The Air Trust eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 313 pages of information about The Air Trust.

The Air Trust eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 313 pages of information about The Air Trust.

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG.

“It—­it’s all along o’ that there Mr. Micolo!” the woman suddenly exclaimed, “Him an’ his rent-bill!  If he’d ha’ let me in, there, tonight, I could ha’ got Ed’s things an’ then started to my sister’s, out to Scottsville.  But he wouldn’t.  He claimed they was two-seventy-five still owin’, and I didn’t have but about fifty cents, so I couldn’t pay it.  So he wouldn’t let me in.  Natchally, anybody’d feel bad, like that, ’specially when a man told ’em he’d hold their kid’s clothes an’ things till they paid—­which they couldn’t!”

“Naturally, of course,” answered Gabriel, rather dazed by this sudden burst of details, with which she seemed to think he should already be quite familiar—­details all sordid and commonplace, through which he seemed to perceive, dimly as in a dark glass, some mean and ugly tragedy of poverty and ignorance and sin.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, all at once.  “If so, come in here, where we can talk quietly and get things straight.”  He pointed at a cheap restaurant, across the street.

“Hungry?  Gord, yes!” she exclaimed.  Only I—­I wouldn’t ask, if I fell on the sidewalk!  Fifty cents—­yes, I got that much, but I been tryin’ to get enough to pay Mr. Micolo, an’ get hold of Ed’s things, an’—­”

“All right, forget that, now,” commanded Gabriel.  He took her by the arm and piloted her across the thoroughfare, then into the dingy hash-house and to a table in a far corner.  A few minutes later, pretty much everything on the bill of fare was before them on the greasy table.

“Not a word till you’re satisfied,” directed Armstrong.  “I’ll just take a little bread and coffee, to keep you company.”

The woman adequately proved her statement that she was hungry.  Rarely had Gabriel seen anybody eat with such ravenous appetite.  He watched her with satisfaction, and when she could consume no more, smiled as he asked: 

“Now, then, feel better?  If so, let’s tackle the next problem.  What’s your grief?”

The woman stared at him a long moment before she made reply.  Then she exclaimed suddenly: 

“You ain’t no kind of ‘bull,’ are you?  Nor plain-clothes man?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“No,” said he, “nothing of that kind.  You can trust me.  Let’s have the story.”

“Hm!  It ain’t much, I s’pose,” she answered still half-suspiciously.  “Bill and me was livin’ together, that’s all.  No, not married, nor nothin’—­but—­”

“All right.  Go on.”

“That was last winter.  When the kid happened—­Ed, you know—­Bill, he got sore, an’ beat it.  Then I—­I went on the street, to keep Ed. Nothin’ else to do, Mister, so help me, an’—­”

“Never mind, I understand,” said Gabriel.  “What next?”

“And after that, I gets sick. You know.  Almost right away.  So I has to go to St. Luke’s hospital.  I leaves Ed with Mrs. McCane, at the same house.  That place in the alley, you know.  Well, when I gets out, the boy’s dead. An’ they never even tells me, till I goes back!  An’ I can’t even get his things.  Because why?  Mrs. McCane’s gone, Gord knows where, an’ Mr. Micolo says I still owe two-seventy-five.  I want to get down there to Scottsville, to my sister’s; but curse me if I’ll go till I pay that devil an’ get them clothes!”

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Project Gutenberg
The Air Trust from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.