Joey looked disappointed, and even unconvinced. Then his face brightened. "That's 'cause you was too little, like that canary at th' Res't'rant what ain't got its feathers yet. You was too little fer yer wings to have growed afore you come away," and his lively imagination having thus settled the problem, the two continued their way.
"Yer see how it is," he observed presently, evidently having been revolving the subject in his busy brain, "ef Mis' Tomlin had th' doctor an' some ice, she'd get well, she would, an' Mr. Tomlin, he's goin' to this yere meetin' to see about work, so's he can get 'em fer her. But 'tain't no use fer workin' men to beg for work these yere days," he added with a comical air of wisdom. "I heerd Old G. A. R. say, I did, to a man what comes ter talk politics wid him, that beggin' th' rich people to help yer was jus' like buttin' yer head agin a brick wall, so what good's it goin' ter do if he does go?"
The Angel nodded amiably, and slipped her hand in Joey's that she might the better keep up. They had passed the region of small shops and were passing through a better portion of the city. Before a tall stone house, one of a long row, a girl stood singing, while a boy played an accompaniment on a harp. As Joey and his charge reached them, a lady, with a group of children clustered about her, threw some pennies out the window to the young musicians.
"Did yer see that, Angel," demanded Joey, "did yer ketch onter that little game? We c'n do that. I c'n whis'le an' you c'n sing, an' we'll make 'nough to get Mis' Tomlin th' ice ourselves. If yer do," continued the wily Joey, "I tell yer what,—we'll go home on the cable cars, we will." And he hurried his small companion along the sunny sidewalks, still following the line of the cable cars, until they came to a business street again, this time of large and handsome stores. Here, before the most imposing, Joey paused, and cast a calculating eye upon the stream of shoppers passing in and out. "Now, Angel, sing," he commanded.
The footsore, tired Angel, hot and cross, declined to do it. "Her wants to sit down an' west," she declared.
"We'll sit down out there on ther curbstone an' rest soon as yer sing some," promised the Major. So, taking up their stand on the flagging outside the entrance of the big store, the bare-headed Angel, in her worn gingham frock, highbred and beautiful as a little princess, despite it, struck up with as much effect as a bird's twitter might make. Finding that his whistle in no way corresponded to the song, Joey wisely contented himself with holding out his soldier's cap.
Two such babies, one with so innocent, and the other with so comically knowing a smile, could not but attract attention. Some laughed, some sighed, some stopped to question, many dropped pennies and some put nickels, and even a dime or two into Joey's cap, while one stout and good-humored woman opened the paper bag she carried and put a sponge cake in each hand. But at this point, seeing that the policeman in charge of the crossing had more than once cast a questioning eye upon them, Joey decided to move on. "We'll have ter hurry anyhow," he observed, "ter get to ther speakin' in time. If you'll come on, Angel, 'thout restin', I'll tell yer what,—I'll buy yer a banana, I will, first ones we see." And the weary Angel, thus beguiled, dragged her tired feet along in Joey's wake.
*****
The slanting rays from the setting sun were falling across Liberty Square, on the statue of that great American who declared all men to be created equal, on the sullen faces of hundreds of idle men who stood beneath its shadow, listening to speech after speech from various speakers, speeches of a nature best calculated to coax the smouldering resentment in their hearts into a blaze.