“Blast!” he said again.
Robin started hurrying down the sidewalk toward the back of the building.
“Boy! Boy!” the man called out.
As there was no one else around but the uniformed driver of the carriage up on the driver’s seat holding the reins of the horses, Robin stopped and turned around.
“Boy,” the man said, “I see that you carry a box. Are you by any chance a shoe-shine boy?”
No stealin’, no cheatin’, no lyin’. Robin, his heart nearly at a standstill, was ready to forget these promises. But before he could stop himself, he found himself nodding.
“Y-yes,” he stammered.
“Well then, don’t just stand there,” the man said impatiently. “Come on over to the street lamp. It’s just come on and should give you enough light to do the job. But be quick about it. My wife is leaving something off at the church and will be right out. Blasted rain! Just enough to leave puddles around for a man to step in when he’s got someplace important to go,” he muttered.
Robin was certain he was going to keel right over onto the shoes he was supposed to shine. Yet to his surprise, he heard himself saying in a voice cool as you please, “You’d best step over here, sir, and grab on to the post. Keep you steady while I fix up your shoes for you.”
Robin could feel the man’s eyes fastened on him the whole time he was blacking and shining the shoes. His hands ought to be shaking like a dried leaf on a tree. He knew that. Yet they were as steady as the man’s shoe resting on the box. It seemed that St. Something must have been working another miracle. Not a drop of blacking was spilled, nor a scratch put on the shoes. They all but sparkled in the fluttering lamplight.
“That ought to do it, sir,” said Robin, giving the shoe on the box a last flick of the polishing rag.
He looked up into the man’s face and was glad he had not looked so closely into it before. For he found himself looking past a rich silk scarf, past a black beard, and into dark, piercing eyes, eyes to which no better word fit than the word “cruel.” If Robin had not known better, he would have thought he was looking into the eyes of—Hawker Doak!
“What do I owe you?” the man asked.
Robin was so shaken he had all but forgotten he was to be paid. But now the question had been asked, what was he to say? He could suddenly not remember what Duck, or Mouse, or Spider had asked for a shoe shine. Was it two cents? Three?
“Five cents, sir,” said Robin in the boldest voice he could muster.
“Here,” the man said, carelessly tossing a coin at him.
Somehow, Robin managed to catch it in midair and jam it into his pocket. For all he knew it was no more than a penny.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. But he was addressing the man’s back, for he had already turned abruptly on his heels and was striding toward the carriage.
Robin snatched up his box, hardly able to get away fast enough. But as he approached the back of the church, he hesitated and then went right on walking away from it. The man was still standing by his carriage, waiting for his wife. They must be people who attended the church, and Robin knew how dangerous it would be for anyone to suspect that the cellar was being lived in by four—no, five street boys and a baby.
When he was out of sight of the carriage, Robin stopped a moment under a street lamp and pulled out the coin the man had tossed him. It was not the five cents Robin had requested. But it was not one cent either. It was ten cents. Ten whole cents! He could not believe it. For only a few minutes’ work, he had earned ten cents. His very first money earned! But what made him almost as proud as the money was that he had done a good job and made not a single mistake. And oh, what a polite and proper businessman he had been! “That ought to do it, sir.” “Five cents, sir.” There was no doubt in his mind any more. He was going to make a fine shoe-shine boy indeed!
It seemed impossible to believe that he had suddenly gone from having to return with a dismal report of his day, to one quite the opposite. He could hardly wait to report to the boys this amazing news. And while he was at it, why not surprise them with something else as well? It was an idea that had come to him when he saw how eagerly they worked at learning to tell time from his watch. And as he had to wait to get back into the church, why not go right now and get what he needed for the surprise? So that is what he did.
By the time he returned to the church, the carriage had left. But in his shoe-shine box he now carried not only his brushes and blacking, but four pencils and a tablet of paper. Well, they were only pencil stubs purchased from a street peddler, but they would write as well as any new pencil.
Unfortunately, his ten cents had now been reduced to eight cents, as the four pencil stubs had cost him a cent, and the tablet of paper a cent. Two cents out of the precious ten cents he had just earned. But now he knew he could earn it back. And was this not worth every bit of the two cents? For he was going to teach the boys their letters. He would teach them to write their own names. And yes, he might even teach them to read and write the real name of St. Something!
But as he came bursting into their cellar room with his good news,
