XI
BENNIE COMES TO THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE
It was Bennie who came first to the Settlement House. Shyly, almost, he slipped through the great doors—as one who seeks something that he does not quite understand. As he came, a gray kitten, creeping out from the shadows of the hall, rubbed affectionately against his leg. And Bennie, half unconsciously—and with absolutely no recognition—stooped to pat its head. Rose-Marie would have cried with joy to have seen him do it, but Rose-Marie was in another part of the building, teaching tiny children to embroider outlines, with gay wool, upon perforated bits of cardboard. The Young Doctor, passing by the half-opened door of the kindergarten room, saw her there and paused for a moment to enjoy the sight. He thought, with a curious tightening of his lips, as he left noiselessly, that some day Rose-Marie would be surrounded by her own children—far away from the Settlement House. And he was surprised at the sick feeling that the thought gave him.
"I've been rather a fool," he told himself savagely, "trying to send her away. I've been a fool. But I'd never known anything like her—not in all of my life! And it makes me shiver to think of what one meeting with some unscrupulous gangster would do to her point of view. It makes me want to fight the world when I realize how an unpleasant experience would affect her love of people. I'd rather never see her again," he was surprised, for a second time, at the pain that the words caused him, "than to have her made unhappy. I hope that this man of hers is a regular fellow!"
He passed on down the hall. He walked slowly, the vision of Rose-Marie, a dream child held close to her breast, before his eyes. That was why, perhaps, he did not see Bennie—why he stumbled against the boy.
"Hello," he said gruffly, for his voice was just a trifle hoarse (voices get that way sometimes, when visions will stay in front of one's eyes!) "Hello, youngster! Do you want anything? Or are you just looking around?"
Bennie straightened up. The kitten that he had been patting rubbed reassuringly against his legs, but Bennie needed more reassurance than the affection of a kitten can give. The kindness of Rose-Marie, the stories that she had told him, had given him a great deal of confidence. But he had not yet learned to stand up, fearlessly, to a big man with a gruff voice. It is a step forward to have stopped hurting the smaller things. But to accept a pretty lady's assurance that things larger than you will be kind—that is almost too much to expect! Bennie answered just a shade shrinkingly.
"Th' kids in school," he muttered, "tol' me 'bout a club they come to here. It's a sort of a Scout Club. They wears soldier clo's. An' they does things fer people. An' I wanter b'long," he gulped, noisily.
The Young Doctor leaned against the wall. He did not realize how tall and strong he looked, leaning there, or he could not have smiled so whimsically. To him the small dark boy with his earnest face, standing beside the gray kitten, was just an interesting, rather lovable joke.
"Which do you want most," he questioned, "to wear soldier clothes, or to do things for people?"
Bennie gulped again, and shuffled his feet. His voice came, at last, rather thickly.
"I sorter want to do things fer people!" he said.
More than anything else the Young Doctor hated folk, even children, who say or do things for effect. And he knew well the lure that soldier clothes hold for the small boy.
"Say, youngster," he inquired in a not too gentle voice, "are you trying to bluff me? Or do you really mean what you're saying? And if you do—why?"
Bennie had never been a quitter. By an effort he steadied his voice.
"I mean," he said, "what I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, "wi' my life! I wanter be a good husban' an' father—"
All at once the Young Doctor was laughing. It was not an unkind laugh—it gave Bennie heart to listen to it—but it was exceedingly mirthful. Bennie could not know that the idea of himself, as a husband and father, was sending this tall man into such spasms of merriment—he could not know that it was rather incongruous to picture his small grubby form in the shining armour of St. George or of King Arthur. But, being glad that the doctor was not angry, he smiled too—his strange, twisted little smile.
The Young Doctor stopped laughing almost as quickly as he had begun. With something of interest in his face he surveyed the little ragged boy.
"Where," he questioned after a moment, "did you learn all of that stuff about knights, and saints, and doing things with your life, and husbands and fathers? Who told you about it?"
Bennie hesitated a moment. Perhaps he was wondering who had given this stranger a right to pry into his inner shrine. Perhaps he was wondering if Rose-Marie would like an outsider to know just what she had told him. When he answered, his answer was evasive.
"A lady told me," he said. "A lady."
The Young Doctor was laughing again.
"And I suppose," he remarked, with an effort at solemnity, "that gentlemen don't pass ladies' names about between 'em—I suppose that you wouldn't tell me who this lady of yours may be, even though I'd like to meet her?"
Bennie's lips closed in a hard little line that quirked up at one end. He shook his head.
"I'd ruther not," he said very slowly. "Say—Where's th' Scout Club?"
The Young Doctor shook his head.
"It's such a strange, old-fashioned, young person!" he informed the empty hallway. And then—"Come with me, youngster," he said kindly, "and we'll find this very wonderful club where small boys learn about doing things for people—and, incidentally, wear soldier clothes!"
Bennie, following stealthily behind him, felt that he had found another friend—something like his lady, only different!