O’Malley was far from being discreet. He did his duty as he saw it, but he saw it too frequently for his own good. Honest, sober, conscientious, he was none the less an irritating influence in the community, the type of man who can do more harm than good to the department. “To call that man a peace officer,” sighed his superior, “is to make sad misuse of the English language.”
Nine times he was hauled upon the carpet for being overzealous in the performance of his duty.
“Listen to me, you big man,” said Captain Collins. “If Justice is supposed to be blind, a cop can afford to be nearsighted when the occasion requires. You’ve got too much blood in your head, and your fists are too big. Will you turn in your star now, or must I break you?”
O’Malley’s heavy shoulders drooped, and dumb helplessness was written in his blue eyes. He shifted from one big foot to the other, unable to say a word in his own defense.
Captain Collins’s eyes wandered to a printed motto on the wall, the Christmas sermon of Robert Louis Stevenson.
He unpinned the card and held it out to O’Malley. “I’ll give you one more chance, Jim. Read that, and see if you can get it through your thick head. ’Tis my conception of an officer’s code. On your way, now, and the next time you open your police manual, consider that card Page One.”
O’Malley departed for his beat, which was a long way off. He made the journey by street-car, hunched in a corner, hands gripping Captain Collins’s present, and his lips mumbling the message, “To be honest, to be kind; to earn a little, to spend a little less…to make on the whole a family happier for my presence.”
Men are not usually cured by the mere reading of sermons. By all the rules of logic, the Central Station would have lost a good man and this story would never have been written, had it not been for Miss Sadie Smith, who had just as much courage as Officer O’Malley and a great deal more sense.
Sadie was a product of Tar Flat, which only goes to show that the law of compensation is a wonderful thing. Bright and blonde as a canary, and not much larger, Sadie was principal of the Hillside Park Grammar School and the kindergarten that adjoined it, having qualified for the job by successfully rearing five little brothers and sisters without the aid of the police.
But Sadie wanted police protection now, and what she wanted she usually got. Fifteen minutes after Miss Smith swept into the Central Station, armed with facts and figures and resolutions from mothers’ clubs, Captain Collins threw up his hands and agreed to do the impossible.
“I’ll give you one, Sadie,” said he, “if for no other reason than that I used to dandle you on my knee once; but God knows where I’m going to find him. We’ve got one third of the force on traffic-duty now, and the council won’t increase the budget. Crime grows—the city grows—everything grows but police salaries.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” said Miss Smith. “I’m intrusted with the training of six hundred future citizens, and I’m paid no better than the cop on the beat.”
“Shake!” said Captain Collins. “We represent the two most responsible professions in the commonwealth, and the two poorest paid. Now show me on the map just where you want a man stationed, and he’ll be there in the morning.”
So Sadie stuck a glass-headed pin right in the center of Hillside Park Boulevard, where cross-streets and traction-lines branched out like the points of a police star. A small park was on one side, the school a half-block distant on the other. In between, owing to the peculiar curve of park and streets, there were six corners on which children could gather for the dash across.
“Good night!” said Captain Collins. “Whoever gets that post will have to put mirrors on his ears. Even then, he’ll get cockeyed. How many children did you say there were?”
“Six hundred,” said Sadie, “and none of them are older than twelve—some are as young as five. They come streaming in from all directions in the morning, at the very hour when people are hurrying to work in their machines. Most of them go home at noon, return to school, and then are dismissed at various hours in the afternoon. That means four crossings for each child. And if the children are late, they’re running, and they don’t look—”
“Enough!” pleaded Captain Collins. “You’ve got the cold shivers coming down my back now. ’Tis my idea of a fine job for a man who’s looking for trouble. Sergeant, who have we got on the discipline list that needs soft-boiling? I want one of these brave club-swingin’ buckos who—who—oh, wait a minute! Never mind, Sergeant; I’ve got just the man. That glass-headed pin is officer James Patrick O’Malley, and may God have mercy on his soul! He’ll be there at eight o’clock in the morning, Miss Smith.”
Sadie smiled her thanks. “I think it would be wise for him to come up to the assembly-room at ten o’clock and make a short speech to the children at that hour. I’ll get them all together. That way they’ll know him, and he can impress upon them the importance of obeying his signals.”
Captain Collins’s eyes twinkled. “A speech?” said he. “You want him to get up and talk to six hundred children? Oh, fine! Make him stand with his heels together and bow politely before he starts. I’d give my back teeth to be a kid again in your classroom. Good-by, Miss Smith; I’m glad you called.”
The little teacher went out the door, and Sergeant Patterson grinned at his superior. “Jim will turn in his badge on next pay-day,” he predicted.
Captain Collins looked at the vacant spot on the wall where once an embossed card had hung, and his eyes grew dreamy and reflective. “You’re wrong,” said he. “Big fists and little hands go well together, and Sadie Smith’s kids will be the making of O’Malley.”
Patterson thought differently.
“I owe you ten dollars,” said the Sergeant. “If you’re right, I’ll owe you twenty, but if O’Malley resigns, I don’t owe you nothin’.”
“What kind of frenzied finance is that?” demanded the Captain. “All the same, I’ll go you this once.”
Pay-day came and went, and Sergeant Patterson lost his bet; nor did he ever try to renew it, for by that time every man on the force was aware of what was going on in the Hillside Park District. The captains told the sergeants, who in turn passed it on to the street men, who went home and told their wives, and everybody laughed except James Patrick O’Malley, who was in the process of being made.
The big harness bull who did not know the meaning of fear was racked wide open the first day. The first avalanche of youngsters that answered his nervous orders, trusting their hands to his clasp and their lives to his keeping, shattered all his assurance. The necessity of making his first public address completed his downfall.
No timid tyro mounting the rostrum to recite, “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight,” had anything on Police Officer O’Malley as he faced the six hundred youngsters who overflowed the seating capacity of the room, and heard Miss Smith say at his elbow: “Now, children, this is the good, kind police officer who has been detailed to take care of you at the crossing. He is going to say a few words to you on the subject of safety, and I want you all to listen very carefully.”
She smiled encouragingly at the speaker, who bowed, cleared his throat, and ran a huge finger around his wilted collar. He had stayed up half the night preparing for this moment, but now he could not recall a line of what he had written.
“Ladies and gentleman—” he stammered. “I mean, boys and girls! It gives me great pleasure to appear before you, and—and—”
His eyes began to glaze. He half-turned toward the girl teacher. “What—what’ll I say?” he whispered.
“Tell them who you are,” she prompted, comprehending his distress and realizing when all else fails a man can usually talk about himself.
“I’m James Patrick O’Malley,” he announced. “Officer Four Hundred and Forty-four.” He would probably have given his age and physical measurements, but at that moment his panic-stricken eyes were caught an
d held by a little girl in the front row who smiled up at him with such friendly encouragement that it was as though she were saying aloud: “Don’t be scared, Jimmy; I’m your friend.”
The solemn lines on O’Malley’s face melted. He smiled at the little girl in the front row. His smile grew wider. So did hers. She tittered, and the titter spread over the room, swelling into a gale of delighted laughter that was led heartily by an officer of the law and ably seconded by a young school principal. The ice was broken forever.
“Say, listen,” said O’Malley, hitching at his belt and holding up his hand as the nearer children crowded around him—with the single exception of the little girl in the front row. She still smiled at him, but she made no move to arise. “My name is Jim, and I’m your friend. Let’s all be good kids, and love our teacher, and be very careful in crossing the street. How ’bout it? Are you with me?”
The walls rang with their answer.
“Three cheers for Officer Jim!” shrilled a youngster at the back of the room, and they were given with a will.
That was the way Officer Jim came into his inheritance, a trust that broadened and deepened as the days went by, until it was the talk of the whole neighborhood. Dignified business men would pass up street-car after street-car just for the pleasure of standing on a corner and watching a blue-coated shepherd at his morning devotions. He seldom crossed the street without ten children hanging to either arm, and a dozen more clinging to his coat-tails and trampling all the polish off his shoes. They clustered on the six corners waiting for him to suspend traffic from first one direction and then the other. At his cheery cry “Here y’are!” accompanied by a beckoning hand, they left the safety of the curb and headed for their protector as fast as they could leg it. His customary procedure was to stand in the center of the boulevard until he had collected a full consignment from three-corners; then he headed for the other shore, entirely surrounded by chattering youngsters.
Not always did they obey his signals promptly. Sometimes a tiny lass in pinafore, more timid than the others, would turn back after she had got halfway, and then tie up traffic while she stood on the curb and tried to make up her mind whether it was safe to go or not. About the time that Officer Jim would decide to wave the traffic on, the small lady at the curb would take it into her head to go. He was always in hot water, and not infrequently his anguished roar could be distinguished for three blocks.
“Whoa! Whoa!…All right, come ahead!…Well, then go back! Come on, everybody! No, no! Not you! Stand where you are! Stop! Go ahead! Whoa! Whoa! Holy mackerel!”
There was really not much danger, for most motorists knew that crossing by now and approached it cautiously. Even so, Officer Jim, with the perspiration beading his forehead, fluttered back and forth with all the exaggerated anxiety of a clucking hen, and the boulevard was smudged with long black marks.
“Damn’ right, I make ’em burn their brakes,” he told the sergeant. “God pity the man that bumps one of my kids.”
By this time, you see, he really considered himself the daddy of the district, and not without cause. Mothers brought their little ones as far as the boulevard and introduced them to the guardian of the crossing with the solemn injunction: “Now if I’m late in calling for you this afternoon, don’t you dare leave Officer Jim until I come.”
Then they went downtown to do their shopping, and were nearly always late in getting back, so that he found frequently as many as twenty youngsters parked with him long after he was supposed to be off duty. Thus he learned their names and became acquainted with their respective problems.
Very small ones, going to school for the first time, were presented by older brothers and sisters.
“Jim, this is my kid sister Ethel. Shake hands with Jim, sis. And this kid is Billy Dugan’s brother. He just got over the measles. Him and me walk home together. His name’s Tommy. That’s his dog.”
He met others during the lunch-hour, when he sat on a bench in the park munching at a sandwich and exchanging confidences with his small admirers. The little girls brought him flowers in the morning and decked him out in defiance of all the rules and regulations. For that matter, Officer Jim had forgotten all about the once highly treasured volume of the city ordinances. The youngsters were riding bicycles on the sidewalks and whirring past on their roller skates, and playing ball in the park. All that he cared about was seeing that no one interfered with their happiness. When childish ailments kept one of his little friends away longer than seemed normal, he made inquiries, and these were usually followed by his appearance at the child’s home, cap in one hand and a bag of lollypops in the other.
“Just wanted to see how little Johnny was getting along,” he apologized.
Of course he had his favorite. Uniformed monarchs always do. Her name was Margie, and she was the same little Miss Sunshine whose encouraging smile had restored his composure on that opening day in school. He knew now why she had kept her seat, while all the others were standing. Margie was on crutches.
The last remnant of roughness was squeezed from his huge bulk by this crippled youngster who weighed scarcely sixty pounds. She alone could not take his hand in crossing, because of her crutches, but whenever he beheld her at the curb, he brought the whole world to a standstill and hurried forward.
They made a picture that everyone loved to watch: golden-haired Margie, swinging gayly to school on crutches, and big Jim O’Malley tiptoeing awkwardly behind her with both arms wide-stretched in a protecting shield. When they had crossed to safety, there was always a momentary pause, while he held her crutches and she put both arms around his neck in a childish embrace. That morning commendation inspired Officer O’Malley.
He made bold to seek the aid of Dr. Commerford, a distinguished surgeon who lived in the neighborhood, and who had both a skilled hand and a very big heart. “The poor little thing,” he explained, “tells me it’s something wrong in her kneecaps. She had a fall. Her mother is away workin’, and her father’s dead, I guess, because she says he’s gone to the North Pole. Her aunt takes care of her. I don’t think they have any money, but I could lay fifty a month aside—”
“Oh, you could, could you?” said Dr. Commerford. “Well, go ahead and do it, you big fool! Put it in the bank, and don’t let me or anybody else take it away from you. Where does your little friend live?”
Jim told him. Not long afterward surgical genius triumphed. Margie discarded her crutches and began to walk unaided. Complete recovery came gradually of course, but eventually she was able to beat all the others in a race for Officer Jim and to spring like a cat into his arms with a happy shriek of “Catch me, Jimmy!”
His cup of joy was almost complete. He would not have traded his job for that of Captain Collins, nor even that of the Chief. The youngsters showed him their report-cards each month, and those that had fallen from grace and failed to win promotion were loud in their insistence that he arrest their teacher. Some of them offered him candy and then demanded: “What’s the capital of Cleveland?” “Hey, Jim, where was Lincoln born?” “Is this the way you make a capital H?”
Because his own education had been sadly neglected and he desired to retain the respect of those that were learning fast, he showed up at the school after hours one afternoon, and made his humble plea to Miss Sadie Smith.
“I’m ashamed to go to a night-school,” he confessed, “but if you could spare me twenty minutes at your convenience, Miss Smith, ’twould be a great favor and I’ll be glad to make it worth your while.”
So Miss Smith gained another pupil. The maiden mother and the bachelor daddy of six hundred children confronted each other in a private classroom every afternoon. Officer Jim struggled manfully with the problems of algebra; Sadie got chalk all over her nose; and the winged god of love sat in a far corner, heels on a desk, chuckling as he watched them.
O’Malley’s romance deepened in two directions. In the evenings,
he now went out with Miss Smith. In the daytime Margie claimed him for her own. He learned why little Miss Sunshine was so glad she could run and why she was so anxious to save all her report-cards that had “Excellent” written upon them.
“It’s for my real daddy,” she explained. “When he comes back from the North Pole, I’m going to run to meet him, and show him all my cards.”
“That’s a fine idea,” he told her, “but you mustn’t be too disappointed if your daddy doesn’t come home right away, darlin’. The North Pole’s a long way off, you know.”
“I know,” she nodded soberly. “But Auntie says Santa Claus is going to surely bring him when I’m seven years old, and I’m almost six now!” She screwed up her face and looked at him with an expression that seemed oddly familiar, but just why he could not tell.
“Well,” he sighed, “let’s hope Santa Claus won’t forget. In the meantime, remember that Jim loves you, and if there’s anything your little heart wants, just come to me.”
* * *
—
Later it occurred to him that her father might be alive after all, for Margie insisted that he was coming back and that her mother wouldn’t then have to work any more. “We’re going to have our own home, Jimmy, and I’m going to invite you to dinner the first thing. You see if I don’t.”
Then one afternoon she hurried up to him, her cheeks aglow with eagerness. “See, Jim,” she cried, “here’s Daddy’s picture. I took it off Auntie’s dresser just to show you.”
He was sitting down at the time, which was just as well, since the picture that was thrust so eagerly into his hands proved to be a cheap postcard portrait of young Danny the Dude. The blood drained from O’Malley’s face. His heavy fingers trembled. So, the North Pole was Greenbow! And he himself was responsible for little Margie’s long wait! He wondered what the little one would say if she knew. His mind reverted to the Christmas Sermon, folded in the flyleaf of his police manual, and to one line in particular:
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 75
