“Just as soon as I write and start Mickey with
a note,” said Douglas. “Go ahead,
I’ll be down soon.”
He turned to his desk, wrote a few lines, and sealing
them, handed the envelope to the waiting boy.
“City Hall,” he said. “And
Mickey, I see the whole thing. It will take some
time to figure just what I do owe you——”
“Aw-a-ah g’wan!” broke in Mickey,
backing away.
“Mickey, we’ll drive you to take the note,
and then you come with us,” said Douglas.
“Thanks, but it would try my nerve,” said
Mickey, “and I must help Peter move in the pump!”
Mickey’s Miracle
That night Mickey’s voice, shrill in exuberant
rejoicing, preceded him down the highway, so the Hardings,
all busy working out their new plans for comfort,
understood that something unusually joyous had happened.
Peaches sat straighter in her big pillow-piled chair,
leaned forward, and smilingly waited.
“Ain’t he happy soundin’?”
she said to Mrs. Harding, who sat near her sewing.
“I guess he has thought out the best po’try
piece yet. Mebby this time it will be good enough
for the first page of the Herald.”
“Young as he is, that’s not likely,”
said the literal woman. “There’s no
manner of doubt in my mind but that he can do
great newspaper work when he finishes his education
and makes his start; but I think Mr. Bruce will use
all his influence to turn him toward law.”
“Mr. Douglas Bruce is a swell gentl’man,”
said Peaches, “and me and Mickey just loves
him for his niceness to us; but we got that
all settled. Mickey is going to write the po’try
piece for the first page of the Herald—that’s
our paper—and then we are going to make
all my pieces into a bu’ful book, like I got
it started here.”
Peaches picked up a small notebook, scrupulously kept,
and lovingly glanced over the pages, on each of which
she had induced Mickey to write in his plainest script
one section of her nightly doggerel; and if he failed
from the intense affairs of the day, she left a blank
page for him to fill later. Taken together, the
remainder of her possessions were as nothing to Peaches
compared with that book. Not an hour of the day
passed that it was not in her fingers, every line
of it she knew by heart, and she learned more from
it than all Mickey’s other educational efforts.
Peter scraped a piece of fine black walnut furniture
free from the accumulated varnish of years, and ran
an approving hand over the smooth dark surface, seasoned
with long use. He smiled at her. She smiled
back, falling into a little chant that had been on
her lips much of the time of late: “You
know, Peter! You know, Peter! We know somepin’
we won’t tell!”
Peter nodded, beaming on her.
“Just listen to that boy, Peter, he must be
perfectly possessed!” said Nancy.
“He didn’t ever sound so glad before!”
cried the child eagerly.
