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BY-WAYS AND HEDGES

Fernald got off the trolley car and looked about for Graham House. He did not have to look long, for on the steps of a brick building there were thirty to fifty children waiting for the settlement library to open. That event ought to happen at seven o'clock, and the illuminated dial on the fire engine house, across the street, now indicated five minutes of seven. Fernald went up the steps, through the crowd, and turned to the right into the library room. There was a confusion of noises—two or three nervous giggles and snickers, a loud shuffling of feet, and a few articulate questions.

"Where's the teacher?"

"Ain't the teacher comin'?"

"Mister, you ain't got the lady's job away from her, have yer?"

And then, apparently in derogation of the last inquiry: "Shut up, you!"

Fernald took off his coat and left it on a bench. Then he unlocked the bookcases, which were instantly surrounded by a hungry swarm. He took the boxes of card records from a shelf, and established himself with rubber stamp, pencil, and pen at the smaller table. A few children already sat about the larger table, looking at the worn copies of "Puck" and "Collier's." A freckled-faced girl, about twelve years old, came behind the table and whispered confidentially into his ear:

"Ain't the real teacher comin', Mister?"

"Yes," explained Fernald, "she is coming in about half an hour. You can get your books from me until she comes."

"Oh!"

There was deep, Christian resignation in the tone, and Fernald felt the rebuke. At the main library he was superior in station to the "real teacher," but here his evident inferiority was painful. But he had no time to dwell on it, for there were at least seventeen children, both boys and girls, from ten to sixteen years old standing about him on three sides, and all holding one or two books toward him. He tried to remember Miss Grant's (the "real teacher's") final instructions.

"Five cents a week on all books which have been kept out longer than two weeks. Don't give back any cards which have 'Fine due' stamped on them. If any of them ask for new cards, give them a guarantor's slip, tell them to fill it out, get it signed by some grown person whose name is in the directory, and bring it back next week. Look out for Minnie Leboskey, she owes fifteen cents and will try to get her card back. Don't lose your temper with them—they all behave pretty well, but if any of the boys throw snowballs in at the top of the window get Mr. Flaherty, the janitor, to drive them away."

He looked into the numerous faces, wondering if the nefarious Minnie Leboskey were there. In the meanwhile he was mechanically taking in the books, stamping the cards, and handing them back. He noticed that his fingers grew very sticky in the process. Most of the children brought another book to the desk with the one they were returning. This was one they had already selected from the shelves, and they now desired to exchange it for the books they handed in. Sometimes their preconcerted schemes were confusing to the substitute librarian, as when, for instance:

Theresa Sullivan returned two books, one of which was to be re-issued immediately to Margaret Clancy, while the other was to be charged on the card of Nora Clancy, who was sick with ammonia and so couldn't come to the library that evening. But the book which Margaret returned must be loaned to Theresa—that is, one of them must be, while the other was to be given into the keeping of Mary Finnegan, who, in her turn, brought back three books (two on her own cards, and one on her mother's), and her mother wanted the book that Eustacia O'Brien had returned (there it is, right on the desk in front of you—that's Eustacia over there at the water-cooler), and please, Mary Finnegan herself wants this book that Mary Divver has just brought in on her white card, and on her blue card she wants the one she is going to get (if sundry elbow jabs in the ribs will have any effect) from Agnes Casey, and that ain't nothin' on the cover except a teeny little piece of tolu gum, and Nellie Sullivan wants to know if "Little Women" is in, and if it isn't will you please pick something out for her, Mister, 'cause she has tried four times to get "Little Women," and please give me this book that Lizzie Brady has just brought in on my white card, and this is my blue card, and my father says that this book on electric door-knobs ain't no good and he wants another.

After twenty uninterrupted minutes of this sort of thing Fernald (who had once pitched for his class nine and stood calm while the sophomores exploded bunches of cannon crackers around him and sprayed him with a garden hose) felt inclined to jump up and roar:

"For God's sake, hold your tongues!"

He did nothing of the sort, however, for at that moment a scuffle broke out at the bookcase between two boys. He left his table long enough to separate the boys and tell them to stop fighting or he would put them out.

He couldn't help remembering Miss Grant and her associate, Miss French, who, after eight hours in the main library during the day, came over here each Thursday evening for the mere love of it.

The chief librarian had visited the place once—a year ago, coming at half-past eight, when all was orderly and quiet. He looked blandly around for a few moments and then went away. A few weeks later he included in his annual report a perfunctory sentence about the faithful service of the two young women.

Miss Grant came at about half-past seven, and Fernald turned the desk over to her.

"I wish you would get that red-haired girl a 'sad book,'" he remarked; "she has been after me ever since I arrived for a 'sad book.' Have you anything sufficiently mournful?"

Miss Grant thought she could supply the need, but Fernald did not learn what the book was, for, as she came back from the shelves, she remarked:

"I am afraid that boy needs watching. He comes here only for mischief—never takes any books."

She indicated a tall, lank youth of unpleasant countenance, and about fifteen years old. He was sitting at the center table, moving the magazines about, and watching the librarians out of the corners of his eyes.

"Have you had trouble with him before?" asked Fernald.

"Oh, yes," said Miss Grant, "he tripped me up last Thursday night."

"What? Tripped you up?"

"Yes—stuck out his foot as I went by the table with an armful of books. I fell and spilled the books all over the floor."

"Why, the young pup! Shall I put him out?"

"No; he hasn't done anything to-night."

At this moment the boy seized a magazine and rapidly slapped three smaller boys over the head with it. One of the little boys began to cry, and Mr. Fernald, remarking, "I guess that will do, won't it?" conducted the perpetrator of the offence to the outer door.

As soon as he felt the grip on his collar relax, the boy ran to the middle of the street, and armed himself, not with the gentle snowball, but with four or five of the hard lumps of ice which, mingled with dirt and gravel, covered the street.

"Come out from in front of that glass door," the boy shouted, "and let me have a shot at yer! Aw, yer don't dare to! Yer're scared to!"

And Mr. Fernald, not being a true sportsman, had to admit to himself that he was scared to. He gazed at the boy a moment or two, and then went slowly inside. The boy set up a derisive yell, showing that the victory remained with the Child of Darkness, as it frequently does.

His experience of one evening in the settlement library made Fernald anxious to see more of the work. He returned on the following Thursday, but a little later than the time of his first visit. It was half-past seven, and the settlement was in full swing. Loud whoops and yells, combined with noise as of a herd of buffaloes, indicated that a basketball game was in progress in the basement gymnasium. The rumble and crash of a bowling alley were partly drowned by the cries from a back room, where various minor games were being enjoyed. The two library assistants, Miss Grant and Miss French, were dispensing books in the room near the entrance.

Fernald had just taken his coat off when Mr. Flaherty, the janitor, beckoned him to the door of the library by the nonchalant method of standing in the door and throwing his chin in the air with a series of short jerks. When Fernald went across the room to find what was wanted, Mr. Flaherty drew him mysteriously into the passage.

"Say, I guess yer got into some trouble here last week, didn't yer?"

"Trouble? No; I don't remember any trouble."

"Didn't yer put a feller out, or somethin'?"

"Oh, yes; I forgot. I did put a boy out. What's the matter—is he back again?"

"Him? No. The old man's here, though. Been waitin' for an hour. Says he's going to have the law on yer."

Fernald became interested.

"Where is he?" he inquired.

"He's in here. Been settin' by the stove, and now he's gone to sleep. I'll send him out to yer. But don't yer worry about no law. Godfrey! I've had more'n forty of 'em goin' to have the law on me."

"I'm not worried," Fernald assured him, and the other departed in search of the wrathful parent.

This person soon appeared in the form of a short, stout man with a straggly yellow moustache and a very red face. He had enormously long arms, so that his hat, which he carried in one hand, hung nearly on a level with his ankles. He was blinking at the lights, and was plainly more than half asleep. Also it was evident that the wrath had gone out of him. He looked inquiringly at Fernald, as though the librarian, not he, were seeking the interview. He continued to blink, until at last Fernald had to begin the conversation.

"You wanted to see me? Something about your son?"

"Oh, yes. Say, he come home, an' he says you put him outer here."

"Yes, I did," replied Fernald; "that was a week ago to-night. And if I had been here two weeks ago, and had had a cow-hide, I would have given him a good licking. He needs one."

The man looked greatly astonished, but said nothing, so the librarian continued:

"I put him out last week for banging three little boys over the heads with a magazine. I had been watching him for ten minutes. He doesn't come in here to play in the gymnasium—which is what he needs—nor to read. He comes into the library every week just to raise the devil. This was the first time he had ever touched a book—when he picked up one to lambaste these boys with it. And two weeks ago he stuck his foot out when one of the women who had charge of the library was passing the table, and she tripped and fell flat, with an armful of books. If he wants to come back and behave, he may, but he can't come otherwise."

"He says you choked him," remarked the man.

"He lies," said Fernald. "I took him by the collar and put him out—that's all. He was quite able, as soon as I let him go, to run into the street and pick up half a dozen lumps of ice, and swear at me, and dare me to come out from in front of the glass door, so he could have the pleasure of breaking my face without any risk of breaking the glass."

"Oh, well," the man returned, "it's all right then. As soon as I see you, I knew it was all right."

Fernald was somewhat mystified at the impression he had made. He was not especially tremendous physically, and although he came clad in the armor of righteousness on this particular occasion, he had no delusions about the effect that kind of armor is likely to have on a man of this sort. But the father of the boy went on to explain:

"Say, yer know, I didn't know but it was some of these here kids that had been pickin' on him. I wouldn't stand for that, yer know. But soon's I see you I knew it was all right. Say, he ain't got no business here, anyhow. I told him so. I don't want him to come. It ain't a fit place."

And the man departed, wishing the librarian good-night. Fernald was thoroughly resigned to the idea of the boy not coming any more, but he could not help smiling at the idea that it wasn't a fit place. Graham House, the pet charity of a large and prosperous church, had been described in the words that its officers might have used of some particularly obnoxious saloon or gambling joint. He imagined how the Rev. Alexander Lambeth, who came over once or twice a week to smile around the place, clerically—how he would look at hearing one of the residents of the neighborhood describe it as not "a fit place" for his son to visit in the evening.

Fernald went back into the library room. It was crowded with children, and the two librarians had their hands full. One of them was charging books at the desk; the other was making desperate endeavors to get the books in the cases in some sort of order, to find certain volumes which some of the children wished, to keep the children fairly quiet, and, in general, to regulate the discipline of the place.

There were no particularly ill-behaved youngsters—one or two who were pretending to look at the "picture papers" at the table, in reality were merely waiting for a chance to get into a scuffle, or in some other way to "put the liberry on the bum."

The children's room at the central library was a quieter place. It was in a much quieter part of the town; the impressive architecture (impressive to children, at least), spacious rooms, and other accessories produced a more typical "library atmosphere."

Here, the fact that their feet were on their native heath, the familiar noises of wagons and clanging trolley cars outside, and the hubbub of the gymnasium below, all conspired to make the children a little more restless.

Fernald listened to Miss Grant, who sat at the desk with fifteen girls and boys and one or two older persons around her. The older ones were parents or friends who lived in the neighborhood and frequented the library. Miss Grant was discharging the books as they were returned, charging new ones, and incidentally acting as literary adviser and bureau of information.

"Is this the one you want—'The Halfback'? It hasn't been discharged—who brought this in? Oh, you did—you're returning it? You mustn't take the card out till I have stamped it. And this is the book you want to take?"

A voice from the rear of the crowd: "No, 'm, that's mine."

Another voice: "'Tain't neither, teacher, it's mine; she promised it to me last Choosday."

The first voice: "Oh, you big—I didn't do nothin' of the sort, teacher!"

A man, elbowing his way to the front, and relying on the fascinations of his dyed moustache and hat tilted to one side: "Say, jus' gimme this, will yer?"

While Miss Grant is charging the book, he leans over her confidentially:

"Say, don't you or that other young lady belong to the Order of the Golden Bazoo? Don't yer? Say, that's too bad—we're goin' to have a little dance to-morrer night at the Red Men's hall. We'd be glad to have yer come. Say, you can come anyway—I can get yer in all right Yer can meet me at the drugstore on the corner, here, and I'll—"

A small girl with a red tam-o'shanter, interrupting: "Teacher, me an' Minnie Leboskey just took out these books—this is mine—'The Birds' Chris'mas Carol' and this is Minnie's—'Sarter Resortus' an' Minnie has read it hundreds of times, an' she says she don't want it again, an' please, teacher, this here is a kid's book, an' I don't want it, an' will yer give me somethin' for my mother, she says she's read the one you sent her last week, an' can she take the White House Cook Book, too, on the same card?"

A tall and very resolute-looking woman, with three books under her arm: "Have you got 'The Leopard's Spots' in this library? I want my son to read it. He has just finished 'The Clansman,' but he has never read 'The Leopard's Spots.'"

Miss Grant: "Why, how old is he?"

The resolute-looking woman, presenting cherubic-faced urchin: "This is him—he'll be twelve next April."

Miss Grant: "I'm sure we have some other books that he'll like better than 'The Leopard's Spots.' That is not a child's book—there is a copy at the central library, but it is not kept in the children's room. Wouldn't you like—"

The resolute-looking woman: "No, I wouldn't. I know what I want. I'm his mother, and I guess I know what's what. You needn't try to dictate to me. Have you got it here or haven't you? That's all I want to know. I can't find it over there on those shelves."

Miss Grant: "No; we have not."

The woman: "All right, then, I'll go somewhere else—for he's goin' to read that book, whether or no."

A young lady, an acquaintance of Miss Grant, who thinks she is doing a little slumming: "Oh, Miss Grant, how do you do? I promised that I'd come and help you, you know. How perfectly delightful this is—only some boys on the corner threw snowballs at Jean and he wouldn't bring the automobile nearer than the next block—he's waiting there now, and he's terribly peeved. Now, what shall I do—shall I sit down here and help you?"

A small boy: "Say, teacher, come over here an' make this feller give me my book."

Another small boy: "Aw, I ain't got his book."

First small boy: "Yes, yer have, too!"

The other small boy: "No, I ain't—"

His remarks end in a yelp as the elbow of the first boy goes home in his ribs. The two clinch, and fall over a settee, from which they are pulled up and separated by Mr. Fernald. The young lady in search of slumming experiences observes that another small boy is experimenting with a penful of red ink, while Miss Grant's back is turned, to see how far he can flip the ink. The young lady decides she will go and see if her chauffeur is in any further trouble, and she departs hastily, assuring the librarian that she will return soon. She does not reappear, however.

A youth, apparently a butcher's assistant, wearing a blue frock, and carrying a slice of meat (for which some family is indignantly waiting): "Say, miss, my grandmother wanted me to get her a book called—say, it had a funny name, it was 'It Didn't Use to Be,' or something like that. Have you got it?"

Miss Grant: "Yes, I think so. You go over to Miss French—the lady across the room there, and ask her to see if 'It Never Can Happen Again' is on the shelves."

The youth: "That was it, I knew it was something like that."

A severe-looking woman, about thirty-eight years old: "Good evening. Have you ever read this book?"

She exhibits a copy of "Barrack Room Ballads," and does not wait for Miss Grant to reply. "I have not read the whole of it—I only looked into it here and there. It ought not be in any library—it is full of the most disgusting profanity. You ought to know about it, and you ought to withdraw it from the shelves immediately."

Katie Finnegan, aged fifteen, leaning heavily on Miss Grant's left shoulder, and whispering into Miss Grant's left ear: "Teacher, are you goin' to let me walk home with you to-night?"

Maggie Burke, aged thirteen, leaning on Miss Grant's right shoulder, and whispering into Miss Grant's right ear: "Say, Miss Grant, I think your hat is just lovely."

A serious-faced man, evidently a workingman in his best clothes: "Haven't you got the EncyclopÆdia Britannica here? I can't find it on those tables."

A girl of twelve: "Teacher, I want Tolstoi's 'Little Women.'"

A deeply irritated man: "Look here, I'd like to know what this means! D'ye see this postal? Well, look there: 'Please return Evans's 'A Sailor's Log' which is charged on your card. The fine amounts to twenty cents.' I ain't never had no book outer this place!"

Miss Grant: "Perhaps you took it from the central library, or one of the other branches?"

The irritated one: "No, I didn't neither. I ain't never had no books outer no library!"

His companion, another man, with views on capital and labor: "Aw, it's just one of Carnegie's games to get money out of yer."

The irritated man: "Well, he won't get no money outer me."

Miss Grant, who has read the name "John Smith" on the other side of the post-card: "Perhaps this came to you by mistake—it was meant for someone else of the same name, maybe."

The irritated man: "Well, you can keep it—I don't want it, anyhow."

He and his friend depart, much pleased at having baffled Carnegie this time.

Miss French, the other librarian, laying a very dirty slip of paper on Miss Grant's desk: "What do you suppose this means? There is a boy waiting for the book, but we haven't anything about shingling—I've looked in the catalogue twice."

Miss Grant read the note, which ran: "plees give barer why not shingel the house and oblige Mrs. coffey 2795 forth street."

Miss Grant: "Oh, yes—just write her a note, will you, Miss French? Tell her we haven't any of Frank Danby's books. She wants 'Let the Roof Fall In,' you know."

A small boy: "Have you any books about explosions? Mother says she wants one about the Pan-American explosion."

Another small boy: "Haven't you got the Mutt and Jeff book yet? When are you goin' to get it?"

A small girl: "Please, can I keep this book on how to bring up parrots till next week?"

The janitor of the building: "Closin' time in five minutes, Miss."

Two women: "Oh, what's he putting out the lights for? I haven't found a book yet!"