him. The dame leaned far over the counter. "Well, little man?" said Main Pritchett, sharply. " Speak up and be bright about it. Her aspect terrified Emmanuel. It was the first time he had ever dono business with a sailors relic. But he found his voice after a moment. " Pleath, mam," he said, hesitatingly "do they thell twolley cars for one dollar?" Mrs Pritchett might have responded without prevarication that they sold them for less. The eight of the bill, tightly grasped in the chubby, brown hand, aroused her suspicions; but ehe thrust them behind her bravely. " They do so, young man, , ' she returned, grimly, stiffening her bent back and lumbering to the window. Emmanuel's eyes followed her am e!ic leaned far over and fished out the trolley car, carefully ducting it with her apron. No dusting, however, could

remove the fiy specka that spotted it, invisible to the esthetic eye of the new owner. The trolley car vanished into a brown paper parcel; the dollar till vanished into Mam Pntchott'a capacious pocket. In a email way Emmanuel Eaton, Jr., had become a trust. . Meantime Emmanuel Eaton, Sr., nUd wreetled with hie own temptation, and the temptation had thrown him. A letter, addressed in his cramped handwriting to Messrs Tigre and Crowe, of New York and Boston, lay stamped and ready for the mail on the prescription dcek. It had not been posted, for here conscience was making her last struggle. But it remained a mere matter of putting on his Panama hat and stepping out to .the lotter box. After all, repeated Mr Eaton to hunsejf, things were not so bad as thc*y might have been; the store was intact, even if the little fortune it had made far him in* the past years had become ac thhi air and vanished; the market must change, and then lie could yut back the check ho had just drawn on his wife's account, and nobody would be the wieer. " Nothing venture, nothing have," be muttered; in a glow of courage, such a feeling he imagin«l as must cometimes have been felt by tho great man, Xapoleon. Ho took down hie hat, dropped tho letter into his pocket, remarked to his one clerk that he was going out for a moment, and looked about for Emmanuel, Jr. The boy had wanted something yesterday—what was it; oh, yes, a tin trolley car that they had seen in the ridiculous toy shop of Mrs Pritchott. Well, he should have it. The boy was a good boy: in a year or two he must be going to school and then to college. "Emmanuel," called Mr Eaton, looking towards tho show case, behind which he had seen his young hopefal disappear a few minutes earlier. " Emmanuel 1"

There was no answer. Mr Eaton went behind the show case. There was one corner, noar tho window, where Emmanuel, Jr., had made for himself a " cubby-houee." Mr Eaton approached it on tiptoe. # Emmanuel, Jr., sat in his cubbyhouse. His legs were crossed under him. A crowd of impatient cork stoppers thronged the floor, waiting *or the tin trolley car. The two largest cork stoppere in Eaton's Pharmacy graced its platform, the one as conductor, the other as "motorvman." Along the seats sat other cork stoppers, big and little; they regarded each other with the samo air of rapt interest as do real passengers in a real trolley oar. The car ran niadly across the floor; it stopped opposite MiEaton's feet as he stood looking gravely down at it, like a giant lost in a worxi of cork stoppers. Emmanuel, Jr., looked slowly up, past the baggy trousers, part the striped seersucker vest, past the neat bow tie, past tho thin beard, and into the blue eyes of his parent. The two stared at each other.

"Emmanuel," said hie father, "what ie this, my son?" Emmanuel hesitated.

** It's—it's a twolley oar," he said, slowly. All the fun of having a trolley car had vanished. It left a blank, something painful, the sense of the emptiness of life that a child feels after tho last moments of the Christmas tree. "It's—it's a t-twolloy car," he repeated, with an unmistakable break in hie jouthful treble. "So it appears," eaid Emmanuel, Sr. "So it appears. Where did you get itP" "I Rot it for a one dollar," said Emmanuel, Jr. Suddenly he put his arm around his father's baggy trousers. It seemed impossible to look his father in tho face, but ,the old trousers were comforting. He clutched them tight with his chubby fingers, trying in vain to hold the grip while hie father bent over and loosened it, gently disengaging the hugging figure and kneeling beside it. "Wae it your money?" he asked, lifting his eon's face. "My son, was it your money ?" " No-o," sobbed the youngster. " I tcoked it. I tookod it out of the funny drawer. I don't want tho twolley car any more, father. Indeed, I don't want the twolley car." Mr Eaton caressed him, smoothing bis head, wondering what kind of punishment he could invent to meet this situation. His son a thief? Ho held the boy closer, as if instinctively protecting him from temptation. " No, my boy," he eaid, .gently. . " It is better not to have a troliey car than to get it with somebody else's money." Hβ stopped. On the .floor beside him lay the white -envelope he had addressed to Tigre and Crowe. He picked it up quickly and put it. back in his pocket. " I thinJc we had better go and lay the matter before your mother," he said. qnietJy. "Come on, Mr Boy. We both have something to tell her." And as he passed the prescription desk he took the white envelope from his pocket and tore it into many m'ecte.