, 1888-12-16
BOB'S DEBT.

"he-ays yc' ripe banannys, he-ays yo'
fresh candy an chewin' gum, prize in
every PACKAGE" rs he edged his way
with his basket down the narrow aisles
Of the rocking, swinging passenger
coaches of the fast mail. Such a com-
monplace looking fellow, with his short
stumpy figure clad in n dingy blue uni
form. only too obviously a bequest of his
predecessor in the business, and miles too
big for himi Dusty and travelled stained.
with the CRIME OF many a trip over the
''air line" from north to south of a great
railroad, was this old suit. Even the
battered cap that surmounted the
freckled face and the thatch of closely
cropped red hair had a rather tired and
pathetic droop to it, as if it could tell
stories of sleepless nights when the train
plunged on through the darkness. and of
weary days when the public showed a
distaste for oyerripe bananas, and the
veriest baby refused to be taken in by
the attractions of rolling pins filed with
pasty French candy.
But no one noticed either him or his
clothes. He was such a waif in the great
tide of travel. such II bubble ON the
stream of life, he was swept onward
without a thought. He had not even the
distinction of n name. By sop.e process
of logic the great autocratic public is its
own sponsor for certain names, and the
power that a every footman Jealnes,
and every street car driver Gallagher,
had dubbed him and his fellow train boys
''Bub.'
1t was quite true that far away in "a
cabin in the piny woods of Mississippi
there was an old family Bible where his
name was written down in big, sprawl
ing letters as Robert Edmund Lee Smith,
hut no one knew or cared for that but
tie two women who spelled out a chap
ter every night in that well thumbed old
book by the Pickering light of a tallow
dip.
At first, when, us he said a~fterward,
The was so green he had to keep lodging
the cows to keep from being eaten up"
he tried. to set it right with the big, joke
loving public about his name, To the
day of his death he will never forget
how, when the first man addressed him
"a "Bub," he explained, My name is
Smith, sir, Robert Smith" or the scald-
ing tears of modification that rushed
into his eyes as the man jerked off his
hat. made him a satirical bow and cried,
beg pardon, Mr.. Smith, glad to nave
the honor of your acquaintance" After
that Bob accepted his name like he did
the uniform and basket and trashy novels
as part of his calling and stock in trade.
You see he was of the least possible
. AAAhSS 40 nv WI LIZ an anu
went on his dreary rounds with fruit or
candy or papers or books, sometimes
cursed by an impatient traveller. Some
times in the freemasonry of youth a fresh
young face would smile sympathetically
upon him, and occasionally a babe would
reach out its tiny hands to him and
touch his grimy hand with rose leaf fin
! gers. At such times Bob's honest eyes
had a trick of growing big and soft with
urshed tears, and he would look very
hard out of the window at the flying
landscape to keep, as he said in his slangy
way. from stopping all over himself"
and as he made his way out of the car
with the little tie of human kinship with
the world warm about his heart he would
forbear to press i'll timed sweets upon
the lovers and bridal couples, or to vaunt
the merits of his especial brand of chew
ing gum to old ladies without teeth.
1t was a hard life, and at night when
he curled himself up on his little chest of
wares in the corner of the baggage car,
while the men swore at the heavy trunks
and excess baggage, Bob's thoughts
would go wandering back to the little
cabin in the piny woods where he was
born. He had only to shut his eyes and
he could see the homely little room in
which his mother and grandmother sat
by a s%moldering fire. There was the
trundle bed in which his little sisters lay
asleep, and at his mothers feet, pillowing
his head against her knee like a dog, was
Jim. Poor Jim, a man in size, yet never
to be more than a little child, with his
great hands beating the empty air, and
his tongue repeating an idiots gibberish.
Poor Mamsey," said Bob with a
groan, thinking of the patient face bend
ing above that unlovely form. 'tSome-
time, when I'm a mamie set his teeth
hard together-"sometime I'm a-goin' to
fix her up like a vestibule palace car"
He paused, fairly overcome by the gor-
geousness of the idea; with a buffay an
a niggah, an you bet she'll be a cat on
wheels then"
Perhaps Bob wa thinking rather more
than usual about home, because the
colonel was on board the train. He had
laid his hand on Bob's shoulder and
called him my boy" in tones that went
to the lonely little heart, and told him
all about the folks at home" for Bobs
mother was the c~olonel's nearest neigh
Dor. Finally, when Bob would have left
the colonel to his cigar he had turned to
q friend and actually introduced the
train boy TO the president of the road.
Bob could hardly believe it, even when
he beard the colonel saying:
You should have known his father,
sir. Finest soldier l ever saw. Went
into the war, by CAD, sir, without even a
gun. odlu: II THERE'S any uSnllnS ana
they need me, there'n be guns enough
and to spare Fought all the way
through the wal and cried like a baby
when Lee surrendered. Named this boy
here after his old commander. And
Bob's a chip off of the old block. Father
died, and he's making a brave fight for
the mother and little ones;" and the col
onel, whose heart was as soft as a baby's
where women and children were con-
cerned, drew out his big bandanna and
blew his nose with q violence that left
his eyes quite red and moist.
When the colonel spoke of brave men
Bob might have told a story he had
heard repeated often enough around the
hearthstone of the little cabin. How the
colonel had dragged his father, in the
heat of the battle, out from under the
feet of the horses in a charge of cavalry.
If he had retreated with his company he
might have done SO in safety, but in the
instant he stopped to succor his comrade
a ball tore OFF his right arm nj left him
with the empty sleeve that, in Bob's eyes,
was a patent of nobility. And after the
war, when Bob's father was hopelessly
fnvalided and finally died, it was the col
onel who provided out Of his own ruined
f~ortunaa for his DOOrer