Boy's Cinema (1935-39)

Every Tuesday iiipr on tlie front door of the house— - and as ho opened that door a yonnK woman stnnihlod across tho threshold, a popi'ly-drcasi'd but respoctablc-lookinf,' younR woman whoso palhd face wore an expression of mingled desperation and distress. "Let mo see my baby!" she cried wildly. "Lot mo seo my baby!" She reached for tho infant that Shaun was holding, but the burly Irishman recoiled. "Your baby?" he reiterated. "Wiiat do ye mean ?" "I watched you pick her up," the woman jerked out, and now he noticed that her accent was as reminiscent of tiie Emerald Isle as his own. " Then I followed you." "Ye did?" he covmtcred. "And why —after you desertin' it ? How do I know it's your baby, anyway ? Listen to me, woman. There was a note piiuied to her little woollen jacket here. Now you tell mo just what was written on that note, and then I'll be after be- lievin' she's yours." Tlio woman swiftly quoted the con- tents of the missive to which he had referred. " ' I cannot buy food. I yield my child to the kindness of man and the mercy of God.' That's what I wrote." "They are the identical words," Shaun muttered. "She is yours, sure enoup:h. But have ye no heart, woman —deserting a little baby like this?" "I looked for a job." tho woman re- sponded hopelessly. "But no luck. And her father's dead." Mary Madden came forward. "Have you no folks?" she asked the mother of the child. "Yes—an uncle in Ireland." was the reply. "I tried to beg the ninety dollars to get myself on a boat with my Jittle Eileen and go back to the Old Country. My uncle is poor, but he has a roof for us if nothing else. And maybe I could find work in Ireland vheti I get stronger. I—I " Her voice failed her, and suddenly she swayed forward—would have fallen to the floor if Shaun had not caught her with his right arm. "Mary," he ejaculated to his wife in a tone of concern, " Mary, help me to get her to bed in the spare room. The woman's ill. Like enough she's been without food for days. And us keepin' her standing here talkin'. Here, take the child, Mary, and I'll carry the little one's mother through." A few seconds later the woman ha<j been laid on the bed in the spare room and her baby placed beside her. Then, leaving his wife to make tho exhausted stranger comfortable, Shaun Madden returned to the living-room to set some food on a tray. It was not only food that he set on that tray, however. When Mary Madden presently rejoined him she found ninety dollai's in U.S. currency notes stuffed in a sugar bowl which Shaun had placed on tho tray—notes he had impulsively taken from a little store of savings he and his wife kept in the house. "Shaun!" Mary Madden breathed. "Aw, Mary," he said apologetically. " it's the price of a ticket to Ireland for the lady and the little one. I know it's most of our savin's. But we can spare it, can't we?" His wife was silent for a moment. Then she slipped an arm about his broad shoulders. "Why not?" she answered with a smile. "You've a safe, sure job. and 'tis promotion you'll be getting sooner or later. And if we were saving this money for a rainy day—well, it's just pouring down rain for little Eileen .ind Mrs. Daly—for that's the fine-sounding BOY'S CINEMA Irish namo of the poor soul, Shaun. Mr.s. Daly is the name of her, she .lay.i." Without another word she pi(lte(l up the tray and retraced her steps lo the spare room with it, and it was sliorlly after she had passed into (hat room and dosed the door behind her that young Dennis Madden and the dimimi- tive Al Boylan came into the house. They were not alone. They w(>re aceomp.inied by another youngster who was sporting a black eye—and by a for- midable-looking woman of wrathful aspect. The woman was a Mrs. McOillivray, a n<>ighbour of the Maddens; the lad with the black eye was her son Dion; ami Mrs. McOillivray confronted Shaun indignantly. "Mr. Madden," she aimounced, "T wonder you can hold your head up with this boy Dennis of yours almost killin' others, and Albert Boylan here helpin' him in the work." Shaun drew down his brows and eyed Dennis and Al severely, observing as he did so that both of them were equipped with toy pistols. "What's this ye've been up to?" he demanded. It was Dennis who responded. Tall for his years, black of hair, with blue- grey eyes that held a wilful expression and a chin that had an obstinate and belligerent thnist to it, Dennis Madden was a constant source of worry to his father because of his unruliness, which sometimes bordered on ferocity. "We vfas playin' cops an' robbers." the policeman's son proclaimed hotly. " An' do you know what that rat Dion did? He'tried to kill little Al—one o' my cops! When Al fought back, Dion got his rod away an' tried to hammer him on the head with it, so I moved in and gave Dion the works!" "Two to one," Mre. McOillivray put in scornfully. "Two to one, Mr. Madden. And Dennis there two years older than Dion and half as big again —yes, and the bully of every boy in the block!" Shaun was prompt to come to a de- cision and mete out justice. Despite protests on their part, Dennis and Al were compelled to bend over and touch their toes; and without being permitted to return the "compliment," each re- ceived a lusty kick in the seat of the pants from the foot of the scion of the clan McOillivray, after which that youngster and his mother departed in a more or less satisfied manner. Mary Madden reappearing in the living-room a little while later. Shaun told her of the complaint that had been lodged against Dennis and Al. Then, the four of them sitting down to supper and Dennis behaving in a truculent fashion. Shaun ordered him to leave the table half-way through the meal. "'Tis off to bed ye can go," he de- clared, "without eatin' the fine custard your mother has made for ye. And see that ye don't make too much noise gettin' up in the mornin'. for we've guests in the house this night, and I don't want them scaled out of their wits by your carryings-on. Albert, you can stay and have your custard." But Al had risen immediately after Dennis had slid sullenly off his chair. "I'm not hungry any more. Pop," he said meekly, yet with a kind of quiet resolution, and, as Dennis went off to his bed-room, so little Al retired to his. Shaim and Mary Madden exchanged a glance. "Albert just worships our Dennis," Mary observed in a meditative tone. " He wanted that custard badly, but he denied himself out of some queer sense of loyalty. Have you noticed, too, how he imitates Dennis in everything he does ?" "Yes," Shatui grunted, "and I don't know that Deinu.') is u very good e.>;ainpl<', either." A furrow wrinkled Mrs. Maddon's forehead. "Demiis isn't really a bad boy, of (■ours(\" she said in a voice that chal- lenged argument on that .score. "Hut lie's so iin|w(iious and quick-t<!mpcred I hat there uie lime.s when I feel uneasy about him. lie does things without (liinking— whether lie hurts himself or others." "He does that," Shaun assented. "But don't you bo vvorryin', Mary. He's got a great training ahead of hitn. He'll learn his discipline in a Police Academy. They've taken many an ill- tempered young loafer and made a man out of him." He heaved himself out of his chair all at once, and made his way to his son's bed-room, and, finding tho boy already in his pyjamas, but not yet between the sheets, he sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted Dennis on to his knee. "So 'tis cops and robbers ye've been playin' to-day, is it?" the patrolman •said, with no trace of his former aus- terity. "Well, me boy, playin' at cop.s is a fine game. 'Tis something you'll be proud to be playin' all your life. "But since ye're startin' in kind of young," he added, "why, I think that probably I'd better give ye some of the rules of the game." Dennis partially stifled a yawn—not a yawn of mere drowsiness, but a yawn that implied disinterest. He knew what his father was going to say. He had heard it all before. "Now there's all kihds of cops," Patrolman Madden proceeded. "There's wild cops—and there's tame cop.s—and there's cops that are all stomach and no brains. But mostly all of 'em are good cops." Perched on his father's knee, Dennis began to swing one leg. "Sure, mostly all of 'em are good cops," Shaun Madden repojited. "And here's the first rule of the game that every cop has to master if he wants to be a good one. He must learn to hold his temper—always." Dennis continued to swing liis leg, in a style that indicated he found tho topic of conversation wearisome. The Naw Cop THE years had passed, and, grown to handsome, .self-assured man- hood, Dennis Madden was still listen- ing to advice on how to l)econie a good policeman—and was still swinging bi.^ leg in a bored fashion a.s he listened. The scene was a lecture room in the New York Police Academy, and si.k- foot-three-inch Dennis Madden was one of a class of students who were being addressed by an officer known as Lieutenant Niles. "One of the most important things a probationary patrolman must learn in this academy," Niles was saying, "is how to enforce the law. A policeman's ■mission is to find the suspected criminal and arrest him. Nine out of every ten men in prison are there because another thief talked to a police officer. Making friends on your beat is very important. A suecessfid policeman is wary, shrewd —above ail, friendly " He paused. The session was almost at an end, and Niles had been employ- ing the last few minutes of it to deliver a homily which was likely to pi'ofit the students it they bore it in mind after they had ultimately graduated. Most of the young men in the class were hanging on his every word. Niles had noticed, however, that Dennis Madder, was paying little or no atten- tion. The latter was reclining in his cirair with an expression of ironio August 6tti, 1939.