LITTLE CHUB AND THE SKY WINDOW.
BY MARY D. BRINE.
LITTLE CHUB sat on the curb-stone, dipping small brown toes into the not very pure water which flowed along the gutter, and watching with his large, blue eyes the fleecy clouds which far up above the narrow court in which he dwelt with granny sailed lazily across the patch of blue sky just visible between two tall buildings opposite.
Chub’s real name was Tommy Brown, but, on account of his roly-poly figure and little round face, he was nick-named “Chub,” and even granny called him so, till the boy forgot he had another name.
There had been a funeral that morning near Chub’s house, and all the boys gathered about the spot, listening open-eared and open-eyed to the service which told the mourners of that “happy land, far, far away,” and was intended to comfort them.
But Chub was too little to understand much of all he heard, and could only feel very sorry for the poor little girl who cried for her dear mamma, and clung to her father’s hand terrified because that mamma would not even open her eyes nor look at her. Then the carriages moved slowly down the street, and Chub went home to granny and teased her with questions.
“Granny, what’s up there?”
Mrs. Brown, at her wash-tub, half-enveloped in steam, scrubbed away and answered:
“The other wurrld, honey dear,” reverentially raising her eyes to the blue patch of sky to which Chub’s fat finger pointed.
“What other world, granny?”
“The good place where yer mammy and daddy have gone, to be sure.”
“How did they get there?” from Chub, his little brow full of puzzled knots.
“Arrah thin, ye ax too many questions, honey. Some good angel flew down and lifted them up, of course, and—and—flew away wid ’em agin. Run now to the corner and fetch me a bar of soap, there’s a dear.”
Chub went for the soap, and, returning, seated himself on the curb-stone as we first found him, and calculating the length of time it might possibly take an angel to fly heavenward with little Jennie’s mother, watched the blue patch and fleecy clouds to see the final entrance of the two into that other world granny talked about. Presently two bootblacks strolled along, jingling pennies in their pockets, and swinging their blacking-boxes independently.
“Hi, Chub,” they shouted, “want a penny?”
Chub held out his hand nothing loth.
“Who giv it ter yer?” he asked, delightedly, for so much wealth had not been his since he could remember.
“Earned it shinin’ boots, ov course. We’re rich men, Chub, don’t ye know that?” passing on with a chuckle.
An idea seized our small boy. He withdrew his toes from the gutter, forgot all about the flying angel and patch of sky, and startled granny, who was bending over her wash-tub, with:
“Granny, I’m goin’ inter business, like other men.”
“Bless the boy! what does he mean?”
“Two fellers giv me a cent just now, and they earned it a-shinin’ boots, and I’m goin’ to ’sist you and grow rich, granny.”
Granny stopped punching her clothes, came out of the steam, and sat down to laugh at the new man of business.
Chub’s round face glowed with honest determination, and his roly-poly figure straighted as well as it could.
“Yes, ma’am! I’m a-goin fur a bootblack, and I’m goin’ to buy an orange as soon as I earn a cent.”
“Where you goin’ ter git yer box and brushes, hey, Chub?” asked Granny, renewing her attack upon the wash-boiler and its contents.
The boy’s countenance fell, and visions of oranges faded slowly and reluctantly from his eyes. Suddenly, however, he remembered his friend Sim Hardy, who frequently gave him the uneaten end of a banana, and now and then part of a stick of licorice, for which favors Chub had yielded in return a large share of his warm little heart.
“Sim’ll get me a box, ’thout it’s costin’ anythin’. Maybe he’ll hook one fur a little chap like me.”
Granny rested from her labors and turned a stern face upon the boy.
“Thomas Brown, never dare you lift a finger of yourn to touch what’s been stole. Remember who’s watchin’ ye all the time, and don’t go fur to sile the family name of Brown. If yer do, I’ll trounce yer well for it, there, now!”
“Granny, I’am goin’ inter business, like other men.”
It was probably the last awful threat that awed Chub into obedience, for he gave no more thought to Sim’s way of getting a machine for him, but tried to think of another plan.
It wasn’t long, however, before his friends among the bootblacks raised a sum between them and presented Chub with the necessary capital with which to begin business in earnest. And to granny’s delight her boy started off one fine morning regularly equipped for his first battle for daily bread—and an orange.
For a long time the little, six-years-old bootblack sat on the Astor House steps awaiting custom. But big boys somehow grabbed all the jobs, and nobody noticed little Chub, nor heard his weak cry, “Shine yer up fur ten cents! Want a shine, sir?”
So when night came, the little fellow shouldered his box and went home, minus his orange, and with pockets as empty as when he started from home. He cried a little, to be sure, and granny comforted him with kisses, and put him to bed tenderly. For nearly a week things worked very badly for Chub. Business didn’t prosper, and sitting all day in the hot sun made the little fellow sick of trying to be a man and do business. He couldn’t somehow make the thing work, and Sim Hardy, the friend who would have taught him, was busy on another route, and so Chub sat swinging his little bare feet all day, with nothing to do but watch the sky and wish he could fly up to “that other world” where he didn’t believe the “angels would let him go so long without a job.”
One night he went home with two ten cent stamps in his pocket, and a prouder boy never lived. But granny’s anxious eyes saw an unusual flush on the boy’s cheeks, and the little hands felt dry and hot. And that night the boy was restless and talked in his sleep.
It had been a fearfully hot day, and granny feared the child was suffering from sunstroke. So she kept ice on his head, and with part of the newly-earned money bought some medicine which quieted Chub and gave him an hour’s sweet sleep just before sunrise.
Then he opened his blue eyes and told granny about a dream in which he had seen a beautiful angel peep out of a little window in the sky and look all about as if searching for something. And presently Chub heard a voice say, “Oh, there’s little Chub! I’ve found him.” Then, as he looked up to see who had called his name from the clouds, the window opened wide, and the angel spread beautiful white wings, as white as snow, and fluttered gently down with arms opened lovingly towards Chub, who dreamed he was sitting with his box all that time on the Astor House steps. But just before she reached him he woke up, and, lo and behold, all the angel his waking eyes saw was dear old granny, who stood with a cooling drink beside the bed, and fanned away the tormenting flies.
So Chub told his dream. Granny wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, and hugged her boy closer.
“Want a shine, sir?”
“The angels can’t have ye yet, Tommy,” she said. “Yer granny’s boy, and this wurrld is good enuff fur ye this long while yet.”
Chub felt better the next day, and went out to his day’s business with a stout little heart, and eyes full of sunbeams. Some of the sunshine of the day crept out of the little room with him when he left granny alone over her wash-tubs, but she knew when he returned at night he would bring it all back again. So she scrubbed and rubbed and boiled and punched her clothes, until the room resembled cloud-land, and the white clothes hanging on lines shone out of the mist like the white wings Chub had talked about.
. . . . . . . .
“Oh, dear! Them big fellers don’t give a little chap a chance at all, at all.”
A big sigh shook Chub’s breast as he muttered this, wiping the perspiration from his face, and settling the torn hat more comfortably on his curly head. He slid down from his seat, and stood on the edge of the sidewalk a minute, waiting a chance to cross.
Hark! what a swift galloping of hoofs on the cobble-stones! Down the street, the closely-crowded street, dashed a runaway horse, dragging the light buggy, whose owner had just vacated it. Everybody scampered right and left in the first moment of terror, but a wee child, frightened from its nurse’s hand, stands directly in the path of the swift-coming animal.
Impulsively Chub, the boy of six years, the brave little business man, flings his blacking-box directly at the head of the runaway horse, and as fast as his short legs can carry him he rushes for the child whose life is in peril. In one instant the horse, startled by the well-aimed blow, turns aside, and then plunges on despite the efforts of strong arms to stop him.
That instant spared the little girl, but Chub’s box had opened the sky-window for him—poor little fellow—for over his brave little figure, crushing the life from his braver heart, passed the animal which had jumped on one side when the box struck him, and directly in Chub’s line.
They lifted him tenderly, and laid him on the broad step which had been the only business office Chub had owned. But only once the blue eyes opened, and then they sought the blue sky above, and even strong men felt tears in their eyes when faintly and gaspingly the dying boy cried, “Oh, angel! angel! here’s little Chub a-waitin’ fur yer; don’t ye see him?”
Then upward reached the small, brown arms, and downward fluttered the white lids, which were raised never on earth again, not even when granny’s tears covered the round, white face, and her arms clasped close the little roly-poly figure which had suddenly grown so stiff and helpless.
Up to “that other world,” through the “sky-window,” the white-winged angel had borne little Chub; and all that had puzzled him on earth was, maybe, in his angel-mother’s arms, made clear to him at last.
