“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?”