We were now reaching the open country. The houses were few and farther apart. The street lamps gave out; so did the telegraph wires festooned with snow loops. Soon a big building, square, gray, sombre-looking, like a jail, loomed up on a hill. Then we entered a gate between flickering lamps, and tugged up a steep road, and stopped. Cabby sprang down and rang a bell, which sounded in the white stillness like a fire-gong. A door opened, and a flood of light streamed out, showing the kindly face and figure of an old priest in silhouette, the yellow glow forming a golden background.
"Come, sonny," said cabby, throwing open the cab door.
The little fellow slid down again from the seat, caught up the box and bundle, and, looking me full in the face, said:—
"It was too far to walk."
There were no thanks, no outburst. He was merely a chip in the current. If he had just escaped some sunken rock, it was the way with chips like himself. All boys went to asylums, and had no visible fathers nor invisible mothers nor friends. This talk about boys going swimming, and catching bull-frogs, and robbing birds' nests, and playing ball, and "hooky," and marbles, was all moonshine. Boys never did such things, except in story-books. He was a boy himself, and knew. There couldn't anything better happen to a boy than being sent to an orphan asylum. Everybody knew that. There was nothing strange about it. That's what boys were made for.
All this was in his eyes.
When I reached the platform and faced my audience, I was dinnerless, half an hour late, and still in my traveling dress.
I began as follows:—
"Ladies and gentlemen, I ask your forgiveness. I am very sorry to have kept you waiting, but I could not help it. I was occupied in escorting to his suburban home one of your most distinguished citizens."