The Baby Tramp

IF YOU had seenlittle Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you wouldhardly have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumnrainstorm, but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly oldenough to be either just or unjust, and so perhaps did not comeunder the law of impartial distribu- tion) appeared to have someproperty peculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark andadhesive --sticky. But that could hardly be so, even in Black-burg, where things certainly did occur that were a good deal outof the common.
For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogshad fallen, as is credibly attested by a contemporaneouschronicle, the record concluding with a somewhat obscurestatement to the effect that the chronicler considered it goodgrowing-weather for Frenchmen.
Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is coldin Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequent anddeep. There can be no doubt of it--the snow in this instance wasof the colour of blood and melted into water of the same hue, ifwater it was, not blood. The phenomenon had attracted wideattention, and science had as many explanations as there werescientists who knew nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg--menwho for many years had lived right there where the red snow fell,and might be supposed to know a good deal about the matter--shooktheir heads and said something would come of it.
And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by theprevalence of a mysterious disease--epidemic, endemic, or theLord knows what, though the physicians didn't--which carried awaya full half of the population. Most of the other half carriedthemselves away and were slow to re- turn, but finally came back,and were now increasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburghad not since been altogether the same.
Of quite another kind, though equally 'out of the common,' wasthe incident of Hetty Parlow's ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden namehad been Brownon, and in Blackburg that meant more than one wouldthink.
The Brownons had from time immemorial--from the very earliest ofthe old colonial days--been the leading family of the town. Itwas the richest and it was the best, and Blackburg would haveshed the last drop of its plebeian blood in defence of theBrownon fair fame. As few of the family's mem- bers had ever beenknown to live permanently away from Blackburg, although most ofthem were educated elsewhere and nearly all had travelled, therewas quite a number of them. The men held most of the publicoffices, and the women were foremost in all good works. Of theselatter, Hetty was most be- loved by reason of the sweetness ofher disposition, the purity of her character and her singularpersonal beauty. She married in Boston a young scape- grace namedParlow, and like a good Brownon brought him to Blackburgforthwith and made a man and a town councillor of him. They had achild which they named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then thefashion among parents in all that region. Then they died of themysterious disorder already mentioned, and at the age of onewhole year Joseph set up as an orphan.
Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off hisparents did not stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearlythe whole Brownon contingent and its allies by marriage; andthose who fled did not return. The tradition was broken, theBrownon estates passed into alien hands, and the only Brownonsremaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery,where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough to resist theencroachment of surrounding tribes and hold the best part of thegrounds. But about the ghost:
One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, anumber of the young people of Blackburg were passing Oak HillCemetery in a wagon--if you have been there you will rememberthat the road to Greenton runs alongside it on the south. Theyhad been attending a May Day festival at Greenton; and thatserves to fix the date. Alto- gether there may have been a dozen,and a jolly party they were, considering the legacy of gloom leftby the town's recent sombre experiences. As they passed thecemetery the man driving suddenly reined in his team with anexclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, nodoubt, for just ahead, and almost at the roadside, though insidethe cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be nodoubt of it, for she had been personally known to every youth andmaiden in the party. That estab- lished the thing's identity; itscharacter as ghost was signified by all the customary signs--theshroud, the long, undone hair, the 'far-away look' --everything.This disquieting apparition was stretching out its arms towardthe west, as if in supplication for the evening star, which,certainly, was an alluring object, though obviously out of reach.As they all sat silent (so the story goes) every member of thatparty of merrymakers--they had merrymade on coffee and lemonadeonly--distinctly heard that ghost call the name 'Joey, Joey!' Amo- ment later nothing was there. Of course one does not have tobelieve all that.
Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascer- tained, Joey waswandering about in the sagebrush on the opposite side of thecontinent, near Winne- mucca, in the State of Nevada. He had beentaken to that town by some good persons distantly related to hisdead father, and by them adopted and ten- derly cared for. But onthat evening the poor child had strayed from home and was lost inthe desert.
His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps whichconjecture alone can fill. It is known that he was found by afamily of Piute Indians, who kept the little wretch with them fora time and then sold him--actually sold him for money to a womanon one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long way fromWinnemucca. The woman professed to have made all manner ofinquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless and a widow, sheadopted him herself. At this point of his career Jo seemed to begetting a long way from the condition of orphanage; theinterposition of a multitude of parents between himself and thatwoeful state promised him a long immunity from its disadvantages.
Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleve- land, Ohio. Buther adopted son did not long remain with her. He was seen oneafternoon by a police- man, new to that beat, deliberatelytoddling away from her house, and being questioned answered thathe was 'a doin' home.' He must have travelled by rail, somehow,for three days later he was in the town of Whiteville, which, asyou know, is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing was inpretty fair condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable to giveany account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant and sentencedto imprisonment in the Infants' Shel- tering Home--where he waswashed.
Jo ran away from the Infants' Sheltering Home at Whiteville--justtook to the woods one day, and the Home knew him no more for ever.
We find him next, or rather get back to him, stand- ing forlornin the cold autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg;and it seems right to explain now that the raindrops falling uponhim there were really not dark and gummy; they only failed tomake his face and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfully andwonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist. And theforlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, andswollen, and when he walked he limped with both legs. As toclothing--ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name anysingle garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it uponhim. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit of adoubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there thatevening; but, for that reason, no one else was there. How Jo cameto be there himself, he could not for the flickering little lifeof him have told, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding ahundred words. From the way he stared about him one could haveseen that he had not the faintest no- tion of where (nor why) hewas.
Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; beingcold and hungry, and still able to walk a little by bending hisknees very much indeed and putting his feet down toes first, hedecided to enter one of the houses which flanked the street atlong intervals and looked so bright and warm. But when heattempted to act upon that very sensible de- cision a burly dogcame browsing out and disputed his right. Inexpressiblyfrightened, and believing, no doubt (with some reason, too), thatbrutes with- out meant brutality within, he hobbled away from allthe houses, and with grey, wet fields to right of him and grey,wet fields to left of him--with the rain half blinding him andthe night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along theroad that leads to Greenton. That is to say, the road leads thoseto Greenton who succeed in passing the Oak Hill Cemetery. Aconsiderable number every year do not.
Jo did not.
They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, butno longer hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate--hoping,perhaps, that it led to a house where there was no dog--and goneblundering about in the darkness, falling over many a grave, nodoubt, until he had tired of it all and given up. The little bodylay upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand,the other hand tucked away among the rags to make it warm, theother cheek washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss fromone of God's great angels. It was ob- served--though nothing wasthought of it at the time, the body being as yet unidentified--thatthe little fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty Par- low. Thegrave, however, had not opened to re- ceive him. That is acircumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish hadbeen ordered otherwise.