Peewee/Chapter 16
Peéwee was disappointed to find that the place on Madison Street which formerly had been recognized as his was now occupied by another boy. The boy's much larger size forbade any attempt to deprive him of his post by force, and Peewee was obliged to take a block further west, where there were not so many people passing.
Women had always been his best customers; they were now. When he saw one approaching, he held out a paper and raised his big blue eyes under their long black lashes appealingly. He had enjoyed, when he sold newspapers before, watching the effect of this on the women—to see their inattentive expression, as they glanced at him, change suddenly to tenderness and pity and to have them buy papers which probably they did not want. This look upon women's faces now gave him an indefinite unhappiness; he thought of Mrs. Markyn when he saw it. A man almost as old as Beman stopped and bought a paper. Was he, Peewee wondered, a grandfather? Beman, if Mrs. Markyn had had children, would have been a great-grandfather. What was Beman doing now? What was Walter Markyn doing, now that he had found out that Peewee was not his son?
When he had been on the streets before, he had found happiness in watching for the unexpected things that happened. People had poured past as if they had emerged out of blank space and disappeared into blank space again, and he had been satisfied merely to speculate upon what kind of people they were. He found something almost painful now in that kind of speculation. He felt vaguely that the people or the streets had changed. It did not occur to him that the change was in himself; that he had been before without origin and without attachment, an atom floating in the gutters, but that now, for several months, he had been thinking of himself as a member of a family. His "father" had proved not to be his father, his "mother" not his mother. They had revealed to him, however, the feelings of relationship.
Peewee felt for the first time the lonesomeness of crowded streets. At seven o'clock, when children had to be outside the "loop," he gave his papers to the man who had a newstand on the corner—the wagonmen would not take "returns"—and went west on Madison Street to Halsted. A sudden hopefulness came to him at sight of Halsted Street, more crowded at this hour than any other. The moving picture shows were open, with their entrances brilliant with electric lights; family parties—parents with children—were going in. He had money and he followed a party in. He did not know why he did not find satisfaction in the picture, but watched instead a stout woman who was explaining it to a little boy and girl. He came out when the show was over, and moved slowly south. At ten o'clock he was at Halsted Street and Twelfth and sat down upon the curb to observe a basement entrance. A disreputable looking man, advancing along Twelfth Street, knocked at the basement door and was let in. The uses of the place, then, were the same as when he had been on the streets before. Peewee descended to the basement. An old man, encrusted with dirt, to whom he gave three cents, admitted him to a space under the sidewalk where some people were already sleeping. He spread newspapers, which the old man provided, and lay down. He was not comfortable and the place was filled with disagreeable odors.
He bought rolls in the morning in a delicatessen and walked east on Twelfth Street, eating them. The contrast between Beman and the old man with whom he had lodged occurred to him, and he thought that Beman now had got up and was eating breakfast with a knife and fork. The morning was growing warm and beyond the buildings and the railroad tracks where the cross streets ended, boys were bathing in the lake. He crossed the tracks, and took off his clothes and made a bundle of them. He dug a hole in the sand, put the clothes into it, put a piece of board over the hole and covered it with sand. Protected thus against the loss of the clothes, or the impounding of them if a policeman came, he dived and romped with the other boys.
He did not know why the satisfaction which he found in this disappeared as afternoon approached.
When it grew late enough, he went to the "loop" to get his papers. He stood a long while watching the wagonmen, but made no move to get any papers, and finally walked slowly north. He did not consciously plan where he was going, but presently he saw the Lake Shore Drive and Beman's house. He sat down on the esplanade across from the house, looking at it. He knew now that he wanted to go back to Beman, but he knew also that this was impossible because of Beman's anger.
The connection between himself and Beman, when he had believed himself the son of Walter Markyn, had been attenuated; still there had seemed then an actual connection. That he was the son of Beman's granddaughter's husband had given him a certain right to be in the house. Only people related to Beman, he realized, had that right.
He got up, unhappily, after a while, and walked away. When he had gone a little distance, he stopped, hesitated and went back. Again he got up and went away, and again he came back. As he returned this second time, he observed on the sidewalk across the drive from him a man keeping pace with him. The character of the man was unmistakable—he was a plain-clothes officer, a "flat-foot"—and the sight of him drove the thought of Beman out of Peewee's head. Was the man watching him? He walked on past the house a distance and turned back. The man also turned back. Peewee considered his position. He was between the "flat-foot" and the lake; as long as the officer kept opposite him there was no chance of escape. He picked up a pebble and threw it ahead of him and ran after it as if chasing it; when he had reached the pebble, he continued still to run. The man opposite now broke into a run also, crossing the drive diagonally. Peewee dodged back; the man turned back also, his diagonals bringing him continu-
ally nearer as Peewee darted back and forth, until they forced the boy to the edge of the lake. There the man seized him.
"You H. Seabury?" he demanded.
Peewee did not reply. He decided that what had happened to him was that he had been retaken by the Juvenile Court. So he stiffened with surprise, as the man led him across the drive toward Beman's and rang the bell.
The servant who admitted them led the way to Beman's den.
"This the boy?" the officer asked, pushing Peewee in.
"That's the one," Beman replied.
"I thought he must be. He was hanging around outside here, looking at the house."
Peewee stared at Beman defiantly. What form would Beman's punishment of him take? The old man looked sternly at him.
"What were you hanging around outside for?" he inquired.
There was less sternness in Beman's voice than in his look. It encouraged Peewee to find that the old man did not seem angry with him.
"I thought I'd like to come back here?" he offered.
He could not tell the effect of this on Beman. The old man got up and stood before the fire-place, while he seemed to consider something.
"Anybody ever offer to adopt you?" he asked.
The mildness of his tone gave still further encouragement to Peewee. "No, sir," he said.
Adoption, as a fact, was known to him, though not the complete particulars of the process. A person picked out the prettiest child in an institution, and certain formalities followed, which were vague to Peewee. Following that, the person said to the child, "Now you must call me 'mother,' or 'father.'"
"What would you think of that?" Beman questioned.
Peewee did not answer. He could not conceive of Beman's adopting him, and the old man seemed to read the beginning of that thought and hastened to forestall it.
"Not me," he offered. "Someone else."
Peewee's pulse beat quickened. Was it possible that Beman meant that Mrs. Markyn might adopt him?
"Who?" he asked.
"Mrs. Cord."
Peewee shook his head angrily in his disappointment. He recalled the picture in the bedroom upstairs. Mrs. Cord was a pretty lady, but he had no wish to be adopted by someone whom he did not know.
"The proposition doesn't interest you?"
"No, sir," said Peewee.
"You're willing to stay here for a while now though, ain't you?"
"Yes, sir."
The question was apparently a dismissal. Peewee backed to the door, and, as Beman made no motion to detain him, then backed on out. He heard Beman's voice in some unintelligible conversation with the "flat-foot," who presently went away. Then he sat by the front window, where he could see Mrs. Markyn if she came, considering what Beman had said to him. Adoption, it was clear, did not make the person actually his mother. It implied, he felt sure, that he would have to live with her, however. He did not, he felt, want to go and live with Mrs. Cord. He went up, after a while, to look at the portrait on the dresser. She did not, he felt, attract him. What he wanted was to live where he could see Mrs. Markyn.
He noted uneasily that he dined alone instead of eating with the servants as he had when he was here before. Did this, taken in connection with the queer way that Beman had looked at him, mean that the adoption was to take place in spite of him? When he had finished dinner he went back to the window. It was growing dark; a thin mist had come in upon the city from the lake, through which the boulevard lamps and the automobile lights glowed hazily. He had decided that Mrs. Markyn would not come so late, when a limousine stopped before the house and Walter Markyn got out. There was a woman in the motor with him. She was not, Peewee realized, Mrs. Markyn; the indistinct glimpse he had of her—pretty, delicate, blond-haired—told him that it was Mrs. Cord. It was a relief to him when the car drove on with her, and Walter came into the house alone and was shown into the library.
Peewee vibrated between the hall, where voices from the library could be heard, in the library, and the window. His anxiety increased as he observed by the light of the street lamp, the "flat-foot" returning to the house in company with another man. The other's appearance was only less definitely official. At the door they exchanged inaudible words with the servant, who knocked at the library door and let them in.
Peewee retreated tentatively part way up the stairs. He would, if it proved that he was to be adopted in spite of himself, use the same line of escape which he had used before and get out at the back door. He went further up the stairs, but halted doubtfully as the doorbell rang again and Jeffrey Markyn and Mrs. Walter Markyn were let in. Would they have had Mrs. Markyn here and not Mrs. Cord, if they were proceeding with the adoption? What was happening was incomprehensible, he thought. The door of the library had remained open and he heard Beman's voice in some unintelligible suggestion, which Jeffrey appeared to oppose; then Beman's voice again more loudly: "No; have him in." Beman came out into the hall and looked about for Peewee. "Come down here," he directed, seeing him on the stair.
Peewee descended, steeling himself for trouble.