The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAntennaeThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: AntennaeAuthor: Hulbert FootnerRelease date: January 3, 2023 [eBook #69701]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran Company, 1926Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTENNAE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: AntennaeAuthor: Hulbert FootnerRelease date: January 3, 2023 [eBook #69701]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran Company, 1926Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
Title: Antennae
Author: Hulbert Footner
Author: Hulbert Footner
Release date: January 3, 2023 [eBook #69701]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: George H. Doran Company, 1926
Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTENNAE ***
ANTENNAEBYHULBERT FOOTNERNEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
ANTENNAEBYHULBERT FOOTNERNEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
ANTENNAE
BY
HULBERT FOOTNER
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1926,BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYANTENNAE—A—PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1926,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
ANTENNAE
—A—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TOMY FIRST CRITIC
TO
MY FIRST CRITIC
PART ONE: BOYS
ANTENNAE
PART ONE
Wilfred Pellstole down-stairs carrying his shoes. With infinite care he turned the handle of the front door, his heart in his mouth. When one pressed down a catch in the lock, it permitted the outside handle to turn; and one could come in again. He sat down in the vestibule to put on his shoes. There was also an outer door, closed when the family went to bed. This had an ordinary lock, and the key was in it. It had been Wilfred’s intention to lock this door, and carry the key with him; but in the act of doing so the thought struck him: Suppose there was a fire? How would his Aunts get out?
He had not much of an opinion of the presence of mind of those ladies. They might very well stand there rattling the door, and burn up before they recollected the basement door. Or the way to the basement might be cut off. He pictured flames billowing up the basement stairs. No! let them take the chance of robbery in preference to incineration. He left both doors unlocked behind him. Sometimes the policeman on beat tried the basement gates as he passed through the block; but Wilfred had never seen him mount the stoops to try the front doors. On the sidewalk there was a horrible moment as he passed within range of Aunt May’s windows over the drawing-room, then safety.
This was not his first sortie at ten o’clock. It was a way of release from the torment of his thoughts that he had discovered. That is, if he remembered it in time. Once the misery had him fairly in its grip he was helpless. It was this business of becoming a man. Sometimes he went for a walk early in the morning; but everybody knew about that; he could not hug the secret deliciously to his breast. Anyhow morning walks were for light hearts, he thought, with a gentle swell of self-pity. Night for him! How wistfully he looked back towards the cool zone of childhood. What happened to you was not pleasant. He had noticed a funny thing; if he had said to himself during the day: To-night I will sneak out—there was no virtue in it; he carried his earthiness with him. But if while he was in his bed he yielded suddenly to the impulse; and arose and dressed; a sort of miracle occurred; he forgot himself.
It was so to-night. The night took him. He was thrilled by the double line of still houses fronting each other; each house with its windows fixed unswervingly on its adversary across the street; the oblique stoop rails like beards; the cornices like eyebrows. And overhead the stars, deathless flowers in a meadow. Wilfred felt that he belonged. He was as much the street’s as that cat creeping across, its belly hugging the asphalt. Like the cat he was all eyes, ears and nose; the thinking part of him had stopped working. He made a feint at the cat; and chuckled aloud at the creature’s precipitate loss of dignity. Gee! how good it was to be out!
Respectable West Eleventh street was already settling down. Most of the outer doors were closed, and many bedroom windows showed rectangles of an agreeable apricot light filtering through the lowered shades. Wilfred had turned East, seeking life. At the corner of Fifth Avenue he was struck by the effect of the new arc lights. Hanging two to a pole, the mellow pinkish globes stretched far into the distance in two gradually converging lines. Like insect lights they climbed the Thirty-Fourth street hill at last and disappeared. Fruit of Night, Wilfred whispered to himself.
In Washington Square this mild October night there were still many couples sitting on the benches. The sight of them left Wilfred cold; he merely wondered at their static attitudes; hours, apparently, without moving or speaking. But once as he passed such a couple, a girl whose face was hidden in a man’s neck, laughed softly in her throat, and Wilfred’s breast was acutely disturbed by the sound. It suggested that that private nightmare of his might be a loveliness when shared; that it was the means whereby two human hearts might open to each other. Never for me! he thought with a needle in his heart; and hurried away from the sound.
Through Washington Place across Broadway; through Astor Place and down the Bowery. The bulk of Cooper Union loomed like a whale against the sky. The sight of it, brought the slightly fœtid smell of the reading-room into Wilfred’s nostrils. It was a place where you could go. The bums never looked at you. He breasted the Bowery like a swimmer. No early-to-bed habits here. He edged along close to the store-fronts, looking at everybody; entering into them; thieves, prostitutes, drunken men, sporting characters, and the great unclassified. So many and such queer souls each peeping suspiciously out of a pair of eyes. With the shuffling of the people, the four track line of electric cars in the middle of the street, and the steam cars of the Elevated railway immediately over the sidewalk, the uproar was at once distracting and stimulating.
There were certain store windows that Wilfred always looked into; the florist’s full of green wire frames to serve as a foundation for funeral pieces; a musical instrument dealer’s exhibiting a gigantic brass horn and a doll’s horn beside it to show the range of the stock; an animal and bird store with cages of monkeys. Something furtive and ugly in the eyes of the people watching the monkeys made Wilfred exquisitely uneasy. As you went on the stores became less reputable in character. Besides the crowding saloons, there were the auction sales, celebrated in the popular song; the dime museums and side shows with faded banners; an anatomical museum, free “for men only.” All the shows had a free lobby to tempt you in. The most innocent were those with ranks of Edison’s phonographs inside; but Wilfred recoiled from the little bone pieces you had to stick in your ears.
Glancing into a store window where mirrors were displayed, he saw repeated from every angle, the figure of a boy that his eyes embraced all over in a flash. A boy approaching sixteen, tall for his age; dressed in a shapeless snuff-colored suit, with trousers that flapped almost as if there were no legs within them. He walked with a long step having a funny little dip in the middle. He had wavy, light brown hair, a lock of which escaped untidily under the visor of his cap to sweep his forehead. His eyes, somewhat deep-set, were grey-blue in color, and had a look at once haunted, secretive and top-lofty—Wilfred’s word. A wide mouth with uneven lips like a crimson gash across his white face. There was a something awkward about him; something self-centered and peculiar that set him apart from other boys. A boy to be jeered at. In that flash Wilfred saw it clearly.
Why . . . that’s me, he thought, with self-consciousness winging back, making the picture hateful. Oh Lord! what a dub! The picture remained fixed in his mind amongst the multitude of pictures capable of turning up at any odd moment.
At Rivington Street he turned East again, entering another populous world quite different in style from that of the Bowery. Here, on a mild night the family life of the East side, predominantly Jewish, was revealed. This was Wilfred’s objective. His solitariness was comforted by the vicarious sharing in many households. A narrow street hemmed in on either side by tall sooty tenements. The fronts of the houses were decorated with webs of rusty fire-escapes, the platforms of which were heaped with the overflow of goods from the crowded rooms within. From web to web criss-cross, everywhere ran the clotheslines with their fluttering damp burdens. In Rivington Street even the air was crowded.
The narrow sidewalk was maggoty with people. The inner side was lined by humble shops, the outer by an endless line of gay pushcarts like boats anchored alongside the curb, stretching for block after block and displaying every manner of goods. The low stoops between the shops were crowded, mostly with women of a complete, unconfined fatness; nearly every one of them suckling an infant. These mothers surveyed the scene with an equanimity that arrested Wilfred. To have a whole lot of children must be one way of solving the riddle. Helikedthese featherbed women; because . . . it was difficult for him to find the word for his thought; they didn’t fidget; they bore their fruit as inevitably as orchard trees. From the windows overhead leaned other fat women, comfortably supporting their forearms on pillows laid across the sills. Their faces expressed a great content.
Wilfred yielded himself to the scene of life. He had the sensation of straining open like petals. This was the pleasure they couldn’t take away from him; a pleasure that left a sweet taste in the mind.—The lavish set-out of goods under the brown canvas shelters; apples floating in brine and unwholesome-looking preserved fish; rows upon rows of ratty fur neckpieces and muffs; bolts of printed cottons; gay garters and suspenders; jewelry; dazzling tinware. The pushcarts were lighted by smoking kerosene torches that threw leaping, ruddy lights and sooty shadows on the scene. I must notice everything; Wilfred would say to himself; and forthwith begin to enumerate a catalogue in his mind. But his darting eyes could not wait for the names of things; they flew ahead and he forgot the catalogue. Presently he would come to consciousness thinking: I am not noticing anything!
The people! The dirty, savage, robust children shouldering their way through the crowd, shrieking to each other. To these children grown-ups were no more than bushes obstructing their hunting paths. Then there were the young people; the scornful, comely youths flaunting their masculinity, and the pretty girls undismayed by it. Empty and hard these young people were; what of it? They were aware of their beauty, and of their desirability in each other’s eyes; they were proud with youth; it was fine to see.
Wilfred turned North at last into a side street to find another way home. Dark streets had a different sort of attraction. No doubt the black houses were just as full of tenants as the others, but here, people were not drawn to the windows, nor down-stairs to the forbidding sidewalks. Only a group of men was to be seen here and there, on the steps, or loitering half-concealed in a vestibule. Night-birds, Wilfred thought with an intense thrill; cutthroats. How stirring to think of men who were restrained by nothing! Through each house there ran a narrow arched passage to a yard in the rear, where there was always, he knew, a second house hidden from the street. There would be a gaslight in the yard, and you would get a glimpse of greenish flagstones. By day or by night these passages teased Wilfred; but he had never dared to enter. In such dens Oliver Twist had been taught to steal; Nancy Sikes had been choked by the brutal Bill.
Wilfred soared like a bird. This was one of his “moments.” Why they came sometimes and not other times he did not know. His breast hummed like harpstrings. The seat of his intense feeling seemed to be somewhere at the back of his palate. It was almost the same as a pain, but it was rare! At such a moment nothing was changed; everything became more intensely itself. He was still Wilfred, but a Wilfred made universal. He entered into everything and became a part of it. At such a moment all tormenting questions were laid; it was sufficient that things were. Life was painted in such high colors that he was dazzled. The feeling of pain was due to the fact that he couldn’t take it all in. He had the actual sensations of soaring; he stretched his nostrils to get sufficient oxygen. Mixed with pure exaltation was the feeling: How wonderful of me to be feeling this way!
Impressions were bitten into his consciousness as with an acid. That frowning perspective of the confined street with its different planes of blacknesses; granite paving stones, flagged sidewalks, brick tenements; the whole was like a dead scale upon the living earth, which nevertheless one apprehended quivering underfoot. It was there, though it was not seen, the fertile earth capable of bringing forth forests. At either end of the block an arc light casting its unnatural beams horizontally through, picking out the ash cans and empty boxes grouped along the curb in fantastic disorder. Everywhere the bold shadows, black and sinister. Whether beautiful or ugly, it thrilled him through and through. Half way through the block, the door of a closely shuttered place was thrown open, letting out a startling shaft of light and a babel of voices; then sharply pulled to again. Oh, life, how marvellous!
At the approaching corner there was a saloon; and its side door, the “Family Entrance,” protected by the usual fancy porch of wood and glass, lay in Wilfred’s path. A discreet radiance came through the frosted glass. In the corner formed by this porch with the main building Wilfred beheld a group of six or eight boys standing with their shoulders pressed together in a circle, heads lowered. Their stillness, their uneasy looks over their shoulders, conveyed an intimation. He paused, all aghast inside as if he had been surprised by a wound. His spirit came diving down like a broken-winged bird. Little scorching flames were lighted in the pit of his stomach, and he tasted the bitterness of wormwood.
He walked on, trying to look unconscious. One of the boys was his own age, the others varying sizes smaller. As he came by, the big boy cast a wary look over his shoulder. Seeing Wilfred’s stricken face, the boy instantly knew how it was with him, and Wilfred knew that he knew. He felt as if he must die with shame. The boy’s face broke up in a horrid triumphant leer. Wilfred was never to forget any detail of the look of that boy. He wore ribbed cotton stockings faded to a greenish hue, and button shoes much too big for him with fancy cloth tops and run-over heels; around his neck was wound a white cotton cloth, hideously soiled, suggesting that he had had a sore throat weeks before. His face—close-set sharp black eyes; longish nose; lips suggesting the beak of a predatory bird; was all lighted up by that all-knowing, zestful leer. A wicked, dirty, comely face; it was the zest expressed there that dishonored Wilfred.
Without turning around, the boy with a slight derisive cock of his head conveyed an invitation to Wilfred to join the circle. Wilfred, gasping, hastened by with lowered head, a hot tide pouring up and scorching his cheeks and forehead. The boy’s mocking laughter pursued him.
“Hey, wait a minute, Kid!”
Wilfred darted around the corner.
He made his way home with head down, averting his sight from the sordid streets, and the disgusting beings that frequented them. He knew of course that the change was in himself. He had lost his talisman in the mud. He felt sodden. What’s the use? he asked himself in the last bitterness of spirit; I can’t climb a little way out of the muck, but my foul nature drags me back again. I am the same as that rotten boy. He saw it. . . . Oh God! if I could only forget the look of that boy!
Thecircle of boys in the corner by the Family Entrance broke up. Joe Kaplan, the biggest boy, cuffed and booted smaller ones aside, and walked off towards Rivington street, indifferent to what became of the others. He slapped the flagstones with his spreading shoes, and whistled between his teeth. He was feeling good. A recollection of the white-faced boy flitted across his mind, buoying him up with scorn. Kid from up-town, he thought, sneakin’ around lookin’ for somepin bad. Gee! what rotten minds them kids has! But Joe could not put this kid out of his mind right away. What made him look at me so funny? he asked himself.
At the Rivington street corner Joe lounged against a pillar with his shoulders hunched forward, making a stupid, sleepy look come in his face. Under his drooping eyelids gleamed a spark. This was his hunting ground. Every little stir in the crowd had its meaning for him. He marked the cop on the sidewalk to the left, leaning back with his elbows propped on a rail, surveying the crowd with good-humored contempt. Hogan; nothing to fear from him; a fat-head, always looking at the women. On the corner in the other direction was Mitchell; a terror if you tried to turn a trick on the storekeepers; but he despised the pushcart men; all the cops did. However, Joe had heard that the pushcart thefts had made so much talk, the captain of the precinct had sent out a couple of plain-clothes men to mix with the crowd. He was looking for them.
Taking to the middle of the street, Joe shambled up to the corner and back, making out to be a low-down poor mutt, searching under the pushcarts for butts. Joe could let his mouth hang open, and a sort of film come over his eyes; you would swear he was half-crazed with drugged cigarettes. His tour assured him there was no plain-clothes men in that block. He could smell a cop out. He gradually narrowed his beat to and fro, his objective being the pushcart that was selling furs. Cold weather was coming on, and it was doing a brisk trade.
Suddenly Joe perceived a thin-faced lad older than himself, standing about with a cagey eye. Bent upon the same business as himself of course. Joe grinned inwardly. He ain’t as smart as me, he thought. Watch me make him work for me. Joe’s only regret was, that there was nobody to see how clever he was. He unobtrusively fell back to the curb opposite the cart of furs, where he appeared to be looking at everything in sight except the thin-faced lad.
This one edged up to the pushcart from behind. Occasionally he turned a white face over his shoulder with a faraway look. Clumsy work! thought Joe; if there was a cop within a hundred feet he’d get on to his face. The pushcart had a rack about three feet high built around three sides of it, the better to display its wares. This rack was lined with canvas; but the canvas, as Joe could see, was not securely fastened at the bottom. The canvas-covered rack concealed the thin-faced lad from the proprietor of the cart, who was in front.
When he saw the thin-faced lad throw away his cigarette, Joe crossed the road. The lad was watching the proprietor around the edge of the screen, and did not see Joe. Joe went around the opposite end of the cart, and stood, making his eyes goggle at the grand display of furs. In this position he could no longer see the thin-faced lad, but he saw what he was waiting for; the piece of fur disappear under the canvas with a jerk. Others saw it too, and cries were raised. Some took after the thief. Every eye was turned in that direction. The distracted proprietor flung himself over his stock with arms outspread.
Everybody was looking the other way! What a snap! Joe slipped his hand under the canvas at his end of the cart, and jerked a fur neckpiece out. Fur makes no sound. Nobody got on to him, and a second piece followed the first. Thrusting his prizes under his coat, he walked off, whistling between his teeth. Oh, I’m smart! I’m smart! I’m smart! he thought upon a swelling breast. The foretaste of a big meal made his mouth water.
Having disposed of his loot in the back room of a little dry goods store where he was known, Joe proceeded to a restaurant on Canal street. This was no hash house, but a regular bon-ton restaurant, with cloths on the tables, and waiters that didn’t dast give the customers no lip, so’s they had the price. Here you could get a big T-bone steak and coffee for thirty cents, with French fried and bread thrown in, and all the ketchup you wanted. Joe went in feeling big; it wasn’t often a kid of his age had the nerve to enterthatjoint.
Half an hour later he leaned back and picked his teeth. He felt out o’ sight inside. Helikedthat joint; in the middle of the night it was always warm and bright, and had a stir of life about it. You could hear the meat frying at the back, and smell the smoke of it. There were two men sitting opposite to each other, leaning forward until their heads almost touched, and whispering, whispering, each one rapidly stirring his coffee without ever looking toward the cup. Planning some job all right, thought Joe; bet they ain’t as smart as me, though. You can see they’re nervous. Across from the men sat a girl who was vainly trying to attract their attention. She was beginning to look bedraggled, and there was a look of terror in the bottom of her eyes that excited Joe’s scorn. She was on the toboggan all right. Been kicked out of the houses. A man would be a fool to take her.
His breast twanged with exultation. He was a smart feller; he was all there, you bet. A feller could have a good time in this world if he was smart enough. Everything waitin’ to be picked up. No danger ofhimgettin’ pinched. He was just a little too smart for them. Gee! it was great to bat around at night, and sleep in the day when the thick-heads was workin’! Let the thick-heads work! There was plenty of them. Workin’ never got you nowhere. Look at his old man. . . . Soon as he was old enough he’d have a woman to work for him. Funny how women would work for a man. Soft. Oh well, he’d have one of the best. When he wanted anything, he went out and got it. That was the sort of feller he was. He was smarter than anybody.
Joe went home by way of Allen street where the houses were. After midnight when the East side generally was beginning to quiet down, Allen street was in full swing. Joe never tired of watching the game that was played there. The men looked so sheepish when they sneaked into the houses, and more so when they came out later, cleaned out. Each man looking as if he was the first who had been trimmed. These were the poor fools who hadn’t spunk enough to get a woman for themselves. The painted-up girls too, at the windows, grinning at the men like cats, and making goo-goo eyes, and calling pet names to get them to come in. And the poor suckers fell for it! It was enough to make a feller laugh. Besides, there was often a good trick to be worked in Allen street. If you could get hold of a souse before he fell into the hands of the girls.
On this night Joe had the fun of seeing Chicago Liz’s house raided by the police. He had heard rumors that Liz was having trouble with the Captain along of her payments. The police didn’t bother the other houses of course, and all the girls were at the windows and doors watching. It was good sport to see Chicago Liz’s girls carried out into the street in their short dresses; yelling and carrying on, and joshing the crowd until they were shoved in the wagon. The Madame herself, who looked sour, was taken away with a policeman to herself in a two horse cab.
After it was over, Joe was beckoned by a girl standing in a doorway across the street. This was Jewel La Count who was in Clara Moore’s house. Joe had a sort of footing in that house as occasional errand boy. Jewel was half Italian like himself; but nobody knew what the other half of her was. They were about the same age, but Jewel tried to put it over him because she had been going with men for more than a year. Joe sneered at her, but these girls were often useful to him, and he went across the street. A certain uneasiness attacked him at the thought of speaking to her alone. Kid though she was, he wasn’t sure how to handle her; he hadn’t discovered any way of getting her going.
“What yeh want?” he asked gruffly.
Jewel’s great brown eyes took him in unsmilingly, and turned away. “Nottin’,” she said. “There’s nottin’ doin’ to-night. I just wanted somebody to talk to.”
Joe felt at a loss. “Aah!” he said, kicking the step with his spreading shoe.
“Tell me somepin, Kid,” said Jewel. “I never get out.”
“Aah!” said Joe. He sized her up calculatingly out of the corners of his eyes. She was a damn pretty girl. But that meant nothing to him. Her skin was as soft and smooth as a baby’s. The prettiest girl in the street. He had heard said that Clara Moore knew what a good thing she had in Jewel, and took good care of her. “Where’s the Madam?” he asked.
“Out,” said Jewel indifferently.
“You’d catch hell if she saw you down in the street.”
“I ain’t lookin’ for anything. The house is closed to-night.”
A silence fell between them. Joe wished himself away from there. Jewel made him feel small. He whistled between his teeth, and cursed. “——! but it’s slow in the street to-night. Why the hell couldn’t Liz pay up and let business go on.”
Jewel ignored this as if it had not been spoken. That was the way she was, thought Joe sorely, independent. Stealing a look at her, he was struck by the calm rise and fall of her breast under the pretty waist. She was healthy all right. Well, she lived soft; nothing to do but eat and sleep.
“I like to talk to somebody on the outside,” said Jewel. “In this house it’s always the same. . . . I like to talk.”
“Well, you got plenty company,” said Joe with a knowing grin.
“Aah! I don’t talk to them,” said Jewel coolly. “They don’t ac’ human. I like young kids better. Seems like boys went dotty when they got to be men.”
Joe knew what she meant, but he wasn’t going to let anything on to a girl. “Aah! you’re a bit too big for your shoes,” he said loftily.
It made no impression on her. “I like the streets,” she said dreamily. “I wisht I could roam the streets with a gang of kids. That’s what I’d like.”
“You don’t know when you’re well off,” said Joe.
“Where you been to-night?” asked Jewel.
“To the Bowery Mission,” said Joe derisively.
“Yeah,” said Jewel. “You look it!”
Joe laughed, and felt more at his ease. After all, there was something about Jewel. . . . She didn’t talk with a sponge in her mouth like other girls. She gave it to you straight. “I had a steak at Dolan’s,” he said offhand.
“Yes, you did!” said Jewel. “Where’d you git the price?”
“Oh, I hooked a coupla cat-skins offen a pushcart.”
“Were you chased?” asked Jewel eagerly.
“Nah! What d’ye think I am?”
Jewel paid no attention to the question. Her thoughts pursued their own course.
“Come on up,” she said in friendly fashion.
Joe went hot and cold. At first he didn’t know what to say.
“I got a pack of cigarettes in my room,” the girl went on; “we’ll smoke and chin. I’ll mend your coat for you.”
“Clara’d give me hell if she come home,” said Joe. He heard the little quaver in his own voice and it made him sore. A hard nut like him!
“Oh, Clara wouldn’t mind you,” said Jewel, coolly.
This stung.
“You often been in before,” said Jewel.
This was true, and why shouldn’t he go now? But something inside him trembled.
“Come on,” Jewel went on; “I’ll show you all my things. I got real nice things of my own. I keep ’em locked in my drawer. I’d like to show ’em to somebody. I got a big doll that I dressed myself. She looks real cunning. I got a set of dishes from Chinatown. I got a solid silver photograph frame. . . .”
“Who’s in it?” asked Joe with a curling lip.
“President Cleveland,” said Jewel undisturbed. “Come on up. We’ll talk. You could come often. I’d like to have somebody come to see me, that belonged to me like. . . .”
Joe felt that he must play the man. “Nottin’ doin’ to-night, girly,” he said, as he had heard men say along Allen street.
Jewel looked at him with her big, calm eyes. Then she laughed. She planted her hands on her hips, and opened her mouth wide to let it come out.
“Aah!” snarled Joe. “Aah . . . !” Her laughter stung him like whips. If she had said anything, he could have got back at her, but she laughed what was in her mind, and there was no answer to that. She wasn’t just trying to get back at him; she really thought he was as funny as hell. “Aah!” snarled Joe, “I’m not afraid of you!”
She laughed afresh, and by that he knew that she knew that hewasafraid of her. “Aah! to hell with you!” snarled Joe, grinding his teeth.
He walked off followed by the sound of her laughter.
The Kaplans lived in two rooms on Sussex street. Joe banged the door open noisily. Here was a place where he could make himself felt. Though it was past midnight his father and mother were still sewing pants on the two sewing machines, side by side against the wall between the cook-stove and the front windows. Their bowed backs were to Joe as he entered. On a chair between the two narrow windows sat a girl of eleven asleep, her head fallen back against the wall, her white, unchildlike face turned up to the gaslight; mouth open. The pair of pants she had been sewing on, had slipped to the floor. On a broken, carpet-covered sofa against the left-hand wall, lay two little boys sleeping in their clothes; the outer one clinging to his brother to keep from rolling off. The dining table with the remains of the last meal upon it, was shoved into the back corner of the room. Pants in various stages of completion were piled everywhere.
“Well, this is a hell of a dump to come back to!” said Joe in a rasping voice.
At the sound of his voice, the two little boys rolled off the sofa, and creeping on hands and knees to the only unoccupied corner, curled up in a fresh embrace, and instantly fell asleep again. It pleased Joe to see how quickly they moved. His mother rose heavily from her machine, and threw a ragged piece of quilt over the boys. She shook the girl by the shoulder, and led her staggering into the back room, where the child collapsed on a mattress spread on the floor.
Joe sat down on the vacated sofa, and commenced to take off his shoes. His eyes roved around the place full of contempt. There was both a window and a door into the back room, which had no other openings. It was not much larger than a closet; the bed and the narrow mattress thrown down beside it, filled the floor space. From lines stretched across between wall and wall hung whatever of the family wardrobe was not in use. The walls were painted blue.
“God! what a home for a fellow!” said Joe.
Nobody paid any attention. His mother plodded back to her machine without looking at him. His father never had stopped working the treadles. Joe looked from one to another in a rage. Nice pair of broken-down mutts they were! Was this the best they could do for him? Did they think a fellow was going to stand for it? His mother was a strong, healthy woman, but dead from the neck up; dazed-like; dumb. She took everything that came. It was almost impossible to get her going. His father—Joe grinned; you could always gethimby the short hairs. Joe gloated over the humbled back. His father was askeared of him, all right! Yah! the skinny Jew with his ashy face and sore eyes! His grey hair was coming out in spots like a mangy dog’s. The tufts that remained curled in ringlets with the bald spots showing through. His beard too. Spit-curls!
“How the hell do you expect me to sleep in this racket?” snarled Joe.
“This lot is promised in the morning,” said his mother in a dead voice.
“What’s that to me? I gotta have my sleep.”
“Take my place on the bed,” she said.
“What! sleep wit’him,” said Joe indicating his father. “Not on your tin-type. I’m more particular,Iam.”
The woman shrugged, and went on with her sewing.
“On the level,” said Joe, undressing, “is he my fat’er?”
“You shut your mouth,” she said, without looking around.
“Honest, I can’t believe that bag o’ bones ever made me,” drawled Joe. “I ain’t like him. It beats me, Mom, how you could a’ done it!”
The two machines whirred on, with only the necessary pauses to turn the goods.
Joe raised his voice a little to make sure of being heard above the sound. “But its a cinch some Jew made me. I got Jew blood all right, and I’m glad of it. The Jews are a smart people. . . . All except him. He’s a botched Jew; a scarecrow; he’s a Jew that didn’t come off. He must a been made of the stale bits like that twice-baked cake yeh git such a big hunk of for a penny, but at that it would make you puke to eat it. . . .”
Joe’s father suddenly rose, and turning round, supported himself against the back of his chair with a wasted, shaking arm. Joe, with a grin, watched how the sparse curls of his beard seemed to stiffen and quiver. “You bad boy . . . you bad boy!” he said in a husky broken voice. The old geezer’s lungs were rotten. “You are my son, God help me! When you were placed in my hands I gave thanks to God for my first-born. Little did I think it was a curse He was laying upon me!”
The old man straightened up, and shook his scraggy arms above his head. Good as a t’eayter, thought Joe. “Oh God! what have I done to deserve such a son!” he croaked. “I have worked hard all my days, and have wronged no man!” He waved his sticks of arms about. “Look! Look! How we live; how we work! We are sick and starving. And he comes in from the streets, the loafer! greasy with good food, and twits me to my beard! . . . God has abandoned me! God has abandoned me! . . .” Straining back his head like a man struggling for air, the old man staggered into the back room. They heard him fall, a dead weight on the bed.
Joe laughed loudly. “Well, if I’m a hell of a son, you’re a hell of a father,” he called after him. “What did you ever do for me?” He pulled an old coverlet from under the sofa, and wrapped himself up in it, laughing. “Gee! it’s rich when the old man begins to call on God!” he said. “That’s the Jew of it! And him kicked out of the synagogue, like you was kicked out of the church! This is a swell religious family, this is!”
His mother did not answer him. She kept her broad back turned to him. Joe saw her glance over at the other machine to measure how much work the man had left undone. Then her head went a little lower, as she made the treadles of her machine move faster. Joe, feeling better now, flung an arm over his eyes to shield them from the gaslight; and settled himself to sleep.
Towardsevening Joe Kaplan and two boys smaller than himself were making their way down Fifth Avenue. They had started out in the morning five strong, but two of the kids had been lost somewhere. They had spent the day in Central Park where they had seen the m’nag’rie, and the swan boats and the rich kids riding in goat carriages on the Mall. Of the latter Pat Crear had said: “Gawd! all dressed up in velvet and lace like doll babies, and strapped down in them little wagons so’s they can’t fall out; it’s a wonder they don’t get heart disease from the excitement.” In order to find out if he was human, Pat had given the long curls of one little boy a sharp tweak, and cut whooping across the grass to the shrubbery.
They had had the luck to come across a boy selling lozenges in an out of the way spot. They had swiped his box offen him, and after sampling some of each flavor, had sold the rest in another part of the park, thus providing the means for a more substantial feed. Afterwards they had wandered away up to Harlem mere, and had lost themselves in the woods up there. They built a fire, and made out they were hoboes, and Tony Lipper had killed a squirrel with a stone. No kid he knew had ever done that before, and he was bringing it home in his pocket to prove it.
On Fifth Avenue the elegant carriages rolled up and down, each drawn by a pair of glossy horses stepping high, and each driven by one or two men sitting up in front without moving, like the tin men on pavement toys. On the sidewalk the tony guys were walking up and down, many of the Johnnies wearing silk ties and swinging sticks, the dames with sleeves as big as hams and little tails to their jackets sticking up like a chippie’s. Joe and the other boys were pleased by the sense of their incongruity in that company, and they accentuated it by slapping the pavement with their broken shoes, spitting to the right and left, and talking rough. They felt great when they succeeded in attracting the scowls and the disgusted looks of the passers-by; or when a lady daintily drew her skirts aside to avoid contact.
“Dare me to spit on the next one?” said Pat.
“If you do some Johnnie will crack yeh over the coco wit’ his stick,” said Joe indifferently. “But yeh kin show yeh don’t give a damn for them by makin’ snoots. They can’t do nottin’ to yeh for that.”
They came to two great square houses built of brownstone and joined together in the middle by a bone like the Siamese twins, so imposing that Pat was led to ask:
“What the hell buildings is them?”
“The Vanderbilts live there,” said Joe. “They’s the richest guys in the world.”
“On’y one family in the whole goddam house?” said Pat. “Gee! it must be lonely for them.”
They were not especially interested in this high-toned world; it didn’t touch them anywhere. It was different though, when they caught sight of a quartette of tough kids like themselves, moseying along on the other side of the way looking innocent. Joe and his two instinctively sought cover behind the swell guys, whence they watched the enemy warily.
“All harps,” said Joe. “Likely they belong to the Hell’s Kitchen gang over by the North river. Say, that’s the worst neighborhood in town. They’s a coupla murders done there ev’y day.”
“What they doin’ on Fift’ Avenoo?” asked Tony fearfully.
“Same as yourself,” said Joe with scorn. “If you was to go over on the West side you’d get moralized by the Hell’s Kitcheners, wouldn’t yeh? And the same on the East side by the Gas house gang or the Turtle Bays. But you’re safe on Fift’ Avenoo ain’t yeh? All the fellas goes up Fift’ Avenoo cos that’s neutral ground, see?”
“They’s some bad gangs up-town, too,” Joe went on. “The Hundredth street gang, and the Hundred and Tenth. I’ve heard tell how the Hundred and Tenth Streeters come down Amsterdam Avenue by Bloomingdale Asylum, spread across the street from curb to curb like skirmishers, and carryin’ all before them. They’s on’y a few cops up there.”
The Hell’s Kitcheners passed out of sight, and were forgotten.
“Say, Joe,” asked Pat, “why don’t you never go with the East Houston street gang or the Delancey Streeters?”
“Aah!” said Joe, “that’s childish to me, all that fightin’ for nottin’. I play my own hand, see? When I go out, I go for somepin for myself.”
“You go wit’ us?”
“You go wit’ me, you mean. I ain’t no objection to havin’ a coupla little suckers along to do what I tell ’em.”
When they reached Thirty-Fourth street it was growing dark, and they cut through to Broadway where there was more life after nightfall. To the smaller boys it seemed as if the people were dressed sweller over here, but Joe said they were not so high-toned as the Avenue gang. The women were mostly high-priced tarts, he said. Every block had its theatre; the Standard, the Bijou, Palmer’s, Daly’s, the Imperial and the Fifth Avenue. The Twenty-Eighth street crossing appeared to be the busiest and brightest spot, and here they took up their stand.
“Lookit,” said Joe, “you two want to sit on that grating, see? as if you was cold and was after the warm air comin’ up. You want to sit on the front edge, see, so’s when anybody pitches you a nickel it won’t go through the grating, see? You don’t have to do nottin’ but look poor the way I showed yeh, and shiver, and squeeze up close for warmth. Pat looks t’ best wit’ his fat’er’s coat on. Tony, if you let me tear your pants a little more so’s the skin would show. . . .”
“Nottin’ doin’! It’s the on’y pair I got.”
“Oh, to hell wit’ it, then. You keep a little behind Pat. For God’s sake don’t ast for anything, or hold out your hand, or you’ll give the whole snap away. You don’t want to even look at the people. Look down on the ground as if you was all in wit’ t’ hunger and cold, see? And don’t forget to look surprised ev’y time you get a penny.”
Joe retired down the side street. Occasionally he strolled past the huddling pair on the grating, surveying them out of the corner of his eye with pride in the effect. Pennies and nickels fell at their feet. In fact they were too successful, the ring of the coins on the flagstones reached the sharp ears of the blind woman who sold matches at the door of the Fifth Avenue Theatre adjoining. She came out in a rage, furiously tapping; a fearsome figure with her big bonnet, her blue glasses, her voluminous petticoats. Lashing out with her stick, she drove the boys away with frightful curses.
“Gawd! what langwidge from a woman!” said Pat, a little awestruck, when they collected their forces, down near Sixth Avenue.
However, they had already taken seventy cents. Joe took the money, but laid out a part of it on a big feed of frankfurters, bolivars, and sarsaparilla on Sixth. They filled their pockets with cigarettes. They felt fine.
They drifted up-town again. Later they found themselves outside a big new theatre by Fortieth street, called the Empire. They loitered on the pavement just out of reach of the carriage man, watching the four-wheelers and the hansoms trundle up and discharge their passengers. There was one or two of these here horseless carriages among them, which came drifting up to the curb as quietly as boats, the driver perched up behind, steering with a handle. From all the vehicles ladies descended, pointing a satin slipper to the ground. They wore velvet cloaks, red, green or white, and no hats, which was strange, since they were not poor women. The men wore big black capes; they had hats, tall ones, and it was the boys’ chief interest to get a vantage point where they could see the men press their hats against their hips as they walked through the lobby, and smash them flat. A remarkable sight, which caused them to laugh uproariously.
The stream of arrivals at the theatre door had about ceased, when two Johnnies came along through Fortieth street, and paused, grinning at the three boys. Joe was familiar with that grin. Young fellows who fancied themselves, like to sass a street boy, and if you answered them back smart, but not smart enough to put them out of face, very often there was a dime in it, or a quarter if the fellow had an edge on. But these two were not the real thing, Joe perceived; counter-jumpers. One of them had two blue admission checks in his hand, and he said to his friend: “Let’s give ’em to the little fellers.”
Joe, with a meek expression, instantly effaced himself. The other two, not deceived by this maneuver, watched him anxiously. Joe strolled off to the gallery door of the Empire, from which the two Johnnies must have just issued. Presently Pat and Tony approached, each nipping a blue ticket between his fingers. They stopped to consult in whispers. They crossed the street, and stood kicking a hydrant and looking at Joe. Joe looked up and down the street. Suddenly the two set off towards Sixth avenue on the run. Joe was not to be drawn off. They came back on his side of the street, each one trying to persuade the other to go first. Then they decided to rush the theatre door together. Joe was not confused by these tactics. He had picked out his victim from the beginning. Tony Lipper was the smaller of the two. Joe snatched the check out of Tony’s hand, and started up the stone stairway with Pat beside him. As soon as Tony was eliminated, Pat sucked up to Joe.
“That dirty little guinney hadn’t oughta go into a swell house like this. His pants is tore.”
They found themselves sitting towards the top of a steep bank of seats looking almost straight down into an illuminated well; the stage. The curtain was up. Joe had been to the London and the Thalia, but never to a swell up-town t’eayter. At first he was confused by the play, which was not like a play; it was just ordinary talking. He wondered if it was a custom up-town for the actors to sit around on the stage and talk before the play began. But from the close attention accorded by the audience he judged that this must be the play; a newer, tonier kind of play, he guessed, and applied his mind to it.
Well, the stage represented a room in a very fine house, such a room as Joe had never been in; but he accepted that room; an instinct told him it was the thing. A party was going on; the people were of the sort that Joe had seen entering the theatre. There was a sour-faced woman in a brown silk dress who was making a fuss. She said she was going home because there was another woman in the house that she didn’t like, and the others were all trying to smooth her down. Why the hell didn’t they let her go, thought Joe.
There was a lot of talk about this other woman, and Joe’s curiosity was excited about her. Then she came in, and the audience clapped; a little thing with a proud nose. She put all the other women in the shade. She wasn’t so pretty neither, but there was something about her . . . she just walked in and took the place. Joe was struck by her flashing glance, which could make out anything she wanted, without giving her away. Gee! she’s smart! he thought. She knows how to work ’em! She was wearing the prettiest white dress he had ever seen.
“Gee! this is a rotten show!” whispered Pat Crear.
“Well, it didn’t cost you nottin’!” said Joe.
“Ain’t nottin’ to it!”
“Not to an ign’rant little mutt like you.”
“Let’s go down to Fourteent’ street. Somepin doin’ there.”
“Go ahead.”
But Pat would not go alone.
There was a fresh-complected Johnny in the play who was stuck on the little woman with the proud nose, and they were fixing to get married. But all his folks were dead against it; for why, Joe could not understand, since she was certainly the pick of the basket. There was a lot of lahdy-dah talk he didn’t understand. He was interested in studying the details of that house, and the looks and manners of its high-toned inmates. He particularly admired the cool way the men handled themselves; lighting their cigars and pouring their drinks. Actin’ as if they owned the earth, he thought; and that’s the right way to act. It takes the heart out of the poor boobs.
Finally there was a scene in what looked like a book-store; but Joe picked up in the course of the action that it was called library, and all the books belonged to the man who lived in that house. There was a long talk in this room between a big guy who let on he was a lawyer—he was the fresh-complected Johnnie’s uncle; and the little woman with the proud nose, who was now wearing a grey dress even sweller than the white one. Bit by bit the lawyer guy broke her down (But not really, because all the time she was crying and carrying on, she was still looking around with that unbeatable eye) and it all came out that she had had a kid, and wasn’t married at all. This discovery rather dashed Joe; for he had forgotten that it was a play, but this was just the same as the plays on the Bowery. In real life for a girl to have a kid wasn’t nothing. But maybe it was different in high society.
The noisy scene drew Pat Crear’s attention back to the stage. When the curtain fell, he said: “Aah! I’d like to paste that fat slob! What he wanta make t’ guyl cry fer?”
“Aah, you don’t know nottin’,” said Joe. “It’s on’y a play, like. I don’t pay no attention to that.”
“You was takin’ it all in,” said Pat.
Joe’s close-set eyes seemed to draw closer together; he gnawed a finger nail, scowling slightly. “I dunno . . .” he muttered. “It set me thinkin’, like. . . . It was a chance to see how them rich folks lives inside their houses. They lives nice. Plenty of room to spread themselves. And t’ best of ev’yt’ing, see? That’s what appeals to me. Soft stuffs like silks and velvets around yeh, and women fixed nice. Servants to ac’ humble, and bring yeh ev’yt’ing yeh want. . . .”
“Maybe that was all made up, too,” suggested Pat.
“Shut up, you pore ign’rant mutt, and listen to what I’m tellin’ yeh! . . . Look at the dirty way our folks live. What do folks call us? gutter-snipes; street ayrabs, and such all. Well, them folks are no better’n we are, on’y they got money, see? Well, I guess they’s more money to be got the same way. . . . This is a free country and I’m as good as anybody. . . . You don’t git money by wuykin’ your heart out, neither. It ain’t wuykman as gits rich. It’s the smart guys. They wuyk the boobs and suckers. . . . When you git older you begin sizin’ things up. I’m near sixteen now. Well, I’m a smart feller. I’m gonna live soft too, and have a servant that I can boot around. . . .”
“They didn’t boot their servants.”
“Shut up! They could if they wanted to.”
“Where you gonna git it?”
“I’ll git it all right. I allus gits what I wants. . . . I know what I want now. I want a whole lot of money. . . . First-off I got to make a good appearance. I’ll git me a nobby suit and a haircut . . .”
“Chrrrist!” said Pat, grinning derisively. Inside the theatre he knew he was safe.
“Shut up, you mutt!” said Joe, without heat. “A mutt you was born, and a mutt you’ll die!”
East Broadwaywas the Fifth Avenue of the East Side. A wide street lined, not with tall tenements like the other streets, but with moderate sized brick houses with steep roofs and big chimneys. Nothing grand about them, but solid looking. One family to a house. In these houses lived the smart guys who lived directly off the poor boobs of the East Side: that is to say: doctors, lawyers, politicians, rabbis and prosperous storekeepers. Many of these guys were able to buy up the up-town blokes several times over, it was said, but they made out they lived simple and bragged about being East-Siders; it was good for business. They were smart guys all right, but Joe had no intention of stopping at East Broadway.
He was on his way to report to a lawyer who had hired him to secure evidence against a man, whose wife wanted to get a divorce. Having extended the scope of his operations, Joe had been able to procure himself a whole suit with long pants; also new shoes and a cap. He wore a white celluloid collar which he cleaned with a rag every morning. But he was already dissatisfied with the effect; his suit was beginning to look crummy, because he had no way of getting it cleaned and pressed. He wanted two suits.
The nights were cold now, and the people had retired indoors. While he was still some way off, therefore, Joe’s attention was attracted by a little group gathered below one of the old-fashioned stoops. From the way the people on the sidewalk were bending over, he perceived that something was the matter; and hastened forward. Sitting on the bottom step he beheld a funny-looking little woman, her knees as high as her chest, her skirts drawn up high enough to reveal a pair of new button shoes of soft leather, which toed in like a little girl’s. She was tenderly feeling of her ankle. Not at all a grand person, yet Joe instantly perceived she was of the up-town world. What a chance! he thought, energetically shouldering aside the women of the neighborhood who were bending over her. They fell back muttering: “Fresh!”
“Are yez hurted, lady?” Joe enquired, making his voice purr.
She lifted a pair of big, foggy grey eyes. “My ankle,” she murmured, “I put my foot in a crack, and twisted it badly. . . . I don’t know. . . . I’m afraid it’s sprained!”
“Send for the ambylance,” said a voice.
“Oh, no! no!” said the little woman like a scared child. “I want to go home!”
“Sure!” said Joe. “What you want is a cab.”
“Oh, yes!” she said. “Can one get a cab in this neighborhood?”
“I can git you one,” said Joe. “Fella I know. Just around the corner. You wait here.”
He ran around to McArdel’s livery stable in Division street, and gave the order. In three minutes he was back again. The crowd had increased in numbers; he bored his way through it as a matter of right. “S’all right, ma’am. Cab ’ll be here d’rectly.”
She looked up at him half grateful, half afraid of the bold-faced boy.
Joe faced the crowd truculently, his eyes darting from face to face to discover if anybody was inclined to dispute his claim to the woman. Just let them try it, that was all! “Get back, can’t yeh!” he cried roughly. “Can’t yeh give the lady air?”
Out of the corners of his eyes he sized her up. He was excited. What a chance! What a chance! He put aside his errand to the lawyer. He felt a burning desire to learn her, to master the secret of her nature, to envelope her, to turn her to his own uses. She looked easy, with that foggy glance and the childlike droop to the corners of her mouth; but she was of a world that was strange to him; he must make no mistakes. He had not missed the fact that she was half afraid of him; and he set himself to subdue his masterful air before her, and to butter his grating voice.
“Yer all right, Lady. I’ll see yeh troo!”
He cuffed aside the small boys, who came pushing between the legs of the adults to have a look.
Meanwhile he registered every detail of her appearance. She was about fifty years old, but her face was very little wrinkled, and her color was fresh. She looked as if she had been preserved under a thin film of paraffine; even her eyes. There was a strained look in her eyes. She’s scared now; you can’t get her right, thought Joe. Obviously an old maid; likes the soapy stuff, he thought. She wore a long, close-fitting coat of dark green, having many little capes, each edged with grey fur; and a small black hat shaped like a shell clinging to her head.
The cab came rattling and banging around the corner, and the old horse slid to a stand on his shaky legs. The crowd opened a way through for the lady. She surveyed the rusty vehicle, the furry beast that drew it, and the boozy driver on the box in unmixed alarm. The smell of the outfit came clear across the sidewalk.
“S’all right! S’all right!” Joe repeated. “Of course the swellest turnouts was already out, but I know this driver. He’s a safe driver. . . . Stand up on your good leg, lady, and lean on me. . . . Here you, take her other arm.”
Supported on either side, the lady hopped across the sidewalk on one foot. Somehow they got her bundled in. Joe shouldered his helper to one side. Keeping his hand on the handle of the door, he stuck his head inside.
“Where to, Lady?”
“Nineteen West Eleventh street,” she said faintly.
Nineteen; that’s near Fifth avenue; thought Joe with satisfaction. Repeating the number to the driver, he climbed nimbly after the lady, and pulled the door to. The cab jerked into motion.
“Oh!” she gasped from her corner. “You needn’t have come!”
“S’all right,” said Joe. “Don’t cost no more for two than one. You need me to help you out, see? The driver maybe can’t leave his horse stand.”
The old cab lurched and swayed. Talking was well-nigh impossible until they turned into an asphalt paved street. Joe had seldom ridden in a cab, but he had only a side glance of his mind for that experience. He was preoccupied with the little lady, pressing herself into her corner. Frightened, it seemed. He greatly desired to improve his opportunity, but was afraid of queering himself. If he could only make her talk he could get a line on her! Finally he ventured politely:
“You was a long way from home, lady.”
“Thursday nights I teach sewing to working girls in the White Door Settlement,” she said nervously.
“Oh, I see,” said Joe. “Them settlement houses does a lot of good.”
No response. She looked obstinately out of the window.
However “Settlement” had given Joe his line. He had heard all about those Christers who came down from up-town to lift up the poor. “On’y wisht I could go to one,” he said mournfully. “I’m so darn ign’rant.”
She did not rise to it.
Joe persevered. “I got no time for it. I gotta work nights as well as daytimes. . . .”
“What is your work?”
Joe smiled to himself. He had forced her to ask that. “Oh, I got a regular job in the daytime. Nights I sell papers to help out. I got heavy expenses. . . .” He left his sentence teasingly in the air.
“Expenses? A boy like you? . . . Huh? I suppose you mean you have to help out at home?”
Joe felt assured now that he could handle her. He proceeded to spread himself. “Oh, I ain’t got no regular home, like. I just sleep around where I can get the cheapest bed. Summer nights I often sleep in the park to save the price of a bed. I got a kid brother, you see. I got him boardin’ wit’ a nice family on East Broadway. I was just comin’ from there, when I seen you. Three dollars a week, I pay for him. That’s what keeps me hustlin’. . . . Besides his clo’es and all. . . .”
The lady came partly out of her corner. She was interested. “Why . . .” she said. “What stories one hears! . . . I don’t know. . . . It seems terrible. . . . Huh? Have you no father and mother?”
“Dead, ma’am,” said Joe, sadly. “My old man, he was killed in a boiler explosion; and me mutter, she just wasted away, like, after.”
“Oh, dear!” she said. “And the whole burden fell on you! . . . Huh? . . . You poor boy!”
“Oh, I don’t mind, ma’am,” said Joe quickly. “I’m a bugger for work. . . . He’s a real cute little feller. . . .”
“How old?”
“Nine.”
“What’s his name?”
“Malcolm, ’m.”
There was no lack of conversation during the rest of the drive.
When they drew up at the address given, Joe perceived to his satisfaction that it was a fine neighborhood; quiet and genteel. Number Nineteen was one of three houses in a row; smaller than their neighbors, but having a neat, choice look. The red bricks were set off with a white wood trim; there were elegant lace curtains in the windows.
Between them Joe and the cabman helped the lady up the steps. The outer door of the house was closed. In response to their ring, it was presently opened by another little lady, very like the first, but having a more sensible look. Joe was relieved; a man might have been difficult to deal with.
The lady at the door gasped in dismay. Joe’s lady pretended to make out that it was nothing at all, but all the time she was letting on that she was real bad off. This one had such a funny way of talking. She couldn’t say anything right through, but always run out of breath in the middle, and fetched a little gasp. Huh? Very often she ended up with something quite different from the beginning. An Irish maid came, and all three talked at once, or made clucking noises. A houseful of women; what luck! thought Joe.
The sister and the maid received the sufferer from the hands of Joe and the cabman. To the cabman Joe said out of the corner of his mouth: “You’ve got your pay; cheese it!” The man went down the steps. Joe himself insinuated his body inside the door, and closed it. He made himself inconspicuous in the dark vestibule. The two women were making their way towards the stairs, supporting the sufferer between them. Intent upon her, they paid no attention to Joe.
The strong servant picked up her mistress bodily, and started up the stairs. The other lady followed with her arms outstretched as if she expected them to fall over backwards, and clucking all the way. Joe entered the house, softly closing the inner door, and eagerly looked around him. His first feeling was one of disappointment; the carpet was worn. Still . . . the place was fixed up real nice; nothing grand, of course.
The gas was burning inside a fancy red lantern; there was a funny carved oak hat-stand with brass hooks; and on the other side of it a table with a silver plate on it, full of cards with people’s names on them. Joe took note of how the stair carpet was fastened down by a brass rail running across each step. That was a neat rig, now. The door into the parlor at his right hand, was open, but that room was dark. However, enough light came in from the street to show him that it was a real nice room, crowded with pretty fixings.
Hearing a stir overhead, Joe hastily smoothed his hair down with his hands, and sat down in the hall with a Christly expression. The sister of the hurt lady came tripping down the stairs at a great rate. She had a worried look; evidently it had just occurred to her that Joe had not been disposed of. She saw him and stopped on the stairs. “Oh!” she said. She was a little older than her sister, yet somehow had a fresher look. But not a woman who was accustomed to dealing with men. She had a smooth oval face, and pretty sloping shoulders like a girl.
“I brought her home,” said Joe, modestly, to help her out.
“Oh, yes! Of course!” she said. “Just wait a moment till I fetch my purse.”
“No, lady, no,” said Joe. “I don’t want nottin’ off yeh. I was just waitin’ to hear if your sister was bad hurted. I t’ought maybe I could run for the doctor.”
“Oh!” said the lady. She came slowly down the rest of the stairs. She was looking at Joe with little wrinkles in her forehead. Joe could read her thoughts. He had put her in the wrong by refusing the tip she had offered him. Now she didn’t know what to do with him. She didn’t like him, but she felt that she ought to like such a true-hearted lad as he was making out to be. Well, Joe didn’t care whether she liked him or not, so he could make her do what he wanted.
“Shall I go for the doctor?” he asked.
“Oh, no!” she said, recollecting herself. “It is not serious. It has happened before, and I know just what to do.”
“Then I’ll be stepping,” said Joe. He lingered, allowing his glance to travel wistfully around the pleasant interior.