Titee

by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

　　

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It was cold that day. The great sharp north-wind swept outElysian Fields Street in blasts that made men shiver, and benteverything in their track. The skies hung lowering and gloomy;the usually quiet street was more than deserted, it was dismal.Titee leaned against one of the brown freight cars for protectionagainst the shrill norther, and warmed his little chapped handsat a blaze of chips and dry grass. "Maybe it'll snow," hemuttered, casting a glance at the sky that would have done creditto a practised seaman. "Then won't I have fun! Ugh, but thewind blows!"It was Saturday, or Titee would have been in school, the bigyellow school on Marigny Street, where he went every day when itsbell boomed nine o'clock, went with a run and a joyous whoop,ostensibly to imbibe knowledge, really to make his teacher's lifea burden.Idle, lazy, dirty, troublesome boy, she called him to herself, asday by day wore on, and Titee improved not, but let his wholeclass pass him on its way to a higher grade. A practical joke herelished infinitely more than a practical problem, and a goodgame at pin-sticking was far more entertaining than a languagelesson. Moreover, he was always hungry, and would eat in schoolbefore the half-past ten recess, thereby losing much goodplaytime for his voracious appetite.But there was nothing in natural history that Titee did not know.He could dissect a butterfly or a mosquito hawk, and describetheir parts as accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpeland microscope could talk about a cadaver. The entire ThirdDistrict, with its swamps and canals and commons and railroadsections, and its wondrous, crooked, tortuous streets, was anopen book to Titee. There was not a nook or corner that he didnot know or could not tell of. There was not a bit of gossipamong the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with darkskins and lovely eyes, like spaniels, that Titee could not tellof. He knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to beplentiful down in the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when apoor, breadless fellow might get a job in the big bone-yard andfertilising factory, out on the railroad track; and as for thelevee, with its ships and schooners and sailors, how he couldrevel in them! The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners,where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long moonlight nights,singing to their guitars and telling great stories,--all thesethings and more could Titee tell of. He had been down to theGulf, and out on its treacherous waters through the Eads jettieson a fishing-smack with some jolly brown sailors, and couldinterest the whole school-room in the talk-lessons, if he chose.Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight-cars. Thereisn't much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat."Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glanceat the sky. "Don't believe I like snow; it's too wet and cold."And with a last parting caress at the little fire he had buildedfor a minute's warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shuthis teeth, and started manfully on his mission out the railroadtrack toward the swamps.It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, andhe had but illy performed his errand; so his mother beat him andsent him to bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in coldweather, and a long walk in the teeth of a biting wind creates akeen appetite. But if Titee cried himself to sleep that night,he was up bright and early next morning, had been to mass,devoutly kneeling on the cold floor, blowing his fingers to keepthem warm, and was home almost before the rest of the family wereawake.There was evidently some great matter of business on the youngman's mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and left the tablesoon, eagerly cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets."Ma foi, but what now?" mused his mother, as she watched hislittle form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind;his head, with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of blackhair, bent low; his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets."A new live play-toy h'it may be," ventured the father; "he isone funny chil."The next day Titee was late for school. It was somethingunusual, for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan ofmechanism to make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovinglyat him this morning, when he came in during arithmetic class, hishair all wind-blown, his cheeks rosy from a hard fight with thesharp blasts. But he made up for his tardiness by his extremegoodness all day; just think, Titee did not even eat once beforenoon, a something unparalleled in the entire previous history ofhis school life.When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feastand fun, one of the boys found him standing by a post,disconsolately watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeareddown the throat of a sturdy, square-headed little fellow."Hello, Edgar," he said, "what you got fer lunch?""Nothin'," was the mournful reply."Ah, why don't you stop eatin' in school, fer a change? Youdon't ever have nothin' to eat.""I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up."You did!""I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted apunctuation mark on his comrade's eye.A fight in the schoolyard! Poor Titee was in disgrace again.Still, in spite of his battered appearance, a severe scoldingfrom the principal, lines to write, and a further punishment fromhis mother, Titee scarcely remained for his dinner, but was offdown the railroad track with his pockets partly stuffed with theremnants of the scanty meal.And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless too, andthe next, until the teacher, in despair, sent a nicely printednote to his mother about him, which might have done some good,had not Titee taken great pains to tear it up on the way home.One day it rained, whole bucketsful of water, that poured intorrents from a miserable, angry sky. Too wet a day for bits ofboys to be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought; so shekept him at home to watch the weather through the window,fretting and fuming like a regular storm in miniature. As theday wore on, and the rain did not abate, his mother kept a strongwatch upon him, for he tried many times to slip away.Dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skiesdeepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone calledTitee to go to bed, and Titee was nowhere to be found.Under the beds, in closets and corners, in such impossible placesas the soap-dish and water-pitcher even, they searched, but hehad gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It wasof no use to call up the neighbors, he had never been near theirhouses, they affirmed, so there was nothing to do but to go tothe railroad track where Titee had been seen so often trudging inthe shrill north-wind.With lanterns and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuingparty started down the track. The rain had ceased falling, butthe wind blew a gale, scurrying great gray clouds over a fiercesky. It was not exactly dark, though in this part of the citythere is neither gas nor electricity, and on such a night as thisneither moon nor stars dared show their faces in so gray a sky;but a sort of all-diffused luminosity was in the air, as thoughthe sea of atmosphere was charged with an etherealphosphorescence.Search as they did, there were no signs of Titee. The soft earthbetween the railroad ties crumbled between their feet withoutshowing any small tracks or footprints."Mais, we may as well return," said the big brother; "he is nothere.""Oh, mon Dieu," urged the mother, "he is, he is; I know it."So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over theloose rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them toa standstill. He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice couldbe heard in the distance, howling piteously.With a fresh impetus the little muddy party hurried forward.Tiger's yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled nowwith a muffled, plaintive little wail.After a while they found a pitiful little heap of sodden rags,lying at the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown upon theside of the track. It was Titee with a broken leg, all wet andmiserable and moaning.They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. Buthe cried and clung to the mother, and begged not to go."Ah, mon pauvre enfant, he has the fever!" wailed the mother."No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry," sobbed Titee, holdingout a little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, all wetand rain-washed."What old man?" asked the big brother."My old man. Oh, please, please don't go home till I see him.I'm not hurting much, I can go."So, yielding to his whim, they carried him farther away, down thesides of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides ofthe Marigny Canal. Then the big brother, suddenly stopping,exclaimed:"Why, here's a cave. Is it Robinson Crusoe?""It's my old man's cave," cried Titee. "Oh, please go in; maybehe's dead."There cannot be much ceremony in entering a cave. There is butone thing to do,--walk in. This they did, and holding up thelantern, beheld a weird sight. On a bed of straw and paper inone corner lay a withered, wizened, white-bearded old man withwide eyes staring at the unaccustomed light. In the other cornerwas an equally dilapidated cow."It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa,I couldn't get here to-day, it rained all mornin' an' when I ranaway, I fell down an' broke something, an', oh, grandpa, I'm alltired an' hurty, an' I'm so 'fraid you're hungry."So the secret of Titee's jaunts down the railroad was out. Inone of his trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the oldman exhausted from cold and hunger in the fields. Together theyhad found this cave, and Titee had gathered the straw and paperthat made the bed. Then a tramp cow, old and turned adrift, too,had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee hadtrudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning and hisdinner in the afternoon."There's a crown in heaven for that child," said the officer ofcharity to whom the case was referred.But as for Titee, when the leg was well, he went his way as before.

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