THE STRONG PERSON’S NARRATIVE

Near the close of the following winter came news of the father’s death.  In some town of which the boy had never heard, in another State, a ramshackle wooden theatre had burned one night and the father had perished in the fire through his own foolhardiness.  The news came by two channels:  first, a brief and unilluminating paragraph in the newspaper, giving little more than the fact itself.

But three days later came a friend of the father, bringing his few poor effects and a full relation of the matter.  He was a person of kind heart, evidently, to whom the father had spoken much of his boys in Edom ­a bulky, cushiony, youngish man who was billed on the advertising posters of the Gus Levy All-Star Shamrock Vaudeville as “Samson the Second,” with a portrait of himself supporting on the mighty arch of his chest a grand piano, upon which were superimposed three sizable and busy violinists.

He told his tale to the two boys and Clytie, Grandfather Delcher having wished to hear no more of the occurrence.

“You understan’, it was like this now,” he began, after having with a calculating eye rejected two proffered chairs of delicate structure and selected a stout wooden rocker into which he settled tentatively, as one whom experience had taught to distrust most of the chairs in common use.

“The people in front had got out all right, the fire havin’ started on the stage from the strip-light, and also our people had got out through the little stage-entrance, though havin’ to leave many of our props ­a good coat I had to lose meself, fur-lined around the collar, by way of helpin’ the Sisters Devere get out their box of accordions that they done a Dutch Daly act with for an enn-core.  Well, as I was sayin’, we’d all hustled down these back stairs ­they was already red hot and smokin’ up good, you understan’, and there we was shiverin’ outside in the snow, kind of rattled, and no wonder, at that, and the ladies of the troupe histurrical ­it had come like a quick-change, you understan’, when all of a sudden up in the air goes the Original Kelly.  Say, he lets out a yell for your life ­’Oh, my God!’ he says, ‘my kids ­up there,’ pointin’ to where the little flames was spittin’ out through the side like a fire-eatin’ act.  Then down he flops onto his knees in the snow, prayin’ like the ­prayin’ like mad, you understan’, and callin’ on the blessed Virgin to save little Patsy, who was just gittin’ good with his drum-major act and whirlin’ a fake musket ­and also little Joseph, who was learnin’ to do some card-tricks that wasn’t so bad.  Well, so everybody begins to scream louder and run this way and that, you understan’, callin’ the kids and thinkin’ Kelly was nutty, because they must ’a got out.  But Kelly keeps right on prayin’ to the holy Virgin, the tears runnin’ down his make-up ­say, he looked awful, on the dead!  And then we hears another yell, and here was Prof. at the window with one of the kids, sure enough.  He’d got up them two flights of stairs, though they was all red smoky, like when you see fire through smoke.  Well, he motions to catch the kid, so we snatches a cloak off one of the girls and holds it out between us, you understan’, while he leans out and drops the kid into it, all safe and sound.

“Just then we seen the place all light up back of him, and we yelled to him to jump, too ­he could ‘a saved himself, you understan’, but he waves his hand and shook his head ­say, lookin’ funny, too, with his mus-tache half burned off, and we seen him go back out of sight for the other little Kelly ­Kelly still promisin’ to give up all he had to the Virgin if she saved his boys.

“Well, for a minute the crowd kep’ still, kind ‘a holdin’ its breath, you understan’, till the Prof.’d come back with the other kid ­and holdin’ it and holdin’ it till the fire gits brighter and brighter through the window ­and ­nothin’ happens, you understan’ ­just the fire keeps on gittin’ busy.  Honest, I begun to feel shaky, but then up comes one of these day-after-to-morrow fire-departments, like they have in them towns, with some fine painted ladders and a nice new hose-cart, and there was great doings with these Silases screamin’ to each other a foot away through their fire-trumpets, only the stairs had been ablaze ever since the Prof. got up ’em, and before any one does anything the whole inside caves in and the blaze goes way up to the sky.

“Well, of course, that settles it, you understan’ ­about the little Kelly and the Prof.  We drags the original Kelly away to a drug-store on the corner of the next block, where they was workin’ over the kid Prof. saved ­it was Patsy ­and Kelly was crazy; but the Doc. was bringin’ the kid around all right, when one of the Miss Deveres, she has to come nutty all to once ­say, she sounded like the parrot-house in Central Park, laughin’ till you’d think she’d bust, only it sounded like she was cryin’ at the same time, and screamin’ out at the top of her voice, ’Oh, he looked so damned funny with his mus-tache burned off!  Oh, he looked so damned funny with his mus-tache burned off!’ ­way up high like that, over and over.  Well, so she has to be held down till the Doc. jabs her arm full of knockouts.  Honest, I needed the dope myself for fair by that time, what with the lady bein’ that way I’m ‘a tellin’ you, and Kelly, the crazy Irishman ­I could hear him off in one corner givin’ his reg’ler stunt about his friend, O’Houlihan, lately landed and lookin’ for work, comes to a sausage factory and goes up to the boss and says, ’Begobs!’ ­you know the old gag ­say, I run out in the snow and looked over to the crowd around the fire and thought of Prof. pokin’ around in that dressin’-room for Kelly’s other kid, when he might ’a jumped after he got the first one, and, say, this is no kid ­first thing I knew I begin to bawl like a baby.

“Well, as I was sayin’, there I am and all I can see through the fog is one ’a these here big lighted signs down the street with ‘George’s Place’ on it, and a pitcher of a big glass of beer.  Me to George’s, at once.  When Levy himself finds me there, about daylight, I’m tryin’ to tell a gang of Silases how it all happened and chokin’ up every time so’s I have to have another.

“Well, of course, we break up next day.  Kelly tells me, after he gits right again, that little Patsy was saved by havin’ one ’a these here scapulars on ­he shows it to me hanging around the kid’s neck, inside his clothes.  He says little Joseph must ’a left his off, or he’d ‘a’ been saved, too.  He showed me a piece in one ’a these little religious books that says there was nothing annoyed the devil like a scapular ­that a man can’t be burned or done dirt to in no way if he wears one.  I says it’s a pity the Prof. didn’t have one on, but Kelly says they won’t work for Protestants.  But I don’t know ­I never purtended to be good on these propositions of religious matters.  And there wasn’t any chance of findin’ the kid to prove if Kelly had it right or not.

“But the Prof. he was certainly a great boy for puttin’ up three-sheets about his own two kids; anybody that would listen ­friend or stranger ­made no difference to him.  He starred ’em to anybody, you understan’ ­what corkers they was, and all like that.  It seemed like Kelly’s havin’ two kids also kind ’a touched on his feelin’s.  Honest, I ain’t ever got so worked up over anything before in me whole life.”

When this person had gone the old man called the two boys to his room and prayed with them; keeping the younger to sit with him a long time afterward, as if feeling that his was the heavier heart.