CHAPTER VI
TOM IS SEEN AT WORK
It was toward four o'clock of the day before Thanksgiving—an afternoon of genial crispness. The low-hung sun, visible in the tenement districts only in westward streets, was softened to a ruddy disk by the light November haze. Before the entrance to the club-house of the Mission were massed two or three hundred children. Here was childhood's every size; and here were rags and dirt—well-worn and well-mended decency—the cheap finery of poverty's aristocracy. There was much pushing and elbowing in a struggle to hold place or to gain nearer the entrance, and the elbowed and elbowing pelted each other with high-keyed words. But, on the whole, theirs was a holiday mood; the faces, lighted by the red sunlight that flowed eastward through the deep street, were eagerly expectant.
Across the way stood a boy, near the size of the largest children in the crowd. He wore a red sweater, and his hands were thrust into the pockets of baggy trousers voluminously rolled up at the bottom. He was watching the nervous group, with curiosity and a species of crafty meditation in his gleaming, black-browed eyes. It was Tom. Had David seen him there, he might have thought the boy had paused for a moment while out on an errand for his employer; but if Tom was on an errand it was evidently not one of driving importance, for he remained standing in his place minute after minute.
Presently he crossed the street and drew up to a be-shawled girl whose black stockings were patched with white skin. He gave her a light jab with his elbow. "Hey, sister—what's de row?" he asked.
She turned to him a thin face that ordinarily must have been listless, but that was now quickened by excitement. "It's the children's Thanksgiving party," she explained.
"What you wearin' out de pavement for? Why don't you go in?"
"It ain't time for the doors to open yet."
Tom fell back and stood in the outskirts of the crowd, occasionally sliding the tip of his tongue through the long groove of his mouth, the same meditative look upon his watchful face. Soon the door swung open and the crowd surged forward, to be halted by a low, ringing voice: "Come, children!—please let's all get into line first, and march in orderly."
Two middle-aged women, enclosed in a subdued air of wealth, appeared through the door, and marched down the three steps and among the children. The boy's eyes closed to bright slits, his lips drew back from his teeth. The next instant a third woman appeared at the top of the steps—young, tall, fresh-looking, gracefully dignified.