The Four Million Read Online Free PDF Page B

room, fourth floor back, who sat on the lowest step, trying to read a paper by the street lamp, turned over a page to follow up the article about the carpenters’ strike. Mrs. Murphy shrieked to the moon: “Oh, ar-r-Mike, f’r Gawd’s sake, where is me little bit av a boy?”
    â€œWhen’d ye see him last?” asked old man Denny, with one eye on the report of the Building Trades League.
    â€œOh,” wailed Mrs. Murphy, “’twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago! I dunno. But it’s lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin’ on the sidewalk only this mornin’—or was it Wednesday? I’m that busy with work, ’tis hard to keep up with dates. But I’ve looked the house over from top to cellar, and it’s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven—”
    Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that no pulse of pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been wiser. Still, nobody should take offence. We would call no one a lobster without good and sufficient claws.
    No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are so steep and strange.
    Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy’s place. “Gimme a rye-high,” he said to the servitor. “Haven’t seen a bow-legged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid around here anywhere, have you?”
    Mr. Toomey retained Miss Purdy’s hand on the steps. “Think of that dear little babe,” said Miss Purdy, “lost from his mother’s side—perhaps already fallen beneath the ironhoofs of galloping steeds—oh, isn’t it dreadful?”
    â€œAin’t that right?” agreed Mr. Toomey, squeezing her hand. “Say I start out and help look for um!”
    â€œPerhaps,” said Miss Purdy, “you should. But, oh, Mr. Toomey, you are so dashing—so reckless—suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should befall you, then what—”
    Old man Denny read on about the arbitration agreement, with one finger on the lines.
    In the second floor front Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey came to the window to recover their second wind. Mr. McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their heads out of the window.
    â€œâ€™Tis little Mike is lost,” said Mrs. McCaskey, in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!”
    â€œThe bit of a boy mislaid?” said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.”
    Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught her husband’s arm.
    â€œJawn,” she said, sentimentally, “Missis Murphy’s little bye is lost. ’Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, ’tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago.”
    â€œWe never did,” said Mr. McCaskey, lingering with the fact.
    â€œBut if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all.”
    â€œYe talk foolishness,” said Mr. McCaskey. “’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.”
    â€œYe lie!” said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be