Calvary Alley

Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

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• Publié par: amkey
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Calvary Alley, by
Alice Hegan Rice
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Title: Calvary AlleyAuthor: Alice Hegan Rice
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9794] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 17, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK CALVARY ALLEY ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and
PG Distributed ProofreadersCALVARY ALLEY
BY ALICE HEGAN RICE
1917
Author of "MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE
PATCH," "LOVEY MARY," "SANDY," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER BIGGS
THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
TO THE SMALL BAND OF KENTUCKY WRITERS
WITH WHOM IT HAS BEEN MY HAPPY
FORTUNE TO MAKE THE LITERARY
PILGRIMAGECONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE FIGHT II THE SNAWDORS AT HOME III
THE CLARKES AT HOME IV JUVENILE COURT
V ON PROBATION VI BUTTERNUT LANE VII AN
EVICTION VIII AMBITION STIRS IX BUTTONS X
THE PRINCESS COMES TO GRIEF XI THE
STATE TAKES A HAND XII CLARKE'S XIII
EIGHT TO SIX XIV IDLENESS XV MARKING
TIME XVI MISS BOBINET'S XVII BEHIND THE
TWINKLING LIGHTS XVIII THE FIRST NIGHT XIX
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT XX WILD OATS
XXI DAN XXII IN THE SIGNAL TOWER XXIII
CALVARY CATHEDRAL XXIV BACK AT
CLARKE'S XXV MAC XXVI BETWEEN TWO
FIRES XXVII FATE TAKES A HAND XXVIII THE
PRICE OF ENLIGHTENMENT XXIX IN TRAINING
XXX HER FIRST CASE XXXI MR. DEMRY XXXII
THE NEW FOREMAN XXXIII NANCE COMES
INTO HER OWNLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"The boy is infatuated with that girl"
"Her tense muscles relaxed; she forgot to cry"
"Don't call a policeman!" she implored wildlyCALVARY ALLEYCHAPTER I
THE FIGHT
You never would guess in visiting Cathedral Court,
with its people's hall and its public baths, its clean,
paved street and general air of smug propriety,
that it harbors a notorious past. But those who
knew it by its maiden name, before it was married
to respectability, recall Calvary Alley as a region of
swarming tenements, stale beer dives, and
frequent police raids. The sole remaining trace of
those unregenerate days is the print of a child's
foot in the concrete walk just where it leaves the
court and turns into the cathedral yard.
All the tired feet that once plodded home from
factory and foundry, all the unsteady feet that
staggered in from saloon and dance-hall, all the
fleeing feet that sought a hiding place, have long
since passed away and left no record of their
passing. Only that one small footprint, with its
perfect outline, still pauses on its way out of the
alley into the great world beyond.
At the time Nance Molloy stepped into that soft
concrete and thus set in motion the series of
events that was to influence her future career, she
had never been told that her inalienable rights were
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Nevertheless she had claimed them intuitively.When at the age of one she had crawled out of the
soap-box that served as a cradle, and had eaten
half a box of stove polish, she was acting in strict
accord with the Constitution.
By the time she reached the sophisticated age of
eleven her ideals had changed, but her principles
remained firm. She did not stoop to beg for her
rights, but struck out for them boldly with her small
bare fists. She was a glorious survival of that
primitive Kentucky type that stood side by side with
man in the early battles and fought valiantly for
herself.
On the hot August day upon which she began to
make history, she stood in the gutter amid a crowd
of yelling boys, her feet far apart, her hands full of
mud, waiting tensely to chastise the next sleek
head that dared show itself above the cathedral
fence. She wore a boy's shirt and a ragged brown
skirt that flapped about her sturdy bare legs. Her
matted hair was bound in two disheveled braids
around her head and secured with a piece of shoe-
string. Her dirty round face was lighted up by a pair
of dancing blue eyes, in which just now blazed the
unholy light of conflict.
The feud between the Calvary Micks and the choir
boys was an ancient one, carried on from one
generation to another and gaining prestige with
age. It was apt to break out on Saturday
afternoons, after rehearsal, when the choirmaster
had taken his departure. Frequently the
disturbance amounted to no more than taunts andjeers on one side and threats and recriminations on
the other, but the atmosphere that it created was
of that electrical nature that might at any moment
develop a storm.
Nance Molloy, at the beginning of the present
controversy, had been actively engaged in civil
warfare in which the feminine element of the alley
was pursuing a defensive policy against the
marauding masculine. But at the first indication of
an outside enemy, the herd instinct manifested
itself, and she allied herself with prompt and
passionate loyalty to the cause of the Calvary
Micks.
The present argument was raging over the
possession of a spade that had been left in the
alley by the workmen who were laying a concrete
pavement into the cathedral yard.
"Aw, leave 'em have it!" urged a philosophical
alleyite from the top of a barrel. "Them ole avenoo
kids ain't nothin'!—We could lick daylight outen 'em
if we wanted to."
"Ye-e-e-s you could!" came in a chorus of jeers
from the fence top, and a brown-eyed youth in a
white-frilled shirt, with a blue Windsor tie knotted
under his sailor collar, added imperiously, "You get
too fresh down there, and I'll call the janitor!"
This gross breach of military etiquette evoked a
retort from Nance that was too inelegant to
chronicle.