“Of course not.”
“Well,” she said deliberately, “my name is Alice.”
“A pretty name.” Martin appeared abstracted.
“I don’t like it. But I can’t help it. I’d rather be called ‘Betty.’” She held out her hand. “Here’s my ball. Let’s play by the Arch.”
They bounced it back and forth until Alice was tired.
“You can’t throw it on top,” she declared, sitting down on the curb.
Martin examined the light and badly worn tennis ball and measured the distance to the top of the great Arch.
“You’re probably right,” he agreed. But he gave a mighty heave and the ball just rolled over the edge where it remained. This amused Alice; but Martin was annoyed. He stood looking up at the top ledge of the Arch for several minutes. At last, however, he said, “Come along,” for he remembered a drug store near by in which he had seen some tennis racquets.
A policeman had been watching them play ball and Martin thought the observation had been casual; but when they made ready to leave the park the suspicion on the man’s face had become so obvious that it brought Martin up with a start. From surprise, he changed to anger; and when they passed the patrolman he stared with such fury at the officer that Alice questioned him. Martin did not answer her, but talked on rapidly about the tennis ball. Then he began to reconsider the situation. It was true that the policeman had been justified. This was New York—a thick, practical city with an imperative demand for the protection of its children. Martin’s anger abated; and when he and Alice reached the drug store he deliberately put an end to his thoughts and premonitions and bought her a fine, new ball. The matter-of-fact way she took it pleased him more than any thanks she could have given him; for it meant he was accepted as a friend.
The little girl insisted that he return to the park next day, explaining that he should use her present first. And when she went dancing away, Martin smiled so broadly that the intense, deft lines of his face were strangely softened. This mood remained until he reached the Bowery, but in his room was completely lost in its solitude. Apprehension for his friendship for this child turned the channels of his mind toward new rivulets, each more forbidding than its predecessor, until he realized there was no oasis of sweetness in the barrens of his choosing. His temporary home, his very style and itinerant manner of living were contributory fences to the land beyond the streets—a land he felt he had invaded. He decided to tell little Alice that he was going across the ocean again, where there were bees that neither stung nor gathered honey, where lady tigers—and then, more tired than he knew, Martin slept.