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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19014-8.txt b/19014-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b0eedb --- /dev/null +++ b/19014-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nibsy's Christmas, by Jacob A. Riis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nibsy's Christmas + +Author: Jacob A. Riis + +Release Date: August 9, 2006 [EBook #19014] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Nibsy as Santa Claus.] + + NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS + + BY + + JACOB AUGUST RIIS + + Short Story Index Reprint Series + + BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS + + FREEPORT, NEW YORK + + First Published 1893 + + Reprinted 1969 + + STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 8369-3073-8 + + LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 71-90590 + + MANUFACTURED BY HALLMARK LITHOGRAPHERS, INC. IN THE U.S.A. + + * * * * * + _To Her Most Gracious Majesty + Louise + Queen of Denmark + the friend of the afflicted and the mother of the + motherless in my childhood's home + these leaves are inscribed + with the profound respect and admiration + of + the Author_ + + * * * * * + + + + + NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS + + +It was Christmas-eve over on the East Side. Darkness was closing in on a +cold, hard day. The light that struggled through the frozen windows of +the delicatessen store, and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with +empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned +tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if +they were butting their way down the street. + +The wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling +through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. Between +roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the +hard-wood counter were heard out in the street. More than one of the +passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which +the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was +snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. The lights were long out when +the silent streets re-echoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the +Christmas welcome had turned to dread. + +But in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to +pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. Where the +lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness +across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened +against the window. Their warm breath made little round holes on the +frosty pane, that came and went, affording passing glimpses of the +wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of +sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped +bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good +things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of +them. + +And the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys +through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming +or going of a customer! Better than all, back there on the top shelf the +stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in +bundles with strips of blue paper. + +The wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the +lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard with the frost +to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake +with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it. + +"Jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual; +"hey, Jim! them's Sante Clause's. See 'em?" + +"Sante Claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the +clear spot on the pane. "There ain't no ole duffer like dat. Them's +honey-cakes. Me 'n' Tom had a bite o' one wunst." + +"There ain't no Sante Claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his +peep-hole. "There is, too. I seen him myself when he cum to our alley +last----" + +"What's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice. + +Another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher looking than either of the +two, had come up behind them unobserved. He carried an armful of unsold +"extras" under one arm. The other was buried to the elbow in the pocket +of his ragged trousers. + +The "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as +umpire. + +"It's Jim w'at says there ain't no Sante Claus, and I seen him----" + +"Jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the +culprit; "Jim! y'ere a chump! No Sante Claus? What're ye givin' us? Now, +watch me!" + +With utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under +the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and +honey-cakes. Petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the +veritable presence of Santa Claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out +five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over +to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of +honey-cakes tied with blue. As if in a dream they saw him issue forth +with the coveted prize. + +"There, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to +Santa Claus's champion; "there's yer Christmas. Run along, now, to yer +barracks; and you, Jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it. +Mind ye let the kid alone." + +"This one'll have to do for me grub, I guess. I ain't sold me 'Newses,' +and the ole man'll kick if I bring 'em home." + +And before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had +turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was +smothered in a yell of "Extree!" as he shot across the street to +intercept a passing stranger. + + * * * * * + +As the evening wore on it grew rawer and more blustering still. Flakes +of dry snow that stayed where they fell, slowly tracing the curb-lines, +the shutters, and the doorsteps of the tenements with gathering white, +were borne up on the storm from the water. To the right and left +stretched endless streets between the towering barracks, as beneath +frowning cliffs pierced with a thousand glowing eyes that revealed the +watch-fires within--a mighty city of cave-dwellers held in the thraldom +of poverty and want. + +Outside there was yet hurrying to and fro. Saloon doors were slamming +and bare-legged urchins, carrying beer-jugs, hugged the walls close for +shelter. From the depths of a blind alley floated out the discordant +strains of a vagabond brass band "blowing in" the yule of the poor. +Banished by police ordinance from the street, it reaped a scant harvest +of pennies for Christmas-cheer from the windows opening on the backyard. +Against more than one pane showed the bald outline of a forlorn little +Christmas-tree, some stray branch of a hemlock picked up at the grocer's +and set in a pail for "the childer" to dance around, a dime's worth of +candy and tinsel on the boughs. + +From the attic over the way came, in spells between, the gentle tones +of a German song about the Christ-child. Christmas in the East-Side +tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the +name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many +sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and +aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make +itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill. + +To these what was Christmas but the name for persecution, for suffering, +reminder of lost kindred and liberty, of the slavery of eighteen hundred +years, freedom from which was purchased only with gold. Aye, gold! The +gold that had power to buy freedom yet, to buy the good will, aye, and +the good name, of the oppressor, with his houses and land. At the +thought the tired eye glistened, the aching back straightened, and to +the weary foot there came new strength to finish the long task while the +city slept. + +Where a narrow passage-way put in between two big tenements to a +ramshackle rear barrack, Nibsy, the newsboy, halted in the shadow of +the doorway and stole a long look down the dark alley. + +He toyed uncertainly with his still unsold papers--worn dirty and ragged +as his clothes by this time--before he ventured in, picking his way +between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the Italian cobbler's hovel, +where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a cheap print +of the "Mother of God," showed that even he knew it was Christmas and +liked to show it; past the Sullivan flat, where blows and drunken curses +mingled with the shriek of women, as Nibsy had heard many nights before +this one. + +He shuddered as he felt his way past the door, partly with a premonition +of what was in store for himself, if the "old man" was at home, partly +with a vague, uncomfortable feeling that somehow Christmas-eve should be +different from other nights, even in the alley. Down to its farthest +end, to the last rickety flight of steps that led into the filth and +darkness of the tenement. Up this he crept, three flights, to a door at +which he stopped and listened, hesitating, as he had stopped at the +entrance to the alley; then, with a sudden, defiant gesture, he pushed +it open and went in. + +A bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner, +another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a broken +cradle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed woman with +hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the middle of the +room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the floor alongside. +A man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an old slouch hat. +With each breath of draught he stirred, the crazy old pipe belched forth +torrents of smoke at every point. As Nibsy entered, the man desisted +from his efforts and sat up glaring at him. A villainous ruffian's face, +scowling with anger. + +"Late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. What did I tell yer, +brat, if ye dared----" + +"Tom! Tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the +ruffian's temper. + +"The boy can't help it, an' it's Christmas-eve. For the love o'----" + +"To thunder with yer rot and with yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with +the fury of passion. "Let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a +heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy. + +Nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his +mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. At the first +movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with +the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. It struck the door, +as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel. + +Down the three flights in as many jumps Nibsy went, and through the +alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached +the street, and curses and shouts were left behind. + +In his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his +pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much +from shame as to keep out the cold. + +Four pennies were all he had left after his Christmas treat to the two +little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and +it was getting colder all the time. + +On the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated Christmas party +was in progress. The children from the tenements in the alley and across +the way were having a game of blindman's-buff, groping blindly about in +the crowd to catch each other. They hailed Nibsy with shouts of +laughter, calling to him to join in. + +"We're having Christmas!" they yelled. + +Nibsy did not hear them. He was thinking, thinking, the while turning +over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket. + +Thinking if Christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's Santa +Claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her +father's cruel hand. As for him, he had never known anything but blows +and curses. He could take care of himself. But his mother and the +baby----. And then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was +getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep. + +He weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was in +the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot for +him. + +There was the hay-barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got +drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. The chances were at +least even of its being available on Christmas-eve, and of Santa Claus +having thus done him a good turn after all. + +Then there was the snug berth in the sandbox you could curl all up in. +Nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay-barge, so far away +and to windward too. + +Down by the printing-offices there were the steam-gratings, and a chance +corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the big +presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day. + +As he passed them in review, Nibsy made up his mind with sudden +determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down +town. + + * * * * * + +The rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now +buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of +the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and +pain that was echoed by a hundred throats. + +From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and +beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following +them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire. + +The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by +the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. With hook and axes the firemen +rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in the +depths the battle was fought and won. + +The building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the +victory there fell a sudden silence. From the cellar-way a grimy, +helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms. A +tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden, while +the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital for the +doctor to come quickly. + +Very gently they lifted poor little Nibsy--for it was he, caught in his +berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the +hay-barge--into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too +late. + +Conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and pain, +Nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. Nobody had taken the +trouble to as much as notice him before. When he had thrust his papers +into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside. Nibsy, unhurt +and able to fight his way, never had a show. Sick and maimed and sore, +he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were +forbidden to go. Things were queer, anyhow, and---- + +The room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's +kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was +there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in +such a hurry. + +There was the baby now--poor baby--and mother--and then a great blank, +and it was all a mystery to poor Nibsy no longer. For, just as a +wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors +to his bedside, crying for her boy, Nibsy gave up his soul to God. + + * * * * * + +It was very quiet in the alley. Christmas had come and gone. Upon the +last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. It had +done duty there a dozen times before, that year. + +Upstairs, Nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all, +old and young, came to see him. + +Even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. Cowed and +silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain +little coffin stood, with the lid closed down. + +A couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove, +when there came a timid knock at the door. Nobody answering, it was +pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form +of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing +peep-holes on the window-pane of the delicatessen store the night before +when Nibsy came along. + +He dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some +Christmas-tree fitted into its block by the grocer for a customer. + +"It's from Sante Claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "Nibsy +knows." And he went out. + +Santa Claus had come to Nibsy, after all, in his alley. And Nibsy knew. + +[Illustration] + + + + + WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS + + +The December sun shone clear and cold upon the city. It shone upon rich +and poor alike. It shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues +and in the uptown streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by +towering tenements down town. It shone upon throngs of busy holiday +shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big +and small, all alike filled with Christmas cheer and kindly messages +from Santa Claus. + +It shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and +overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "My, isn't it +a nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder-cape to a friend, +pausing to kiss and compare lists of Christmas gifts. + +"Most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. There was +warmth within and without. Life was very pleasant under the Christmas +sun up on the avenue. + +Down in Cherry Street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall +tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in +them, and fell into a dirty block, half-choked with trucks, with +ash-barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled +in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and +cranny of the big barracks. They fell upon a little girl, bare-footed +and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her +grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the +draught through a big factory chimney. Just at the mouth of the alley it +took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, +tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl +she clutched at her throat, and set her down at the saloon-door +breathless and half-smothered. She had just time to dodge through the +storm-doors before another whirlwind swept whistling down the street. + +"My, but isn't it cold?" she said, as she shook the dust out of her +shawl and set the pitcher down on the bar. "Gimme a pint," laying down a +few pennies that had been wrapped in a corner of the shawl, "and mamma +says make it good and full." + +"All'us the way with youse kids--want a barrel when yees pays fer a +pint," growled the bartender. "There, run along, and don't ye hang +around that stove no more. We ain't a steam-heatin' the block fer +nothin'." + +The little girl clutched her shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into +the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in +pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. But the sun that +pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old +Boreas--it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt +was caught by one and whirled over her head as she dodged into her +alley. It peeped after her half-way down its dark depths, where it +seemed colder even than in the bleak street, but there it had to leave +her. + +It did not see her dive through the doorless opening into a hall where +no sun-ray had ever entered. It could not have found its way in there +had it tried. But up the narrow, squeaking stairs the girl with the +pitcher was climbing. Up one flight of stairs, over a knot of children, +half babies, pitching pennies on the landing, over wash-tubs and +bedsteads that encumbered the next--house-cleaning going on in that +"flat;" that is to say, the surplus of bugs was being burned out with +petroleum and a feather--up still another, past a half-open door through +which came the noise of brawling and curses. She dodged and quickened +her step a little until she stood panting before a door on the fourth +landing that opened readily as she pushed it with her bare foot. + +A room almost devoid of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of +furniture. Two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, +beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the +wall. On the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bed-tick +for a bed; a foul-smelling slop-pail in the middle of the room; a crazy +stove, and back of it a door or gap opening upon darkness. There was +something in there, but what it was could only be surmised from a heavy +snore that rose and fell regularly. It was the bedroom of the apartment, +windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price a millionaire +would denounce as robbery. + +"That you, Liza?" said a voice that discovered a woman bending over the +stove. "Run 'n' get the childer. Dinner's ready." + +The winter sun glancing down the wall of the opposite tenement, with a +hopeless effort to cheer the backyard, might have peeped through the one +window of the room in Mrs. McGroarty's "flat," had that window not been +coated with the dust of ages, and discovered that dinner-party in +action. It might have found a hundred like it in the alley. Four unkempt +children, copies each in his or her way of Liza and their mother, Mrs. +McGroarty, who "did washing" for a living. A meat bone, a "cut" from +the butcher's at four cents a pound, green pickles, stale bread and +beer. Beer for the four, a sup all round, the baby included. Why not? It +was the one relish the searching ray would have found there. Potatoes +were there, too--potatoes and meat! Say not the poor in the tenements +are starving. In New York only those starve who cannot get work and have +not the courage to beg. Fifty thousand always out of a job, say those +who pretend to know. A round half-million asking and getting charity in +eight years, say the statisticians of the Charity Organization. Any one +can go round and see for himself that no one need starve in New York. + +From across the yard the sunbeam, as it crept up the wall, fell +slantingly through the attic window whence issued the sound of +hammer-blows. A man with a hard face stood in its light, driving nails +into the lid of a soap-box that was partly filled with straw. Something +else was there; as he shifted the lid that didn't fit, the glimpse of +sunshine fell across it; it was a dead child, a little baby in a white +slip, bedded in straw in a soap-box for a coffin. The man was hammering +down the lid to take it to the Potter's Field. At the bed knelt the +mother, dry-eyed, delirious from starvation that had killed her child. +Five hungry, frightened children cowered in the corner, hardly daring to +whisper as they looked from the father to the mother in terror. + +There was a knock on the door that was drowned once, twice, in the noise +of the hammer on the little coffin. Then it was opened gently, and a +young woman came in with a basket. A little silver cross shone upon her +breast. She went to the poor mother, and putting her hand soothingly on +her head knelt by her with gentle and loving words. The half-crazed +woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into tears and hid +her throbbing head in the other's lap. + +The man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the children +gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from her basket +bread, meat, and tea. Just then, with a parting, wistful look into the +bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for a moment about +the coping outside and fled over the house-tops. + +As it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in an +Irish bog more desolate than these Cherry Street "homes?" An army of +thousands whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of home, +is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded in such +barracks to-day in New York. Potatoes they have; yes, and meat at four +cents--even seven. Beer for a relish--never without beer. But home? The +home that was home even in a bog, with the love of it that has made +Ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her +suffering--what of that? There are no homes in New York's poor +tenements. + +Down the crooked path of the Mulberry Street Bend the sunlight slanted +into the heart of New York's Italy. It shone upon bandannas and yellow +neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon +blackhaired girls--mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged +children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and ragpickers +staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step. +Shone upon unnumbered Pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and gambling +there. Shone upon the filthiest and foulest of New York's tenements, +upon Bandits' Roost, upon Bottle Alley, upon the hidden by-ways that +lead to the tramp's burrows. Shone upon the scene of annual infant +slaughter. Shone into the foul core of New York's slums that is at last +to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized man may not look +upon it and live without blushing. + +It glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches to +poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two women, +one young, the other old and bent. The young one had a baby at her +breast. She was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the soft +Italian tongue a lullaby, while the old granny listened eagerly, her +elbows on her knees, and a stumpy clay-pipe, blackened with age, +between her teeth. Her eyes were set on the wall, on which the musty +paper hung in tatters, fit frame for the wretched, poverty-stricken +room, but they saw neither poverty nor want; her aged limbs felt not the +cold draught from without, in which they shivered; they looked far over +the seas to sunny Italy, whose music was in her ears. + +"O dolce Napoli," she mumbled between her toothless jaws, "O suol +beato----" + +The song ended in a burst of passionate grief. The old granny and the +baby woke up at once. They were not in sunny Italy; not under Southern, +cloudless skies. They were in "The Bend" in Mulberry Street, and the +wintry wind rattled the door as if it would say, in the language of +their new home, the land of the free: "Less music! More work! Root, hog, +or die!" + +Around the corner the sunbeam danced with the wind into Mott Street, +lifted the blouse of a Chinaman and made it play tag with his pig-tail. +It used him so roughly that he was glad to skip from it down a +cellar-way that gave out fumes of opium strong enough to scare even the +north wind from its purpose. The soles of his felt shoes showed as he +disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar-steps. Down there, +where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were +bending over a table playing fan-tan. Their very souls were in the game, +every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. The one +blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a +corner. One end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over a +little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. Something spluttered in +the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. The smoker took a long +draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in +senseless content. + +Upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to +the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the tenements +of The Bend and the East Side live in slavery worse, if not more +galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain--the slavery of the +pipe. Four, eight, sixteen--twenty odd such "homes" in this tenement, +disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage and troth are +not in the bargain. + +In one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam works +its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all. They +are very young, "under age," though each and every one would glibly +swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen, +and therefore free to make her own bad choice. Of these, one was brought +up among the rugged hills of Maine; the other two are from the tenement +crowds, hardly missed there. But their companion? She is twirling the +sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl of her pipe +with it. As she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed, kisses the +red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long has known, +though to her it is hidden yet--that the pipe has claimed its victim and +soon will pass it on to the Potter's Field. + +"Nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred +within her by the flash--"Nell, did you hear from the old farm to home +since you come here?" + +Nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly +look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips. + +"To hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth +inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her +pillow in drunken stupor. + +That is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in Mott Street. + +It had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and +vainly seeking entry to others; had gilt with equal impartiality the +spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand +tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and +cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming +crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers +striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to +be fed. + +The brief December day was far spent. Now its rays fell across the +North River and lighted up the windows of the tenements in Hell's +Kitchen and Poverty Gap. In the Gap especially they made a brave show; +the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that set +back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. But the +glory did not cross the threshold. Within it was dark and dreary and +cold. The room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. The +last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. The +sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it +could have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor. + +Upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through +every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break. +She hugged an old doll to her breast. The paint was gone from its face; +the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. But she only +hugged it closer. It was her doll. They had been friends so long, shared +hunger and hardship together, and now----. + +Her tears fell faster. One drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. +The last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless +jewel. Its glory grew and filled the room. Gone were the black walls, +the darkness and the cold. There was warmth and light and joy. Merry +voices and glad faces were all about. A flock of children danced with +gleeful shouts about a great Christmas-tree in the middle of the floor. +Upon its branches hung drums and trumpets and toys, and countless +candles gleamed like beautiful stars. Farthest up, at the very top, her +doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken +down and hugged. She knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her +first and only real Christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and +the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "In His Name." +His name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. Was he +also her dolly's friend, and would know it among the strange people? + +The light went out; the glory faded. The bare room, only colder and +more cheerless than before, was left. The child shivered. Only that +morning the doctor had told her mother that she must have medicine and +food and warmth, or she must go to the great hospital where papa had +gone before, when their money was all spent. Sorrow and want had laid +the mother upon the bed he had barely left. Every stick of furniture, +every stitch of clothing on which money could be borrowed, had gone to +the pawnbroker. Last of all, she had carried mamma's wedding-ring, to +pay the druggist. Now there was no more left, and they had nothing to +eat. In a little while mamma would wake up, hungry. + +The little girl smothered a last sob and rose quickly. She wrapped the +doll in a threadbare shawl, as well as she could, tiptoed to the door +and listened a moment to the feeble breathing of the sick mother within. +Then she went out, shutting the door softly behind her, lest she wake +her. + +Up the street she went, the way she knew so well, one block and a turn +round the saloon corner, the sunset glow kissing the track of her bare +feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she +opened it and went in. A musty smell filled the close room. Packages, +great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. A +slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a +skirt she had brought to pledge. + +"Not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the +garment aside. "It's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth +over the counter these six months. Take it or leave it. Hallo! What have +we here? Little Finnegan, eh? Your mother not dead yet? It's in the +poor-house ye will be if she lasts much longer. What the----" + +He had taken the package from the trembling child's hand--the precious +doll--and unrolled the shawl. A moment he stood staring in dumb +amazement at its contents. Then he caught it up and flung it with an +angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box. + +"Get out o' here, ye Finnegan brat," he shouted; "I'll tache ye to come +a'guyin' o' me. I'll----" + +The door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold +night. The sun saw not its home-coming. It had hidden behind the +night-clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty. + +Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves, +now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and +shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of +miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among +strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that +night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets +for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, +and one of the two he must do soon. + +There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen +waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since----it +was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who +would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more +intently. + +A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against +his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him +nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and +friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him +to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to +the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time +he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank +he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link +with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home. + +In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. +One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he +went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant +ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. +How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman +put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, +a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step. + + * * * * * + +Far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse +of glistening water. It silvers the snow upon a barren heath between two +shores, and shortens with each passing minute the shadows of countless +headstones that bear no names, only numbers. The breakers that beat +against the bluff wake not those who sleep there. In the deep trenches +they lie, shoulder to shoulder, an army of brothers, homeless in life, +but here at rest and at peace. A great cross stands upon the lonely +shore. The moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods +the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. Out on +the Sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, +and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the +wings of the west wind. + + + + + SKIPPY OF SCRABBLE ALLEY + + +Skippy was at home in Scrabble Alley. So far as he had ever known home +of any kind it was there in the dark and mouldy basement of the rear +house, farthest back in the gap that was all the builder of those big +tenements had been able to afford of light and of air for the poor +people whose hard-earned wages, brought home every Saturday, left them +as poor as if they had never earned a dollar, to pile themselves up in +his strong-box. The good man had long since been gathered to his +fathers--gone to his better home. It was in the newspapers, and in the +alley it was said that it was the biggest funeral--more than a hundred +carriages, and four black horses to pull the hearse. So it must be true, +of course. + +Skippy wondered vaguely, sometimes, when he thought of it, what kind of +a home it might be where people went in a hundred carriages. He had +never sat in one. The nearest he had come to it was when Jimmy Murphy's +cab had nearly run him down once, and his "fare," a big man with +whiskers, had put his head out and angrily called him a brat, and told +him to get out of the way, or he would have him arrested. And Jimmy had +shaken his whip at him and told him to skip home. Everybody told him to +skip. From the policeman on the block to the hard-fisted man he knew as +his father, and who always had a job for him with the growler when he +came home, they were having Skippy on the run. Probably that was how he +got his name. No one cared enough about it, or about the boy, to find +out. + +Was there anybody anywhere who cared about boys, anyhow? Were there any +boys in that other home where the carriages and the big hearse had gone? +And if there were, did they have to live in an alley, and did they ever +have any fun? These were thoughts that puzzled Skippy's young brain once +in a while. Not very long or very hard, for Skippy had not been trained +to think; what training the boys picked up in the alley didn't run much +to deep thinking. + +Perhaps it was just as well. There were one or two men there who were +said to know a heap, and who had thought and studied it all out about +the landlord and the alley. But it was very tiresome that it should +happen to be just those two, for Skippy never liked them. They were +always cross and ugly, never laughed and carried on as the other men did +once in a while, and made his little feet very tired running with the +growler early and late. He well remembered, too, that it was one of them +who had said, when they brought him home, sore and limping, from under +the wheels of Jimmy Murphy's cab, that he'd been better off if it had +killed him. He had always borne a grudge against him for that, for there +was no occasion for it that he could see. Hadn't he been to the gin-mill +for him that very day twice? + +Skippy's horizon was bounded by the towering brick walls of Scrabble +Alley. No sun ever rose or set between them. On the hot summer days, +when the saloon-keeper on the farther side of the street pulled up his +awning, the sun came over the house-tops and looked down for an hour or +two into the alley. It shone upon broken flags, a mud-puddle by the +hydrant where the children went splashing with dirty, bare feet, and +upon unnumbered ash-barrels. A stray cabbage-leaf in one of these was +the only green thing it found, for no ray ever strayed through the +window in Skippy's basement to trace the green mould on the wall. + +Once, while he had been lying sick with a fever, Skippy had struck up a +real friendly acquaintance with that mouldy wall. He had pictured to +himself woods and hills and a regular wilderness, such as he had heard +of, in its green growth; but even that pleasure they had robbed him of. +The charity doctor had said that the mould was bad, and a man scraped it +off and put whitewash on the wall. As if everything that made fun for a +boy was bad. + +Down the street a little way was a yard just big enough and nice to play +ball in, but the agent had put up a sign that he would have no boys and +no ball-playing in his yard, and that ended it; for the "cop" would have +none of it in the street either. Once he had caught them at it and +"given them the collar." They had been up before the judge, and though +he let them off they had been branded, Skippy and the rest, as a bad +lot. + +That was the starting-point in Skippy's career. With the brand upon him +he accepted the future it marked out for him, reasoning as little, or as +vaguely, about the justice of it as he had about the home conditions of +the alley. The world, what he had seen of it, had taught him one lesson: +to take things as he found them, because that was the way they were; and +that being the easiest, and, on the whole, best suited to Skippy's +general make-up, he fell naturally into the _rôle_ assigned him. After +that he worked the growler on his own hook most of the time. The "gang" +he had joined found means of keeping it going that more than justified +the brand the policeman had put upon it. It was seldom by honest work. +What was the use? The world owed them a living, and it was their +business to collect it as easily as they could. It was everybody's +business to do that, as far as they could see, from the man who owned +the alley, down. + +They made the alley pan out in their own way. It had advantages the +builder hadn't thought of, though he provided them. Full of secret ins +and outs, runways and passages, not easily found, to the surrounding +tenements, it offered chances to get away when one or more of the gang +were "wanted" for robbing this store on the avenue, tapping that till, +or raiding the grocer's stock, that were A No. 1. When some tipsy man +had been waylaid and "stood up," it was an unequalled spot for dividing +the plunder. It happened once or twice, as time went by, that a man was +knocked on the head and robbed within the bailiwick of the now notorious +Scrabble Alley gang, or that a drowned man floated ashore in the dock +with his pockets turned inside out. On such occasions the police made +an extra raid, and more or less of the gang were scooped in, but nothing +ever came of it. Dead men tell no tales, and they were not more silent +than the Scrabbles, if, indeed, these had anything to tell. + +It came gradually to be an old story. Skippy and his associates were +long since in the Rogues' Gallery, numbered and indexed as truly a bad +lot now. They were no longer boys, but toughs. Most of them had "done +time" up the river and come back more hardened than they went, full of +new tricks always, which they were eager to show the boys to prove that +they had not been idle while they were away. On the police returns they +figured as "speculators," a term that sounded better than thief, and +meant, as they understood it, much the same, viz., a man who made a +living out of other people's labor. It was conceded in the slums, +everywhere, that the Scrabble-Alley gang was a little the boldest that +had for a long time defied the police. It had the call in the other +gangs in all the blocks around, for it had the biggest fighters as well +as the cleverest thieves of them all. + +Then one holiday morning, when in a hundred churches the pæan went up, +"On earth peace, good-will toward men," all New York rang with the story +of a midnight murder committed by Skippy's gang. The saloon-keeper whose +place they were sacking to get the "stuff" for keeping Christmas in +their way had come upon them, and Skippy had shot him down while the +others ran. A universal shout for vengeance went up from outraged +Society. + +It sounded the death-knell of the gang. It was scattered to the four +winds, all except Skippy, who was tried for murder and hanged. The +papers spoke of his phenomenal calmness under the gallows; said it was +defiance. The priest who had been with him in his last hours said he was +content to go to a better home. They were all wrong. Had the pictures +that chased each other across Skippy's mind as the black cap was pulled +over his face been visible to their eyes, they would have seen Scrabble +Alley with its dripping hydrant, and the puddle in which the children +splashed with dirty, bare feet; the dark basement room with its mouldy +wall; the notice in the yard, "No ball-playing allowed here;" the +policeman who stamped him as one of a bad lot, and the sullen man who +thought it had been better for him, the time he was run over, if he had +died. Skippy asked himself moodily if he was right after all, and if +boys were ever to have any show. He died with the question unanswered. + +They said that no such funeral ever went out of Scrabble Alley before. +There was a real raid on the undertaker's where Skippy lay in state two +whole days, and the wake was talked of for many a day as something +wonderful. At the funeral services it was said that without a doubt +Skippy had gone to a better home. His account was squared. + + * * * * * + +Skippy's story is not invented to be told here. In its main facts it is +a plain account of a well-remembered drama of the slums, on which the +curtain was rung down in the Tombs yard. There are Skippies without +number growing up in those slums to-day, vaguely wondering why they were +born into a world that does not want them; Scrabble Alleys to be found +for the asking, all over this big city where the tenements abound, +alleys in which generations of boys have lived and died--principally +died, and thus done for themselves the best they could, according to the +crusty philosopher of Skippy's set--with nothing more inspiring than a +dead blank wall within reach of their windows all the days of their +cheerless lives. Theirs is the account to be squared--by justice, not +vengeance. Skippy is but an item on the wrong side of the ledger. The +real reckoning of outraged society is not with him, but with Scrabble +Alley. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nibsy's Christmas, by Jacob A. Riis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + +***** This file should be named 19014-8.txt or 19014-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/1/19014/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Riis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nibsy's Christmas + +Author: Jacob A. Riis + +Release Date: August 9, 2006 [EBook #19014] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS</h1> + +<div class="c"> +<img src="images/001.png" width="40%" alt="Nibsy as Santa Claus." /> +<br /><span class="smcap">Nibsy as Santa Claus.</span></div> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JACOB AUGUST RIIS</h2> + +<h3>Short Story Index Reprint Series</h3> + +<h3>BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS</h3> + +<h3>FREEPORT, NEW YORK</h3> + +<h3>First Published 1893</h3> + +<h3>Reprinted 1969</h3> + +<p class="c">STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 8369-3073-8</p> + +<p class="c">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 71-90590</p> + +<p class="c">MANUFACTURED BY HALLMARK LITHOGRAPHERS, INC. IN THE U.S.A.</p> + +<hr style="width: 5%;" /> + +<p class="c"><i>To Her Most Gracious Majesty<br /> +Louise<br /> +Queen of Denmark<br /> +the friend of the afflicted and the mother of the<br /> +motherless in my childhood's home<br /> +these leaves are inscribed<br /> +with the profound respect and admiration<br /> +of<br /> +the Author</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3> +<a href="#NIBSYS_CHRISTMAS"><b>NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WHAT_THE_CHRISTMAS_SUN_SAW_IN_THE_TENEMENTS"><b>WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SKIPPY_OF_SCRABBLE_ALLEY"><b>SKIPPY OF SCRABBLE ALLEY</b></a><br /> +</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NIBSYS_CHRISTMAS" id="NIBSYS_CHRISTMAS"></a>NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS</h2> + + +<p>It was Christmas-eve over on the East Side. Darkness was closing in on a +cold, hard day. The light that struggled through the frozen windows of +the delicatessen store, and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with +empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned +tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if +they were butting their way down the street.</p> + +<p>The wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling +through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. Between +roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the +hard-wood counter were heard out in the street. More than one of the +passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which +the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was +snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. The lights were long out when +the silent streets re-echoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the +Christmas welcome had turned to dread.</p> + +<p>But in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to +pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. Where the +lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness +across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened +against the window. Their warm breath made little round holes on the +frosty pane, that came and went, affording passing glimpses of the +wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of +sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped +bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good +things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of +them.</p> + +<p>And the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys +through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming +or going of a customer! Better than all, back there on the top shelf the +stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in +bundles with strips of blue paper.</p> + +<p>The wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the +lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard with the frost +to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake +with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it.</p> + +<p>"Jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual; +"hey, Jim! them's Sante Clause's. See 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Sante Claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the +clear spot on the pane. "There ain't no ole duffer like dat. Them's +honey-cakes. Me 'n' Tom had a bite o' one wunst."</p> + +<p>"There ain't no Sante Claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his +peep-hole. "There is, too. I seen him myself when he cum to our alley +last——"</p> + +<p>"What's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice.</p> + +<p>Another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher looking than either of the +two, had come up behind them unobserved. He carried an armful of unsold +"extras" under one arm. The other was buried to the elbow in the pocket +of his ragged trousers.</p> + +<p>The "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as +umpire.</p> + +<p>"It's Jim w'at says there ain't no Sante Claus, and I seen him——"</p> + +<p>"Jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the +culprit; "Jim! y'ere a chump! No Sante Claus? What're ye givin' us? Now, +watch me!"</p> + +<p>With utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under +the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and +honey-cakes. Petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the +veritable presence of Santa Claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out +five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over +to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of +honey-cakes tied with blue. As if in a dream they saw him issue forth +with the coveted prize.</p> + +<p>"There, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to +Santa Claus's champion; "there's yer Christmas. Run along, now, to yer +barracks; and you, Jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it. +Mind ye let the kid alone."</p> + +<p>"This one'll have to do for me grub, I guess. I ain't sold me 'Newses,' +and the ole man'll kick if I bring 'em home."</p> + +<p>And before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had +turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was +smothered in a yell of "Extree!" as he shot across the street to +intercept a passing stranger.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As the evening wore on it grew rawer and more blustering still. Flakes +of dry snow that stayed where they fell, slowly tracing the curb-lines, +the shutters, and the doorsteps of the tenements with gathering white, +were borne up on the storm from the water. To the right and left +stretched endless streets between the towering barracks, as beneath +frowning cliffs pierced with a thousand glowing eyes that revealed the +watch-fires within—a mighty city of cave-dwellers held in the thraldom +of poverty and want.</p> + +<p>Outside there was yet hurrying to and fro. Saloon doors were slamming +and bare-legged urchins, carrying beer-jugs, hugged the walls close for +shelter. From the depths of a blind alley floated out the discordant +strains of a vagabond brass band "blowing in" the yule of the poor. +Banished by police ordinance from the street, it reaped a scant harvest +of pennies for Christmas-cheer from the windows opening on the backyard. +Against more than one pane showed the bald outline of a forlorn little +Christmas-tree, some stray branch of a hemlock picked up at the grocer's +and set in a pail for "the childer" to dance around, a dime's worth of +candy and tinsel on the boughs.</p> + +<p>From the attic over the way came, in spells between, the gentle tones +of a German song about the Christ-child. Christmas in the East-Side +tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the +name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many +sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and +aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make +itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill.</p> + +<p>To these what was Christmas but the name for persecution, for suffering, +reminder of lost kindred and liberty, of the slavery of eighteen hundred +years, freedom from which was purchased only with gold. Aye, gold! The +gold that had power to buy freedom yet, to buy the good will, aye, and +the good name, of the oppressor, with his houses and land. At the +thought the tired eye glistened, the aching back straightened, and to +the weary foot there came new strength to finish the long task while the +city slept.</p> + +<p>Where a narrow passage-way put in between two big tenements to a +ramshackle rear barrack, Nibsy, the newsboy, halted in the shadow of +the doorway and stole a long look down the dark alley.</p> + +<p>He toyed uncertainly with his still unsold papers—worn dirty and ragged +as his clothes by this time—before he ventured in, picking his way +between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the Italian cobbler's hovel, +where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a cheap print +of the "Mother of God," showed that even he knew it was Christmas and +liked to show it; past the Sullivan flat, where blows and drunken curses +mingled with the shriek of women, as Nibsy had heard many nights before +this one.</p> + +<p>He shuddered as he felt his way past the door, partly with a premonition +of what was in store for himself, if the "old man" was at home, partly +with a vague, uncomfortable feeling that somehow Christmas-eve should be +different from other nights, even in the alley. Down to its farthest +end, to the last rickety flight of steps that led into the filth and +darkness of the tenement. Up this he crept, three flights, to a door at +which he stopped and listened, hesitating, as he had stopped at the +entrance to the alley; then, with a sudden, defiant gesture, he pushed +it open and went in.</p> + +<p>A bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner, +another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a broken +cradle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed woman with +hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the middle of the +room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the floor alongside. +A man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an old slouch hat. +With each breath of draught he stirred, the crazy old pipe belched forth +torrents of smoke at every point. As Nibsy entered, the man desisted +from his efforts and sat up glaring at him. A villainous ruffian's face, +scowling with anger.</p> + +<p>"Late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. What did I tell yer, +brat, if ye dared——"</p> + +<p>"Tom! Tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the +ruffian's temper.</p> + +<p>"The boy can't help it, an' it's Christmas-eve. For the love o'——"</p> + +<p>"To thunder with yer rot and with yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with +the fury of passion. "Let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a +heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy.</p> + +<p>Nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his +mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. At the first +movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with +the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. It struck the door, +as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel.</p> + +<p>Down the three flights in as many jumps Nibsy went, and through the +alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached +the street, and curses and shouts were left behind.</p> + +<p>In his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his +pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much +from shame as to keep out the cold.</p> + +<p>Four pennies were all he had left after his Christmas treat to the two +little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and +it was getting colder all the time.</p> + +<p>On the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated Christmas party +was in progress. The children from the tenements in the alley and across +the way were having a game of blindman's-buff, groping blindly about in +the crowd to catch each other. They hailed Nibsy with shouts of +laughter, calling to him to join in.</p> + +<p>"We're having Christmas!" they yelled.</p> + +<p>Nibsy did not hear them. He was thinking, thinking, the while turning +over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket.</p> + +<p>Thinking if Christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's Santa +Claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her +father's cruel hand. As for him, he had never known anything but blows +and curses. He could take care of himself. But his mother and the +baby——. And then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was +getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep.</p> + +<p>He weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was in +the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot for +him.</p> + +<p>There was the hay-barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got +drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. The chances were at +least even of its being available on Christmas-eve, and of Santa Claus +having thus done him a good turn after all.</p> + +<p>Then there was the snug berth in the sandbox you could curl all up in. +Nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay-barge, so far away +and to windward too.</p> + +<p>Down by the printing-offices there were the steam-gratings, and a chance +corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the big +presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day.</p> + +<p>As he passed them in review, Nibsy made up his mind with sudden +determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down +town.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now +buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of +the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and +pain that was echoed by a hundred throats.</p> + +<p>From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and +beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following +them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire.</p> + +<p>The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by +the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. With hook and axes the firemen +rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in the +depths the battle was fought and won.</p> + +<p>The building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the +victory there fell a sudden silence. From the cellar-way a grimy, +helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms. A +tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden, while +the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital for the +doctor to come quickly.</p> + +<p>Very gently they lifted poor little Nibsy—for it was he, caught in his +berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the +hay-barge—into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too +late.</p> + +<p>Conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and pain, +Nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. Nobody had taken the +trouble to as much as notice him before. When he had thrust his papers +into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside. Nibsy, unhurt +and able to fight his way, never had a show. Sick and maimed and sore, +he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were +forbidden to go. Things were queer, anyhow, and——</p> + +<p>The room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's +kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was +there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in +such a hurry.</p> + +<p>There was the baby now—poor baby—and mother—and then a great blank, +and it was all a mystery to poor Nibsy no longer. For, just as a +wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors +to his bedside, crying for her boy, Nibsy gave up his soul to God.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was very quiet in the alley. Christmas had come and gone. Upon the +last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. It had +done duty there a dozen times before, that year.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, Nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all, +old and young, came to see him.</p> + +<p>Even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. Cowed and +silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain +little coffin stood, with the lid closed down.</p> + +<p>A couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove, +when there came a timid knock at the door. Nobody answering, it was +pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form +of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing +peep-holes on the window-pane of the delicatessen store the night before +when Nibsy came along.</p> + +<p>He dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some +Christmas-tree fitted into its block by the grocer for a customer.</p> + +<p>"It's from Sante Claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "Nibsy +knows." And he went out.</p> + +<p>Santa Claus had come to Nibsy, after all, in his alley. And Nibsy knew.</p> + + +<div class="c"> +<img src="images/002.png" width="40%" alt="decoration" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_THE_CHRISTMAS_SUN_SAW_IN_THE_TENEMENTS" id="WHAT_THE_CHRISTMAS_SUN_SAW_IN_THE_TENEMENTS"></a>WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS</h2> + + +<p>The December sun shone clear and cold upon the city. It shone upon rich +and poor alike. It shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues +and in the uptown streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by +towering tenements down town. It shone upon throngs of busy holiday +shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big +and small, all alike filled with Christmas cheer and kindly messages +from Santa Claus.</p> + +<p>It shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and +overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "My, isn't it +a nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder-cape to a friend, +pausing to kiss and compare lists of Christmas gifts.</p> + +<p>"Most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. There was +warmth within and without. Life was very pleasant under the Christmas +sun up on the avenue.</p> + +<p>Down in Cherry Street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall +tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in +them, and fell into a dirty block, half-choked with trucks, with +ash-barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled +in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and +cranny of the big barracks. They fell upon a little girl, bare-footed +and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her +grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the +draught through a big factory chimney. Just at the mouth of the alley it +took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, +tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl +she clutched at her throat, and set her down at the saloon-door +breathless and half-smothered. She had just time to dodge through the +storm-doors before another whirlwind swept whistling down the street.</p> + +<p>"My, but isn't it cold?" she said, as she shook the dust out of her +shawl and set the pitcher down on the bar. "Gimme a pint," laying down a +few pennies that had been wrapped in a corner of the shawl, "and mamma +says make it good and full."</p> + +<p>"All'us the way with youse kids—want a barrel when yees pays fer a +pint," growled the bartender. "There, run along, and don't ye hang +around that stove no more. We ain't a steam-heatin' the block fer +nothin'."</p> + +<p>The little girl clutched her shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into +the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in +pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. But the sun that +pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old +Boreas—it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt +was caught by one and whirled over her head as she dodged into her +alley. It peeped after her half-way down its dark depths, where it +seemed colder even than in the bleak street, but there it had to leave +her.</p> + +<p>It did not see her dive through the doorless opening into a hall where +no sun-ray had ever entered. It could not have found its way in there +had it tried. But up the narrow, squeaking stairs the girl with the +pitcher was climbing. Up one flight of stairs, over a knot of children, +half babies, pitching pennies on the landing, over wash-tubs and +bedsteads that encumbered the next—house-cleaning going on in that +"flat;" that is to say, the surplus of bugs was being burned out with +petroleum and a feather—up still another, past a half-open door through +which came the noise of brawling and curses. She dodged and quickened +her step a little until she stood panting before a door on the fourth +landing that opened readily as she pushed it with her bare foot.</p> + +<p>A room almost devoid of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of +furniture. Two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, +beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the +wall. On the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bed-tick +for a bed; a foul-smelling slop-pail in the middle of the room; a crazy +stove, and back of it a door or gap opening upon darkness. There was +something in there, but what it was could only be surmised from a heavy +snore that rose and fell regularly. It was the bedroom of the apartment, +windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price a millionaire +would denounce as robbery.</p> + +<p>"That you, Liza?" said a voice that discovered a woman bending over the +stove. "Run 'n' get the childer. Dinner's ready."</p> + +<p>The winter sun glancing down the wall of the opposite tenement, with a +hopeless effort to cheer the backyard, might have peeped through the one +window of the room in Mrs. McGroarty's "flat," had that window not been +coated with the dust of ages, and discovered that dinner-party in +action. It might have found a hundred like it in the alley. Four unkempt +children, copies each in his or her way of Liza and their mother, Mrs. +McGroarty, who "did washing" for a living. A meat bone, a "cut" from +the butcher's at four cents a pound, green pickles, stale bread and +beer. Beer for the four, a sup all round, the baby included. Why not? It +was the one relish the searching ray would have found there. Potatoes +were there, too—potatoes and meat! Say not the poor in the tenements +are starving. In New York only those starve who cannot get work and have +not the courage to beg. Fifty thousand always out of a job, say those +who pretend to know. A round half-million asking and getting charity in +eight years, say the statisticians of the Charity Organization. Any one +can go round and see for himself that no one need starve in New York.</p> + +<p>From across the yard the sunbeam, as it crept up the wall, fell +slantingly through the attic window whence issued the sound of +hammer-blows. A man with a hard face stood in its light, driving nails +into the lid of a soap-box that was partly filled with straw. Something +else was there; as he shifted the lid that didn't fit, the glimpse of +sunshine fell across it; it was a dead child, a little baby in a white +slip, bedded in straw in a soap-box for a coffin. The man was hammering +down the lid to take it to the Potter's Field. At the bed knelt the +mother, dry-eyed, delirious from starvation that had killed her child. +Five hungry, frightened children cowered in the corner, hardly daring to +whisper as they looked from the father to the mother in terror.</p> + +<p>There was a knock on the door that was drowned once, twice, in the noise +of the hammer on the little coffin. Then it was opened gently, and a +young woman came in with a basket. A little silver cross shone upon her +breast. She went to the poor mother, and putting her hand soothingly on +her head knelt by her with gentle and loving words. The half-crazed +woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into tears and hid +her throbbing head in the other's lap.</p> + +<p>The man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the children +gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from her basket +bread, meat, and tea. Just then, with a parting, wistful look into the +bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for a moment about +the coping outside and fled over the house-tops.</p> + +<p>As it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in an +Irish bog more desolate than these Cherry Street "homes?" An army of +thousands whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of home, +is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded in such +barracks to-day in New York. Potatoes they have; yes, and meat at four +cents—even seven. Beer for a relish—never without beer. But home? The +home that was home even in a bog, with the love of it that has made +Ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her +suffering—what of that? There are no homes in New York's poor +tenements.</p> + +<p>Down the crooked path of the Mulberry Street Bend the sunlight slanted +into the heart of New York's Italy. It shone upon bandannas and yellow +neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon +blackhaired girls—mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged +children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and ragpickers +staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step. +Shone upon unnumbered Pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and gambling +there. Shone upon the filthiest and foulest of New York's tenements, +upon Bandits' Roost, upon Bottle Alley, upon the hidden by-ways that +lead to the tramp's burrows. Shone upon the scene of annual infant +slaughter. Shone into the foul core of New York's slums that is at last +to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized man may not look +upon it and live without blushing.</p> + +<p>It glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches to +poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two women, +one young, the other old and bent. The young one had a baby at her +breast. She was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the soft +Italian tongue a lullaby, while the old granny listened eagerly, her +elbows on her knees, and a stumpy clay-pipe, blackened with age, +between her teeth. Her eyes were set on the wall, on which the musty +paper hung in tatters, fit frame for the wretched, poverty-stricken +room, but they saw neither poverty nor want; her aged limbs felt not the +cold draught from without, in which they shivered; they looked far over +the seas to sunny Italy, whose music was in her ears.</p> + +<p>"O dolce Napoli," she mumbled between her toothless jaws, "O suol +beato——"</p> + +<p>The song ended in a burst of passionate grief. The old granny and the +baby woke up at once. They were not in sunny Italy; not under Southern, +cloudless skies. They were in "The Bend" in Mulberry Street, and the +wintry wind rattled the door as if it would say, in the language of +their new home, the land of the free: "Less music! More work! Root, hog, +or die!"</p> + +<p>Around the corner the sunbeam danced with the wind into Mott Street, +lifted the blouse of a Chinaman and made it play tag with his pig-tail. +It used him so roughly that he was glad to skip from it down a +cellar-way that gave out fumes of opium strong enough to scare even the +north wind from its purpose. The soles of his felt shoes showed as he +disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar-steps. Down there, +where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were +bending over a table playing fan-tan. Their very souls were in the game, +every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. The one +blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a +corner. One end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over a +little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. Something spluttered in +the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. The smoker took a long +draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in +senseless content.</p> + +<p>Upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to +the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the tenements +of The Bend and the East Side live in slavery worse, if not more +galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain—the slavery of the +pipe. Four, eight, sixteen—twenty odd such "homes" in this tenement, +disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage and troth are +not in the bargain.</p> + +<p>In one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam works +its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all. They +are very young, "under age," though each and every one would glibly +swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen, +and therefore free to make her own bad choice. Of these, one was brought +up among the rugged hills of Maine; the other two are from the tenement +crowds, hardly missed there. But their companion? She is twirling the +sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl of her pipe +with it. As she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed, kisses the +red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long has known, +though to her it is hidden yet—that the pipe has claimed its victim and +soon will pass it on to the Potter's Field.</p> + +<p>"Nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred +within her by the flash—"Nell, did you hear from the old farm to home +since you come here?"</p> + +<p>Nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly +look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips.</p> + +<p>"To hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth +inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her +pillow in drunken stupor.</p> + +<p>That is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in Mott Street.</p> + +<p>It had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and +vainly seeking entry to others; had gilt with equal impartiality the +spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand +tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and +cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming +crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers +striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to +be fed.</p> + +<p>The brief December day was far spent. Now its rays fell across the +North River and lighted up the windows of the tenements in Hell's +Kitchen and Poverty Gap. In the Gap especially they made a brave show; +the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that set +back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. But the +glory did not cross the threshold. Within it was dark and dreary and +cold. The room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. The +last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. The +sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it +could have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through +every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break. +She hugged an old doll to her breast. The paint was gone from its face; +the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. But she only +hugged it closer. It was her doll. They had been friends so long, shared +hunger and hardship together, and now——.</p> + +<p>Her tears fell faster. One drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. +The last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless +jewel. Its glory grew and filled the room. Gone were the black walls, +the darkness and the cold. There was warmth and light and joy. Merry +voices and glad faces were all about. A flock of children danced with +gleeful shouts about a great Christmas-tree in the middle of the floor. +Upon its branches hung drums and trumpets and toys, and countless +candles gleamed like beautiful stars. Farthest up, at the very top, her +doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken +down and hugged. She knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her +first and only real Christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and +the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "In His Name." +His name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. Was he +also her dolly's friend, and would know it among the strange people?</p> + +<p>The light went out; the glory faded. The bare room, only colder and +more cheerless than before, was left. The child shivered. Only that +morning the doctor had told her mother that she must have medicine and +food and warmth, or she must go to the great hospital where papa had +gone before, when their money was all spent. Sorrow and want had laid +the mother upon the bed he had barely left. Every stick of furniture, +every stitch of clothing on which money could be borrowed, had gone to +the pawnbroker. Last of all, she had carried mamma's wedding-ring, to +pay the druggist. Now there was no more left, and they had nothing to +eat. In a little while mamma would wake up, hungry.</p> + +<p>The little girl smothered a last sob and rose quickly. She wrapped the +doll in a threadbare shawl, as well as she could, tiptoed to the door +and listened a moment to the feeble breathing of the sick mother within. +Then she went out, shutting the door softly behind her, lest she wake +her.</p> + +<p>Up the street she went, the way she knew so well, one block and a turn +round the saloon corner, the sunset glow kissing the track of her bare +feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she +opened it and went in. A musty smell filled the close room. Packages, +great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. A +slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a +skirt she had brought to pledge.</p> + +<p>"Not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the +garment aside. "It's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth +over the counter these six months. Take it or leave it. Hallo! What have +we here? Little Finnegan, eh? Your mother not dead yet? It's in the +poor-house ye will be if she lasts much longer. What the——"</p> + +<p>He had taken the package from the trembling child's hand—the precious +doll—and unrolled the shawl. A moment he stood staring in dumb +amazement at its contents. Then he caught it up and flung it with an +angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box.</p> + +<p>"Get out o' here, ye Finnegan brat," he shouted; "I'll tache ye to come +a'guyin' o' me. I'll——"</p> + +<p>The door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold +night. The sun saw not its home-coming. It had hidden behind the +night-clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty.</p> + +<p>Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves, +now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and +shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of +miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among +strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that +night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets +for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, +and one of the two he must do soon.</p> + +<p>There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen +waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since——it +was so cold—and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who +would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more +intently.</p> + +<p>A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against +his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him +nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and +friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him +to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to +the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time +he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank +he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link +with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. +One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he +went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant +ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. +How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman +put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, +a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse +of glistening water. It silvers the snow upon a barren heath between two +shores, and shortens with each passing minute the shadows of countless +headstones that bear no names, only numbers. The breakers that beat +against the bluff wake not those who sleep there. In the deep trenches +they lie, shoulder to shoulder, an army of brothers, homeless in life, +but here at rest and at peace. A great cross stands upon the lonely +shore. The moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods +the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. Out on +the Sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, +and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the +wings of the west wind.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SKIPPY_OF_SCRABBLE_ALLEY" id="SKIPPY_OF_SCRABBLE_ALLEY"></a>SKIPPY OF SCRABBLE ALLEY</h2> + + +<p>Skippy was at home in Scrabble Alley. So far as he had ever known home +of any kind it was there in the dark and mouldy basement of the rear +house, farthest back in the gap that was all the builder of those big +tenements had been able to afford of light and of air for the poor +people whose hard-earned wages, brought home every Saturday, left them +as poor as if they had never earned a dollar, to pile themselves up in +his strong-box. The good man had long since been gathered to his +fathers—gone to his better home. It was in the newspapers, and in the +alley it was said that it was the biggest funeral—more than a hundred +carriages, and four black horses to pull the hearse. So it must be true, +of course.</p> + +<p>Skippy wondered vaguely, sometimes, when he thought of it, what kind of +a home it might be where people went in a hundred carriages. He had +never sat in one. The nearest he had come to it was when Jimmy Murphy's +cab had nearly run him down once, and his "fare," a big man with +whiskers, had put his head out and angrily called him a brat, and told +him to get out of the way, or he would have him arrested. And Jimmy had +shaken his whip at him and told him to skip home. Everybody told him to +skip. From the policeman on the block to the hard-fisted man he knew as +his father, and who always had a job for him with the growler when he +came home, they were having Skippy on the run. Probably that was how he +got his name. No one cared enough about it, or about the boy, to find +out.</p> + +<p>Was there anybody anywhere who cared about boys, anyhow? Were there any +boys in that other home where the carriages and the big hearse had gone? +And if there were, did they have to live in an alley, and did they ever +have any fun? These were thoughts that puzzled Skippy's young brain once +in a while. Not very long or very hard, for Skippy had not been trained +to think; what training the boys picked up in the alley didn't run much +to deep thinking.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was just as well. There were one or two men there who were +said to know a heap, and who had thought and studied it all out about +the landlord and the alley. But it was very tiresome that it should +happen to be just those two, for Skippy never liked them. They were +always cross and ugly, never laughed and carried on as the other men did +once in a while, and made his little feet very tired running with the +growler early and late. He well remembered, too, that it was one of them +who had said, when they brought him home, sore and limping, from under +the wheels of Jimmy Murphy's cab, that he'd been better off if it had +killed him. He had always borne a grudge against him for that, for there +was no occasion for it that he could see. Hadn't he been to the gin-mill +for him that very day twice?</p> + +<p>Skippy's horizon was bounded by the towering brick walls of Scrabble +Alley. No sun ever rose or set between them. On the hot summer days, +when the saloon-keeper on the farther side of the street pulled up his +awning, the sun came over the house-tops and looked down for an hour or +two into the alley. It shone upon broken flags, a mud-puddle by the +hydrant where the children went splashing with dirty, bare feet, and +upon unnumbered ash-barrels. A stray cabbage-leaf in one of these was +the only green thing it found, for no ray ever strayed through the +window in Skippy's basement to trace the green mould on the wall.</p> + +<p>Once, while he had been lying sick with a fever, Skippy had struck up a +real friendly acquaintance with that mouldy wall. He had pictured to +himself woods and hills and a regular wilderness, such as he had heard +of, in its green growth; but even that pleasure they had robbed him of. +The charity doctor had said that the mould was bad, and a man scraped it +off and put whitewash on the wall. As if everything that made fun for a +boy was bad.</p> + +<p>Down the street a little way was a yard just big enough and nice to play +ball in, but the agent had put up a sign that he would have no boys and +no ball-playing in his yard, and that ended it; for the "cop" would have +none of it in the street either. Once he had caught them at it and +"given them the collar." They had been up before the judge, and though +he let them off they had been branded, Skippy and the rest, as a bad +lot.</p> + +<p>That was the starting-point in Skippy's career. With the brand upon him +he accepted the future it marked out for him, reasoning as little, or as +vaguely, about the justice of it as he had about the home conditions of +the alley. The world, what he had seen of it, had taught him one lesson: +to take things as he found them, because that was the way they were; and +that being the easiest, and, on the whole, best suited to Skippy's +general make-up, he fell naturally into the <i>rôle</i> assigned him. After +that he worked the growler on his own hook most of the time. The "gang" +he had joined found means of keeping it going that more than justified +the brand the policeman had put upon it. It was seldom by honest work. +What was the use? The world owed them a living, and it was their +business to collect it as easily as they could. It was everybody's +business to do that, as far as they could see, from the man who owned +the alley, down.</p> + +<p>They made the alley pan out in their own way. It had advantages the +builder hadn't thought of, though he provided them. Full of secret ins +and outs, runways and passages, not easily found, to the surrounding +tenements, it offered chances to get away when one or more of the gang +were "wanted" for robbing this store on the avenue, tapping that till, +or raiding the grocer's stock, that were A No. 1. When some tipsy man +had been waylaid and "stood up," it was an unequalled spot for dividing +the plunder. It happened once or twice, as time went by, that a man was +knocked on the head and robbed within the bailiwick of the now notorious +Scrabble Alley gang, or that a drowned man floated ashore in the dock +with his pockets turned inside out. On such occasions the police made +an extra raid, and more or less of the gang were scooped in, but nothing +ever came of it. Dead men tell no tales, and they were not more silent +than the Scrabbles, if, indeed, these had anything to tell.</p> + +<p>It came gradually to be an old story. Skippy and his associates were +long since in the Rogues' Gallery, numbered and indexed as truly a bad +lot now. They were no longer boys, but toughs. Most of them had "done +time" up the river and come back more hardened than they went, full of +new tricks always, which they were eager to show the boys to prove that +they had not been idle while they were away. On the police returns they +figured as "speculators," a term that sounded better than thief, and +meant, as they understood it, much the same, viz., a man who made a +living out of other people's labor. It was conceded in the slums, +everywhere, that the Scrabble-Alley gang was a little the boldest that +had for a long time defied the police. It had the call in the other +gangs in all the blocks around, for it had the biggest fighters as well +as the cleverest thieves of them all.</p> + +<p>Then one holiday morning, when in a hundred churches the pæan went up, +"On earth peace, good-will toward men," all New York rang with the story +of a midnight murder committed by Skippy's gang. The saloon-keeper whose +place they were sacking to get the "stuff" for keeping Christmas in +their way had come upon them, and Skippy had shot him down while the +others ran. A universal shout for vengeance went up from outraged +Society.</p> + +<p>It sounded the death-knell of the gang. It was scattered to the four +winds, all except Skippy, who was tried for murder and hanged. The +papers spoke of his phenomenal calmness under the gallows; said it was +defiance. The priest who had been with him in his last hours said he was +content to go to a better home. They were all wrong. Had the pictures +that chased each other across Skippy's mind as the black cap was pulled +over his face been visible to their eyes, they would have seen Scrabble +Alley with its dripping hydrant, and the puddle in which the children +splashed with dirty, bare feet; the dark basement room with its mouldy +wall; the notice in the yard, "No ball-playing allowed here;" the +policeman who stamped him as one of a bad lot, and the sullen man who +thought it had been better for him, the time he was run over, if he had +died. Skippy asked himself moodily if he was right after all, and if +boys were ever to have any show. He died with the question unanswered.</p> + +<p>They said that no such funeral ever went out of Scrabble Alley before. +There was a real raid on the undertaker's where Skippy lay in state two +whole days, and the wake was talked of for many a day as something +wonderful. At the funeral services it was said that without a doubt +Skippy had gone to a better home. His account was squared.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Skippy's story is not invented to be told here. In its main facts it is +a plain account of a well-remembered drama of the slums, on which the +curtain was rung down in the Tombs yard. There are Skippies without +number growing up in those slums to-day, vaguely wondering why they were +born into a world that does not want them; Scrabble Alleys to be found +for the asking, all over this big city where the tenements abound, +alleys in which generations of boys have lived and died—principally +died, and thus done for themselves the best they could, according to the +crusty philosopher of Skippy's set—with nothing more inspiring than a +dead blank wall within reach of their windows all the days of their +cheerless lives. Theirs is the account to be squared—by justice, not +vengeance. Skippy is but an item on the wrong side of the ledger. The +real reckoning of outraged society is not with him, but with Scrabble +Alley.</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nibsy's Christmas, by Jacob A. Riis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + +***** This file should be named 19014-h.htm or 19014-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/1/19014/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Riis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nibsy's Christmas + +Author: Jacob A. Riis + +Release Date: August 9, 2006 [EBook #19014] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Nibsy as Santa Claus.] + + NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS + + BY + + JACOB AUGUST RIIS + + Short Story Index Reprint Series + + BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS + + FREEPORT, NEW YORK + + First Published 1893 + + Reprinted 1969 + + STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 8369-3073-8 + + LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 71-90590 + + MANUFACTURED BY HALLMARK LITHOGRAPHERS, INC. IN THE U.S.A. + + * * * * * + _To Her Most Gracious Majesty + Louise + Queen of Denmark + the friend of the afflicted and the mother of the + motherless in my childhood's home + these leaves are inscribed + with the profound respect and admiration + of + the Author_ + + * * * * * + + + + + NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS + + +It was Christmas-eve over on the East Side. Darkness was closing in on a +cold, hard day. The light that struggled through the frozen windows of +the delicatessen store, and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with +empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned +tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if +they were butting their way down the street. + +The wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling +through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. Between +roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the +hard-wood counter were heard out in the street. More than one of the +passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which +the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was +snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. The lights were long out when +the silent streets re-echoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the +Christmas welcome had turned to dread. + +But in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to +pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. Where the +lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness +across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened +against the window. Their warm breath made little round holes on the +frosty pane, that came and went, affording passing glimpses of the +wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of +sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped +bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good +things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of +them. + +And the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys +through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming +or going of a customer! Better than all, back there on the top shelf the +stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in +bundles with strips of blue paper. + +The wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the +lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard with the frost +to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake +with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it. + +"Jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual; +"hey, Jim! them's Sante Clause's. See 'em?" + +"Sante Claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the +clear spot on the pane. "There ain't no ole duffer like dat. Them's +honey-cakes. Me 'n' Tom had a bite o' one wunst." + +"There ain't no Sante Claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his +peep-hole. "There is, too. I seen him myself when he cum to our alley +last----" + +"What's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice. + +Another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher looking than either of the +two, had come up behind them unobserved. He carried an armful of unsold +"extras" under one arm. The other was buried to the elbow in the pocket +of his ragged trousers. + +The "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as +umpire. + +"It's Jim w'at says there ain't no Sante Claus, and I seen him----" + +"Jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the +culprit; "Jim! y'ere a chump! No Sante Claus? What're ye givin' us? Now, +watch me!" + +With utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under +the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and +honey-cakes. Petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the +veritable presence of Santa Claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out +five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over +to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of +honey-cakes tied with blue. As if in a dream they saw him issue forth +with the coveted prize. + +"There, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to +Santa Claus's champion; "there's yer Christmas. Run along, now, to yer +barracks; and you, Jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it. +Mind ye let the kid alone." + +"This one'll have to do for me grub, I guess. I ain't sold me 'Newses,' +and the ole man'll kick if I bring 'em home." + +And before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had +turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was +smothered in a yell of "Extree!" as he shot across the street to +intercept a passing stranger. + + * * * * * + +As the evening wore on it grew rawer and more blustering still. Flakes +of dry snow that stayed where they fell, slowly tracing the curb-lines, +the shutters, and the doorsteps of the tenements with gathering white, +were borne up on the storm from the water. To the right and left +stretched endless streets between the towering barracks, as beneath +frowning cliffs pierced with a thousand glowing eyes that revealed the +watch-fires within--a mighty city of cave-dwellers held in the thraldom +of poverty and want. + +Outside there was yet hurrying to and fro. Saloon doors were slamming +and bare-legged urchins, carrying beer-jugs, hugged the walls close for +shelter. From the depths of a blind alley floated out the discordant +strains of a vagabond brass band "blowing in" the yule of the poor. +Banished by police ordinance from the street, it reaped a scant harvest +of pennies for Christmas-cheer from the windows opening on the backyard. +Against more than one pane showed the bald outline of a forlorn little +Christmas-tree, some stray branch of a hemlock picked up at the grocer's +and set in a pail for "the childer" to dance around, a dime's worth of +candy and tinsel on the boughs. + +From the attic over the way came, in spells between, the gentle tones +of a German song about the Christ-child. Christmas in the East-Side +tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the +name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many +sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and +aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make +itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill. + +To these what was Christmas but the name for persecution, for suffering, +reminder of lost kindred and liberty, of the slavery of eighteen hundred +years, freedom from which was purchased only with gold. Aye, gold! The +gold that had power to buy freedom yet, to buy the good will, aye, and +the good name, of the oppressor, with his houses and land. At the +thought the tired eye glistened, the aching back straightened, and to +the weary foot there came new strength to finish the long task while the +city slept. + +Where a narrow passage-way put in between two big tenements to a +ramshackle rear barrack, Nibsy, the newsboy, halted in the shadow of +the doorway and stole a long look down the dark alley. + +He toyed uncertainly with his still unsold papers--worn dirty and ragged +as his clothes by this time--before he ventured in, picking his way +between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the Italian cobbler's hovel, +where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a cheap print +of the "Mother of God," showed that even he knew it was Christmas and +liked to show it; past the Sullivan flat, where blows and drunken curses +mingled with the shriek of women, as Nibsy had heard many nights before +this one. + +He shuddered as he felt his way past the door, partly with a premonition +of what was in store for himself, if the "old man" was at home, partly +with a vague, uncomfortable feeling that somehow Christmas-eve should be +different from other nights, even in the alley. Down to its farthest +end, to the last rickety flight of steps that led into the filth and +darkness of the tenement. Up this he crept, three flights, to a door at +which he stopped and listened, hesitating, as he had stopped at the +entrance to the alley; then, with a sudden, defiant gesture, he pushed +it open and went in. + +A bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner, +another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a broken +cradle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed woman with +hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the middle of the +room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the floor alongside. +A man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an old slouch hat. +With each breath of draught he stirred, the crazy old pipe belched forth +torrents of smoke at every point. As Nibsy entered, the man desisted +from his efforts and sat up glaring at him. A villainous ruffian's face, +scowling with anger. + +"Late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. What did I tell yer, +brat, if ye dared----" + +"Tom! Tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the +ruffian's temper. + +"The boy can't help it, an' it's Christmas-eve. For the love o'----" + +"To thunder with yer rot and with yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with +the fury of passion. "Let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a +heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy. + +Nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his +mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. At the first +movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with +the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. It struck the door, +as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel. + +Down the three flights in as many jumps Nibsy went, and through the +alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached +the street, and curses and shouts were left behind. + +In his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his +pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much +from shame as to keep out the cold. + +Four pennies were all he had left after his Christmas treat to the two +little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and +it was getting colder all the time. + +On the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated Christmas party +was in progress. The children from the tenements in the alley and across +the way were having a game of blindman's-buff, groping blindly about in +the crowd to catch each other. They hailed Nibsy with shouts of +laughter, calling to him to join in. + +"We're having Christmas!" they yelled. + +Nibsy did not hear them. He was thinking, thinking, the while turning +over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket. + +Thinking if Christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's Santa +Claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her +father's cruel hand. As for him, he had never known anything but blows +and curses. He could take care of himself. But his mother and the +baby----. And then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was +getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep. + +He weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was in +the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot for +him. + +There was the hay-barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got +drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. The chances were at +least even of its being available on Christmas-eve, and of Santa Claus +having thus done him a good turn after all. + +Then there was the snug berth in the sandbox you could curl all up in. +Nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay-barge, so far away +and to windward too. + +Down by the printing-offices there were the steam-gratings, and a chance +corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the big +presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day. + +As he passed them in review, Nibsy made up his mind with sudden +determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down +town. + + * * * * * + +The rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now +buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of +the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and +pain that was echoed by a hundred throats. + +From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and +beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following +them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire. + +The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by +the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. With hook and axes the firemen +rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in the +depths the battle was fought and won. + +The building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the +victory there fell a sudden silence. From the cellar-way a grimy, +helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms. A +tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden, while +the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital for the +doctor to come quickly. + +Very gently they lifted poor little Nibsy--for it was he, caught in his +berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the +hay-barge--into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too +late. + +Conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and pain, +Nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. Nobody had taken the +trouble to as much as notice him before. When he had thrust his papers +into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside. Nibsy, unhurt +and able to fight his way, never had a show. Sick and maimed and sore, +he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were +forbidden to go. Things were queer, anyhow, and---- + +The room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's +kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was +there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in +such a hurry. + +There was the baby now--poor baby--and mother--and then a great blank, +and it was all a mystery to poor Nibsy no longer. For, just as a +wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors +to his bedside, crying for her boy, Nibsy gave up his soul to God. + + * * * * * + +It was very quiet in the alley. Christmas had come and gone. Upon the +last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. It had +done duty there a dozen times before, that year. + +Upstairs, Nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all, +old and young, came to see him. + +Even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. Cowed and +silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain +little coffin stood, with the lid closed down. + +A couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove, +when there came a timid knock at the door. Nobody answering, it was +pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form +of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing +peep-holes on the window-pane of the delicatessen store the night before +when Nibsy came along. + +He dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some +Christmas-tree fitted into its block by the grocer for a customer. + +"It's from Sante Claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "Nibsy +knows." And he went out. + +Santa Claus had come to Nibsy, after all, in his alley. And Nibsy knew. + +[Illustration] + + + + + WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS + + +The December sun shone clear and cold upon the city. It shone upon rich +and poor alike. It shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues +and in the uptown streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by +towering tenements down town. It shone upon throngs of busy holiday +shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big +and small, all alike filled with Christmas cheer and kindly messages +from Santa Claus. + +It shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and +overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "My, isn't it +a nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder-cape to a friend, +pausing to kiss and compare lists of Christmas gifts. + +"Most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. There was +warmth within and without. Life was very pleasant under the Christmas +sun up on the avenue. + +Down in Cherry Street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall +tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in +them, and fell into a dirty block, half-choked with trucks, with +ash-barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled +in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and +cranny of the big barracks. They fell upon a little girl, bare-footed +and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her +grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the +draught through a big factory chimney. Just at the mouth of the alley it +took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, +tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl +she clutched at her throat, and set her down at the saloon-door +breathless and half-smothered. She had just time to dodge through the +storm-doors before another whirlwind swept whistling down the street. + +"My, but isn't it cold?" she said, as she shook the dust out of her +shawl and set the pitcher down on the bar. "Gimme a pint," laying down a +few pennies that had been wrapped in a corner of the shawl, "and mamma +says make it good and full." + +"All'us the way with youse kids--want a barrel when yees pays fer a +pint," growled the bartender. "There, run along, and don't ye hang +around that stove no more. We ain't a steam-heatin' the block fer +nothin'." + +The little girl clutched her shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into +the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in +pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. But the sun that +pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old +Boreas--it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt +was caught by one and whirled over her head as she dodged into her +alley. It peeped after her half-way down its dark depths, where it +seemed colder even than in the bleak street, but there it had to leave +her. + +It did not see her dive through the doorless opening into a hall where +no sun-ray had ever entered. It could not have found its way in there +had it tried. But up the narrow, squeaking stairs the girl with the +pitcher was climbing. Up one flight of stairs, over a knot of children, +half babies, pitching pennies on the landing, over wash-tubs and +bedsteads that encumbered the next--house-cleaning going on in that +"flat;" that is to say, the surplus of bugs was being burned out with +petroleum and a feather--up still another, past a half-open door through +which came the noise of brawling and curses. She dodged and quickened +her step a little until she stood panting before a door on the fourth +landing that opened readily as she pushed it with her bare foot. + +A room almost devoid of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of +furniture. Two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, +beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the +wall. On the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bed-tick +for a bed; a foul-smelling slop-pail in the middle of the room; a crazy +stove, and back of it a door or gap opening upon darkness. There was +something in there, but what it was could only be surmised from a heavy +snore that rose and fell regularly. It was the bedroom of the apartment, +windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price a millionaire +would denounce as robbery. + +"That you, Liza?" said a voice that discovered a woman bending over the +stove. "Run 'n' get the childer. Dinner's ready." + +The winter sun glancing down the wall of the opposite tenement, with a +hopeless effort to cheer the backyard, might have peeped through the one +window of the room in Mrs. McGroarty's "flat," had that window not been +coated with the dust of ages, and discovered that dinner-party in +action. It might have found a hundred like it in the alley. Four unkempt +children, copies each in his or her way of Liza and their mother, Mrs. +McGroarty, who "did washing" for a living. A meat bone, a "cut" from +the butcher's at four cents a pound, green pickles, stale bread and +beer. Beer for the four, a sup all round, the baby included. Why not? It +was the one relish the searching ray would have found there. Potatoes +were there, too--potatoes and meat! Say not the poor in the tenements +are starving. In New York only those starve who cannot get work and have +not the courage to beg. Fifty thousand always out of a job, say those +who pretend to know. A round half-million asking and getting charity in +eight years, say the statisticians of the Charity Organization. Any one +can go round and see for himself that no one need starve in New York. + +From across the yard the sunbeam, as it crept up the wall, fell +slantingly through the attic window whence issued the sound of +hammer-blows. A man with a hard face stood in its light, driving nails +into the lid of a soap-box that was partly filled with straw. Something +else was there; as he shifted the lid that didn't fit, the glimpse of +sunshine fell across it; it was a dead child, a little baby in a white +slip, bedded in straw in a soap-box for a coffin. The man was hammering +down the lid to take it to the Potter's Field. At the bed knelt the +mother, dry-eyed, delirious from starvation that had killed her child. +Five hungry, frightened children cowered in the corner, hardly daring to +whisper as they looked from the father to the mother in terror. + +There was a knock on the door that was drowned once, twice, in the noise +of the hammer on the little coffin. Then it was opened gently, and a +young woman came in with a basket. A little silver cross shone upon her +breast. She went to the poor mother, and putting her hand soothingly on +her head knelt by her with gentle and loving words. The half-crazed +woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into tears and hid +her throbbing head in the other's lap. + +The man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the children +gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from her basket +bread, meat, and tea. Just then, with a parting, wistful look into the +bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for a moment about +the coping outside and fled over the house-tops. + +As it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in an +Irish bog more desolate than these Cherry Street "homes?" An army of +thousands whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of home, +is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded in such +barracks to-day in New York. Potatoes they have; yes, and meat at four +cents--even seven. Beer for a relish--never without beer. But home? The +home that was home even in a bog, with the love of it that has made +Ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her +suffering--what of that? There are no homes in New York's poor +tenements. + +Down the crooked path of the Mulberry Street Bend the sunlight slanted +into the heart of New York's Italy. It shone upon bandannas and yellow +neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon +blackhaired girls--mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged +children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and ragpickers +staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step. +Shone upon unnumbered Pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and gambling +there. Shone upon the filthiest and foulest of New York's tenements, +upon Bandits' Roost, upon Bottle Alley, upon the hidden by-ways that +lead to the tramp's burrows. Shone upon the scene of annual infant +slaughter. Shone into the foul core of New York's slums that is at last +to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized man may not look +upon it and live without blushing. + +It glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches to +poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two women, +one young, the other old and bent. The young one had a baby at her +breast. She was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the soft +Italian tongue a lullaby, while the old granny listened eagerly, her +elbows on her knees, and a stumpy clay-pipe, blackened with age, +between her teeth. Her eyes were set on the wall, on which the musty +paper hung in tatters, fit frame for the wretched, poverty-stricken +room, but they saw neither poverty nor want; her aged limbs felt not the +cold draught from without, in which they shivered; they looked far over +the seas to sunny Italy, whose music was in her ears. + +"O dolce Napoli," she mumbled between her toothless jaws, "O suol +beato----" + +The song ended in a burst of passionate grief. The old granny and the +baby woke up at once. They were not in sunny Italy; not under Southern, +cloudless skies. They were in "The Bend" in Mulberry Street, and the +wintry wind rattled the door as if it would say, in the language of +their new home, the land of the free: "Less music! More work! Root, hog, +or die!" + +Around the corner the sunbeam danced with the wind into Mott Street, +lifted the blouse of a Chinaman and made it play tag with his pig-tail. +It used him so roughly that he was glad to skip from it down a +cellar-way that gave out fumes of opium strong enough to scare even the +north wind from its purpose. The soles of his felt shoes showed as he +disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar-steps. Down there, +where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were +bending over a table playing fan-tan. Their very souls were in the game, +every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. The one +blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a +corner. One end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over a +little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. Something spluttered in +the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. The smoker took a long +draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in +senseless content. + +Upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to +the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the tenements +of The Bend and the East Side live in slavery worse, if not more +galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain--the slavery of the +pipe. Four, eight, sixteen--twenty odd such "homes" in this tenement, +disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage and troth are +not in the bargain. + +In one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam works +its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all. They +are very young, "under age," though each and every one would glibly +swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen, +and therefore free to make her own bad choice. Of these, one was brought +up among the rugged hills of Maine; the other two are from the tenement +crowds, hardly missed there. But their companion? She is twirling the +sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl of her pipe +with it. As she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed, kisses the +red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long has known, +though to her it is hidden yet--that the pipe has claimed its victim and +soon will pass it on to the Potter's Field. + +"Nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred +within her by the flash--"Nell, did you hear from the old farm to home +since you come here?" + +Nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly +look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips. + +"To hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth +inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her +pillow in drunken stupor. + +That is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in Mott Street. + +It had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and +vainly seeking entry to others; had gilt with equal impartiality the +spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand +tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and +cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming +crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers +striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to +be fed. + +The brief December day was far spent. Now its rays fell across the +North River and lighted up the windows of the tenements in Hell's +Kitchen and Poverty Gap. In the Gap especially they made a brave show; +the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that set +back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. But the +glory did not cross the threshold. Within it was dark and dreary and +cold. The room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. The +last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. The +sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it +could have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor. + +Upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through +every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break. +She hugged an old doll to her breast. The paint was gone from its face; +the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. But she only +hugged it closer. It was her doll. They had been friends so long, shared +hunger and hardship together, and now----. + +Her tears fell faster. One drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. +The last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless +jewel. Its glory grew and filled the room. Gone were the black walls, +the darkness and the cold. There was warmth and light and joy. Merry +voices and glad faces were all about. A flock of children danced with +gleeful shouts about a great Christmas-tree in the middle of the floor. +Upon its branches hung drums and trumpets and toys, and countless +candles gleamed like beautiful stars. Farthest up, at the very top, her +doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken +down and hugged. She knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her +first and only real Christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and +the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "In His Name." +His name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. Was he +also her dolly's friend, and would know it among the strange people? + +The light went out; the glory faded. The bare room, only colder and +more cheerless than before, was left. The child shivered. Only that +morning the doctor had told her mother that she must have medicine and +food and warmth, or she must go to the great hospital where papa had +gone before, when their money was all spent. Sorrow and want had laid +the mother upon the bed he had barely left. Every stick of furniture, +every stitch of clothing on which money could be borrowed, had gone to +the pawnbroker. Last of all, she had carried mamma's wedding-ring, to +pay the druggist. Now there was no more left, and they had nothing to +eat. In a little while mamma would wake up, hungry. + +The little girl smothered a last sob and rose quickly. She wrapped the +doll in a threadbare shawl, as well as she could, tiptoed to the door +and listened a moment to the feeble breathing of the sick mother within. +Then she went out, shutting the door softly behind her, lest she wake +her. + +Up the street she went, the way she knew so well, one block and a turn +round the saloon corner, the sunset glow kissing the track of her bare +feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she +opened it and went in. A musty smell filled the close room. Packages, +great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. A +slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a +skirt she had brought to pledge. + +"Not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the +garment aside. "It's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth +over the counter these six months. Take it or leave it. Hallo! What have +we here? Little Finnegan, eh? Your mother not dead yet? It's in the +poor-house ye will be if she lasts much longer. What the----" + +He had taken the package from the trembling child's hand--the precious +doll--and unrolled the shawl. A moment he stood staring in dumb +amazement at its contents. Then he caught it up and flung it with an +angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box. + +"Get out o' here, ye Finnegan brat," he shouted; "I'll tache ye to come +a'guyin' o' me. I'll----" + +The door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold +night. The sun saw not its home-coming. It had hidden behind the +night-clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty. + +Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves, +now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and +shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of +miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among +strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that +night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets +for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, +and one of the two he must do soon. + +There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen +waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since----it +was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who +would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more +intently. + +A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against +his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him +nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and +friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him +to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to +the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time +he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank +he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link +with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home. + +In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. +One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he +went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant +ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. +How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman +put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, +a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step. + + * * * * * + +Far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse +of glistening water. It silvers the snow upon a barren heath between two +shores, and shortens with each passing minute the shadows of countless +headstones that bear no names, only numbers. The breakers that beat +against the bluff wake not those who sleep there. In the deep trenches +they lie, shoulder to shoulder, an army of brothers, homeless in life, +but here at rest and at peace. A great cross stands upon the lonely +shore. The moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods +the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. Out on +the Sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, +and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the +wings of the west wind. + + + + + SKIPPY OF SCRABBLE ALLEY + + +Skippy was at home in Scrabble Alley. So far as he had ever known home +of any kind it was there in the dark and mouldy basement of the rear +house, farthest back in the gap that was all the builder of those big +tenements had been able to afford of light and of air for the poor +people whose hard-earned wages, brought home every Saturday, left them +as poor as if they had never earned a dollar, to pile themselves up in +his strong-box. The good man had long since been gathered to his +fathers--gone to his better home. It was in the newspapers, and in the +alley it was said that it was the biggest funeral--more than a hundred +carriages, and four black horses to pull the hearse. So it must be true, +of course. + +Skippy wondered vaguely, sometimes, when he thought of it, what kind of +a home it might be where people went in a hundred carriages. He had +never sat in one. The nearest he had come to it was when Jimmy Murphy's +cab had nearly run him down once, and his "fare," a big man with +whiskers, had put his head out and angrily called him a brat, and told +him to get out of the way, or he would have him arrested. And Jimmy had +shaken his whip at him and told him to skip home. Everybody told him to +skip. From the policeman on the block to the hard-fisted man he knew as +his father, and who always had a job for him with the growler when he +came home, they were having Skippy on the run. Probably that was how he +got his name. No one cared enough about it, or about the boy, to find +out. + +Was there anybody anywhere who cared about boys, anyhow? Were there any +boys in that other home where the carriages and the big hearse had gone? +And if there were, did they have to live in an alley, and did they ever +have any fun? These were thoughts that puzzled Skippy's young brain once +in a while. Not very long or very hard, for Skippy had not been trained +to think; what training the boys picked up in the alley didn't run much +to deep thinking. + +Perhaps it was just as well. There were one or two men there who were +said to know a heap, and who had thought and studied it all out about +the landlord and the alley. But it was very tiresome that it should +happen to be just those two, for Skippy never liked them. They were +always cross and ugly, never laughed and carried on as the other men did +once in a while, and made his little feet very tired running with the +growler early and late. He well remembered, too, that it was one of them +who had said, when they brought him home, sore and limping, from under +the wheels of Jimmy Murphy's cab, that he'd been better off if it had +killed him. He had always borne a grudge against him for that, for there +was no occasion for it that he could see. Hadn't he been to the gin-mill +for him that very day twice? + +Skippy's horizon was bounded by the towering brick walls of Scrabble +Alley. No sun ever rose or set between them. On the hot summer days, +when the saloon-keeper on the farther side of the street pulled up his +awning, the sun came over the house-tops and looked down for an hour or +two into the alley. It shone upon broken flags, a mud-puddle by the +hydrant where the children went splashing with dirty, bare feet, and +upon unnumbered ash-barrels. A stray cabbage-leaf in one of these was +the only green thing it found, for no ray ever strayed through the +window in Skippy's basement to trace the green mould on the wall. + +Once, while he had been lying sick with a fever, Skippy had struck up a +real friendly acquaintance with that mouldy wall. He had pictured to +himself woods and hills and a regular wilderness, such as he had heard +of, in its green growth; but even that pleasure they had robbed him of. +The charity doctor had said that the mould was bad, and a man scraped it +off and put whitewash on the wall. As if everything that made fun for a +boy was bad. + +Down the street a little way was a yard just big enough and nice to play +ball in, but the agent had put up a sign that he would have no boys and +no ball-playing in his yard, and that ended it; for the "cop" would have +none of it in the street either. Once he had caught them at it and +"given them the collar." They had been up before the judge, and though +he let them off they had been branded, Skippy and the rest, as a bad +lot. + +That was the starting-point in Skippy's career. With the brand upon him +he accepted the future it marked out for him, reasoning as little, or as +vaguely, about the justice of it as he had about the home conditions of +the alley. The world, what he had seen of it, had taught him one lesson: +to take things as he found them, because that was the way they were; and +that being the easiest, and, on the whole, best suited to Skippy's +general make-up, he fell naturally into the _role_ assigned him. After +that he worked the growler on his own hook most of the time. The "gang" +he had joined found means of keeping it going that more than justified +the brand the policeman had put upon it. It was seldom by honest work. +What was the use? The world owed them a living, and it was their +business to collect it as easily as they could. It was everybody's +business to do that, as far as they could see, from the man who owned +the alley, down. + +They made the alley pan out in their own way. It had advantages the +builder hadn't thought of, though he provided them. Full of secret ins +and outs, runways and passages, not easily found, to the surrounding +tenements, it offered chances to get away when one or more of the gang +were "wanted" for robbing this store on the avenue, tapping that till, +or raiding the grocer's stock, that were A No. 1. When some tipsy man +had been waylaid and "stood up," it was an unequalled spot for dividing +the plunder. It happened once or twice, as time went by, that a man was +knocked on the head and robbed within the bailiwick of the now notorious +Scrabble Alley gang, or that a drowned man floated ashore in the dock +with his pockets turned inside out. On such occasions the police made +an extra raid, and more or less of the gang were scooped in, but nothing +ever came of it. Dead men tell no tales, and they were not more silent +than the Scrabbles, if, indeed, these had anything to tell. + +It came gradually to be an old story. Skippy and his associates were +long since in the Rogues' Gallery, numbered and indexed as truly a bad +lot now. They were no longer boys, but toughs. Most of them had "done +time" up the river and come back more hardened than they went, full of +new tricks always, which they were eager to show the boys to prove that +they had not been idle while they were away. On the police returns they +figured as "speculators," a term that sounded better than thief, and +meant, as they understood it, much the same, viz., a man who made a +living out of other people's labor. It was conceded in the slums, +everywhere, that the Scrabble-Alley gang was a little the boldest that +had for a long time defied the police. It had the call in the other +gangs in all the blocks around, for it had the biggest fighters as well +as the cleverest thieves of them all. + +Then one holiday morning, when in a hundred churches the paean went up, +"On earth peace, good-will toward men," all New York rang with the story +of a midnight murder committed by Skippy's gang. The saloon-keeper whose +place they were sacking to get the "stuff" for keeping Christmas in +their way had come upon them, and Skippy had shot him down while the +others ran. A universal shout for vengeance went up from outraged +Society. + +It sounded the death-knell of the gang. It was scattered to the four +winds, all except Skippy, who was tried for murder and hanged. The +papers spoke of his phenomenal calmness under the gallows; said it was +defiance. The priest who had been with him in his last hours said he was +content to go to a better home. They were all wrong. Had the pictures +that chased each other across Skippy's mind as the black cap was pulled +over his face been visible to their eyes, they would have seen Scrabble +Alley with its dripping hydrant, and the puddle in which the children +splashed with dirty, bare feet; the dark basement room with its mouldy +wall; the notice in the yard, "No ball-playing allowed here;" the +policeman who stamped him as one of a bad lot, and the sullen man who +thought it had been better for him, the time he was run over, if he had +died. Skippy asked himself moodily if he was right after all, and if +boys were ever to have any show. He died with the question unanswered. + +They said that no such funeral ever went out of Scrabble Alley before. +There was a real raid on the undertaker's where Skippy lay in state two +whole days, and the wake was talked of for many a day as something +wonderful. At the funeral services it was said that without a doubt +Skippy had gone to a better home. His account was squared. + + * * * * * + +Skippy's story is not invented to be told here. In its main facts it is +a plain account of a well-remembered drama of the slums, on which the +curtain was rung down in the Tombs yard. There are Skippies without +number growing up in those slums to-day, vaguely wondering why they were +born into a world that does not want them; Scrabble Alleys to be found +for the asking, all over this big city where the tenements abound, +alleys in which generations of boys have lived and died--principally +died, and thus done for themselves the best they could, according to the +crusty philosopher of Skippy's set--with nothing more inspiring than a +dead blank wall within reach of their windows all the days of their +cheerless lives. Theirs is the account to be squared--by justice, not +vengeance. Skippy is but an item on the wrong side of the ledger. The +real reckoning of outraged society is not with him, but with Scrabble +Alley. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nibsy's Christmas, by Jacob A. Riis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIBSY'S CHRISTMAS *** + +***** This file should be named 19014.txt or 19014.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/1/19014/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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