Next-door neighbors

Chapter I. Tommy Lost

I T was very still that afternoon in the little house where the Browns lived. Johnny lay on the lounge, his eyes half-shut. The baby was sitting on the floor, playing with the white kitten, and Janie sat by the window, mending stockings — such a pile of them, of all colors and sizes.

The clock struck three. Johnny opened his eyes, and the baby stopped stroking the white kitten’s fur the wrong way.

“Tom,” said the baby.

“Yes,” said Janie, “Tommy will be home pretty soon now.”

“Tom,” repeated the baby, pushing a chair to the window beside Janie, and clambering up into it.

“Yes, baby, the children will be along in a few minutes, now,” Janie repeated.

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It was one of the baby’s chief amusements to watch the children troop by, when the school on the next block was dismissed.

They came flocking down the street now, in groups, and in twos and threes. The baby stood in the chair, with his little pug-nose flattened against the window. He laughed, and pointed presently, and Janie looked up from her mending. “Yes, there comes Marianna,” she said.

Marianna came in with a rush, flinging her hat into a chair, and banging her books on the table.

“Where’s Tommy, Marianna?” said Janie.

“I don’ know. Hain’t seen him since noon. Say, Janie, I’m going out on the vacant lots to play.”

“Well,” began Janie; then she broke off, and exclaimed, “ O Marianna, how did you tear that great place in your dress?”

“I couldn’t help it, Janie; it caught on a nail in the school-yard fence. It was n’t my fault,” said Marianna, defiantly. '

“Well, you must take it off and mend it before you go out to play,” said Janie.

Marianna began to cry. “ I think it ’s real mean of you to say that, Janie Brown. I have n’t played out one bit to-day, ’n’ you know ma says

Tommy Tost.

I ought to play every day. I’m just going to tell how you won’t let me, so now.”

Janie looked troubled. “ But, Marianna, your dress must be mended to wear to school to-morrow, and I have n’t time to do it. Took at all these stockings I ’ve got to mend,” she said.

“Well, I’ll mend it after supper,” whined Marianna, pouting.

“Well, if you ’ll be sure to do it, I s’pose you can play till supper-time,” said Janie; “but you must put on your old dress, or you ’ll have twice as big a tear to mend.”

Marianna went up-stairs to change her dress. In two minutes she came down, and ran off hastily, lest her sister might think of some other waiting task. They heard her outside, as she put her fingers over her mouth and gave the call peculiar to the girls of the neighborhood.

Janie patiently filled up the yawning chasms in. the small stockings, and the baby, tired of watching for Tom, went back to his play with the kitten, rousing it unceremoniously from its brief slumbers. The clock struck four. “Tom,” said the baby, running to the window again.

“ Tommy must have stopped to play on the way home,” Janie said. “He is a naughty boy.”

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“Yes,” said the baby, gravely nodding his golden head.

But when the clock struck five, Janie laid aside her work with an anxious face. “Johnny,” she said, “put on your cap, and go over to the vacant lots, and tell Marianna that she must go and find Tommy. He has never been so late as this before.”

Johnny got up reluctantly, and took his cap from a nail. He walked heavily and wearily, but he said nothing.

“I know he did n’t want to go, but it ’s better for him to get a breath of fresh air,” said Janie, in a motherly fashion, as she looked after him.

When Johnny came back, there was a touch of color in his pale cheeks, and he sat down in a rocking-chair, instead of lying on the lounge.

It was some time before Marianna returned ; then she came in looking a trifle disturbed.

“I can’t find Tommy anywhere,” she said, “and Willie Barton says he wasn’t at school this afternoon.”

Janie started up with anxious eyes. “ Was n’t at school this afternoon!” she repeated. “Is he sure ?”

“’Course he is; he’s in Tommy’s class,” said Marianna, quite enjoying the excitement

Tommy Tost.

ii she had awakened. She looked at Janie, eager to see what she would say next. Janie looked perplexed, as well as anxious.

“ I do n’t know what to do,” she said. “ If he does n’t come, Dick will have to go after him.”

“It ’s ’most supper-time,” remarked Johnny, fretfully. “I want my supper.”

“Yes, I must get supper,” said Janie, with another glance at the clock. “ Marianna, you set the table while I toast the bread.”

Marianna did n’t like to set the table. She pulled it out with a yank, jerked the cloth over it, and slammed the dishes down so hard that, if they had not been thick and heavy, there would have been more than one broken ; but for once Janie did not notice.

Supper was ready when Dick came in. Dick was thirteen. He had a paper route, and went from school right to the newspaper-office to get the fifty papers, which he delivered to the customers on his route.

“What’s the matter?” Dick asked, noting Janie’s red eyes and the disturbed air of the household.

Janie tried to answer, but she could not trust her voice, and turned away in silence. Marianna could trust her voice. “It’s Tommy; he ’s lost,”

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she announced, watching Dick’s face to see how he would take the announcement.

“Lost! I guess so,” said Dick, scornfully.

“ But he A,” persisted Marianna. “ He did n’t go to school this afternoon, an’ he has n’t been home since, an’ I ’ve hunted all ’round the neighborhood for him, an’ nobody has n’t seen him.”

Dick looked a little disturbed at this; but, glancing at Janie, who was furtively wiping her eyes, he assumed a careless air.

“ O well,” he said, “ I ’ll find him easy enough, I bet. Let’s have supper, Janie, ’n’ then I’ll start out an’ hunt him up.”

Janie took her seat at the table then; but she busied herself attending to the baby’s wants, and ate nothing.

Presently Marianna leaned forward, and looked across the table at her.

“Why don’t you eat any supper, Janie ?” she said, curiously. “Is it ’cause you ’re worrying ’bout Tommy?”

That was too much for Janie. She left the table hastily, and ran up-stairs.

“What a duffer you are, Ann!” said Dick, angrily. “ Why could n’t you ’tend to your own supper, an’ let Janie alone?”

Tommy Tost.

“Ain’t no more of a duffer ’n you are yourself,” retorted Marianna, sullenly, devoting herself anew to her meal, and eating two extra cookies, because Janie had eaten none.

Johnnie had long since pushed away his chair, and gone back to the lounge. Dick ran up-stairs when he had finished his supper. Janie was lying on the bed, with her face hidden in the pillow.

“Say, Janie,” Dick said, awkwardly, “I’m going now, and I ’ll find him sure.”

“O Dick, I do hope you will !” she answered. “If you don’t, we’ll have — to — send — for mother.” She broke off then with a little sob; but she choked back her tears, saying, “I must go down and see to the children and, wiping her eyes, she followed Dick down-stairs. She did not ask Marianna to wipe the dishes ; she was glad to busy herself with them. Marianna was afraid she would ask her, and pretended not to see what she was doing. Then Janie undressed the baby, who was so sleepy that he could hardly hold his eyes open ; and the tears came again when, as she lifted him into bed, he looked up into her face with a grieved droop to his little, round mouth, and said, “Tom,” and then patted the pillow where Tommy’s

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rough, tousled head had lain on other nights. She went down-stairs, and took up her stockingbasket again, forgetting all about Marianna’s torn dress. Marianna did not forget, but she said never a word lest possibly Janie might, even now, make her mend it herself.

Presently, there was a knock at the door, and Willie Barton’s mother came in.

“And so your Tommy is lost,” she began, as she seated herself in the rocking-chair and commenced to rock back and forth. “Dear, dear ! I do n’t wonder you ’re worried. I should be out of my senses with anxiety if it was my Willie. Do you think he can have strayed down to the river, now ? Or maybe he ’s been run over by the grip-car. I saw a boy run over an’ killed one day last summer. He was awfully mangled — torn limb from limb, almost.”

“ O, Mrs. Barton, don’t!” said Janie, faintly. “I can’t bear it.”

“ O, well, maybe he ain’t hurt, you know — though if he was, he might ’a’ been carried to the hospital, and you might not find out where he is for days. I ’ve known of such cases. But I must run home an’ see to my babies. Willie, he ’s dretful anxious to know what ’s become of Tommy.”

Tommy Tost.

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With a sigh of relief, Janie closed the door after her caller, but had hardly taken up her work before two more neighbors came. One suggested that Tommy might have been taken sick suddenly — had a fit or something ; and the other, that he might have been throwing stones in the street, and been “run in ” to the lock-up by a policeman.

“ I wish ther’ would n’t any more of those folks come,” said Johnny, who had lain silent on the lounge all the time, while Marianna had listened with a shivery sort of delight to all these terrible suggestions. Not that she wanted anything to happen to Tommy, but it was so delightfully exciting to have people so anxiously interested.

Seven o’clock struck, then eight, and still there was no sign of Dick or Tommy. Then came another rap on the door, and, to Janie’s dismay, it was Mrs. Grady this time. The Gradys lived in another little frame house adjoining the one that the Browns occupied. They were not pleasant neighbors, and the Brown children were forbidden to play with the small Gradys. But to-night Mrs. Grady’s coarse, red face was full of real concern.

“ Willie Barton was telling me that Tommy is lost,” she said ; and as Janie nodded silently, she went on kindly: “Now don’t ye be thinking of all kinds of dretful accidents, Janie. My Billy’s staid off so more ’n once, ’n he always turns up all right. I guess Tommy will, too. Likely he ’s strayed off an’ got into some part of the city that’s strange to him, an’ it’ll take a right smart time for him to get back home. Don’t ye fret, child; an’ if there’s any place ye’d like my boys to run for ye, I’ll send ’em, and be glad to do it.”

“It’s real good of you, Mrs. Grady,” said Janie, gratefully ; “ but I don’t know any place to send. Dick’s out looking for him.”

“ Well, then, he ’ll find him, I ’m sure he will,” said Mrs. Grady as she, too, departed.

“She’s better ’n the rest of ’em, if she is Billy Grady’s mother,” said Johnny, while Marianna, with her beadlike black eyes fixed on her sister’s face, remarked : “ She did n’t make you cry again, did she, Janie?”

But now the clock struck nine, and Janie sent the children to bed. Johnny went without a word, but Marianna protested loudly that she was n’t sleepy one bit, and she knew she ’d lie awake till Dick came home. She went at last, however, slowly and reluctantly, dragging her

Tommy Tost.

feet noisily over the stairs. Then Janie turned down the lamp, and putting a shawl about her, opened the window and sat there with a heavy, aching heart, straining her eyes through the darkness, and listening longingly for the footsteps that did not come. Ten o’clock sounded from the steeples of the dark and lonely churches — eleven — and still anxious and sorrowful, with tear-blinded eyes and strained ears, poor Janie waited by the open window.

Chapter II. Dick’s Search

ICK started out, feeling by no means so

L-J confident of success as he had meant Janie to think.

As soon as he was out of sight of the house he stopped on a corner, and tried to decide where to go first. As he stood there, he saw a policeman coming towards him.

“Our policeman — I’ll ask him what to do,” he thought, as he walked towards the man.

“ Say, Mister — you know Tommy, my little brother, don’t you?” he began.

“Your little brother? O, that stout little chap, five or six years old, that lives in one of the frame houses up here next to the Gradys? Yes, I know him, though I did n’t know his name. Anything wrong with him?” he said.

“He’s lost. Hain’t been home since noon. He did n’t go to school this afternoon, ’n’ I do n’t know where to look for him,” said Dick.

“ He might be at some other boy’s house, you know — might have stopped to play,” suggested the man.

Dick’s Search.

“No ; he’d certainly have come home to supper,” said Dick. “ I ’ve got to find him,” he added, “ an’ I don’t at all know where to look.”

The policeman glanced thoughtfully at Dick. “You say he’s not been seen since noon?”

Dick nodded.

“Is he interested in monkeys, generally?”

“Yes,” said Dick; “he always hangs ’round an organ-grinder that has a monkey.”

“ That’s it, then,” said the policeman ; “there was an organ ’round here this noon, an’ I saw a raft of children watching it. Bet a cookie that Tommy of yours was one of them, an’ followed the concern off ; prob’ly wandered so far ’t he could n’t find his way back.”

“But he’d ’a’ found his way back by this time, Tommy would. He knows enough to ask the way.”

“ Wal’, ye see them little shavers, they ’ll walk miles sometimes after one of them organ monkeys, an’ never realize how tired they be till the monkey goes off, ’n’ then the little kids are too tired to tell where they live.”

“What becomes of them then?” said Dick, anxiously.

“ Why, then the first policeman that comes along runs ’em in, an’ keeps ’em till called for ;

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or, if they can tell where they live, they ’re sent home.”

“Well, that’s what I said. Tommy would have told where he lives.”

“ Jes’ so, an’ they may be a-sendin’ of him home this very minute,” said the man ; “but now an’ then these organ-grinders let a child follow ’em home, an’ keep him to help ’em to collect the pennies, and so on, you know.”

Dick looked troubled at this suggestion. The policeman went on. “ Prob’ly that organ-grinder was an Eyetalian — most of ’em are ; an’ there’s another of the same breed that lives in a shanty a few blocks down. You come along with me, an’ we’ll see if he knows anything about this fellow.”

So Dick and the policeman walked on together. They found the organ-grinder at home ; but he denied all knowledge of the man they were in search of. He directed them, however, to another of his countrymen who “ might know,” he said.

“I can’t go to that place with you — it’s off my beat,” said the policeman ; “ but if you ’ll wait on this corner for a few minutes till the man on duty here comes along, I ’ll ask him to go to that place with you, an’ if you can find

Dick’s Search.

out where the monkey feller lives, I ’ll go around to his place with you when I’m relieved — that’ll be in an hour or so.”

A word from the good-natured policeman to the second, who presently came along, interested him in Dick and his missing brother, and soon the boy was hunting up another “ Eyetalian,” under the escort of policeman No. 2. This time he obtained the information he wanted. “But, see here,” said policeman No. 2, “ you can’t go ’way over there alone. It ’s one of the worst places in the city — a nest of thieves and drunkards, and worse.”

But Dick explained that “ his policeman ” was to go with him, and, thanking this one, he ran back and waited for the other.

“ Sho’, now, we’ve got a jaunt before us,” said the man, when Dick told him what he had learned. “ Here comes my car. Jump on. I must go down to the station and report, and besides, we want to make sure that Tommy wasn’t run in there.”

The ride seemed endless to Dick, who hated to think of Tommy in such an evil place ; but the station was reached at last. No child answering to Tommy’s description had been brought there that day, and in as short a time

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as possible Dick and the friendly policeman were in another car, on their way to a quarter of the city where Dick had never been before.

When they left the car, they turned off the avenue, and walked through several streets before they reached the narrow, squalid alley they sought. It was after nine o’clock now, and the better streets were beginning to grow dark and quiet as lights were put out and houses closed for the night, but here all was noise and tumult. Dirty children, noisy women, and drunken men were everywhere, and such wretched tumbledown houses ! Dick shuddered as his thoughts went back to the poor but comfortable home that was his.

Into one of these wretched houses the policeman went, Dick following, and up the dirty, rickety stairs to the garret. Dick never forgot that forlorn room — with the hand-organ in one corner, a pile of rags and straw in another, a broken chair and table, and the organ-grinder, with the shivering little monkey on his shoulder. Dick looked eagerly about the bare little place, but saw no sign of Tommy.

The organ-grinder was frightened enough at sight of the policeman. He declared, in his broken English, that he knew nothing about any

Dick’s Search.

boy. So many followed him every day. They followed him many blocks, and when they got tired left him and went to their homes, he supposed. He “ knew nothing, nothing at all,” he kept repeating. When the policeman asked him where he went after he left the street where Tommy lived, the man readily told through what streets he had gone.

“ Ah !” said the policeman, interrupting him ; “ so you went up near the Zoo, did you — where the wild animals are, and the monkeys?”

“Yes, yes,” said the man.

“ And did any of the children leave you there and go in to see the animals ?”

“ But, yes ! yes !” repeated the man quickly and eagerly, holding up four fingers ; “so many go — all boys.”

“Ah !” repeated the policeman, turning to Dick. “Well, my boy, the Zoo seems to be the next place for us to investigate. But mind you,” he added, turning again to the man, “ you ’ve no business to let small children follow you. You ought to send ’em home. See that you do after this, if you do n’t want to get into trouble.”

“ But, yes ! yes !” repeated the man, with a look of relief as he saw his visitors depart.

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Another long ride in the cable-cars brought the two to the Zoo — closed for the night long since, of course ; but at the policeman’s summons the door of the superintendent’s office was opened at once. As he glanced into the lighted room, Dick gave a cry: “There he is! that’s Tommy,” he said.

“Tommy, is it?” said the man who had opened the door. “Well, I’m glad to find out his name. He would n’t tell us what it was. But come in,” and he held the door wide for them to enter.

“ Well, Tommy Brown, how came you here ?” began Dick.

But Tommy, looking past Dick as if he were not there, remarked : “Why, I do believe that ’s my own p’liceman.”

The policeman grinned, then recollecting himself, put on his sternest look as he asked : “ See here, young man, how came you here ? That ’s what we want to know.”

“ Why, I just came here — walked, you know,” replied Tommy, still avoiding his brother’s eye.

“Walked, did ye ? Well, I guess you ’d better be walkin’ home now,” said the policeman. “ Me ’n’ your brother have had a fine hunt for you.”

“Urn,” remarked Tommy. Then, slipping

“THERE HE IS! THAT’S TOMMY.” Page 24

Dick’s Search.

down from his seat, he walked over to the man in charge of the office, and said: “I ’ve had a splendid time, Mister, ’n’ I ’ll come again some time.”

“When you can’t stay so long,” said the man, laughing; and to the policeman he added: “If we could have found out where he lived, we ’d have sent him home ; but he would n’t tell us, so we were going to keep him till morning, and put an ad. in the Post .”

“You see, I did n’t want to make you so much trouble to send me home,” remarked Tommy. “Come, Dick, I’m waiting,” he added, as he slipped his small fingers into the policeman’s big hand, and started towards the door.

“He’s a cool one, he is,” laughed the man, as he shut the door after the three.

Tommy utterly ignored his brother on the way home, but devoted himself to the policeman, who shook with silent laughter over some of the small boy’s descriptions of the strange animals he had seen at the Zoo; but Dick marched on in unsmiling silence, tired out with the long, search and the anxiety, and much more inclined to shake his small brother than to laugh at his queer remarks. They got out of the car at their own corner, the policeman going on to 3

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his home. The clock had struck eleven before Janie’s quick ears caught the sound of footsteps coming down the block. She flew to the door, and as the two figures — one tall and one short — turned towards the house, she went flying out to catch in her arms the small cause of so much anxiety, and shower upon him kisses, to which he passively submitted. “ Come now,” said Dick, gruffly, as they went into the house. “Get him to bed, will you, Janie, and find me something to eat? I’m just dead tired.”

“I’ll have some coffee for you in no time, Dick,” Janie answered. “I kept the fire; but where did you find him?”

“Up t’ the Zoo,” said Dick, briefly; whereupon Tommy broke out rapturously:

“O Janie, they ’ve got lots an’ lots of an’mals up there — lions an’ tigers an’ snakes, an’ O such piles of monk — ”

But Dick cut short his remarks.

“ Come now, I ’ve had enough of you for one night,” he said, shortly. “You clear out to bed straight away, sir; an’ if you ever cut up like this again, I ’ll — ”

But Tommy was half-way up the stairs, and Dick’s sentence was never finished.

“ Do you think Tommy has had any supper?”

Dick’s Search.

Janie asked, as Dick drew his chair up to the table.

“Supper! Of course he had some with that fellow up t’ the Zoo. I saw some grub on the table,” said Dick.

When, after Dick had finished his meal and told the story of his search, Janie went up to bed, she found Tommy fast asleep beside the baby. As she stooped to kiss him, she saw that his lashes were wet, and his cheeks flushed ; but, luckily for her peace of mind, she never knew that he had gone to bed without a mouthful of supper, too proud to say that he was hungry, after Dick had so curtly dismissed him.

Chapter III. A “through-the-fence” Fight

HINGS went altogether wrong in the little

A frame house the next morning. In the first place, Janie overslept, which was not strange, since it was long after midnight when she got to bed. The seven o’clock bells were ringing when she awoke, and, starting up, began hurriedly to dress, at the same time calling to her sister :

“Marianna, Marianna, get right up and dress the baby, and wake up the boys. It’s after seven now!”

But Marianna, always wide awake at night, was always sleepy in the morning. She half opened her eyes, and said, sleepily, “Yes, I’ll get right up,” and as Janie hurried down-stairs, turned over and went to sleep again, while the tired boys in the next room slept on undisturbed.

“O dear!” sighed Janie, as she threw open the kitchen shutters, “Dick forgot to cut the kindlings last night, and now I must do it.”

It was slow work with the dull old ax, and

A “ Through-thk-F^nce ” Fight.

in the midst of her chopping she heard the milkman’s rap, and had to run to the door with the pitcher. Then the east wind blew the smoke down the chimney, filling the kitchen and setting Janie’s eyes to smarting. She cast an anxious glance at the clock as she flung open doors and windows to let out the smoke, and ran up-stairs again. Finding Marianna sound asleep, she rudely dispelled her slumbers with a vigorous shake. Of course Marianna was cross then ; but she was apt to be cross in the morning, anyhow.

“ Now dress just as fast as you can, and hurry down-stairs, for it’s half-past seven this minute ; and if you do n’t help me, I can’t have breakfast ready in time for school,” Janie said, as she called the boys, and then ran down-stairs again.

At last the fire was burning, and she could get breakfast. She put on the tea-kettle, and set the oatmeal to cook, and then came another rap at the door. This time it was a neighbor, come to inquire if Tommy had been found, and where; and Janie had to answer a score of questions, while the precious moments slipped away.

“I can’t help it. We’ll just have to eat cold bread and meat for breakfast,” she said,

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when the neighbor was gone ; and, hurriedly setting the table, Janie called the children from the foot of the stairs.

Dick came down, looking tired and cross. Tommy followed in much the same condition ; and Marianna brought up the rear, with the baby still in his night-gown.

“ Why, Marianna, why didn’t you dress him?” said Janie. “I think you might have done that much.”

“ Well, I just guess, Janie Brown, if your shoestring had broken three times, and your hair got all tangled up when you were trying to braid it, you would n’t ’a’ had much time to dress any baby,” snapped Marianna, flopping herself down at the table.

Janie poured out Dick’s coffee, helped Tommy to oatmeal, and then, picking up the baby, the only one of the six whose face was bright and unruffled, carried him off up-stairs and dressed him. She was just giving him his breakfast a little later, when there came a third rap at the door. This time it was Willie Barton.

“ Mamma sent me over to know if Tommy — ” he began ; then, catching sight of that young gentleman, he broke out: “Hello, Tom! where ’d you find yourself, hey?”

A “ Through-ths-Fknce ” Fight.

Before Tommy could answer, Mrs. Grady pushed open the door and stepped in.

“So the boy did get back all right? I was sure he would,” she said; “an’ ye better b’lieve I give that Billy of mine a lickin’ he ’ll not forget for one while, for keepin’ his mouth shut last night when you all was so worrited, an’ he knowin’ all the time where Tommy was.”

Dick flushed angrily, and clenched his fist, inwardly vowing to “lick that Bill Grady within an inch of his life before he was many days older,” while Janie looked at Tommy as she answered :

“We did n’t know that Billy knew anything about it, Mrs. Grady.”

“An’ hain’t Tommy told ye that Billy was up to the Zoo with him ?”

“’Course I didn’t,” said Tommy, loftily, his head proudly uplifted. “ I ain’t no tell-tale, ’n’ I did n’t cry one bit, — so now!”

“So that’s what he said to ye, to keep ye from tellin’ on him, the little sarpent! An’ I overheard him tellin’ Tim about it this mornin’. Well, I ’in sorry, Janie; I can’t say no more,” and she hurried home, while Willie Barton, who had edged around to Tommy, whispered :

“Say, Tommy, was you to the Zoo?” And