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diff --git a/38419.txt b/38419.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c15d3a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/38419.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5672 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Out of Mulberry Street, 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: Out of Mulberry Street + Stories of Tenement life in New York City + +Author: Jacob A. Riis + +Release Date: December 27, 2011 [EBook #38419] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT OF MULBERRY STREET *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +OUT OF MULBERRY STREET + +JACOB.A.RIIS + + + + +[Illustration: Merry Christmas in the Tenements.] + + + + + Out of Mulberry Street + + Stories of tenement + life in New York City + + + By Jacob A. Riis + + Author of "How the Other Half Lives," + "The Children of the Poor," etc. + + + New York + The Century Co. + 1898 + + + + + Copyright, 1897, 1898, + By THE CENTURY CO. + + + THE DE VINNE PRESS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS 1 + + 'TWAS LIZA'S DOINGS 47 + + THE DUBOURQUES, FATHER AND SON 60 + + ABE'S GAME OF JACKS 67 + + A LITTLE PICTURE 71 + + A DREAM OF THE WOODS 73 + + A HEATHEN BABY 80 + + HE KEPT HIS TRYST 86 + + JOHN GAVIN, MISFIT 91 + + IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL 96 + + NIGGER MARTHA'S WAKE 106 + + A CHIP FROM THE MAELSTROM 114 + + SARAH JOYCE'S HUSBANDS 118 + + THE CAT TOOK THE KOSHER MEAT 122 + + FIRE IN THE BARRACKS 126 + + A WAR ON THE GOATS 129 + + ROVER'S LAST FIGHT 135 + + WHEN THE LETTER CAME 142 + + THE KID 147 + + LOST CHILDREN 151 + + THE SLIPPER-MAKER'S FAST 162 + + PAOLO'S AWAKENING 166 + + THE LITTLE DOLLAR'S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY 182 + + A PROPOSAL ON THE ELEVATED 199 + + DEATH COMES TO CAT ALLEY 205 + + WHY IT HAPPENED 210 + + THE CHRISTENING IN BOTTLE ALLEY 213 + + IN THE MULBERRY STREET COURT 219 + + SPOONING IN DYNAMITE ALLEY 223 + + HEROES WHO FIGHT FIRE 229 + + + + +PREFACE + + +Since I wrote "How the Other Half Lives" I have been asked many times upon +what basis of experience, of fact, I built that account of life in New +York tenements. These stories contain the answer. They are from the daily +grist of the police hopper in Mulberry street, at which I have been +grinding for twenty years. They are reprinted from the columns of my +newspaper, and from the magazines as a contribution to the discussion of +the lives and homes of the poor, which in recent years has done much to +better their lot, and is yet to do much more when we have all come to +understand each other. In this discussion only facts are of value, and +these stories are true. In the few instances in which I have taken the +ordering of events into my own hands, it is chiefly their sequence with +which I have interfered. The facts themselves remain as I found them. + +J. A. R. + +301 MULBERRY STREET. + + + + +OUT OF MULBERRY STREET + + + + +MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS + + +It was just a sprig of holly, with scarlet berries showing against the +green, stuck in, by one of the office boys probably, behind the sign that +pointed the way up to the editorial rooms. There was no reason why it +should have made me start when I came suddenly upon it at the turn of the +stairs; but it did. Perhaps it was because that dingy hall, given over to +dust and drafts all the days of the year, was the last place in which I +expected to meet with any sign of Christmas; perhaps it was because I +myself had nearly forgotten the holiday. Whatever the cause, it gave me +quite a turn. + +I stood, and stared at it. It looked dry, almost withered. Probably it had +come a long way. Not much holly grows about Printing-House Square, except +in the colored supplements, and that is scarcely of a kind to stir tender +memories. Withered and dry, this did. I thought, with a twinge of +conscience, of secret little conclaves of my children, of private views of +things hidden from mama at the bottom of drawers, of wild flights when +papa appeared unbidden in the door, which I had allowed for once to pass +unheeded. Absorbed in the business of the office, I had hardly thought of +Christmas coming on, until now it was here. And this sprig of holly on the +wall that had come to remind me,--come nobody knew how far,--did it grow +yet in the beech-wood clearings, as it did when I gathered it as a boy, +tracking through the snow? "Christ-thorn" we called it in our Danish +tongue. The red berries, to our simple faith, were the drops of blood that +fell from the Saviour's brow as it drooped under its cruel crown upon the +cross. + +Back to the long ago wandered my thoughts: to the moss-grown beech in +which I cut my name and that of a little girl with yellow curls, of +blessed memory, with the first jack-knife I ever owned; to the story-book +with the little fir-tree that pined because it was small, and because the +hare jumped over it, and would not be content though the wind and the sun +kissed it, and the dews wept over it and told it to rejoice in its young +life; and that was so proud when, in the second year, the hare had to go +round it, because then it knew it was getting big,--Hans Christian +Andersen's story that we loved above all the rest; for we knew the tree +right well, and the hare; even the tracks it left in the snow we had seen. +Ah, those were the Yule-tide seasons, when the old Domkirke shone with a +thousand wax candles on Christmas eve; when all business was laid aside to +let the world make merry one whole week; when big red apples were roasted +on the stove, and bigger doughnuts were baked within it for the long +feast! Never such had been known since. Christmas to-day is but a name, a +memory. + +A door slammed below, and let in the noises of the street. The holly +rustled in the draft. Some one going out said, "A Merry Christmas to you +all!" in a big, hearty voice. I awoke from my reverie to find myself back +in New York with a glad glow at the heart. It was not true. I had only +forgotten. It was myself that had changed, not Christmas. That was here, +with the old cheer, the old message of good-will, the old royal road to +the heart of mankind. How often had I seen its blessed charity, that never +corrupts, make light in the hovels of darkness and despair! how often +watched its spirit of self sacrifice and devotion in those who had, +besides themselves, nothing to give! and as often the sight had made whole +my faith in human nature. No! Christmas was not of the past, its spirit +not dead. The lad who fixed the sprig of holly on the stairs knew it; my +reporter's note-book bore witness to it. Witness of my contrition for the +wrong I did the gentle spirit of the holiday, here let the book tell the +story of one Christmas in the tenements of the poor: + + * * * * * + +It is evening in Grand street. The shops east and west are pouring forth +their swarms of workers. Street and sidewalk are filled with an eager +throng of young men and women, chatting gaily, and elbowing the jam of +holiday shoppers that linger about the big stores. The street-cars labor +along, loaded down to the steps with passengers carrying bundles of every +size and odd shape. Along the curb a string of peddlers hawk penny toys in +push-carts with noisy clamor, fearless for once of being moved on by the +police. Christmas brings a two weeks' respite from persecution even to +the friendless street-fakir. From the window of one brilliantly lighted +store a bevy of mature dolls in dishabille stretch forth their arms +appealingly to a troop of factory-hands passing by. The young men chaff +the girls, who shriek with laughter and run. The policeman on the corner +stops beating his hands together to keep warm, and makes a mock attempt to +catch them, whereat their shrieks rise shriller than ever. "Them stockin's +o' yourn'll be the death o' Santa Claus!" he shouts after them, as they +dodge. And they, looking back, snap saucily, "Mind yer business, freshy!" +But their laughter belies their words. "They gin it to ye straight that +time," grins the grocer's clerk, come out to snatch a look at the crowds; +and the two swap holiday greetings. + +At the corner, where two opposing tides of travel form an eddy, the line +of push-carts debouches down the darker side-street. In its gloom their +torches burn with a fitful glare that wakes black shadows among the +trusses of the railroad structure overhead. A woman, with worn shawl drawn +tightly about head and shoulders, bargains with a peddler for a monkey on +a stick and two cents' worth of flitter-gold. Five ill-clad youngsters +flatten their noses against the frozen pane of the toy-shop, in ecstasy at +something there, which proves to be a milk-wagon, with driver, horses, and +cans that can be unloaded. It is something their minds can grasp. One +comes forth with a penny goldfish of pasteboard clutched tightly in his +hand, and, casting cautious glances right and left, speeds across the way +to the door of a tenement, where a little girl stands waiting. "It's yer +Chris'mas, Kate," he says, and thrusts it into her eager fist. The black +doorway swallows them up. + +Across the narrow yard, in the basement of the rear house, the lights of a +Christmas tree show against the grimy window-pane. The hare would never +have gone around it, it is so very small. The two children are busily +engaged fixing the goldfish upon one of its branches. Three little candles +that burn there shed light upon a scene of utmost desolation. The room is +black with smoke and dirt. In the middle of the floor oozes an oil-stove +that serves at once to take the raw edge off the cold and to cook the +meals by. Half the window-panes are broken, and the holes stuffed with +rags. The sleeve of an old coat hangs out of one, and beats drearily upon +the sash when the wind sweeps over the fence and rattles the rotten +shutters. The family wash, clammy and gray, hangs on a clothes-line +stretched across the room. Under it, at a table set with cracked and empty +plates, a discouraged woman sits eying the children's show gloomily. It is +evident that she has been drinking. The peaked faces of the little ones +wear a famished look. There are three--the third an infant, put to bed in +what was once a baby-carriage. The two from the street are pulling it +around to get the tree in range. The baby sees it, and crows with delight. +The boy shakes a branch, and the goldfish leaps and sparkles in the +candle-light. + +"See, sister!" he pipes; "see Santa Claus!" And they clap their hands in +glee. The woman at the table wakes out of her stupor, gazes around her, +and bursts into a fit of maudlin weeping. + +The door falls to. Five flights up, another opens upon a bare attic room +which a patient little woman is setting to rights. There are only three +chairs, a box, and a bedstead in the room, but they take a deal of careful +arranging. The bed hides the broken plaster in the wall through which the +wind came in; each chair-leg stands over a rat-hole, at once to hide it +and to keep the rats out. One is left; the box is for that. The plaster of +the ceiling is held up with pasteboard patches. I know the story of that +attic. It is one of cruel desertion. The woman's husband is even now +living in plenty with the creature for whom he forsook her, not a dozen +blocks away, while she "keeps the home together for the childer." She +sought justice, but the lawyer demanded a retainer; so she gave it up, and +went back to her little ones. For this room that barely keeps the winter +wind out she pays four dollars a month, and is behind with the rent. There +is scarce bread in the house; but the spirit of Christmas has found her +attic. Against a broken wall is tacked a hemlock branch, the leavings of +the corner grocer's fitting-block; pink string from the packing-counter +hangs on it in festoons. A tallow dip on the box furnishes the +illumination. The children sit up in bed, and watch it with shining eyes. + +"We're having Christmas!" they say. + +The lights of the Bowery glow like a myriad twinkling stars upon the +ceaseless flood of humanity that surges ever through the great highway of +the homeless. They shine upon long rows of lodging-houses, in which +hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the strange city, +are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness; for what desolation +is there like that of the careless crowd when all the world rejoices? They +shine upon the tempter, setting his snares there, and upon the missionary +and the Salvation Army lass, disputing his catch with him; upon the police +detective going his rounds with coldly observant eye intent upon the +outcome of the contest; upon the wreck that is past hope, and upon the +youth pausing on the verge of the pit in which the other has long ceased +to struggle. Sights and sounds of Christmas there are in plenty in the +Bowery. Juniper and tamarack and fir stand in groves along the busy +thoroughfare, and garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. +Once a year the old street recalls its youth with an effort. It is true +that it is largely a commercial effort--that the evergreen, with an +instinct that is not of its native hills, haunts saloon-corners by +preference; but the smell of the pine-woods is in the air, and--Christmas +is not too critical--one is grateful for the effort. It varies with the +opportunity. At "Beefsteak John's" it is content with artistically +embalming crullers and mince-pies in green cabbage under the window lamp. +Over yonder, where the mile-post of the old lane still stands,--in its +unhonored old age become the vehicle of publishing the latest "sure cure" +to the world,--a florist, whose undenominational zeal for the holiday and +trade outstrips alike distinction of creed and property, has transformed +the sidewalk and the ugly railroad structure into a veritable bower, +spanning it with a canopy of green, under which dwell with him, in +neighborly good-will, the Young Men's Christian Association and the +Gentile tailor next door. + +In the next block a "turkey-shoot" is in progress. Crowds are trying their +luck at breaking the glass balls that dance upon tiny jets of water in +front of a marine view with the moon rising, yellow and big, out of a +silver sea. A man-of-war, with lights burning aloft, labors under a rocky +coast. Groggy sailormen, on shore leave, make unsteady attempts upon the +dancing balls. One mistakes the moon for the target, but is discovered in +season. "Don't shoot that," says the man who loads the guns; "there's a +lamp behind it." Three scared birds in the window-recess try vainly to +snatch a moment's sleep between shots and the trains that go roaring +over-head on the elevated road. Roused by the sharp crack of the rifles, +they blink at the lights in the street, and peck moodily at a crust in +their bed of shavings. + +The dime-museum gong clatters out its noisy warning that "the lecture" is +about to begin. From the concert-hall, where men sit drinking beer in +clouds of smoke, comes the thin voice of a short-skirted singer warbling, +"Do they think of me at home?" The young fellow who sits near the door, +abstractedly making figures in the wet track of the "schooners," buries +something there with a sudden restless turn, and calls for another beer. +Out in the street a band strikes up. A host with banners advances, +chanting an unfamiliar hymn. In the ranks marches a cripple on crutches. +Newsboys follow, gaping. Under the illuminated clock of the Cooper +Institute the procession halts, and the leader, turning his face to the +sky, offers a prayer. The passing crowds stop to listen. A few bare their +heads. The devoted group, the flapping banners, and the changing +torchlight on upturned faces, make a strange, weird picture. Then the +drum-beat, and the band files into its barracks across the street. A few +of the listeners follow, among them the lad from the concert-hall, who +slinks shamefacedly in when he thinks no one is looking. + +Down at the foot of the Bowery is the "pan-handlers' beat," where the +saloons elbow one another at every step, crowding out all other business +than that of keeping lodgers to support them. Within call of it, across +the square, stands a church which, in the memory of men yet living, was +built to shelter the fashionable Baptist audiences of a day when Madison +Square was out in the fields, and Harlem had a foreign sound. The +fashionable audiences are gone long since. To-day the church, fallen into +premature decay, but still handsome in its strong and noble lines, stands +as a missionary outpost in the land of the enemy, its builders would have +said, doing a greater work than they planned. To-night is the Christmas +festival of its English-speaking Sunday-school, and the pews are filled. +The banners of United Italy, of modern Hellas, of France and Germany and +England, hang side by side with the Chinese dragon and the starry +flag--signs of the cosmopolitan character of the congregation. Greek and +Roman Catholics, Jews and joss-worshipers, go there; few Protestants, and +no Baptists. It is easy to pick out the children in their seats by +nationality, and as easy to read the story of poverty and suffering that +stands written in more than one mother's haggard face, now beaming with +pleasure at the little ones' glee. A gaily decorated Christmas tree has +taken the place of the pulpit. At its foot is stacked a mountain of +bundles, Santa Claus's gifts to the school. A self-conscious young man +with soap-locks has just been allowed to retire, amid tumultuous applause, +after blowing "Nearer, my God, to thee" on his horn until his cheeks +swelled almost to bursting. A trumpet ever takes the Fourth Ward by storm. +A class of little girls is climbing upon the platform. Each wears a +capital letter on her breast, and has a piece to speak that begins with +the letter; together they spell its lesson. There is momentary +consternation: one is missing. As the discovery is made, a child pushes +past the doorkeeper, hot and breathless. "I am in 'Boundless Love,'" she +says, and makes for the platform, where her arrival restores confidence +and the language. + +In the audience the befrocked visitor from up-town sits cheek by jowl +with the pigtailed Chinaman and the dark-browed Italian. Up in the +gallery, farthest from the preacher's desk and the tree, sits a Jewish +mother with three boys, almost in rags. A dingy and threadbare shawl +partly hides her poor calico wrap and patched apron. The woman shrinks in +the pew, fearful of being seen; her boys stand upon the benches, and +applaud with the rest. She endeavors vainly to restrain them. "Tick, +tick!" goes the old clock over the door through which wealth and fashion +went out long years ago, and poverty came in. + +Tick, tick! the world moves, with us--without; without or with. She is the +yesterday, they the to-morrow. What shall the harvest be? + +Loudly ticked the old clock in time with the doxology, the other day, when +they cleared the tenants out of Gotham Court down here in Cherry street, +and shut the iron doors of Single and Double Alley against them. Never did +the world move faster or surer toward a better day than when the wretched +slum was seized by the health-officers as a nuisance unfit longer to +disgrace a Christian city. The snow lies deep in the deserted passageways, +and the vacant floors are given over to evil smells, and to the rats that +forage in squads, burrowing in the neglected sewers. The "wall of wrath" +still towers above the buildings in the adjoining Alderman's Court, but +its wrath at last is wasted. + +It was built by a vengeful Quaker, whom the alderman had knocked down in a +quarrel over the boundary-line, and transmitted its legacy of hate to +generations yet unborn; for where it stood it shut out sunlight and air +from the tenements of Alderman's Court. And at last it is to go, Gotham +Court and all; and to the going the wall of wrath has contributed its +share, thus in the end atoning for some of the harm it wrought. Tick! old +clock; the world moves. Never yet did Christmas seem less dark on Cherry +Hill than since the lights were put out in Gotham Court forever. + +In "the Bend" the philanthropist undertaker who "buries for what he can +catch on the plate" hails the Yule-tide season with a pyramid of green +made of two coffins set on end. It has been a good day, he says +cheerfully, putting up the shutters; and his mind is easy. But the "good +days" of the Bend are over, too. The Bend itself is all but gone. Where +the old pigsty stood, children dance and sing to the strumming of a +cracked piano-organ propelled on wheels by an Italian and his wife. The +park that has come to take the place of the slum will curtail the +undertaker's profits, as it has lessened the work of the police. Murder +was the fashion of the day that is past. Scarce a knife has been drawn +since the sunlight shone into that evil spot, and grass and green shrubs +took the place of the old rookeries. The Christmas gospel of peace and +good-will moves in where the slum moves out. It never had a chance before. + +The children follow the organ, stepping in the slush to the +music,--bareheaded and with torn shoes, but happy,--across the Five Points +and through "the Bay,"--known to the directory as Baxter street,--to "the +Divide," still Chatham street to its denizens though the aldermen have +rechristened it Park Row. There other delegations of Greek and Italian +children meet and escort the music on its homeward trip. In one of the +crooked streets near the river its journey comes to an end. A battered +door opens to let it in. A tallow dip burns sleepily on the creaking +stairs. The water runs with a loud clatter in the sink: it is to keep it +from freezing. There is not a whole window-pane in the hall. Time was +when this was a fine house harboring wealth and refinement. It has neither +now. In the old parlor down-stairs a knot of hard-faced men and women sit +on benches about a deal table, playing cards. They have a jug between +them, from which they drink by turns. On the stump of a mantel-shelf a +lamp burns before a rude print of the Mother of God. No one pays any heed +to the hand-organ man and his wife as they climb to their attic. There is +a colony of them up there--three families in four rooms. + +"Come in, Antonio," says the tenant of the double flat,--the one with two +rooms,--"come and keep Christmas." Antonio enters, cap in hand. In the +corner by the dormer-window a "crib" has been fitted up in commemoration +of the Nativity. A soap-box and two hemlock branches are the elements. Six +tallow candles and a night-light illuminate a singular collection of +rarities, set out with much ceremonial show. A doll tightly wrapped in +swaddling-clothes represents "the Child." Over it stands a +ferocious-looking beast, easily recognized as a survival of the last +political campaign,--the Tammany tiger,--threatening to swallow it at a +gulp if one as much as takes one's eyes off it. A miniature Santa Claus, +a pasteboard monkey, and several other articles of bric-a-brac of the kind +the tenement affords, complete the outfit. The background is a picture of +St. Donato, their village saint, with the Madonna "whom they worship +most." But the incongruity harbors no suggestion of disrespect. The +children view the strange show with genuine reverence, bowing and crossing +themselves before it. There are five, the oldest a girl of seventeen, who +works for a sweater, making three dollars a week. It is all the money that +comes in, for the father has been sick and unable to work eight months and +the mother has her hands full: the youngest is a baby in arms. Three of +the children go to a charity school, where they are fed, a great help, now +the holidays have come to make work slack for sister. The rent is six +dollars--two weeks' pay out of the four. The mention of a possible chance +of light work for the man brings the daughter with her sewing from the +adjoining room, eager to hear. That would be Christmas indeed! "Pietro!" +She runs to the neighbors to communicate the joyful tidings. Pietro comes, +with his new-born baby, which he is tending while his wife lies ill, to +look at the maestro, so powerful and good. He also has been out of work +for months, with a family of mouths to fill, and nothing coming in. His +children are all small yet, but they speak English. + +"What," I say, holding a silver dime up before the oldest, a smart little +chap of seven--"what would you do if I gave you this?" + +"Get change," he replies promptly. When he is told that it is his own, to +buy toys with, his eyes open wide with wondering incredulity. By degrees +he understands. The father does not. He looks questioningly from one to +the other. When told, his respect increases visibly for "the rich +gentleman." + +They were villagers of the same community in southern Italy, these people +and others in the tenements thereabouts, and they moved their patron saint +with them. They cluster about his worship here, but the worship is more +than an empty form. He typifies to them the old neighborliness of home, +the spirit of mutual help, of charity, and of the common cause against the +common enemy. The community life survives through their saint in the far +city to an unsuspected extent. The sick are cared for; the dreaded +hospital is fenced out. There are no Italian evictions. The saint has +paid the rent of this attic through two hard months; and here at his +shrine the Calabrian village gathers, in the persons of these three, to do +him honor on Christmas eve. + +Where the old Africa has been made over into a modern Italy, since King +Humbert's cohorts struck the up-town trail, three hundred of the little +foreigners are having an uproarious time over their Christmas tree in the +Children's Aid Society's school. And well they may, for the like has not +been seen in Sullivan street in this generation. Christmas trees are +rather rarer over here than on the East Side, where the German leavens the +lump with his loyalty to home traditions. This is loaded with silver and +gold and toys without end, until there is little left of the original +green. Santa Claus's sleigh must have been upset in a snow-drift over +here, and righted by throwing the cargo overboard, for there is at least a +wagon-load of things that can find no room on the tree. The appearance of +"teacher" with a double armful of curly-headed dolls in red, yellow, and +green Mother-Hubbards, doubtful how to dispose of them, provokes a shout +of approval, which is presently quieted by the principal's bell. School +is "in" for the preliminary exercises. Afterward there are to be the tree +and ice-cream for the good children. In their anxiety to prove their title +clear, they sit so straight, with arms folded, that the whole row bends +over backward. The lesson is brief, the answers to the point. + +"What do we receive at Christmas?" the teacher wants to know. The whole +school responds with a shout, "Dolls and toys!" To the question, "Why do +we receive them at Christmas?" the answer is not so prompt. But one +youngster from Thompson street holds up his hand. He knows. "Because we +always get 'em," he says; and the class is convinced: it is a fact. A baby +wails because it cannot get the whole tree at once. The "little +mother"--herself a child of less than a dozen winters--who has it in +charge cooes over it, and soothes its grief with the aid of a +surreptitious sponge-cake evolved from the depths of teacher's pocket. +Babies are encouraged in these schools, though not originally included in +their plan, as often the one condition upon which the older children can +be reached. Some one has to mind the baby, with all hands out at work. + +The school sings "Santa Lucia" and "Children of the Heavenly King," and +baby is lulled to sleep. + +"Who is this King?" asks the teacher, suddenly, at the end of a verse. +Momentary stupefaction. The little minds are on ice-cream just then; the +lad nearest the door has telegraphed that it is being carried up in pails. +A little fellow on the back seat saves the day. Up goes his brown fist. + +"Well, Vito, who is he?" + +"McKinley!" shouts the lad, who remembers the election just past; and the +school adjourns for ice-cream. + +It is a sight to see them eat it. In a score of such schools, from the +Hook to Harlem, the sight is enjoyed in Christmas week by the men and +women who, out of their own pockets, reimburse Santa Claus for his outlay, +and count it a joy--as well they may; for their beneficence sometimes +makes the one bright spot in lives that have suffered of all wrongs the +most cruel--that of being despoiled of their childhood. Sometimes they are +little Bohemians; sometimes the children of refugee Jews; and again, +Italians, or the descendants of the Irish stock of Hell's Kitchen and +Poverty Row; always the poorest, the shabbiest, the hungriest--the +children Santa Claus loves best to find, if any one will show him the +way. Having so much on hand, he has no time, you see, to look them up +himself. That must be done for him; and it is done. To the teacher in this +Sullivan-street school came one little girl, this last Christmas, with +anxious inquiry if it was true that he came around with toys. + +"I hanged my stocking last time," she said, "and he didn't come at all." +In the front house indeed, he left a drum and a doll, but no message from +him reached the rear house in the alley. "Maybe he couldn't find it," she +said soberly. Did the teacher think he would come if she wrote to him? She +had learned to write. + +Together they composed a note to Santa Claus, speaking for a doll and a +bell--the bell to play "go to school" with when she was kept home minding +the baby. Lest he should by any chance miss the alley in spite of +directions, little Rosa was invited to hang her stocking, and her +sister's, with the janitor's children's in the school. And lo! on +Christmas morning there was a gorgeous doll, and a bell that was a whole +curriculum in itself, as good as a year's schooling any day! Faith in +Santa Claus is established in that Thompson-street alley for this +generation at least; and Santa Claus, got by hook or by crook into an +Eighth-Ward alley, is as good as the whole Supreme Court bench, with the +Court of Appeals thrown in, for backing the Board of Health against the +slum. + +But the ice-cream! They eat it off the seats, half of them kneeling or +squatting on the floor; they blow on it, and put it in their pockets to +carry home to baby. Two little shavers discovered to be feeding each +other, each watching the smack develop on the other's lips as the acme of +his own bliss, are "cousins"; that is why. Of cake there is a double +supply. It is a dozen years since "Fighting Mary," the wildest child in +the Seventh-Avenue school, taught them a lesson there which they have +never forgotten. She was perfectly untamable, fighting everybody in +school, the despair of her teacher, till on Thanksgiving, reluctantly +included in the general amnesty and mince-pie, she was caught cramming the +pie into her pocket, after eying it with a look of pure ecstasy, but +refusing to touch it. "For mother" was her explanation, delivered with a +defiant look before which the class quailed. It is recorded, but not in +the minutes, that the board of managers wept over Fighting Mary, who, all +unconscious of having caused such an astonishing "break," was at that +moment engaged in maintaining her prestige and reputation by fighting the +gang in the next block. The minutes contain merely a formal resolution to +the effect that occasions of mince-pie shall carry double rations +thenceforth. And the rule has been kept--not only in Seventh-Avenue, but +in every industrial school--since. Fighting Mary won the biggest fight of +her troubled life that day, without striking a blow. + +It was in the Seventh-Avenue school last Christmas that I offered the +truant class a four-bladed penknife as a prize for whittling out the +truest Maltese cross. It was a class of black sheep, and it was the +blackest sheep of the flock that won the prize. "That awful Savarese," +said the principal in despair. I thought of Fighting Mary, and bade her +take heart. I regret to say that within a week the hapless Savarese was +black-listed for banking up the school door with snow, so that not even +the janitor could get out and at him. + +Within hail of the Sullivan-street school camps a scattered little band, +the Christmas customs of which I had been trying for years to surprise. +They are Indians, a handful of Mohawks and Iroquois, whom some ill wind +has blown down from their Canadian reservation, and left in these +West-Side tenements to eke out such a living as they can weaving mats and +baskets, and threading glass pearls on slippers and pin-cushions, until, +one after another, they have died off and gone to happier hunting-grounds +than Thompson street. There were as many families as one could count on +the fingers of both hands when I first came upon them, at the death of old +Tamenund, the basket-maker. Last Christmas there were seven. I had about +made up my mind that the only real Americans in New York did not keep the +holiday at all, when, one Christmas eve, they showed me how. Just as dark +was setting in, old Mrs. Benoit came from her Hudson-street attic--where +she was known among the neighbors, as old and poor as she, as Mrs. Ben +Wah, and believed to be the relict of a warrior of the name of Benjamin +Wah--to the office of the Charity Organization Society, with a bundle for +a friend who had helped her over a rough spot--the rent, I suppose. The +bundle was done up elaborately in blue cheese-cloth, and contained a lot +of little garments which she had made out of the remnants of blankets and +cloth of her own from a younger and better day. "For those," she said, in +her French patois, "who are poorer than myself"; and hobbled away. I found +out, a few days later, when I took her picture weaving mats in her attic +room, that she had scarcely food in the house that Christmas day and not +the car-fare to take her to church! Walking was bad, and her old limbs +were stiff. She sat by the window through the winter evening, and watched +the sun go down behind the western hills, comforted by her pipe. Mrs. Ben +Wah, to give her her local name, is not really an Indian; but her husband +was one, and she lived all her life with the tribe till she came here. She +is a philosopher in her own quaint way. "It is no disgrace to be poor," +said she to me, regarding her empty tobacco-pouch; "but it is sometimes a +great inconvenience." Not even the recollection of the vote of censure +that was passed upon me once by the ladies of the Charitable Ten for +surreptitiously supplying an aged couple, the special object of their +charity, with army plug, could have deterred me from taking the hint. + +Very likely, my old friend Miss Sherman, in her Broome-street cellar,--it +is always the attic or the cellar,--would object to Mrs. Ben Wah's claim +to being the only real American in my note-book. She is from down East, +and says "stun" for stone. In her youth she was lady's-maid to a general's +wife, the recollection of which military career equally condones the +cellar and prevents her holding any sort of communication with her common +neighbors, who add to the offense of being foreigners the unpardonable one +of being mostly men. Eight cats bear her steady company, and keep alive +her starved affections. I found them on last Christmas eve behind +barricaded doors; for the cold that had locked the water-pipes had brought +the neighbors down to the cellar, where Miss Sherman's cunning had kept +them from freezing. Their tin pans and buckets were even then banging +against her door. "They're a miserable lot," said the old maid, fondling +her cats defiantly; "but let 'em. It's Christmas. Ah!" she added, as one +of the eight stood up in her lap and rubbed its cheek against hers, +"they're innocent. It isn't poor little animals that does the harm. It's +men and women that does it to each other." I don't know whether it was +just philosophy, like Mrs. Ben Wah's, or a glimpse of her story. If she +had one, she kept it for her cats. + +In a hundred places all over the city, when Christmas comes, as many +open-air fairs spring suddenly into life. A kind of Gentile Feast of +Tabernacles possesses the tenement districts especially. Green-embowered +booths stand in rows at the curb, and the voice of the tin trumpet is +heard in the land. The common source of all the show is down by the North +River, in the district known as "the Farm." Down there Santa Claus +establishes headquarters early in December and until past New Year. The +broad quay looks then more like a clearing in a pine-forest than a busy +section of the metropolis. The steamers discharge their loads of fir-trees +at the piers until they stand stacked mountain-high, with foot-hills of +holly and ground-ivy trailing off toward the land side. An army-train of +wagons is engaged in carting them away from early morning till late at +night; but the green forest grows, in spite of it all, until in places it +shuts the shipping out of sight altogether. The air is redolent with the +smell of balsam and pine. After nightfall, when the lights are burning in +the busy market, and the homeward-bound crowds with baskets and heavy +burdens of Christmas greens jostle one another with good-natured +banter,--nobody is ever cross down here in the holiday season,--it is +good to take a stroll through the Farm, if one has a spot in his heart +faithful yet to the hills and the woods in spite of the latter-day city. +But it is when the moonlight is upon the water and upon the dark phantom +forest, when the heavy breathing of some passing steamer is the only sound +that breaks the stillness of the night, and the watchman smokes his only +pipe on the bulwark, that the Farm has a mood and an atmosphere all its +own, full of poetry, which some day a painter's brush will catch and hold. + +Into the ugliest tenement street Christmas brings something of +picturesqueness as of cheer. Its message was ever to the poor and the +heavy-laden, and by them it is understood with an instinctive yearning to +do it honor. In the stiff dignity of the brownstone streets up-town there +may be scarce a hint of it. In the homes of the poor it blossoms on stoop +and fire-escape, looks out of the front window, and makes the unsightly +barber-pole to sprout overnight like an Aaron's rod. Poor indeed is the +home that has not its sign of peace over the hearth, be it but a single +sprig of green. A little color creeps with it even into rabbinical Hester +street, and shows in the shop-windows and in the children's faces. The +very feather-dusters in the peddler's stock take on brighter hues for the +occasion, and the big knives in the cutler's shop gleam with a lively +anticipation of the impending goose "with fixin's"--a concession, perhaps, +to the commercial rather than the religious holiday: business comes then, +if ever. A crowd of ragamuffins camp out at a window where Santa Claus and +his wife stand in state, embodiment of the domestic ideal that has not yet +gone out of fashion in these tenements, gazing hungrily at the +announcement that "A silver present will be given to every purchaser by a +real Santa Claus.--M. Levitsky." Across the way, in a hole in the wall, +two cobblers are pegging away under an oozy lamp that makes a yellow +splurge on the inky blackness about them, revealing to the passer-by their +bearded faces, but nothing of the environment save a single sprig of holly +suspended from the lamp. From what forgotten brake it came with a message +of cheer, a thought of wife and children across the sea waiting their +summons, God knows. The shop is their house and home. It was once the hall +of the tenement; but to save space, enough has been walled in to make room +for their bench and bed. The tenants go through the next house. No matter +if they are cramped; by and by they will have room. By and by comes the +spring, and with it the steamer. Does not the green branch speak of spring +and of hope? The policeman on the beat hears their hammers beat a joyous +tattoo past midnight, far into Christmas morning. Who shall say its +message has not reached even them in their slum? + +Where the noisy trains speed over the iron highway past the second-story +windows of Allen street, a cellar door yawns darkly in the shadow of one +of the pillars that half block the narrow sidewalk. A dull gleam behind +the cobweb-shrouded window-pane supplements the sign over the door, in +Yiddish and English: "Old Brasses." Four crooked and moldy steps lead to +utter darkness, with no friendly voice to guide the hapless customer. +Fumbling along the dank wall, he is left to find the door of the shop as +best he can. Not a likely place to encounter the fastidious from the +Avenue! Yet ladies in furs and silk find this door and the grim old smith +within it. Now and then an artist stumbles upon them, and exults +exceedingly in his find. Two holiday shoppers are even now haggling with +the coppersmith over the price of a pair of curiously wrought brass +candle-sticks. The old man has turned from the forge, at which he was +working, unmindful of his callers roving among the dusty shelves. Standing +there, erect and sturdy, in his shiny leather apron, hammer in hand, with +the firelight upon his venerable head, strong arms bared to the elbow, and +the square paper cap pushed back from a thoughtful, knotty brow, he stirs +strange fancies. One half expects to see him fashioning a gorget or a +sword on his anvil. But his is a more peaceful craft. Nothing more warlike +is in sight than a row of brass shields, destined for ornament, not for +battle. Dark shadows chase one another by the flickering light among +copper kettles of ruddy glow, old-fashioned samovars, and massive andirons +of tarnished brass. The bargaining goes on. Overhead the nineteenth +century speeds by with rattle and roar; in here linger the shadows of the +centuries long dead. The boy at the anvil listens open-mouthed, clutching +the bellows-rope. + +In Liberty Hall a Jewish wedding is in progress. Liberty! Strange how the +word echoes through these sweaters' tenements, where starvation is at home +half the time. It is as an all-consuming passion with these people, whose +spirit a thousand years of bondage have not availed to daunt. It breaks +out in strikes, when to strike is to hunger and die. Not until I stood by +a striking cloakmaker whose last cent was gone, with not a crust in the +house to feed seven hungry mouths, yet who had voted vehemently in the +meeting that day to keep up the strike to the bitter end,--bitter indeed, +nor far distant,--and heard him at sunset recite the prayer of his +fathers: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the world, that thou +hast redeemed us as thou didst redeem our fathers, hast delivered us from +bondage to liberty, and from servile dependence to redemption!"--not until +then did I know what of sacrifice the word might mean, and how utterly we +of another day had forgotten. But for once shop and tenement are left +behind. Whatever other days may have in store, this is their day of play, +when all may rejoice. + +The bridegroom, a cloak-presser in a hired dress-suit, sits alone and ill +at ease at one end of the hall, sipping whisky with a fine air of +indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women in the +opposite corner that surrounds the bride, a pale little shop-girl with a +pleading, winsome face. From somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in +an ill-fitting coat and skull cap, flanked on either side by a fiddler, +who scrapes away and away, accompanying the improvisator in a plaintive +minor key as he halts before the bride and intones his lay. With many a +shrug of stooping shoulders and queer excited gesture, he drones, in the +harsh, guttural Yiddish of Hester street, his story of life's joys and +sorrows, its struggles and victories in the land of promise. The women +listen, nodding and swaying their bodies sympathetically. He works himself +into a frenzy, in which the fiddlers vainly try to keep up with him. He +turns and digs the laggard angrily in the side without losing the meter. +The climax comes. The bride bursts into hysterical sobs, while the women +wipe their eyes. A plate, heretofore concealed under his coat, is whisked +out. He has conquered; the inevitable collection is taken up. + +The tuneful procession moves upon the bridegroom. An Essex-street girl in +the crowd, watching them go, says disdainfully: "None of this humbug when +I get married." It is the straining of young America at the fetters of +tradition. Ten minutes later, when, between double files of women holding +candles, the couple pass to the canopy where the rabbi waits, she has +already forgotten; and when the crunching of a glass under the +bridegroom's heel announces that they are one, and that until the broken +pieces be reunited he is hers and hers alone, she joins with all the +company in the exulting shout of "Mozzel tov!" ("Good luck!"). Then the +_dupka_, men and women joining in, forgetting all but the moment, hands on +hips, stepping in time, forward, backward, and across. And then the feast. + +They sit at the long tables by squads and tribes. Those who belong +together sit together. There is no attempt at pairing off for conversation +or mutual entertainment, at speech-making or toasting. The business in +hand is to eat, and it is attended to. The bridegroom, at the head of the +table, with his shiny silk hat on, sets the example; and the guests +emulate it with zeal, the men smoking big, strong cigars between +mouthfuls. "Gosh! ain't it fine?" is the grateful comment of one +curly-headed youngster, bravely attacking his third plate of chicken-stew. +"Fine as silk," nods his neighbor in knickerbockers. Christmas, for once, +means something to them that they can understand. The crowd of hurrying +waiters make room for one bearing aloft a small turkey adorned with much +tinsel and many paper flowers. It is for the bride, the one thing not to +be touched until the next day--one day off from the drudgery of +housekeeping; she, too, can keep Christmas. + +A group of bearded, dark-browed men sit apart, the rabbi among them. They +are the orthodox, who cannot break bread with the rest, for fear, though +the food be kosher, the plates have been defiled. They brought their own +to the feast, and sit at their own table, stern and justified. Did they +but know what depravity is harbored in the impish mind of the girl yonder, +who plans to hang her stocking overnight by the window! There is no +fireplace in the tenement. Queer things happen over here, in the strife +between the old and the new. The girls of the College Settlement, last +summer, felt compelled to explain that the holiday in the country which +they offered some of these children was to be spent in an Episcopal +clergyman's house, where they had prayers every morning. "Oh," was the +indulgent answer, "they know it isn't true, so it won't hurt them." + +The bell of a neighboring church-tower strikes the vesper hour. A man in +working-clothes uncovers his head reverently, and passes on. Through the +vista of green bowers formed of the grocer's stock of Christmas trees a +passing glimpse of flaring torches in the distant square is caught. They +touch with flame the gilt cross towering high above the "White Garden," as +the German residents call Tompkins Square. On the sidewalk the holy-eve +fair is in its busiest hour. In the pine-board booths stand rows of +staring toy dogs alternately with plaster saints. Red apples and candy are +hawked from carts. Peddlers offer colored candles with shrill outcry. A +huckster feeding his horse by the curb scatters, unseen, a share for the +sparrows. The cross flashes white against the dark sky. + +In one of the side-streets near the East River has stood for thirty years +a little mission church, called Hope Chapel by its founders, in the brave +spirit in which they built it. It has had plenty of use for the spirit +since. Of the kind of problems that beset its pastor I caught a glimpse +the other day, when, as I entered his room, a rough-looking man went out. + +"One of my cares," said Mr. Devins, looking after him with contracted +brow. "He has spent two Christmas days of twenty-three out of jail. He is +a burglar, or was. His daughter has brought him round. She is a +seamstress. For three months, now, she has been keeping him and the home, +working nights. If I could only get him a job! He won't stay honest long +without it; but who wants a burglar for a watchman? And how can I +recommend him?" + +A few doors from the chapel an alley sets into the block. We halted at the +mouth of it. + +"Come in," said Mr. Devins, "and wish Blind Jennie a Merry Christmas." + +We went in, in single file; there was not room for two. As we climbed the +creaking stairs of the rear tenement, a chorus of children's shrill voices +burst into song somewhere above. + +"It is her class," said the pastor of Hope Chapel, as he stopped on the +landing. "They are all kinds. We never could hope to reach them; Jennie +can. They fetch her the papers given out in the Sunday-school, and read to +her what is printed under the pictures; and she tells them the story of +it. There is nothing Jennie doesn't know about the Bible." + +The door opened upon a low-ceiled room, where the evening shades lay deep. +The red glow from the kitchen stove discovered a jam of children, young +girls mostly, perched on the table, the chairs, in one another's laps, or +squatting on the floor; in the midst of them, a little old woman with +heavily veiled face, and wan, wrinkled hands folded in her lap. The +singing ceased as we stepped across the threshold. + +"Be welcome," piped a harsh voice with a singular note of cheerfulness in +it. "Whose step is that with you, pastor? I don't know it. He is welcome +in Jennie's house, whoever he be. Girls, make him to home." The girls +moved up to make room. + +"Jennie has not seen since she was a child," said the clergyman, gently; +"but she knows a friend without it. Some day she shall see the great +Friend in his glory, and then she shall be Blind Jennie no more." + +The little woman raised the veil from a face shockingly disfigured, and +touched the eyeless sockets. "Some day," she repeated, "Jennie shall see. +Not long now--not long!" Her pastor patted her hand. The silence of the +dark room was broken by Blind Jennie's voice, rising cracked and +quavering: "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?" The shrill chorus burst in: + + It was there by faith I received my sight, + And now I am happy all the day. + +The light that falls from the windows of the Neighborhood Guild, in +Delancey street, makes a white path across the asphalt pavement. Within +there is mirth and laughter. The Tenth Ward Social Reform Club is having +its Christmas festival. Its members, poor mothers, scrubwomen,--the +president is the janitress of a tenement near by,--have brought their +little ones, a few their husbands, to share in the fun. One little girl +has to be dragged up to the grab-bag. She cries at the sight of Santa +Claus. The baby has drawn a woolly horse. He kisses the toy with a look of +ecstatic bliss, and toddles away. At the far end of the hall a game of +blindman's-buff is starting up. The aged grandmother, who has watched it +with growing excitement, bids one of the settlement workers hold her +grandchild, that she may join in; and she does join in, with all the +pent-up hunger of fifty joyless years. The worker, looking on, smiles; one +has been reached. Thus is the battle against the slum waged and won with +the child's play. + +Tramp! tramp! comes the to-morrow upon the stage. Two hundred and fifty +pairs of little feet, keeping step, are marching to dinner in the +Newsboys' Lodging-house. Five hundred pairs more are restlessly awaiting +their turn up-stairs. In prison, hospital, and almshouse to-night the city +is host, and gives of her plenty. Here an unknown friend has spread a +generous repast for the waifs who all the rest of the days shift for +themselves as best they can. Turkey, coffee, and pie, with "vegetubles" to +fill in. As the file of eagle-eyed youngsters passes down the long tables, +there are swift movements of grimy hands, and shirt-waists bulge, ragged +coats sag at the pockets. Hardly is the file seated when the plaint rises: +"I ain't got no pie! It got swiped on me." Seven despoiled ones hold up +their hands. + +The superintendent laughs--it is Christmas eve. He taps one tentatively on +the bulging shirt. "What have you here, my lad?" + +"Me pie," responds he, with an innocent look; "I wuz scart it would get +stole." + +A little fellow who has been eying one of the visitors attentively takes +his knife out of his mouth, and points it at him with conviction. + +"I know you," he pipes. "You're a p'lice commissioner. I seen yer picter +in the papers. You're Teddy Roosevelt!" + +The clatter of knives and forks ceases suddenly. Seven pies creep +stealthily over the edge of the table, and are replaced on as many plates. +The visitors laugh. It was a case of mistaken identity. + +Farthest down-town, where the island narrows toward the Battery, and +warehouses crowd the few remaining tenements, the somber-hued colony of +Syrians is astir with preparation for the holiday. How comes it that in +the only settlement of the real Christmas people in New York the corner +saloon appropriates to itself all the outward signs of it? Even the floral +cross that is nailed over the door of the Orthodox church is long withered +and dead: it has been there since Easter, and it is yet twelve days to +Christmas by the belated reckoning of the Greek Church. But if the houses +show no sign of the holiday, within there is nothing lacking. The whole +colony is gone a-visiting. There are enough of the unorthodox to set the +fashion, and the rest follow the custom of the country. The men go from +house to house, laugh, shake hands, and kiss one another on both cheeks, +with the salutation, "Kol am va antom Salimoon." "Every year and you are +safe," the Syrian guide renders it into English; and a non-professional +interpreter amends it: "May you grow happier year by year." Arrack made +from grapes and flavored with aniseed, and candy baked in little white +balls like marbles, are served with the indispensable cigarette; for long +callers, the pipe. + +In a top-floor room of one of the darkest of the dilapidated tenements, +the dusty window-panes of which the last glow in the winter sky is tinging +faintly with red, a dance is in progress. The guests, most of them fresh +from the hillsides of Mount Lebanon, squat about the room. A reed-pipe and +a tambourine furnish the music. One has the center of the floor. With a +beer-jug filled to the brim on his head, he skips and sways, bending, +twisting, kneeling, gesturing, and keeping time, while the men clap their +hands. He lies down and turns over, but not a drop is spilled. Another +succeeds him, stepping proudly, gracefully, furling and unfurling a +handkerchief like a banner. As he sits down, and the beer goes around, one +in the corner, who looks like a shepherd fresh from his pasture, strikes +up a song--a far-off, lonesome, plaintive lay. "'Far as the hills,'" says +the guide; "a song of the old days and the old people, now seldom heard." +All together croon the refrain. The host delivers himself of an epic about +his love across the seas, with the most agonizing expression, and in a +shockingly bad voice. He is the worst singer I ever heard; but his +companions greet his effort with approving shouts of "Yi! yi!" They look +so fierce, and yet are so childishly happy, that at the thought of their +exile and of the dark tenement the question arises, "Why all this joy?" +The guide answers it with a look of surprise. "They sing," he says, +"because they are glad they are free. Did you not know?" + +The bells in old Trinity chime the midnight hour. From dark hallways men +and women pour forth and hasten to the Maronite church. In the loft of the +dingy old warehouse wax candles burn before an altar of brass. The priest, +in a white robe with a huge gold cross worked on the back, chants the +ritual. The people respond. The women kneel in the aisles, shrouding their +heads in their shawls; the surpliced acolyte swings his censer; the heavy +perfume of burning incense fills the hall. + +The band at the anarchists' ball is tuning up for the last dance. Young +and old float to the happy strains, forgetting injustice, oppression, +hatred. Children slide upon the waxed floor, weaving fearlessly in and out +between the couples--between fierce, bearded men and short-haired women +with crimson-bordered kerchiefs. A Punch-and-Judy show in the corner +evokes shouts of laughter. + +Outside the snow is falling. It sifts silently into each nook and corner, +softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless mantle of +charity over the blemishes, the shortcomings. Christmas morning will dawn +pure and white. + + + + +'TWAS LIZA'S DOINGS + + +Joe drove his old gray mare along the stony road in deep thought. They had +been across the ferry to Newtown with a load of Christmas truck. It had +been a hard pull uphill for them both, for Joe had found it necessary not +a few times to get down and give old 'Liza a lift to help her over the +roughest spots; and now, going home, with the twilight coming on and no +other job a-waiting, he let her have her own way. It was slow, but steady, +and it suited Joe; for his head was full of busy thoughts, and there were +few enough of them that were pleasant. + +Business had been bad at the big stores, never worse, and what trucking +there was there were too many about. Storekeepers who never used to look +at a dollar, so long as they knew they could trust the man who did their +hauling, were counting the nickels these days. As for chance jobs like +this one, that was all over now with the holidays, and there had been +little enough of it, too. + +There would be less, a good deal, with the hard winter at the door, and +with 'Liza to keep and the many mouths to fill. Still, he wouldn't have +minded it so much but for mother fretting and worrying herself sick at +home, and all along o' Jim, the eldest boy, who had gone away mad and +never come back. Many were the dollars he had paid the doctor and the +druggist to fix her up, but it was no use. She was worrying herself into a +decline, it was clear to be seen. + +Joe heaved a heavy sigh as he thought of the strapping lad who had brought +such sorrow to his mother. So strong and so handy on the wagon. Old 'Liza +loved him like a brother and minded him even better than she did himself. +If he only had him now, they could face the winter and the bad times, and +pull through. But things never had gone right since he left. He didn't +know, Joe thought humbly as he jogged along over the rough road, but he +had been a little hard on the lad. Boys wanted a chance once in a while. +All work and no play was not for them. Likely he had forgotten he was a +boy once himself. But Jim was such a big lad, 'most like a man. He took +after his mother more than the rest. She had been proud, too, when she was +a girl. He wished he hadn't been hasty that time they had words about +those boxes at the store. Anyway, it turned out that it wasn't Jim's +fault. But he was gone that night, and try as they might to find him, they +never had word of him since. And Joe sighed again more heavily than +before. + +Old 'Liza shied at something in the road, and Joe took a firmer hold on +the reins. It turned his thoughts to the horse. She was getting old, too, +and not as handy as she was. He noticed that she was getting winded with a +heavy load. It was well on to ten years she had been their capital and the +breadwinner of the house. Sometimes he thought that she missed Jim. If she +was to leave them now, he wouldn't know what to do, for he couldn't raise +the money to buy another horse nohow, as things were. Poor old 'Liza! He +stroked her gray coat musingly with the point of his whip as he thought of +their old friendship. The horse pointed one ear back toward her master and +neighed gently, as if to assure him that she was all right. + +Suddenly she stumbled. Joe pulled her up in time, and throwing the reins +over her back, got down to see what it was. An old horseshoe, and in the +dust beside it a new silver quarter. He picked both up and put the shoe in +the wagon. + +"They say it is luck," he mused, "finding horse-iron and money. Maybe it's +my Christmas. Get up, 'Liza!" And he drove off to the ferry. + + * * * * * + +The glare of a thousand gas-lamps had chased the sunset out of the western +sky, when Joe drove home through the city's streets. Between their +straight mile-long rows surged the busy life of the coming holiday. In +front of every grocery-store was a grove of fragrant Christmas trees +waiting to be fitted into little green stands with fairy fences. Within, +customers were bargaining, chatting, and bantering the busy clerks. +Peddlers offering tinsel and colored candles waylaid them on the +door-step. The rack under the butcher's awning fairly groaned with its +weight of plucked geese, of turkeys, stout and skinny, of poultry of every +kind. The saloon-keeper even had wreathed his door-posts in ground-ivy and +hemlock, and hung a sprig of holly in the window, as if with a spurious +promise of peace on earth and good-will toward men who entered there. It +tempted not Joe. He drove past it to the corner, where he turned up a +street darker and lonelier than the rest, toward a stretch of rocky, +vacant lots fenced in by an old stone wall. 'Liza turned in at the rude +gate without being told, and pulled up at the house. + +A plain little one-story frame with a lean-to for a kitchen, and an +adjoining stable-shed, over-shadowed all by two great chestnuts of the +days when there were country lanes where now are paved streets, and on +Manhattan Island there was farm by farm. A light gleamed in the window +looking toward the street. As 'Liza's hoofs were heard on the drive, a +young girl with a shawl over her head ran out from some shelter where she +had been watching, and took the reins from Joe. + +"You're late," she said, stroking the mare's steaming flank. 'Liza reached +around and rubbed her head against the girl's shoulder, nibbling playfully +at the fringe of her shawl. + +"Yes; we've come far, and it's been a hard pull. 'Liza is tired. Give her +a good feed, and I'll bed her down. How's mother?" + +"Sprier than she was," replied the girl, bending over the shaft to +unbuckle the horse; "seems as if she'd kinder cheered up for Christmas." +And she led 'Liza to the stable while her father backed the wagon into the +shed. + +It was warm and very comfortable in the little kitchen, where he joined +the family after "washing up." The fire burned brightly in the range, on +which a good-sized roast sizzled cheerily in its pot, sending up clouds of +savory steam. The sand on the white pine floor was swept in tongues, +old-country fashion. Joe and his wife were both born across the sea, and +liked to keep Christmas eve as they had kept it when they were children. +Two little boys and a younger girl than the one who had met him at the +gate received him with shouts of glee, and pulled him straight from the +door to look at a hemlock branch stuck in the tub of sand in the corner. +It was their Christmas tree, and they were to light it with candles, red +and yellow and green, which mama got them at the grocer's where the big +Santa Claus stood on the shelf. They pranced about like so many little +colts, and clung to Joe by turns, shouting all at once, each one anxious +to tell the great news first and loudest. + +Joe took them on his knee, all three, and when they had shouted until they +had to stop for breath, he pulled from under his coat a paper bundle, at +which the children's eyes bulged. He undid the wrapping slowly. + +"Who do you think has come home with me?" he said, and he held up before +them the veritable Santa Claus himself, done in plaster and all +snow-covered. He had bought it at the corner toy-store with his lucky +quarter. "I met him on the road over on Long Island, where 'Liza and I was +to-day, and I gave him a ride to town. They say it's luck falling in with +Santa Claus, partickler when there's a horseshoe along. I put hisn up in +the barn, in 'Liza's stall. Maybe our luck will turn yet, eh! old woman?" +And he put his arm around his wife, who was setting out the dinner with +Jennie, and gave her a good hug, while the children danced off with their +Santa Claus. + +She was a comely little woman, and she tried hard to be cheerful. She gave +him a brave look and a smile, but there were tears in her eyes, and Joe +saw them, though he let on that he didn't. He patted her tenderly on the +back and smoothed his Jennie's yellow braids, while he swallowed the lump +in his throat and got it down and out of the way. He needed no doctor to +tell him that Santa Claus would not come again and find her cooking their +Christmas dinner, unless she mended soon and swiftly. + +They ate their dinner together, and sat and talked until it was time to go +to bed. Joe went out to make all snug about 'Liza for the night and to +give her an extra feed. He stopped in the door, coming back, to shake the +snow out of his clothes. It was coming on with bad weather and a northerly +storm, he reported. The snow was falling thick already and drifting badly. +He saw to the kitchen fire and put the children to bed. Long before the +clock in the neighboring church-tower struck twelve, and its doors were +opened for the throngs come to worship at the midnight mass, the lights in +the cottage were out, and all within it fast asleep. + + * * * * * + +The murmur of the homeward-hurrying crowds had died out, and the last +echoing shout of "Merry Christmas!" had been whirled away on the storm, +now grown fierce with bitter cold, when a lonely wanderer came down the +street. It was a boy, big and strong-limbed, and, judging from the manner +in which he pushed his way through the gathering drifts, not unused to +battle with the world, but evidently in hard luck. His jacket, white with +the falling snow, was scant and worn nearly to rags, and there was that in +his face which spoke of hunger and suffering silently endured. He stopped +at the gate in the stone fence, and looked long and steadily at the +cottage in the chestnuts. No life stirred within, and he walked through +the gap with slow and hesitating step. Under the kitchen window he stood +awhile, sheltered from the storm, as if undecided, then stepped to the +horse-shed and rapped gently on the door. + +"'Liza!" he called, "'Liza, old girl! It's me--Jim!" + +A low, delighted whinnying from the stall told the shivering boy that he +was not forgotten there. The faithful beast was straining at her halter in +a vain effort to get at her friend. Jim raised a bar that held the door +closed by the aid of a lever within, of which he knew the trick, and went +in. The horse made room for him in her stall, and laid her shaggy head +against his cheek. + +"Poor old 'Liza!" he said, patting her neck and smoothing her gray coat, +"poor old girl! Jim has one friend that hasn't gone back on him. I've +come to keep Christmas with you, 'Liza! Had your supper, eh? You're in +luck. I haven't; I wasn't bid, 'Liza; but never mind. You shall feed for +both of us. Here goes!" He dug into the oats-bin with the measure, and +poured it full into 'Liza's crib. + +"Fill up, old girl! and good night to you." With a departing pat he crept +up the ladder to the loft above, and, scooping out a berth in the loose +hay, snuggled down in it to sleep. Soon his regular breathing up there +kept step with the steady munching of the horse in her stall. The two +reunited friends were dreaming happy Christmas dreams. + +The night wore into the small hours of Christmas morning. The fury of the +storm was unabated. The old cottage shook under the fierce blasts, and the +chestnuts waved their hoary branches wildly, beseechingly, above it, as if +they wanted to warn those within of some threatened danger. But they slept +and heard them not. From the kitchen chimney, after a blast more violent +than any that had gone before, a red spark issued, was whirled upward and +beaten against the shingle roof of the barn, swept clean of snow. Another +followed it, and another. Still they slept in the cottage; the chestnuts +moaned and brandished their arms in vain. The storm fanned one of the +sparks into a flame. It flickered for a moment and then went out. So, at +least, it seemed. But presently it reappeared, and with it a faint glow +was reflected in the attic window over the door. Down in her stall 'Liza +moved uneasily. Nobody responding, she plunged and reared, neighing loudly +for help. The storm drowned her calls; her master slept, unheeding. + +But one heard it, and in the nick of time. The door of the shed was thrown +violently open, and out plunged Jim, his hair on fire and his clothes +singed and smoking. He brushed the sparks off himself as if they were +flakes of snow. Quick as thought, he tore 'Liza's halter from its +fastening, pulling out staple and all, threw his smoking coat over her +eyes, and backed her out of the shed. He reached in, and pulling the +harness off the hook, threw it as far into the snow as he could, yelling +"Fire!" at the top of his voice. Then he jumped on the back of the horse, +and beating her with heels and hands into a mad gallop, was off up the +street before the bewildered inmates of the cottage had rubbed the sleep +out of their eyes and come out to see the barn on fire and burning up. + +Down street and avenue fire-engines raced with clanging bells, leaving +tracks of glowing coals in the snow-drifts, to the cottage in the chestnut +lots. They got there just in time to see the roof crash into the barn, +burying, as Joe and his crying wife and children thought, 'Liza and their +last hope in the fiery wreck. The door had blown shut, and the harness Jim +threw out was snowed under. No one dreamed that the mare was not there. +The flames burst through the wreck and lit up the cottage and swaying +chestnuts. Joe and his family stood in the shelter of it, looking sadly +on. For the second time that Christmas night tears came into the honest +truckman's eyes. He wiped them away with his cap. + +"Poor 'Liza!" he said. + +A hand was laid with gentle touch upon his arm. He looked up. It was his +wife. Her face beamed with a great happiness. + +"Joe," she said, "you remember what you read: 'tidings of great joy.' Oh, +Joe, Jim has come home!" + +She stepped aside, and there was Jim, sister Jennie hanging on his neck, +and 'Liza alive and neighing her pleasure. The lad looked at his father +and hung his head. + +"Jim saved her, father," said Jennie, patting the gray mare; "it was him +fetched the engine." + +Joe took a step toward his son and held out his hand to him. + +"Jim," he said, "you're a better man nor yer father. From now on, you'n I +run the truck on shares. But mind this, Jim: never leave mother no more." + +And in the clasp of the two hands all the past was forgotten and forgiven. +Father and son had found each other again. + +"'Liza," said the truckman, with sudden vehemence, turning to the old mare +and putting his arm around her neck, "'Liza! It was your doin's. I knew it +was luck when I found them things. Merry Christmas!" And he kissed her +smack on her hairy mouth, one, two, three times. + + + + +THE DUBOURQUES, FATHER AND SON + + +It must be nearly a quarter of a century since I first met the Dubourques. +There are plenty of old New-Yorkers yet who will recall them as I saw +them, plodding along Chatham street, swarthy, silent, meanly dressed, +undersized, with their great tin signs covering front and back, like +ill-favored gnomes turned sandwich-men to vent their spite against a gay +world. Sunshine or rain, they went their way, Indian file, never apart, +bearing their everlasting, unavailing protest. + +"I demand," read the painted signs, "the will and testament of my brother, +who died in California, leaving a large property inheritance to Virgile +Dubourque, which has never reached him." + +That was all any one was ever able to make out. At that point the story +became rambling and unintelligible. Denunciation, hot and wrathful, of the +thieves, whoever they were, of the government, of bishops, priests, and +lawyers, alternated with protestations of innocence of heaven knows what +crimes. If any one stopped them to ask what it was all about, they stared, +shook their heads, and passed on. If money was offered, they took it +without thanking the giver; indeed, without noticing him. They were never +seen apart, yet never together in the sense of being apparently anything +to each other. I doubt if they ever spoke, unless they were obliged to. +Grim and lonely, they traveled the streets, parading their grievance +before an unheeding day. + +What that grievance was, and what was their story, a whole generation had +tried vainly to find out. Every young reporter tried his hand at it at +least once, some many times, I among them. None of us ever found out +anything tangible about them. Now and then we ran down a rumor in the +region of Bleecker street, then the "French quarter,"--I should have said +that they were French and spoke but a few words of broken English when +they spoke at all,--only to have it come to nothing. One which I recall +was to the effect that, at some time in the far past, the elder of the two +had been a schoolmaster in Lorraine, and had come across the sea in quest +of a fabulous fortune left by his brother, one of the gold-diggers of '49, +who died in his boots; that there had been some disagreement between +father and son, which resulted in the latter running away with their +saved-up capital, leaving the old man stranded in a strange city, among +people of strange speech, without the means of asserting his claim, and +that, when he realized this, he lost his reason. Thus his son, Erneste, +found him, returning after years penniless and repentant. + +From that meeting father and son came forth what they were ever since. So +ran the story, but whether it was all fancy, or some or most of it, I +could not tell. No one could. One by one, the reporters dropped them, +unable to make them out. The officers of a French benevolent society, +where twice a week they received fixed rations, gave up importuning them +to accept the shelter of the house before their persistent, almost fierce, +refusal. The police did not trouble them, except when people complained +that the tin signs tore their clothes. After that they walked with canvas +posters, and were let alone. + +One morning in the winter of 1882, among the police reports of the night's +happenings that were laid upon my desk, I found one saying that Virgile +Dubourque, Frenchman, seventy-five years old, had died in a Wooster-street +lodging-house. The story of his death, as I learned it there that day, was +as tragic as that of his life. He had grown more and more feeble, until at +last he was unable to leave the house. For the first time the son went out +alone. The old man sat by the stove all day, silently brooding over his +wrongs. The lodgers came and went. He heeded neither their going nor their +coming. Through the long night he kept his seat, gazing fixedly into the +fire. In the morning, when daylight shone upon the cold, gray ashes, he +sat there dead. The son slept peacefully beside him. + +The old schoolmaster took his last trip alone; no mourners rode behind the +hearse to the Palisade Cemetery, where charitable countrymen bought him a +grave. Erneste did not go to the funeral. That afternoon I met him on +Broadway, plodding alone over the old route. His eyes were red and +swollen. The "protest" hung from his shoulders; in his hand he carried, +done up roughly in a pack, the signs the old man had borne. A look of such +utter loneliness as I had never seen on a human face came into his when I +asked him where his father was. He made a gesture of dejection and shifted +his feet uneasily, as if impatient at being detained. Something distracted +my attention for the moment, and when I looked again he was gone. + +Once in the following summer I heard from Erneste through the newspapers, +just when I had begun to miss him from his old haunts. It seems that he +had somehow found the papers that proved his claim, or thought he had. He +had put them into the hands of the French consul the day before, said the +item, appearing before him clothed and in his right mind, without the +signs. But the account merely added to the mystery by hinting that the old +man had unconsciously hoarded the papers all the years he sought them with +such toil in the streets of New York. Here was my story at last; but +before I could lay hold of it, it evaded me once more in the hurry and +worry of the police office. + +Autumn had come and nearly gone, when New York was one day startled by +the report that a madman had run through Fourteenth street at an hour in +the afternoon when it was most crowded with shoppers, and, with a pair of +carpenter's compasses, had cut right and left, stabbing as many as came in +his way. A scene of the wildest panic ensued. Women flung themselves down +basement-steps and fell fainting in doorways. Fully half a score were cut +down, among them the wife of Policeman Hanley, who was on duty in the +block, and who arrested the maniac without knowing that his wife lay +mortally wounded among his victims. She had come out to meet him, with the +children. It was only after he had attended to the rest and sent the +prisoner away securely bound that he was told there was still a wounded +woman in the next store, and found her there with her little ones. + +The madman was Erneste Dubourque. I found him in the police station, +surrounded by a crowd of excited officials, to whose inquiries he turned a +mien of dull and stolid indifference. He knew me when I called him by +name, and looked up with a movement of quick intelligence, as one who +suddenly remembers something he had forgotten and vainly tried to recall. +He started for the door. When they seized him and brought him back, he +fought like a demon. His shrieks of "Thieves! robbers!" filled the +building as they bore him struggling to a cell. + +He was tried by a jury and acquitted of murder. The defense was insanity. +The court ordered his incarceration in a safe asylum. The police had +received a severe lesson, and during the next month, while it was yet +fresh in the public mind, they bestirred themselves, and sent a number of +"harmless" lunatics, who had gone about unmolested, after him. I never +heard of Erneste Dubourque again; but even now, after fifteen years, I +find myself sometimes asking the old question: What was the story of wrong +that bore such a crop of sorrow and darkness and murder? + + + + +ABE'S GAME OF JACKS + + +Time hung heavily on Abe Seelig's hands, alone, or as good as alone, in +the flat on the "stoop" of the Allen-street tenement. His mother had gone +to the butcher's. Chajim, the father,--"Chajim" is the Yiddish of +"Herman,"--was long at the shop. To Abe was committed the care of his two +young brothers, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham was nine, and past time for +fooling. Play is "fooling" in the sweaters' tenements, and the muddling of +ideas makes trouble, later on, to which the police returns have the index. + +"Don't let 'em on the stairs," the mother had said, on going, with a +warning nod toward the bed where Jake and Ikey slept. He didn't intend to. +Besides, they were fast asleep. Abe cast about him for fun of some kind, +and bethought himself of a game of jacks. That he had no jackstones was +of small moment to him. East-Side tenements, where pennies are infrequent, +have resources. One penny was Abe's hoard. With that, and an accidental +match, he began the game. + +It went on well enough, albeit slightly lopsided by reason of the penny +being so much the weightier, until the match, in one unlucky throw, fell +close to a chair by the bed, and, in falling, caught fire. + +Something hung down from the chair, and while Abe gazed, open-mouthed, at +the match, at the chair, and at the bed right alongside, with his sleeping +brothers on it, the little blaze caught it. The flame climbed up, up, up, +and a great smoke curled under the ceiling. The children still slept, +locked in each other's arms, and Abe--Abe ran. + +He ran, frightened half out of his senses, out of the room, out of the +house, into the street, to the nearest friendly place he knew, a +grocery-store five doors away, where his mother traded; but she was not +there. Abe merely saw that she was not there, then he hid himself +trembling. + +In all the block, where three thousand tenants live, no one knew what +cruel thing was happening on the stoop of No. 19. + +A train passed on the elevated road, slowing up for the station near by. +The engineer saw one wild whirl of fire within the room, and opening the +throttle of his whistle wide, let out a screech so long and so loud that +in ten seconds the street was black with men and women rushing out to see +what dreadful thing had happened. + +No need of asking. From the door of the Seelig flat, burned through, +fierce flames reached across the hall, barring the way. The tenement was +shut in. + +Promptly it poured itself forth upon fire-escape ladders, front and rear, +with shrieks and wailing. In the street the crowd became a deadly crush. +Police and firemen battered their way through, ran down and over men, +women, and children, with a desperate effort. + +The firemen from Hook and Ladder Six, around the corner, had heard the +shrieks, and, knowing what they portended, ran with haste. But they were +too late with their extinguishers; could not even approach the burning +flat. They could only throw up their ladders to those above. For the rest +they must needs wait until the engines came. + +One tore up the street, coupled on a hose, and ran it into the house. Then +died out the fire in the flat as speedily as it had come. The burning +room was pumped full of water, and the firemen entered. + +Just within the room they came upon little Jacob, still alive, but half +roasted. He had struggled from the bed nearly to the door. On the bed lay +the body of Isaac, the youngest, burned to a crisp. + +They carried Jacob to the police station. As they brought him out, a +frantic woman burst through the throng and threw herself upon him. It was +the children's mother come back. When they took her to the blackened +corpse of little Ike, she went stark mad. A dozen neighbors held her down, +shrieking, while others went in search of the father. + +In the street the excitement grew until it became almost uncontrollable +when the dead boy was carried out. + +In the midst of it little Abe returned, pale, silent, and frightened, to +stand by his raving mother. + + + + +A LITTLE PICTURE + + +The fire-bells rang on the Bowery in the small hours of the morning. One +of the old dwelling-houses that remain from the day when the "Bouwerie" +was yet remembered as an avenue of beer-gardens and pleasure resorts was +burning. Down in the street stormed the firemen, coupling hose and +dragging it to the front. Up-stairs in the peak of the roof, in the broken +skylight, hung a man, old, feeble, and gasping for breath, struggling +vainly to get out. He had piled chairs upon tables, and climbed up where +he could grasp the edge, but his strength had given out when one more +effort would have freed him. He felt himself sinking back. Over him was +the sky, reddened now by the fire that raged below. Through the hole the +pent-up smoke in the building found vent and rushed in a black and +stifling cloud. + +"Air, air!" gasped the old man. "O God, water!" + +There was a swishing sound, a splash, and the copious spray of a stream +sent over the house from the street fell upon his upturned face. It beat +back the smoke. Strength and hope returned. He took another grip on the +rafter just as he would have let go. + +"Oh, that I might be reached yet and saved from this awful death!" he +prayed. "Help, O God, help!" + +An answering cry came over the adjoining roof. He had been heard, and the +firemen, who did not dream that any one was in the burning building, had +him in a minute. He had been asleep in the store when the fire aroused him +and drove him, blinded and bewildered, to the attic, where he was trapped. + +Safe in the street, the old man fell upon his knees. + +"I prayed for water, and it came; I prayed for freedom, and was saved. The +God of my fathers be praised!" he said, and bowed his head in +thanksgiving. + + + + +A DREAM OF THE WOODS + + +Something came over Police Headquarters in the middle of the summer night. +It was like the sighing of the north wind in the branches of the tall firs +and in the reeds along lonely river-banks where the otter dips from the +brink for its prey. The doorman, who yawned in the hall, and to whom +reed-grown river-banks have been strangers so long that he has forgotten +they ever were, shivered and thought of pneumonia. + +The sergeant behind the desk shouted for some one to close the door; it +was getting as cold as January. The little messenger boy on the lowest +step of the oaken stairs nodded and dreamed in his sleep of Uncas and +Chingachgook and the great woods. The cunning old beaver was there in his +hut, and he heard the crack of Deerslayer's rifle. + +He knew all the time he was dreaming, sitting on the steps of Police +Headquarters, and yet it was all as real to him as if he were there, with +the Mingoes creeping up to him in ambush all about and reaching for his +scalp. + +While he slept, a light step had passed, and the moccasin of the woods +left its trail in his dream. In with the gust through the Mulberry-street +door had come a strange pair, an old woman and a bright-eyed child, led by +a policeman, and had passed up to Matron Travers's quarters on the top +floor. + +Strangely different, they were yet alike, both children of the woods. The +woman was a squaw typical in looks and bearing, with the straight black +hair, dark skin, and stolid look of her race. She climbed the steps +wearily, holding the child by the hand. The little one skipped eagerly, +two steps at a time. There was the faintest tinge of brown in her plump +cheeks, and a roguish smile in the corner of her eyes that made it a +hardship not to take her up in one's lap and hug her at sight. In her +frock of red-and-white calico she was a fresh and charming picture, with +all the grace of movement and the sweet shyness of a young fawn. + +The policeman had found them sitting on a big trunk in the Grand Central +Station, waiting patiently for something or somebody that didn't come. +When he had let them sit until he thought the child ought to be in bed, he +took them into the police station in the depot, and there an effort was +made to find out who and what they were. It was not an easy matter. +Neither could speak English. They knew a few words of French, however, and +between that and a note the old woman had in her pocket the general +outline of the trouble was gathered. They were of the Canaghwaga tribe of +Iroquois, domiciled in the St. Regis reservation across the Canadian +border, and had come down to sell a trunkful of beads, and things worked +with beads. Some one was to meet them, but had failed to come, and these +two, to whom the trackless wilderness was as an open book, were lost in +the city of ten thousand homes. + +The matron made them understand by signs that two of the nine white beds +in the nursery were for them, and they turned right in, humbly and +silently thankful. The little girl had carried up with her, hugged very +close under her arm, a doll that was a real ethnological study. It was a +faithful rendering of the Indian papoose, whittled out of a chunk of +wood, with two staring glass beads for eyes, and strapped to a board the +way Indian babies are, under a coverlet of very gaudy blue. It was a +marvelous doll baby, and its nurse was mighty proud of it. She didn't let +it go when she went to bed. It slept with her, and got up to play with her +as soon as the first ray of daylight peeped in over the tall roofs. + +The morning brought visitors, who admired the doll, chirruped to the +little girl, and tried to talk with her grandmother, for that they made +her out to be. To most questions she simply answered by shaking her head +and holding out her credentials. There were two letters: one to the +conductor of the train from Montreal, asking him to see that they got +through all right; the other, a memorandum, for her own benefit +apparently, recounting the number of hearts, crosses, and other treasures +she had in her trunk. It was from those she had left behind at the +reservation. + +"Little Angus," it ran, "sends what is over to sell for him. Sarah sends +the hearts. As soon as you can, will you try and sell some hearts?" Then +there was "love to mother," and lastly an account of what the mason had +said about the chimney of the cabin. They had sent for him to fix it. It +was very dangerous the way it was, ran the message, and if mother would +get the bricks, he would fix it right away. + +The old squaw looked on with an anxious expression while the note was +being read, as if she expected some sense to come out of it that would +find her folks; but none of that kind could be made out of it, so they sat +and waited until General Parker should come in. + +General Ely S. Parker was the "big Indian" of Mulberry street in a very +real sense. Though he was a clerk in the Police Department and never went +on the war-path any more, he was the head of the ancient Indian +Confederacy, chief of the Six Nations, once so powerful for mischief, and +now a mere name that frightens no one. Donegahawa--one cannot help wishing +that the picturesque old chief had kept his name of the council lodge--was +not born to sit writing at an office desk. In youth he tracked the bear +and the panther in the Northern woods. The scattered remnants of the +tribes East and West owned his rightful authority as chief. The +Canaghwagas were one of these. So these lost ones had come straight to the +official and actual head of their people when they were stranded in the +great city. They knew it when they heard the magic name of Donegahawa, +and sat silently waiting and wondering till he should come. The child +looked up admiringly at the gold-laced cap of Inspector Williams, when he +took her on his knee, and the stern face of the big policeman relaxed and +grew tender as a woman's as he took her face between his hands and kissed +it. + +When the general came in, he spoke to them at once in their own tongue, +and very sweet and musical it was. Then their troubles were soon over. The +sachem, when he had heard their woes, said two words between puffs of his +pipe that cleared all the shadows away. They sounded to the paleface ear +like "Huh Hoo--ochsjawai," or something equally barbarous, but they meant +that there were not so many Indians in town but that theirs could be +found, and in that the sachem was right. The number of redskins in +Thompson street--they all live over there--is about seven. + +The old squaw, when she was told that her friend would be found, got up +promptly, and, bowing first to Inspector Williams and the other officials +in the room, and next to the general, said very sweetly, "Njeawa," and +Lightfoot--that was the child's name, it appeared--said it after her; +which meant, the general explained, that they were very much obliged. Then +they went out in charge of a policeman, to begin their search, little +Lightfoot hugging her doll and looking back over her shoulder at the many +gold-laced policemen who had captured her little heart. And they kissed +their hands after her. + +Mulberry street awoke from its dream of youth, of the fields and the deep +woods, to the knowledge that it was a bad day. The old doorman, who had +stood at the gate patiently answering questions for twenty years, told the +first man who came looking for a lost child, with sudden resentment, that +he ought to be locked up for losing her, and, pushing him out in the rain, +slammed the door after him. + + + + +A HEATHEN BABY + + +A stack of mail comes to Police Headquarters every morning from the +precincts by special department carrier. It includes the reports for the +last twenty-four hours of stolen and recovered goods, complaints, and the +thousand and one things the official mail-bag contains from day to day. It +is all routine, and everything has its own pigeonhole into which it drops +and is forgotten until some raking up in the department turns up the old +blotters and the old things once more. But at last the mail-bag contained +something that was altogether out of the usual run, to wit, a Chinese +baby. + +Piccaninnies have come in it before this, lots of them, black and shiny, +and one papoose from a West-Side wigwam; but a Chinese baby never. + +Sergeant Jack was so astonished that it took his breath away. When he +recovered he spoke learnedly about its clothes as evidence of its heathen +origin. Never saw such a thing before, he said. They were like they were +sewn on; it was impossible to disentangle that child by any way short of +rolling it on the floor. + +Sergeant Jack is an old bachelor, and that is all he knows about babies. +The child was not sewn up at all. It was just swaddled, and no Chinese had +done that, but the Italian woman who found it. Sergeant Jack sees such +babies every night in Mulberry street, but that is the way with old +bachelors. They don't know much, anyhow. + +It was clear that the baby thought so. She was a little girl, very little, +only one night old; and she regarded him through her almond eyes with a +supercilious look, as who should say, "Now, if he was only a bottle, +instead of a big, useless policeman, why, one might put up with him"; +which reflection opened the flood-gates of grief and set the little Chinee +squalling: "Yow! Yow! Yap!" until the sergeant held his ears, and a +policeman carried it up-stairs in a hurry. + +Down-stairs first, in the sergeant's big blotter, and up-stairs in the +matron's nursery next, the baby's brief official history was recorded. +There was very little of it, indeed, and what there was was not marked by +much ceremony. The stork hadn't brought it, as it does in far-off Denmark; +nor had the doctor found it and brought it in, on the American plan. + +An Italian woman had just scratched it out of an ash-barrel. Perhaps +that's the way they find babies in China, in which case the sympathy of +all American mothers and fathers will be with the present despoilers of +the heathen Chinee, who is entitled to no consideration whatever until he +introduces a new way. + +The Italian woman was Mrs. Maria Lepanto. She lives in Thompson street, +but she had come all the way down to the corner of Elizabeth and Canal +streets with her little girl to look at a procession passing by. That as +everybody knows, is next door to Chinatown. It was ten o'clock, and the +end of the procession was in sight, when she noticed something stirring in +an ash-barrel that stood against the wall. She thought first it was a rat, +and was going to run, when a noise that was certainly not a rat's squeal +came from the barrel. The child clung to her hand and dragged her toward +the sound. + +"Oh, mama!" she cried, in wild excitement, "hear it! It isn't a rat! I +know! Hear!" + +It was a wail, a very tiny wail, ever so sorry, as well it might be, +coming from a baby that was cradled in an ash-barrel. It was little +Susie's eager hands that snatched it out. Then they saw that it was indeed +a child, a poor, helpless, grieving little baby. + +It had nothing on at all, not even a rag. Perhaps they had not had time to +dress it. + +"Oh, it will fit my dolly's jacket!" cried Susie, dancing around and +hugging it in glee. "It will, mama! A real live baby! Now Tilde needn't +brag of theirs. We will take it home, won't we, mama!" + +The bands brayed, and the flickering light of many torches filled the +night. The procession had gone down the street, and the crowd with it. The +poor woman wrapped the baby in her worn shawl and gave it to the girl to +carry. And Susie carried it, prouder and happier than any of the men that +marched to the music. So they arrived home. The little stranger had found +friends and a resting-place. + +But not for long. In the morning Mrs. Lepanto took counsel with the +neighbors, and was told that the child must be given to the police. That +was the law, they said, and though little Susie cried bitterly at having +to part with her splendid new toy, Mrs. Lepanto, being a law-abiding +woman, wrapped up her find and took it to the Macdougal-street station. + +That was the way it got to Headquarters with the morning mail, and how +Sergeant Jack got a chance to tell all he didn't know about babies. Matron +Travers knew more, a good deal. She tucked the little heathen away in a +trundle-bed with a big bottle, and blessed silence fell at once on +Headquarters. In five minutes the child was asleep. + +While it slept, Matron Travers entered it in her book as "No. 103" of that +year's crop of the gutter, and before it woke up she was on the way with +it, snuggled safely in a big gray shawl, up to the Charities. There Mr. +Bauer registered it under yet another number, chucked it under the chin, +and chirped at it in what he probably thought might pass for baby Chinese. +Then it got another big bottle and went to sleep once more. + +At ten o'clock there came a big ship on purpose to give the little +Mott-street waif a ride up the river, and by dinner-time it was on a +green island with four hundred other babies of all kinds and shades, but +not one just like it in the whole lot. For it was New York's first and +only Chinese foundling. As to that Superintendent Bauer, Matron Travers, +and Mrs. Lepanto agreed. Sergeant Jack's evidence doesn't count, except as +backed by his superiors. He doesn't know a heathen baby when he sees one. + +The island where the waif from Mott street cast anchor is called Randall's +Island, and there its stay ends, or begins. The chances are that it ends, +for with an ash-barrel filling its past and a foundling asylum its future, +a baby hasn't much of a show. Babies were made to be hugged each by one +pair of mother's arms, and neither white-capped nurses nor sleek +milch-cows fed on the fattest of meadow-grass can take their place, try as +they may. The babies know that they are cheated, and they will not stay. + + + + +HE KEPT HIS TRYST + + +Policeman Schultz was stamping up and down his beat in Hester street, +trying to keep warm, on the night before Christmas, when a human wreck, in +rum and rags, shuffled across his path and hailed him: "You allus treated +me fair, Schultz," it said; "say, will you do a thing for me?" + +"What is it, Denny?" said the officer. He had recognized the wreck as +Denny the Robber, a tramp who had haunted his beat ever since he had been +on it, and for years before, he had heard, further back than any one knew. + +"Will you," said the wreck, wistfully--"will you run me in and give me +about three months to-morrow? Will you do it?" + +"That I will," said Schultz. He had often done it before, sometimes for +three, sometimes for six months, and sometimes for ten days, according to +how he and Denny and the justice felt about it. In the spell between trips +to the island, Denny was a regular pensioner of the policeman, who let him +have a quarter or so when he had so little money as to be next to +desperate. He never did get quite to that point. Perhaps the policeman's +quarters saved him. His nickname of "the Robber" was given to him on the +same principle that dubbed the neighborhood he haunted the Pig +Market--because pigs are the only ware not for sale there. Denny never +robbed anybody. The only thing he ever stole was the time he should have +spent in working. There was no denying it, Denny was a loafer. He himself +had told Schultz that it was because his wife and children put him out of +their house in Madison street five years before. Perhaps if his wife's +story had been heard it would have reversed that statement of facts. But +nobody ever heard it. Nobody took the trouble to inquire. The O'Neil +family--that was understood to be the name--interested no one in Jewtown. +One of its members was enough. Except that Mrs. O'Neil lived in Madison +street, somewhere "near Lundy's store," nothing was known of her. + +"That I will, Denny," repeated the policeman, heartily, slipping him a +dime for luck. "You come around to-morrow, and I will run you in. Now go +along." + +But Denny didn't go, though he had the price of two "balls" at the +distillery. He shifted thoughtfully on his feet, and said: + +"Say, Schultz, if I should die now,--I am all full o' rheumatiz, and +sore,--if I should die before, would you see to me and tell the wife?" + +"Small fear of yer dying, Denny, with the price of two drinks," said the +policeman, poking him facetiously in the ribs with his club. "Don't you +worry. All the same, if you will tell me where the old woman lives, I will +let her know. What's the number?" + +But the Robber's mood had changed under the touch of the silver dime that +burned his palm. "Never mind, Schultz," he said; "I guess I won't kick; so +long!" and moved off. + + * * * * * + +The snow drifted wickedly down Suffolk street Christmas morning, pinching +noses and ears and cheeks already pinched by hunger and want. It set +around the corner into the Pig Market, where the hucksters plodded +knee-deep in the drifts, burying the horseradish man and his machine, and +coating the bare, plucked breasts of the geese that swung from countless +hooks at the corner stand with softer and whiter down than ever grew +there. It drove the suspender-man into the hallway of a Suffolk-street +tenement, where he tried to pluck the icicles from his frozen ears and +beard with numb and powerless fingers. + +As he stepped out of the way of some one entering with a blast that set +like a cold shiver up through the house, he stumbled over something, and +put down his hand to feel what it was. It touched a cold face, and the +house rang with a shriek that silenced the clink of glasses in the +distillery, against the side door of which the something lay. They crowded +out, glasses in hand, to see what it was. + +"Only a dead tramp," said some one, and the crowd went back to the warm +saloon, where the barrels lay in rows on the racks. The clink of glasses +and shouts of laughter came through the peep-hole in the door into the +dark hallway as Policeman Schultz bent over the stiff, cold shape. Some +one had called him. + +"Denny," he said, tugging at his sleeve. "Denny, come. Your time is up. I +am here." Denny never stirred. The policeman looked up, white in the face. + +"My God!" he said, "he's dead. But he kept his date." + +And so he had. Denny the Robber was dead. Rum and exposure and the +"rheumatiz" had killed him. Policeman Schultz kept his word, too, and had +him taken to the station on a stretcher. + +"He was a bad penny," said the saloon-keeper, and no one in Jewtown was +found to contradict him. + + + + +JOHN GAVIN, MISFIT + + +John Gavin was to blame--there is no doubt of that. To be sure, he was out +of a job, with never a cent in his pockets, his babies starving, and +notice served by the landlord that day. He had traveled the streets till +midnight looking for work, and had found none. And so he gave up. Gave up, +with the Employment Bureau in the next street registering applicants; with +the Wayfarers' Lodge over in Poverty Gap, where he might have earned fifty +cents, anyway, chopping wood; with charities without end, organized and +unorganized, that would have referred his case, had they done nothing +else. With all these things and a hundred like them to meet their wants, +the Gavins of our day have been told often enough that they have no +business to lose hope. That they will persist is strange. But perhaps +this one had never heard of them. + +Anyway, Gavin is dead. But yesterday he was the father of six children, +running from May, the eldest, who was thirteen and at school, to the baby, +just old enough to poke its little fingers into its father's eyes and crow +and jump when he came in from his long and dreary tramps. They were as +happy a little family as a family of eight could be with the wolf +scratching at the door, its nose already poking through. There had been no +work and no wages in the house for months, and the landlord had given +notice that at the end of the week out they must go, unless the back rent +was paid. And there was about as much likelihood of its being paid as of a +slice of the February sun dropping down through the ceiling into the room +to warm the shivering Gavin family. + +It began when Gavin's health gave way. He was a lather and had a steady +job till sickness came. It was the old story: nothing laid away--how could +there be, with a houseful of children?--and nothing coming in. They talk +of death-rates to measure the misery of the slum by, but death does not +touch the bottom. It ends the misery. Sickness only begins it. It began +Gavin's. When he had to drop hammer and nails, he got a job in a saloon as +a barkeeper; but the saloon didn't prosper, and when it was shut up, there +was an end. Gavin didn't know it then. He looked at the babies and kept up +spirits as well as he could, though it wrung his heart. + +He tried everything under the sun to get a job. He traveled early and +traveled late, but wherever he went they had men and to spare. And +besides, he was ill. As they told him bluntly, sometimes, they didn't have +any use for sick men. Men to work and earn wages must be strong. And he +had to own that it was true. + +Gavin was not strong. As he denied himself secretly the nourishment he +needed that his little ones might have enough, he felt it more and more. +It was harder work for him to get around, and each refusal left him more +downcast. He was yet a young man, only thirty-four, but he felt as if he +was old and tired--tired out; that was it. + +The feeling grew on him while he went his last errand, offering his +services at saloons and wherever, as he thought, an opening offered. In +fact, he thought but little about it any more. The whole thing had become +an empty, hopeless formality with him. He knew at last that he was looking +for the thing he would never find; that in a cityful where every man had +his place he was a misfit with none. With his dull brain dimly conscious +of that one idea, he plodded homeward in the midnight hour. He had been on +the go since early morning, and excepting some lunch from the saloon +counters, had eaten nothing. + +The lamp burned dimly in the room where May sat poring yet over her books, +waiting for papa. When he came in she looked up and smiled, but saw by his +look, as he hung up his hat, that there was no good news, and returned +with a sigh to her book. The tired mother was asleep on the bed, dressed, +with the baby in her arms. She had lain down to quiet it and had been +lulled to sleep with it herself. + +Gavin did not wake them. He went to the bed where the four little ones +slept, and kissed them, each in his turn, then came back and kissed his +wife and baby. + +May nestled close to him as he bent over her and gave her, too, a little +hug. + +"Where are you going, papa?" she asked. + +He turned around at the door and cast a look back at the quiet room, +irresolute. Then he went back once more to kiss his sleeping wife and +baby softly. + +But however softly, it woke the mother. She saw him making for the door, +and asked him where he meant to go so late. + +"Out, just a little while," he said, and his voice was husky. He turned +his head away. + +A woman's instinct made her arise hastily and go to him. + +"Don't go," she said; "please don't go away." + +As he still moved toward the door, she put her arm about his neck and drew +his head toward her. + +She strove with him anxiously, frightened, she hardly knew herself by +what. The lamplight fell upon something shining which he held behind his +back. The room rang with the shot, and the baby awoke crying, to see its +father slip from mama's arms to the floor, dead. + +For John Gavin, alive, there was no place. At least he did not find it; +for which, let it be said and done with, he was to blame. Dead, society +will find one for him. And for the one misfit got off the list there are +seven whom not employment bureau nor woodyard nor charity register can be +made to reach. Social economy the thing is called; which makes the eighth +misfit. + + + + +IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL + + +The fact was printed the other day that the half-hundred children or more +who are in the hospitals on North Brother Island had no playthings, not +even a rattle, to make the long days skip by, which, set in smallpox, +scarlet fever, and measles, must be longer there than anywhere else in the +world. The toys that were brought over there with a consignment of nursery +tots who had the typhus fever had been worn clean out, except some +fish-horns which the doctor frowned on, and which were therefore not +allowed at large. Not as much as a red monkey on a yellow stick was there +left on the island to make the youngsters happy. + +That afternoon a big, hearty-looking man came into the office with the +paper in his hand, and demanded to see the editor. He had come, he said, +to see to it that those sick youngsters got the playthings they were +entitled to; and a regular Santa Claus he proved to the friendless little +colony on the lonely island, for he left a crisp fifty-dollar note behind +when he went away without giving his name. The single condition was +attached to the gift that it should be spent buying toys for the children +on North Brother Island. + +Accordingly, a strange invading army took the island by storm three or +four nights ago. Under cover of the darkness it had itself ferried over +from One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street in the department yawl, and +before morning it was in undisputed possession. It has come to stay. Not a +doll or a sheep will ever leave the island again. They may riot upon it as +they please, within certain well-defined limits, but none of them can ever +cross the channel to the mainland again, unless it be the rubber dolls who +can swim, so it is said. Here is the muster-roll: + +Six sheep (four with lambs), six fairies (big dolls in street-dress), +twelve rubber dolls (in woolen jackets), four railroad-trains, +twenty-eight base-balls, twenty rubber balls, six big painted (Scotch +plaid) rubber balls, six still bigger ditto, seven boxes of blocks, half a +dozen music-boxes, twenty-four rattles, six bubble (soap) toys, twelve +small engines, six games of dominoes, twelve rubber toys (old woman who +lived in a shoe, etc.), five wooden toys (bad bear, etc.), thirty-six +horse-reins. + +As there is only one horse on the island, and that one a very steady-going +steed in no urgent need of restraint, this last item might seem +superfluous, but only to the uninstructed mind. Within a brief week half +the boys and girls on the island that are out of bed long enough to stand +on their feet will be transformed into ponies and the other half into +drivers, and flying teams will go cavorting around to the tune of "Johnny, +Get your Gun," and the "Jolly Brothers Gallop," as they are ground out of +the music-boxes by little fingers that but just now toyed feebly with the +balusters on the golden stair. + +That music! When I went over to the island it fell upon my ears in little +drops of sweet melody, as soon as I came in sight of the nurses' quarters. +I listened, but couldn't make out the tune. The drops seemed mixed. When I +opened the door upon one of the nurses, Dr. Dixon, and the hospital +matron, each grinding his or her music for all there was in it, and +looking perfectly happy withal, I understood why. + +They were all playing different tunes at the same time, the nurse "When +the Robins Nest Again," Dr. Dixon "Nancy Lee," and the visitor "Sweet +Violets." A little child stood by in open-mouthed admiration, that became +ecstasy when I joined in with "The Babies on our Block." It was all for +the little one's benefit, and she thought it beautiful without a doubt. + +The storekeeper, knowing that music hath charms to soothe the breast of +even a typhus-fever patient, had thrown in a dozen as his own gift. Thus +one good deed brings on another, and a good deal more than fifty dollars' +worth of happiness will be ground out on the island before there is an end +of the music. + +There is one little girl in the measles ward already who will eat only +when her nurse sits by grinding out "Nancy Lee." She cannot be made to +swallow one mouthful on any other condition. No other nurse and no other +tune but "Nancy Lee" will do--neither the "Star-Spangled Banner" nor "The +Babies on our Block." Whether it is Nancy all by her melodious self, or +the beautiful picture of her in a sailor's suit on the lid of the box, or +the two and the nurse and the dinner together, that serve to soothe her, +is a question of some concern to the island, since Nancy and the nurse +have shown signs of giving out together. + +Three of the six sheep that were bought for the ridiculously low price of +eighty-nine cents apiece, the lambs being thrown in as make-weight, were +grazing on the mixed-measles lawn over on the east shore of the island, +with a fairy in evening dress eying them rather disdainfully in the grasp +of tearful Annie Cullum. Annie is a foundling from the asylum temporarily +sojourning here. The measles and the scarlet fever were the only things +that ever took kindly to her in her little life. They tackled her both at +once, and poor Annie, after a six or eight weeks' tussle with them, has +just about enough spunk left to cry when anybody looks at her. + +Three woolly sheep and a fairy all at once have robbed her of all hope, +and in the midst of it all she weeps as if her heart would break. Even +when the nurse pulls one of the unresisting mutton heads, and it emits a +loud "Baa-a," she stops only just for a second or two and then wails +again. The sheep look rather surprised, as they have a right to. They have +come to be little Annie's steady company, hers and her fellow-sufferers' +in the mixed-measles ward. The triangular lawn upon which they are +browsing is theirs to gambol on when the sun shines, but cross the walk +that borders it they never can, any more than the babies with whom they +play. Sumptuary law rules the island they are on. Habeas corpus and the +constitution stop short of the ferry. Even Comstock's authority does not +cross it: the one exception to the rule that dolls and sheep and babies +shall not visit from ward to ward is in favor of the rubber dolls, and the +etiquette of the island requires that they shall lay off their woolen +jackets and go calling just as the factory turned them out, without a +stitch or shred of any kind on. + +As for the rest, they are assigned, babies, nurses, sheep, rattles, and +railroad-trains, to their separate measles, scarlet-fever, and diphtheria +lawns or wards, and there must be content to stay. A sheep may be +transferred from the scarlet-fever ward with its patron to the +mixed-measles or diphtheria, when symptoms of either of these diseases +appear, as they often do; but it cannot then go back again, lest it carry +the seeds of the new contagion to its old friends. + +Even the fairies are put under the ban of suspicion by such evil +associations, and, once they have crossed the line, are not allowed to go +back to corrupt the good manners of the babies with only one complaint. + +Pauline Meyer, the bigger of the two girls on the mixed-measles +stoop,--the other is friendless Annie,--has just enough strength to laugh +when her sheep's head is pulled. She has been on the limits of one ward +after another these four months, and has had everything short of typhus +fever and smallpox that the island affords. + +It is a marvel that there is one laugh left in her whole little shrunken +body after it all; but there is, and the grin on her face reaches almost +from ear to ear, as she clasps the biggest fairy in an arm very little +stouter than a boy's bean-blower, and hears the lamb bleat. Why, that one +smile on that ghastly face would be thought worth his fifty dollars by the +children's friend, could he see it. Pauline is the child of Swedish +emigrants. She and Annie will not fight over their lambs and their dolls, +not for many weeks. They can't. They can't even stand up. + +One of the railroad-trains, drawn by a glorious tin engine, with the name +"Union" painted on the cab, is making across the stoop for the little boy +with the whooping-cough in the next building. But it won't get there; it +is quarantined. But it will have plenty of exercise. Little hands are +itching to get hold of it in one of the cribs inside. There are thirty-six +sick children on the island just now, about half of them boys, who will +find plenty of use for the balls and things as soon as they get about. How +those base-balls are to be kept within bounds is a hopeless mystery the +doctors are puzzling over. + +Even if nines are organized in every ward, as has been suggested, it is +hard to see how they can be allowed to play each other, as they would want +to, of course, as soon as they could toddle about. It would be something, +though, a smallpox nine pitted against the scarlets or the measles, with +an umpire from the mixed ward! + +The old woman that lived in a shoe, being of rubber, is a privileged +character, and is away on a call in the female scarlet, says the nurse. It +is a good thing that she was made that way, for she is very popular. So +are Mother Goose and her ten companion rubber toys. The bear and the man +that strike alternately a wooden anvil with a ditto hammer are scarcely +less exciting to the infantile mind; but, being of wood, they are steady +boarders permanently attached each to his ward. The dominoes fell to the +lot of the male scarlets. That ward has half a dozen grown men in it at +present, and they have never once lost sight of the little black blocks +since they first saw them. + +The doctor reports that they are getting better just as fast as they can +since they took to playing dominoes. If there is any hint in this to the +profession at large, they are welcome to it, along with humanity. + +A little girl with a rubber doll in a red-woolen jacket--a combination to +make the perspiration run right off one with the humidity at 98--looks +wistfully down from the second-story balcony of the smallpox pavilion, as +the doctor goes past with the last sheep tucked under his arm. + +But though it baa-a ever so loudly, it is not for her. It is bound for the +white tent on the shore, shunned even here, where sits a solitary watcher +gazing wistfully all day toward the city that has passed out of his life. +Perchance it may bring to him a message from the far-away home where the +birds sang for him, and the waves and the flowers spoke to him, and +"Unclean" had not been written against his name. Of all on the Pest Island +he alone is hopeless. He is a leper, and his sentence is that of a living +death in a strange land. + + + + +NIGGER MARTHA'S WAKE + + +A woman with face all seared and blotched by something that had burned +through the skin sat propped up in the doorway of a Bowery restaurant at +four o'clock in the morning, senseless, apparently dying. A policeman +stood by, looking anxiously up the street and consulting his watch. At +intervals he shook her to make sure she was not dead. The drift of the +Bowery that was borne that way eddied about, intent upon what was going +on. A dumpy little man edged through the crowd and peered into the woman's +face. + +"Phew!" he said, "it's Nigger Martha! What is gettin' into the girls on +the Bowery I don't know. Remember my Maggie? She was her chum." + +This to the watchman on the block. The watchman remembered. He knows +everything that goes on in the Bowery. Maggie was the wayward daughter of +a decent laundress, and killed herself by drinking carbolic acid less than +a month before. She had wearied of the Bowery. Nigger Martha was her one +friend. And now she had followed her example. + +She was drunk when she did it. It is in their cups that a glimpse of the +life they traded away for the street comes sometimes to these wretches, +with remorse not to be borne. + +It came so to Nigger Martha. Ten minutes before she had been sitting with +two boon companions in the oyster saloon next door, discussing their +night's catch. Elsie "Specs" was one of the two; the other was known to +the street simply as Mame. Elsie wore glasses, a thing unusual enough in +the Bowery to deserve recognition. From their presence Martha rose +suddenly to pull a vial from her pocket. Mame saw it, and, knowing what it +meant in the heavy humor that was upon Nigger Martha, she struck it from +her hand with a pepper-box. It fell, but was not broken. The woman picked +it up, and staggering out, swallowed its contents upon the sidewalk--that +is, as much as went into her mouth. Much went over her face, burning it. +She fell shrieking. + +Then came the crowd. The Bowery never sleeps. The policeman on the beat +set her in the doorway and sent a hurry call for an ambulance. It came at +last, and Nigger Martha was taken to the hospital. + +As Mame told it, so it was recorded on the police blotter, with the +addition that she was anywhere from forty to fifty years old. That was the +strange part of it. It is not often that any one lasts out a generation in +the Bowery. Nigger Martha did. Her beginning was way back in the palmy +days of Billy McGlory and Owney Geoghegan. Her first remembered appearance +was on the occasion of the mock wake they got up at Geoghegan's for Police +Captain Foley when he was broken. That was in the days when dive-keepers +made and broke police captains, and made no secret of it. Billy McGlory +did not. Ever since, Martha was on the street. + +In time she picked up Maggie Mooney, and they got to be chummy. The +friendships of the Bowery by night may not be of a very exalted type, but +when death breaks them it leaves nothing to the survivor. That is the +reason suicides there happen in pairs. The story of Tilly Lorrison and +Tricksy came from the Tenderloin not long ago. This one of Maggie Mooney +and Nigger Martha was theirs over again. + +In each case it was the younger, the one nearest the life that was forever +past, who took the step first, in despair. The other followed. To her it +was the last link with something that had long ceased to be anything but a +dream, which was broken. But without the dream life was unbearable, in the +Tenderloin and on the Bowery. + +The newsboys were crying their night extras when Undertaker Reardon's +wagon jogged across the Bowery with Nigger Martha's body in it. She had +given the doctors the slip, as she had the policeman many a time. A friend +of hers, an Italian in the Bend, had hired the undertaker to "do it +proper," and Nigger Martha was to have a funeral. + +All the Bowery came to the wake. The all-nighters from Chatham Square to +Bleecker street trooped up to the top-floor flat in the Forsyth-street +tenement where Nigger Martha was laid out. There they sat around, saying +little and drinking much. It was not a cheery crowd. + +The Bowery by night is not cheerful in the presence of The Mystery. Its +one effort is to get away from it, to forget--the thing it can never do. +When out of its sight it carouses boisterously, as children sing and shout +in the dark to persuade themselves that they are not afraid. And some who +hear think it happy. + +Sheeny Rose was the master of ceremonies and kept the door. This for a +purpose. In life Nigger Martha had one enemy whom she hated--cock-eyed +Grace. Like all of her kind, Nigger Martha was superstitious. Grace's evil +eye ever brought her bad luck when she crossed her path, and she shunned +her as the pestilence. When inadvertently she came upon her, she turned as +she passed and spat twice over her left shoulder. And Grace, with white +malice in her wicked face, spurned her. + +"I don't want," Nigger Martha had said one night in the hearing of Sheeny +Rose--"I don't want that cock-eyed thing to look at my body when I am +dead. She'll give me hard luck in the grave yet." + +And Sheeny Rose was there to see that cock-eyed Grace didn't come to the +wake. + +She did come. She labored up the long stairs, and knocked, with no one +will ever know what purpose in her heart. If it was a last glimmer of +good, of forgiveness, it was promptly squelched. It was Sheeny Rose who +opened the door. + +"You can't come in here," she said curtly. "You know she hated you. She +didn't want you to look at her stiff." + +Cock-eyed Grace's face grew set with anger. Her curses were heard within. +She threatened fight, but dropped it. + +"All right," she said as she went down. "I'll fix you, Sheeny Rose!" + +It was in the exact spot where Nigger Martha had sat and died that Grace +met her enemy the night after the funeral. Lizzie La Blanche, the Marine's +girl, was there; Elsie Specs, Little Mame, and Jack the Dog, toughest of +all the girls, who for that reason had earned the name of "Mayor of the +Bowery." She brooked no rivals. They were all within reach when the two +enemies met under the arc light. + +Cock-eyed Grace sounded the challenge. + +"Now, you little Sheeny Rose," she said, "I'm goin' to do ye fer shuttin' +of me out o' Nigger Martha's wake." + +With that out came her hatpin, and she made a lunge at Sheeny Rose. The +other was on her guard. Hatpin in hand, she parried the thrust and lunged +back. In a moment the girls had made a ring about the two, shutting them +out of sight. Within it the desperate women thrust and parried, backed and +squared off, leaping like tigers when they saw an opening. Their hats had +fallen off, their hair was down, and eager hate glittered in their eyes. +It was a battle for life; for there is no dagger more deadly than the +hatpin these women carry, chiefly as a weapon of defense in the hour of +need. + +They were evenly matched. Sheeny Rose made up in superior suppleness of +limb for the pent-up malice of the other. Grace aimed her thrusts at her +opponent's face. She tried to reach her eye. Once the sharp steel just +pricked Sheeny Rose's cheek and drew blood. In the next turn Rose's hatpin +passed within a quarter-inch of Grace's jugular. + +But the blow nearly threw her off her feet, and she was at her enemy's +mercy. With an evil oath the fiend thrust full at her face just as the +policeman, who had come through the crowd unobserved, so intent was it +upon the fight, knocked the steel from her hand. + +At midnight two disheveled hags with faces flattened against the bars of +adjoining cells in the police station were hurling sidelong curses at each +other and at the maddened doorman. Nigger Martha's wake had received its +appropriate and foreordained ending. + + + + +A CHIP FROM THE MAELSTROM + + +"The cop just sceert her to death, that's what he done. For Gawd's sake, +boss, don't let on I tole you." + +The negro, stopping suddenly in his game of craps in the Pell-street back +yard, glanced up with a look of agonized entreaty. Discovering no such +fell purpose in his questioner's face, he added quickly, reassured: + +"And if he asks if you seed me a-playing craps, say no, not on yer life, +boss, will yer?" And he resumed the game where he left off. + +An hour before he had seen Maggie Lynch die in that hallway, and it was of +her he spoke. She belonged to the tenement and to Pell street, as he did +himself. They were part of it while they lived, with all that that +implied; when they died, to make part of it again, reorganized and closing +ranks in the trench on Hart's Island. It is only the Celestials in Pell +street who escape the trench. The others are booked for it from the day +they are pushed out from the rapids of the Bowery into this maelstrom that +sucks under all it seizes. Thenceforward they come to the surface only at +intervals in the police courts, each time more forlorn, but not more +hopeless, until at last they disappear and are heard of no more. + +When Maggie Lynch turned the corner no one there knows. The street keeps +no reckoning, and it doesn't matter. She took her place unchallenged, and +her "character" was registered in due time. It was good. Even Pell street +has its degrees and its standard of perfection. The standard's strong +point is contempt of the Chinese, who are hosts in Pell street. Maggie +Lynch came to be known as homeless, without a man, though with the +prospects of motherhood approaching, yet she "had never lived with a +Chink." To Pell street that was heroic. It would have forgiven all the +rest, had there been anything to forgive. But there was not. Whatever else +may be, cant is not among the vices of Pell street. + +And it is well. Maggie Lynch lived with the Cuffs on the top floor of No. +21 until the Cuffs moved. They left an old lounge they didn't want, and +Maggie. Maggie was sick, and the housekeeper had no heart to put her out. +Heart sometimes survives in the slums, even in Pell street, long after +respectability has been hopelessly smothered. It provided shelter and a +bed for Maggie when her only friends deserted her. In return she did what +she could, helping about the hall and stairs. Queer that gratitude should +be another of the virtues the slum has no power to smother, though dive +and brothel and the scorn of the good do their best, working together. + +There was an old mattress that had to be burned, and Maggie dragged it +down with an effort. She took it out in the street, and there set it on +fire. It burned and blazed high in the narrow street. The policeman saw +the sheen in the windows on the opposite side of the way, and saw the +danger of it as he came around the corner. Maggie did not notice him till +he was right behind her. She gave a great start when he spoke to her. + +"I've a good mind to lock you up for this," he said as he stamped out the +fire. "Don't you know it's against the law?" + +The negro heard it and saw Maggie stagger toward the door, with her hand +pressed upon her heart, as the policeman went away down the street. On +the threshold she stopped, panting. + +"My Gawd, that cop frightened me!" she said, and sat down on the +door-step. + +A tenant who came out saw that she was ill, and helped her into the hall. +She gasped once or twice, and then lay back, dead. + +Word went around to the Elizabeth-street station, and was sent on from +there with an order for the dead-wagon. Maggie's turn had come for the +ride up the Sound. She was as good as checked off for the Potter's Field, +but Pell street made an effort and came up almost to Maggie's standard. + +Even while the dead-wagon was rattling down the Bowery, one of the tenants +ran all the way to Henry street, where he had heard that Maggie's father +lived, and brought him to the police station. The old man wiped his eyes +as he gazed upon his child, dead in her sins. + +"She had a good home," he said to Captain Young. "But she didn't know it, +and she wouldn't stay. Send her home, and I will bury her with her +mother." + +The Potter's Field was cheated out of a victim, and by Pell street. But +the maelstrom grinds on and on. + + + + +SARAH JOYCE'S HUSBANDS + + +Policeman Muller had run against a boisterous crowd surrounding a drunken +woman at Prince street and the Bowery. When he joined the crowd it +scattered, but got together again before it had run half a block, and +slunk after him and his prisoner to the Mulberry-street station. There +Sergeant Woodruff learned by questioning the woman that she was Mary +Donovan and had come down from Westchester to have a holiday. She had had +it without a doubt. The sergeant ordered her to be locked up for +safe-keeping, when, unexpectedly, objection was made. + +A small lot of the crowd had picked up courage to come into the station to +see what became of the prisoner. From out of this, one spoke up: "Don't +lock that woman up; she is my wife." + +"Eh," said the sergeant, "and who are you?" + +The man said he was George Reilly and a salesman. The prisoner had given +her name as Mary Donovan and said she was single. The sergeant drew Mr. +Reilly's attention to the street door, which was there for his +accommodation, but he did not take the hint. He became so abusive that he, +too, was locked up, still protesting that the woman was his wife. + +She had gone on her way to Elizabeth street, where there is a matron, to +be locked up there; and the objections of Mr. Reilly having been silenced +at last, peace was descending once more upon the station-house, when the +door was opened, and a man with a swagger entered. + +"Got that woman locked up here?" he demanded. + +"What woman?" asked the sergeant, looking up. + +"Her what Muller took in." + +"Well," said the sergeant, looking over the desk, "what of her?" + +"I want her out; she is my wife. She--" + +The sergeant rang his bell. "Here, lock this man up with that woman's +other husband," he said, pointing to the stranger. + +The fellow ran out just in time, as the doorman made a grab for him. The +sergeant drew a tired breath and picked up the ruler to make a red line in +his blotter. There was a brisk step, a rap, and a young fellow stood in +the open door. + +"Say, serg," he began. + +The sergeant reached with his left hand for the inkstand, while his right +clutched the ruler. He never took his eyes off the stranger. + +"Say," wheedled he, glancing around and seeing no trap, "serg, I say: that +woman w'at's locked up, she's--" + +"She's what?" asked the sergeant, getting the range as well as he could. + +"My wife," said the fellow. + +There was a bang, the slamming of a door, and the room was empty. The +doorman came running in, looked out, and up and down the street. But +nothing was to be seen. There is no record of what became of the third +husband of Mary Donovan. + +The first slept serenely in the jail. The woman herself, when she saw the +iron bars in the Elizabeth-street station, fell into hysterics and was +taken to the Hudson Street Hospital. + +Reilly was arraigned in the Tombs Police Court in the morning. He paid his +fine and left, protesting that he was her only husband. + +He had not been gone ten minutes when Claimant No. 4 entered. + +"Was Sarah Joyce brought here?" he asked Clerk Betts. + +The clerk couldn't find the name. + +"Look for Mary Donovan," said No. 4. + +"Who are you?" asked the clerk. + +"I am Sarah's husband," was the answer. + +Clerk Betts smiled, and told the man the story of the other three. + +"Well, I am blamed," he said. + + + + +THE CAT TOOK THE KOSHER MEAT + + +The tenement No. 76 Madison street had been for some time scandalized by +the hoidenish ways of Rose Baruch, the little cloakmaker on the top floor. +Rose was seventeen, and boarded with her mother in the Pincus family. But +for her harum-scarum ways she might, in the opinion of the tenement, be a +nice girl and some day a good wife; but these were unbearable. + +For the tenement is a great working hive in which nothing has value unless +exchangeable for gold. Rose's animal spirits, which long hours and low +wages had no power to curb, were exchangeable only for wrath in the +tenement. Her noisy feet on the stairs when she came home woke up all the +tenants, and made them swear at the loss of the precious moments of sleep +which were their reserve capital. Rose was so Americanized, they said +impatiently among themselves, that nothing could be done with her. + +Perhaps they were mistaken. Perhaps Rose's stout refusal to be subdued +even by the tenement was their hope, as it was her capital. Perhaps her +spiteful tread upon the stairs heralded the coming protest of the freeborn +American against slavery, industrial or otherwise, in which their day of +deliverance was dawning. It may be so. They didn't see it. How should +they? They were not Americanized; not yet. + +However that might be, Rose came to the end that was to be expected. The +judgment of the tenement was, for the time, borne out by experience. This +was the way of it: + +Rose's mother had bought several pounds of kosher meat and put it into the +ice-box--that is to say, on the window-sill of their fifth-floor flat. +Other ice-box these East-Side sweaters' tenements have none. And it does +well enough in cold weather, unless the cat gets around, or, as it +happened in this case, it slides off and falls down. Rose's breakfast and +dinner disappeared down the air-shaft, seventy feet or more, at 10:30 P. +M. + +There was a family consultation as to what should be done. It was late, +and everybody was in bed, but Rose declared herself equal to the rousing +of the tenants in the first floor rear, through whose window she could +climb into the shaft for the meat. She had done it before for a nickel. +Enough said. An expedition set out at once from the top floor to recover +the meat. Mrs. Baruch, Rose, and Jake, the boarder, went in a body. + +Arrived before the Knauff family's flat on the ground floor, they opened +proceedings by a vigorous attack on the door. The Knauffs woke up in a +fright, believing that the house was full of burglars. They were stirring +to barricade the door, when they recognized Rose's voice and were calmed. +Let in, the expedition explained matters, and was grudgingly allowed to +take a look out of the window in the air-shaft. Yes! there was the meat, +as yet safe from rats. The thing was to get it. + +The boarder tried first, but crawled back frightened. He couldn't reach +it. Rose jerked him impatiently away. + +"Leg go!" she said. "I can do it. I was there wunst. You're no good." + +And she bent over the window-sill, reaching down until her toes barely +touched the floor, when all of a sudden, before they could grab her +skirts, over she went, heels over head, down the shaft, and disappeared. + +The shrieks of the Knauffs, of Mrs. Baruch, and of Jake, the boarder, were +echoed from below. Rose's voice rose in pain and in bitter lamentation +from the bottom of the shaft. She had fallen fully fifteen feet, and in +the fall had hurt her back badly, if, indeed, she had not injured herself +beyond repair. Her cries suggested nothing less. They filled the tenement, +rising to every floor and appealing at every bedroom window. + +In a minute the whole building was astir from cellar to roof. A dozen +heads were thrust out of every window, and answering wails carried +messages of helpless sympathy to the once so unpopular Rose. Upon this +concert of sorrow the police broke in with anxious inquiry as to what was +the matter. + +When they found out, a second relief expedition was organized. It reached +Rose through the basement coal-bin, and she was carried out and sent to +the Gouverneur Hospital. There she lies, unable to move, and the tenement +wonders what is amiss that it has lost its old spirits. It has not even +anything left to swear at. + +The cat took the kosher meat. + + + + +FIRE IN THE BARRACKS + + +The rush and roar, the blaze and the wild panic, of a great fire filled +Twenty-third street. Helmeted men stormed and swore; horses tramped and +reared; crying women, hurrying hither and thither, stumbled over squirming +hose on street and sidewalk. + +The throbbing of a dozen pumping-engines merged all other sounds in its +frantic appeal for haste. In the midst of it all, seven red-shirted men +knelt beside a heap of trunks, hastily thrown up as if for a breastwork, +and prayed fervently with bared heads. + +Firemen and policemen stumbled up against them with angry words, stopped, +stared, and passed silently by. The fleeing crowd halted and fell back. +The rush and the roar swirled to the right and to the left, leaving the +little band as if in an eddy, untouched and serene, with the glow of the +fire upon it and the stars paling overhead. + +The seven were the Swedish Salvation Army. Their barracks were burning up +in a blast of fire so sudden and so fierce that scant time was left to +save life and goods. + +From the tenements next door men and women dragged bundles and +feather-beds, choking stairs and halls, and shrieking madly to be let out. +The police struggled angrily with the torrent. The lodgers in the +Holly-Tree Inn, who had nothing to save, ran for their lives. + +In the station-house behind the barracks they were hastily clearing the +prison. The last man had hardly passed out of his cell when, with a +deafening crash, the toppling wall fell upon and smashed the roof of the +jail. + +Fire-bells rang in every street as engines rushed from north and south. A +general alarm had called out the reserves. Every hydrant for blocks around +was tapped. Engine crews climbed upon the track of the elevated road, +picketed the surrounding tenements, and stood their ground on top of the +police station. + +Up there two crews labored with a Siamese joint hose throwing a stream as +big as a man's thigh. It got away from them, and for a while there was +panic and a struggle up on the heights as well as in the street. The +throbbing hose bounded over the roof, thrashing right and left, and +flinging about the men who endeavored to pin it down like half-drowned +kittens. It struck the coping, knocked it off, and the resistless stream +washed brick and stone down into the yard as upon the wave of a mighty +flood. + +Amid the fright and uproar the seven alone were calm. The sun rose upon +their little band perched upon the pile of trunks, victorious and defiant. +It shone upon Old Glory and the Salvation Army's flag floating from their +improvised fort, and upon an ample lake, sprung up within an hour where +yesterday there was a vacant sunken lot. The fire was out, the firemen +going home. + +The lodgers in the Holly-Tree Inn, of whom there is one for every day in +the year, looked upon the sudden expanse of water, shivered, and went in. +The tenants returned to their homes. The fright was over with the +darkness. + + + + +A WAR ON THE GOATS + + +War has been declared in Hell's Kitchen. An indignant public opinion +demands to have "something done ag'in' them goats," and there is alarm at +the river end of the street. A public opinion in Hell's Kitchen that +demands anything besides schooners of mixed ale is a sign. Surer than a +college settlement and a sociological canvass, it foretells the end of the +slum. Sebastopol, the rocky fastness of the gang that gave the place its +bad name, was razed only the other day, and now the police have been set +on the goats. Cause enough for alarm. + +A reconnaissance in force by the enemy showed some foundation for the +claim that the goats owned the block. Thirteen were found foraging in the +gutters, standing upon trucks, or calmly dozing in doorways. They evinced +no particularly hostile disposition, but a marked desire to know the +business of every chance caller in the block. This caused a passing +unpleasantness between one big white goat and the janitress of the +tenement on the corner. Being crowded up against the wall by the animal, +bent on exploring her pockets, she beat it off with her scrubbing-pail and +mop. The goat, thus dismissed, joined a horse at the curb in apparently +innocent meditation, but with one leering eye fixed back over its shoulder +upon the housekeeper setting out an ash-barrel. + +Her back was barely turned when it was in the barrel, with head and fore +feet exploring its depths. The door of the tenement opened upon the +housekeeper trundling another barrel just as the first one fell and rolled +across the sidewalk, with the goat capering about. Then was the air filled +with bad language and a broomstick and a goat for a moment, and the woman +was left shouting her wrongs. + +"What de divil good is dem goats anyhow?" she said, panting. "There's no +housekeeper in de United Shtates can watch de ash-cans wid dem divil's +imps around. They near killed an Eyetalian child the other day, and two +of them got basted in de neck when de goats follied dem and didn't get +nothing. That big white one o' Tim's, he's the worst in de lot, and he's +got only one horn, too." + +This wicked and unsymmetrical animal is denounced for its malice +throughout the block by even the defenders of the goats. Singularly +enough, he cannot be located, and neither can Tim. If the scouting-party +has better luck and can seize this wretched beast, half the campaign may +be over. It will be accepted as a sacrifice by one side, and the other is +willing to give it up. + +Mrs. Shallock lives in a crazy old frame house, over a saloon. Her kitchen +is approached by a sort of hen-ladder, a foot wide, which terminates in a +balcony, the whole of which was occupied by a big gray goat. There was not +room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to +wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock is a widow. A +load of anxiety and concern overspread her motherly countenance when she +heard of the trouble. + +"Are they after dem goats again?" she said. "Sarah! Leho! come right here, +an' don't you go in the street again. Excuse me, sor! but it's all because +one of dem knocked down an old woman that used to give it a paper every +day. She is the mother of the blind newsboy around on the avenue, an' she +used to feed an old paper to him every night. So he follied her. That +night she didn't have any, an' when he stuck his nose in her basket an' +didn't find any, he knocked her down, an' she bruk her arm." + +Whether it was the one-horned goat that thus insisted upon his sporting +extra does not appear. Probably it was. + +"There's neighbors lives there has got 'em on floors," Mrs. Shallock kept +on. "I'm paying taxes here, an' I think it's my privilege to have one +little goat." + +"I just wish they'd take 'em," broke in the widow's buxom daughter, who +had appeared in the doorway, combing her hair. "They goes up in the hall +and knocks on the door with their horns all night. There's sixteen dozen +of them on the stoop, if there's one. What good are they? Let's sell 'em +to the butcher, mama; he'll buy 'em for mutton, the way he did Bill +Buckley's. You know right well he did." + +"They ain't much good, that's a fact," mused the widow. "But yere's Leho; +she's follying me around just like a child. She is a regular pet, is +Leho. We got her from Mr. Lee, who is dead, and we called her after him, +Leho [Leo]. Take Sarah; but Leho, little Leho, let's keep." + +Leho stuck her head in through the front door and belied her name. If the +widow keeps her, another campaign will shortly have to be begun in +Forty-sixth street. There will be more goats where Leho is. + +Mr. Cleary lives in a rear tenement and has only one goat. It belongs, he +says, to his little boy, and is no good except to amuse him. Minnie is her +name, and she once had a mate. When it was sold, the boy cried so much +that he was sick for two weeks. Mr. Cleary couldn't think of parting with +Minnie. + +Neither will Mr. Lennon, in the next yard, give up his. He owns the +stable, he says, and axes no odds of anybody. His goat is some good +anyhow, for it gives milk for his tea. Says his wife, "Many is the dime it +has saved us." There are two goats in Mr. Lennon's yard, one perched on +top of a shed surveying the yard, the other engaged in chewing at a +buck-saw that hangs on the fence. + +Mrs. Buckley does not know how many goats she has. A glance at the bigger +of the two that are stabled at the entrance to the tenement explains her +doubts, which are temporary. Mrs. Buckley says that her husband "generally +sells them away," meaning the kids, presumably to the butcher for mutton. + +"Hey, Jenny!" she says, stroking the big one at the door. Jenny eyes the +visitor calmly, and chews an old newspaper. She has two horns. + +"She ain't as bad as they lets on," says Mrs. Buckley. + +The scouting party reports the new public opinion of the Kitchen to be of +healthy but alien growth, as yet without roots in the soil strong enough +to stand the shock of a general raid on the goats. They recommend as a +present concession the seizure of the one-horned Billy that seems to have +no friends on the block, if indeed he belongs there, and an ambush is +being laid accordingly. + + + + +ROVER'S LAST FIGHT + + +The little village of Valley Stream nestles peacefully among the woods and +meadows of Long Island. The days and the years roll by uneventfully within +its quiet precincts. Nothing more exciting than the arrival of a party of +fishermen from the city, on a vain hunt for perch in the ponds that lie +hidden among its groves and feed the Brooklyn water-works, troubles the +every-day routine of the village. Two great railroad wrecks are remembered +thereabouts, but these are already ancient history. Only the oldest +inhabitants know of the earlier one. There hasn't been as much as a sudden +death in the town since, and the constable and chief of police--probably +one and the same person--haven't turned an honest or dishonest penny in +the whole course of their official existence. All of which is as it ought +to be. + +But at last something occurred that ought not to have been. The village +was aroused at daybreak by the intelligence that a robbery had been +committed overnight, and a murder. The house of Gabriel Dodge, a +well-to-do farmer, had been sacked by thieves, who left in their trail the +farmer's murdered dog. Rover was a collie, large for his kind, and quite +as noisy as the rest of them. He had been left as an outside guard, +according to Farmer Dodge's awkward practice. Inside, he might have been +of use by alarming the folks when the thieves tried to get in. But they +had only to fear his bark; his bite was harmless. + +The whole of Valley Stream gathered at Farmer Dodge's house to watch, +awe-struck, the mysterious movements of the police force as it went +tiptoeing about, peeping into corners, secretly examining tracks in the +mud, and squinting suspiciously at the brogans of the bystanders. When it +had all been gone through, this record of facts bearing on the case was +made: + +Rover was dead. + +He had apparently been smothered. + +With the hand, not a rope. + +There was a ladder set up against the window of the spare bedroom. + +That it had not been there before was evidence that the thieves had set it +up. + +The window was open, and they had gone in. + +Several watches, some good clothes, sundry articles of jewelry, all worth +some six or seven hundred dollars, were missing and could not be found. + +In conclusion, the constable put on record his belief that the thieves who +had smothered the dog and set up the ladder had taken the property. + +The solid citizens of the village sat upon the verdict in the store, +solemnly considered it, and agreed that it was so. This point settled, +there was left only the other: Who were the thieves? The solid citizens by +a unanimous decision concluded that Inspector Byrnes was the man to tell +them. + +So they came over to New York and laid the matter before him, with a +mental diagram of the village, the house, the dog, and the ladder at the +window. There was just the suspicion of a twinkle in the corner of the +inspector's eye as he listened gravely and then said: + +"It was the spare bedroom, wasn't it?" + +"The spare bedroom," said the committee, in one breath. + +"The only one in the house?" queried the inspector, further. + +"The only one," responded the echo. + +"H'm!" pondered the inspector. "You keep hands on your farm, Mr. Dodge?" + +Mr. Dodge did. + +"Sleep in the house?" + +"Yes." + +"Discharged any one lately?" + +The committee rose as one man, and, staring at each other with bulging +eyes, said "Jake!" all at once. + +"Jakey, b' gosh!" repeated the constable to himself, kicking his own shins +softly as he tugged at his beard. "Jake, by thunder!" + +Jake was a boy of eighteen, who had been employed by the farmer to do +chores. He was shiftless, and a week or two before had been sent away in +disgrace. He had gone no one knew whither. + +The committee told the inspector all about Jake, gave him a minute +description of him,--of his ways, his gait, and his clothes,--and went +home feeling that they had been wondrous smart in putting so sharp a man +on the track he would never have thought of if they hadn't mentioned +Jake's name. All he had to do now was to follow it to the end, and let +them know when he had reached it. And as these good men had prophesied, +even so it came to pass. + +Detectives of the inspector's staff were put on the trail. They followed +it from the Long Island pastures across the East River to the Bowery, and +there into one of the cheap lodging-houses where thieves are turned out +ready-made while you wait. There they found Jake. + +They didn't hail him at once, or clap him into irons, as the constable +from Valley Stream would have done. They let him alone and watched awhile +to see what he was doing. And the thing that they found him doing was just +what they expected: he was herding with thieves. When they had thoroughly +fastened this companionship upon the lad, they arrested the band. They +were three. + +They had not been locked up many hours at Headquarters before the +inspector sent for Jake. He told him he knew all about his dismissal by +Farmer Dodge, and asked him what he had done to the old man. Jake blurted +out hotly, "Nothin'," and betrayed such feeling that his questioner soon +made him admit that he was "sore on the boss." From that to telling the +whole story of the robbery was only a little way, easy to travel in such +company as Jake was in then. He told how he had come to New York, angry +enough to do anything, and had "struck" the Bowery. Struck, too, his two +friends, not the only two of that kind who loiter about that thoroughfare. + +To them he told his story while waiting in the "hotel" for something to +turn up, and they showed him a way to get square with the old man for what +he had done to him. The farmer had money and property he would hate to +lose. Jake knew the lay of the land, and could steer them straight; they +would take care of the rest. "See!" said they. + +Jake saw, and the sight tempted him. But in his mind's eye he saw also +Rover and heard him bark. How could he be managed? + +"He will come to me if I call him," pondered Jake, while his two +companions sat watching his face, "but you may have to kill him. Poor +Rover!" + +"You call the dog and leave him to me," said the oldest thief, and shut +his teeth hard. And so it was arranged. + +That night the three went out on the last train, and hid in the woods down +by the gatekeeper's house at the pond, until the last light had gone out +in the village and it was fast asleep. Then they crept up by a back way to +Farmer Dodge's house. As expected, Rover came bounding out at their +approach, barking furiously. It was Jake's turn then. + +"Rover," he called softly, and whistled. The dog stopped barking and came +on, wagging his tail, but still growling ominously as he got scent of the +strange men. + +"Rover, poor Rover," said Jake, stroking his shaggy fur and feeling like +the guilty wretch he was; for just then the hand of Pfeiffer, the thief, +grabbed the throat of the faithful beast in a grip as of an iron vise, and +he had barked his last bark. Struggle as he might, he could not free +himself or breathe, while Jake, the treacherous Jake, held his legs. And +so he died, fighting for his master and his home. + +In the morning the ladder at the open window and poor Rover dead in the +yard told of the drama of the night. + +The committee of farmers came over and took Jake home, after +congratulating Inspector Byrnes on having so intelligently followed their +directions in hunting down the thieves. The inspector shook hands with +them and smiled. + + + + +WHEN THE LETTER CAME + + +"To-morrow it will come," Godfrey Krueger had said that night to his +landlord. "To-morrow it will surely come, and then I shall have money. +Soon I shall be rich, richer than you can think." + +And the landlord of the Forsyth-street tenement, who in his heart liked +the gray-haired inventor, but who had rooms to let, grumbled something +about a to-morrow that never came. + +"Oh, but it will come," said Krueger, turning on the stairs and shading +the lamp with his hand, the better to see his landlord's good-natured +face; "you know the application has been advanced. It is bound to be +granted, and to-night I shall finish my ship." + +Now, as he sat alone in his room at his work, fitting, shaping, and +whittling with restless hands, he had to admit to himself that it was +time it came. Two whole days he had lived on a crust, and he was starving. +He had worked and waited thirteen hard years for the success that had more +than once been almost within his grasp, only to elude it again. It had +never seemed nearer and surer than now, and there was need of it. He had +come to the jumping-off place. All his money was gone, to the last cent, +and his application for a pension hung fire in Washington unaccountably. +It had been advanced to the last stage, and word that it had been granted +might be received any day. But the days slipped by and no word came. For +two days he had lived on faith and a crust, but they were giving out +together. If only-- + +Well, when it did come, what with his back pay for all those years, he +would have the means to build his ship, and hunger and want would be +forgotten. He should have enough. And the world would know that Godfrey +Krueger was not an idle crank. + +"In six months I shall cross the ocean to Europe in twenty hours in my +air-ship," he had said in showing the landlord his models, "with as many +as want to go. Then I shall become a millionaire and shall make you one, +too." And the landlord had heaved a sigh at the thought of his +twenty-seven dollars, and doubtingly wished it might be so. + +Weak and famished, Krueger bent to his all but finished task. Before +morning he should know that it would work as he had planned. There +remained only to fit the last parts together. The idea of building an +air-ship had come to him while he lay dying with scurvy, as they thought, +in a Confederate prison, and he had never abandoned it. He had been a +teacher and a student, and was a trained mathematician. There could be no +flaw in his calculations. He had worked them out again and again. The +energy developed by his plan was great enough to float a ship capable of +carrying almost any burden, and of directing it against the strongest head +winds. Now, upon the threshold of success, he was awaiting merely the +long-delayed pension to carry his dream into life. To-morrow would bring +it, and with it an end to all his waiting and suffering. + +One after another the lights went out in the tenement. Only the one in the +inventor's room burned steadily through the night. The policeman on the +beat noticed the lighted window, and made a mental note of the fact that +some one was sick. Once during the early hours he stopped short to listen. +Upon the morning breeze was borne a muffled sound, as of a distant +explosion. But all was quiet again, and he went on, thinking that his +senses had deceived him. The dawn came in the eastern sky, and with it the +stir that attends the awakening of another day. The lamp burned steadily +yet behind the dim window-pane. + +The milkmen came, and the push-cart criers. The policeman was relieved, +and another took his place. Lastly came the mail-carrier with a large +official envelop marked, "Pension Bureau, Washington." He shouted up the +stairway: + +"Krueger! Letter!" + +The landlord came to the door and was glad. So it had come, had it? + +"Run, Emma," he said to his little daughter, "run and tell Mr. Godfrey his +letter has come." + +The child skipped up the steps gleefully. She knocked at the inventor's +door, but no answer came. It was not locked, and she pushed it open. The +little lamp smoked yet on the table. The room was strewn with broken +models and torn papers that littered the floor. Something there frightened +the child. She held to the banisters and called faintly: + +"Papa! Oh, papa!" + +They went in together on tiptoe without knowing why, the postman with the +big official letter in his hand. The morrow had kept its promise. Of +hunger and want there was an end. On the bed, stretched at full length, +with his Grand Army hat flung beside him, lay the inventor, dead. A little +round hole in the temple, from which a few drops of blood had flowed, told +what remained of his story. In the night disillusion had come, with +failure. + + + + +THE KID + + +He was an every-day tough, bull-necked, square-jawed, red of face, and +with his hair cropped short in the fashion that rules at Sing Sing and is +admired of Battle Row. Any one could have told it at a glance. The bruised +and wrathful face of the policeman who brought him to Mulberry street, to +be "stood up" before the detectives in the hope that there might be +something against him to aggravate the offense of beating an officer with +his own club, bore witness to it. It told a familiar story. The prisoner's +gang had started a fight in the street, probably with a scheme of ultimate +robbery in view, and the police had come upon it unexpectedly. The rest +had got away with an assortment of promiscuous bruises. The "Kid" stood +his ground, and went down with two "cops" on top of him after a valiant +battle, in which he had performed the feat that entitled him to honorable +mention henceforth in the felonious annals of the gang. There was no +surrender in his sullen look as he stood before the desk, his hard face +disfigured further by a streak of half-dried blood, reminiscent of the +night's encounter. The fight had gone against him--that was all right. +There was a time for getting square. Till then he was man enough to take +his medicine, let them do their worst. + +It was there, plain as could be, in his set jaws and dogged bearing as he +came out, numbered now and indexed in the rogues' gallery, and started for +the police court between two officers. It chanced that I was going the +same way, and joined company. Besides, I have certain theories concerning +toughs which my friend the sergeant says are rot, and I was not averse to +testing them on the Kid. + +But the Kid was a bad subject. He replied to my friendly advances with a +muttered curse, or not at all, and upset all my notions in the most +reckless way. Conversation had ceased before we were half-way across to +Broadway. He "wanted no guff," and I left him to his meditations +respecting his defenseless state. At Broadway there was a jam of trucks, +and we stopped at the corner to wait for an opening. + +It all happened so quickly that only a confused picture of it is in my +mind till this day. A sudden start, a leap, and a warning cry, and the Kid +had wrenched himself loose. He was free. I was dimly conscious of a rush +of blue and brass; and then I saw--the whole street saw--a child, a +toddling baby, in the middle of the railroad-track, right in front of the +coming car. It reached out its tiny hand toward the madly clanging bell +and crowed. A scream rose wild and piercing above the tumult; men +struggled with a frantic woman on the curb, and turned their heads away-- + +And then there stood the Kid, with the child in his arms, unhurt. I see +him now, as he set it down gently as any woman, trying, with lingering +touch, to unclasp the grip of the baby hand upon his rough finger. I see +the hard look coming back into his face as the policeman, red and out of +breath, twisted the nipper on his wrist, with a half-uncertain aside to +me: "Them toughs there ain't no depending on nohow." Sullen, defiant, +planning vengeance, I see him led away to jail. Ruffian and thief! The +police blotter said so. + +But, even so, the Kid had proved that my theories about toughs were not +rot. Who knows but that, like sergeants, the blotter may be sometimes +mistaken? + + + + +LOST CHILDREN + + +I am not thinking now of theological dogmas or moral distinctions. I am +considering the matter from the plain every-day standpoint of the police +office. It is not my fault that the one thing that is lost more +persistently than any other in a large city is the very thing you would +imagine to be safest of all in the keeping of its owner. Nor do I pretend +to explain it. It is simply one of the contradictions of metropolitan +life. In twenty years' acquaintance with the police office, I have seen +money, diamonds, coffins, horses, and tubs of butter brought there and +passed into the keeping of the property clerk as lost or strayed. I +remember a whole front stoop, brownstone, with steps and iron railing all +complete, being put up at auction, unclaimed. But these were mere +representatives of a class which as a whole kept its place and the peace. +The children did neither. One might have been tempted to apply the old +inquiry about the pins to them but for another contradictory circumstance: +rather more of them are found than lost. + +The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeps the account of +the surplus. It has now on its books half a score Jane Does and twice as +many Richard Roes, of whom nothing more will ever be known than that they +were found, which is on the whole, perhaps, best--for them certainly. The +others, the lost, drift from the tenements and back, a host of thousands +year by year. The two I am thinking of were of these, typical of the +maelstrom. + +Yette Lubinsky was three years old when she was lost from her Essex-street +home, in that neighborhood where once the police commissioners thought +seriously of having the children tagged with name and street number, to +save trotting them back and forth between police station and Headquarters. +She had gone from the tenement to the corner where her father kept a +stand, to beg a penny, and nothing more was known of her. Weeks after, a +neighbor identified one of her little frocks as the match of one worn by +a child she had seen dragged off by a rough-looking man. But though Max +Lubinsky, the peddler, and Yette's mother camped on the steps of Police +Headquarters early and late, anxiously questioning every one who went in +and out about their lost child, no other word was heard of her. By and by +it came to be an old story, and the two were looked upon as among the +fixtures of the place. Mulberry street has other such. + +They were poor and friendless in a strange land, the very language of +which was jargon to them, as theirs was to us, timid in the crush, and +they were shouldered out. It was not inhumanity; at least, it was not +meant to be. It was the way of the city, with every one for himself; and +they accepted it, uncomplaining. So they kept their vigil on the stone +steps, in storm and fair weather, every night, taking turns to watch all +who passed. When it was a policeman with a little child, as it was many +times between sunset and sunrise, the one on the watch would start up the +minute they turned the corner, and run to meet them, eagerly scanning the +little face, only to return, disappointed but not cast down, to the step +upon which the other slept, head upon knees, waiting the summons to wake +and watch. + +Their mute sorrow appealed to me, then doing night duty in the newspaper +office across the way, and I tried to help them in their search for the +lost Yette. They accepted my help gratefully, trustfully, but without loud +demonstration. Together we searched the police records, the hospitals, the +morgue, and the long register of the river's dead. She was not there. +Having made sure of this, we turned to the children's asylums. We had a +description of Yette sent to each and every one, with the minutest +particulars concerning her and her disappearance, but no word came back in +response. A year passed, and we were compelled at last to give over the +search. It seemed as if every means of finding out what had become of the +child had been exhausted, and all alike had failed. + +During the long search, I had occasion to go more than once to the +Lubinskys' home. They lived up three flights, in one of the big barracks +that give to the lower end of Essex street the appearance of a deep black +canyon with cliff-dwellers living in tiers all the way up, their +watch-fires showing like so many dull red eyes through the night. The hall +was pitch-dark, and the whole building redolent of the slum; but in the +stuffy little room where the peddler lived there was, in spite of it all, +an atmosphere of home that set it sharply apart from the rest. One of +these visits I will always remember. I had stumbled in, unthinking, upon +their Sabbath-eve meal. The candles were lighted, and the children +gathered about the table; at its head, the father, every trace of the +timid, shrinking peddler of Mulberry street laid aside with the week's +toil, was invoking the Sabbath blessing upon his house and all it +harbored. I saw him turn, with a quiver of the lip, to a vacant seat +between him and the mother; and it was then that I noticed the baby's high +chair, empty, but kept ever waiting for the little wanderer. I understood; +and in the strength of domestic affection that burned with unquenched +faith in the dark tenement after the many months of weary failure I read +the history of this strange people that in every land and in every day has +conquered even the slum with the hope of home. + +It was not to be put to shame here, either. Yette returned, after all, and +the way of it came near being stranger than all the rest. Two long years +had passed, and the memory of her and hers had long since faded out of +Mulberry street, when, in the overhauling of one of the children's homes +we thought we had canvassed thoroughly, the child turned up, as +unaccountably as she had been lost. All that I ever learned about it was +that she had been brought there, picked up by some one in the street, +probably, and, after more or less inquiry that had failed to connect with +the search at our end of the line, had been included in their flock on +some formal commitment, and had stayed there. Not knowing her name,--she +could not tell it herself, to be understood,--they had given her one of +their own choosing; and thus disguised, she might have stayed there +forever but for the fortunate chance that cast her up to the surface once +more, and gave the clue to her identity at last. Even then her father had +nearly as much trouble in proving his title to his child as he had had in +looking for her, but in the end he made it good. The frock she had worn +when she was lost proved the missing link. The mate of it was still +carefully laid away in the tenement. So Yette returned to fill the empty +chair at the Sabbath board, and the peddler's faith was justified. + + * * * * * + +My other chip from the maelstrom was a lad half grown. He dropped into my +office as if out of the clouds, one long and busy day, when, tired and out +of sorts, I sat wishing my papers and the world in general in Halifax. I +had not heard the knock, and when I looked up, there stood my boy, a +stout, square-shouldered lad, with heavy cowhide boots and dull, honest +eyes--eyes that looked into mine as if with a question they were about to +put, and then gave it up, gazing straight ahead, stolid, impassive. It +struck me that I had seen that face before, and I found out immediately +where. The officer of the Children's Aid Society who had brought him +explained that Frands--that was his name--had been in the society's care +five months and over. They had found him drifting in the streets, and, +knowing whither that drift set, had taken him in charge and sent him to +one of their lodging-houses, where he had been since, doing chores and +plodding about in his dull way. That was where I had met him. Now they had +decided that he should go to Florida, if he would, but first they would +like to find out something about him. They had never been able to, beyond +the fact that he was from Denmark. He had put his finger on the map in +the reading-room, one day, and shown them where he came from: that was the +extent of their information on that point. So they had sent him to me to +talk to him in his own tongue and see what I could make of him. + +I addressed him in the politest Danish I was master of, and for an instant +I saw the listening, questioning look return; but it vanished almost at +once, and he answered in monosyllables, if at all. Much of what I said +passed him entirely by. He did not seem to understand. By slow stages I +got out of him that his father was a farm-laborer; that he had come over +to look for his cousin, who worked in Passaic, New Jersey, and had found +him,--Heaven knows how!--but had lost him again. Then he had drifted to +New York, where the society's officers had come upon him. He nodded when +told that he was to be sent far away to the country, much as if I had +spoken of some one he had never heard of. We had arrived at this point +when I asked him the name of his native town. + +The word he spoke came upon me with all the force of a sudden blow. I had +played in the old village as a boy; all my childhood was bound up in its +memories. For many years now I had not heard its name--not since boyhood +days spoken as he spoke it. Perhaps it was because I was tired: the office +faded away, desk, Headquarters across the street, boy, officer, business, +and all. In their place were the brown heath I loved, the distant hills, +the winding wagon-track, the peat-stacks, and the solitary sheep browsing +on the barrows. Forgotten the thirty years, the seas that rolled between, +the teeming city! I was at home again, a child. And there he stood, the +boy, with it all in his dull, absent look. I read it now as plain as the +day. + +"Hua er et no? Ka do ett fosto hua a sejer?" + +It plumped out of me in the broad Jutland dialect I had neither heard nor +spoken in half a lifetime, and so astonished me that I nearly fell off my +chair. Sheep, peat-stacks, cairn, and hills all vanished together, and in +place of the sweet heather there was the table with the tiresome papers. I +reached out yearningly after the heath; I had not seen it for such a long +time,--how long it did seem!--and--but in the same breath it was all there +again in the smile that lighted up Frands's broad face like a glint of +sunlight from a leaden sky. + +"Joesses, jou," he laughed, "no ka a da saa grou godt."[1] + + [1] My exclamation on finding myself so suddenly translated back to + Denmark was an impatient "Why, don't you understand me?" His answer + was, "Lord, yes, now I do, indeed." + +It was the first honest Danish word he had heard since he came to this +bewildering land. I read it in his face, no longer heavy or dull; saw it +in the way he followed my speech--spelling the words, as it were, with his +own lips, to lose no syllable; caught it in his glad smile as he went on +telling me about his journey, his home, and his homesickness for the +heath, with a breathless kind of haste, as if, now that at last he had a +chance, he were afraid it was all a dream, and that he would presently +wake up and find it gone. Then the officer pulled my sleeve. + +He had coughed once or twice, but neither of us had heard him. Now he held +out a paper he had brought, with an apologetic gesture. It was an +agreement Frands was to sign, if he was going to Florida. I glanced at it. +Florida? Yes, to be sure; oh, yes, Florida. I spoke to the officer, and it +was in the Jutland dialect. I tried again, with no better luck. I saw him +looking at me queerly, as if he thought it was not quite right with me, +either, and then I recovered myself, and got back to the office and to +America; but it was an effort. One does not skip across thirty years and +two oceans, at my age, so easily as that. + +And then the dull look came back into Frands's eyes, and he nodded +stolidly. Yes, he would go to Florida. The papers were made out, and off +he went, after giving me a hearty hand-shake that warranted he would come +out right when he became accustomed to the new country; but he took +something with him which it hurt me to part with. + + * * * * * + +Frands is long since in Florida, growing up with the country, and little +Yette is a young woman. So long ago was it that the current which sucked +her under cast her up again, that there lives not in the whole street any +one who can recall her loss. I tried to find one only the other day, but +all the old people were dead or had moved away, and of the young, who were +very anxious to help me, scarcely one was born at that time. But still the +maelstrom drags down its victims; and far away lies my Danish heath under +the gray October sky, hidden behind the seas. + + + + +THE SLIPPER-MAKER'S FAST + + +Isaac Josephs, slipper-maker, sat up on the fifth floor of his +Allen-street tenement, in the gray of the morning, to finish the task he +had set himself before Yom Kippur. Three days and three nights he had +worked without sleep, almost without taking time to eat, to make ready the +two dozen slippers that were to enable him to fast the fourth day and +night for conscience' sake, and now they were nearly done. As he saw the +end of his task near, he worked faster and faster, while the tenement +slept. + +Three years he had slaved for the sweater, stinted and starved himself, +before he had saved enough to send for his wife and children, awaiting his +summons in the city by the Black Sea. Since they came they had slaved and +starved together; for wages had become steadily less, work more grinding, +and hours longer and later. Still, of that he thought little. They had +known little else, there or here, and they were together now. The past was +dead; the future was their own, even in the Allen-street tenement, toiling +night and day at starvation wages. To-morrow was the feast, their first +Yom Kippur since they had come together again,--Esther, his wife, and Ruth +and little Ben,--the feast when, priest and patriarch of his own house, he +might forget his bondage and be free. Poor little Ben! The hand that +smoothed the soft leather on the last took a tenderer, lingering touch as +he glanced toward the stool where the child had sat watching him work till +his eyes grew small. Brave little Ben, almost a baby yet, but so patient, +so wise, and so strong! + +The deep breathing of the sleeping children reached him from their crib. +He smiled and listened, with the half-finished slipper in his hand. As he +sat thus, a great drowsiness came upon him. He nodded once, twice; his +hands sank into his lap, his head fell forward upon his chest. In the +silence of the morning he slept, worn out with utter weariness. + +He awoke with a guilty start to find the first rays of the dawn struggling +through his window, and his task yet undone. With desperate energy he +seized the unfinished slipper to resume his work. His unsteady hand upset +the little lamp by his side, upon which his burnishing-iron was heating. +The oil blazed up on the floor and ran toward the nearly finished pile of +work. The cloth on the table caught fire. In a fever of terror and +excitement, the slipper-maker caught it in his hands, wrung it, and tore +at it to smother the flames. His hands were burned, but what of that? The +slippers, the slippers! If they were burned, it was ruin. There would be +no Yom Kippur, no feast of Atonement, no fast--rather, no end of it; +starvation for him and his. + +He beat the fire with his hands and trampled it with his feet as it burned +and spread on the floor. His hair and his beard caught fire. With a +despairing shriek he gave it up and fell before the precious slippers, +barring the way of the flames to them with his body. + +The shriek woke his wife. She sprang out of bed, snatched up a blanket, +and threw it upon the fire. It went out, was smothered under the blanket. +The slipper-maker sat up, panting and grateful. His Yom Kippur was saved. + +The tenement awoke to hear of the fire in the morning, when all Jewtown +was stirring with preparations for the feast. The slipper-maker's wife was +setting the house to rights for the holiday then. Two half-naked children +played about her knees, asking eager questions about it. Asked if her +husband had often to work so hard, and what he made by it, she shrugged +her shoulders and said: "The rent and a crust." + +And yet all this labor and effort to enable him to fast one day according +to the old dispensation, when all the rest of the days he fasted according +to the new! + + + + +PAOLO'S AWAKENING + + +Paolo sat cross-legged on his bench, stitching away for dear life. He +pursed his lips and screwed up his mouth into all sorts of odd shapes with +the effort, for it was an effort. He was only eight, and you would +scarcely have imagined him over six, as he sat there sewing like a real +little tailor; only Paolo knew but one seam, and that a hard one. Yet he +held the needle and felt the edge with it in quite a grown-up way, and +pulled the thread just as far as his short arm would reach. His mother sat +on a stool by the window, where she could help him when he got into a +snarl,--as he did once in a while, in spite of all he could do,--or when +the needle had to be threaded. Then she dropped her own sewing, and, +patting him on the head, said he was a good boy. + +Paolo felt very proud and big then, that he was able to help his mother, +and he worked even more carefully and faithfully than before, so that the +boss should find no fault. The shouts of the boys in the block, playing +duck-on-a-rock down in the street, came in through the open window, and he +laughed as he heard them. He did not envy them, though he liked well +enough to romp with the others. His was a sunny temper, content with what +came; besides, his supper was at stake, and Paolo had a good appetite. +They were in sober earnest working for dear life--Paolo and his mother. + +"Pants" for the sweater in Stanton street was what they were making; +little knickerbockers for boys of Paolo's own age. "Twelve pants for ten +cents," he said, counting on his fingers. The mother brought them once a +week--a big bundle which she carried home on her head--to have the buttons +put on, fourteen on each pair, the bottoms turned up, and a ribbon sewed +fast to the back seam inside. That was called finishing. When work was +brisk--and it was not always so since there had been such frequent strikes +in Stanton street--they could together make the rent-money, and even more, +as Paolo was learning and getting a stronger grip on the needle week by +week. The rent was six dollars a month for a dingy basement room, in which +it was twilight even on the brightest days, and a dark little cubbyhole, +where it was always midnight, and where there was just room for a bed of +old boards, no more. In there slept Paolo with his uncle; his mother made +her bed on the floor of the "kitchen," as they called it. + +The three made the family. There used to be four; but one stormy night in +winter Paolo's father had not come home. The uncle came alone, and the +story he told made the poor home in the basement darker and drearier for +many a day than it had yet been. The two men worked together for a padrone +on the scows. They were in the crew that went out that day to the +dumping-ground, far outside the harbor. It was a dangerous journey in a +rough sea. The half-frozen Italians clung to the great heaps like so many +frightened flies, when the waves rose and tossed the unwieldy scows about, +bumping one against the other, though they were strung out in a long row +behind the tug, quite a distance apart. One sea washed entirely over the +last scow and nearly upset it. When it floated even again, two of the +crew were missing, one of them Paolo's father. They had been washed away +and lost, miles from shore. No one ever saw them again. + +The widow's tears flowed for her dead husband, whom she could not even see +laid in a grave which the priest had blessed. The good father spoke to her +of the sea as a vast God's-acre, over which the storms are forever +chanting anthems in his praise to whom the secrets of its depths are +revealed; but she thought of it only as the cruel destroyer that had +robbed her of her husband, and her tears fell faster. Paolo cried, too: +partly because his mother cried; partly, if the truth must be told, +because he was not to have a ride to the cemetery in the splendid coach. +Giuseppe Salvatore, in the corner house, had never ceased talking of the +ride he had when his father died, the year before. Pietro and Jim went +along, too, and rode all the way behind the hearse with black plumes. It +was a sore subject with Paolo, for he was in school that day. + +And then he and his mother dried their tears and went to work. Henceforth +there was to be little else for them. The luxury of grief is not among the +few luxuries which Mott-street tenements afford. Paolo's life, after +that, was lived mainly with the pants on his hard bench in the rear +tenement. His routine of work was varied by the household duties, which he +shared with his mother. There were the meals to get, few and plain as they +were. Paolo was the cook, and not infrequently, when a building was being +torn down in the neighborhood, he furnished the fuel as well. Those were +his off days, when he put the needle away and foraged with the other +children, dragging old beams and carrying burdens far beyond his years. + +The truant officer never found his way to Paolo's tenement to discover +that he could neither read nor write, and, what was more, would probably +never learn. It would have been of little use, for the public schools +thereabouts were crowded, and Paolo could not have got into one of them if +he had tried. The teacher from the Industrial School, which he had +attended for one brief season while his father was alive, called at long +intervals, and brought him once a plant, which he set out in his mother's +window-garden and nursed carefully ever after. The "garden" was contained +within an old starch-box, which had its place on the window-sill since +the policeman had ordered the fire-escape to be cleared. It was a +kitchen-garden with vegetables, and was almost all the green there was in +the landscape. From one or two other windows in the yard there peeped +tufts of green; but of trees there was none in sight--nothing but the bare +clothes-poles with their pulley-lines stretching from every window. + +Beside the cemetery plot in the next block there was not an open spot or +breathing-place, certainly not a playground, within reach of that great +teeming slum that harbored more than a hundred thousand persons, young and +old. Even the graveyard was shut in by a high brick wall, so that a +glimpse of the greensward over the old mounds was to be caught only +through the spiked iron gates, the key to which was lost, or by standing +on tiptoe and craning one's neck. The dead there were of more account, +though they had been forgotten these many years, than the living children +who gazed so wistfully upon the little paradise through the barred gates, +and were chased by the policeman when he came that way. Something like +this thought was in Paolo's mind when he stood at sunset and peered in at +the golden rays falling athwart the green, but he did not know it. Paolo +was not a philosopher, but he loved beauty and beautiful things, and was +conscious of a great hunger which there was nothing in his narrow world to +satisfy. + +Certainly not in the tenement. It was old and rickety and wretched, in +keeping with the slum of which it formed a part. The whitewash was peeling +off the walls, the stairs were patched, and the door-step long since worn +entirely away. It was hard to be decent in such a place, but the widow did +the best she could. Her rooms were as neat as the general dilapidation +would permit. On the shelf where the old clock stood, flanked by the best +crockery, most of it cracked and yellow with age, there was red and green +paper cut in scallops very nicely. Garlic and onions hung in strings over +the stove, and the red peppers that grew in the starch-box at the window +gave quite a cheerful appearance to the room. In the corner, under a cheap +print of the Virgin Mary with the Child, a small night-light in a blue +glass was always kept burning. It was a kind of illumination in honor of +the Mother of God, through which the widow's devout nature found +expression. Paolo always looked upon it as a very solemn show. When he +said his prayers, the sweet, patient eyes in the picture seemed to watch +him with a mild look that made him turn over and go to sleep with a sigh +of contentment. He felt then that he had not been altogether bad, and that +he was quite safe in their keeping. + +Yet Paolo's life was not wholly without its bright spots. Far from it. +There were the occasional trips to the dump with Uncle Pasquale's dinner, +where there was always sport to be had in chasing the rats that overran +the place, fighting for the scraps and bones the trimmers had rescued from +the scows. There were so many of them, and so bold were they, that an old +Italian who could no longer dig was employed to sit on a bale of rags and +throw things at them, lest they carry off the whole establishment. When he +hit one, the rest squealed and scampered away; but they were back again in +a minute, and the old man had his hands full pretty nearly all the time. +Paolo thought that his was a glorious job, as any boy might, and hoped +that he would soon be old, too, and as important. And then the men at the +cage--a great wire crate into which the rags from the ash-barrels were +stuffed, to be plunged into the river, where the tide ran through them +and carried some of the loose dirt away. That was called washing the rags. +To Paolo it was the most exciting thing in the world. What if some day the +crate should bring up a fish, a real fish, from the river? When he thought +of it, he wished that he might be sitting forever on that string-piece, +fishing with the rag-cage, particularly when he was tired of stitching and +turning over, a whole long day. + +Besides, there were the real holidays, when there was a marriage, a +christening, or a funeral in the tenement, particularly when a baby died +whose father belonged to one of the many benefit societies. A brass band +was the proper thing then, and the whole block took a vacation to follow +the music and the white hearse out of their ward into the next. But the +chief of all the holidays came once a year, when the feast of St. +Rocco--the patron saint of the village where Paolo's parents had +lived--was celebrated. Then a really beautiful altar was erected at one +end of the yard, with lights and pictures on it. The rear fire-escapes in +the whole row were decked with sheets, and made into handsome +balconies,--reserved seats, as it were,--on which the tenants sat and +enjoyed it. A band in gorgeous uniforms played three whole days in the +yard, and the men in their holiday clothes stepped up, bowed, and crossed +themselves, and laid their gifts on the plate which St. Rocco's namesake, +the saloon-keeper in the block, who had got up the celebration, had put +there for them. In the evening they set off great strings of fire-crackers +in the street, in the saint's honor, until the police interfered once and +forbade that. Those were great days for Paolo always. + +But the fun Paolo loved best of all was when he could get in a corner by +himself, with no one to disturb him, and build castles and things out of +some abandoned clay or mortar, or wet sand if there was nothing better. +The plastic material took strange shapes of beauty under his hands. It was +as if life had been somehow breathed into it by his touch, and it ordered +itself as none of the other boys could make it. His fingers were tipped +with genius, but he did not know it, for his work was only for the hour. +He destroyed it as soon as it was made, to try for something better. What +he had made never satisfied him--one of the surest proofs that he was +capable of great things, had he only known it. But, as I said, he did +not. + +The teacher from the Industrial School came upon him one day, sitting in +the corner by himself, and breathing life into the mud. She stood and +watched him awhile, unseen, getting interested, almost excited, as he +worked on. As for Paolo, he was solving the problem that had eluded him so +long, and had eyes or thought for nothing else. As his fingers ran over +the soft clay, the needle, the hard bench, the pants, even the sweater +himself, vanished out of his sight, out of his life, and he thought only +of the beautiful things he was fashioning to express the longing in his +soul, which nothing mortal could shape. Then, suddenly, seeing and +despairing, he dashed it to pieces, and came back to earth and to the +tenement. + +But not to the pants and the sweater. What the teacher had seen that day +had set her to thinking, and her visit resulted in a great change for +Paolo. She called at night and had a long talk with his mother and uncle +through the medium of the priest, who interpreted when they got to a hard +place. Uncle Pasquale took but little part in the conversation. He sat by +and nodded most of the time, assured by the presence of the priest that +it was all right. The widow cried a good deal, and went more than once to +take a look at the boy, lying snugly tucked in his bed in the inner room, +quite unconscious of the weighty matters that were being decided +concerning him. She came back the last time drying her eyes, and laid both +her hands in the hand of the teacher. She nodded twice and smiled through +her tears, and the bargain was made. Paolo's slavery was at an end. + +His friend came the next day and took him away, dressed up in his best +clothes, to a large school where there were many children, not of his own +people, and where he was received kindly. There dawned that day a new life +for Paolo, for in the afternoon trays of modeling-clay were brought in, +and the children were told to mold in it objects that were set before +them. Paolo's teacher stood by, and nodded approvingly as his little +fingers played so deftly with the clay, his face all lighted up with joy +at this strange kind of a school-lesson. + +After that he had a new and faithful friend, and, as he worked away, +putting his whole young soul into the tasks that filled it with radiant +hope, other friends, rich and powerful, found him out in his slum. They +brought better-paying work for his mother than sewing pants for the +sweater, and Uncle Pasquale abandoned the scows to become a porter in a +big shipping-house on the West Side. The little family moved out of the +old home into a better tenement, though not far away. Paolo's loyal heart +clung to the neighborhood where he had played and dreamed as a child, and +he wanted it to share in his good fortune, now that it had come. As the +days passed, the neighbors who had known him as little Paolo came to speak +of him as one who some day would be a great artist and make them all +proud. He laughed at that, and said that the first bust he would hew in +marble should be that of his patient, faithful mother; and with that he +gave her a little hug, and danced out of the room, leaving her to look +after him with glistening eyes, brimming over with happiness. + +But Paolo's dream was to have another awakening. The years passed and +brought their changes. In the manly youth who came forward as his name was +called in the academy, and stood modestly at the desk to receive his +diploma, few would have recognized the little ragamuffin who had dragged +bundles of fire-wood to the rookery in the alley, and carried Uncle +Pasquale's dinner-pail to the dump. But the audience gathered to witness +the commencement exercises knew it all, and greeted him with a hearty +welcome that recalled his early struggles and his hard-won success. It was +Paolo's day of triumph. The class honors and the medal were his. The bust +that had won both stood in the hall crowned with laurel--an Italian +peasant woman, with sweet, gentle face, in which there lingered the +memories of the patient eyes that had lulled the child to sleep in the old +days in the alley. His teacher spoke to him, spoke of him, with pride in +voice and glance; spoke tenderly of his old mother of the tenement, of his +faithful work, of the loyal manhood that ever is the soul and badge of +true genius. As he bade him welcome to the fellowship of artists who in +him honored the best and noblest in their own aspirations, the emotion of +the audience found voice once more. Paolo, flushed, his eyes filled with +happy tears, stumbled out, he knew not how, with the coveted parchment in +his hand. + +Home to his mother! It was the one thought in his mind as he walked +toward the big bridge to cross to the city of his home--to tell her of his +joy, of his success. Soon she would no longer be poor. The day of hardship +was over. He could work now and earn money, much money, and the world +would know and honor Paolo's mother as it had honored him. As he walked +through the foggy winter day toward the river, where delayed throngs +jostled one another at the bridge entrance, he thought with grateful heart +of the friends who had smoothed the way for him. Ah, not for long the fog +and slush! The medal carried with it a traveling stipend, and soon the +sunlight of his native land for him and her. He should hear the surf wash +on the shingly beach and in the deep grottoes of which she had sung to him +when a child. Had he not promised her this? And had they not many a time +laughed for very joy at the prospect, the two together? + +He picked his way up the crowded stairs, carefully guarding the precious +roll. The crush was even greater than usual. There had been +delay--something wrong with the cable; but a train was just waiting, and +he hurried on board with the rest, little heeding what became of him so +long as the diploma was safe. The train rolled out on the bridge, with +Paolo wedged in the crowd on the platform of the last car, holding the +paper high over his head, where it was sheltered safe from the fog and the +rain and the crush. + +Another train backed up, received its load of cross humanity, and vanished +in the mist. The damp gray curtain had barely closed behind it, and the +impatient throng was fretting at a further delay, when consternation +spread in the bridge-house. Word had come up from the track that something +had happened. Trains were stalled all along the route. While the dread and +uncertainty grew, a messenger ran up, out of breath. There had been a +collision. The last train had run into the one preceding it, in the fog. +One was killed, others were injured. Doctors and ambulances were wanted. + +They came with the police, and by and by the partly wrecked train was +hauled up to the platform. When the wounded had been taken to the +hospital, they bore from the train the body of a youth, clutching yet in +his hand a torn, blood-stained paper, tied about with a purple ribbon. It +was Paolo. The awakening had come. Brighter skies than those of sunny +Italy had dawned upon him in the gloom and terror of the great crash. +Paolo was at home, waiting for his mother. + + + + +THE LITTLE DOLLAR'S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY + + +"It is too bad," said Mrs. Lee, and she put down the magazine in which she +had been reading of the poor children in the tenements of the great city +that know little of Christmas joys; "no Christmas tree! One of them shall +have one, at any rate. I think this will buy it, and it is so handy to +send. Nobody would know that there was money in the letter." And she +inclosed a coupon in a letter to a professor, a friend in the city, who, +she knew, would have no trouble in finding the child, and had it mailed at +once. Mrs. Lee was a widow whose not too great income was derived from the +interest on some four-per-cent. government bonds which represented the +savings of her husband's life of toil, that was none the less hard +because it was spent in a counting-room and not with shovel and spade. +The coupon looked for all the world like a dollar bill, except that it was +so small that a baby's hand could easily cover it. The United States, the +printing on it said, would pay on demand to the bearer one dollar; and +there was a number on it, just as on a full-grown dollar, that was the +number of the bond from which it had been cut. + +The letter traveled all night, and was tossed and sorted and bunched at +the end of its journey in the great gray beehive that never sleeps, day or +night, and where half the tears and joys of the land, including this +account of the little dollar, are checked off unceasingly as first-class +matter or second or third, as the case may be. In the morning it was laid, +none the worse for its journey, at the professor's breakfast-plate. The +professor was a kindly man, and he smiled as he read it. "To procure one +small Christmas tree for a poor tenement," was its errand. + +"Little dollar," he said, "I think I know where you are needed." And he +made a note in his book. There were other notes there that made him smile +again as he saw them. They had names set opposite them. One about a +Noah's ark was marked "Vivi." That was the baby; and there was one about a +doll's carriage that had the words "Katie, sure," set over against it. The +professor eyed the list in mock dismay. + +"How ever will I do it?" he sighed, as he put on his hat. + +"Well, you will have to get Santa Claus to help you, John," said his wife, +buttoning his greatcoat about him. "And, mercy! the duckses' babies! don't +forget them, whatever you do. The baby has been talking about nothing else +since he saw them at the store, the old duck and the two ducklings on +wheels. You know them, John?" + +But the professor was gone, repeating to himself as he went down the +garden walk: "The duckses' babies, indeed!" He chuckled as he said it, why +I cannot tell. He was very particular about his grammar, was the +professor, ordinarily. Perhaps it was because it was Christmas eve. + +Down-town went the professor; but instead of going with the crowd that was +setting toward Santa Claus's headquarters, in the big Broadway store, he +turned off into a quieter street, leading west. It took him to a narrow +thoroughfare, with five-story tenements frowning on either side, where +the people he met were not so well dressed as those he had left behind, +and did not seem to be in such a hurry of joyful anticipation of the +holiday. Into one of the tenements he went, and, groping his way through a +pitch-dark hall, came to a door 'way back, the last one to the left, at +which he knocked. An expectant voice said, "Come in," and the professor +pushed open the door. + +The room was very small, very stuffy, and very dark, so dark that a +smoking kerosene-lamp that burned on a table next the stove hardly lighted +it at all, though it was broad day. A big, unshaven man, who sat on the +bed, rose when he saw the visitor, and stood uncomfortably shifting his +feet and avoiding the professor's eye. The latter's glance was serious, +though not unkind, as he asked the woman with the baby if he had found no +work yet. + +"No," she said, anxiously coming to the rescue, "not yet; he was waitin' +for a recommend." But Johnnie had earned two dollars running errands, and, +now there was a big fall of snow, his father might get a job of shoveling. +The woman's face was worried, yet there was a cheerful note in her voice +that somehow made the place seem less discouraging than it was. The baby +she nursed was not much larger than a middle-sized doll. Its little face +looked thin and wan. It had been very sick, she explained, but the doctor +said it was mending now. That was good, said the professor, and patted one +of the bigger children on the head. + +There were six of them, of all sizes, from Johnnie, who could run errands, +down. They were busy fixing up a Christmas tree that half filled the room, +though it was of the very smallest. Yes, it was a real Christmas tree, +left over from the Sunday-school stock, and it was dressed up at that. +Pictures from the colored supplement of a Sunday newspaper hung and stood +on every branch, and three pieces of colored glass, suspended on threads +that shone in the smoky lamplight, lent color and real beauty to the show. +The children were greatly tickled. + +"John put it up," said the mother, by way of explanation, as the professor +eyed it approvingly. "There ain't nothing to eat on it. If there was, it +wouldn't be there a minute. The childer be always a-searchin' in it." + +"But there must be, or else it isn't a real Christmas tree," said the +professor, and brought out the little dollar. "This is a dollar which a +friend gave me for the children's Christmas, and she sends her love with +it. Now, you buy them some things and a few candles, Mrs. Ferguson, and +then a good supper for the rest of the family. Good night, and a Merry +Christmas to you. I think myself the baby is getting better." It had just +opened its eyes and laughed at the tree. + +The professor was not very far on his way toward keeping his appointment +with Santa Claus before Mrs. Ferguson was at the grocery laying in her +dinner. A dollar goes a long way when it is the only one in the house; and +when she had everything, including two cents' worth of flitter-gold, four +apples, and five candles for the tree, the grocer footed up her bill on +the bag that held her potatoes--ninety-eight cents. Mrs. Ferguson gave him +the little dollar. + +"What's this?" said the grocer, his fat smile turning cold as he laid a +restraining hand on the full basket. "That ain't no good." + +"It's a dollar, ain't it?" said the woman, in alarm. "It's all right. I +know the man that give it to me." + +"It ain't all right in this store," said the grocer, sternly. "Put them +things back. I want none o' that." + +The woman's eyes filled with tears as she slowly took the lid off the +basket and lifted out the precious bag of potatoes. They were waiting for +that dinner at home. The children were even then camping on the door-step +to take her in to the tree in triumph. And now-- + +For the second time a restraining hand was laid upon her basket; but this +time it was not the grocer's. A gentleman who had come in to order a +Christmas turkey had overheard the conversation, and had seen the strange +bill. + +"It is all right," he said to the grocer. "Give it to me. Here is a dollar +bill for it of the kind you know. If all your groceries were as honest as +this bill, Mr. Schmidt, it would be a pleasure to trade with you. Don't be +afraid to trust Uncle Sam where you see his promise to pay." + +The gentleman held the door open for Mrs. Ferguson, and heard the shout of +the delegation awaiting her on the stoop as he went down the street. + +"I wonder where that came from, now," he mused. "Coupons in Bedford +street! I suppose somebody sent it to the woman for a Christmas gift. +Hello! Here are old Thomas and Snowflake. I wonder if it wouldn't surprise +her old stomach if I gave her a Christmas gift of oats. If only the shock +doesn't kill her! Thomas! Oh, Thomas!" + +The old man thus hailed stopped and awaited the gentleman's coming. He was +a cartman who did odd jobs through the ward, thus picking up a living for +himself and the white horse, which the boys had dubbed Snowflake in a +spirit of fun. They were a well-matched old pair, Thomas and his horse. +One was not more decrepit than the other. There was a tradition along the +docks, where Thomas found a job now and then, and Snowflake an occasional +straw to lunch on, that they were of an age, but this was denied by +Thomas. + +"See here," said the gentleman, as he caught up with them; "I want +Snowflake to keep Christmas, Thomas. Take this and buy him a bag of oats. +And give it to him carefully, do you hear?--not all at once, Thomas. He +isn't used to it." + +"Gee whizz!" said the old man, rubbing his eyes with his cap, as his +friend passed out of sight, "oats fer Christmas! G'lang, Snowflake; yer +in luck." + +The feed-man put on his spectacles and looked Thomas over at the strange +order. Then he scanned the little dollar, first on one side, then on the +other. + +"Never seed one like him," he said. "'Pears to me he is mighty short. Wait +till I send round to the hockshop. He'll know, if anybody." + +The man at the pawnshop did not need a second look. "Why, of course," he +said, and handed a dollar bill over the counter. "Old Thomas, did you say? +Well, I am blamed if the old man ain't got a stocking after all. They're a +sly pair, he and Snowflake." + +Business was brisk that day at the pawnshop. The door-bell tinkled early +and late, and the stock on the shelves grew. Bundle was added to bundle. +It had been a hard winter so far. Among the callers in the early afternoon +was a young girl in a gingham dress and without other covering, who stood +timidly at the counter and asked for three dollars on a watch, a keepsake +evidently, which she was loath to part with. Perhaps it was the last +glimpse of brighter days. The pawnbroker was doubtful; it was not worth +so much. She pleaded hard, while he compared the number of the movement +with a list sent in from Police Headquarters. + +"Two," he said decisively at last, snapping the case shut--"two or +nothing." The girl handed over the watch with a troubled sigh. He made out +a ticket and gave it to her with a handful of silver change. + +Was it the sigh and her evident distress, or was it the little dollar? As +she turned to go, he called her back: + +"Here, it is Christmas!" he said. "I'll run the risk." And he added the +coupon to the little heap. + +The girl looked at it and at him questioningly. + +"It is all right," he said; "you can take it; I'm running short of change. +Bring it back if they won't take it. I'm good for it." Uncle Sam had +achieved a backer. + +In Grand street the holiday crowds jammed every store in their eager hunt +for bargains. In one of them, at the knit-goods counter, stood the girl +from the pawnshop, picking out a thick, warm shawl. She hesitated between +a gray and a maroon-colored one, and held them up to the light. + +"For you?" asked the salesgirl, thinking to aid her. She glanced at her +thin dress and shivering form as she said it. + +"No," said the girl; "for mother; she is poorly and needs it." She chose +the gray, and gave the salesgirl her handful of money. + +The girl gave back the coupon. + +"They don't go," she said; "give me another, please." + +"But I haven't got another," said the girl, looking apprehensively at the +shawl. "The--Mr. Feeney said it was all right. Take it to the desk, +please, and ask." + +The salesgirl took the bill and the shawl, and went to the desk. She came +back, almost immediately, with the storekeeper, who looked sharply at the +customer and noted the number of the coupon. + +"It is all right," he said, satisfied apparently by the inspection; "a +little unusual, only. We don't see many of them. Can I help you, miss?" +And he attended her to the door. + +In the street there was even more of a Christmas show going on than in the +stores. Peddlers of toys, of mottos, of candles, and of knickknacks of +every description stood in rows along the curb, and were driving a lively +trade. Their push-carts were decorated with fir-branches--even whole +Christmas trees. One held a whole cargo of Santa Clauses in a bower of +green, each one with a cedar-bush in his folded arms, as a soldier carries +his gun. The lights were blazing out in the stores, and the hucksters' +torches were flaring at the corners. There was Christmas in the very air +and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been a very busy day. He +thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the +brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had +paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow said: "Merry Christmas, Mr. +Stein! Here's yer paper." + +It was the newsboy who left the evening papers at the door every night. +The storekeeper knew him, and something about the struggle they had at +home to keep the roof over their heads. Mike was a kind of protege of his. +He had helped to get him his route. + +"Wait a bit, Mike," he said. "You'll be wanting your Christmas from me. +Here's a dollar. It's just like yourself: it is small, but it is all +right. You take it home and have a good time." + +Was it the message with which it had been sent forth from far away in the +country, or what was it? Whatever it was, it was just impossible for the +little dollar to lie still in the pocket while there was want to be +relieved, mouths to be filled, or Christmas lights to be lit. It just +couldn't, and it didn't. + +Mike stopped around the corner of Allen street, and gave three whoops +expressive of his approval of Mr. Stein; having done which, he sidled up +to the first lighted window out of range to examine his gift. His +enthusiasm changed to open-mouthed astonishment as he saw the little +dollar. His jaw fell. Mike was not much of a scholar, and could not make +out the inscription on the coupon; but he had heard of shin-plasters as +something they "had in the war," and he took this to be some sort of a +ten-cent piece. The policeman on the block might tell. Just now he and +Mike were hunk. They had made up a little difference they'd had, and if +any one would know, the cop surely would. And off he went in search of +him. + +Mr. McCarthy pulled off his gloves, put his club under his arm, and +studied the little dollar with contracted brow. He shook his head as he +handed it back, and rendered the opinion that it was "some dom swindle +that's ag'in' the law." He advised Mike to take it back to Mr. Stein, and +added, as he prodded him in an entirely friendly manner in the ribs with +his locust, that if it had been the week before he might have "run him in" +for having the thing in his possession. As it happened, Mr. Stein was busy +and not to be seen, and Mike went home between hope and fear, with his +doubtful prize. + +There was a crowd at the door of the tenement, and Mike saw, before he had +reached it, running, that it clustered about an ambulance that was backed +up to the sidewalk. Just as he pushed his way through the throng it drove +off, its clanging gong scattering the people right and left. A little girl +sat weeping on the top step of the stoop. To her Mike turned for +information. + +"Susie, what's up?" he asked, confronting her with his armful of papers. +"Who's got hurted?" + +"It's papa," sobbed the girl. "He ain't hurted. He's sick, and he was took +that bad he had to go, an' to-morrer is Christmas, an'--oh, Mike!" + +It is not the fashion of Essex street to slop over. Mike didn't. He just +set his mouth to a whistle and took a turn down the hall to think. Susie +was his chum. There were seven in her flat; in his only four, including +two that made wages. He came back from his trip with his mind made up. + +"Suse," he said, "come on in. You take this, Suse, see! an' let the kids +have their Christmas. Mr. Stein give it to me. It's a little one, but if +it ain't all right I'll take it back, and get one that is good. Go on, +now, Suse, you hear?" And he was gone. + +There was a Christmas tree that night in Susie's flat, with candles and +apples and shining gold on, but the little dollar did not pay for it. That +rested securely in the purse of the charity visitor who had come that +afternoon, just at the right time, as it proved. She had heard the story +of Mike and his sacrifice, and had herself given the children a one-dollar +bill for the coupon. They had their Christmas, and a joyful one, too, for +the lady went up to the hospital and brought back word that Susie's father +would be all right with rest and care, which he was now getting. Mike came +in and helped them "sack" the tree when the lady was gone. He gave three +more whoops for Mr. Stein, three for the lady, and three for the hospital +doctor to even things up. Essex street was all right that night. + + * * * * * + +"Do you know, professor," said that learned man's wife, when, after +supper, he had settled down in his easy-chair to admire the Noah's ark and +the duckses' babies and the rest, all of which had arrived safely by +express ahead of him and were waiting to be detailed to their appropriate +stockings while the children slept--"do you know, I heard such a story of +a little newsboy to-day. It was at the meeting of our district charity +committee this evening. Miss Linder, our visitor, came right from the +house." And she told the story of Mike and Susie. + +"And I just got the little dollar bill to keep. Here it is." She took the +coupon out of her purse and passed it to her husband. + +"Eh! what?" said the professor, adjusting his spectacles and reading the +number. "If here isn't my little dollar come back to me! Why, where have +you been, little one? I left you in Bedford street this morning, and here +you come by way of Essex. Well, I declare!" And he told his wife how he +had received it in a letter in the morning. + +"John," she said, with a sudden impulse,--she didn't know, and neither +did he, that it was the charm of the little dollar that was working +again,--"John, I guess it is a sin to stop it. Jones's children won't have +any Christmas tree, because they can't afford it. He told me so this +morning when he fixed the furnace. And the baby is sick. Let us give them +the little dollar. He is here in the kitchen now." + +And they did; and the Joneses, and I don't know how many others, had a +Merry Christmas because of the blessed little dollar that carried +Christmas cheer and good luck wherever it went. For all I know, it may be +going yet. Certainly it is a sin to stop it, and if any one has locked it +up without knowing that he locked up the Christmas dollar, let him start +it right out again. He can tell it easily enough. If he just looks at the +number, that's the one. + + + + +A PROPOSAL ON THE ELEVATED + + +The sleeper on the 3:35 A. M. elevated train from the Harlem bridge was +awake for once. The sleeper is the last car in the train, and has its own +set that snores nightly in the same seats, grunts with the fixed +inhospitality of the commuter at the intrusion of a stranger, and is on +terms with Conrad, the German conductor, who knows each one of his +passengers and wakes him up at his station. The sleeper is unique. It is +run for the benefit of those who ride in it, not for the company's. It not +only puts them off properly; it waits for them, if they are not there. The +conductor knows that they will come. They are men, mostly, with small +homes beyond the bridge, whose work takes them down-town to the markets, +the Post-office, and the busy marts of the city long before cock-crow. +The day begins in New York at all hours. + +Usually the sleeper is all that its name implies, but this morning it was +as far from it as could be. A party of young people, fresh from a +neighborhood hop, had come on board and filled the rear end of the car. +Their feet tripped yet to the dance, and snatches of the latest waltz +floated through the train between peals of laughter and little girlish +shrieks. The regulars glared, discontented, in strange seats, unable to go +to sleep. Only the railroad yardmen dropped off promptly as they came in. +Theirs was the shortest ride, and they could least afford to lose time. +Two old Irishmen, flanked by their dinner-pails, gravely discussed the +Henry George campaign. + +Across the passage sat a group of three apart--a young man, a girl, and a +little elderly woman with lines of care and hard work in her patient face. +She guarded carefully three umbrellas, a very old and faded one, and two +that were new and of silk, which she held in her lap, though it had not +rained for a month. He was a likely young fellow, tall and straight, with +the thoughtful eye of a student. His dark hair fell nearly to his +shoulders, and his coat had a foreign cut. The girl was a typical child +of the city, slight and graceful of form, dressed in good taste, and with +a bright, winning face. The two chatted confidentially together, forgetful +of all else, while mama, between them, nodded sleepily in her seat. + +A sudden burst of white light flooded the car. + +"Hey! Ninety-ninth street!" called the conductor, and rattled the door. +The railroad men tumbled out pell-mell, all but one. Conrad shook him, and +he went out, mechanically blinking his eyes. + +"Eighty-ninth next!" from the doorway. + +The laughter at the rear end of the car had died out. The young people, in +a quieter mood, were humming a popular love-song. Presently above the rest +rose a clear tenor: + + Oh, promise me that some day you and I + Will take our love together to some sky + Where we can be alone and faith renew-- + +The clatter of the train as it flew over a switch drowned the rest. When +the last wheel had banged upon the frog, I heard the young student's +voice, in the soft accents of southern Europe: + +"Wenn ich in Wien war--" He was telling her of his home and his people in +the language of his childhood. I glanced across. She sat listening with +kindling eyes. Mama slumbered sweetly; her worn old hands clutched +unconsciously the umbrellas in her lap. The two Irishmen, having settled +the campaign, had dropped to sleep, too. In the crowded car the two were +alone. His hand sought hers and met it half-way. + +"Forty-seventh!" There was a clatter of tin cans below. The contingent of +milkmen scrambled out of their seats and off for the depot. In the lull +that followed their going, the tenor rose from the last seat: + + Those first sweet violets of early spring, + Which come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing + Of love unspeakable that is to be, + Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me! + +The two young people faced each other. He had thrown his hat upon the seat +beside him and held her hand fast, gesticulating with his free hand as he +spoke rapidly, eloquently, eagerly of his prospects and his hopes. Her own +toyed nervously with his coat-lapel, twisting and twirling a button as he +went on. What he said might have been heard to the other end of the car, +had there been anybody to listen. He was to live here always; his uncle +would open a business in New York, of which he was to have charge, when he +had learned to know the country and its people. It would not be long now, +and then--and then-- + +"Twenty-third street!" + +There was a long stop after the levy for the ferries had left. The +conductor went out on the platform and consulted with the ticket-chopper. +He was scrutinizing his watch for the second time, when the faint jingle +of an east-bound car was heard. + +"Here she comes!" said the ticket-chopper. A shout, and a man bounded up +the steps, three at a time. It was an engineer who, to make connection +with his locomotive at Chatham Square, must catch that train. + +"Hullo, Conrad! Nearly missed you," he said as he jumped on the car, +breathless. + +"All right, Jack." And the conductor jerked the bell-rope. "You made it, +though." The train sped on. + +Two lives, heretofore running apart, were hastening to a union. The lovers +had seen nothing, heard nothing but each other. His eyes burned as hers +met his and fell before them. His head bent lower until his face almost +touched hers. His dark hair lay against her blond curls. The ostrich +feather on her hat swept his shoulder. + +"Moegtest Du mich haben?" he entreated. + +Above the grinding of the wheels as the train slowed up for the station a +block ahead, pleaded the tenor: + + Oh, promise me that you will take my hand, + The most unworthy in this lonely land-- + +Did she speak? Her face was hidden, but the blond curls moved with a nod +so slight that only a lover's eye could see it. He seized her disengaged +hand. The conductor stuck his head into the car. + +"Fourteenth street!" + +A squad of stout, florid men with butchers' aprons started for the door. +The girl arose hastily. + +"Mama!" she called, "steh' auf! Es ist Fourteenth street." + +The little woman woke up, gathered the umbrellas in her arms, and bustled +after the marketmen, her daughter leading the way. He sat as one dreaming. + +"Ach!" he sighed, and ran his hand through his dark hair, "so rasch!" + +And he went out after them. + + + + +DEATH COMES TO CAT ALLEY + + +The dead-wagon stopped at the mouth of Cat Alley. Its coming made a +commotion among the children in the block, and the Chief of Police looked +out of his window across the street, his attention arrested by the noise. +He saw a little pine coffin carried into the alley under the arm of the +driver, a shoal of ragged children trailing behind. After a while the +driver carried it out again, shoved it in the wagon, where there were +other boxes like it, and, slamming the door, drove off. + +A red-eyed woman watched it down the street until it disappeared around +the corner. Then she wiped her eyes with her apron and went in. + +It was only Mary Welsh's baby that was dead, but to her the alley, never +cheerful on the brightest of days, seemed hopelessly desolate to-day. It +was all she had. Her first baby died in teething. + +Cat Alley is a back-yard illustration of the theory of evolution. The +fittest survive, and the Welsh babies were not among them. It would be +strange if they were. Mike, the father, works in a Crosby-street factory +when he does work. It is necessary to put it that way, for, though he has +not been discharged, he had only one day's work this week and none at all +last week. He gets one dollar a day, and the one dollar he earned these +last two weeks his wife had to draw to pay the doctor with when the baby +was so sick. They have had nothing else coming in, and but for the wages +of Mrs. Welsh's father, who lives with them, there would have been nothing +in the house to eat. + +The baby came three weeks ago, right in the hardest of the hard times. It +was never strong enough to nurse, and the milk bought in Mulberry street +is not for babies to grow on who are not strong enough to stand anything. +Little John never grew at all. He lay upon his pillow this morning as +white and wan and tiny as the day he came into a world that didn't want +him. + +Yesterday, just before he died, he sat upon his grandmother's lap and +laughed and crowed for the first time in his brief life, "just like he was +talkin' to me," said the old woman, with a smile that struggled hard to +keep down a sob. "I suppose it was a sort of inward cramp," she added--a +mother's explanation of baby laugh in Cat Alley. + +The mother laid out the little body on the only table in their room, in +its only little white slip, and covered it with a piece of discarded lace +curtain to keep off the flies. They had no ice, and no money to pay an +undertaker for opening the little grave in Calvary, where their first baby +lay. All night she sat by the improvised bier, her tears dropping +silently. + +When morning came and brought the woman with the broken arm from across +the hall to sit by her, it was sadly evident that the burial of the child +must be hastened. It was not well to look at the little face and the +crossed baby hands, and even the mother saw it. + +"Let the trench take him, in God's name; he has his soul," said the +grandmother, crossing herself devoutly. + +An undertaker had promised to put the baby in the grave in Calvary for +twelve dollars and take two dollars a week until it was paid. But how can +a man raise two dollars a week, with only one coming in in two weeks, and +that gone to the doctor? With a sigh Mike Welsh went for the "lines" that +must smooth its way to the trench in the Potter's Field, and then to Mr. +Blake's for the dead-wagon. It was the hardest walk of his life. + +And so it happened that the dead-wagon halted at Cat Alley and that little +John took his first and last ride. A little cross and a number on the pine +box, cut in the lid with a chisel, and his brief history was closed, with +only the memory of the little life remaining to the Welshes to help them +fight the battle alone. + +In the middle of the night, when the dead-lamp burned dimly at the bottom +of the alley, a policeman brought to Police Headquarters a wailing child, +an outcast found in the area of a Lexington-avenue house by a citizen, who +handed it over to the police. Until its cries were smothered in the police +nursery up-stairs with the ever-ready bottle, they reached the bereaved +mother in Cat Alley and made her tears drop faster. As the dead-wagon +drove away with its load in the morning, Matron Travers came out with the +now sleeping waif in her arms. She, too, was bound for Mr. Blake's. + +The two took their ride on the same boat--the living child, whom no one +wanted, to Randall's Island, to be enlisted with its number in the army of +the city's waifs, strong and able to fight its way; the dead, for whom a +mother's heart yearns, to its place in the great ditch. + + + + +WHY IT HAPPENED + + +Yom Kippur being at hand, all the East Side was undergoing a scrubbing, +the people included. It is part of the religious observance of the chief +Jewish holiday that every worshiper presenting himself at the synagogue to +be cleansed from sin must first have washed his body clean. + +Hence the numerous tenement bath-houses on the East Side are run night and +day in Yom Kippur week to their full capacity. There are so many more +people than tubs that there is no rest for the attendants even in the +small hours of the morning. + +They are not palatial establishments exactly, these _mikwehs_ +(bath-houses). Most of them are in keeping with the tenements that harbor +them; but they fill the bill. One, at 20 Orchard street, has even a +Turkish and a Russian attachment. It is one of the most pretentious. For +thirty-five cents one can be roasted by dry heat or boiled with steam. The +unhappy experience of Jacob Epstein shows that it is even possible to be +boiled literally and in earnest in hot water at the same price. He chose +that way unwittingly, and the choice came near causing a riot. + +Epstein came to the bath-house with a party of friends at 2 A. M., in +quest of a Russian bath. They had been steamed, and were disporting +themselves to their heart's content when the thing befell the tailor. +Epstein is a tailor. He went to get a shower-bath in a pail,--where +Russian baths are got for thirty-five cents they are got partly by hand, +as it were,--and in the dim, religious light of the room, the small +gas-jet struggling ineffectually with the steam and darkness, he mistook +the hot-water faucet for the cold. He found out his mistake when he raised +the pail and poured a flood of boiling water over himself. + +Then his shrieks filled the house. His companions paused in amazement, and +beheld the tailor dancing on one foot and on the other by turns, yelling: + +"Weh! Weh! Ich bin verbrennt!" + +They thought he had gone suddenly mad, and joined in the lamentation, till +one of them saw his skin red and parboiled and raising big blisters. Then +they ran with a common accord for their own cold-water pails, and pursued +him, seeking to dash their contents over him. + +But the tailor, frantic with pain, thought, if he thought at all, that he +was going to be killed, and yelled louder than ever. His companions' +shouts, joined to his, were heard in the street, and there promptly +gathered a wailing throng that echoed the "Weh! Weh!" from within, and +exchanged opinions between their laments as to who was being killed, and +why. + +Policeman Schulem came just in time to prevent a general panic and restore +peace. + +Schulem is a valuable man on the East Side. His name alone is enough. It +signifies peace--peace in the language of Ludlow street. The crowd melted +away, and the tailor was taken to the hospital, bewailing his bad luck. + +The bath-house keeper was an indignant and injured man. His business was +hurt. + +"How did it happen?" he said. "It happened because he is a schlemiehl. +_Teufel!_ he's worse than a schlemiehl; he is a chammer." + +Which accounts for it, of course, and explains everything. + + + + +THE CHRISTENING IN BOTTLE ALLEY + + +All Bottle Alley was bidden to the christening. It being Sunday, when +Mulberry street was wont to adjust its differences over the cards and the +wine-cup, it came "heeled," ready for what might befall. From Tomaso, the +rag-picker in the farthest rear cellar, to the Signor Undertaker, mainstay +and umpire in the varying affairs of life, which had a habit in the Bend +of lapsing suddenly upon his professional domain, they were all there, the +men of Malpete's village. The baby was named for the village saint, so +that it was a kind of communal feast as well. Carmen was there with her +man, and Francisco Cessari. + +If Carmen had any other name, neither Mulberry street nor the alley knew +it. She was Carmen to them when, seven years before, she had taken up +with Francisco, then a young mountaineer straight as the cedar of his +native hills, the breath of which was yet in the songs with which he wooed +her. Whether the priest had blessed their bonds no one knew or asked. The +Bend only knew that one day, after three years during which the Francisco +tenement had been the scene of more than one jealous quarrel, not, it was +whispered, without cause, the mountaineer was missing. He did not come +back. From over the sea the Bend heard, after a while, that he had +reappeared in the old village to claim the sweetheart he had left behind. +In the course of time new arrivals brought the news that Francisco was +married and that they were living happily, as a young couple should. At +the news Mulberry street looked askance at Carmen; but she gave no sign. +By tacit consent, she was the Widow Carmen after that. + +The summers passed. The fourth brought Francisco Cessari, come back to +seek his fortune, with his wife and baby. He greeted old friends +effusively and made cautious inquiries about Carmen. When told that she +had consoled herself with his old rival, Luigi, with whom she was then +living in Bottle Alley, he laughed with a light heart, and took up his +abode within half a dozen doors of the alley. That was but a short time +before the christening at Malpete's. There their paths crossed each other +for the first time since his flight. + +She met him with a smile on her lips, but with hate in her heart. He, +manlike, saw only the smile. The men smoking and drinking in the court +watched them speak apart, saw him, with the laugh that sat so lightly upon +his lips, turn to his wife, sitting by the hydrant with the child, and +heard him say: "Look, Carmen! our baby!" + +The woman bent over it, and, as she did, the little one woke suddenly out +of its sleep and cried out in affright. It was noticed that Carmen smiled +again then, and that the young mother shivered, why she herself could not +have told. Francisco, joining the group at the farther end of the yard, +said carelessly that she had forgotten. They poked fun at him and spoke +Carmen's name loudly, with laughter. + +From the tenement, as they did, came Luigi and asked threateningly who +insulted his wife. They only laughed the more, said he had drunk too much +wine, and, shouldering him out, bade him go look to his woman. He went. +Carmen had witnessed it all from the house. She called him a coward and +goaded him with bitter taunts, until, mad with anger and drink, he went +out in the court once more and shook his fist in the face of Francisco. +They hailed his return with bantering words. Luigi was spoiling for a +fight, they laughed, and would find one before the day was much older. But +suddenly silence fell upon the group. Carmen stood on the step, pale and +cold. She hid something under her apron. + +"Luigi!" she called, and he came to her. She drew from under the apron a +cocked pistol, and, pointing to Francisco, pushed it into his hand. At the +sight the alley was cleared as suddenly as if a tornado had swept through +it. Malpete's guests leaped over fences, dived into cellarways, anywhere +for shelter. The door of the woodshed slammed behind Francisco just as his +old rival reached it. The maddened man tore it open and dragged him out by +the throat. He pinned him against the fence, and leveled the pistol with +frenzied curses. They died on his lips. The face that was turning livid in +his grasp was the face of his boyhood's friend. They had gone to school +together, danced together at the fairs in the old days. They had been +friends--till Carmen came. The muzzle of the weapon fell. + +"Shoot!" said a hard voice behind him. Carmen stood there with face of +stone. She stamped her foot. "Shoot!" she commanded, pointing, relentless, +at the struggling man. "Coward, shoot!" + +Her lover's finger crooked itself upon the trigger. A shriek, wild and +despairing, rang through the alley. A woman ran madly from the house, flew +across the pavement, and fell panting at Carmen's feet. + +"Mother of God! mercy!" she cried, thrusting her babe before the +assassin's weapon. "Jesus Maria! Carmen, the child! He is my husband!" + +No gleam of pity came into the cold eyes. Only hatred, fierce and bitter, +was there. In one swift, sweeping glance she saw it all: the woman fawning +at her feet, the man she hated limp and helpless in the grasp of her +lover. + +"He was mine once," she said, "and he had no mercy." She pushed the baby +aside. "Coward, shoot!" + +The shot was drowned in the shriek, hopeless, despairing, of the widow who +fell upon the body of Francisco as it slipped lifeless from the grasp of +the assassin. The christening party saw Carmen standing over the three +with the same pale smile on her cruel lips. + +For once the Bend did not shield a murderer. The door of the tenement was +shut against him. The women spurned him. The very children spat at him as +he fled to the street. The police took him there. With him they seized +Carmen. She made no attempt to escape. She had bided her time, and it had +come. She had her revenge. To the end of its lurid life Bottle Alley +remembered it as the murder accursed of God. + + + + +IN THE MULBERRY STREET COURT + + +"Conduct unbecoming an officer," read the charge, "in this, to wit, that +the said defendants brought into the station-house, by means to deponent +unknown, on the said Fourth of July, a keg of beer, and, when apprehended, +were consuming the contents of the same." Twenty policemen, comprising the +whole off platoon of the East One Hundred and Fourth street squad, +answered the charge as defendants. They had been caught grouped about a +pot of chowder and the fatal keg in the top-floor dormitory, singing, +"Beer, beer, glorious beer!" Sergeant McNally and Roundsman Stevenson +interrupted the proceedings. + +The commissioner's eyes bulged as, at the call of the complaint clerk, the +twenty marched up and ranged themselves in rows, three deep, before him. + +They took the oath collectively, with a toss and a smack, as if to say, "I +don't care if I do," and told separately and identically the same story, +while the sergeant stared and the commissioner's eyes grew bigger and +rounder. + +Missing his reserves, Sergeant McNally had sent the roundsman in search of +them. He was slow in returning, and the sergeant went on a tour of +inspection himself. He journeyed to the upper region, and there came upon +the party in full swing. Then and there he called the roll. Not one of the +platoon was missing. + +They formed a hollow square around something that looked uncommonly like a +beer-keg. A number of tin growlers stood beside it. The sergeant picked up +one and turned the tap. There was enough left in the keg to barely half +fill it. Seeing that, the platoon followed him down-stairs without a +murmur. + +One by one the twenty took the stand after the sergeant had left it, and +testified without a tremor that they had seen no beer-keg. In fact, the +majority would not know one if they saw it. They were tired and hungry, +having been held in reserve all day, when a pleasant smell assailed their +nostrils. + +Each of the twenty followed his nose independently to the top floor, where +he was surprised to see the rest gathered about a pot of steaming chowder. +He joined the circle and partook of some. It was good. As to beer, he had +seen none and drunk less. There was something there of wood with a brass +handle to it. What it was none of them seemed to know. They were all +shocked at the idea that it might have been a beer-keg. Such things are +forbidden in police stations. + +The sergeant himself could not tell how it could have got in there, while +stoutly maintaining that it was a keg. He scratched his head and concluded +that it might have come over the roof or, somehow, from a building that is +in course of erection next door. The chowder had come in by the main door. +At least, one policeman had seen it carried up-stairs. He had fallen in +behind it immediately. + +When the commissioner had heard this story told exactly twenty times the +platoon fell in and marched off to the elevated station. When he can +decide what punishment to inflict on a policeman who does not know a +beer-keg when he sees it, they all will be fined accordingly, and a +door-man who has served a term as a barkeeper will be sent to the East One +Hundred and Fourth street station to keep the police there out of harm's +way. + + + + +SPOONING IN DYNAMITE ALLEY + + +Dynamite Alley is bereft. Its spring spooning is over. Once more the +growler has the right of way. But what good is it, with Kate Cassidy +hiding in her third floor back, her "steady" hiding from the police, and +Tom Hart laid up in hospital with two of his "slats stove in," all along +of their "spieling"? There will be nothing now to heave a brick at on a +dark night, and no chance for a row for many a day to come. No wonder +Dynamite Alley is out of sorts. + +It got its name from the many rows that traveled in the wake of the +growler out and in at the three-foot gap between brick walls, which was a +garden walk when the front house was young and pansies and spiderwort grew +in the back lot. These many years a tenement has stood there, and as it +grew older and more dilapidated, rows multiplied and grew noisier, until +the explosive name was hooked to the alley by the neighbors, and stuck. It +was long after that that the Cassidys, father and daughter, came to live +in it, and also the Harts. Their coming wrought no appreciable change, +except that it added another and powerful one to the dynamic forces of the +alley--jealousy. Kate is pretty. She is blonde and she is twenty. She +greases plates in a pie bakery in Sullivan street by day, and so earns her +own living. Of course she is a favorite. There isn't a ball going on that +she doesn't attend, or a picnic either. It was at one of them, the last of +the Hounds' balls, that she met George Finnegan. + +There weren't many hours after that when they didn't meet. He made the +alley his headquarters by day and by night. On the morning after the ball +he scandalized it by spooning with Kate from daybreak till nine o'clock. +By the middle of the afternoon he was back again, and all night, till +every one was asleep, he and Kate held the alley by main strength, as it +were, the fact being that when they were in it no one could pass. Their +spooning blocked it, blocked the way of the growler. The alley called it +mean, and trouble began promptly. + +After that things fell by accident out of the windows of the rear tenement +when Kate and George Finnegan were sitting in the doorway. They tried to +reduce the chances of a hit as much as might be by squeezing into the +space of one, at which the alley jeered. Sometimes one of the tenants +would jostle them in the yard and "give lip," in the alley's vernacular, +and Kate would retort with dignity: "Excuse yerself. Ye don't know who yer +talkin' to." + +It had to come to it, and it did. Finnegan had been continuing the siege +since the warm weather set in. He was a good spieler, Kate gave in to +that. But she hadn't taken him for her steady yet, though the alley let on +it thought so. Her steady is away at sea. George evidently thought the +time ripe for cutting him out. His spooning ran into the small hours of +the morning, night after night. + +It was near 1 A. M. that morning when Thomas Hart came down to the yard, +stumbled over the pair in the doorway, and made remarks. As he passed out +of sight, George, the swain, said: + +"If he gives any more lip when he comes back, I'll swing on him." And +just then Hart came back. + +He did "give lip," and George "swung on him." It took him in the eye, and +he fell. Then he jumped on him and stove in his slats. Kate ran. + +After all, George Finnegan was not game. When Hart's wife came down to see +who groaned in the yard, and, finding her husband, let out those +blood-curdling yells which made Kate Cassidy hide in an ice-wagon half-way +down the block, he deserted Kate and ran. + +Mistress Hart's yells brought Policeman Devery. He didn't ask whence they +came, but made straight for the alley. Mistress Hart was there, vowing +vengeance upon "Kate Cassidy's feller," who had done up her man. She vowed +vengeance in such a loud voice that the alley trembled with joyful +excitement, while Kate, down the street, crept farther into the ice-wagon, +trembling also, but with fear. Kate is not a fighter. She is too +good-looking for that. + +The policeman found her there and escorted her home, past the Hart door, +after he had sent Mister Hart to the hospital, where the doctors fixed his +slats (ribs, that is to say). Mistress Hart, outnumbered, fell back and +organized an ambush, vowing that she would lay Kate out yet. Discovering +that the Floods, next door, had connived at her enemy's descent by way of +their fire-escape, she included them in the siege by prompt declaration of +war upon the whole floor. + +The cause of it all, safe in the bakery, suspended the greasing of +pie-plates long enough to give her version of the row: + +"We were a-sittin' there, quiet an' peaceful like," she said, "when Mister +Hart came along an' made remarks, an' George he give it back to him good. +'Oh,' says he, 'you ain't a thousand; yer only one,' an' he went. When he +came back, George he stood up, an' Mister Hart he says to me: 'Ye're not +an up-stairs girl; you can be called down,' an' George he up an' struck +him. I didn't wait fer no more. I just run out of the alley. Is he hurted +bad? + +"Who is George? He is me feller. I met him at the Hounds' ball in Germania +Hall, an' he treated me same as you would any lady. We danced together an' +had a couple of drinks, an' he took me home. George ain't me steady, you +know. Me regular he is to sea. See? + +"I didn't see nothin'. I hid in the wagon while I heard him callin' +names. I wasn't goin' in till Mr. Deevy [Policeman Devery] he came along. +I told him I was scart, and he said: 'Oh, come along.' But I was dead +scart. + +"Say, you won't forget to come to our picnic, the 'Pie-Girls,' will you? +It'll be great." + + + + +HEROES WHO FIGHT FIRE + + +Thirteen years have passed since, but it is all to me as if it had +happened yesterday--the clanging of the fire-bells, the hoarse shouts of +the firemen, the wild rush and terror of the streets; then the great hush +that fell upon the crowd; the sea of upturned faces, with the fire-glow +upon it; and up there, against the background of black smoke that poured +from roof and attic, the boy clinging to the narrow ledge, so far up that +it seemed humanly impossible that help could ever come. + +But even then it was coming. Up from the street, while the crew of the +truck company were laboring with the heavy extension-ladder that at its +longest stretch was many feet too short, crept four men upon long, slender +poles with cross-bars, iron-hooked at the end. Standing in one window, +they reached up and thrust the hook through the next one above, then +mounted a story higher. Again the crash of glass, and again the dizzy +ascent. Straight up the wall they crept, looking like human flies on the +ceiling, and clinging as close, never resting, reaching one recess only to +set out for the next; nearer and nearer in the race for life, until but a +single span separated the foremost from the boy. And now the iron hook +fell at his feet, and the fireman stood upon the step with the rescued lad +in his arms, just as the pent-up flame burst lurid from the attic window, +reaching with impotent fury for its prey. The next moment they were safe +upon the great ladder waiting to receive them below. + +Then such a shout went up! Men fell on each other's necks, and cried and +laughed at once. Strangers slapped one another on the back, with +glistening faces, shook hands, and behaved generally like men gone +suddenly mad. Women wept in the street. The driver of a car stalled in the +crowd, who had stood through it all speechless, clutching the reins, +whipped his horses into a gallop, and drove away yelling like a Comanche, +to relieve his feelings. The boy and his rescuer were carried across the +street without any one knowing how. Policemen forgot their dignity, and +shouted with the rest. Fire, peril, terror, and loss were alike forgotten +in the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. + +Fireman John Binns was made captain of his crew, and the Bennett medal was +pinned on his coat on the next parade-day. The burning of the St. George +Flats was the first opportunity New York had of witnessing a rescue with +the scaling-ladders that form such an essential part of the equipment of +the fire-fighters to-day. Since then there have been many such. In the +company in which John Binns was a private of the second grade, two others +to-day bear the medal for brave deeds: the foreman, Daniel J. Meagher, and +Private Martin M. Coleman, whose name has been seven times inscribed on +the roll of honor for twice that number of rescues, any one of which +stamped him as a man among men, a real hero. And Hook-and-Ladder No. 3 is +not specially distinguished among the fire-crews of the metropolis for +daring and courage. New-Yorkers are justly proud of their firemen. Take it +all in all, there is not, I think, to be found anywhere a body of men as +fearless, as brave, and as efficient as the Fire Brigade of New York. I +have known it well for twenty years, and I speak from a personal +acquaintance with very many of its men, and from a professional knowledge +of more daring feats, more hairbreadth escapes, and more brilliant work, +than could well be recorded between the covers of this book. + +Indeed, it is hard, in recording any, to make a choice, and to avoid +giving the impression that recklessness is a chief quality in the +fireman's make-up. That would not be true. His life is too full of real +peril for him to expose it recklessly--that is to say, needlessly. From +the time when he leaves his quarters in answer to an alarm until he +returns, he takes a risk that may at any moment set him face to face with +death in its most cruel form. He needs nothing so much as a clear head; +and nothing is prized so highly, nothing puts him so surely in the line of +promotion; for as he advances in rank and responsibility, the lives of +others, as well as his own, come to depend on his judgment. The act of +conspicuous daring which the world applauds is oftenest to the fireman a +matter of simple duty that had to be done in that way because there was no +other. Nor is it always, or even usually, the hardest duty, as he sees +it. It came easy to him because he is an athlete trained to do just such +things, and because once for all it is easier to risk one's life in the +open, in the sight of one's fellows, than to face death alone, caught like +a rat in a trap. That is the real peril which he knows too well; but of +that the public hears only when he has fought his last fight, and lost. + +How literally our every-day security--of which we think, if we think of it +at all, as a mere matter of course--is built upon the supreme sacrifice of +these devoted men, we realize at long intervals, when a disaster occurs +such as the one in which Chief Bresnan and Foreman Rooney[2] lost their +lives three years ago. They were crushed to death under the great +water-tank in a Twenty-fourth street factory that was on fire. Its +supports had been burned away. An examination that was then made of the +water-tanks in the city discovered eight thousand that were either wholly +unsupported, except by the roof-beams, or propped on timbers, and +therefore a direct menace, not only to the firemen when they were called +there, but daily to those living under them. It is not pleasant to add +that the department's just demand for a law that should compel landlords +either to build tanks on the wall or on iron supports has not been heeded +yet; but that is, unhappily, an old story. + + [2] Rooney wore the Bennett medal for saving the life of a woman at + the disastrous fire in the old "World" building, on January 31, 1882. + The ladder upon which he stood was too short. Riding upon the topmost + rung, he bade the woman jump, and caught and held her as she fell. + +Seventeen years ago the collapse of a Broadway building during a fire +convinced the community that stone pillars were unsafe as supports. The +fire was in the basement, and the firemen had turned the hose on. When the +water struck the hot granite columns, they cracked and fell, and the +building fell with them. There were upon the roof at the time a dozen men +of the crew of Truck Company No. 1, chopping holes for smoke-vents. The +majority clung to the parapet, and hung there till rescued. Two went down +into the furnace from which the flames shot up twenty feet when the roof +broke. One, Fireman Thomas J. Dougherty, was a wearer of the Bennett +medal, too. His foreman answers on parade-day, when his name is called, +that he "died on the field of duty." These, at all events, did not die in +vain. Stone columns are not now used as supports for buildings in New +York. + +So one might go on quoting the perils of the firemen as so many steps +forward for the better protection of the rest of us. It was the burning of +the St. George Flats, and more recently of the Manhattan Bank, in which a +dozen men were disabled, that stamped the average fire-proof construction +as faulty and largely delusive. One might even go further, and say that +the fireman's risk increases in the ratio of our progress or convenience. +The water-tanks came with the very high buildings, which in themselves +offer problems to the fire-fighters that have not yet been solved. The +very air-shafts that were hailed as the first advance in tenement-house +building added enormously to the fireman's work and risk, as well as to +the risk of every one dwelling under their roofs, by acting as so many +huge chimneys that carried the fire to the windows opening upon them in +every story. More than half of all the fires in New York occur in +tenement-houses. When the Tenement-House Commission of 1894 sat in this +city, considering means of making them safer and better, it received the +most practical help and advice from the firemen, especially from Chief +Bresnan, whose death occurred only a few days after he had testified as a +witness. The recommendations upon which he insisted are now part of the +general tenement-house law. + +Chief Bresnan died leading his men against the enemy. In the Fire +Department the battalion chief leads; he does not direct operations from a +safe position in the rear. Perhaps this is one of the secrets of the +indomitable spirit of his men. Whatever hardships they have to endure, his +is the first and the biggest share. Next in line comes the captain, or +foreman, as he is called. Of the six who were caught in the fatal trap of +the water-tank, four hewed their way out with axes through an intervening +partition. They were of the ranks. The two who were killed were the chief +and Assistant Foreman John L. Rooney, who was that day in charge of his +company, Foreman Shaw having just been promoted to Bresnan's rank. It was +less than a year after that Chief Shaw was killed in a fire in Mercer +street. I think I could reckon up as many as five or six battalion chiefs +who have died in that way, leading their men. They would not deserve the +name if they did not follow such leaders, no matter where the road led. + +In the chief's quarters of the Fourteenth Battalion up in Wakefield there +sits to-day a man, still young in years, who in his maimed body but +unbroken spirit bears such testimony to the quality of New York's +fire-fighters as the brave Bresnan and his comrade did in their death. +Thomas J. Ahearn led his company as captain to a fire in the Consolidated +Gas-Works on the East Side. He found one of the buildings ablaze. Far +toward the rear, at the end of a narrow lane, around which the fire +swirled and arched itself, white and wicked, lay the body of a man--dead, +said the panic-stricken crowd. His sufferings had been brief. A worse fate +threatened all unless the fire was quickly put out. There were underground +reservoirs of naphtha--the ground was honeycombed with them--that might +explode at any moment with the fire raging overhead. The peril was instant +and great. Captain Ahearn looked at the body, and saw it stir. The +watch-chain upon the man's vest rose and fell as if he were breathing. + +"He is not dead," he said. "I am going to get that man out." And he crept +down the lane of fire, unmindful of the hidden dangers, seeing only the +man who was perishing. The flames scorched him; they blocked his way; but +he came through alive, and brought out his man, so badly hurt, however, +that he died in the hospital that day. The Board of Fire Commissioners +gave Ahearn the medal for bravery, and made him chief. Within a year he +all but lost his life in a gallant attempt to save the life of a child +that was supposed to be penned in a burning Rivington-street tenement. +Chief Ahearn's quarters were near by, and he was first on the ground. A +desperate man confronted him in the hallway. "My child! my child!" he +cried, and wrung his hands. "Save him! He is in there." He pointed to the +back room. It was black with smoke. In the front room the fire was raging. +Crawling on hands and feet, the chief made his way into the room the man +had pointed out. He groped under the bed, and in it, but found no child +there. Satisfied that it had escaped, he started to return. The smoke had +grown so thick that breathing was no longer possible, even at the floor. +The chief drew his coat over his head, and made a dash for the hall door. +He reached it only to find that the spring-lock had snapped shut. The +door-knob burned his hand. The fire burst through from the front room, and +seared his face. With a last effort, he kicked the lower panel out of the +door, and put his head through. And then he knew no more. + +His men found him lying so when they came looking for him. The coat was +burned off his back, and of his hat only the wire rim remained. He lay ten +months in the hospital, and came out deaf and wrecked physically. At the +age of forty-five the board retired him to the quiet of the country +district, with this formal resolution, that did the board more credit than +it could do him. It is the only one of its kind upon the department books: + + _Resolved_, That in assigning Battalion Chief Thomas J. Ahearn to + command the Fourteenth Battalion, in the newly annexed district, the + Board deems it proper to express the sense of obligation felt by the + Board and all good citizens for the brilliant and meritorious services + of Chief Ahearn in the discharge of duty which will always serve as an + example and an inspiration to our uniformed force, and to express the + hope that his future years of service at a less arduous post may be as + comfortable and pleasant as his former years have been brilliant and + honorable. + +Firemen are athletes as a matter of course. They have to be, or they could +not hold their places for a week, even if they could get into them at +all. The mere handling of the scaling-ladders, which, light though they +seem, weigh from sixteen to forty pounds, requires unusual strength. No +particular skill is needed. A man need only have steady nerve, and the +strength to raise the long pole by its narrow end, and jam the iron hook +through a window which he cannot see but knows is there. Once through, the +teeth in the hook and the man's weight upon the ladder hold it safe, and +there is no real danger unless he loses his head. Against that possibility +the severe drill in the school of instruction is the barrier. Any one to +whom climbing at dizzy heights, or doing the hundred and one things of +peril to ordinary men which firemen are constantly called upon to do, +causes the least discomfort, is rejected as unfit. About five per cent. of +all appointees are eliminated by the ladder test, and never get beyond +their probation service. A certain smaller percentage takes itself out +through loss of "nerve" generally. The first experience of a room full of +smothering smoke, with the fire roaring overhead, is generally sufficient +to convince the timid that the service is not for him. No cowards are +dismissed from the department, for the reason that none get into it. + +The notion that there is a life-saving corps apart from the general body +of firemen rests upon a mistake. They are one. Every fireman nowadays must +pass muster at life-saving drill, must climb to the top of any building on +his scaling-ladder, slide down with a rescued comrade, or jump without +hesitation from the third story into the life-net spread below. By such +training the men are fitted for their work, and the occasion comes soon +that puts them to the test. It came to Daniel J. Meagher, of whom I spoke +as foreman of Hook-and-Ladder Company No. 3, when, in the midnight hour, a +woman hung from the fifth-story window of a burning building, and the +longest ladder at hand fell short ten or a dozen feet of reaching her. The +boldest man in the crew had vainly attempted to get to her, and in the +effort had sprained his foot. There were no scaling-ladders then. Meagher +ordered the rest to plant the ladder on the stoop and hold it out from the +building so that he might reach the very topmost step. Balanced thus where +the slightest tremor might have caused ladder and all to crash to the +ground, he bade the woman drop, and receiving her in his arms, carried her +down safe. + +No one but an athlete with muscles and nerves of steel could have +performed such a feat, or that which made Dennis Ryer, of the crew of +Engine No. 36, famous three years ago. That was on Seventh Avenue at One +Hundred and Thirty-fourth street. A flat was on fire, and the tenants had +fled; but one, a woman, bethought herself of her parrot, and went back for +it, to find escape by the stairs cut off when she again attempted to reach +the street. With the parrot-cage, she appeared at the top-floor window, +framed in smoke, calling for help. Again there was no ladder to reach. +There were neighbors on the roof with a rope, but the woman was too +frightened to use it herself. Dennis Ryer made it fast about his own +waist, and bade the others let him down, and hold on for life. He drew the +woman out, but she was heavy, and it was all they could do above to hold +them. To pull them over the cornice was out of the question. Upon the +highest step of the ladder, many feet below, stood Ryer's father, himself +a fireman of another company, and saw his boy's peril. + +"Hold fast, Dennis!" he shouted. "If you fall I will catch you." Had they +let go, all three would have been killed. The young fireman saw the +danger, and the one door of escape, with a glance. The window before which +he swung, half smothered by the smoke that belched from it, was the last +in the house. Just beyond, in the window of the adjoining house, was +safety, if he could but reach it. Putting out a foot, he kicked the wall, +and made himself swing toward it, once, twice, bending his body to add to +the motion. The third time he all but passed it, and took a mighty grip on +the affrighted woman, shouting into her ear to loose her own hold at the +same time. As they passed the window on the fourth trip, he thrust her +through sash and all with a supreme effort, and himself followed on the +next rebound, while the street, that was black with a surging multitude, +rang with a mighty cheer. Old Washington Ryer, on his ladder, threw his +cap in the air, and cheered louder than all the rest. But the parrot was +dead--frightened to death, very likely, or smothered. + +I once asked Fireman Martin M. Coleman, after one of those exhibitions of +coolness and courage that thrust him constantly upon the notice of the +newspaper man, what he thought of when he stood upon the ladder, with this +thing before him to do that might mean life or death the next moment. He +looked at me in some perplexity. + +"Think?" he said slowly. "Why, I don't think. There ain't any time to. If +I'd stopped to think, them five people would 'a' been burnt. No; I don't +think of danger. If it is anything, it is that--up there--I am boss. The +rest are not in it. Only I wish," he added, rubbing his arm ruefully at +the recollection, "that she hadn't fainted. It's hard when they faint. +They're just so much dead-weight. We get no help at all from them heavy +women." + +And that was all I could get out of him. I never had much better luck with +Chief Benjamin A. Gicquel, who is the oldest wearer of the Bennett medal, +just as Coleman is the youngest, or the one who received it last. He was +willing enough to talk about the science of putting out fires; of +Department Chief Bonner, the "man of few words," who, he thinks, has +mastered the art beyond any man living; of the back-draft, and almost +anything else pertaining to the business: but when I insisted upon his +telling me the story of the rescue of the Schaefer family of five from a +burning tenement down in Cherry street, in which he earned his rank and +reward, he laughed a good-humored little laugh, and said that it was "the +old man"--meaning Schaefer--who should have had the medal. "It was a grand +thing in him to let the little ones come out first." I have sometimes +wished that firemen were not so modest. It would be much easier, if not so +satisfactory, to record their gallant deeds. But I am not sure that it is, +after all, modesty so much as a wholly different point of view. It is +business with them, the work of their lives. The one feeling that is +allowed to rise beyond this is the feeling of exultation in the face of +peril conquered by courage, which Coleman expressed. On the ladder he was +boss! It was the fancy of a masterful man, and none but a masterful man +would have got upon the ladder at all. + +Doubtless there is something in the spectacular side of it that attracts. +It would be strange if there were not. There is everything in a fireman's +existence to encourage it. Day and night he leads a kind of hair-trigger +life, that feeds naturally upon excitement, even if only as a relief from +the irksome idling in quarters. Try as they may to give him enough to do +there, the time hangs heavily upon his hands, keyed up as he is, and need +be, to adventurous deeds at shortest notice. He falls to grumbling and +quarreling, and the necessity becomes imperative of holding him to the +strictest discipline, under which he chafes impatiently. "They nag like a +lot of old women," said Department Chief Bonner to me once; "and the best +at a fire are often the worst in the house." In the midst of it all the +gong strikes a familiar signal. The horses' hoofs thunder on the planks; +with a leap the men go down the shining pole to the main floor, all else +forgotten; and with crash and clatter and bang the heavy engine swings +into the street, and races away on a wild gallop, leaving a trail of fire +behind. + +Presently the crowd sees rubber-coated, helmeted men with pipe and hose go +through a window from which such dense smoke pours forth that it seems +incredible that a human being could breathe it for a second and live. The +hose is dragged squirming over the sill, where shortly a red-eyed face +with disheveled hair appears, to shout something hoarsely to those below, +which they understand. Then, unless some emergency arise, the spectacular +part is over. Could the citizen whose heart beat as he watched them enter +see them now, he would see grimy shapes, very unlike the fine-looking men +who but just now had roused his admiration, crawling on hands and knees, +with their noses close to the floor if the smoke be very dense, ever +pointing the "pipe" in the direction where the enemy is expected to +appear. The fire is the enemy; but he can fight that, once he reaches it, +with something of a chance. The smoke kills without giving him a show to +fight back. Long practice toughens him against it, until he learns the +trick of "eating the smoke." He can breathe where a candle goes out for +want of oxygen. By holding his mouth close to the nozzle, he gets what +little air the stream of water brings with it and sets free; and within a +few inches of the floor there is nearly always a current of air. In the +last emergency, there is the hose that he can follow out. The smoke always +is his worst enemy. It lays ambushes for him which he can suspect, but not +ward off. He tries to, by opening vents in the roof as soon as the +pipe-men are in place and ready; but in spite of all precautions, he is +often surprised by the dreaded back-draft. + +I remember standing in front of a burning Broadway store, one night, when +the back-draft blew out the whole front without warning. It is simply an +explosion of gases generated by the heat, which must have vent, and go +upon the line of least resistance, up, or down, or in a circle--it does +not much matter, so that they go. It swept shutters, windows, and all, +across Broadway, in this instance, like so much chaff, littering the +street with heavy rolls of cloth. The crash was like a fearful clap of +thunder. Men were knocked down on the opposite sidewalk, and two teams of +engine horses, used to almost any kind of happening at a fire, ran away in +a wild panic. It was a blast of that kind that threw down and severely +injured Battalion Chief M'Gill, one of the oldest and most experienced of +firemen, at a fire on Broadway in March, 1890; and it has cost more brave +men's lives than the fiercest fire that ever raged. The "puff," as the +firemen call it, comes suddenly, and from the corner where it is least +expected. It is dread of that, and of getting overcome by the smoke +generally, which makes firemen go always in couples or more together. They +never lose sight of one another for an instant, if they can help it. If +they do, they go at once in search of the lost. The delay of a moment may +prove fatal to him. + +Lieutenant Samuel Banta of the Franklin-street company, discovering the +pipe that had just been held by Fireman Quinn at a Park-Place fire +thrashing aimlessly about, looked about him, and saw Quinn floating on his +face in the cellar, which was running full of water. He had been overcome, +had tumbled in, and was then drowning, with the fire raging above and +alongside. Banta jumped in after him, and endeavored to get his head above +water. While thus occupied, he glanced up, and saw the preliminary puff of +the back-draft bearing down upon him. The lieutenant dived at once, and +tried to pull his unhappy pipe-man with him; but he struggled and worked +himself loose. From under the water Banta held up a hand, and it was +burnt. He held up the other, and knew that the puff had passed when it +came back unsinged. Then he brought Quinn out with him; but it was too +late. Caught between flood and fire, he had no chance. When I asked the +lieutenant about it, he replied simply: "The man in charge of the hose +fell into the cellar. I got him out; that was all." "But how?" I +persisted. "Why, I went down through the cellar," said the lieutenant, +smiling, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. + +It was this same Banta who, when Fireman David H. Soden had been buried +under the falling walls of a Pell-street house, crept through a gap in the +basement wall, in among the fallen timbers, and, in imminent peril of his +own life, worked there with a hand-saw two long hours to free his comrade, +while the firemen held the severed timbers up with ropes to give him a +chance. Repeatedly, while he was at work, his clothes caught fire, and it +was necessary to keep playing the hose upon him. But he brought out his +man safe and sound, and, for the twentieth time perhaps, had his name +recorded on the roll of merit. His comrades tell how, at one of the +twenty, the fall of a building in Hall Place had left a workman lying on a +shaky piece of wall, helpless, with a broken leg. It could not bear the +weight of a ladder, and it seemed certain death to attempt to reach him, +when Banta, running up a slanting beam that still hung to its fastening +with one end, leaped from perch to perch upon the wall, where hardly a +goat could have found footing, reached his man, and brought him down +slung over his shoulder, and swearing at him like a trooper lest the peril +of the descent cause him to lose his nerve and with it the lives of both. + +Firemen dread cellar fires more than any other kind, and with reason. It +is difficult to make a vent for the smoke, and the danger of drowning is +added to that of being smothered when they get fairly to work. If a man is +lost to sight or touch of his fellows there for ever so brief a while, +there are five chances to one that he will not again be seen alive. Then +there ensues such a fight as the city witnessed only last May at the +burning of a Chambers-street paper-warehouse. It was fought out deep +underground, with fire and flood, freezing cold and poisonous gases, +leagued against Chief Bonner's forces. Next door was a cold-storage house, +whence the cold. Something that was burning--I do not know that it was +ever found out just what--gave forth the smothering fumes before which the +firemen went down in squads. File after file staggered out into the +street, blackened and gasping, to drop there. The near engine-house was +made into a hospital, where the senseless men were laid on straw hastily +spread. Ambulance surgeons worked over them. As fast as they were brought +to, they went back to bear a hand in the work of rescue. In delirium they +fought to return. Down in the depths one of their number was lying +helpless. + +There is nothing finer in the records of glorious war than the story of +the struggle these brave fellows kept up for hours against tremendous odds +for the rescue of their comrade. Time after time they went down into the +pit of deadly smoke, only to fail. Lieutenant Banta tried twice and +failed. Fireman King was pulled up senseless, and having been brought +round, went down once more. Fireman Sheridan returned empty-handed, more +dead than alive. John O'Connell, of Truck No. 1, at length succeeded in +reaching his comrade and tying a rope about him, while from above they +drenched both with water to keep them from roasting. They drew up a dying +man; but John G. Reinhardt dead is more potent than a whole crew of +firemen alive. The story of the fight for his life will long be told in +the engine-houses of New York, and will nerve the Kings and the Sheridans +and the O'Connells of another day to like deeds. + +How firemen manage to hear in their sleep the right signal, while they +sleep right through any number that concerns the next company, not them, +is one of the mysteries that will probably always remain unsolved. "I +don't know," said Department Chief Bonner, when I asked him once. "I guess +it is the same way with everybody. You hear what you have to hear. There +is a gong right over my bed at home, and I hear every stroke of it, but I +don't hear the baby. My wife hears the baby if it as much as stirs in its +crib, but not the gong." Very likely he is right. The fact that the +fireman can hear and count correctly the strokes of the gong in his sleep +has meant life to many hundreds, and no end of property saved; for it is +in the early moments of a fire that it can be dealt with summarily. I +recall one instance in which the failure to interpret a signal properly, +or the accident of taking a wrong road to the fire, cost a life, and, +singularly enough, that of the wife of one of the firemen who answered the +alarm. It was all so pitiful, so tragic, that it has left an indelible +impression on my mind. It was the fire at which Patrick F. Lucas earned +the medal for that year by snatching five persons out of the very jaws of +death in a Dominick-street tenement. The alarm-signal rang in the +hook-and-ladder company's quarters in North Moore street, but was either +misunderstood or they made a wrong start. Instead of turning east to West +Broadway, the truck turned west, and went galloping toward Greenwich +street. It was only a few seconds, the time that was lost, but it was +enough. Fireman Murphy's heart went up in his throat when, from his seat +on the truck as it flew toward the fire, he saw that it was his own home +that was burning. Up on the fifth floor he found his wife penned in. She +died in his arms as he carried her to the fire-escape. The fire, for once, +had won in the race for a life. + +While I am writing this, the morning paper that is left at my door tells +the story of a fireman who, laid up with a broken ankle in an up-town +hospital, jumped out of bed, forgetting his injury, when the alarm-gong +rang his signal, and tried to go to the fire. The fire-alarms are rung in +the hospitals for the information of the ambulance corps. The crippled +fireman heard the signal at the dead of night, and, only half awake, +jumped out of bed, groped about for the sliding-pole, and, getting hold of +the bedpost, tried to slide down that. The plaster cast about his ankle +was broken, the old injury reopened, and he was seriously hurt. + +New York firemen have a proud saying that they "fight fire from the +inside." It means unhesitating courage, prompt sacrifice, and victory +gained, all in one. The saving of life that gets into the newspapers and +wins applause is done, of necessity, largely from the outside, but is none +the less perilous for that. Sometimes, though rarely, it has in its +intense gravity almost a comic tinge, as at one of the infrequent fires in +the Mulberry Bend some years ago. The Italians believe, with reason, that +there is bad luck in fire, therefore do not insure, and have few fires. Of +this one the Romolo family shrine was the cause. The lamp upon it +exploded, and the tenement was ablaze when the firemen came. The policeman +on the beat had tried to save Mrs. Romolo; but she clung to the bedpost, +and refused to go without the rest of the family. So he seized the baby, +and rolled down the burning stairs with it, his beard and coat afire. The +only way out was shut off when the engines arrived. The Romolos shrieked +at the top-floor window, threatening to throw themselves out. There was +not a moment to be lost. Lying flat on the roof, with their heads over +the cornice, the firemen fished the two children out of the window with +their hooks. The ladders were run up in time for the father and mother. + +The readiness of resource no less than the intrepid courage and athletic +skill of the rescuers evoke enthusiastic admiration. Two instances stand +out in my recollection among many. Of one Fireman Howe, who had on more +than one occasion signally distinguished himself, was the hero. It +happened on the morning of January 2, 1896, when the Geneva Club on +Lexington Avenue was burned out. Fireman Howe drove Hook-and-Ladder No. 7 +to the fire that morning, to find two boarders at the third-story window, +hemmed in by flames which already showed behind them. Followed by Fireman +Pearl, he ran up in the adjoining building, and presently appeared at a +window on the third floor, separated from the one occupied by the two men +by a blank wall-space of perhaps four or five feet. It offered no other +footing than a rusty hook, but it was enough. Astride of the window-sill, +with one foot upon the hook, the other anchored inside by his comrade, his +body stretched at full length along the wall, Howe was able to reach the +two, and to swing them, one after the other, through his own window to +safety. As the second went through, the crew in the street below set up a +cheer that raised the sleeping echoes of the street. Howe looked down, +nodded, and took a firmer grip; and that instant came his great peril. + +A third face had appeared at the window just as the fire swept through. +Howe shut his eyes to shield them, and braced himself on the hook for a +last effort. It broke; and the man, frightened out of his wits, threw +himself headlong from the window upon Howe's neck. + +The fireman's form bent and swayed. His comrade within felt the strain, +and dug his heels into the boards. He was almost dragged out of the +window, but held on with a supreme effort. Just as he thought the end had +come, he felt the strain ease up. The ladder had reached Howe in the very +nick of time, and given him support. But in his desperate effort to save +himself and the other, he slammed his burden back over his shoulder with +such force that he went crashing through, carrying sash and all, and fell, +cut and bruised, but safe, upon Fireman Pearl, who groveled upon the +floor, prostrate and panting. + +The other case New York remembers yet with a shudder. It was known long +in the department for the bravest act ever done by a fireman--an act that +earned for Foreman William Quirk the medal for 1888. He was next in +command of Engine No. 22 when, on a March morning, the Elberon Flats in +East Eighty-fifth street were burned. The Westlake family, mother, +daughter, and two sons, were in the fifth story, helpless and hopeless. +Quirk ran up on the scaling-ladder to the fourth floor, hung it on the +sill above, and got the boys and their sister down. But the flames burst +from the floor below, cutting off their retreat. Quirk's captain had seen +the danger, and shouted to him to turn back while it was yet time. But +Quirk had no intention of turning back. He measured the distance and the +risk with a look, saw the crowd tugging frantically at the life-net under +the window, and bade them jump, one by one. They jumped, and were saved. +Last of all, he jumped himself, after a vain effort to save the mother. +She was already dead. He caught her gown, but the body slipped from his +grasp and fell crashing to the street fifty feet below. He himself was +hurt in his jump. The volunteers who held the net looked up, and were +frightened; they let go their grip, and the plucky fireman broke a leg +and hurt his back in the fall. + +"Like a cry of fire in the night" appeals to the dullest imagination with +a sense of sudden fear. There have been nights in this city when the cry +swelled into such a clamor of terror and despair as to make the stoutest +heart quake--when it seemed to those who had to do with putting out fires +as if the end of all things was at hand. Such a night was that of the +burning of "Cohnfeld's Folly," in Bleecker street, March 17, 1891. The +burning of the big store involved the destruction, wholly or in part, of +ten surrounding buildings, and called out nearly one third of the city's +Fire Department. While the fire raged as yet unchecked,--while walls were +falling with shock and crash of thunder, the streets full of galloping +engines and ambulances carrying injured firemen, with clangor of urgent +gongs; while insurance patrolmen were being smothered in buildings a block +away by the smoke that hung like a pall over the city,--another disastrous +fire broke out in the dry-goods district, and three alarm-calls came from +West Seventeenth street. Nine other fires were signaled, and before +morning all the crews that were left were summoned to Allen street, where +four persons were burned to death in a tenement. Those are the wild nights +that try firemen's souls, and never yet found them wanting. During the +great blizzard, when the streets were impassable and the system crippled, +the fires in the city averaged nine a day,--forty-five for the five days +from March 12 to 16,--and not one of them got beyond control. The fire +commissioners put on record their pride in the achievement, as well they +might. It was something to be proud of, indeed. + +Such a night promised to be the one when the Manhattan Bank and the State +Bank across the street on the other Broadway corner, with three or four +other buildings, were burned, and when the ominous "two nines" were rung, +calling nine tenths of the whole force below Central Park to the +threatened quarter. But, happily, the promise was not fully kept. The +supposed fire-proof bank was crumbling in the withering blast like so much +paper; the cry went up that whole companies of firemen were perishing +within it; and the alarm had reached Police Headquarters in the next +block, where they were counting the election returns. Thirteen firemen, +including the deputy department chief, a battalion chief, and two +captains, limped or were carried from the burning bank, more or less +injured. The stone steps of the fire-proof stairs had fallen with them or +upon them. Their imperiled comrades, whose escape was cut off, slid down +hose and scaling-ladders. The last, the crew of Engine Company No. 3, had +reached the street, and all were thought to be out, when the assistant +foreman, Daniel Fitzmaurice, appeared at a fifth-story window. The fire +beating against it drove him away, but he found footing at another, next +adjoining the building on the north. To reach him from below, with the +whole building ablaze, was impossible. Other escape there was none, save a +cornice ledge extending half-way to his window; but it was too narrow to +afford foothold. + +Then an extraordinary scene was enacted in the sight of thousands. In the +other building were a number of fire-insurance patrolmen, covering goods +to protect them against water damage. One of these--Patrolman John +Rush--stepped out on the ledge, and edged his way toward a spur of stone +that projected from the bank building. Behind followed Patrolman Barnett, +steadying him and pressing him close against the wall. Behind him was +another, with still another holding on within the room, where the living +chain was anchored by all the rest. Rush, at the end of the ledge, leaned +over and gave Fitzmaurice his hand. The fireman grasped it, and edged out +upon the spur. Barnett, holding the rescuer fast, gave him what he +needed--something to cling to. Once he was on the ledge, the chain wound +itself up as it had unwound itself. Slowly, inch by inch, it crept back, +each man pushing the next flat against the wall with might and main, while +the multitudes in the street held their breath, and the very engines +stopped panting, until all were safe. + +John Rush is a fireman to-day, a member of "Thirty-three's" crew in Great +Jones street. He was an insurance patrolman then. The organization is +unofficial. Its main purpose is to save property; but in the face of the +emergency firemen and patrolmen become one body, obeying one head. + +That the spirit which has made New York's Fire Department great equally +animates its commercial brother has been shown more than once, but never +better than at the memorable fire in the Hotel Royal, which cost so many +lives. No account of heroic life-saving at fires, even as fragmentary as +this, could pass by the marvelous feat, or feats, of Sergeant (now +Captain) John R. Vaughan on that February morning six years ago. The alarm +rang in patrol station No. 3 at 3:20 o'clock on Sunday morning. Sergeant +Vaughan, hastening to the fire with his men, found the whole five-story +hotel ablaze from roof to cellar. The fire had shot up the elevator shaft, +round which the stairs ran, and from the first had made escape impossible. +Men and women were jumping and hanging from windows. One, falling from a +great height, came within an inch of killing the sergeant as he tried to +enter the building. Darting up into the next house, and leaning out of the +window with his whole body, while one of the crew hung on to one leg,--as +Fireman Pearl did to Howe's in the splendid rescue at the Geneva Club,--he +took a half-hitch with the other in some electric-light wires that ran up +the wall, trusting to his rubber boots to protect him from the current, +and made of his body a living bridge for the safe passage from the last +window of the burning hotel of three men and a woman whom death stared in +the face, steadying them as they went with his free hand. As the last +passed over, ladders were being thrown up against the wall, and what +could be done there was done. + +Sergeant Vaughan went up on the roof. The smoke was so dense there that he +could see little, but through it he heard a cry for help, and made out the +shape of a man standing upon a window-sill in the fifth story, overlooking +the courtyard of the hotel. The yard was between them. Bidding his men +follow,--they were five, all told,--he ran down and around in the next +street to the roof of the house that formed an angle with the hotel wing. +There stood the man below him, only a jump away, but a jump which no +mortal might take and live. His face and hands were black with smoke. +Vaughan, looking down, thought him a negro. He was perfectly calm. + +"It is no use," he said, glancing up. "Don't try. You can't do it." + +The sergeant looked wistfully about him. Not a stick or a piece of rope +was in sight. Every shred was used below. There was absolutely nothing. +"But I couldn't let him," he said to me, months after, when he had come +out of the hospital a whole man again, and was back at work,--"I just +couldn't, standing there so quiet and brave." To the man he said sharply: + +"I want you to do exactly as I tell you, now. Don't grab me, but let me +get the first grab." He had noticed that the man wore a heavy overcoat, +and had already laid his plan. + +"Don't try," urged the man. "You cannot save me. I will stay here till it +gets too hot; then I will jump." + +"No, you won't," from the sergeant, as he lay at full length on the roof, +looking over. "It is a pretty hard yard down there. I will get you, or go +dead myself." + +The four sat on the sergeant's legs as he swung free down to the waist; so +he was almost able to reach the man on the window with outstretched hands. + +"Now jump--quick!" he commanded; and the man jumped. He caught him by both +wrists as directed, and the sergeant got a grip on the collar of his coat. + +"Hoist!" he shouted to the four on the roof; and they tugged with their +might. The sergeant's body did not move. Bending over till the back +creaked, it hung over the edge, a weight of two hundred and three pounds +suspended from and holding it down. The cold sweat started upon his men's +foreheads as they tried and tried again, without gaining an inch. Blood +dripped from Sergeant Vaughan's nostrils and ears. Sixty feet below was +the paved courtyard; over against him the window, behind which he saw the +back-draft coming, gathering headway with lurid, swirling smoke. Now it +burst through, burning the hair and the coats of the two. For an instant +he thought all hope was gone. + +But in a flash it came back to him. To relieve the terrible dead-weight +that wrenched and tore at his muscles, he was swinging the man to and fro +like a pendulum, head touching head. He could _swing him up_! A smothered +shout warned his men. They crept nearer the edge without letting go their +grip on him, and watched with staring eyes the human pendulum swing wider +and wider, farther and farther, until now, with a mighty effort, it swung +within their reach. They caught the skirt of the coat, held on, pulled in, +and in a moment lifted him over the edge. + +They lay upon the roof, all six, breathless, sightless, their faces turned +to the winter sky. The tumult of the street came up as a faint echo; the +spray of a score of engines pumping below fell upon them, froze, and +covered them with ice. The very roar of the fire seemed far off. The +sergeant was the first to recover. He carried down the man he had saved, +and saw him sent off to the hospital. Then first he noticed that he was +not a negro; the smut had been rubbed off his face. Monday had dawned +before he came to, and days passed before he knew his rescuer. Sergeant +Vaughan was laid up himself then. He had returned to his work, and +finished it; but what he had gone through was too much for human strength. +It was spring before he returned to his quarters, to find himself +promoted, petted, and made much of. + +From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a little step. Among the many +who journeyed to the insurance patrol station to see the hero of the great +fire, there came, one day, a woman. She was young and pretty, the +sweetheart of the man on the window-sill. He was a lawyer, since a State +senator of Pennsylvania. She wished the sergeant to repeat exactly the +words he spoke to him in that awful moment when he bade him jump--to life +or death. She had heard them, and she wanted the sergeant to repeat them +to her, that she might know for sure he was the man who did it. He +stammered and hitched--tried subterfuges. She waited, inexorable. +Finally, in desperation, blushing fiery red, he blurted out "a lot of +cuss-words." "You know," he said apologetically, in telling of it, "when I +am in a place like that I can't help it." + +When she heard the words which her fiance had already told her, +straightway she fell upon the fireman's neck. The sergeant stood +dumfounded. "Women are queer," he said. + +Thus a fireman's life. That the very horses that are their friends in +quarters, their comrades at the fire, sharing with them what comes of good +and evil, catch the spirit of it, is not strange. It would be strange if +they did not. With human intelligence and more than human affection, the +splendid animals follow the fortunes of their masters, doing their share +in whatever is demanded of them. In the final showing that in thirty +years, while with the growing population the number of fires has steadily +increased, the average loss per fire has as steadily decreased, they have +their full share, also, of the credit. In 1866 there were 796 fires in New +York, with an average loss of $8075.38 per fire. In 1876, with 1382 fires, +the loss was but $2786.70 at each. In 1896, 3890 fires averaged only +$878.81. It means that every year more fires are headed off than run +down--smothered at the start, as a fire should be. When to the verdict of +"faithful unto death" that record is added, nothing remains to be said. +The firemen know how much of that is the doing of their four-legged +comrades. It is the one blot on the fair picture that the city which owes +these horses so much has not seen fit, in gratitude, to provide comfort +for their worn old age. When a fireman grows old, he is retired on +half-pay for the rest of his days. When a horse that has run with the +heavy engines to fires by night and by day for perhaps ten or fifteen +years is worn out, it is--sold, to a huckster, perhaps, or a contractor, +to slave for him until it is fit only for the bone-yard! The city receives +a paltry two or three thousand dollars a year for this rank treachery, and +pockets the blood-money without a protest. There is room next, in New +York, for a movement that shall secure to the fireman's faithful friend +the grateful reward of a quiet farm, a full crib, and a green pasture to +the end of its days, when it is no longer young enough and strong enough +to "run with the machine." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Out of Mulberry Street, by Jacob A. 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