And then there was “Old Mr. Watchman,” an old man with one arm who used to come by the house where the small boy lived. He was a watchman somewhere at a railroad crossing, a solid, weary, brown faced white haired man who in winter wore a heavy great coat, in summer a loose, brown jacket, the pockets of which, or one pocket, at least, always, and every day, nearly, contained something which, if the little boy would only hurry out each morning or evening and climb on the fence and reach for, he might have.
“Mr. Watchman! Mr. Watchman!” I can hear him crying yet.
And somehow I seem to see a kindly gleam in the old blue eyes, and a smile on the brown face, and a big, rough hand going over a very little head.
“Yes, there we have it. That’s the nice boy.”
And then someone would call from the house or the gate, a father or mother, perhaps, “And now what do we say?”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Watchman. Thank you.”
And then the old watchman would go trudging onward with his bucket on his arm, and the boy would munch his candy or his peanuts or his apple and forget how kind and strange old Mr. Watchman really was—and how pathetic.
Then one day, some time later, after a considerable absence or silence on the part of Mr. Watchman, the small boy was taken to see him where he was lying very still in a very humble little cottage, in a black box, with nickels on his eyes—and the little boy wanted to take the nickels, too.
Don’t you suppose Mr. Watchman must have smiled, wherever he was, if he could?
And then one last picture, though I might recall a hundred from fairyland—a thousand. It is a hot day and a house with closed shutters and drawn blinds, and in the center of a cool, still room a woman sitting in a loose negligée, and at her feet the child playing with the loose, worn slippers on her feet. The boy is very interested in his mother, he loves her, and for that reason, to his small mind her feet and her worn slippers are very dear to him.