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قراءة كتاب The Dawn of a To-morrow

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‏اللغة: English
The Dawn of a To-morrow

The Dawn of a To-morrow

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 7

kettle tilted drunkenly near it. A mattress, from the holes in whose ticking straw bulged, lay on the floor in a corner, with some old sacks thrown over it. Glad had, without doubt, borrowed her shoulder covering from the collection. The garret was as cold as the grave, and almost as dark; the fog hung in it thickly. There were crevices enough through which it could penetrate.

Antony Dart knelt down on the hearth and drew matches from his pocket.

"We ought to have brought some paper," he said.

Glad ran forward.

"Wot a gent ye are!" she cried. "Y' ain't never goin' to light it?"

"Yes."

She ran back to the rickety table and collected the scraps of paper which had held her purchases. They were small, but useful.

"That wot was round the sausage an' the puddin's greasy," she exulted.

Polly hung over the table and trembled at the sight of meat and bread. Plainly, she did not understand what was happening. The greased paper set light to the wood, and the wood to the coal. All three flared and blazed with a sound of cheerful crackling. The blaze threw out its glow as finely as if it had been set alight to warm a better place. The wonder of a fire is like the wonder of a soul. This one changed the murk and gloom to brightness, and the deadly damp and cold to warmth. It drew the girl Polly from the table despite her fears. She turned involuntarily, made two steps toward it, and stood gazing while its light played on her face. Glad whirled and ran to the hearth.

"Ye've put on a lot," she cried; "but, oh, my Gawd, don't it warm yer! Come on, Polly—come on."

She dragged out a wooden stool, an empty soap-box, and bundled the sacks into a heap to be sat upon. She swept the things from the table and set them in their paper wrappings on the floor.

"Let's all sit down close to it—close," she said, "an' get warm an' eat, an' eat."

She was the leaven which leavened the lump of their humanity. What this leaven is—who has found out? But she—little rat of the gutter—was formed of it, and her mere pure animal joy in the temporary animal comfort of the moment stirred and uplifted them from their depths.


III

They drew near and sat upon the substitutes for seats in a circle—and the fire threw up flame and made a glow in the fog hanging in the black hole of a room.

It was Glad who set the battered kettle on and when it boiled made tea. The other two watched her, being under her spell. She handed out slices of bread and sausage and pudding on bits of paper. Polly fed with tremulous haste; Glad herself with rejoicing and exulting in flavors. Antony Dart ate bread and meat as he had eaten the bread and dripping at the stall—accepting his normal hunger as part of the dream.

Suddenly Glad paused in the midst of a huge bite.

"Mister," she said, "p'raps that cove's waitin' fer yer. Let's 'ave 'im in. I'll go and fetch 'im."

She was getting up, but Dart was on his feet first.

"I must go," he said. "He is expecting me and—"

"Aw," said Glad, "lemme go along o' yer, mister—jest to show there's no ill feelin'."

"Very well," he answered.

It was she who led, and he who followed. At the door she stopped and looked round with a grin.

"Keep up the fire, Polly," she threw back. "Ain't it warm and cheerful? It'll do the cove good to see it."

She led the way down the black, unsafe stairway. She always led.

Outside the fog had thickened again, but she went through it as if she could see her way.

At the entrance to the court the thief was standing, leaning against the wall with fevered, unhopeful waiting in his eyes. He moved miserably when he saw the girl, and she called out to reassure him.

"I ain't up to no 'arm," she said; "I on'y come with the gent."

Antony Dart spoke to him.

"Did you get food?"

The man shook his head.

"I turned faint after you left me, and when I came to I was afraid I might miss you," he answered. "I daren't lose my chance. I bought some bread and stuffed it in my pocket. I've been eating it while I've stood here."

"Come back with us," said Dart. "We are in a place where we have some food."

He spoke mechanically, and was aware that he did so. He was a pawn pushed about upon the board of this day's life.

"Come on," said the girl. "Yer can get enough to last fer three days."

She guided them back through the fog until they entered the murky doorway again. Then she almost ran up the staircase to the room they had left.

When the door opened the thief fell back a pace as before an unexpected thing. It was the flare of firelight which struck upon his eyes. He passed his hand over them.

"A fire!" he said. "I haven't seen one for a week. Coming out of the blackness it gives a man a start."

Improvident joy gleamed in Glad's eyes.

"We'll be warm onct," she chuckled, "if we ain't never warm agaen."

She drew her circle about the hearth again. The thief took the place next to her and she handed out food to him—a big slice of meat, bread, a thick slice of pudding.

"Fill yerself up," she said. "Then ye'll feel like yer can talk."

The man tried to eat his food with decorum, some recollection of the habits of better days restraining him, but starved nature was too much for him. His hands shook, his eyes filled, his teeth tore. The rest of the circle tried not to look at him. Glad and Polly occupied themselves with their own food.

Antony Dart gazed at the fire. Here he sat warming himself in a loft with a beggar, a thief, and a helpless thing of the street. He had come out to buy a pistol—its weight still hung in his overcoat pocket—and he had reached this place of whose existence he had an hour ago not dreamed. Each step which had led him had seemed a simple, inevitable thing, for which he had apparently been responsible, but which he knew—yes, somehow he knew—he had of his own volition neither planned nor meant. Yet here he sat—a part of the lives of the beggar, the thief, and the poor thing of the street. What did it mean?

"Tell me," he said to the thief, "how you came here."

By this time the young fellow had fed himself and looked less like a wolf. It was to be seen now that he had blue-gray eyes which were dreamy and young.

"I have always been inventing things," he said a little huskily. "I did it when I was a child. I always seemed to see there might be a way of doing a thing better—getting more power. When other boys were playing games I was sitting in corners trying to build models out of wire and string, and old boxes and tin cans. I often thought I saw the way to things, but I was always too poor to get what was needed to work them out. Twice I heard of men making great names and fortunes because they had been able to finish what I could have finished if I had had a few pounds. It used to drive me mad and break my heart." His hands clenched themselves and his huskiness grew thicker. "There was a man," catching his breath, "who leaped to the top of the ladder and set the whole world talking and writing—and I had done the thing first—I swear I had! It was all clear in my brain, and I was half mad with joy over it, but I could not afford to work it out. He could, so to the end of time it will be his." He struck his fist upon his knee.

"Aw!" The deep little drawl was a groan from Glad.

"I got a place in an office at last. I worked hard, and they began to trust me. I—had a new idea. It was a big one. I needed money to work it out. I—I remembered what had happened before. I felt like a poor fellow running a race for his life. I knew I could pay back ten times—a hundred times—what I took."

"You took money?" said

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