On the outskirts of the park-like square a small boy was urging a smaller girl to hurry. "Angel's legs won't go no more," the diminutive female was wailing as her companion dragged her along.
Meanwhile the impassioned words of the last oration were being echoed and emphasized by mutterings and imprecations. The mob, in fact, was beginning to respond, just as its promoters had intended that it should, and as their dangerous eloquence continued to pour forth, the emotions of the crowd accordingly grew fiercer, louder, until from sullen mutterings, the applauding echoes grew to clamor and uproar. And following the impassioned harangue of the last speaker upon the program-a red-haired gentleman, unpleasantly dirty-the cheers gave place to groans, the groans grew to threats, to curses, and the confusion spread like the roar of a coming storm.
Suddenly above the noise, came the measured tramp of feet. In the momentary lull succeeding, "The police, the police," a voice rang out on the silence, and the single cry swelled to a roar from hundreds of throats, and as suddenly died away to an expectant silence. At that a voice, loud with authority, rang out upon the stillness, "In the name of the Commonwealth," the measured words declared, "I command you to immediately and peaceably disperse!"
The answer came in a chorus of jeers, hoots, yells of derision, and the howling mob began to seize whatever promised to be a weapon of defense or attack. Growing in numbers as dusk fell, the crowd now was spreading back into the surrounding streets. Merchants who had not already done so, were hurriedly closing their stores. The cars were blocked, and foot travellers fleeing in all directions. From the thickest of the crowd, a mighty creature of bone and muscle, a giant in height and breadth, grasping an iron support twisted from a bench, had forced his way out to the street, and now was using it to pry up the bricks from the sidewalk, which in turn were seized by his companions.
Above the uproar and confusion the voice of authority, ringing out its words of command, was heard again.
Head and shoulders above the crowd, the giant stood erect, waving his iron bar above his head. "At 'em, men," he cried, "at 'em before they fire!"
But as he paused, another cry arose, a frightened, childish wail, that came from a very diminutive female clinging to his knees. "My Tomlin," it cried.
The giant's arm dropped, and as the crowd swept on and left him standing, Mr. Tomlin looked down to behold the Angel, and holding fast to her, the badly frightened but defiant personage of Joey.
The giant caught the Angel up in his arms. "Hold on to my coat," he cried to Joey, and speedily, such of the crowd as had not swept by in their charge against the police, fell back on either side before Mr. Tomlin's mighty fist. Fighting desperately, he reached the edge, and seizing Joey, dragged him across the car tracks as the crash of stones, the breaking of glass, the sharp crack of firearms, told of the meeting of the forces behind him.
Howls of rage, of pain, of defiance answered, followed by further crashing of stones and splintering of glass in street lights and car windows, and not until they were several squares removed from the scene of action did Mr. Tomlin pause. He then laid a heavy hand on Joey. "By all that's-" he began.
But Joey was ready for him, and hastily began to pour his earnings from his jacket pocket in a pile upon the flagging. "Me an' Angel made it a-singin' on the street fer to get ice fer Mis' Tomlin," the wily one explained. And the tender-hearted giant, gazing from one small figure to the other, forthwith began to sob like a child.
And, oh, the rejoicings of the distracted Tenement when the lost Angel was returned! And how Joey was seized and violently threatened to be as violently forgiven. Mrs. Tomlin, given ice to her heart's content, fell asleep, blessing the Angel for having rescued her husband from the almost certain hands of the law. And when, next day, it was learned that various and sundry of Mr. Tomlin's friends, among them the red-haired gentleman and his dark companion, had been arrested, while Mr. Tomlin was safe at home, the Angel became more than ever the pride and idol of the Tenement.
"There's some'n' mighty wrong," Mr. Tomlin was heard arguing soon after, "for a man with the bone and muscle to 'em as I've got, wantin' work an' willin' to do anything, yet havin' to starve-but whatever it is as is wrong, I'm thinkin' mobs ain't the way to right it."
"An' if he'd only hed th' sinse to make the furrin' gintleman as could talk the gibberish to question th' Angel choild," said Mrs. O'Malligan indignantly, "sure an' we moight have larned all about her by this toime, entoirely, for there's mony a thing she's tried to tell us an' can't for the want of a worrud. But foind me a man of yer as does any thinkin' 'thout his woman there to prompt him," she quoth contemptuously, "an' I'll foind ye a polaceman as isn't a meddler in other folks' affairs, as this yere mob is jist anither provin' of."
CHAPTER VI. THE MAJOR SUPERINTENDS THE ANGEL'S EDUCATION.
"It's a nice, cool morning," said the ever sanguine Miss Bonkowski to Joey, one day late in September, "so, if you will give me your solemn promise-" and Miss Norma paused impressively, emphasizing her words with nods of her blonde head, "not to go to any speakings, nor yet to the dock to fish, nor to any fires, or to a procession, even if it's right around the corner," and Miss Norma drew breath as she finished the enumerating of his various exploits, "why, Angel here can play with you until Mary Carew comes down to get her."
The Major-his cap a little more battered, his belt somewhat the worse from constant wear, but clean as to face and hands, having just emerged from the morning inspection of the Armory janitor, better known to the neighborhood as Old G. A. R.-treated Miss Bonkowski to a salute and a confidential wink, and edged up to the smiling Angel's side. "Yer jus' leave her wid me," he responded reassuringly, "an' I ain't goin' to do nothin' as ain't square."
And Miss Norma, whose faith in human nature, phoenix-like, ever sprang up anew from the blighted hopes of former trust, accordingly turned her darling over to Joey and hurried off. "For she's obliged to have some one to play with and to get some fresh air somehow," the chorus-lady argued for her own re-assuring, though it remains a mystery as to how she could deceive herself into considering the garbage-scented atmosphere of the neighborhood as fresh, "and Joey's by far the best of the lot around here."
Meanwhile, the small subject of all this solicitude, in clean frock and smiling good-humor, responded at once to Joey's proposal, and the two sat down on the curbstone. In the constant companionship of their two months' acquaintance, the little Major's growing interest in the Angel had assumed almost fatherly proportions. Hitherto this zeal had taken itself out in various expeditions for her entertainment similar to the one ending in Mr. Tomlin's rescue. To-day it was produced in the shape of a somewhat damaged peach purchased with a stray penny. But the Angel, in her generous fashion, insisting on a division of the dainty, Joey at first stoutly declining, weakened and took half, seeing to it, however, that his was the damaged side.
"When yer was up there," he observed unctiously as he devoured his portion-and he nodded his round little head toward that foggy and smoky expanse about them, popularly believed by the population about the Tenement to be the abode of angels-"when yer was up there, yer had these kinder things every day, didn't yer?"
If her small ladyship's word could be taken for it, in that other life still remembered by her, she had everything, even to hoky-poky ad libitum, to her heart's content, though her testimony framed itself into somewhat more halting and uncertain English.
"What did yer do up there, anyhow?" queried Joey curiously.