“I don’t know,” hesitated the other after a pause. “I reckon it’s mighty kiddish of me but—but I just can’t help it.”
Bob was wise enough to wait until Jerry felt like going on. He knew that the other boy must be very much upset, quite shocked out of his customary reserve by the happenings of the day, to say as much as he had. His patience was at length rewarded.
“It’s—it’s just that I haven’t ever had a family like other fellows. There isn’t a soul who’d care a bit whether I’d been drowned to-day or not. If I get along, it’s all by myself. Somehow it doesn’t seem worth while.”
“That’s mighty tough,” said Bob sympathetically, when Jerry paused for a moment. “I’ll bet Mr. Whitney cares—”
“But that’s not like having someone you belong to!” cried Jerry. “The Boss is all right but he isn’t a family. Why, the first thing I remember is selling papers in the Loop back in Chicago when I was hardly big enough to walk, and getting licked when I got home because I didn’t bring in enough pennies. Home!” the boy’s voice broke on the word. “It wasn’t a home!”
“Surely your parents wouldn’t treat you like that!” expostulated Bob Hazard, horrified.
“They weren’t my parents, no fear. They told that soon enough. I’d been taken in by ’em ’cause they thought I might be useful—”
“Who were they?”
“Oh, a cabby driver and his wife. The old woman told me once she wished she’d left me on the doorstep where she found me. But I stuck it out with them, until I was about fourteen, I reckon, and then something happened. One day a man spoke to me on State Street and asked if I didn’t want to go out in the country. He made a wonderful picture of the road on which there were no houses, the haystacks under which one could sleep. I’d never been outside of the city and it sounded great to me. He said I could go along with him and he would show me all these wonders. It was springtime and the licking I’d had the night before still smarted, so I went.”
Once Jerry had started his tale, it flowed on without interruption. He seemed anxious to get it out.