The Enchanted Canyon. Honoré Morrow
screamed the child, while her playmates took up the cry.
Nucky lighted a fresh cigarette and moved hurriedly up toward MacDougal Street. Once having turned the corner, he slackened his gait and climbed into an empty chair in the bootblack stand that stood in front of the Café Roma. The bootblack had not finished the first shoe when a policeman hoisted himself into the other chair.
"How are you, Nucky?" he grunted.
"All right, thanks," replied the boy, an uneasy look softening his cold eyes for the moment.
"Didn't keep the job I got you, long," the officer said. "What was the rip this time?"
"Aw, I ain't goin' to hold down ho five-dollar-a-week job. What do you think I am?"
"I think you are a fool headed straight for the devil," answered the officer succinctly. "Now listen to me, Nucky. I've knowed you ever since you started into the school over there. I mind how the teacher told me she was glad to see one brat that looked like an old-fashioned American. And everything the teachers and us guys at the police station could do to keep you headed right, we've done. But you just won't have it. You've growed up with just the same ideas the young toughs have 'round here. All you know about earnin' money is by gambling." Nucky stirred, but the officer put out his hand.
"Hold on now, fer I'm servin' notice on you. You've turned down every job we got you. You want to keep on doing Luigi's dirty work for him. Very well! Go to it! And the next time we get the goods on you, you'll get the limit. So watch yourself!"
"Everybody's against a guy!" muttered the boy,
"Everybody's against a fool that had rather be crooked than straight," returned the officer.
Nucky, his face sullen, descended from the chair, paid the boy and headed up MacDougal Street toward the Square.
A tall, dark woman, dressed in black entered the Square as Nucky crossed from Fourth Street. Nucky overtook her.
"Are you comin' round to-night, Liz?" he asked.
She looked at him with liquid brown eyes over her shoulder.
"Anything better there than there was last night?" she asked.
Nucky nodded eagerly. "You'll be surprised when you see the bird I got lined up."
Liz looked cautiously round the park, at the children shouting on the wet pavements, at the sparrows quarreling in the dirty snow drifts. Then she started, nervously, along the path.
"There comes Foley!" she exclaimed. "What's he doin' off his beat?"
"He's seen us now," said Nucky. "We might as well stand right here."
"Oh, I ain't afraid of that guy!" Liz tossed her head. "I got things on him, all right."
"Why don't you use 'em?" Nucky's voice was skeptical. "He's going down
Waverly Place, the blank, blank!"
Liz grunted. "He's got too much on me! I ain't hopin' to start trouble. You go chase yourself, Nucky. I'll be round about midnight."
Nucky's chasing himself consisted of the purchase of a newspaper which he read for a few minutes in the sunshine of the park. Even as he sat on the park bench, apparently absorbed in the paper, there was an air of sullen unhappiness about the boy. Finally, he tossed the paper aside, and sat with folded arms, his chin on his breast.
Officer Foley, standing on the corner of Washington Place and MacDougal Street waved a pleasant salute to a tall, gray-haired man whose automobile drew up before the corner apartment house.
"How are you, Mr. Seaton?" he asked.
"Rather used up, Foley!" replied the gentleman, "Rather used up!
Aren't you off your beat?"
The officer nodded. "Had business up here and started back. Then I stopped to watch that red-headed kid over there." He indicated the bench on which Nucky sat, all unconscious of the sharp eyes fastened on his back.
"I see the red hair, anyway,"—Mr. Seaton lighted a cigar and puffed it slowly. He and Foley had been friends during Seaton's twenty years' residence on the Square.
"I know you ain't been keen on boys since you lost Jack," the officer said, slowly, "but—well, I can't get this young Nucky off my mind, blast the little crook!"
"So he's a crook, is he? How old is the boy?"
"Oh, 'round fourteen! He's as smart as lightning and as crooked as he is smart. He turned up here when he was a little kid, with a woman who may or may not have been his mother. She lived with a Dago down in Minetta Lane. Guess the boy mighta been six years old when she died and Luigi took him on. We were all kind of proud of him at first. Teachers in school all said he was a wonder. But for two or three years he's been going wrong, stealing and gambling, and now this fellow Luigi's started a den on his second floor that we gotta clean out soon. His rag-picking's a stall. And he's using Nucky like a kid oughtn't to be used."
"Why don't you people have him taken away from the Italian and a proper guardian appointed?"
"Well, he's smart and we kinda hoped he'd pull up himself. We got a settlement worker interested in him and we got jobs for him, but nothing works. Judge Harmon swears he's out of patience with him and'll send him to reform school at his next offense. That'll end Nucky. He'll be a gunman by the time he's twenty."
"You seem fond of the boy in spite of his criminal tendencies," said
Seaton.
"Aw, we all have criminal tendencies, far as that goes," growled Foley; "you and I and all of us. Don't know as I'm what you'd call fond of the kid. Maybe it's his name. Yes, I guess it's his name. Now what is your wildest guess for that little devil's name, Mr. Seaton?"
The gray-hatred man shook his head. "Pat Donahue, by his hair."
"But not by his face, if you could see it. His name is Enoch
Huntingdon. Yes, sir, Enoch Huntingdon! What do you think of that?"
The astonishment expressed in Seaton's eyes was all that the officer could desire.
"Enoch Huntingdon! Why, man, that gutter rat has real blood in him, if he didn't steal the name."
"No kid ever stole such a name as that," said Foley. "And for all he's homely enough to stop traffic, his face sorta lives up to his name. Want a look at him?"
Mr. Seaton hesitated. The tragic death of his own boy a few years before had left him shy of all boys. But his curiosity was roused and with a sigh he nodded.
Foley crossed the street, Seaton following. As they turned into the Square, Nucky saw them out of the tail of his eye. He rose, casually, but Foley forestalled his next move by calling in a voice that carried above the street noises, "Nucky! Wait a moment!"
The boy stopped and stood waiting until the two men came up. Seaton eyed the strongly hewn face while the officer said, "That person you were with a bit ago, Nucky—I don't think much of her. Better cut her out."
"I can't help folks talking to me, can I?" demanded the boy, belligerently.
"Especially the ladies!" snorted Foley. "Regular village cut-up, you are! Well, just mind what I say," find he strolled on, followed by Seaton.
"He'll never be hung for his beauty," said Seaton. "But, Foley, I'll wager you'll find that lad breeds back to Plymouth Rock!"
Foley nodded. "Thought you'd be interested. Every man who's seen him is. But there's nothing doing. Nucky is a hard pill."
"Maybe he needs a woman's hand," suggested Seaton, "Sometimes these hard characters are clay with the right kind of a woman."
"Or the wrong kind," grunted the officer.
"No, the right kind," insisted Mr. Seaton. "I'm telling you, Foley, a good woman is the profoundest influence a man can have. There's a deep within him he never gives over to a bad woman."