IVMAMIE FAFFELFINGER
Thenouveaux pauvresare, I believe, as a rule, fully as awkward with their poverty as thenouveaux richeswith their wealth. They have not the true grand manner. They are not a whit more born to the rags than your suddenly prosperous parvenu to the purple. It is difficult to be at ease with them. Their behaviors, their manners, their speech, more often their silences, are forever reminding you of their former mode of living.
For these and other reasons, I willingly pass over those intervening years, when, though distinctly poor, I was unaccustomed, and wore my changed conditions, I do not doubt, awkwardly. I pass on to a later and more fixed season when, thrown wholly now on my own resources, and totally untrained and unfitted for such an emergency, I made shift to support myself, to live meagrely, and to endure what I took to be a well-nigh intolerable poverty.
Poverty is a variable term and much subject to comparison. Some will allow it only to those who have been born to it. To have beenalways half-starved, these think, and to carry a basket from door to door—thatis to be poor. But it is idle to think of cold and hunger to the point of beggary as the only cold and hunger there are. Not alone are there degrees of cold and hunger of the body,—discomfortable and ill-nourished living,—but there are, as well, things which seem to me even more difficult to endure—unsatisfied hunger of the mind and heart and a most cruel and persistent chill of the spirit. The literal-minded may need to see the open sore, the sightless eye, or the starved countenance, before their pity is moved; but he who has ever touched the spiritual values will know—with a tenderness that is mercy—that in one who never asked for pity, one who perhaps even went outwardly gay, there may be hidden hurts borne unflinchingly; intolerable darknesses not complained of; crippled powers which once went proud and free; and a heart and mind which have endured, it may be, starved hours. These are, I believe, some of the most real poverties that the soul may be called on to endure.
Yet, God forbid that, having tasted some ofthem, I should not bear true witness! There are some hidden springs in these also. Here also, in what you would take to be so dry, so arid a land, there will have been wells and fountains, and locusts and honey for those cut off from their kind. But of these things I would speak later. I wish at present to tell of my further adventures with the poor, when I myself had become more nearly one of them.
Under the conditions I have mentioned my life had of course changed greatly. Most of the old fond bonds were broken; but there were new and even closer ones to be assumed, newer and larger responsibilities to be undertaken.
In every circumstance of our lives lies the stirring knowledge that one's own case, however strange, is far from being singular. There are others besides myself with whom Poverty has taken up its abode; there are others from whose cup Despair has daily drunk; who, looking up from their daily bread, have found Sorrow's eyes forever on them. Those who have known these cup-companions need not be told how the House of Life can be darkened, or how these darker presences occupy the chambers ofthe mind. Nor need they yet be reminded how all this becomes bearable, even enduringly precious to the heart, if Love but remains, and consents still to sit at the board, and, though with brows bent, still breaks bread with its white hands, and lifts in its unshaken fingers the cup of bitter wine.
We went to live in the deep country, on what had once been a beautiful old estate. The house had not been lived in for years. It still preserved an air of beauty and dignity, but its ancient pride and fitness were turned toward decay. But if, like myself, it had fallen on adversity and evil fortune, that was but the better reason I should understand and love it. Wholly without what the world calls comforts, yet how comforting it was in those chill and cheerless times! Downfallen in the eyes of others, lowered from its proud estate, how I have yet lifted my heart up to it under the stars, and paid it an homage of love and thankfulness not matched, I think, in all its better days.
Our precarious means being entirely dependent on such writing as I could do, it would have been extravagance and bankruptcy forme to assume the domestic duties. There was no one else. I was the only woman of the household. It seemed to me that a working housekeeper might solve the difficulty; one of that variety which lays not so much stress upon wages as upon a home. I found a surprising number with this tendency. In answer to a most modest advertisement, I received sixty-four answers. Those whom, in the course of time, I at last engaged, were in each case women who had seen happier conditions and were by their own affidavits capable of standing anything. But I found them to be, without exception, shrinkingly susceptible to physical discomforts, and of these there were in that old house many.
These women werenouveaux pauvresof a middle-class order and had all the crudities of their condition. Each of them carried with her a remnant of her "better days," as an inveterate shopper carries an out-of-date sample, resolved, yet unable, to find its match. One of them could not forget, and had no mind to let you forget, that her husband had made four thousand a year; another had been to school in Paris; and one always wore rubber gloves,"because," she assured me, "as long as I can have my hands white, I can stand a great deal." Another insisted on the most fluffy and unsubstantial desserts, and thought the rest of the meal mattered little, so long as the finale had a grand air. Another could not endure the odor of onions and fainted at the sight of liver. Yet another, from reverses and humiliations unendurable, had turned Christian Scientist. I learned afterward that she came hoping to convert me to the idea that there is no poverty. I wish I could have spared her the futility.
By and by I abandoned all hope of a working housekeeper. I knew that what I needed was a "general houseworker."
Those who in extremity have sought servants in city employment bureaus need not be told what is too old a tale. When the array of imposing applicants had all declined the discomforts of my home, and the honor of being employed by me, the manager explained, what I was dull not to have known myself, that it might be wise to try some of the employment bureaus in the poorer quarters. I found one finally at the head of the Bowery, and climbed its rickety stairs.
They were a strange and varied lot that I came upon now: weird old flat-footed fairies, given to feathers and elaborate head-dresses, or young heavy Audreys who looked at you out of dull eyes. I explained elaborately the conditions under which they would be called on to live. I omitted nothing, not even the screech-owls, or the night sounds that might or might not be wild cats. They came eagerly or sullenly, according to their dispositions. But apparently none of them had at all grasped what I said. For when they saw the place, and felt the loneliness of which I had so thoroughly warned them, they turned and fled. The house might have been haunted.
Finally I heard that one could engage servants of a certain order from the Charities associations, such as the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor. To one of these I went.
The matron, a full-eyed woman who gave the impression of having to discipline an over-kind heart by an assumption of great severity, questioned me curtly. What surroundings had I to offer? My heart sank, but I went overfaithfully the disadvantages—the extreme loneliness of the life, the necessity that those who entered on it should abandon all hope of "movies." "Movies" there were not within twelve miles. There were no conveniences, no department stores, no bargain sales, nothing—only field and forest, stars and dawns and sunsets—nothing!
She lifted explanatory eyebrows, a little displeased, I thought.
"I mean themoralsurroundings." Then, at my pause, "I mean, are you yourself a Christian woman?"
This was no Major Lobley. It is certain that she cared not a pin whether I was "saved." She merely had it in mind to do her duty by her flock. It was her duty to see that the poor, whose condition was to be improved, were placed in Christian homes.
Being perhaps the better satisfied on this point, for a rather faltering answer on my part, she sent a mild-eyed assistant for "Mamie Faffelfinger."
She meanwhile explained in a businesslike way that Mamie was a Catholic, brought up in an orphan asylum; her child was not a yearold; "the man"—(so the matron designated him curtly)—was not her husband.
"You mean she would wish a home for the child too?"
The full-eyed woman ceased turning her pencil between her thumb and fingers on the desk and gave me an aggressive look.
"Certainly. Most of these people haven't a crust to live on. If you do not wish to employ that kind, there are the employment bureaus."
So they dawned on me like a blessing. These were not parvenu poor who had been to school in Paris, who would insist on unsubstantial desserts. Here were no head-dressy old fairies of questionable powers; these were no exotic fruits of the "gardens of Proserpine"; here was the good salt brine, here the ancient tides of reality—"the surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
Meanwhile the matron was speaking:—
"The man is not her husband. But if you are a Christian, I am sure you have no narrow scruples as tothat. He drinks. She is half-starved. I have told her we will get her and the child a place, if she will promise to leavehim." She glanced at the open doorway of her tiny office: "Yes, Mamie, come in."
It was then that I first saw Mamie and Anne.
Mamie looked her part. She was pallid, rather pretty; very slight, with a skin of extreme fineness. She had heavy-lidded eyes, that looked to have seen much weeping, and a smile the more pathetic for its great readiness.
As to Anne, a consistent story would require that she should be as pallid as her mother, that her little hand, intent now on her mother's hat-brim, should be a mere kite's claw; and there should have been delicate dark rings under her eyes. But, far from being a kite's claw, the hand on the hat-brim was as plump as ripe fruit, and her cheeks were like smooth apricots perfect with the sun. But, after all, there is no describing Anne. If you will look at the child held in the arms of the Madonna of the Chair and then at the one in the arms of the Sistine Madonna; then, if you will picture a child not quite a year old, who might worthily be the little sister and companion of these, you will have some idea, even though inadequate still, of what Anne was, as she held tightto Mamie's rakish hat-brim and gave me the solemn attention of her eyes.
I went over the requirements. I spoke of the loneliness. Not a town within miles.
"Well, what do you think of that!" Mamie replied. But she was unfeignedly eager to come.
"When could you be ready?"
"Oh, right away," she said. "I've got Anne's clothes here." She glanced at a small paper bundle under one arm.
My good fairy, who pays me occasional visits, prevented my asking her where her own clothes were.
The matron interposed. Mamie could stay right there until I was ready to take her, late that afternoon. Then, when Mamie had gone into the outer room, the matron explained.
"She hasn't any home to go to. He left her and raised money on her furniture. They came and took it. She hasn't even a stick of it."
Tragic as this was, my mind was for the moment intent on something else.
"But she wears a wedding ring!" I said.
The matron pulled a heavy ledger toward her.
"Oh, yes; they all do. They'd go starved, but they'd buy a wedding ring."
She pressed her lips together, shook her head, and began setting down data,—my name, address, occupation, the names of two of my friends,—they must be people of some standing, who could vouch for me; then more as to Mamie, I suppose, in the interest of system and statistics.
I can give you no idea of the comradeship of that journey with Mamie and Anne. Mamie looked delightedly out of the car-window, noting the most trifling points of interest with enthusiasm, and saying every little while, "Well, what do you think ofthat!" Or she would excitedly point out some speeding bird, or flitting house, or other flying object, to Anne, and Anne would lurch forward to look, her little nose sometimes touching the pane, and then would turn good-naturedly and look at me, with every air of asking me if that probably so-interesting object had managed to escape me also.
When we arrived at the house, Mamie was as cheerful as a sparrow. The room on which flat-footed fairies and dull Audreys had lookedwith unconcealed contempt or disapproval, she flew to. She settled in it like a bird in her nest, and chirped contentedly to Anne,—
"Oh, Anne, look at the nice bureau! And the washstand! What do you think ofthat!" Then she turned to me, with that winning comradely smile: "Ilikebureaus and washstands—furniture, I mean, and things. It makes you think of home." And she drew her hand along the bureau.
I did not know then, but I soon found out, that this was the top and bottom of all her longings, and this the real hunger of her heart,—a hunger starved enough, of course, in all her orphan-asylum years,—a craving for a place of her own.
Mamie talked much of "Bill." He filled her life and days, there could be no doubt. If she swept, it was to his glory. If she scrubbed a floor or kneaded dough, or bent affectionately over the scalloping of a pie-crust, it was certainly for love of him that she lent these her attention. She soon began sending him her weekly earnings. I remonstrated, and suggested that it might be better to save her money against another rainy day. She dusted herhands of flour and began scraping the bread-board, vigorously, with the strength of her whole body. I waited for my reply. At last it came.
"Well, I will say you've been good to me, and Anne loves you—but I think you've got a hard heart."
Secretly I agreed with her. I retrenched and urged her to send only a part of her money, saving the rest for furniture. Of course, I knew by this time that the word "furniture" was to her like magic and a charm.
Meanwhile, fond as she was of Anne and proud of her, Mamie was bent on not spoiling her. She used to put her in a wooden tub in the sunshine on the floor of the kitchen, as Peter Pumpkin-Eater put his wife in the pumpkin shell; and like Peter, there she kept her very well. And Anne, more ingenuous and happier than Diogenes,—for she liked it and crowed if people came into her sunshine,—would stay there perfectly happy and delighted for the greater part of the day, playing with an apple or a potato. I really never saw such a baby.
Meanwhile, although Bill was, it seems, drinking more than ever, with the aid, ofcourse, of Mamie's earnings, Mamie herself contrived to be above fact and experience, and was sure he was actively reforming. In a sense she really lived a charmed life.
It seemed that Fate and fact could deal her no blow which would finally affect her. She knew Bill's failings better than the matron, by a great deal; but if you suppose that these could spoil the pure romance of life for her, or invalidate her dream of a home and furniture of her own, cushioned chairs owned and sat upon by the reformed Bill and herself, you are much mistaken.
She was a firm believer in miracles. "I know you don't believe in them," she would say; "but at the Orphan Asylum there was a statue of Saint Stephen that used to turn around over night, it really did, if it was pleased with what you did."
Like so many of her class, Mamie had an incorrigible tendency toward rumor. Knowledge comes not to these by laborious delving of their own, but appears to be delivered to them out of the air as by bird auguries, and by all manner of unauthenticated hearsay infinitely rather to be trusted than fact. I takethis to be in their case a survival of what was believed, in ancient times, to be speech with Divinity. However it may shock the modern mind to read of the Almighty giving out to Moses, not merely the majestic laws graven on tables of stone, but commands and detail and measurement of great exactness as to the stuff and manner of fashioning and trimming the High Priest's breeches, to the minds of Mamie and her class there would be in this little that was shocking, they themselves believing and delighting in Divine collaboration in even the most homely matters.
Anne wore on a string about her neck a little square of Canton flannel which in the course of many months had become extremely grimy. I suggested as tactfully as I could that this was not in keeping with the laws of health, and might be, with a view to germs, a positive danger to Anne.
Mamie smiled happily, indulgently.
"That's just where you're wrong! It's toprotecther from danger—specially danger by drowning!"
Once I suggested that, if I were she, I would not feed Anne burned bread-crusts.
"Oh, but they say they're good for a baby; they say they're splendid for the digestion."
Useless to argue. She had always heard so. "They" said so.
So it is that knowledge comes to them, not laboriously, as does our own, but by easy rumor, floating hearsay; and wisdom is brought to them without effort of their own, as viands to a king. They are fed by ravens. Their gourd grows overnight. Messengers still come and go between heaven and earth to instruct them. There is not required of them, the laboring class, that slavish mental toil exacted of the world's great intellects. Angels and ministers of grace, however they may have abandoned the wise, do still, it seems, defend them. They have only to be of a listening mind and a believing heart, and they shall know what is good for digestion, and what will save their children from drowning.
Mamie, further, was able to maintain a remarkable equilibrium between respectful service as a servant and what might have been the gracious democracy of a ruler. She taught Anne to call me "Honey," and had it as a surprise for me one morning. I will not deny thatit was a surprise. But if you think that so sweet an appellation in Anne's bird-like voice, her golden head leaning over into the sunshine as she heard my step, seemed to me to be lacking in dignity, then you and I are of contrary opinions.
One day, when Mamie was dusting where hung a Fra Lippo Madonna, Anne pointed a fat finger at it, demanding, "Honey?"
Mamie did not even pause.
"No," she said briskly, "that's not Honey. That's Lord and Lord's mawma."