the week, trying a new play at Mount Vernon, where he slept. There was no reason why I should not have let Calder spend at least one warm night in the room. But, apart from the shock of annoyance at finding him asleep in my own bed, and apart from a moment's anger at his cool impudence, the startling parallel with Boyde was vividly unpleasant. It was Boyde No. 2 I saw sleeping in my bed. If I let him stay one night I should never get rid of him at all. $10 a week among three! Calder must take up his bed and walk.
I woke him and told him to dress and leave the room. I watched him dress, heard him plead, heard him describe the freezing weather, describe his walking the streets all night without a cent in his pockets. He blushed and giggled all the time. It was some minutes before he believed I was in earnest, before he crawled out of bed; it was much longer before he was dressed and ready to go.... I saw him down the stairs and through the front door and out into the bitter street. I gave him a dollar, which represented two days' meals for me, and would pay a bed in a doss-house for him. When he was gone I spent a wretched night, ashamed of myself through and through. It really was Boyde who turned him out, but the excuse had no comfort in it. The little incident remains unkindly vivid; I still see it; it happens over again; the foolish, good-natured face, the blushes and shyness, the implicit belief in my own kindness, the red cheeks and curly hair--going through the front door into the bitter streets. It all stands out. Shame and remorse go up and down in me while I write it now, a belated confession.... I never saw Calder again.
Another thing that still shames me is our treatment of old greasy Mother Bernstein. Though a little thing, this likewise keeps vividly alive. A "little" thing! The big things, invariably with extenuating circumstances that furnish modifying excuses and comforting explanations, are less stinging in the memory. It is the little things that pierce and burn and prick for years to come.
In my treatment of Mrs. Bernstein, at any rate, lay an
