Evelyn Raymond - Divided Skates

Miss Armacost rose and led the way to the basement. She was very much perplexed. Not that she wavered in her decision to take in this homeless boy and provide for his welfare, but because he did not at all fit in with her previous ideas of what such a child should be. He was neither humble nor bold, and now that he had forgotten his shyness was keen and business-like. He neither complained of his poverty nor was ashamed of it; and his manner as he walked toward the table and drew out a chair for Miss Armacost was as gallant as possible.

“That’s the checker!” he said to himself. “That’s the way I’ve seen the gentlemen do in the hotel dining-rooms when I’ve been peeking through, or the waiters, I mean. The gentlemen would have done it, if the waiters hadn’t been there, and it goes. Some day, when I own the papers I sell now, I’ll know just how to act. Ma’am – I mean, Miss Armacost? Did you speak?”

“I – Yes, I did. I thought that as you had had a nap since – since you had made your toilet, it would be as well to make yourself fresh before meat. There’s a bowl and water in that closet; and towels.”

“Well, I declare!” thought the watchful Mary. “If that don’t beat all! ’Stead of ordering the little chap to wash himself, or even me to do it for him, she’s treating him same’s if he was a Livingston or Satterlee, himself. And – he’s doing it! My land! he’s doing it.”

Towsley retired to the pantry and drew some water in the bowl. Such lavatories were familiar enough to him, among the railway stations and hotel corridors which he frequented to sell his papers, but he had never seen one more richly appointed than this. He was rather short for the stationary bowl, but he succeeded in wetting the tips of his very dirty fingers and drawing them down over his face. This operation left streaks of a lighter color upon the dusty cheeks and several dingy marks upon the damask towel which he applied to dry them. With the silver-backed brush which lay beside the bowl he made a frantic dab at his tangled hair, shook himself deeper into his over-large jacket, and presented himself before his hostess.

Concealing a smile at his peculiar appearance she motioned him to his place, with the remark:

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