One of these is a boy about six years of age—akin in his fragile body and his serious mien, a youngster that is very precious to one. I first saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a short round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate, and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day. On going up town that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still at his place, white and patient and silent. Every day afterwards I saw him there, always with the short stick in his hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony rattling the stick in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his plaything and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.
I could see that the room beyond the window was bare. I never saw any one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white head, moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little fellow become a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What thoughts filled that young head—what contemplation took the place of what should have been the ineffable upbringing of childish emotion—what complaint or questioning were living behind that white face—no one could guess. In an older person the face would have betokened a resignation that found peace in the hope of things hereafter. In this child, without hope or estimation, it was sad beyond expression.
One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him—but without avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his pale lips trembled into a smile—but a smile that was soberness itself. Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought of that tiny watcher in the balcony—joyless, hopeless, friendless—a desolate mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets—lifting his wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length—but why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself all day? It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, and forgot the heat in the sharp saline breezes—watched the bathers and the children—listened to the crisp, lingering music of the waves as they sang to the beach—ate a robust lunch on the pier—wandered in and out among the booths, tents, and hubbub—and that through all these manifold pleasures, I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can never hope to emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching—and that as I came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the cordage, music floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying rays the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of me a very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but sober and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short battered stick. And finally that whenever I pass by a certain overhanging balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and esteemed friend who lives there.
POEMS
BY VARIOUS HANDS.
GRADY.
I.