Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolence taking
up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the school bell
called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshly sharpened
pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, comet fashion, a tail of
unwilling brothers as they went.
An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promised the
baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach them
himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyne intended to
go away.
The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had gone,
and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination of writing
on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards was a
hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put up new
curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.
To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had added its
quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that were
absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, and every
Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of gas.
They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next there was the
news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in the gas
office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee's hazarded!--and
that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr. Max Wilson.
The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old
sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement
over the matter,--of K., not the sidewalks,--and then had accepted the new
situation.
But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned. What was the
matter with things, anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which had
promised so well,--awnings and palms and everything,--turning out badly.
True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again. And
Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing-days, and
brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs dry-eyed and silent--even
the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrill her. There was
Tillie, too. But one did not speak of her. She was married now, of
course; but the Street did not tolerate such a reversal of the usual
processes as Tillie had indulged in. It censured Mrs. McKee severely for
having been, so to speak, and accessory after the fact.
The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible. If he had shown any
"high and mightiness," as they called it, since the change in his estate,
it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the real
thing,--so that the newspapers give a column to his having been in the city
almost two years,--and still goes about in the same shabby clothes, with
the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstrates clearly, as the
barytone put it, that "he's got no swelled head on him; that's sure."