Dan sat rigid with his back to the telegraph pole, his feet in the gutter, his mouth fallen open, staring dully ahead of him. Then suddenly he reached blindly for a rock, and staggered to his feet, but the figures had disappeared in the darkness. He sat down again, while his breath came in short, hard gasps. It was a lie! His mother was not bad! He knew she was good. He wanted to shriek it to the world. But even as he passionately defended her to himself, fears assailed him.
Why had they always lived so differently from other people? Why was he never allowed to ask questions or to answer them or to know where his mother went or how they got their living? What were the parcels she always kept locked up in the trunk in the closet? Events, little heeded at the time of occurrence, began to fall into place, making a hideous and convincing pattern. Dim memories of men stole out of the past and threw distorted shadows on his troubled brain. There was Bob who had once given him a quarter, and Uncle Dick who always came after he was in bed, and Newt—his neck stiffened suddenly. Newt, whom his mother used always to be talking about, and whose name he had not heard now for so long that he had almost forgotten it. Skeeter Newson—Newt—"The Lewis Woman." He saw it all in a blinding flash, and in that awful moment of realization he passed out of his childhood and entered man's estate.
Choking back his sobs, he fled from the scene of his disgrace. In one alley and out another he stumbled, looking for a hole in which he could crawl and pour out his pent-up grief. But privacy is a luxury reserved for the rich, and Dan and his kind cannot even claim a place in which to break their hearts.
It was not until he reached the river bank and discovered an overturned hogshead that he found a refuge. Crawling in, he buried his face in his arms and wept, not with the tempestuous abandonment of a lonely child, but with the dry, soul-racking sobs of a disillusioned man. His mother had been the one beautiful thing in his life, and he had worshiped her as some being from another world. Other boys' mothers had coarse, red hands and loud voices; his had soft, white hands and a sweet, gentle voice that never scolded.
Sometimes when she stayed at home, they had no money, and then she would lie on the bed and cry, and he would try to comfort her. Those were the times when he would stay away from school and go forth to sell things at the pawn shop. The happiest nights he could remember were the ones when he had come home with money in his pocket, to a lighted lamp in the window, and a fire on the hearth and his mother's smile of welcome. But those times were few and far between; he was much more used to darkened windows, a cold hearth, and an almost empty larder. In explanation of these things he had accepted unconditionally his mother's statement that she was a lady.
As he fought his battle alone there in the dark, all sorts of wild plans came to him. Across the dark river the shore lights gleamed, and down below at the wharf, a steamboat was making ready to depart. He had heard of boys who slipped aboard ships and beat their way to distant cities. A fierce desire seized him to get away, anywhere, just so he would not have to face the shame and disgrace that had come upon him. There was no one to care now where he went or what became of him. He would run away and be a tramp where nobody could ask questions.
With quick decision he started up to put his plan into action when a disturbing thought crossed his mind. Had Nance Molloy meant it when she said she wouldn't report to the probation officer if he didn't go with her? Would she stand there in the alley and wait for him all afternoon, just as he had waited so often for some one who did not come? His reflections were disturbed by a hooting noise up the bank, followed by a shower of rocks. The next instant a mongrel pup scurried down the levee and dropped shivering at his feet.
The yells of the pursuers died away as Dan gathered the whimpering beast into his arms and examined its injuries.
"Hold still, old fellow. I ain't goin' to hurt you," he whispered, tenderly wiping the blood from one dripping paw. "I won't let 'em git you. I'll take care of you."
The dog lifted a pair of agonized eyes to Dan's face and licked his hands.