p. 12 | WILLIAM by Morda Stevens

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 51.

WILLIAM.

By Morda Stevens

[By Morda Stevens, in Union Signal.]

HE stood in the doorway looking out on the street, watching the water trickle in little rills across the sidewalk. A dilapidated milk cart cut off his view in front, but that was not much loss, for in the best of sunlight it was only a little, dirty alley that he could see from the door or the front window of the place he called home. And now, with this drizzling rain falling, the prospect was very gloomy indeed.

But William did not notice the dirt or rain. He stood moving his weight from one foot to the other, whistling softly. He was hungry, and was wondering if there would be any dinner to-day.

He was a queer little fellow, thin and small and wiry. His face was never quite clean or his hair quite smooth, tho he was always rather tidy looking. It was hard to say in just what way he was peculiar, but that he was so every one acknowledged. He had always lived right here in this little, dirty alley, with his father and mother. They were regarded as common, uninteresting people, and they were decidedly uninterested in this their only child. There was no one in all the world who cared for him, and he cared for no one. He never had a chum among his schoolmates, tho he was liked well enough by them.

His father drove a dray wagon, and was seldom at home, and his mother spent most of her time at the neighbors,' so William was left to himself. He went to school when he felt like it and stayed at home when he preferred. He had stayed out this morning thinking it would be a good day to fish, but he had soon grown tired of fishing and intended to go to school in the afternoon, provided dinner was on time.

The last bell began to ring. He turned and went into the house. His mother was gone, as usual. He passed out to the kitchen, and found that the fire was out and no dinner started. He looked out of the window, and there was his mother sitting on their neighbor's back porch. She was smoking a pipe, and was apparently unconscious of the hour.

"Guess there'll be no dinner to-day," he said, with a half smile and half frown, and, turning, he passed through the house out to the street, kicking over a chair and stool on his way. At the door he hesitated a moment, then, as the last stroke of the bell died away, he turned into a low grog-shop on the corner, hoping he could get a free lunch.

Miss Adair sat behind her desk in her little recitation room, looking dejectedly out of the window. The water dripped from the casings and trickled dismally down the panes. The young teacher looked tired and discouraged. She had just sent her class into the large study room where the principal presided, and now she was alone. A physiology lay open beside her, but her mind was not on her work.

"What a gloomy day!" she was thinking. "How uninteresting school-teaching is! How thankful I am that William is absent to-day! A rainy day in this school is hard enough at any time, but when he is here it is almost unbearable. What a queer child he is! I never knew, till I came here, that there was anywhere a child so hard to manage."

William was hard to manage. All his teachers had acknowledged that. He was bad in such unusual ways. He was not noisy or openly rebellious or even disobedient. He obeyed everything that was said to him, but the moment he was told to stop one thing he began something else a little worse. No one knew how to control him, and he contrived to keep the school in a perfect ferment all the time.

"I believe it would be easier to love our enemies than some scholars," Miss Adair's thoughts wandered on.

Just then the bell sounded, and she went in to assist in the dismissal of the school for noon.

The afternoon session was half over. The rain was still falling, tho the sun now and then peeped through the clouds for a moment, as if to see how much more water the old earth could hold. Miss Adair was hearing a recitation in history when a shuffling, uneven step was heard in the entry. She went to the door, then passed quickly out, closing it behind her.

There in the entry, leaning against the banister, and facing her, was William. There was a strange, dazed expression upon his face, and his eyes looked glassy. As she approached him he looked up and smiled—such a strange, expressionless smile that she was frightened.

"William," she said, "what has happened? What is the matter?"

He did not answer, but took a step toward her, and reeled as if he were going to fall. She sprang forward and caught him; then she knew. Fumes of liquor told her all too plainly what there was to tell.

"O William"—she began, then stopped, for there was nothing more to say.

In a few moments she had sent her class back into the principal's room, and was leading William home. He spoke but once, telling her, in answer to her question, where he lived. Carefully she guided his unsteady steps, while a hundred thoughts were surging through her brain.

What would she say to his mother? How would she, the mother, endure it? What was she like? Little, and rather weak, she thought. No strong mother would have such a troublesome son. Loving, of course, all mothers were loving. Would she cry and "take on," she wondered, or would the sight of her boy in this condition crush her? In any event, Miss Adair would comfort her, and help her to make this his last fall, as it was, of course, his first.

In the midst of such thoughts as these she reached the house. As she raised her hand to rap, William opened the door and stepped in. A woman sat on the couch reading a yellow-covered, paper-bound book. There was an odor of tobacco in the room. The woman looked up, and, seeing a stranger, rose, closing the book, but keeping her finger carefully in the place. She was tall and angular, and her face was cold and hard. How different from the little mother Miss Adair had been picturing to herself! She hesitated.

"Is this Mrs. Reed?" she asked.

"Yes," answered the woman in an unsympathetic voice. "What has William been doing now? I suppose you are his teacher. O," she said, as she looked at William, "he went to school drunk, did he? I was sure he would some day!" and she came a step nearer.

Miss Adair's fingers instinctively closed more firmly on the little hand she was still holding. "You won't punish him, will you?" she said almost pleadingly.

"O, no!" answered the mother, with a hard laugh. "It wouldn't do no good, or I would. He is on his way to the dogs, all right, tho he's only thirteen years old. And I don't know as I can stop him, if that is where he wants to go. Here, William," and she took hold of his other hand, "lay here and sleep it off."

He shuffled to the couch, and was asleep almost as soon as his head had touched the pillow.

"I'm sorry he made you this trouble, I'm sure," his mother continued, as she turned away and sat down, indicating that the business was finished.

Miss Adair stepped to the door, then hesitated, with her hand on the knob.

"I am so sorry about this," she said, looking down at William's unconscious face. "Couldn't I help you to"—she stopped. Some way it seemed very hard to go on.

Mrs. Reed looked up from her book. She had been hunting for the place where she had left off reading.

"You can do what you want for him," she said impatiently, "if you think it would do any good. I don't care. I don't look at things as some do. A child's a nuisance, I think, especially a boy. They're a dreadful lot of care when they're little, and he makes lots of work yet," and she nodded toward the couch. "But I think when I get his meals and keep his clothes in order I've done my duty. Plenty of mothers don't do that. If a boy of his age wants to go to the bad, it's his own affair."

Her eyes were again on her book, searching rapidly over the page.

Miss Adair's breath came hard. "His father?" she said questioningly.

"Humph! he has no time for children," Mrs. Reed answered, "and, besides, he's drunk too often himself to mind anything like this."

Miss Adair opened the door, but her eyes, full of tears, lingered lovingly on the sleeping boy as she left the room.

Mrs. Reed gave a sigh of relief as the door closed, then settled back in her chair more comfortably. She had now found her place.

Several hours later Miss Adair stood again at the door of that dingy room. She had tried to do her regular work after school, but her mind would go back to that house down the

dark alley, and no matter what she tried to do, she could not shut out the sight of the sleeper on the couch, alone with that grim, unloving woman. Over and over these words repeated themselves in her mind, "Life is hard enough with love; without it, it is unbearable." At last, just before supper time, she had put her books away, and now once again she stood before the wretched dwelling. The rain had ceased. Through the alley she could see Mrs. Reed leaning over a fence talking to a woman on the other side. William must be alone, so she went in. He still lay on the couch where she had left him, but he opened his eyes as she entered, and he half smiled as he saw it was not his mother but Miss Adair. He started to rise, but sank back again, putting his hand to his head. Miss Adair stepped quickly to him, and knelt on the floor by the couch.

"Does your head ache, dear?" she said.

"Yes, it aches dreadfully," William answered in his old swaggering way, "but then I've had 'em before, so I can stand it, I guess."

She did not answer him, but brushed his hair back from his face.

"See these flowers," she said. "Aren't they pretty? I picked them on purpose for you;" and she shook the rain-drops from them on his burning face.

He took the flowers, but said nothing. The way he did not understand her. People are not in the habit of picking flowers on purpose for him. He lay still a moment thinking. Then he looked up, while a red flush kept over his face.

"Wasn't it you who brought me home from school?" he said.

"Yes, it was I."

"And then you picked these flowers on purpose for me?"

"Yes, dear."

He shut his eyes, and after a little while two tears crowded their way from under his tightly-closed lids. He turned his head and wiped them quickly away with his coat sleeve. Miss Adair did not speak. She was praying to that One who is acquainted with grief. There was silence for a few minutes, then William said, "I have been awfully mean in school, but I won't be any more. I"—

She interrupted him. "We did not know each other very well," she said, "that was the trouble. We will be good friends after this," and she smiled brightly down into his eager face.

"If you'd 'a' told me you cared, I'd 'a' been different," he continued, while he tried to keep his lips from twitching. "You know I ain't got any one that likes me very much," and he choked back a sob.

"Yes, William," she answered softly, and there was a world of tenderness in her voice. "I know all about it, dear; but I didn't know until to-day." Then she leaned down and kissed the trembling mouth.

Quickly William's arms were about her neck, while the flowers slipped unnoticed to the floor. "I'll be good after this, Miss Adair, indeed I will," he sobbed.

Neither of them heard the door open or the step on the floor. Mrs. Reed had entered the room, then stopped; and when she backed stealthily out there were tears in her eyes, the first that had been there for years. But they were gone in a moment, and she frowned as she knocked the ashes from her pipe and refilled it.

"His goodness won't last long," she said to herself with a cold, sarcastic smile. But Mrs. Reed did not know.