THE LITTLE SON.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13394, 30 May 1914, Page 9

THE LITTLE SON.

Thft elevator man. who took her up to the law offices of Thawl, Beard and 'I hawl showed a deference to Mrs Marshall that would have surprised himself had he been conscious of it. There was

ii serenity about Mrs Marshall pieclus-

ive of any idea of Jaw aiits. She looked .'-like a woman who had always walked the heights of life undisturbed, and it was a distinct shock to hear that Marshall was her maiden name and that thej "Mrs" was all that was left of a tenj months' marriage. It was equally difti-| cult to think of her as deceiving or de- 1

teived.'

She lifted her skirts daintily, walked down the corridor to Mr Henry Thawl's private office and knocked. There was a fumbling at tho lock, but the door did not open, and after a moment she went back to the room where a boy waited tor cards. Almost immediately a young man, ailing his manners with the importance of a new degree from the law fchooi, came to meet her, tho card in his hand.

'".Mrs Marshall, Mr Thawl received your message and will return from a directors' meeting almost at once. Will you wait- in his private office?" The young man walked down the hail and opened the door^ leaving her with a patronising smile.

H was a comfortable room, showing how profitable the care of -.estates could ho, hung with' copper-plate prints of wigged and gowned jurists of the lust century and a, half.

It was a gray day and the firp in the deep grate \mt the rest of the room in .shadowy Lucy sat down in one of the big leather chairs and did not move. She was not the sort of woman who l-jeds the constant stimulus of otttside impressions, and she made no movement toward the piles of fresh literature on the corner of the table.

♦*, * * Presently she heard a movement near luT, and then a deprecating, little puTling sound as though a soft voice had started to speak and then thought hotter of it. Lucy turned with her usual calm, face and saw v a small boy standing bv the companion to her chair. He was a remarkably pretty boy even in silhcoutte against the window, but she had sever known any children, and she looked at him exactly as she looked at the prints on the wall. Suddenly the .'hild let one of those portentous sighs that express infantile repression escape irom his lungs. It was almost a groan, Lucy put out her hand with a cool' .sympathy. "Are you ill?"

The child came forward immediately. She. saw that he was grotesquely dressed in a. cheap velveteen suit of the obsolete ' 'FaunUeroyi" type. Long thick stockings' covered his slender Jegs and cheap patent-leather slippers his feet. His hair, almost black, was in hastily cared-for-curls on his shoulders, inxt all the bad taste of his guardians <-.ould not eliminate a cha'rm that Lucy felt in his first movement toward her.

"How do you do?" ho said, holding nut his hand. "I was so afraid that vou were not going to speak, and, of course, oiic cannot speak until one is .spoken to. The gentleman said I must j-tay here until ho returned, and I think that something serious mus«t hare happened to him. There is one question that I should like to ask you if you rlo not mind : Is an income anything l\ka a pony?" ' "'

Every word, had the careful pronunciation of drilled speech, but in the .rpiestion there was a flutter of daring as well as of hope. l

.Lucy took the hand held out, and then} was a moment's', uncertainty on his Psirt when she did not drop it. It must nnrc been as surprising to her as to the child' that she did not. It was a nervous little hand that took a tight liold on her first finger and held on when the <hance •sVas given it

"Well, vep." Lucy said judicially, "sometimes an income is a good deal like a potty v and sometimes it is like u runaway horse, and sometimes like a big automobile that one needs a great /leal cf , training to manage. But why *lo vou ask?"

"I'm glad. I always wanted a pony." Tie sighed again as if with relief. "I reasoned it out for myself. It's always » good thing to reason things out for vourself. I heard the lady who said she was Cousin Louise say that if they sent rue to Mr Thawl he would find mean in--ome fast enough, so they sent me. There are a lot of fast thing.", you know, but a pony :is the nicest, and while I was guessing 1 thought I might ns well guess the nicest. Wouldn't •voti?" . ■

"Where did they fond you from?" she nsted idly. She was not at all curious, Vint her mind was busily assimilating the idea of "guessing the nicest," and • he-paid no attention to her speech. She was su<re that for Bome years, slie iiad done anything else but "guess the micest." She had guessed the worst and smilingly reconciled herself to it.

From Staten Island. I've never been off Staten. Ifdand since I was a little b'aby until to-day. I have always lived with' Miss Baker. She was a very estimable lady, who has gone to Heaven to he fu» angel now."

"You. heartless little thing!"' Lucy tV.o*.'ght. and then sho remembered that' she ««<! hoard that all children were mitura/ly heartless. The. clinging little liand, the feel of the warm 1 little body against her shoulder, belied tho

thought,

"Miss Baker had a large school once, i\nd I heard her tell it to the minister that she had had twenty boys and girls there often. It was a great comedown in these past years"— Lucy could hoar the very echo of the tones of the tramv Jated Miss Baker— "there's been only

me.' ? There was/ no self-pity, merely a M atement of fact, but there- was something wistful in the tonr, and with an impulse that was pure instinct she drew the little chap close with an encircling arm and he snuggled' to her like; a Jptten. "Of course it was tiresome to' a lady \n V;ave one child when she had had so •Tinny and they a^nused each other. I used to feel it myself. I tried not to be any ' {iresomer than I just had to, t\m\ then Miss Baker was ill and people \-ame, and tfren. the, minister «aid she Jnul gone to ba an angel; and then Cousin Louise and a gentleman came, and Cousin Louise s?aid she wasn't in .any way responsible xyha/tsoever, and i hat it was- funny where the money had <i]\ gone; and she aaid these clothes showed that I was an old maid's boy .and that hah* wasn't styli.sk. this way. but it wasn't worth while to bother, and Mr Thawl would find me an inw>me fast enough, I wouldn't care

about it« VipiiijT f as t. j suppoß* you have <n learn to stav on."

"Suppose you tell me your name." Tlu' i.hihl hesitated. "Patsy." he said finally.

"What is» tho rest?'

"L suppose it id Patrick. Miss Baker always called me that, but Cousin Louise said it was ridiculous' avid people would think 1 was a little Mick. The man that made the garden always called nie . Pifltsy. What is a little Mick? I never knew."

"It is what my little boy might be if [ had one," Lucy raid with something like a, strangle in her tljroat.

"1 wish I was your little boy." He turned and looked at her. "I never was hugged by a lady before, but I have seen other people. Down inStaten Island t^iere was a lady I saw hug a boy, but Miss Baker wouldn't let the boys play in our garden. The ait'ighborhood had sadly changed," and he sighed again.

It was at tliia moment that Mr Thawl came in, ajid the child, who liad evidently been trained to stand until hci 'was spoken to slipped to the floor.

Mr Thawl was a thin, gray -haired man well-known to the public, not only as a famous lawyer, but as a driver of four-in-hands, and a judge at horse shows, and a. cool buyer at picture auctions, but now he seemed to have lost some of that manner for which he was famous and to be almost unduly apologetic for his delay. . He called an office boy and sent the child from the room at once, immediately plunging into Mrs Marshall's business. Mrs Marshall had been abroad almost constantly for eight years and had only returned to her native land for business reasons.

"The only thing I see for you to do," Mr Thhwl said finally, "is ■ to spend more money. It is very seldom that I am called upon to give that advice. Your income is piling up until it is hard to find safe investments for it."

"I am afraid," Mrs Marshall said, "that if I begin to spend my income I 'shall be taken to task for having it. I understand that an American is no longer allowed to spend' money freely without criticism. I have had enough

newspaper comment."

"Indeed, yes," and Mr Thawl shook his head, "but my dear Lucy (Mr Thiwl had known her since childhood, and the state of her finances was such that almost any lawyer would have enjoyed calling her by her Christian name), have you ever thought of going in for philanthropy. You may do almost anything you know if you begin with philanthropy."

Lucy laughed. "Am I the sort of woman to -go in for anything?*'

"You ought to — " Mr Thawl began. He had started to fay "marry again," but thought better of it. Lucy Marshall had never been a girl to take advice upon personal affairs, ' and he thought that at twenty-nine she looked less likely to listen than ever. He did not believe that her experience in having her own way had changed her in that respect. "You ought to," ho said, and Jet his sentence end there. "Who i.« the child I found here?" Lucy asked as Mr Thawl made a. new apology for keeping her waiting.

"The child?" Mr Thawl asked vaguely, as though ho could not remember, to save his life, what child she had boon talking about. "Oh, just the child of a. client."

"Then he isn't an orphan !~ 1 imagined from what he told me that he was."

"In a way, yes, in a way" — as though one could Be "sort of" orphaned.

"I suppose he is mistaken, then, in thinking that he (has -nobody except you to look out for him. Is his mother

alive?"

"No his mother died when he was born, and he was placed in a school on Staten Island."

"It seems rather hard to begin school

so jrery young. And his father?" "His father? His father is also dead or I suppose he is."

"Did he desert the cluld?"

"Not exactly. In fact—" Mr Thawl was very visibly embarrassed— -"in fact, I am hardly at liberty to give tho child's history. It isn't pleasant. He came into the world almost as an accident, you may say — "

"Not^— " There was an interrogation in Mrs Marshall's face that Mr Thawl hastened to answer.

"Oh, no ! Oh, dear, no! But it was not a. love matchr— on one side at least. CircumstaJico forced it, and then the mother, a rather pretty silly girl, died, and the father, not very well off, proride/! for the child as ho supposed in a private institution, putting his entire resources into an investment for that purpose. Unfortunately he chose the investment himself, and it was not a. good one. To tell the truth, I see nothing for the child now except a public institution."

"Hit* relations?"

"There do not seem to bo any except >a cousin of the -mother's, and she refuses to take any responsibility.", f "What is his name?"

MV Thrfwl cast a quick ]ook at her. He seemed suddenly to hear more than

curiosity jn )ier 'tone. "Pardon me, but why?"

"I am going to adopt him. He told me all about himself before you came in."

"Oh!" Mr Thawl said, and then: "Impossible!" There was consternation in his voice. "It would never do. It would siibject you to talk."

"To adopt, an innocent little child? I think they may talk. I have had sufficient notoriety to know that talk does not kill."

"The father and mother of the child have also been thp subjects of newspaper comment." Air Thawl said slowly ; "you must remember that."

"You say tljnt 1 lie mother was unloved. I should be iblc to sympathise with an unloved wife 1 — and her child. She died. Jam ir*>in«; to take the child. At least you will ;illmv that I nm as capable as any institution. The father seems to have deserted him."

"Are you sure the boy told' you all about himself?" He spoko slowly. "The father of tho boy went with an exploring party to the South Seas. He has been gone nearly six years*. The party has been: lost to the world for two. He is undoubtedly dead." -.

Lucy arose hastily, all her soft draperies falling about her* in Parisianmade folds. "I insist' that you ahafl. not tell me anything more about the child. Ido not want to have a shadow of prejudice against him. Why should the- child suffer or why should the world know that I have taken him?"

It may not be surprising Hint Mr Tna-wl began to hav» the light in his eyo- that comes to the man who "Bees through" 0 woman.

"You cannot, legally adopt himTrith.outi knowing his name."

"Well, maybe I shall not want to adopt him after awhile. Ho may show his lather's disposition. At any rate, I am going to take him now."

As Mr Thawl put the boy into the brougluun beside her and watched the eager little face, turn toward his benefactress, lie kept his usual polite mask, but a little later ho stopped in the. consideration of an important point in somebody's affairs and .smiled : "Fate is a. humorous lady."

"i think," said Patsy as lte put down the goblet from which he had been drinking slowly while he looked over its brim at Lucy across the table. "1 think you would look nice in an angel's hat,"

Lucy had ■become accustomed to the remarkable ideas of her protege in the year she. had had him. but an angel's hat lequired explanation.

"They all have 'cm," Patsy faid, "in their pictures. Moony kind of hats. I've often thought about. Miss Baker in one. She always wore a. bonnet with beads on it, and someway I can't just think siie would like a hat." A smile brought out a dimplo in n very ruddy cheek and was quickly repressed. "Lucy, is it wicked to laugh at an angel ?". • ■ •

.' Being assured thafi it wasn't polite to laugh at Miss Baker in a halo, and that they were always becoming when achieved. Patsy resumed his .admiring remark that Lucy's face was strictly angelic. Indeed, there were others who had. noticed that a brooding sweetness had come to' the regular features.

The ranch house on whose terrace they at breakfast, with the mountain for a magnificent vision beyond, was a fairyland for, a boy "going on seven." There had been no newspaper talk, that bugbear deterrent of many things in tho lives of the conspicuous. Lucy Marshall had come back to tho California ranch where she had lived as a girl. She had no near relatives. Her father had been one of the early gold seeker? and had married lato in life, leaving his daughter as a motherless girl to inherit his millions. At nineteen she had married a young Irishman who had crossed tho ocean with her as she came home from her French school. Hugh Burke was on hia way to America to seek his fortune and people laughed and said tluit he hadn't waited to land before picking it up. He had been gay, brilliant, a rapid "wooer f com the day he arranged her cushions in her steamer chair and until the day, a year later, she found another woman's love letter to him she had been absolutely happy. She was young, and this was the first man she had ever known. Maybe it was not for him to explain that the girl had taken nonsense for seriousness, gayety for something else, and then, too.maybe he was quixotic and too passionately hurt wit the accusations ffung at him to behave reasonably. At any rate, she in her anger brought a swift suit for divorce in California, naming the girl who had written the letter, tho sister of a health seeker at the Pasadena Hotel, as co-respondent, and had obtained an instant decree. To her 'implacable youth her husband beoamo as dead from that moment* and it was years .since she had heard

lus name

There is a, .shifting society in California. Most of those who cam© to "The Foothills'' were' people sho had known, abroad or old friends of her mother's. To them Patsy was easily "the child of a friend."

"Surely I am the friend of that poor woman whose husband did > not love her," she would s«ay to herself. The child was accepted as everything else is sooner or later. k

Patsy had learned at the very beginning that an income was certainly a poii}'. He had picked it out from half a dozen presented for his inspection. "Mr Thawl did n?t find it after all, did he?" he said. "It was you, Lucy, and, just at the 'last me. But you let me."

Never, nevpr did he forget that it was Lucy who "let him'' have everything. • Lucy's only annoyance was his refusal to forget anything. It would have best pleased her if all his life, the lonely life of a little child who had never spoken to another cluld, could have been obliterated and memory begun, at liis. coming €o her. But even now he was looking toward the mountains with eyes too old for seven, and one of those sighs broke on the sweet morning air. His appearance had totally changed. The hair that had hung in curls was short about his ears, and there was a fine color of health running up to his temples. Lucy had changed, too. She was a little stouter. It was as though her breasts had widened to hold the child.

"What is it?"

"It 'isn't easy to forget thingfi, is it?"

"Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't." Had been his mother she might have reminded him how many times ho had forgotten sundry commands, ■ only the day before, but she didn't.

ife came around the table and stood beside her and spoke Avith that air of intimacy whose poignant sweetness always thrilled her breast ; .

"Sometimes it is junt liko this" — he put his finger against hiss linen blouse — "I was another little boy. And when I think about that little boy that lived at M'iss Baker's, I want to go and get him and play with him."

"Do you want a little boy to play

with?"

"Why, no," in a surprised tone, "I've got you. I think you are a great deal nicer, but I am sorry for that boy. Do you suppose, Lucy, that in all the world there isi any boy — now — that hasn't anybody to him?" and he put his arms around her ne,ck as though he never •could satisfy his love-hungry little soul.

"I plainly see one thing," Lucy laughed although she was as near tears a-s laughter, "there is going to be somebody in this family who goes in for philanthropy." It had corrio to that now— "somebody in this family."

Patsy had become practically the whole family. Whenever sho .was an instant alone «he dreamed dreams and saw visions, and always it was her Patsy, her boy, her man in the by-and-Ey, who 'was the hero. "I am glad Miss Baker went to heaven," Patsy said with entiro good feeling.

"Run along and get me the papers that Hewson is- bringing," she said. There was no reason -why the boy should remember — sht would mak« him forget, keep him so busy that he must forget. It was only sine© aha had come to

California that sha had begun reading papers again. The terrible headlines of those days of her divorce had made the sight oi a staring news sheet hateful to her, but now trouble seemed long past. She was forgetting, if the child could not.

Patsy brought tho papers and sat down again to his oatmeal. She opened the. first one, and a dozen lines tore down the very fabric of her life : —

Portions of a wreck that seem to be that of the Wanderer, tho ship that took the Foster exploring party out in 1896, have been discovered. The expedition was given up as lost years ago. It wili be remembered that Hugh Burke, who married the daughter of Jacob Marshall, one of the wealthiest citizens of the United States, was a. member of the party. After the divorce secured by Mrs Burke, Burke married the co-respon-dent in the action, a Miss' Fields of New Jersey". Sho died, leaving one son. Mrs Burke resumed her maiden name and now resides on her ranch in San Luis Countv.

"Died, leaving one son. The father went with an exploring party to . the South Seas." She could hear the very tones of Thawl's voice. Sho looked at the child, and from his face flashed the blue, black-laflhed, Irish eyes of Hugh Tiurke, son of Patrick Burke. His son ! His son and the son of that woman who had wrecked her happiness. .

"Lucy — are you — : is anything the matter " the child asked shrilly. She motioned him back with a gesture he dared not disobey, and went to her own room, her heart torn with such passion as she had never known. She had been only a girl before, she thought bitterly, •and girls cannot feel. How she had been tricked, deceived, played with! Slie, to nourish that woman's -child ! Mr Thawl should pay for this. ' And then across her memory came -his hints, her abrupt declination to hear more. He had thought tliat fhe knew. Well, 1k should find out that she didn't. How could he think that she did not know? justice -asked. The child was the image of his father/ and she groaned -with physical agony as she realised that the little face had first appealed to her with the same oIH charm. Trembling until fJio could hardly write, she found, a telegraph blank. and addressed it to Mr Thawl in New York :

I am returning the child, Patrick Burke^ to you. Do with him as you tTi'ink bosl. Lucy Marshall.

The she ordered the child's clothing packed, and told the butler to prepare to take him to New York on the evening train. .

As the sun went down behind the mountains she bathed her eyes until there were, no traces of the angry tears she had shed, and went downstairs. She could hear the men bringing down the two heavy trunks which held the many garments she had made for the child. Something in her kept singing.: "He will nob let you let him. go," but'^he deafened her consciousness to its meaning. She had a feeling that she 1 had lived through all this bcfoTe, long ago. She wont about like an automaton, and at last slift put on ■a. garden hat. that she might look as casual as possible, and went flown and met the child on the verandah by the porto-cochero just as ho was ready to be lifted into the station cart. The grave young butler, who looked like a studious priest in hif travelling clothes* was putting in the ba.gs. '

Patsy started toward her and then hesitated with a stiffness she had never seen in him before. There was a polite little smile on his face, no sorrow, none of the wild grief that she* knew by the heavy sinking of her heart she had expected to meet and comfort. He held his cap in. his hand, and the little lips wore set in a red lino of smile. It was so different from what die had expected. Of course she couldn't keep the chi^d, of course she . had never ; expected to keep him, but if it had been a passion of sobs, a storm of grief that had met her, why, she knew that she wasn't heartlesfi — but this !

"You must be a good boy," she said patronisingly, while her heart broke, "and mind Withers."

"Yes, ma'am." Withers turned to lift him into the cart, his, hand to his hat.

"Good-bye," she said and stood still. Oh, if ho would only .rush at her, as he had rushed so many times, and put thoso firm little boy arms around her

waist !

"Good-bye," ho said, and ho sidled toward Withers with that polite little smile on Ms face still turned toward herj to the last. j "I hope the pony will have some sugar sometimes." The cart went down the drive, around the cluster of palms, and out of sight.

"He is just like his father," she wailed; "he didn't care!" And then she knew what she had been living

over

Few of use can stand it to be broken twice in the same place. It ia apt to make one a permanent cripple unless the mending is skilful. Lucy stood her agony for a month. In two days .after the child left she had telegraphed Mr Thawl that she would provide a sufficient income for his education and she wished him put .in a good school. 1 In another day the pony went with, instructions that under no circumstances was she to be annoyed with the news of the child.

"As the pony was all he cared for or seemed to liave any thought for he may as well have it," slip said bitterly.

Four long weary, purposeless weeks went by and then she gave up, and trains to New York raced too slowly for her panting haste, while every turn of their wheels brought a new fear.

She had heard nothing from Mi Thawl. Ho might be abroad. Her first telegram, in her wish to make it as impersonal as possible-, had been addressed to the firm. She, had l^arrl that the other Thawl was a- cold, hard ( man. Suppose her boy, her "aby, had been put in an asylum. Suppose some one e/se had adopted 1 him! Her boy! If it cost millions she woul,d have bi>" back, she tiolcJ herself fiercely. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. She sent telegrams from every station. It was a naggard woman who left the car and met th» young clerk from th' Thaw], Beard and Thawl offices.

"Wh«r« is he?" she began, and then she took the letter he gave her with hands that trembled. The Tha.\rl family were all abroad, but Mr Beard had re*

ceived' the telegrams and had sent th« boy to the Thawi house up the Hudson. Also the pony. There was nobody at the Hudson house except tho caretaker, but it was not tdie time of year to send the boy to school. In the autumn they would find a. good school for him. Would they?

It seemed to Lucy th:it sho could not live through, the half hour before the next train up the Hudson. It was a steaming day in the beginning of July, and already the air of the city was full of the pungent smell of gunpowder and the crack of small explosions. The young clerk tried to make conversation, out Lucy was brooding over the fact that" her boy had nobody to give him even one firecracker for the morrow, and she almost dissolved in tears at tho thought, although a month earlier she had made up her mind that he shoul.' never touch such a thing.

At the station near the house where she came at last there was nobody to meet her, although she had sent anothei of -her messages. The Thawl house had not been occupied by tho family for two or three years, and the gardens had been allowed to grow up in grass', and Che house was closely shuttered, grim with the deadness of a soulless house. Lucy went around the corner and -saw, sitting on the veranda, a comfortablelooking woman shelling peas. The child was not in sight. "I am Mrs Marshall, who telegraphed to you," and she looked around.

"I jes' got it," the woman said, anil took the pinkish, bit of paper from the chair beside her. "Pat ain't been well. He seems to be a sickly child, and yesterday I had the doctor^—"

"Why wasn't I told? Where is he?"

"And the doctor said he'd better stay in bed a while," she finished placidly. She shook the stray pea pod? from her dress and led the way down a bare corridor, clean and sounding, and into a darkened room where a little black head lay on' the pillow of a fourposter bed.

With a hunger that seemed to have been gnawing at her heart all her life. Lucy lifted the child out of bed against the breast that had widened to hold him, and as she lifted him something seemed to break in the little body, some tenseness melted, and convulsions of sobbing shook them both.

"Oh, Patsy,", she said between tears ancf laughter; "can you forgive me? I was like a cruel stepmother to you."

When he could speak the child gasped into her ear as she held the little round head against her neck : .

"I wanted you so ! You won't ever let me jfo again, will you?"

"Never ! Never ! ! Never ! ! !"

Mr Henry Thawl was making out the papers for the formal adoption of Patrick Hugh Cecil Burke* by Lucy Marshall.

"Don't you want his name changed to Marshall?" he asked as his pen waited. l

Litcy's face burned with, color. "No. It is his own name and it is his right to keep it." . .

"There is another thing," Mr Thawl mentioned, "Hugh Burke is not known positively to be dead. He may come back, ,and that would make a compli-

cation."

"Let him come," Lucy said