Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-04-16
THE LITTLE CHAP.

THE LITTLE CHAP.
The man was tired. For long enough
and too long now, the wings of life had
dragged, broken, shedding cleaning
feathers along the dusty high road
where. for others. flowers grew. For
others the road led to the City of
Dreams; to his feet, laden as in night
mares ones feet are, the road was only
the dust wherein he strove to advance
to something. he knew not what, and,
striving, failed always.
He was not ill--the body did its work
well enough. He never knew fatigue
Only despair he knew She twisted her
claws in his heart, and pulled till he
longed for the roots of life &c sunder
suddenly, and the whole sorry business
be done with.
His rooms were haunted by his own
dead hopes and dreams. Life was a chain
of cruel tests, and the merriest of them
was the knowledge that once he, too,
had been merry. The books that lined
his walls looked somber and forbidding
to eyes that no longer loved them. In
the gardens of Gray's Inn the rocks
cawed to branches now wholly bare. For
it was winter, and if there had ever been
summer the man had forgotten it. The
dark painted doors, two of them, shut
from him the dark staircase. In his low
ceied rooms twilight hung wells like cob
webs And it seemed to him that in all
the world there was nothing that made
the world worth while. If he had had
friends, he had tired out their friendship
If he had had a love, her love had wearied
of his ingratitude and his exactions. If,
with the waning of the winter daylight,
his life lamp should also 60 out, none
would be the loser, he least of all. Only
his laundress coming at her own time
and season would be little surprised,
| a little shocked.
| He had no need to work for money,
and he had no heart to work for love
So he sat in the warm dusk and hated
everything.
And the dusk deepened to darkness
| that was like black velvet in the shad-
ows of the room, and like gray velvet
shot with gold in the oblong of the tall
windows because they looked out over
the inn gardens, and We're filed with the
| sky that is over London.
| The fire fell together with crash.
and he stretched his arms and sighed,
and got up out of his chair. 1t was then
that he heard the child crying. 1t was
crying softly, with subdued snuffiings
and gurglings, and the sound came from
beyond his door On the oak stairs he
found the child sitting, its head in the
pitiable cap-a mans cap with peak
leaned against the carved banisters. It's
hands, black and red. were screwed up
against its eyes. It's clothes were hor-
rible. One garment outlined with NANCY
fur. wet and Shiny
"Hullo, | sav!" said the man. "Don't
cry What's the matter?"
I'm lost" said the child
But how did you get in here?'
Its raining outside" said the child,
shifted rubbed its fists once more in its
eyes, and stopped crying.
You've got fire. it said, turning
bright eyes to the open door.
where's your mother?" he asked
She's lost me-" said the child. "She
said TO me stay there, and she'd come
back, And she amt come back"
Stay where?' he asked.
/ There" said the child 81 say, you
do burn lots of Goals
He could not resist the second appeal
Come in he said, and the child
scrambled to its feet, little feet in un.
lspeakable boots.
Il like you," it said. You talk like
my daddy used to-
The child squatted on the hearthrug,
and with perfect self -possession, took
/ off the dreadful cap and laid it on the
fender to dry.
ITS my BEST" it explained.
The man and the child looked at each
other. In the ehild's eyes a merry con
fdenee dawned slowly, like sunshine, and
two smiles met.
DO You ever" the man asked, doubt
fully, shave a bath9"
Saturdays" the child answered.
promptly.
Gould you-if | turned on the water
for you-couid you give yourself a
bathY"
Course | could" it said, "if You was
to soap me back"
| He turned on the water for it. and he
did soap it's back
He liked the child from the moment
he saw its smile, but he did not love it
until he had held its body in his arms.
And the thin arms hung round his
neck like necklace of price.
When the necklace loosened at the
touch of sleep, the man gathered the
child in his arms very closely. and sat
quiet, long time, looking into the fire
And at last he laid the child in his own
bed. and went out to buy things for it.
| He bought clothes and toys and pleas.
ant sweet foods, and his fancy busted
itself with a life that should be quite
different from any that he had known
or dreamed of For hours had gone nv
now since he had found the child in the
cold shadows of the staircase, and the