



Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Josephine
Paolucci, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders











LO, MICHAEL!

BY

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL







  "But, lo, Michael, one of the
  chief princes, came to help me."

  --DANIEL, 10:13.




CHAPTER I


"Hi, there! Mikky! Look out!"

It was an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in
the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding,
straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the
crowd. With his bundle of papers held high, and the late morning sunlight
catching his tangle of golden hair, Mikky flung himself toward the little
one. The sharp crack of a revolver from the opposite curbstone was
simultaneous with their fall. Then all was confusion.

It was a great stone house on Madison Avenue where the crowd had gathered.
An automobile stood before the door, having but just come quietly up, and
the baby girl three years old, in white velvet, and ermines, with her dark
curls framed by an ermine-trimmed hood, and a bunch of silk rosebuds poised
coquettishly over the brow vying with the soft roses of her cheeks came out
the door with her nurse for her afternoon ride. Just an instant the nurse
stepped back to the hall for the wrap she had dropped, leaving the baby
alone, her dark eyes shining like stars under the straight dark brows, as
she looked gleefully out in the world. It was just at that instant, as if
by magic, that the crowd assembled.

Perhaps it would be better to say that it was just at that minute that the
crowd focused itself upon the particular house where the baby daughter
of the president of a great defaulting bank lived. More or less all the
morning, men had been gathering, passing the house, looking up with
troubled or threatening faces toward the richly laced windows, shaking
menacing heads, muttering imprecations, but there had been no disturbance,
and no concerted crowd until the instant the baby appeared.

The police had been more or less vigilant all the morning but had seen
nothing to disturb them. The inevitable small boy had also been in
evidence, with his natural instinct for excitement. Mikky with his papers
often found himself in that quarter of a bright morning, and the starry
eyes and dark curls of the little child were a vision for which he often
searched the great windows as he passed this particular house: but the man
with the evil face on the other side of the street, resting a shaking hand
against the lamp post, and sighting the baby with a vindictive eye, had
never been seen there before. It was Mikky who noticed him first: Mikky,
who circling around him innocently had heard his imprecations against the
rich, who caught the low-breathed oath as the baby appeared, and saw the
ugly look on the man's face. With instant alarm he had gone to the other
side of the street, his eye upon the offender, and had been the first to
see the covert motion, the flash of the hidden weapon and to fear the
worst.

But a second behind him his street companions saw his danger and cried out,
too late. Mikky had flung himself in front of the beautiful baby, covering
her with his great bundle of papers, and his own ragged, neglected little
body; and receiving the bullet intended for her, went down with her as she
fell.

Instantly all was confusion.

A child's cry--a woman's scream--the whistle of the police--the angry roar
of the crowd who were like a pack of wild animals that had tasted blood.
Stones flew, flung by men whose wrongs had smothered in their breasts and
bred a fury of hate and murder. Women were trampled upon. Two of the great
plate glass windows crashed as the flying missiles entered the magnificent
home, regardless of costly lace and velvet hangings.

The chauffeur attempted to run his car around the corner but was held up at
once, and discreetly took himself out of the way, leaving the car in the
hands of the mob who swarmed into it and over it, ruthlessly disfiguring it
in their wrath. There was the loud report of exploding tires, the ripping
of costly leather cushions, the groaning of fine machinery put to torture
as the fury of the mob took vengeance on the car to show what they would
like to do to its owner.

Gone into bankruptcy! He! With a great electric car like that, and servants
to serve him! With his baby attired in the trappings of a queen and
his house swathed in lace that had taken the eyesight from many a poor
lace-maker! He! Gone into bankruptcy, and slipping away scot free, while
the men he had robbed stood helpless on his sidewalk, hungry and shabby and
hopeless because the pittances they had put away in his bank, the result of
slavery and sacrifice, were gone,--hopelessly gone! and they were too old,
or too tired, or too filled with hate, to earn it again.

The crowd surged and seethed madly, now snarling like beasts, now rumbling
portentously like a storm, now babbling like an infant; a great emotional
frenzy, throbbing with passion, goaded beyond fear, desperate with need;
leaderless, and therefore the more dangerous.

The very sight of that luxurious baby with her dancing eyes and happy
smiles "rolling in luxury," called to mind their own little puny darling,
grimy with neglect, lean with want, and hollow-eyed with knowledge
aforetime. Why should one baby be pampered and another starved? Why did the
bank-president's daughter have any better right to those wonderful furs and
that exultant smile than their own babies? A glimpse into the depths of the
rooms beyond the sheltering plate glass and drapery showed greater contrast
even than they had dreamed between this home and the bare tenements they
had left that morning, where the children were crying for bread and the
wife shivering with cold. Because they loved their own their anger burned
the fiercer; and for love of their pitiful scrawny babies that flower-like
child in the doorway was hated with all the vehemence of their untamed
natures. Their every breath cried out for vengeance, and with the brute
instinct they sought to hurt the man through his child, because they had
been hurt by the wrong done to their children.

The policeman's whistle had done its work, however. The startled inmates of
the house had drawn the beautiful baby and her small preserver within the
heavy carven doors, and borne them back to safety before the unorganized
mob had time to force their way in. Amid the outcry and the disorder no one
had noticed that Mikky had disappeared until his small band of companions
set up an outcry, but even then no one heard.

The mounted police had arrived, and orders were being given. The man who
had fired the shot was arrested, handcuffed and marched away. The people
were ordered right and left, and the officer's horses rode ruthlessly
through the masses. Law and order had arrived and there was nothing for the
downtrodden but to flee.

In a very short time the square was cleared and guarded by a large force.
Only the newspaper men came and went without challenge. The threatening
groups of men who still hovered about withdrew further and further. The
wrecked automobile was patched up and taken away to the garage. The street
became quiet, and by and by some workmen came hurriedly, importantly, and
put in temporary protections where the window glass had been broken.

Yet through it all a little knot of ragged newsboys stood their ground in
front of the house. Until quiet was restored they had evaded each renewed
command of officer or passer-by, and stayed there; whispering now and again
in excited groups and pointing up to the house. Finally a tall policeman
approached them:

"Clear out of this, kids!" he said not unkindly. "Here's no place for you.
Clear out. Do you hear me? You can't stay here no longer:"

Then one of them wheeled upon him. He was the tallest of them all, with
fierce little freckled face and flashing black eyes in which all the evil
passions of four generations back looked out upon a world that had always
been harsh. He was commonly known as fighting Buck.

"Mikky's in dare. He's hurted. We kids can't leave Mick alone. He might be
dead."

Just at that moment a physician's runabout drew up to the door, and the
policeman fell back to let him pass into the house. Hard upon him followed
the bank president in a closed carriage attended by several men in uniform
who escorted him to the door and touched their hats politely as he vanished
within. Around the corners scowling faces haunted the shadows, and murmured
imprecations were scarcely withheld in spite of the mounted officers. A
shot was fired down the street, and several policemen hurried away. But
through it all the boys stood their ground.

"Mikky's in dare. He's hurted. I seen him fall. Maybe he's deaded. We kids
want to take him away. Mikky didn't do nothin', Mikky jes' tried to save
der little kid. Mikky's a good'un. You get the folks to put Mikky out here.
We kids'll take him away"

The policeman finally attended to the fierce pleading of the ragamuffins.
Two or three newspaper men joined the knot around them and the story was
presently written up with all the racy touches that the writers of the hour
know how to use. Before night Buck, with his fierce black brows drawn in
helpless defiance was adorning the evening papers in various attitudes as
the different snapshots portrayed him, and the little group of newsboys and
boot-blacks and good-for-nothings that stood around him figured for once in
the eyes of the whole city.

The small band held their place until forcibly removed. Some of them were
barefoot, and stood shivering on the cold stones, their little sickly,
grimy faces blue with anxiety and chill.

The doctor came out of the house just as the last one, Buck, was being
marched off with loud-voiced protest. He eyed the boy, and quickly
understood the situation.

"Look here!" he called to the officer. "Let me speak to the youngster. He's
a friend, I suppose, of the boy that was shot?"

The officer nodded.

"Well, boy, what's all this fuss about?" He looked kindly, keenly into the
defiant black eyes of Buck.

"Mikky's hurted--mebbe deaded. I wants to take him away from dare," he
burst forth sullenly. "We kids can't go off'n' leave Mikky in dare wid de
rich guys. Mikky didn't do no harm. He's jes tryin' to save de kid."

"Mikky. Is that the boy that took the shot in place of the little girl?"

The boy nodded and looked anxiously into the kindly face of the doctor.

"Yep. Hev you ben in dare? Did youse see Mikky? He's got yaller hair. Is
Mikky deaded?"

"No, he isn't dead," said the physician kindly, "but he's pretty badly
hurt. The ball went through his shoulder and arm, and came mighty near some
vital places. I've just been fixing him up comfortably, and he'll be all
right after a bit, but he's got to lie very still right where he is and be
taken care of."

"We kids'll take care o' Mikky!" said Buck proudly. "He tooked care of
Jinney when she was sick, an' we'll take care o' Mikky, all right, all
right. You jes' brang him out an' we'll fetch a wheelbarry an' cart him
off'n yer han's. Mikky wouldn't want to be in dare wid de rich guys."

"My dear fellow," said the doctor, quite touched by the earnestness in
Buck's eyes, "that's very good of you, I'm sure, and Mikky ought to
appreciate his friends, but he's being taken care of perfectly right where
he is and he couldn't be moved. It might kill him to move him, and if he
stays where he is he will get well. I'll tell you what I'll do," he added
as he saw the lowering distress in the dumb eyes before him, "I'll give you
a bulletin every day. You be here to-night at five o'clock when I come out
of the house and I'll tell you just how he is. Then you needn't worry about
him. He's in a beautiful room lying on a great big white bed and he has
everything nice around him, and when I came away he was sleeping. I can
take him a message for you when I go in to-night, if you like."

Half doubtfully the boy looked at him.

"Will you tell Mikky to drop us down word ef he wants annythin'? Will you
ast him ef he don't want us to git him out?"

"Sure!" said the doctor in kindly amusement. "You trust me and I'll make
good. Be here at five o'clock sharp and again to-morrow at quarter to
eleven."

"He's only a slum kid!" grumbled the officer. "'Tain't worth while to take
so much trouble. 'Sides, the folks won't want um botherin' 'round."

"Oh, he's all right!" said the doctor. "He's a friend worth having. You
might need one yourself some day, you know. What's your name, boy? Who
shall I tell Mikky sent the message?"

"Buck," said the child gravely, "Fightin' Buck, they calls me."

"Very appropriate name, I should think," said the doctor smiling. "Well,
run along Buck and be here at five o'clock."

Reluctantly the boy moved off. The officer again took up his stand in front
of the house and quiet was restored to the street.

Meantime, in the great house consternation reigned for a time.

The nurse maid had reached the door in time to hear the shot and see the
children fall. She barely escaped the bullet herself. She was an old
servant of the family and therefore more frightened for her charge than
for herself. She had the presence of mind to drag both children inside the
house and shut and lock the door immediately, before the seething mob could
break in.

The mistress of the house fell in a dead faint as they carried her little
laughing daughter up the stairs and a man and a maid followed with the
boy who was unconscious. The servants rushed hither and thither; the
housekeeper had the coolness to telephone the bank president what had
happened, and to send for the family physician. No one knew yet just who
was hurt or how much. Mikky had been brought inside because he blocked the
doorway, and there was need for instantly shutting the door. If it had been
easier to shove him out the nurse maid would probably have done that. But
once inside common humanity bade them look after the unconscious boy's
needs, and besides, no one knew as yet just exactly what part Mikky had
played in the small tragedy of the morning.

"Where shall we take him?" said the man to the maid as they reached the
second floor with their unconscious burden.

"Not here, Thomas. Here's no place for him. He's as dirty as a pig. I can't
think what come over Morton to pull him inside, anyway. His own could have
tended to him. Besides, such is better dead!"

They hurried on past the luxurious rooms belonging to the lady of the
mansion; up the next flight of stairs, and Norah paused by the bath-room
door where the full light of the hall windows fell upon the grimy little
figure of the child they carried.

Norah the maid uttered an exclamation.

"He's not fit fer any place in this house. Look at his cloes. They'll have
to be cut off'n him, and he needs to go in the bath-tub before he can be
laid anywheres. Let's put him in the bath-room, and do you go an' call
Morton. She got him in here and she'll have to bathe him. And bring me a
pair of scissors. I'll mebbe have to cut the cloes off'n him, they're so
filthy. Ach! The little beast!"

Thomas, glad to be rid of his burden, dropped the boy on the bath-room
floor and made off to call Morton.

Norah, with little knowledge and less care, took no thought for the life
of her patient. She was intent on making him fit to put between her clean
sheets. She found the tattered garments none too tenacious in their hold
to the little, half-naked body. One or two buttons and a string were their
only attachments. Norah pulled them off with gingerly fingers, and holding
them at arm's length took them to the bath-room window whence she pitched
them down into the paved court below, that led to the kitchen regions.
Thomas could burn them, or put them on the ash pile by and by. She was
certain they would never go on again, and wondered how they had been made
to hold together this last time.

Morton had not come yet, but Norah discovering a pool of blood under the
little bare shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white bath-tub and
turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time, and getting blood
on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was not unkind but she
hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one arm she applied
herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with the other hand.
The shock of the water, not being very warm at first, brought returning
consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long shuddering sigh. The
eyelashes trembled for an instant on the white cheeks, and his eyes opened;
gazed dazedly, then wildly, on the strange surroundings, the water, and the
vigorous Irish woman who had him in her power. He threw his arms up with
a struggling motion, gasped as if with sudden pain and lost consciousness
again, relaxing once more into the strong red arm that held him. It was
just at this critical moment that Morton entered the bath-room.

Morton was a trim, apple-che