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Show I Little Sir Galahad fTlK I 9 A Story With a Soul JJ 1 By FHOEBB GRMY , SYNOPSIS. ' 3 "While trunrlllnff the elpan washing up Clipper Hill Mary Alice Brown 1s set upon up-on by some mischievous boys, who spill the washing Into the dirt. She is rescued and taken to her home in Calvert street by Francis Willett, a Galahad knight. She Is punished by her drunken father for returning without the wash money. Mary. Alice wanders away from home and takes a trolley ride Into the country. S5H5H5HnJ525H5Z5a5Z5ZSH5H5HSZS2S? CHAPTER II Continued. The door swung wide. Behind Sam Thomas, Mary Alice saw a pleasant room, and through the open doorway wafted the "homey" smell that always denotes the farmhouse. In her overpowering over-powering weariness and pain, the little girl yearned to that hearth, her big eyes wide with longing. "Well," said Sam Thomas, "you don't think I'm goin' to turn the poor young one away, do you? What's your name, child? And for goodness' sake, what's the matter with your forehead? Looks like someone had hit ye." Sam Thomas stepped out upon the big flat rock that formed his back doorstep door-step just as the sun licked its first broad rays, like the tongue of a cat, over the saucer rim of the world. A wistful mooing came to him from the barn. The furry-green weeds that matted the side yard were all daintily dain-tily rimed with a heavy white dew in which Sam's footprints would appear, dark and distinct, as if in snow. With a thumping of feet and beating beat-ing of wings, half a hundred chickens came hurrying and jostling to his feet. "Gwan," said Sam. "Shoo! Ma'll feed ye. Shoo!" He stumped off to the barn, a milk pail rattling cheerfully in each hand. Some swallows issued, swooping, from the tiny holes pierced high up in the peak of the barn gable. They swung, circled and dipped, uttering small cheeping notes of morning gossip. Sam Thomas whistled a thin, tuneless tune-less measure, swung open the little door in the big door of the barn, and pushed his pails ahead of him into that fragrant gloom. Mrs. Thomas, in the farmhouse kitchen, kitch-en, washed her breakfast dishes with the deft handling of inbred efficiency. effi-ciency. An oil lamp burned on the shelf above the sink, for Mrs. Thomas had arisen before daylight to make hot biscuit. Now, as the slant rays of the sun crept in and turned the lamp flame to a sickly yellow, she blew it out. Another An-other day had begun. The everlasting, ever-renewing business busi-ness of cleaning went on with scarcely any Interruption. Martha was always cleaning something; she scrubbed, Bcoured, rubbed, burnished and polished pol-ished by intuition, by inclination and by habit. And she did not find it drudgery. She was plump, pink and pleasant. In her manner lay a decision, deci-sion, a firmness, which in a less personable per-sonable woman one might have called by a harsher name. All the time, just as her husband whistled his tuneless measure while he did his chores. Martha Mar-tha hummed a soft half-portion of song, a song which kept repeating Itself endlessly without words or definable de-finable notes. From somewhere within the house came a call. "Mum-mee-ee-ee!" The last note, long sustained, :high pitched, was as honeyed as a bird's call. "Mum-mee-ee!" Martha stopped .in the midst of her tasks. Every morning the same thing happened: every morning came the little clutch at her heart, the little, tender, ten-der, recurrent pain of realization. She answered, as always: "All right, sweetheart; sweet-heart; mother's coming." She set her broom in the corner and passed swiftly tbro-ufrn the sitting room into a chamber. The morning sun filled the chamber with a golden radiance, ra-diance, and this radiance was reflected and seemed to be -enhanced when it touched the shining reiiow head of a child nestled in the pillows. "The sun come and waked me up, niummee." said the child. "I it time to got up?" "If you want to, dearie. How'd mother's boy sleep?" "Oo. grand! I don't rummemlier any-thin' any-thin' but just one little teeny dream. Gee. it was a futiuy little dream." "Tell mother," said Martha. She busied herself with a basin and cloths and towels. As she bathed him. the child went on: "Well. I can't just rummoinber every-thin': every-thin': only, the' was a little girl in it but she wasn't my sister, (iee. niummee, nium-mee, I ivish'd I had a sister." Marth-t stopped short in her operations. opera-tions. "Land sakes!" she said. "I forgot." for-got." "Forgot what?" demanded the lutlc boy. sharply. "Nothing, dear." said lc mother and he saw that she was . -mulcus. Copyright by Small, Maynard & Company Things like that were always happen- lug to Martha, and they never failed to startle and frighten her. If her seven-year-old boy dreamed things that came true, there might be some explanation, expla-nation, a reason she dared not contemplate, con-template, a fragile and holy secret hidden hid-den under penalty, even to her mother love. She continued to bathe and dress the j boy. for he was quite helpless from the , ' hips downward. In the kitchen she ar-i ar-i ranged him carefully in a big chair, homebuilt and practical, padded and propped to save 'every possible strain, where he could choose to watch her about her liousehold duties or contemplate contem-plate the uneventful activities of the farmyard. Sitting there in the window, little ChaTlie Thomas reminded you of an indolent angel. His shiny curls clustered clus-tered and tangled about the soft oval of his face and blended with the translucent trans-lucent pallor of his cheeks. His eyes, big. blue and questioning, sparkled with a sort of eager and searching intelligence, in-telligence, that sought everything, absorbed ab-sorbed everything, comprehended everything. ev-erything. "What do yon "want for hreakfast, boy?" Martha asked. "A 'egg," said Charlie promptly. "Didn't my Clucky lay me one?" "We'll ask the Boss," said Martha. "Here he comes." Sam, carrying the foamy milk pails, thrust open the door. "Hullo, there," he cried, "how's the old man this mornin'?" "Did Clucky lay a egg?" demanded Charlie. "Betcher life she laid an egg," answered an-swered his father. "Two of "em." "Gee!" said Charlie. "Some other hen got in Clucky's nest!" "You better eat 'em both, to 'be 'on the safe side," suggested Martha. Sam looked at his wife and jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. "How's the" Martha checked him with a gesture and a sidewise look toward Charlie, which said as plainly as words, "T haven't told him yet." Mary Alice Brown dreamed a dream. She thought she lay in a big, clean bed in a room with sloping walls. It was difficult for Mary Alice to piece two and two together in explanation of her astonishing position. The pains in her limbs when she tried to move about in the bed helped her, and all the details came gradually back. She sat up and hung her thin legs over the side of the bed. On a chair near by she saw her clothes. In contrast con-trast with the clean chamber, their dirtiness and raggedness were pathetic and shameful. Mary Alice plucked at her own person and found herself grip- She Saw A Little :Boy Propped and Pillowed in a Big Chair. ping a pinch of white .cotton nightgown, night-gown, something less than a mile too big for her, but terrifyiugly clean. She knew she must resume Iter clothes, and loathed the idea. The least effort hurt 'her 'bitterly, but she hobbled across the room and somehow some-how got into her own things. She worked with extreme caution of noise; she did not know just why. When she was dressed, she stood still and won-. won-. dered what to do next. The idea of facing Sam Thomas appalled her. She remembered the kindliness of Mrs. Thomas' motherly facie when she had . tucked her into bed last night; yet. somehow, she wondered if these people had not changed during the night, if they would not look scornfully upon i her untidy little person and put her out with reproaches. Mary Alice at last mustered cour- - age to seek the stairs, to tiptoe down: - ! and when she found herself in the sit- - ting room, she peered fearfully across at the open kitchen door. Then she advanced, ad-vanced, not venturing to speak. ;ho saw a little boy with amazing ' yeMow hair sitting propped and padded and pillowed in a big chair. She saw a man and a woman attending upon : the i-hilil with infinite love and ten-. ten-. denies hi their faces. It was ail r-i'ht and regular for a mother to love her baby; but Mary Alice had almost forgotten for-gotten that there was such a thing as fatherly fondness. In the Devil's Truck Fnteh men quarreled violently with their wives and assaulted their children with any convenient weapons. At the mission Sunday school Mary Alice had been told a great deal about fatherly affection, but in real life exemplification ex-emplification had been negligible. "Like as a father pitieth his children" seemed to her a kind of sarcasm. Little Charlie Thomas suddenly looked around and saw the intruder. His eyes widened in surprise and question. ques-tion. "Oo, look!" he cried. "Look at the little girl she's the one I dreamed about; honest, she is." Sam and Martha turned and oddly enough, thought Mary Alice, greeted her very pleasantly. "Hullo kid,1' said Sam. "Sleep good?" "You poor young-one!" Martha said. "Come here and let me wash your face. I bet you're hungry." Mary Alice was not conscious of hunger. Now she submitted dumbly to the ablutionary processes of the cleanly Martha. All the while she kept her eyes fixed npon the little shiny-haired shiny-haired boy in the big chair by the window. win-dow. '"What's your name?" demanded Charlie. ""Please come here and talk to me." Mary Alice went slowly up to the child's side. "Le' 's shake hands," he said. "I dreamed about you. What's your name?" "Mary Alice Brown." '"Where'd you come from? I I like you, Mary Alice." "She come from Sheffield. Charlie-boy," Charlie-boy," -put in Martha. "Wash Moore, the 'trolley 'conductor, brought her here. She got lost or -something. She slept 'Upstairs all night. What do you s'pose made yon dream hout her?" 'T don't 'know. I just wanted someone some-one to come and see me, some little boy or girl. Will you -stay here f'rever, Mary Alice?" "My mother -wouldn't: let me," said the little girl. "I got to go home right mow." Charlie looked from his father to his mother, as if in them lay the decision, quite without reference to Mary Alice's .necessities. "Can't she stay ? I like her so much, and she can read me stories." There was nothing teasing or whin-' ing in Charlie's eagerness, just a cheerful, cheer-ful, hopeful insistence. "Could you " began Martha. "I have to help my mother," said the girl. "She's probably terrible worried about me. We got a baby, too, and he's kind of sick. I could go home on the trolley, the same way I come. I got money." "Well, you might 's well eat some breakfast. The next car don't go for an ihour:" Mary Alice went and sat by Charlie. He asked her a hundred questions, told her a hundred little things about his own life. Mary Alice was as frank as she felt she could be. But she hated to admit the facts that were all too plainly revealed by her dress and condition. con-dition. 'Instinctively she knew the hurt she must give the boy if she told him too much truth about herself. Shrewd Martha Thomas saw it all as through a magnifying lens. "Dear Lord," the thought, helplessly, "how can such things be right? Why do little children have to suffer and pay? Why don't grown-up folks settle their own accounts. Foor innocent babies, ba-bies, poor innocent babies!" From this one may see that somehow some-how or other Martha Thomas was classing her Charlie with Mary Alice of the Sheffield slum. What was the common debt thus vicariously charged against her boy and the forlorn little girl? Sam, coming in from the barn, announced an-nounced that he must postpone his wagon trip for another day. "But," he said. "I'll just change m clothes and take her," indicating the visitor, "home on the trolley. I'm goin' to find out somethln' about that kid. She ain't very talkative; but I'm darnod good and sure, if she'd tell us all we'd like to know, it wouldn't sound like no funny story. That young-one's young-one's had some hard treatment." "I'm glad you're going,'" agreed his wife. "She's a real nice child, only she's been kicked or whipped or something some-thing you find out all you can. dear. Maybe we can do something." "My father's the grandest feller." Charlie was telling Mary Alice. "I guess I'm a awful lucky little boy. lie made me this chair hisself. Did you ever see a baseball game? Some day when I grow up and my legs gets well, I'm goin' to play baseball. I'm goin' to le a big leg pitcher. God's goin' to make me well, mummee says. I'm gettin' better all the time. Feel." j pi What sorrow has darkened Q; rp the lives of Sam and Martha j i r3 and what has made little Char- j p lie the helpless thing he is? Qj i II- ITU EU CvNTIXUfcUj |