III

A TRAGEDY

It was in the corner block beyond Mulberry Court that the Harlings lived, and had you asked Carl McGregor or his chum Jack Sullivan who Hal Harling was you would have received in return for your ignorance a withering stare, a sigh of pity, or possibly no reply at all. Any one who did not know Hal Harling was either to be scorned or condoled with, as the case might be. Yet each boy would have found it difficult to put into words who and what this distinguished personage really was.

Hal Harling was the embryo political boss of the district; the leader of the gang; the hero of every boy who lived within a radius of half a mile of the dingy flat on Broad Street. He was a tall, jovial-faced, thick-set fellow with the physique of a prize fighter and such an abundance of careless good humor that it bubbled contagiously from his round blue eyes and smiling lips. One would have said he was the last person in the world to take offence and indeed on first glance one might safely have made the assertion. But with this gay, happy-go-lucky disposition went a highly developed desire for fair play which at times suddenly converted the balmy, easy-going young autocrat into an enemy pitiless and terrible.

Let some brute stone a kitten; torment a boy smaller than himself; snatch an apple from the stall of the old woman at the corner and, with a justice whose speed was incredible, Hal Harding descended upon the miscreant and pommeled into him a lesson in squareness that he did not soon if forget.

The fact that the youthful avenger was usually on the right side increased, if anything, the number of street brawls he was mixed up in, for alas, Mulberry Court and all the outlying vicinity teemed with so great a multitude of injustices that he who set himself to straighten them out found ample provocation for continual blows. As he trod the narrow streets and alleys this champion of the weak encountered one challenge after another with the result that it was a common sight in the neighborhood to see Hal Harling the center of an angry scuffle.

Partisanship was instant. A passer-by did not need to investigate the broil. Ten cases out of eleven the victim of the squabble was getting what was coming to him, in popular opinion.

"Hal Harling was giving it to him good and plenty," a sympathetic observer would afterward relate. "I don't know what the fuss was about but I didn't interfere for I'll wager Hal was right; he usually is."

Around the standard of such a personality it was inevitable that the inhabitants of the community, especially the male ones, should rally; and foremost in the ranks of admiring worshippers were Jack Sullivan and Carl McGregor, either one of whom would willingly have rolled up his own sleeves in defense of his idol. They tagged at his heels, ran his errands, and walked on air whenever they won his commendation. If he called them down it was as if they had been rolled in the dust.

And yet despite the incense burned at his shrine Hal Harling kept a level head and an estimate of himself that was appealingly modest. In fact he was a very human boy with the same love of pranks and mischief that delighted other boys. He loved a joke dearly. It was fun, for example, to let an orange down on a string and dangle it before little Katie Callahan's window and then jerk it back out of Katie's reach when she snatched for it. Or it amused him to drop peppermint balls through the Murphy's letter box and hear the children inside the room chase them as they rolled about the floor. Later he saw to it that Katie got the orange and the Murphy youngsters the candy. All his jokes were like that, their playful hectoring ending in kindness. He was too kind-hearted to enjoy causing pain.

What wonder that such a hero had his satellites?

On the other hand, he had his enemies too—scores of them—for a justice dealer is never without opponents. As a rule these persons were the victims of his various avalanches of wrath, those to whom at one time or another he had meted out punishment and denounced as cowards. For the disapproval of these cravens Hal Harling did not care a button. He much preferred they should be numbered among his enemies rather than his friends and he said so frankly. Nevertheless, his mother, timid by nature and of a peace-loving disposition, shook her head.

"You can't afford, Hal, to antagonize folks the way you do," she would protest. "The time may come when you'll be sorry."

For answer the giant would shrug his shoulders.

"I'm not afraid of anybody," he would reply proudly.

The statement was not made in a spirit of bravado; rather it reflected the self-respect of one consciously in the right.

"But you to be more careful. Such people are capable of working you harm."

"Let them try."

"But they are. They can do all sorts of underhanded things you would not descend to," whimpered Mrs. Harling. "It worries me all the time to see you so regardless."

"There, there, Mother! Quit fussing about me," pleaded the big fellow kindly. "I'm all right and can look after myself."

"I know you can when the fight is a fair one," agreed his mother. "But you never can tell what weapon a coward will use."

Hal laughed contemptuously and, realizing that her counsel had failed of its aim, Mrs. Harling said no more.

Up to the present the calamities she periodically predicted had not occurred and as those who loved her son rallied round him with ever-increasing loyalty, and those who disliked him kept their distance, she gradually ceased to protest. What was the use of wasting her strength on conditions she could not help? Poor soul! She needed every atom of energy she possessed to meet the trials that beset her own path.

For Mrs. Harling was a helpless invalid and together with her bedridden father lived day after day imprisoned in the small tenement overlooking the rushing, hurrying world of which she was no part. Each morning Louise, Hal's younger sister, made tidy the house, packed up a luncheon, and the two started for Davis and Coulter's spinning mills where all day they helped to operate the busy machinery. It was a noisy, monotonous occupation; a stretch of dull, wearisome hours, and frequently the boy and girl were so tired at night they had scarcely energy to move. And yet they toiled at the humdrum task gratefully, rejoicing in their wages which not only kept body and soul together but provided for the feeble mother and the aged grandfather.

The past winter had been a hard one in Baileyville, the manufacturing village where they lived. Most of the mills were running on half time and many of the employés had been turned away for lack of work. In consequence worry and uncertainty hung over everybody. Who would be the next to go, they speculated. One never could predict where the axe would fall, or be sure he might not be the victim elected to meet its merciless stroke.

Thus far both Hal and Louise had been retained at their posts; but the fear that some of the older operatives who had been longer in the employ of the company might take precedence over them constantly menaced their peace of mind.

Corcoran, the foreman under whom they worked, was a harsh, unreasonable bully who rather enjoyed his post as executioner, authority having exaggerated in him all the meannesses that lurked in his small, vindictive nature. Only the week before, Hal, enraged by his discourtesy and injustice to one of the women, had blurted out to his face a rebuke for his roughness. It was, to be sure, an unwise act and one that not only did the poor girl whose cause he championed little good but jeopardized his own position; yet to save his soul he could not have checked his indignation.

"You shouldn't have said it," declared Louise, who had been an eyewitness of the encounter. "Of course I was proud of you as could be; and you said nothing but what Corcoran deserved. Still it isn't safe to do that sort of thing. It may lose you your job."

"I don't care if it does,"