At the moment, however, for four of them the only thing on their minds was the curious feeling of being clean. Well, half clean, anyway.
“Problem with havin’ a worsh,” said Duck, “is it makes wot we got on feel dirtier’n b’fore.”
“An’ all tore up,” said Spider. “Wish we knowed somethin’ bout’ sewin’.”
“Sewin’!” said Mouse. “You really do got butterflies in yer head, Spider.”
Robin took a moment to consider this situation. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “I … I can sew,” he said. “I … I used to help my mama, I mean my ma, with sewing she took in when we needed money.”
Duck’s eyes widened. “You mean you c’d sew some o’ these rags up fer us?”
“If I had a needle and some thread,” replied Robin.
Duck just shook his head and grinned. “Well I’ll be!” he said. “Sewin’! So I were right. I figgered as you got ter be good fer somethin’!”
Only one thing marred what had been an otherwise happy day for Robin. When Piggy had managed to sneak from the room to make a visit down the hallway, Robin had quickly pulled from his jacket the locket he had had no chance to look at from the time he had taken it from Hawker’s drawer. He snapped the locket open. And there were indeed pictures in it, one of a beautiful young woman, and one of a handsome young man. But they were not of his mama and papa. It was a bitter disappointment.
He hid the locket back inside his jacket where it would have to remain with the pin. After all, he could never show either locket or pin to the boys. “No stealin’, no cheatin’, no gamblin’,” Duck had said. Robin did not want to start his life with them as a known thief. Oh, how he wished he had never heard of Hawker Doak’s precious drawer!
Chapter X
A Startling Scene
Talking about being a shoe-shine boy turned out to be a lot easier than being one, Robin soon learned. It was, in truth, downright frightening, even though all he was doing was standing beside Duck and watching him do the work. Robin had not even brought his own box and brushes with him, as he certainly never expected to do any shoe shining that day.
What he found out was that not everyone simply came up to a shoe-shine boy and said, “Shine, please.” No, not at all. More often than not, the boy had to go up to a likely prospect, get his attention, and say, “Shine your shoes, mister?”
And though selling newspapers may have been a difficult business, at least all a boy did when he sold a paper was hand it over and take the money. If the paper had bad news in it, that was not the boy’s fault. It was the fault of the paper, and that was that. The newspaper boy was not blamed if the news was not to the customer’s liking.
The shoe-shine boy, on the other hand, was selling his services, and they had to be right or he would hear about it, and possibily not even be paid. Further, the services had to be performed under the very eyes of the owner of the shoes, eyes making certain that every penny’s worth of value was received, and no mistakes made. Robin had his first sad lesson in mistake making that very day.
Unsuspecting, he watched Duck persuade a man to have his shoes shined, only to have a brush thrust into his hands as Duck said under his breath, “Here! Yer ready ter have a go at it.”
Robin, of course, was no such thing, and soon proved it by trembling so hard he got blacking on the man’s trouser cuff. The man swore at him and walked off in a rage, saying he ought to charge him for a new pair of trousers. Quite naturally, neither Duck nor Robin earned any money for this job.
“Sorry fer that,” said Duck. “Guess you wasn’t ready like I thought. Never you mind. I messed up the firs’ time I ever done shoes. You’ll git it soon.”
“I’ll pay you back for this one,” said Robin, totally miserable.
“Nah, fergit it,” said Duck. “Whyn’t you go on back. I’ll be followin’ soon. You had ’nough lessons fer terday. An’ ain’t goin’ ter be long fer it ter be gittin’ dark.”
Robin, feeling as if he had had all the lessons he ever wanted in the art of shoe shining, trailed dejectedly back to the church. It would be the greatest miracle the church had ever witnessed if he ever learned to shine a pair of shoes. The only problem was, what else was there that he could do? The worry occupied his mind all the way, and was only driven out, when he arrived at the church, by what for a while seemed an even greater worry.
The old man always left the cellar door unlocked during the day. The door had to be opened very carefully, however, because he might be close behind it at any time. So Robin slowly inched the door open. The old man was nowhere to be seen in the hallway, but something was wrong. Light was coming through the doorway of their room! Worse than that, so were voices!
One of the other boys must have returned and was talking to Piggy. But why were they being so careless as to leave the door open? They all knew they could lose their home in the church cellar if
