Читать книгу The Blue Birds at Happy Hills - Lillian Elizabeth Roy - Страница 4

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“Hello, Finn—where’er yeh goin’ in sech a hurry?” asked a newsboy of a pal who was hurrying past.

“Oh—hello, Skelly! I’m lookin’ fer that chap what knows about them passes fer camp.”

“Hully chee, Finn! Yeh don’t tell me ye’re goin’ to that Sunday School place—what?” jeered the boy called Skelly.

“’Tain’t a prayer-meetin’ camp, neider! It’s a regerler camp fer boys and gals. I was told there’s not a bit of Sunday School stunts goin’ on there,” replied Finn, defensively.

“Huh, all the same, you’ll come back actin’ like a little lady! Dey’ll cure yuh of cigarettes, matchin’ pennies and all the udder fun we’ve had,” scorned Skelly, bitterly.

“See here, now! I ain’t wantin’ the ticket fer meself—it’s only fer my sick sister, yuh know. The Doc said she’d got to git out of that hot, dark room in the tenement, and where kin I keep her—on’y in a camp like this is?” explained the worried brother to the leader of the Ludlow Street gang.

“Oh, I see,” returned Skelly, apologetically, “An’ so yeh want to find Ike who’s got the address of the place!”

“That’s it! Have yeh seen him this mornin’?” asked Finn.

“He went uptown to see the man at the printin’ office. He tol’ me all the tickets he had on hand were given out and he needed more. Why don’t yuh trot up and see the man yourself instead of hangin’ ’round waitin’ fer Ike?” ventured Skelly.

“Guess I will—where is it?”

Skelly thereupon dug down into the pockets of a ragged pair of trousers and finally brought to view a dirty scrap of paper. Upon it was scrawled: “Benjamin Talmage, Manager of Blue Bird Camp at Happy Hills, 354 Fourth Avenue, New York.”

“Dat’s up near 23rd Street, yuh know,” Skelly added, as Finn read aloud the address.

“I’ll git a hitch on a truck goin’ up, and try to see the boss right away,” said Finn, his face expressing relief at having some tangible plan to act upon.

Thanks and the verbal expression of gratitude were unknown to the street Arabs of New York, but Skelly knew from Finn’s face that he appreciated the information, and that was all that was required of a friend.

A large auto-truck sped past the boys, and Finn was soon perched on the tailboard, waving his old cap at Skelly. The truck turned in at 23rd Street to go its way to the East Side, so Finn jumped off and scanned the numbers of the tall office buildings as he started uptown.

“Hah! Here it is! Hully chee, what a swell shanty!” said he to himself as he stood wondering whether to enter the tiled hall. Would the elevator starter permit a boy so ragged and dirty to go up in one of those shiny lifts?

He still pondered this momentous question when Ike ran out and almost into him.

“Looka where yer goin’, why don’che?” grumbled Finn, then seeing that it was Ike, he clapped him soundly on the back.

“Aw, I say, Ikey! Gim’me a ticket fer me sister?”

“Look out what’che crackin’, Finny! Dat’s my back lung what sounds so holler when you beat it,” grinned Ike, the good-natured boy from Rivington Street who had won fame as a ticket-distributor for Happy Hills.

“Got one to spare?” anxiously continued Finn.

“Nope! Yeh got’ta apply personal. I’ll go up wid yeh if you wants one bad,” offered Ike.

“Come along den—I need yeh to help talk;” so the two were soon going up.

After leaving the elevator, the two boys walked down a very long corridor with offices on either side. Said Ikey:

“Now, you’se wants to be careful how you’se talk in here, see? Mr. Ta’mage is a fine chentlman and don’t like no slang. Mebbe yeh better keep yer mouth shet altogether an’ let me do the talkin’—cuz, yeh know, Finn, yeh do spill an awful lot of slang widger English!”

Finn was properly impressed and consented to have Ikey do all the talking. By this time the boys reached the door leading to the suite of offices they sought.

“Please, ma’am, tell Mr. Ta’mage Ikey Einstein is back yet—Micky Finn, too, wants to make his acquaintance,” said Ikey to the pretty telephone operator who sat near the door.

“Yank off yer cap, Finn—hurry up quick, before she sees it!” hissed Ikey in his companion’s ear as they stood waiting for an answer. Ikey had removed his apology for a hat when entering.

“Mr. Talmage says will you be seated, he’ll be out in a moment,” announced the girl, with a smile at the young visitors.

Ikey knew the particular bench meant for waiting callers, and silently led Finn to it. No sooner were they seated than the door by which they had just entered was flung open and a number of children of their own age came in.

“Hello, Miss Johnson! Uncle Ben in?” called the youngest boy in the group.

“He’s busy now, and has two waiting to see him,” was the young lady’s reply after she had acknowledged Don’s greeting—for the boy was our old friend and favorite, Don Starr, and his companions were no less than the officers of the Blue Bird and Bobolink Publishing Society that issued the monthly magazine for Little Citizens.

At the nod of Miss Johnson’s head in the direction of the two who were waiting, Don spun around and recognized one of them.

“Well, well, if this isn’t our friend Ikey!” said Don, in his tone and manners for all the world like a grown man, as he caught Ikey’s hand and shook it heartily.

The other children—Ned and Ruth Talmage, Meredith, Jinks, Lavinia, and Dot Starr, turned at Don’s words to watch the two boys.

“Where under the sun did Don meet that boy?” whispered Lavinia to her brother Meredith.

“Say, Vene, where does Don find anything he wants to get hold of!” returned Meredith, chuckling at his younger brother.

“I know!” now declared Dot Starr, Don’s twin sister.

The others waited for her to explain, so she placed a hand at the side of her mouth to prevent the two strange boys from hearing what she whispered.

“They are newsboys who first heard of us at the ‘Tree of Light’ last Christmas. Ikey is the thin one and he was at that Easter Egg Picnic in Van Cortlandt Park, too. That’s where Don met him; Ikey had such a lot of eggs that we asked where he got all of them, ’cause we knew he couldn’t have had that many to start with. And he told——”

“S-sh! Not so loud, Dot! He’ll hear you. What did he tell you?” interpolated Jinks.

“Why, you know he works in a newspaper printing place where they hire boys to clean up messes of inks and trash, and run errands, too. Ikey got a lot of free tickets from the printer to some lecture and he traded them in, a ticket for every egg he could get. Then he told Don he was going to sell those eggs downtown to his friends.”

“Did he?” asked Ruth, surprised that anyone would want to sell Easter Eggs.

“I’m going over and find out—I guess that’s what Don is talking about now,” replied Dot, joining her twin brother.

“Say, Dot, Ikey just told me he made 56 cents on those Easter eggs, and now he’s set up in business—newspaper business of his own. He wants me to go in as his partner—what do you think of it?” said Don in a low voice, for fear his brother or Jinks might overhear the plan.

“Pooh! You couldn’t leave Oakdale for a newspaper business, and what’s the good of having a business if you can’t look after it yourself?” replied Dot.

“He could yust invest his money an’ I’d look after it,” hurriedly explained Ikey, all for business.

“If Don looked after all he ought to at home, he’d have more interests than he could take care of. No sir! You leave Ikey Einstein to manage his own investment!” decided Dot, the practical.

“You’re jealous ’cause you were left out—that’s what!” said Don, impatiently, as Dot pulled him back to his friends.

Uncle Ben came out just then, and shook hands with his Oakdale friends. “Just go in that director’s room until I finish talking to these two young men, will you?”

So the little Talmages and Starrs and Jinks left Uncle Ben with Ikey and Micky Finn.

“Mr. Ta’mage, dis newspaper boy’s got a bad-off sister to which a Doc says she must get away quick to the country fer fresh air or a grave. Now Finn—he’s Micky Finn, you know, an’ a fren’ of mine—says he ain’t got no country place an’ neider have we got a cemetery lot if Nelly goes and dies, but mebbe you kin let her come right away, quick, to Happy Hills so she kin get well and not need a grave.”

Ikey told the story in one breath so that at the last he was not very distinct, but Uncle Ben knew the story—there were so many, many more just like it in the city! If only Happy Hills had fifty times the number of acres fitted up with fifty times the number of camp-nests!

“Micky, how old is your sister Nelly?” asked Mr. Talmage.

“She’s two years younger’n me,” stammered Finn.

“And how old are you, little man?” continued Uncle Ben, placing a friendly hand on the urchin’s shoulder.

The touch and tone made Micky Finn brace his backbone with conscious pride as he replied:

“I’m mos’ twelve, sur, an’ I’ve been the bread-winner fer th’ fam’ly fer four years—ain’t I, Ikey?”

“Shure he has! An’ Nelly gits more’n lots of sick gals we know, ’cuz Finn won’t play craps ner match pennies like the udder boys do!” bragged Ikey, anxious to win a ticket for Micky.

“Well, let me see! Who will go with Nelly, to take care of her? Have you any other sisters or family to travel with her?” asked Uncle Ben.

“We had a sister two years older’n us but she disappeared one night an’ we never hearn tell of her agin. She worked in a tobacco-shop. Since then, I had all the supportin’ to do. That was last summer, she went wid anudder gal to Coney Island an’ never got back.”

“I’ll have to write down your address, Finn, and send a lady down to see Nelly. If everything is all right, she will arrange to take your sister to the country at once. I’ll make out the ticket myself. Now you can go out and spend week-ends with her if you like. And should you take a summer vacation, you can go to Happy Hills free of cost for two weeks,” explained Mr. Talmage.

Micky Finn was so overwhelmed with gratitude and surprise at this unexpected invitation that he stood gaping at his benefactor, but said not a word.

“T’ank the chentleman, Micky! Can’t che t’ank him nice, fer what he’s gone and done fer you an’ Nelly?” Ikey said with a scowl at his friend for whom he was sponsor.

“I do thank—Aw, get out, Ikey! De gentleman knows the choky way I feel in my windpipe! Don’che, Mister?” wailed Finn.

“Yes, Micky, I know just how you feel, and I feel just as happy as if you had thanked me with every word known to convey the feeling of gratitude,” said Mr. Talmage, smiling.

“Dat’s all right to say to him, Mr. Ta’mage, but I don’t like my fren’s what I bring up here to do nuttin’ what ain’t all jus’ right. We all gotta remember to say what folks like you’se say to each udder, ef we’re goin’ to live at Happy Hills!” rebuked Ikey Einstein, thoughtfully.

“That’s right, too, Ikey, but you have had more opportunities to practice than Micky had; when he meets us often, he, too, will begin to change his habits and ways of expressing himself.”

As Mr. Talmage spoke, Micky Finn recalled the words his pal Skelly had said a short time before: something about becoming a little lady with fine manners but no fun!

“Good gracious, Uncle Ben—aren’t you most done talking to those boys?” called Don Starr from the door of the director’s room.

“Coming right now, Don! Well, Micky, let me know when you want to go and spend Sunday with your sister. I’ll try and get her off in a day or two,” said Mr. Talmage. Then the two street waifs took their departure.

Of course, you know what it is all about, don’t you? You remember what Uncle Ben did in the last Blue Bird book, and how the camps at Happy Hills progressed so that they might be ready to receive Little Citizens as early as the last of May?

If you have forgotten how the Nests and other plans at Aunt Selina’s country place were to be built, I will repeat the description.

The great estate and farm of Happy Hills in the Valley of Delight, had a fine large woodland tract where the Nests were built. A shallow brook ran through the woods, offering all sorts of fun and convenience to the little campers. At one side of the woodland lay a fertile stretch of land that was divided into many squares, one for each child at camp, to be used as farms. In this soil, a Little Citizen might dig and plant and harvest different kinds of vegetables and flowers and have them all for his own. No one could trespass or take away what a child planted on his or her own farm.

The Nests were large enough to hold six bunks and a bed. The bunks, three on either side of the square room, were to be for the six Little Citizens occupying that Nest, and the bed at the end would be for the Mother Bird of that particular Nest. Besides the bunks and bed, there was a locker and a clothes-tree at the head of each bunk. The lockers had lids to be closed and locked to hold personal things belonging to the child who was given that section of the Nest. It could also be used as a seat.

Each Nest was about fifteen feet square, and posts held up a sloping roof to shed the rain. This roof extended about two feet over the outer line of the square room to protect the beds and lockers from the rain when it stormed. Another arrangement to keep the inside of the Nest dry, was a canvas curtain that rolled up on spring-rollers in fair weather, but came down in wet or cold weather, to act as a wall or screen. These curtains buttoned down the sides and at the bottom.

A gallery three feet wide extended about the outside of the Nest. This narrow veranda was railed in safely by a three-foot fence to keep the children from falling off the platform of the Nest which was raised a few feet above the ground.

The Refectory was a large open building equipped with rain-proof curtains also, but on fair days they were rolled up so that it was like a great pavilion. Even the long tables and chairs folded up and could be quickly stacked up at one end of the room if the space was wanted for games or meetings.

Besides the sleeping Nests and the Refectory, there were a tool-house, a carpenter shop for teaching carpentry, a machine-shop to teach mechanics, a library with books and papers to read, and in fact many other departments for the education of boys and girls.

As you read in the last chapter of “The Blue Birds’ Uncle Ben,” the children published their June number of the magazine and planned to suspend for July and August. In this June issue they showed photographs of Happy Hills and the Nests ready to receive tenants for the summer. And as every benevolent institution and child’s hospital, as well as the Welfare Workers and physicians known to be interested in the poor children received a copy of the June magazine, the boys and girls publishing it felt sure there would be plenty of applicants to fill the camp.

So work went on until the last of May, when all was ready at Happy Hills, and Maggie Owens—you remember Maggie, don’t you?—already had her little flock of brothers and sisters in one of the Nests. She was the first Little Citizen to take up residence at the camp. Maggie had been admitted without a ticket as her case was well known to the Blue Birds and needed no investigation, but the tickets were ready for distribution the day before Decoration Day and Uncle Ben was truly surprised at the demand awaiting them.

Ikey Einstein had been suggested by the Big Brother’s Organization as an honest, shrewd little fellow who could be of great assistance in the matter of tickets, so the boy was interviewed and engaged at a salary to furnish information about any of the numerous applicants from the East Side, where Ikey lived.

And that is why Micky Finn sought out Ikey when he wanted to secure a camp-ticket for Nelly.