“How are you, Haskell? By the way, Crowley, I called on you to-day at the office; sorry not to find you in.”
“Mrs. Roberts, allow me?” And he wheeled one of the easy chairs to the spot where that lady was standing.
“How well he enters into the thing,” said Gracie Dennis to herself, looking on in admiration at this young man, who, still so young, was adapting himself to circumstances that might well have embarrassed older heads than his. He plunged into talk with the boys, making them answer questions. He had come but a few moments before from Mark Calkins', stopped there with a message from Dr. Everett; and these boys knew Mark and Sallie and the worthless father, and all the more or less worthless neighbors who ran in and out, and young Ried had a dozen questions to ask. His quick-wittedness, and the ease with which he made talk to these young men who lived in such an utterly different world from himself, surprised his hostess very much.
Even she did not know to what an exalted pitch his enthusiasm and excitement reached; though he had flashed a pair of most appreciative eyes on her when she gave him her invitation for the evening. Here was actually his sister Ester's darling scheme being worked out before his eyes! Not only that, but he was being called upon to help. Ester had wanted him to grow up to undertake just such efforts as these; and only last week they had seemed to him so altogether good and noble and so impossible to try. Yet here he was helping try them! No wonder Alfred Ried could talk.
It had been determined in family council that Mr. Roberts must absent himself. He was in the house, indeed—no further away than the library, ready for call in event of an emergency; but it was judged that another stranger, and such a formidable one as the head of the house, must be avoided for this one evening. As for Mr. Ried, would they remember that he was not much older than some of them, and that he was not a rich young man living on his income, but was earning his living by daily work? and would they note the contrast between themselves and him? This was what their hostess wondered. A few moments and then came a summons to the dining-room. Seated at last, though one of the poor fellows stumbled over a chair, and barely saved himself from falling.
If you could have seen that dining-table, the picture of it would have lingered long in your memory. The whitest and finest of damask table linen; napkins so large that they almost justified Dick Bolton's whisper, “What be you goin' to do with your sheet?” china so delicate that Gracie Dennis could not restrain an inward shiver when any of the clumsy fingers touched a bit of it, and such a glitter of silver as even Gracie had never seen before.
One thing was different from the conventional tea-party. Every servant was banished; none but tender eyes, interested in her experiment, and ready to help it on, should witness the blunders of the boys. So the hostess had decreed, and so instructed Alfred and Gracie. The consequence was that Alfred himself served the steaming oysters with liberal hand, and Gracie presided over jellies and sauces, while Mrs. Roberts sugared and creamed and poured cups of such coffee as those fellows had never even smelled before. If you think they were embarrassed to the degree that they could not eat, you are mistaken.
They were street boys; their lives had been spent in a hardening atmosphere. Directly the first sense of novelty passed away, and their poorly-fed stomachs craved the unusual fare served up for them, the fellows grinned at one another, seized their silver spoons, and dived into the stews in a fashion that would have horrified every servant in the house.
How they ate! Oysters and coffee and pickles and cakes and jellies! There seemed no limit to their capacities; neither did they make the slightest attempt to correct their table manners. None of them paid any outward attention to their “sheets,” although Alfred and Gracie spread theirs with elaborate care; they leaned their elbows on the table, they made loud, swooping sounds with their lips, and, in short, transgressed every law known to civilized life. Why not?
What did they know about civilized life?