Little Boy Blue Read Free

and collar.
    Clem Hammond lit a cigarette and sat on the
toilet and waited.
    Outside the washroom the young coach, Mike
Macrae, listened as the woman told him about the boy’s history. The young
coach was awed and for some reason felt guilty. He was just ten years older
than Alex, and he wondered if he could befriend the boy. In his whole life Mike
Macrae hadn’t experienced as much anguish as he’d seen the boy go
through in just a few minutes. Maybe he could take a special interest in the
newcomer, straighten out the warp. The social worker sighed.
    Inside the washroom Alex Hammond patted his
face dry with a paper towel. Clem dropped his cigarette butt into the toilet.
“Hey,” the man said, “look here.” The boy’s eyes
were downcast. The man searched hard for words, and words came hard.
    “You’ve got to act like a
man,” he began, then halted. After a pause he said, “Remember the
poem you learned last year… by Kiping?”
    “It was Kipling, Pop.”
    “I don’t remember… but I
remember what it said… about taking what happens and holding your head up
and being a man.
    It isn’t my fault you have to be in these
places. What do you want me to do ?“
    “Let me stay with you.” The
boy’s head was still down; he shuffled a foot.
    “If I could, I would. I’ve got to
work, and there’s nobody to look after you.”
    “Pop, I can look after myself. I
won’t get in trouble, I promise.”
    Clem fought down the wetness in his eyes.
“You can’t live in a furnished room.”
    “We can get a small place.”
    Clem shook his head. He wanted to hug the
boy, but such gestures had stopped. Maybe… maybe, he thought, we can rent
a place and have a woman come in to help. “I can’t make any
promises,” he said, “but maybe we can work something out.”
    “Oh, Pop, please.”
    “Remember, it’s not a
promise… but I’ll see what I can arrange.”
    The tears welled in the boy’s eyes,
triggering a similar response in the man, and he gathered his son in his arms.
Please God, Alex pleaded silently, let it be so. I won’t do anything
wrong.
    Clem held his son at arm’s length,
hands on his shoulders. “Okay, I’ll work on it, but you be good here. Don’t give them any trouble. I’ve
got to work out of town this week, but I’ll be here to see you a week
from Sunday.”
    “Promise, Pop?”
    “Promise. You can go horseback riding
at Griffith Park if you want.”
    “Oh, yes!”
    “I talked to the superintendent.
He’s a nice man and he tells me the housemother, Mrs. Cavendish, is a
fine person. Show me you can stay out of trouble so I can leave you alone while
I work.” He tapped the boy’s arm with a clenched fist.
    Alex nodded rapidly, his face glowing.
    “You’ll have to apologize for
causing the lady all that trouble. Then we’ll see about getting you
settled.”
    The glow faded from the boy’s eyes.
Suddenly he was embarrassed by what he’d done and pricked by the
reality that he had to stay while his father left.

Chapter 2

     
    Thelma Cavendish, a widow, lived in three cluttered
rooms of the cottage—the cottage being the lower floor of the two-story
dormitory. The upper floor was for boys aged fourteen to sixteen. The
clutter of Thelma’s quarters was in contrast to the strict neatness she
insisted on for the boys on her floor. She was sixty-five years old and healthy
as a bull elephant, despite more than two hundred pounds on a five-foot-five
frame. She’d raised her own three children into good, successful
Christians, and a thousand other boys had come under her wing during twenty-two
years as a housemother. Her stamina was evidenced by her being in charge
of thirty boys, ages eleven and twelve, five and a half days a week. Other
housemothers had a college student to assist them, but Thelma Cavendish ran her
cottage alone. If she had Victorian strictness, she could also clamp a homesick
boy to her bosom. If excessive strictness had occasionally harmed a
forming personality,