of a |
|sudden when he saw the clock, and picked up his |
|helmet. Out on the street he made pretend to arrest |
|a little boy he knows, who was standing there,--to |
|see Gene come, out, I suppose,--and when the little |
|lad ran away laughing, I called out, 'You couldn't |
|catch Willie, Gene; you're getting fat.' |
| |
|"'Yes, and old, mammy,' he said, him who is--who |
|was--only twenty-six--'so fat,' he said, 'that I'm |
|getting a new dress coat that'll make you proud when|
|you see me in it, mammy.' And he went over Fifteenth|
|Street whistling a tune and slapping his leg with a |
|folded newspaper. And he hasn't come back. |
| |
|"But I saw him once after that, thank God, before he|
|was shot. It's strange, isn't it, that I hunted him |
|up on his beat late yesterday afternoon for the |
|first time in my life? I never go around where my |
|children are working or studying--one I sent through|
|college with what I earned at dressmaking and some |
|other little money I had, and he's now a teacher; |
|and the youngest I have at college now. I don't mean|
|that their father wouldn't send them if he could, |
|but he's an invalid, although he's got a position |
|lately that isn't too hard for him. I got Gene |
|prepared for college, too, but he wanted to go right|
|into an office in Wall Street. I got him in there, |
|but it was too quiet and tame for him, Lord have |
|mercy on his soul; and then, two years ago, he |
|wanted to go on the police force, and he went. |
| |
|"After he went down the street yesterday I found a |
|little book on a chair, a little list of the streets|
|or something, that Gene had forgot. I knew how |
|particular they are about such things, and I didn't |
|want the boy to get in trouble, and so I threw on a |
|shawl and walked over through Chambers Street toward|
|the river to find him. He was standing on a corner |
|some place down there near the bridge clapping time |
|with his hands for a little newsy that was dancing; |
|but he stopped clapping, struck, Gene did, when he |
|saw me. He laughed whe