AN ESSAY IN EQUALITY
For there's 'Ennery in 'is 'ansom cab,
A-goin' up an' down th' Strand:
An' if I was 'Ennery, an' 'Ennery me,
I'd give this bloomin' 'and.
AN ESSAY IN EQUALITY
IT was his by right of discovery. For two glorious weeks he had puddled in it, and now, naturally enough, he looked upon it as his own private property.
It was not, to be sure, in his own Alley, but then he had found it first, and it was his by right of occupation. And now, if need be, he was ready to do battle for it, as any son of Adam is ever ready to do for his own, or what he calls his own.
But then it was worth fighting for! It was the most beautiful of mud puddles, three inches deep and four whole feet long. Such things should never have been in a well-ordered city, but every day the watering-cart man who lumbered up and down the Avenue on his great red wagon left the water-hydrant leaking a little, so that the puddle was perpetually replenished. Suns might shine on it, and winds might blow over it, but morning, noon, and night it remained the same tempting thing of delight, oozy of bottom, and sweet to the touch of shoeless feet.
Each day the boy from the Alley brought his sailboat, made of a shingle, with three rakish masts and a rigging of dirty string, and sailed it adventurously up and down his puddle. With a piece of cord tied to the bowsprit, which was very much on the bias, the boy from the Alley puckered up his childish lips, and up to his ankles in mud, choo-choo-chooed delightedly as he pulled his little boat back and forth from one end of the puddle to the other.
And for two golden weeks this continued. Then, one morning, he found an invader on his property. The stranger was a boy of four, wearing shiny gaiters of tan leather and a black-velvet suit with rows of Glittering Things on it. The intruder was not exactly in the puddle, but he was looking down at it with such happy and longing eyes that the boy from the Alley cleared for action.
He eyed the invader darkly. He had found a footprint on his Crusoe's Island. With curious and half-envious eyes, he noticed the Glittering Things worn by the other. Then, with a great air, he launched his little boat and choo-choo-chooed up and down the puddle simply to show the other boy that he was the owner. He contrived, at the same time, to splash as much mud and water as possible on the boy in velvet. But the boy in velvet did not seem to mind in the least. In fact, he drew nearer, and stood at the edge of the puddle, his patent-leather shoes sinking in the mud.
The boy from the Alley resented the intrusion.
"G'won, kid," he said belligerently, although he was not so tall as the other by three good inches.
"T'ant I watch oo?" lisped the other, wistfully, in a voice of such baby timidity that it filled the Alley boy with disgust. In fact, the Alley boy was disagreeably surprised. When he knew the invader was n't going to fight him, his respect for the invader went down ten degrees.
Still, the owner of the puddle felt not a little proud of the fact that a being wearing so many Glittering Things should come and ask favours of him. He even said that the boy in velvet might come over and sail the boat. But just once! No more than once, because that boat cost more than all the money the banana man ever had in all his life!
After a time the boy in velvet suggested taking off his shoes, like the other. The Alley boy never before had seen such white legs, and was much disgusted when his companion confessed the stones hurt his feet—but just the littlest bit!
The Alley boy showed the other how to squeeze the mud up between his toes, and how to pick up pebbles with his big toe, curling it under. Then the two grew quite friendly, and had a most glorious mud battle.
How that battle would have come out it is hard to say. At the critical moment the invader's English nurse came around the corner of the Avenue, waving affectionate farewells to a policeman. When she beheld the boy in velvet she held up her hands and screamed. In a second she had seized him and jerked him viciously on to the sidewalk.
"'Eaven 'elp us!" she cried, as she gazed on him with despair. She shook him vigorously, after looking to see that no one was in sight, and gathered up his mud-stained things, roundly abusing the owner of the puddle as a pug-nosed brat of a thieving street-arab. The street-arab stood in calm indifference, letting the soft mud ooze up between his toes as he watched the tears gathering in the other boy's eyes. The nurse seized her charge and with a contemptuous sniff at the indifferent child in the puddle led the other boy homeward, asking 'eaven to 'elp 'er each time she looked down at his clothes.
As the boy in velvet was jerked bodily along, he gazed back longingly at the mud-puddle and the ship with three masts. Why could n't he do that sort of thing, too? Why were all the good things of life denied him? Why could n't he play in that beautiful black mud, as well as the other boy?
He looked back regretfully at the multimillionaire, who was still letting the soft slime ooze deliciously between his toes. But the strong arm of that irate nurse hauled him relentlessly on. He tugged to get away, but in vain, and as he was dragged homeward up the Avenue his lusty bawling echoed up and down that decorous street, and filled the inmost heart of his English nurse with a secret desire to spank him.
It was two whole weeks before the boy in velvet appeared on the scene again. When he walked slowly down the Avenue his face was quite as white as the lace on his velvet collar, and there was a big swathe of flannel about his throat. The nurse held his hand, for his legs were still very wobbly.
The boy from the Alley was there with his shingle, choo-choo-chooing gaily up and down the puddle.
"I've been thick!" said the boy in velvet, in a weak and doleful voice.
"Was you?" said the owner of the puddle, indifferently. That seemed an enviable distinction to the Alley boy. He thought it was uttered in the form of a challenge. So with a show of infinite pride he stooped to fix his vessel's bowsprit.
"Yeth, I've been dreffully, dreffully thick," wailed the boy in velvet, gazing with hungry eyes on the shingle boat, the mud, and the water.
"Yes, he 'as, you little pug-nosed himp of filth, and it was you as done it!" cried the red-faced nurse. "Whitney Algernon 'Olland, you come 'ere. Don't you dare to talk to the likes of 'im. 'E ain't fit comp'ny for you! 'E's only a dirty little thievin' street-arab, and it was 'im as nearly killed you. Come along, Whitney Algernon 'Olland, or nurse'll go straight 'ome and tell your mamma!"
She cast a withering look on the owner of the puddle, seized the boy in velvet, and dragged him off. The boy in velvet did not and could not understand how she ever could make such a mistake. As she led him relentlessly up the Avenue he wept copiously. But the owner of the puddle choo-choo-chooed up and down his domain of mud with calm, supreme, imperturbable indifference!