He had decided not to go to Mr. Endicott until he had found lodgings somewhere. An innate delicacy had brought him to this decision. He would not put one voluntary burden upon his kind benefactor. Born and bred in the slums, whence came this fineness of feeling? Who shall say?
Michael threaded his way through the maze of traffic, instinct and vague stirrings of memory guiding him to a quiet shabby street where he found a dingy little room for a small price. The dangers that might have beset a strange young man in the great city were materially lessened for him on account of his wide reading. He had read up New York always wherever he found an article or book or story that touched upon it; and without realizing it he was well versed in details. He had even pondered for hours over a map of New York that he found in the back of an old magazine, comparing it with his faint memories, until he knew the location of things with relation to one another pretty well. A stranger less versed might have gotten into most undesirable quarters.
The boy looked around his new home with a strange sinking of heart, after he had been out to get something to eat, and arranged for his trunk to be sent to his room. It was very tiny and not over clean. The wall paper was a dingy flowered affair quite ancient in design, and having to all appearances far outlived a useful life. The one window looked out to brick walls, chimneys and roofs. The noise of the city clattered in; the smells and the heat made it almost stifling to the boy who had lived for thirteen years in the sunshine of the South, and the freedom of the open.
The narrow bed looked uninviting, the bureau-washstand was of the cheapest, and the reflection Michael saw in its warped mirror would have made any boy with a particle of vanity actually suffer. Michael, however, was not vain. He thought little about himself, but this room was depressing. The floor was covered with a nondescript carpet faded and soiled beyond redemption, and when his trunk was placed between the bureau and the bed there would be scarcely room for the one wooden chair. It was not a hopeful outlook. The boy took off his coat and sat down on the bed to whistle.
Life, grim, appalling, spectral-like, uprose before his mental vision, and he spent a bad quarter of an hour trying to adjust himself to his surroundings; his previous sunny philosophy having a tough tussle with the sudden realities of things as they were. Then his trunk arrived.
It was like Michael to unpack it at once and put all his best philosophical resolves into practice.
As he opened the trunk a whiff of the South, exhaled. He caught his breath with a sudden keen, homesickness. He realized that his school days were over, and all the sweetness and joy of that companionful life passed. He had often felt alone in those days. He wondered at it now. He had never in all his experience known such aloneness as now in this great strange city.
The last thing he had put into his trunk had been a branch of mammoth pine needles. The breath of the tree brought back all that meant home to him. He caught it up and buried his face in the plumy tassels.
The tray of the trunk was filled with flags, pennants, photographs, and college paraphernalia. Eagerly he pulled them all out and spread them over the bumpy little bed. Then he grabbed for his hat and rushed out. In a few minutes he returned with a paper of tacks, another of pins, and a small tack hammer. In an hour’s time he had changed the atmosphere of the whole place. Not an available inch of bare wall remained with, its ugly, dirty wallpaper. College colors, pennants and flags were grouped about pictures, and over the unwashed window was draped Florida moss. Here and there, apparently fluttering on the moss or about the room, were fastened beautiful specimens of semi-tropical moths and butterflies in the gaudiest of colors. A small stuffed alligator reposed above the window, gazing apathetically down, upon the scene. A larger alligator skin was tacked on one wall. One or two queer bird’s nests fastened to small branches hung quite naturally here and there.
Michael threw down the hammer and sat down to survey his work, drawing a breath of relief. He felt more at home now with the photographs of his fellow students smiling down upon him. Opposite was the base-ball team, frowning and sturdy; to the right the Glee Club with himself as their leader; to the left a group of his classmates, with his special chum in the midst. As he gazed at that kindly face in the middle he could almost hear the friendly voice calling to him: “Come on, Angel! You’re sure to win out!”