Traffic in Souls: A Novel of Crime and Its Cure Read online

  CHAPTER II

  WHEN LOVE COMES VISITING

  It was a very weak young man who sojourned for the next few weeks inthe hospital, hovering so near the shadow of the Eternal Fixed Postthat nurses and internes gave him up many times.

  "It's only his fine young body, with a fine clean mind and fine livingbehind it, that has brought him around, nurse," said Doctor MacFarland,the police surgeon of Burke's precinct, as he came to make his dailycall.

  "He's been very patient, sir, and it's a blessing to see him able tosit up now, and take an interest in things. Many a man's mind has beena blank after such a blow and such a fracture. He's a great favorite,here," said the pretty nurse.

  Old Doctor MacFarland gave her a comical wink as he answered.

  "Well, nurse, beware of these great favorites. I like him myself, andevery officer on the force who knows him does as well. But the life ofa policeman's wife is not quite as jolly and rollicking as that of agrateful patient who happens to be a millionaire. So, bide your time."

  He chuckled and walked on down the hall, while the young woman blusheda carmine which made her look very pretty as she entered the privateroom which had been reserved for Bobbie Burke.

  "Is there anything you would like for a change?" she asked.

  "Well, I can't read, and I can't take up all your time talking, so Iwish you'd let me get out of this room into one of the wards in awheel-chair, nurse," answered Burke. "I'd like to see some of theother folks, if it's permissible."

  "That's easy. The doctor said you could sit up more each day now. Hesays you'll be back on duty in another three weeks--or maybe six."

  Burke groaned.

  "Oh, these doctors, really, I feel as well now as I ever did, exceptthat my head is just a little wobbly and I don't believe I could beatLongboat in a Marathon. But, you see, I'll be back on duty before anythree weeks go by."

  Burke was wheeled out into the big free ward of the hospital by one ofthe attendants. He had never realized how much human misery could beconcentrated into one room until that perambulatory trip.

  It was not a visiting day, and many of the sufferers tossed aboutrestless and unhappy.

  About some of the beds there were screens--to keep the sight of theirunhappiness and anguish from their neighbors.

  Here was a man whose leg had been amputated. His entire life wasblighted because he had stuck to his job, coupling freight cars, whenthe engineer lost his head.

  There, on that bed, was an old man who had saved a dozen youngstersfrom a burning Christmas tree, and was now paying the penalty withmonths of torture.

  Yonder poor fellow, braving the odds of the city, had left his countrytown, sought labor vainly, until he was found starving rather than beg.

  As a policeman, Burke had seen many miseries in his short experience onthe force; as an invalid he had been initiated into the second degreein this hospital ward. He wondered if there could be anything morebitter. There was--his third and final degree in the ritual of life:but that comes later on in our story.

  After chatting here and there with a sufferer, passing a friendly wordof encouragement, or spinning some droll old yarn to cheer up another,Bobbie had enough.

  "Say, it's warm looking outside. Could I get some fresh air on one ofthe sun-porches?" he asked his steersman.

  "Sure thing, cap. I'll blanket you up a bit, and put you through yourpaces on the south porch."

  Bobbie was rolled out on the glass protected porch into the blessedrays of the sun. He found another traveler using the same mode ofconveyance, an elderly man, whose pallid face, seamed with lines ofsuffering, still showed the jolly, unconquerable spirit which keepssome men young no matter how old they grow.

  "Well, it's about the finest sunlight I've seen for many a day. How doyou like it, young man?"

  "It's the first I've had for so many weeks that I didn't believe therewas any left in the world," responded Burke. "If we could only get outfor a walk instead of this Atlantic City boardwalk business it would bebetter, wouldn't it?"

  His companion nodded, but his genial smile vanished.

  "Yes, but that's something I'll never get again."

  "What, never again? Why, surely you're getting along to have thembring you out here?"

  "No, my boy. I've a broken hip, and a broken thigh. Crushed in anelevator accident, back in the factory, and I'm too old a dog to learnto do such tricks as flying. I'll have to content myself with one ofthese chairs for the rest of my worthless old years."

  The old man sighed, and such a sigh!

  Bobbie's heart went out to him, and he tried to cheer him up.

  "Well, sir, there could be worse things in life--you are not blind, nordeaf--you have your hands and they look like hands that can do a lot."

  His neighbor looked down at his nervous, delicate hands and smiled, forhis was a valiant spirit.

  "Yes, they've done a lot. They'll do a lot more, for I've been lyingon my back with nothing to do for a month but think up things for themto do. I'm a mechanic, you know, and fortunately I have my hands andmy memory, and years of training. I've been superintendent of afactory; electrical work, phonographs, and all kinds of instrumentslike that were my specialty. But, they don't want an old man backthere, now. Too many young bloods with college training and bookknowledge. I couldn't superintend much work now--this wheel chair ofmine is built for comfort rather than exceeding the speed limit."

  Burke drew him out, and learned another pitiful side of life.

  Burke's new acquaintance was an artisan of the old school, albeit withthe skill and modernity of a man who keeps himself constantly in theforefront by youthful thinking and scientific work. He had devoted thebest years of his life to the interests of his employer. When asplendid factory had been completed, largely through the results of hisexecutive as well as his technical skill, and an enormous fortuneaccumulated from the growing business of the famous plant, thepresident of the company had died. His son, fresh from college,assumed the management of the organization, and the services of oldBarton were little appreciated by the younger man or his board ofdirectors. It was a familiar story of modern business life.

  "So, there you have it, young man. Why I should bother you with mytroubles I don't quite understand myself. In a hospital it's likeshipboard; we know a man a short while, and isolated from the rest ofthe world, we are drawn closer than with the acquaintances of years.In my case it's just the tragedy of age. There is no man so importantbut that a business goes on very well without him. I realized it withyoung Gresham, even before I was hurt in the factory. They had takenpractically all I had to give, and it was time to cast me aside. As asort of charity, Gresham has sent me four weeks' salary, with a lettersaying that he can do no more, and has appointed a young electricalengineer, from his own class in Yale, to take my place. They need anactive man, not an invalid. My salary has been used up for expenses,and for the living of my two daughters, Mary and Lorna. What I'll dowhen I get back home, I don't know."

  He shook his head, striving to conceal the despondency which wastugging at his heart.

  Burke was cheery as he responded.

  "Well, Mr. Barton, you're not out of date yet. The world ofelectricity is getting bigger every day. You say that you have mademany patents which were given to the Gresham company because you weretheir employee. Now, you can turn out a few more with your own name onthem, and get the profits yourself. That's not so bad. I'll be out ofhere myself, before long, and I'll stir myself, to see that you get achance. I can perhaps help in some way, even if I'm only a policeman."

  The older man looked at him with a comical surprise.

  "A policeman? A cop? Well, well, well! I wouldn't have known it!"

  Bobbie Burke laughed, and he had a merry laugh that did one's soul goodto hear.

  "We're just human beings, you know--even if the ministers and themuckrakers do accuse us of being blood brothers to the devil and AliBaba."

  "I never saw a po
liceman out of uniform before--that's why it seemsfunny, I suppose. But I wouldn't judge you to be the type which Iusually see in the police. How long have you been in the service?"

  Here was Bobby's cue for autobiography, and he realized that, as amatter of neighborliness, he must go as far as his friend.

  "Well, I'm what they call a rookie. It's my second job as a rookie,however, for I ran away from home several years ago, and joined thearmy. I believed all the pretty pictures they hang up in barber shopsand country post-offices, and thought I was going to be a globetrotter. Do you remember that masterpiece which shows the gallantbugler tooting the 'Blue Bells of Scotland,' and wearing a straightfront jacket that would make a Paris dressmaker green with envy? Well,sir, I believed that poster, and the result was that I went to thePhilippines and helped chase Malays, Filipinos, mosquitoes, and germs;curried the major's horse, swept his front porch, polished his shoes,built fences and chicken houses, and all the rest of the things asoldier does."

  "But, why didn't you stay at home?"

  Burke dropped his eyes for an instant, and then looked up unhappily.

  "I had no real home. My mother and father died the same year, when Iwas eighteen. I don't know how it all happened. I had gone to collegeout West for one year, when my uncle sent for me to come back to thetown where we lived and get to work. My father was rather well to do,and I couldn't quite understand it. But, my uncle was executor of theestate, and when I had been away that season it was all done. Therewas no estate when I got back, and there was nothing to do but to workfor my uncle in the store which he said he had bought from my father,and to live up in the little room on the third floor where the cookused to sleep, in the house where I was born, which he said he hadbought from the estate. It was a queer game. My father left norecords of a lot of things, and so there you know why I ran away tolisten to that picture bugle. I re-enlisted, and at the end of mysecond service I got sick of it. I was a sergeant and was going totake the examination for second lieutenant when I got malaria, and Idecided that the States were good enough for me. The Colonel knew thePolice Commissioner here. He sent me a rattling good letter. I neverexpected to use it. But, after I hunted a job for six months and spentevery cent I had, I decided that soldiering was a good training forsweeping front porches and polishing rifles, but it didn't pay much gasand rent in the big city. The soldier is a baby who always takesorders from dad, and dad is the government. I decided I'd use whattraining I had, so I took that letter to the Commissioner. I gotthrough the examinations, and landed on the force. Then a brick with anice sharp corner landed on the back of my head, and I landed up here.And that's all there is to _my_ tale of woe."

  The old man looked at him genially.

  "Well, you've had your own hard times, my boy. None of us finds it allas pretty as the picture of the bugler, whether we work in a factory, askyscraper or on a drill ground. But, somehow or other, I don'tbelieve you'll be a policeman so very long."

  Bob leaned back in his chair and drank in the invigorating air, as itwhistled in through the open casement of the glass-covered porch.There was a curious twinkle in his eye, as he replied:

  "I'm going to be a policeman long enough to 'get' the gangsters that'got' me, Mr. Barton. And I believe I'm going to try a littlehousecleaning, or white-wings work around that neighborhood, just as amatter of sport. It doesn't hurt to try."

  And Burke's jaw closed with a determined click, as he smiled grimly.

  Barton was about to speak when the door from the inner ward openedbehind them.

  "Father! Father!" came a fresh young voice, and the old man turnedaround in his chair with an exclamation of delight.

  "Why, Mary, my child. I'm so pleased. How did you get to see me?It's not a visiting day."

  A pretty girl, whose delicate, oval face was half wreathed with wavesof brown curls, leaned over the wheeled chair and kissed the oldgentleman, as she placed some carnations on his lap.

  She caught his hand in her own little ones and patted it affectionately.

  "You dear daddy. I asked the superintendent of the hospital to let mein as a special favor to-day, for to-morrow is the regular visitingday, and I can't come then--neither can Lorna."

  "Why, my dear, where are you going?"

  The girl hesitated, as she noticed Burke in the wheel-chair so close athand. By superhuman effort Bobbie was directing his attention to thedistant roofs, counting the chimneys as he endeavored to keep his mindoff a conversation which did not concern him.

  "Oh, my dear, excuse me. Mr. Burke, turn around. I'd like to have youmeet my daughter, Mary."

  Bobbie willingly took the little hand, feeling a strange embarrassmentas he looked up into a pair of melting blue eyes.

  "It's a great pleasure," he began, and then could think of nothing moreto say. Mary hesitated as well, and her father asked eagerly: "Whycan't you girls come here to-morrow, my dear? By another visiting dayI hope to be back home."

  "Father, we have----" she hesitated, and Bobbie understood.

  "I'd better be wheeling inside, Mr. Barton, and let you have the visitout here, where it's so nice. It's only my first trip, you know--solet me call my steersman."

  "No secrets, no secrets," began Barton, but Bobbie had beckoned to theward attendant. The man came out, and, at Burke's request, started towheel him inside.

  "Won't you come and visit me, sir, in my little room? I get lonely,you know, and have a lot of space. I'm so glad to have seen you, MissBarton."

  "Mr. Burke is going to be one of my very good friends, Mary. He'scoming around to see us when I get back home. Won't that be pleasant?"

  Mary looked at Bobbie's honest, mobile face, and saw the splendidmanliness which radiated from his earnest, friendly eyes. Perhaps shesaw just a trifle more in those eyes; whatever it was, it was notdispleasing.

  She dropped her own gaze, and softly said:

  "Yes, father. He will be very welcome, if he is your friend."

  On her bosom was a red rose which the florist had given her when shepurchased the flowers for her father. Sometimes even florists arehuman, you know.

  "Good afternoon; I'll see you later," said Bobbie, cheerily.

  "You haven't any flowers, Mr. Burke. May I give you this little one?"asked Mary, as she unpinned the rose.

  Burke flushed. He smiled, bashfully, and old Barton beamed.

  "Thank you," said Bobbie, and the attendant wheeled him on into his ownroom.

  "Nurse, could you get me a glass of water for this rose?" asked Bobbie.

  "Certainly," said the pretty nurse, with a curious glance at the redblossom. "It's very pretty. It's just a bud and, if you keep itfresh, will last a long time."

  She placed it on the table by his cot.

  As she left the room, she looked again at the rose.

  Sometimes even nurses are human.

  And Bobbie looked at the rose. It was the sweetest rose he had everseen. He hoped that it would last a long, long time.

  "I will try to keep it fresh," he murmured, as he awkwardly rolled overinto his bed.

  Sometimes even policemen are human, too.