Roy Norton

“ THERE was a big gang clearing the snow from the short street as I came home that night; so big that I stopped and watched it for a moment, despite the cold, before climbing up to the garret like place of my abode There must have been at least a hundred men working there at one o'clock in the morning, shadowy, moving phantoms of black, weaving in and out round shadowy teams of sleeping horses and high, ungainly, shadowy wagons. ”

“ Once I found the landlord's two daughters—tiny things they were, whose father dwelt on one floor of his own building—comfortably ensconsed in the Colonel's palace listening to the marvelous tales he told.
Just about that time I had a windfall, on the fifteenth of February. I remember, because an impecunious engineer doesn't forget his first big job. It took me to Boston, and on the way back I rode in the Pullman with my new employer, a man who had just been elected to Congress and was rather proud of it. ”

“ Some men aren't built that way. They have hearts but they prefer to blubber sentiment over the dead rather than get in and boost for the living.”
This post mortem sympathy made me a trifle bitter when I mentally pictured a white haired ex-Colonel shoveling coal under Mulligan for forty a month.
“Well, I would help him now and could,” my new client retorted with some asperity, showing that the probe had struck a nerve. “Colonel Howe is entitled to a pension that would enable him to live decently, and the accrued arrears would buy him a home If I could only find him!” ”

“ That it still floats is reward enough for any man, something that can't be paid for in dollars and cents. You insult the motive for my service! Furthermore, you belittle my physical capabilities when you insinuate, sir, that I am not abundantly able to take care of myself.”
His eyes were flaring like points of light from his furnace fires, and somehow he appeared many years younger and stalwart, standing there in his singed rags with his bandaged hands and blistered, scarred face. ”

“ But, though the irons were hot when he brought them down, half-clinging, half-held, he succeeded, and then keeled over when he got to the bottom. My ex-landlord swore he was the greatest hero ever, and that so long as he lived he should never want for anything.
“The odd part of it is,” he concluded, “that I couldn't get him to accept money. Wouldn't even go to the hospital till his blisters healed. All he would accept was another job.”
“Where?” the Congressman and I asked together.
“He's down in the basement of this house now—shoveling coal.” ”

“ I've got a friend that wants a job, and he isn't husky. He couldn't possibly give you that kind of ocular decoration if he wanted to. He's white winged peace, he is! Moreover, he's a mighty shoveler of coal. Are you next? Job for him ”

“ He reached in his pocket and pulled out his “Honorable Discharge,” which I had seen before. “I've no place of security for these and wish you would keep them for me.”
I took them reluctantly realizing that they were priceless official evidences of an honorable life. He went away, and after finding a place to hide them, I sought the janitor to cancel my obligation. I found him in the basement.
“Good old feller, that,” he said with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Sings hymns when he works. Them singin' kind always tends to business.” ”