Now and again the steam pounded in a low radiator below a window. There was a great deal of sniffing, and a hacking cough from a woman who bragged of a "weak chest." At last an old man who had been fingering the brim of his hat spoke in a hoarse whisper. "How is he?" he croaked. His thumb pointed over his shoulder toward the stairs.
"Ain't no better," responded the woman who coughed. "She come down a half hour ago an' sez 'He's the same.'" The woman coughed again, and afterward wiped her eyes.
"He gimme a pipe," said the old man, turning the hat in his hands. "It hez a real amber mouthpiece on. He sez, 'Here, Jake, you know a good pipe, now I don't. This here was gave to me, I want you should hev it,' he sez,—like that he sez——"
"I bet!" said a frightened looking little man, hitherto silent, "I bet he did! What he done fer me——!" The little man stopped, looked around, and cowered back in is chair, swallowed several times, then spoke in a high voice, evidently unnatural and the fruit of great effort. "I was in the penitentiary," he said, "an' when I come out no one would gimme a job. I was despert. I got my wife, an' her aunt, what's had a stroke, an' can't use her limbs no way. My wife took to coughin' an' couldn't work no more. Gawd, it was fierce! I was despert. I come to him. What he done fer me——! I sez 'What kin I do? I gotta feed them women. Hev I gotta steal again?' He sez no, an' he set me down an' gimme a meal. Talkin' to me while I et ... Gawd, I never kin fergit it.... That there meal was none of them cold potato hand-outs served up with a sneer. Human beings is awful rough with each other sometimes. When I got through I got up. I sez, 'I don't want no more. I guess I kin hunt my own job now, fer you've made me a man agin....' He sez, 'Well, well,' an' then he set me down, an' believe it or not, he gimme a ceegar! A fie' center too! Then he come with me to my old woman, and Aunt Ellen, an' he seen that they was did for, an' the next week he got me a job at the cement plant." After he finished he cowered again. The world had shown him little forgiveness. His world was scorn, or a hidden shame.
The little man had, in telling of Father McGowan's goodness, voiced his crucifixion. The pain of telling it made him feel as if he were at last thanking the big priest adequately.... He blinked, and avoided his companions' eyes now. He knew what to expect.
"I'm glad he helped yuh," said the old man, "but he would. There ain't nothing he wouldn't do fer nobody."
Common sorrow, like common joy, had drawn these people together. The love of the man upstairs had filled their souls, and left no room for littleness. The little man of the penitentiary was one of them, not an outcast.
He sat up straight again, still blinking. "Yer right," he said; "he's helped a lot of us to believe there is a Gawd ... an' something beside hell, livin' or dead."
"Yep," answered the woman with the cough. She drew a shawl close about her and moved near the clanking radiator. "Ain't it cold?" she said. "I'm used to settin' near the stove. I wisht she'd come. That there woman in white, I mean, the one what nurses him."
"I wish too," said a fat soul who surveyed every one with suspicion. "I gotta get home an' pack my man's dinner pail. Night work he does. It ain't so nice. I don't get no company. All day long he snores, an' at night I set home, or go alone. We used to go to pictures every Monday regular as clockwork."