LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
c 
 
I I .!, (> 1.T1 
 
 SO SHE HK(iINS TO DANCK " 
 
PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 STORIES OF 
 
 LIFE AMONG THE MASSES OF 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 BY JULIAN RALPH 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1896 
 
BY JULIAN RALPH. 
 
 DIXIE ; or, Southern Scenes and Sketches. Illus 
 trated. Square Svo, Cloth. (Just Ready.) 
 
 ON CANADA S FRONTIER. Illustrated. Square 
 Svo, Cloth, $2 50. 
 
 OUR GREAT WEST. Illustrated. Square Svo, 
 Cloth, $2 50. 
 
 CHICAGO AND THE WORLD S FAIR. Illustrated. 
 Svo, Cloth, $3 00. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YOKK. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 Ail riyhtt reterved. 
 
TO 
 
 MY BEST FRIEND 
 ISABELLA MOUNT RALPH 
 
 227649 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 THE first seven of these short stories were 
 published in HAKPEE S MAGAZINE. The one 
 called " Low Dutch and High " is here put 
 forth for the first time. While the stories 
 were being published in the MAGAZINE, one 
 critic quite honestly declared that he or 
 she questioned the extent of the author s 
 familiarity with the life he was treating. 
 On the other hand, a talented friend wrote 
 that " The only trouble with the stories is 
 that it seems as though the author must 
 have at one time lived in a tenement, else 
 he could not describe tenement scenes as 
 he does." The truth does not hide behind 
 either the criticism nor the praise. 
 
 The author never lived in any other tene 
 ment than the enormous hive called Manhat 
 tan Island ; but there he has spent nearly all 
 his life, and there, as everywhere else, the 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 lives of the people of all sorts have been 
 more studied by him than his books. Dur 
 ing more than twenty years as a reporter on 
 the Sun, his duties took him into the tene 
 ments and among the tenement folk very, 
 very frequently. They led him to attend 
 weddings, wakes, funerals, picnics, excur 
 sions, and dances, as well as to witness the 
 routine of work -a- day life in the swarm. 
 Other men who have been interested in this 
 strange, abnormal outgrowth of the peculiar 
 shape of the island, which forces our poor to 
 crowd in tall buildings, have written of this 
 life with dramatic ability and fine art, some 
 times with absorbing ingenuity, at the cost 
 of probability and the truth. Others have 
 done as Avell without distorting the facts. 
 These tales are, in the main, reflections of 
 scenes that have been actually witnessed and 
 that have been put together with such ability 
 
 as is possessed by 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 3 
 
 THE MOTHER SONG 29 
 
 LOVE IN THE BIG BAKKACKS 53 
 
 A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB .... 77 
 
 CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE . . . . 105 
 
 DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS .... 131 
 
 PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 157 
 
 LOW DUTCH AND HIGH . 185 
 
THE LINE- MAN S WEDDING 
 
 WITH my good friend George Fletcher, of 
 whom there may be more to say in another 
 account of the " People We Pass," I enjoyed 
 the adventure here set forth. It was the wit 
 nessing of an East Side wedding, which was 
 in itself remarkable, and which afforded a 
 chance for a close - range study of a phase of 
 tenement life which was yet more interesting. 
 Joe, my friend s apprentice, had obtained his 
 promise that he would some da}^ call upon the 
 lad s mother, who was grateful for something 
 Fletcher had done for the boy quite in the 
 way of business. The promise had been long 
 standing when, one night recently, Joe told 
 his employer that two friends of his sister 
 were to be married at his home, and that it 
 would be a great honor to the family if he 
 were present. 
 
 u Don t be the least afraid," said Fletcher, 
 i 
 
\4: r/ ; PEOPLE W V E PASS 
 
 We were pursuing our way between tall 
 frowning walls of tenements. We noticed 
 that the orderliness of their lire -escapes and 
 windows was the basis of a grand disorder of 
 pots, pans, quilts, rugs, rags, and human heads. 
 As for the people, few were on the pave 
 ments. "Don t be the least afraid," said he; 
 " there s nothing except contagious diseases to 
 fear in these streets. They are the safest in 
 town to walk in ; the only ones where the 
 front doors are left unlocked at night. As for 
 the people, they are what we all sprang from ; 
 they are what America is made of." 
 
 The next time you are in the neighborhood 
 of Grand Street and the Bowery you may see 
 the region. Turn to the east a block or two, 
 and looking along Forsyth Street, to which 
 you will quickly come, you will see little Joe s 
 home. It is a gigantic five-story double ten 
 ement. It has the words " Big Barracks " 
 painted in black letters on a white ground 
 on one side near the top. They are startling 
 words to see and to think about, for whether 
 the landlord had them painted there to show 
 his defiance of decency, or whether it was a 
 
depraved sense of humor which prompted 
 that rich barbarian s act, no libel was prac 
 tised. Only the truth, or a merciful hint of 
 the truth, was expressed in the words. Bar 
 racks they are within those walls, and for 
 miles and miles to the northward of them rise 
 blocks after blocks of other barracks. They 
 are worse than the soldiers dwellings to which 
 the word is usually applied. They are more 
 like those subterranean dormitories under 
 neath Paris where the dead were stored,^or 
 though there is swarming, teeming life in the 
 tenements of New York, they are veritable 
 catacombs. They are the tombs of manly 
 and womanly dignity, of thrift, of cleanli 
 ness, of modesty, and of self-respect. Man s 
 first requirement is elbow-room, and these 
 barracks deprive him of it. Where there is 
 not elbow-room ambition stifles, energy tire 
 high resolve is still-born./ Childhood must be 
 kept as it comes fresh and pure, innocent, 
 unsuspecting, hallowed. On this the world 
 depends. But childhood in these barracks is 
 a hideous thing. Instead of a host of simple 
 joys that should brighten life s threshold, the 
 
6 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 little ones get age in babyhood, wisdom in for 
 bidden things, and ignorance of what is sweet 
 est and best. 
 
 Little Joe was at the doorway, and led us 
 up and in. He introduced us to his mother, 
 a jolly big German widow, who laughed in 
 cessantly, and with such changing tone and 
 fashion that in a five - minute conversation 
 she did not utter above half a dozen words, 
 yet took her part satisfactorily by laughing. 
 Where almost any other woman would have 
 said "Yes," and "You re very kind," and "Do 
 you think so?" she smiled, giggled, chuckled, 
 and laughed. As one of us remarked, "she 
 had a mind that would never ache from 
 straining a mind like a sheltered mill-pond." 
 Joe s sister was flitting in and out in such a 
 way as to be partly in that room and more 
 considerably in other rooms, whence issued 
 alternate sounds of feminine merriment and 
 feminine bickering. Joe captured and pre 
 sented her. She was an ideal daughter of the 
 tenements a stunted, black-eyed, well-round 
 ed little thing, with her coarse black hair 
 " banged " on a line with her eyebrows. She 
 
JOE a SISTER 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 7 
 
 wore a bit of lace at her throat, and two large 
 red bands at the lower ends of the very tight 
 sleeves of a dress which tilted backwards and 
 forwards and sideways, regardless of her move 
 ment, as if it had a will as well as ways of its 
 own. 
 
 " This is my sister," said Joe. 
 
 She bowed stiffly. 
 
 " She ain t going to get married." 
 
 " You jest shot up !" said she. 
 
 " Because her feller s so google - eyed " 
 (here the boy s ears were spitefully boxed) 
 "that if they went to get spliced" (here his 
 face was slapped) "the minister would mar 
 ry him to the wrong girl, less he was blind 
 folded." 
 
 "I don t care, now," said the girl, very 
 much mortified and angry. " You re a sassy 
 thing ! Mother, can t he stop ?" 
 
 The old woman laughed immoderately as 
 the girl flounced out of the room, which then 
 began to fill with young people, mainly with 
 girls, who looked and dressed so like Joe s sis 
 ter that they might easily be mistaken for 
 members of the same family. The young men 
 
8 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 who had been invited came in a body. They 
 first met together, as was their nightly cus 
 tom, in a large room over a corner groggery, 
 where they maintained what they called "The 
 Pinochle Club." Tens of thousands of men 
 meet in the same way in the liquor and beer 
 saloons of the city every night and every Sun 
 day, and whenever they are not at work. If 
 the votes of the members of what we call the 
 clubs of the town could be contrasted, in bulk, 
 with the votes of these little social clubs and 
 corner-saloon coteries, the reader would under 
 stand why Tammany Hall respects the saloon 
 coteries and treats the great clubs of Fifth 
 Avenue with contempt. These young men 
 who came to the wedding were honest enough 
 young fellows. They were working-men. 
 Some wore blue shirts under outer clothes of 
 locally fashionable patterns, but one or two 
 displayed high colored collars and cuffs that 
 matched them. Each carried a lighted cigar 
 in his mouth, and each took his turn in dart 
 ing across the room with a peculiar slide, and 
 spitting noisily more or less in the direction 
 of the stove. 
 
"THE YOUNG MEN CAME IN A BODY 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 9 
 
 The bride, a tiny, pert little blond German, 
 with eyes that shone with mischievous expres 
 sion, was surrounded by the other girls. To 
 their surprise she would not take off her hat 
 and cloak, she would not sit down, she would 
 not say why. She would only laugh silently 
 with her tiny bead like eyes. It was evident 
 that between excitement and self -conscious 
 ness she was undergoing an intense strain. 
 Presently there came a stalwart young fel 
 low, blond also and a German, who, from a 
 physical standpoint, was certainly handsome. 
 And he was more than commonly intelligent- 
 looking as well. His dress, under the cir 
 cumstances, was very peculiar. He wore a 
 cardigan jacket, and shabby trousers tucked in 
 cow-hide boots, to which were affixed the 
 heavy spurred irons with which telegraph-line 
 repairers climb the poles on which the wires 
 are strung. In one hand he swung a cap and 
 a stout new hempen rope. The young men 
 gathered around him and loudly voiced their 
 astonishment, for this, it appeared, was the 
 bridegroom. They asked him if he had just 
 quit work, and how long it would take him 
 
10 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 to dress, and " what it all meant, any 
 how/ 
 
 u Is the kag of beer here ?" he asked the 
 jolly widow, in German. She replied with 
 an affirmative series of chuckles and indica 
 tions of pent-up merriment, and a great bus 
 tle ensued. As a result there was brought 
 into the room a table spread with cold meats, 
 German cheeses, pickles, strange cakes with 
 the fruits outside, and other cakes covered 
 with icing and rubbed with red sugar. Then 
 followed the inevitable beer mainstay and 
 chief delight of the masses in a keg on a 
 wooden horse, and accompanied by more than 
 a score of heavy beer-saloon glasses with han 
 dles. This was the bridegroom s answer to 
 the questions of his friends, and, being practi 
 cal in its way, was received with better grace 
 than the girls had accorded to the bride s re 
 sponses in mysterious and mischievous glances. 
 
 The next important personage to arrive was 
 the clergyman, a shrivelled little German, in 
 a battered beaver hat and suit of black, illu 
 mined by one of those high white collars that 
 show no break, but seem to have been made 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 11 
 
 and laundered on the necks of those who wear 
 them. He rubbed his hands before the stove, 
 and after consuming a palmful of snuff, put to 
 violent use a handkerchief of so pronounced a 
 red that it made him seem to suffer from an 
 extraordinary hemorrhage at the nose. When 
 he was, as it seemed to the others, very good 
 and ready, he took from a tail pocket of his 
 coat something very like a woman s striped 
 stocking, and fitted its open end over his skull. 
 Then the stocking took the guise of a liberty 
 cap. During all this time he spoke to no one, 
 but carried the air of a man of business bent 
 upon a perfunctory performance, and deter 
 mined to execute it properly and with de 
 spatch. His stocking adjusted, he might have 
 spoken indeed, he did clear his throat as if 
 to do so but the arrival of the tardiest of the 
 guests prevented his doing so. This new ar 
 rival was, next to the bride and groom, the 
 person of most distinction in the company, 
 Mr. Barney Kelly, the reporter. 
 
 " Ah, there, Barney !" all the men called 
 out. 
 
 " Ah, there ! put it there," said the genial 
 
12 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 journalist, making a pantomimic offer of a 
 shake of his hand to all at once. 
 
 In presenting him to the reader there is no 
 intention to have it understood that he repre 
 sents more than a very small fraction of those 
 who follow the important profession to which 
 he is allied. And yet his kind exists and even 
 prospers, in isolated instances, especially upon 
 such newspapers of the period as pride them 
 selves upon a feverish degree of incessant orig 
 inality in the pursuit and treatment of exciting 
 topics. In the journals to which I refer the 
 daily and numerous ""sensations" are uniform 
 ly spread out under long and very black head 
 lines upon sheets no edition of which goes to 
 the public as anything less extraordinary than 
 an " Extra" -that word being invariably 
 printed in larger and blacker type than the 
 titles of the newspapers themselves. The 
 popular journal which employs Mr. B. Kelly 
 upon its staff is the well-known Daily Camera, 
 possessor of uncountable circulation, giver of 
 endless chromos, albums, and prizes the 
 same which comes out green as its readers on 
 St. Patrick s day, and red (as if with the blush- 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 13 
 
 es of journalism) on the Fourth of July. In 
 fact, and in short, the Camera is the identical 
 journal which "beat" all its contemporaries by 
 three minutes with the news of one electrocu 
 tion, and followed up that triumph with an ac 
 count of a subsequent electrocution in no less 
 time than half an hour before the Governor 
 granted a reprieve to the condemned man. 
 To the office of the Camera young Barney 
 Kelly came as an office-boy from the tene 
 ments. Allowed to make extra money by 
 writing for the sporting page (developer of 
 most of such odd fish in the newspaper swim), 
 he exhibited such talent as a tireless and in 
 genious news-getter that he was soon installed 
 as a reporter. His lack of modesty did not 
 trouble him. The defects in his education he 
 was repairing by good use of a shrewd mind 
 and an imitative nature; and meantime the 
 office men were " licking into shape " or re 
 writing nil the copy he turned in. We shall 
 see traces of a queer lingo in Mr. Kelly s 
 speech. He knows better English than he 
 speaks, just as many New Yorkers who hold 
 themselves his superiors know better than to 
 
14 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 talk like affected Englishmen, as they do. In 
 their cases, as in Barney s, these peculiarities 
 of speech are mere homages to fashion ; for 
 as the proper thing in the middle of town is 
 to talk broad English, so the proper thing 
 in the tenement regions is to talk " Bow 
 ery." 
 
 "Yell," said the parson, facing the compa 
 ny, " do ve been all retty ?" 
 
 " Min," said the bridegroom, turning to the 
 bride, " have you told any one ?" 
 
 " Well, I just guess not," said the bride. 
 
 "Very well, then," said the bridegroom. 
 "Gents and ladies all. The first time I seen 
 Minnie Bechman I was at work on a pole just 
 in front of this window, where she was sitting, 
 once, on a visit to these old friends of hers. 
 She took to me, and you know how it is 
 yourselves I took to her, and we agreed to 
 get married. Well, then, the thing was how 
 we was to get married so as to make a sensa 
 tion in the city. "Well, then, Barney Kelly 
 here, he put the scheme into my head that 
 we was to get married on a po 
 
 "Ilully gee, Chris!" exclaimed the great 
 
THE LINE-MAN S AVEDDING 15 
 
 journalist, "don t give the snap away so 
 quick." 
 
 " Go on, Chris !" " Go on, Dutch !" cried 
 the others. 
 
 "No; you go head and tell it, Barney," 
 said the bridegroom. "Tell it just the way 
 you ll write it up." 
 
 "I ve written it np a ready," said the jour 
 nalist. "It s a corker, boys ladies and gen 
 tlemen a corker ; a hull collum in the 
 Camera /" 
 
 " Say, fellers, that s great, hain t it ?" one 
 visitor exclaimed. "Is our names dere in de 
 Camera, Barney?" 
 
 "Every son of a gun s name that got in 
 vited is in there, you kin bet," said Mr. Kelly. 
 " Now I ll give you the whole snap. You see, 
 this is the age of sensations, and nothing but 
 sensations goes. Understand ? You know 
 how it is in the noozepaper business you 
 can t git the coin unless you git sensations. 
 I was a-chasin meself up an down the side 
 walks one day when I run acrost Dutch, our 
 friend here. You know the first time I seen 
 Dutch was at the Pinochle Club, and I worked 
 
16 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 him fer a sensation on the Romance of a 
 Line-man. Him and I faked a dandy story. 
 Twas about a feller bein on a pole, an he got 
 to thinkin bout his poor old mother that was 
 a-dyin round the corner see ? An he took 
 off his rubber glove to wipe the tears from his 
 eyes, an he touched a live wire, an he curled 
 up like an autumn leaf an died on the pole 
 see ? An Dutch was on the pole an took him 
 down, an we faked up how, ever since that 
 night see? he don t dream of nothing but 
 live wires. Everything that he dreams of 
 turns inter snakes, and the snakes turns out to 
 be live wires see? and chases him to the 
 roof, an off inter the street, where he wakes 
 up dead an mangled. Gents, that s how I 
 got acquainted with Dutch, an made him 
 famous, an got eight dollars in hard stuff for 
 me trouble. 
 
 " Well, now, we re gettin to the marriage. 
 I was a-chasin meself over the sidewalks, and 
 I met Dutch, and he told me he was going to 
 marry his girl. I seen the chance for a sensa 
 tion the minute he told me. We can make 
 a sensation, says I ; l one that 11 make the 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 17 
 
 boys on tlieJVews and Dial crazy and sick 
 see ? People have got married in Trinity 
 steeple, in a row-boat on the river, in a cab in 
 Central Park, in a balloon, on skates, by tel 
 ephone and telegraph, and on horseback in 
 fact, more ways than you can shake a stick at 
 but Dutch an me agreed we never heard 
 of no one gittin married on a telegraph pole. 
 He s a line-man, an climbing them sticks is 
 his business, ladies ; so the only thing was 
 whether Minnie wouldn t be a-scared see? 
 Her mother wouldn t have it ; but there 
 wasn t no poles around her house, anyhow ; 
 and besides, Dutch wanted the pole where he 
 was when he first seen Minnie. He told her 
 all about it, an she was dead game, and she 
 says, We might as well be romantic wunst 
 in our life see?" 
 
 " So," said the bridegroom, vastly impatient 
 to play his part, "we didn t tell Min s mother 
 she was a-goin to get married at all ; and as 
 for Minnie being a-scared, why, here goes for 
 the first wadding alongside the wires." 
 
 " Stop ! Hold on !" the little clergyman said, 
 imperatively, arresting the bride and groom as 
 
18 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 they were about to leave the room. "Toes 
 anypody here opject to dis wetting, or to der 
 mariner of it ?" 
 
 Anxiety shone in every young face, and 
 each person looked at the other to see who 
 should raise a question about the propriety of 
 what they all regarded as novel and exciting 
 sport. 
 
 "Do you think it all right yourself?" one 
 of the young men asked of the clergyman. 
 
 " Oh, veil," he said, with a laugh and a 
 shrug of the shoulders that seemed to indicate 
 a desire to shake off all responsibility and 
 gravity, "I ton d know apout dot. A man 
 gits porn in vunny blaces, and a man dies in 
 vunny blaces. It makes not much deeferenz 
 if he shood git marrit by such blaces vot he 
 likes. Laties and shendlemen, so long vot 
 efferypody peen bleased, vy shood not I git 
 bleased ? It is mit me only choost a madder 
 of gitting my pay for der chob." 
 
 " He s all right, lads ; don t go to guying 
 him," said the journalist. Then, in an " aside," 
 he whispered, "That s His Whiskers that mar 
 ried the skeleton and the fat woman in the 
 
19 
 
 Bowery museum last week, an got a collum 
 in every morning paper see ?" 
 
 "But, my vriends," the parson continued, 
 producing a tiny black book, and speaking in 
 a graver and less business-like tone than be 
 fore, " in der chapel vare I been aggustomed 
 to do dese sort of dings I alvays gif a vord of 
 adwice. See to it you got a goot vooman 
 a vooman mitout bride and voolishness. See 
 to it you haf got a goot man, von vich got 
 shteady vork, und vich dreats his farder und 
 mudder bropper. See to it, bote of you, vot 
 you got luf by your hearts. Not vot I call 
 shicken luf, not vot I shall call dot luf vich 
 purns der body vile der heart und soul are 
 shiffering mit cold, but dot kind of luf vich 
 is more as twenty-one years old, und looks 
 owd for der future ; vich says, I haf got a 
 young vooman vich vill got blendy shildren, 
 und vill pring em up goot, und vill dake care 
 uf me ven I got sick, und vill also vork for 
 her liffing, choost like myself; und, I haf 
 got a man sdrong und heldty like a lion, und 
 he has got a goot trade, und if he trinks lager- 
 peer a leedle he vill not git trunk too much 
 
fcO PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 und make a fool by his family, und he vill 
 dreat me like I ought to peen dreated, so nice 
 as I could vish. Now, den, I am all retty." 
 
 The bridegroom, a picture of impatience, 
 held out one powerful arm, crooked at the el 
 bow, and the diminutive bride leaped into it 
 and was carried as lightly out of the room as 
 if she weighed no more than a shawl. All 
 the young men and many of the girls trooped 
 down stairs behind the happy man and his 
 freight, the clanking of the irons on his boots 
 drowning the noises of all their feet. The 
 clergyman went to one of the front windows, 
 and throwing it open, leaned out, book in 
 hand ; all who remained in the room crowded 
 behind him and at the other window. With 
 in a few feet say twice an easy-reaching dis 
 tance rose the great mastlike pole, and even 
 with the next floor above were the cross-bars 
 on which the lowest wires were fastened. 
 Five minutes before, not many persons had 
 been seen on the street, but now the sidewalk 
 was thronged, and men, women, and children, 
 some shouting, some laughing, and some call 
 ing loudly to others at a distance, were hurry- 
 
THE LINE-MAN S WEDDING 21 
 
 ing to the scene. Perceptible above the other 
 sounds was the thud, thud, thud of the line 
 man s spikes, or "irons," as he drove them 
 into the pole. He mounted steadily upward, 
 circling the pole with one arm, while his bride 
 rested partly on the other and partly on a 
 hempen rope which was arranged so as to 
 form a loop under her body and over his far 
 ther shoulder. 
 
 " Don t spill me, Chris," she said, in a tone 
 betraying at least a little nervousness. 
 
 "Don t wiggle an I won t," said he, 
 punctuating each word with a thud and a step 
 upward. 
 
 At first the villageful of people who lived 
 on that one block had been aroused by the ru 
 mor that a girl was climbing a telegraph pole, 
 but the spectacle of the man and the girl 
 working their way towards heights that thou 
 sands inhabit, but reach exclusively by stairs 
 or elevators, gave rise to the report that the 
 man was a maniac. The invention waxed 
 more ingenious as it flew, until it got about 
 that the maniac was going to hang himself 
 and the girl from the cross-bars. In a minute 
 
22 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 and a half the block, from stoop-line to stoop- 
 line, was crowded. If any policeman was in 
 the neighborhood, he did not interfere. The 
 Pinochle Club was never interfered with. 
 
 " Ready ! Be quick about it !" said the 
 bridegroom ; and at the words the little Ger 
 man parson, leaning so far out of the window 
 that the end of his stockinglike cap fell in 
 front of his nose, began to read the marriage 
 service, in German, at breakneck speed. In 
 the wild flight of words there were percepti 
 ble haltings, marked with a " Yah " by one or 
 the other of the couple on the pole. Before 
 it seemed possible the ceremony could have 
 reached its conclusion, the minister stopped, 
 slapped his book shut, and said, in what he 
 intended for the Queen s English, " I now 
 bronounce you man und vife. May Gott in 
 heffun pless you bote !" 
 
 A roar of applause marked their successful 
 descent to the street, and presently the bride 
 and groom, the former glowing from excite 
 ment, and the latter nursing his arm with 
 rude pantomime, reappeared in the room, pre 
 ceded by some and followed by the others of 
 
TIIK PKEACIIKR 
 
23 
 
 those who had gone down to the street with 
 them. Then there was great excitement. The 
 young men seized the proud and grinning 
 bridegroom s hands and jerked him violently 
 about the room in the excess of their admira 
 tion. The young women crowded the bride 
 into a corner and intended to give vent to 
 their surprise and delight, but their excite 
 ment greatly exaggerated their natural lack 
 of conversational gifts. When they did re 
 cover their powers of speech the results were 
 not such as one is accustomed to in feminine 
 gatherings in the heart of the town. But 
 these girls have standards of their own, and 
 were conscious of no defects in manners. Be 
 sides, they were excited, and had put aside all 
 the affectation they display when they call out 
 " Carsh ! heah, carsh !" in the great shopping 
 stores in which some were employed ; and 
 they did not mince their words, as is their 
 fashion at the first meeting with .a prepos 
 sessing young man. Here are some sentences 
 of their talk : 
 
 " It was great, Minnie." 
 
 " It was out of sight." 
 
24 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " For Gord s sakes ! I don t see how you 
 could ever do it." 
 
 " I didn t care." This by the bride. 
 
 " She hit me for a silk dress for doing it, 
 just the same," said her husband. 
 
 " Is tha-a-t so, Minnie ? Did yer get a silk 
 dress?" 
 
 " I did so, Ma-a-a-ggie." 
 
 "My Gord, girls! ain t Chris good to her?" 
 
 " Well," said Ma-a-a-ggie (this name is nev 
 er otherwise pronounced six blocks from Fifth 
 Avenue in our Celtic metropolis), " I d marry 
 anny man for a silk dress." 
 
 "And who wouldn t, I d like to know?" 
 asked little Elsa Muller, the youngest girl in 
 the room. 
 
 The people of the tenements manage with 
 fewer words than Shakespeare used. Their 
 frequent use of the most sublime name should 
 not shock the reader. <No harm is meant by it, 
 nor does its use damage any character among 
 the most of us. It is but the Englishing of 
 an innocent exclamation common to all the 
 peoples of continental Europe. It is by long 
 odds the commonest exclamation of the ma- 
 
25 
 
 jority of the women on the island we inhabit. 
 My dear madam, your soft- voiced maid says 
 it fifty times a day to the others in your kitch 
 en, and if your modiste does not say it, it is 
 because she prefers Mon Dieu or Ach Gott. 
 
 These girls at the wedding ate and drank 
 and sang and romped as merrily as so many 
 children. The young men talked of present 
 and absent friends, or teased the young wom 
 en in ways good-natured and not meant to be 
 disrespectful, though perhaps they were not 
 always gentle. 
 
 Suddenly, when the fun was waxing lively 
 and general, about half an hour after the wed 
 ding, an unexpected but characteristic occur 
 rence took place. The hall door flew open 
 and banged against the wall, and in the door 
 way was seen a portly Irish woman of most 
 savage mien. She glared at the company, and 
 scanning each member of it fiercely, finally 
 fixed her angry frown upon one of the young 
 girls. 
 
 " Cordelia Angelina Mahoney," said she, 
 " come right down to your own home d ye 
 hear me? and doan t be dishgracing yerseP 
 
26 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 wid spakin to thim Dootcli omadhauns. It s 
 none o my business, sure " (this to the com 
 pany generally), "but if I wanted to get mar- 
 rit I d be man-it loike a Christian, and not 
 loike a couple of floies in the air." 
 
 Miss Mahoney replied that she d be " right 
 down," and the stout Irish woman turned to 
 go away. She wheeled about almost directly, 
 however, and singled out another of the girls. 
 
 "Mary Maud Estelle Gilligan," said she, 
 " what wud your poor mother, dead an gone 
 God bless her! think if she cud see ye 
 skaylarrukin wid a couple of pole -climbing 
 monkeys an a mob av sour-crout-atin hathen ? 
 Shame be to ye, Mary Maud Estelle ! Yer 
 frinds have a roight to be sick and sorry for 
 ye." 
 
 I followed close upon her heels, for I found 
 that the merriment was to last all night. 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 
 
 No one in Forsyth Street knew much less 
 about the people we pass than young Mrs. 
 Ericson. Though she lived in the Big Bar 
 racks tenement, she had little in common with 
 the others there except poverty. The people 
 are not all alike in the districts where they 
 swarm. Some are titled folk down at the 
 heel, and some are intellectual and refined, 
 out of gear as well as out of pocket. Young 
 Mrs. Ericson s father, Dr. Whitfield, inher 
 ited a fine medical practice, which he detest 
 ed, and scattered as a dos: shakes off water 
 
 O 
 
 after a bath. Born English, and eldest son 
 of a physician, he had no more chance to 
 choose his calling than his nationality. He 
 spent his adult years painting the flowers, 
 whose names and family connections and 
 habits he knew in several languages. He 
 gladly prescribed for ailing flowers, and prac- 
 
30 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 tised progressive surgery upon pet dogs and 
 cats with loving skilfulness; but the human 
 patients who came he drove from his door. 
 They spread it abroad that he was a " crank." 
 To make up for their loss his wife had taken 
 boarders in a nice part of town, until she be 
 came convinced that this would not make 
 both ends meet, when she died. At last the 
 doctor rented one room for an office in a 
 brownstone dwelling, and lived with his daugh 
 ter in the Big Barracks. A few old friends 
 invented illnesses in order to give him the 
 money he would not get for himself. And 
 he painted flowers and filled his windows with 
 them, and rounded out a Micawberish exist 
 ence. Now that he is laid under the roots of 
 his pets, the world has discovered that few 
 men who ever lived could paint flowers as he 
 did. To find a man who should have been a 
 Japanese artist forced to prescribe pills in 
 New York is to discover one of the proofs 
 that this stage of life is experimental, and 
 that only in the hereafter will all of us get 
 justice. 
 
 Dr. Wliitfield was a gentleman in every 
 
" HE SPENT HIS ADULT YEARS PAINTING FLOWERS " 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 31 
 
 fibre, and yet his daughter, Alice Ericson, was 
 his superior at all points. She had married 
 unhappily, and come back to her father with 
 a crippled child, for whom she slaved. The 
 contrast between her and the mass of people 
 around her was startling and cruel. Splen 
 did in beauty, proud in bearing, gentle, re 
 fined, and just a trifle stylish in her plain at 
 tire, she moved among her neighbors like a 
 goddess. Appropriately, they worshipped her ; 
 and not always at a distance, for many knew 
 her as a ministering angel. 
 
 At the door of the Big Barracks sat 
 "Aunty," the apple-woman, always knitting 
 gray stockings. She knitted so continually 
 that one would think she supplied the army. 
 In reality she only finished stockings for her 
 own needs ; but she wore two pair at a time 
 six months in each year. Besides a brim 
 ming store of fruit, her basket held some 
 dusty sticks of candy, and a few "bolivars" 
 mammoth ginger-snaps for which the 
 children went freshly bankrupt every day. 
 Her face was a caricature of an orange 
 round, red, mottled, and bumpy. She was 
 
32 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 a power in the neighborhood a gossip, a 
 philosopher, and reputedly rich. She had 
 such a royal brogue that if she had boasted 
 descent from Brian Born, no one would have 
 doubted her. She loved to gossip admiring 
 ly about the "Whitfields ; but her favorite topic 
 was Eugene Kelly, brother of Barney Kelly 
 of the Daily Camera. Eugene lived in the 
 neighborhood, and often stopped to take an 
 apple, drop a coin, and chat for a moment 
 with the sunny old woman enthroned like 
 an Irish Pomona on a stool, with the low stoop 
 of the Barracks for a dais. Kelly was a pros 
 perous, buoyant youth, half scene-painter and 
 half stage-manager in a Bowery theatre. And 
 whichever theatre it was, his noisy clothes 
 and his pert way of carrying them were quite 
 as Bowery as it could have been. He cut 
 short what he was saying to the old apple- 
 woman when others approached, and she as 
 surely launched into praises of him when he 
 had gone. 
 
 " Such a jintleman," she would say ; " so 
 jinerous wid his pennies. Sure he never 
 pashed me by av a mornin or avenin widout 
 
"SHE LAUNCHED INTO PRAISES OF HIM WHEN HE HAD GONE 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 33 
 
 dhropping a pinny an a koind wurrud since 
 he wint to work tin years ago it is, come 
 New -Year s, God be praised ! Sure I have 
 knowed Mishter Killy since he was a baby 
 an a moighty foine-lookin wan he was th 
 image av his fadther. Twas over in the 
 Firsht Ward I was that toime, but God is 
 good to me that he came near by here to live 
 and found me out. He ll be a foine man, 
 wid a power av money ; mark that, mishter. 
 Tis a power av money that Killy 11 have 
 soorn day, good -luck to all the loikes av 
 him !" 
 
 On one evening Kelly appeared to the 
 Whitfield household in an unconventional 
 manner and upon a queer errand. The doc 
 tor was in a reverie, and his daughter was 
 sewing, with her work things on the table 
 beside which both were sitting. There came 
 a rap at the door. Mrs. Ericson opened it, 
 and Kelly walked in. He was in his Sunday 
 best His lilac-colored trousers, his coat rolled 
 and pressed back half a foot on either side 
 of his low-cut waistcoat, and his singular little 
 wrinkled face, years and years older than it 
 
34 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 ought to have looked (as is the way with tene 
 ment faces), would have seemed fantastic in 
 a comic paper. His manners matched his 
 looks. He was acquainted with the doctor, 
 but he ignored him. He did not know 
 Mrs. Ericson, yet to her he addressed him 
 self. 
 
 What he said was couched in language 
 which is, in greater or less degree, that of 
 nearly half the English-speaking people of 
 the American metropolis. We call it slang, 
 but they speak of it as " United States." 
 When one among them expresses himself in 
 good English, particularly if it takes the form 
 of uncommon words, he is rebuked with the 
 phrase, " Oh, talk United States !" This slang 
 of America is expressive, descriptive, and in 
 variably springs from humorous conceptions 
 and ideals. It is not coarse, like the British 
 slang, or a mere juggling with funny sounds, 
 like the German. As we report Mr. Kelly, 
 who endeavored to use less of the freema 
 sonry of the streets than if he had been among 
 his fellows, we shall see that " United States" 
 in nearly every case translates itself. His 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 35 
 
 earnestness, honesty, and good-humor carried 
 him further than his speech. 
 
 " Miss Ericson, I b leeve," said he, with a 
 scrape and a bow. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; my father is here, if you called 
 to see him." 
 
 He did not heed the suggestion. 
 
 "Miss Ericson," said he, "you are a mother. 
 I know you are a mother, because it s a mat 
 ter of common what I mean is, everybody 
 knows it and the baby is I mean to say 
 ranks high in the Barracks on account of its 
 being sick, and you being so anxious " 
 
 " Papa," said the puzzled young woman, 
 "I think this gentleman does wish to see 
 you." 
 
 The doctor, highly amused, turned his chair 
 so as to face the visitor, but said not a word. 
 
 " No, m rn," said Kelly ; " I can see your 
 er papa any time. It s you I d like to 
 talk to. I ve got a chance to make a big 
 boodle, m m, but in order to do so I ve got 
 to get a mother ; what I mean is, a real way- 
 up-in-G one I mean to say, a mother that s 
 out of sight, m rn. I know a stack of moth- 
 
36 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 ers around, but not the kind I m a-lookin 
 fer." 
 
 " Papa," the young woman exclaimed, " I 
 wish yon would see what this gentleman 
 wants. Won t you explain to my father, 
 sir? I do not understand you at all." 
 
 " Sit down, Kelly," said the doctor, his eyes 
 twinkling with amusement. "Alice, dear, 
 this is one of our neighbors Mr. Kelly. Now, 
 my dear sir, what on earth do you mean by 
 what you have been saying to my daughter?" 
 
 " Christmas, doctor ! I hope I haven t made 
 no break," said this singular drop of the es 
 sence of the Bowery. " I laid iny pipe all 
 right, but I missed a connection see? I tell 
 you how I done. I figgered out that you 
 would open the door, an I d ask to be intro 
 duced to your daughter, an then I d kinder 
 edge round on the weather an tilings what 
 I mean is, s ciety talk an then I d plump 
 the hull business out about what I come for. 
 But then, you see, she opened the door stead 
 of you, an that knocked the daylights sense, 
 please what I mean is, it done me up that 
 is, it upset you know, the whole shooting 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 37 
 
 match see? That s how I come to give up 
 to her." 
 
 " Well, now, explain your errand, Kelly," 
 said the doctor ; " and do so as nearly in Eng 
 lish as you can. I confess I no more under 
 stand you to-day than I have on any other 
 day that I ever met you." 
 
 " That s all right, doctor. I ll tell you the 
 whole kit and boodle of it." Kelly felt the 
 contest between his awkwardness and his as 
 surance, but of sensitiveness, or a true appre 
 ciation of the figure he cut, there was no 
 more trace in his manner than if he had been 
 a marionette. " The biggest money a feller 
 like me can make," said he, "is in writing a 
 ballad. But when you write one it s got to 
 be a daisy, or your name is mud. It s got to 
 be a hummer from Humtown, doctor, that 11 
 be sung and banged and fifed and scraped 
 and whistled by every one from the Battery 
 to Westchester." 
 
 "God save us!" the doctor exclaimed. 
 "Must you do it?" 
 
 " Well, that sail right. If I could get up 
 one that you d whistle, Jay Gould d gimme 
 
 3 
 
PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 a railroad out of his private colleckshin. Yon 
 see, I m no. farmer, trying to write a song for 
 you. No ; but on the level, doctor, what I 
 want s a mother, an I ve got one to get. I 
 ain t got no mother, an fl had she would 
 not size up to this racket. She s got to be a 
 corker, way up what I mean is, tony, you 
 know a fine-as-silk, gemi-wine, thoroughbred 
 see ?" 
 
 " For the sake of reason, man, what has 
 procuring a mother to do with writing a song? 
 And what will you do with a mother, as you 
 say, when you get one?" 
 
 " She ll understand, your daughter will," 
 said Kelly, assuming an air of fatigue over 
 the doctor s obtuseness. " I ve given it to you 
 s straight s I can. Now, if yoitll listen to 
 me, Miss Ericson, I ll be all hunk. You see, 
 a half a dozen young fellers has made big 
 fortunes a ready with ballads an ditties, an 
 they ain t got any more education than me. 
 Look at Peltz, m m. Peltz used to shake the 
 clogs what I mean is, he done the clogs in a 
 song-and-dance team an before that he was a 
 supe, an he wrote A Rose from her dear 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 39 
 
 Grave, an made money enough to buy a. 
 whole block of bar-rooms. An there s Ark- 
 wriglit. We used to call him Nosey what 
 I mean is, he didn t amount to as much as a 
 policeman with the buttons cut off of his coat. 
 He ups an he writes i The Secret in the Letter 
 Molly mailed away, and, hully gee ! (scuse, 
 please) there ain t nobody a-calling him Nosey 
 now days. He just rides round all day in cabs. 
 He s got a diamond like an incontestant light, 
 an you have to shade your eyes when you 
 talk to him. He snubs the theatre managers 
 cold, an goes up to Delmonico s an finds fault 
 with the food. Well, there s my fortune, m m. 
 I ve got the tune. I whistled it, an our lead 
 er wrote it out, an now all I want is a mother 
 cause it s got to be about a mother. Noth 
 ing else comes up to a mother, rn rn, for work 
 ing the tender and soft snap what I mean is, 
 the sentimental racket see? Now, doctor, 
 your daughter s a mother the on y thorough 
 bred in the ward. An I come as genteel as I 
 know how (an I know my name would be 
 Dennis if I should slip a cog in my behavior), 
 an I ask if she ll give a poor fellow a lift. If 
 
 
40 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 she d let me come round once in a while an 
 let me see her a-rocking the kid, you know, 
 an if she d talk to me about her cares an 
 hopes an things what I m getting at is, if 
 she d give up how she feels deep down in her 
 lonesome, y understand why, then, hully gee! 
 (sense, please) I d ask no odds of nobody alive. 
 I d be able to write a Ji in-Dandy song, an I 
 could buy a horse-car every time I wanted to 
 go round town. An say, doctor, she wouldn t 
 lose anything by it, nor you, neither an 
 that s on the level." 
 
 "My dear fellow," said the doctor, " you 
 don t know what nonsense you are ask " 
 
 " No, papa," said Mrs. Ericson, extending 
 to Kelly a hand that was accompanied by a 
 kindly smile. " I ll do what Mr. Kelly asks, 
 so far as I understand it, and so far as I can. 
 It won t be possible for me to tell you a moth 
 er s thoughts, sir, and you will be disappointed 
 in me, I am sure ; but if you care to call now 
 and then when my father is here, I will be 
 glad to do what I can to assist you. Now be 
 seated, and let me hear more of your plan. I 
 must tell you very frankly that you speak a 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 41 
 
 language which is almost foreign to me, but 
 I ll try to understand you. Have you no 
 mother, did you say, Mr. Kelly ?" 
 
 " Well, I might swell say I never had no 
 mother," said he. " If I had one, though, she 
 wouldn t be up-and-up, like you, you know." 
 
 After that first interview Kelly called at 
 the doctor s once a fortnight at first, and then 
 once a week. The simplicity of his nature, 
 as well as its geniality, smoothed the way for 
 him there as elsewhere in his narrow world. 
 The ballad, it was evident, was to be a work of 
 time, like the Cologne Cathedral and many 
 another chef-d oeuvre. He bought poetical 
 works at Mrs. Ericsori s suggestion, and, at 
 first, she read to him out of them. But she 
 was obliged to acknowledge that this plan of 
 stimulating his genius was a failure. " That 
 stuff," said he, referring to the works of the 
 master-poets, "wouldn t go with the people 
 for a cent; but, say, I like the swing of it; 
 it s great." He did not tire of his visits. To 
 talk with such a woman, and to hear her con 
 verse, was a constant delight a joy greater 
 than any he had ever known. 
 
42 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " Mothers are the dandiest things in songs," 
 he explained one day. " You know how fel 
 lers always sings about mothers when they re 
 with the women, an when they re in hard 
 luck, an when they re half shot ; sure, every 
 time." 
 
 " Half shot, Mr. Kelly ?" Mrs. Ericson in 
 quired. 
 
 " I mean when they are a little slewed. 
 You take any lot of men, and let them get 
 their skates on, an they ll start in on a moth 
 er song every time ; if they don t, I m a lamp 
 post." 
 
 "But why when they are skating, in par 
 ticular ?" 
 
 " Sense, please," said Kelly, stifling a smile. 
 "I m a sure loser every time I try to give up 
 to a lady like you. I get way off my base. 
 I m a farmer at anything cept plain U. S. 
 What I mean by men getting on their skates 
 is I mean to say when they re not tight 
 see ? but just happy." 
 
 "Now," he continued, "it s just the same 
 in a thenyter. Nothing s in it with mother 
 songs. If the crowd knows that a performer 
 
THE MOTHEK SONG 43 
 
 can sing mother songs, nothing else goes. 
 They ll win in a romp every time, when your 
 love songs and your flower songs and your 
 comics won t get a hand what I mean by a 
 hand is an ongcore see? Peltz and them 
 other fellers that s made fortunes out of moth 
 er songs has all had homes, you know, m m. 
 They ve had mothers, and been brought up 
 dead-to-rights. There s where they call the 
 turn on me." 
 
 Below-stairs one kindly heart rejoiced at 
 Kelly s acquaintanceship with the Whitfields. 
 
 " Tis his name that 11 carry him into anny 
 society," said the old apple- woman. " Doan t 
 you think Yoojane is a jintale name ? And 
 Killy, too praise be to God, tis the same 
 name as the boss himself the boss of Tam 
 many Hall. But if he had a name like Gilli- 
 gan Gilligan is the name I got meself from 
 me fadther and mudther God kape the both 
 av em ! av he had a name like that twould 
 be anodther matther. Wid Pat Gilligan for 
 a name, he d be working wid a broom along 
 wid the Dagos claning the streets. Sorra bit 
 betther cud ye expect av a man wid the name 
 
44 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 av Gilligan. But ye cudn t make a mishtake 
 av a man bein a foine man an his name was 
 Yoojane Killj end ye, now? God knows 
 you cudn t, darlint." 
 
 On one afternoon Kelly rushed up the Bar 
 racks stairs to the doctor s flat. He almost 
 flew, so great was his haste. In an excess of 
 impatience he banged at the door. Luckily 
 (for the door, at any rate) lie was instantly 
 admitted. He did not notice the doctor. 
 He shouted to Mrs. Ericson to open the win 
 dow. 
 
 " Quick, please," he called. " There ! Do 
 you hear that the tune that lad in the street 
 is whistling? It s my song, i Maggie Croly. 
 Sure, sure ! I wrote it, an it s goin to go. 
 Do you hear it now? Tiddy-tum, tiddy-tum- 
 te-tmn. Do you hear it ?" 
 
 Amid the uproar of cart wheels and horses 
 hoofs and venders cries the boy s whistling 
 sounded very faint and indistinct. 
 
 "I just did it for a flyer," said Kelly. 
 " Foley and Fogarty, the double clogs, have 
 been singing it up to Tony s for a week, and 
 already the kids are on to it. I m as proud as 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 45 
 
 old Vanderbilt, I am. Here s how the chorus 
 goes : 
 
 " Tw.is the swing of her dress 
 That made rne bless 
 
 The day I met Maggie Croly. 
 To and fro, like music s flow, 
 Light as a fairy s wiug twould go ; 
 Nobody else can do it so, 
 
 Like sweet little Maggie Croly. " 
 
 He sang not unmusically, accompanying 
 the performance with some of the stereotyped 
 mannerisms of a concert -hall singer. He 
 spread his hands, palms down, and swayed to 
 and fro in time with the simple air. His lit 
 tle audience caught his enthusiasm, and bade 
 him sing a verse and then the chorus again. 
 Carried away by excitement, he roared his 
 song as if he were on a theatrical stage en 
 deavoring to interest the gallery. 
 
 " It ain t great," said he, " but it s got the 
 ginger in it ; and it shows I m on to the 
 curves. Wait till I write the mother song. 
 That ll be out of sight thanks to you friends 
 for the loan of a mother." 
 
 As he spoke an uproar rose from the street 
 
46 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 below. There were quick, short cries, fol 
 lowed by the frantic clatter of the hoofs of a 
 horse upon the sidewalk, a crash, and then a 
 piercing, interrupted scream, as of a woman 
 alarmed and instantly silenced. Dr. Whit- 
 field was the first to reach the window. He 
 leaned out. Twice he drew back to announce 
 what he saw, returning each time to the outer 
 view. 
 
 " A runaway," he said. Looking again, he 
 added, " The old apple-woman at the door " 
 
 "My God! What about her?" Kelly 
 shouted, dashing at the other window. 
 
 " Trampled down badly hurt, apparently," 
 said the doctor. 
 
 " Then don t stand there looking at her," 
 Kelly screamed. " Come with me. She s my 
 mother." 
 
 He darted out of the room with the doctor 
 close behind him. A crowd had formed a 
 circle around the prostrate body of the old 
 woman, face down upon the broad stoop, with 
 her fruit scattered all about, and trampled, as 
 she had been. She was not dead, the doctor 
 said, while the crowd watched and listened 
 
DH. WIUTKIKLI) WAS THE FIRST TO REACH THE WINDOW " 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 47 
 
 hungrily ; but she was stunned. Whether 
 any bones were broken, or her skull was frac 
 tured, he needed time to find out. Would 
 some of the men pick her up and carry her to 
 his flat ? Two truckmen in hickory shirts 
 lifted the body lightly, and it was quickly 
 stretched upon the sofa in the doctor s front 
 room. While the doctor passed his sensitive 
 fingers all over the woman s skull, Kelly, who 
 had flung himself beside the sofa, seized one 
 of the limp hands and kissed it between spo 
 ken sentences that voiced his alarm. 
 
 "Oh, doctor, don t let her die! Can t you 
 save her? She has money ; you shall be well 
 paid. She s my mother, I tell you my poor 
 old mother !" 
 
 The doctor pushed him aside as he would 
 have shoved a chair that stood in his way. 
 Mrs. Ericson took the young man s hand and 
 led him to the farther side of the room. 
 
 " She won t have it that she s my mother, 
 if she ever comes back to me," said Kelly. 
 " She thought twould queer me if any one 
 knew I was her son. It wasn t my doing. I 
 ain t built that way ; as God is my judge I 
 
48 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 ain t. I ain t never been ashamed of her, no 
 more than now ; but she was dead gone on 
 having me be a gentleman. When I got rich 
 or famous, she would say, was time enough " 
 
 The doctor had loosened the old woman s 
 clothing at the neck and waist, and had put a 
 damp cloth on her forehead. Kelly again flung 
 himself beside the sofa. 
 
 " She s breathing, doctor," said he; "I take 
 my oath she is. I see her breathe. Her pulse ! 
 I feel her pulse. She ain t a-goin to die, doc, 
 is she ? Oh, Miss Ericson, if you on y knew 
 if you on y knew. Every day or two, on 
 the dead quiet, when no one was on to us, up 
 in her room, is where she d sit an listen to 
 me an kiss me, an give me as straight talk as 
 any feller s old woman ever gave up in the 
 world. It was the Long Branch boats that 
 give her a twist in the head, m m. She used 
 to sell fruit on the Plymouth Rock and the 
 Jesse Iloyt to them dude folks like General 
 Grant an Jim Fisk, that rode on them boats. 
 Some of the richest of em told her they 
 started in life with nothing to spare but their 
 hair and finger-nails. They jollied her up 
 
THE MOTHER SONG 49 
 
 with the notion that her boys could be as rich 
 as themselves. Then she begun to think she 
 wasn t good enough and even her name 
 wouldn t do for me an Barney. Her name s 
 Gillisran, and she thinks it s a hoodoo. So 
 
 O 
 
 she boarded us round the ward under the 
 name of Kelly. She wouldn t even live with 
 us, but she d see us every day, and tell us to 
 be up.-and-up I mean dead honest see? 
 She d save and save all for me and Barney 
 and she s got thousands laid by. She didn t 
 think the earth with a silver rim around it 
 was good enough for me an Barney ; an now 
 she s laying there 
 
 "Only stunned," said the doctor, his exam 
 ination ended. "Not a bone broken. Ah, I 
 thought so; she is coming around nicely." 
 
 Kelly put an arm tenderly about the old 
 woman s waist, and kissed her and fondled 
 her hair. She opened her eyes slowly, by 
 many efforts. 
 
 "Oh, mother! mother!" Kelly cried.; "are 
 you coming back to me, mother? It s Geney, 
 your boy. Mother, do you hear me ?" 
 
 The old woman looked all about her and 
 
50 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 took in her surround ings fully before she 
 spoke. Then she gripped her son s arm. 
 
 " Whist, there ; whist," said she, huskily. 
 " They ll hear ye, Jane} 7 . Not another sound 
 of mothering d ye hear? D ye want to 
 dishgrace yerself. Whist, boy ; have your 
 sinses lift ye that ye d shpoil everything? 
 Now, spake loud, like me. Oh, is that you, 
 Mishter Killy ? Tis alive I am, an not kilt 
 at all, at all. Tvvas good of all of you frinds 
 to look af ther an ould hurted woman. God s 
 praise be to ye, doctor darlint and Mishter 
 Killy." 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 
 
 THE scene and time of tins sketch are New 
 York city to-day, and though the side lights 
 that fall upon it may seem to pertain to the 
 Middle Ages, they are modern to our tene 
 ment population or at least are survivals, like 
 love itself. Little Elsa Muller was just such 
 a girl as brings my lady her new gown, in a 
 box nearly as big as herself, from Mantilini s. 
 Did it ever occur to my lady that this little 
 burden-bearer was a being with a heart, a ca 
 pacity for loving, a head full of romantic no 
 tions hints of all that was in my lady s head / 
 and heart once upon a time ? Yank Hurst, 
 whom Elsa loved with the blind idolatry of a 
 heart surrendered, was a stereotyper in a news 
 paper office a mechanic of the swaggering, 
 impudent type that my lady sees sometimes 
 when something about her house is out of 
 repair. For him madame tosses a glance at 
 
54 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 her hair in the glass and smooths out her dress 
 before she goes down to see him. This she 
 does for every man who comes, to be sure, 
 but that suggests the point that all men are 
 human, and that love and sentiment and ro 
 mance are as much at home in Forsyth Street 
 as on Fifth Avenue. Jake, who loved little 
 Elsa more than he had words to tell, is precisely 
 the man my lady sees out of the tail of her 
 eye through the dining-room windows when 
 he brings the morning s ice. 
 
 Elsa,(a dressy, black-haired midget of about 
 seventeen,* lived at home, with eight others, in 
 a four-roomed back flat in the Big Barracks 
 tenement. The first room, looking out through 
 the lire-escape into the court, was the sitting- 
 room. It had a carpet, which was a rarity, 
 and a folding-bed, which was a startling inno 
 vation. Then there were two dark rooms, one 
 with two beds and room to squeeze between 
 them, and the other with one bed for Jake, 
 the boarder. Last of all came the kitchen, con 
 taining a stove, a pine table, chairs, and the 
 water-pail, to be filled at the faucet for four 
 families, in the hall. A email window opened 
 
JAKE, THE ICK-MAN 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 55 
 
 into a shaft designed to furnish air and light, 
 but also serving to convey profanity, obscenity, 
 and gossip from window to window for ten 
 families./ In the sitting-room bed slept Elsa s 
 father and mother and their youngest baby. 
 In the double-bedded room slept Elsa and four 
 younger children. Only one room was car 
 peted, but in appointments and in liberality of 
 elbow-room that was an exceptionally comfort 
 able flat. 
 
 Jake, the ice-man, was an orphan, who had 
 boarded with the Mullers ever since his father 
 paid his way when, with Elsa, he skipped "slow- 
 poker," " pepper-salt," and " double Dutch " in 
 Thompkins Square on Saturdays. That shows 
 what a gentle soul was Jake s, for most tene 
 ment boys herd by themselves, and don t play 
 with the girls after they can walk. They have 
 a boy-and-man language of their own "de 
 chin dat shows dey re tough" a lingo all 
 made up of slang and profanity. This the girls 
 avoid. Some that are called "tough girls" 
 talk like the boys, but they are all so disreput 
 able that their fashion has not only frightened 
 all the other girls into proper speech, but it is 
 
56 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 reacting on the tough girls and exterminating 
 their kind. They are as marked as if they 
 had been branded. So the shop-girls became, 
 and remain, the exemplars of a nice fashion in 
 girls speech. They study the fine ladies whom 
 they wait upon. They cultivate soft low tones 
 and gentle exclamations and good grammar, 
 as far as that can be picked up in disconnected 
 fragments, for their ears are quick and sensi 
 tive. In the shops they even cry " Carsh ; 
 heah, carsh," to summon the cash -girls, and 
 they use the broad a at other times. But only 
 those carry it out of doors who are " heads of 
 departments," buyers, fitters, and cloak-models 
 ambitious country -bred girls who live in 
 boarding-houses. The tenement girls would 
 be guyed beyond endurance if they put on 
 such airs. Many married tenement women 
 use what language comes to their tongues 
 when excited, so that from men, boys, and 
 women the sensitive ears of the tenement girls 
 continually hear far different speech from that 
 which they use. 
 
 Jake and Elsa s father were bound by a tie 
 common to thousands in our foreign quarters. 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 57 
 
 They came from the Rhenish Palatinate, and 
 belonged to the Pfaelzer Verein, which met 
 in a Forsyth Street beer -hall, and had lots 
 of fnn and beer once a month, a ball every 
 winter, and a target-shoot in the spring. At 
 the monthly meetings there were fines for 
 talking politics, for having boy babies, and 
 (very heavy ones) for girl babies. The ball 
 reflected true democracy, because the Pfaelzer 
 folk were of all fortunes ; and the rich chem 
 ist s wife and the big jeweller s family, a police 
 captain s kith and kin and a brewer s folks, all 
 met and danced with the poorer folk like 
 members of one family. At the spring target- 
 shoot, marking the coming of the new wine 
 and first sausages in the fatherland, the best 
 marksman was crowned King and the first 
 marks woman became Queen. But always the 
 great joy was in the gossip about boyhood 
 days in the Rhenish villages and vineyards 
 days and places grown poetic through dis 
 tance. 
 
 On six mornings in the week Jake and Elsa 
 rose early, Jake to go to the stable for his 
 team, and Elsa to go to the dress-maker s to 
 
58 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 baste and put in pockets and run errands. 
 They met in the kitchen. Elsa brewed tea 
 for both, and each went to the cupboard 
 and sliced off bread and buttered it with the 
 same knife. They ate on their feet, as tene 
 ment folk take most meals ; for though a hus 
 band and wife may sit down in shirt sleeves 
 and apron, separately or together, as may 
 happen, most tenement folk know but one 
 formal meal that is Sunday s dinner. And 
 even on that occasion some boys will eat and 
 retire before the others have finished, and 
 some of the girls will lounge in the street 
 doorway till hunger sends them np to help 
 themselves from the closet or table without 
 sitting down. 
 
 Jake loved Elsa with a dull, patient yearn 
 ing, but she regarded him as the same brother- 
 like appendage he had always seemed. It was 
 Yank Hurst that she loved with her whole 
 soul, tenderly, deeply, ardently. Yank had 
 come to live in the Big Barracks a year be 
 fore, and Elsa was the first girl he knew 
 there. He joined the Pinochle Club at Rag 
 Murphy s, on the corner below, and when the 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 59 
 
 club gave its picnic at Wendel s Park he in 
 vited her to go with him. He must have 
 been a good workman, for he was prosperous 
 and outdressed his companions ; but he was 
 not a good man. He was empty-headed and 
 loud-mouthed the kind of a fellow who is a 
 bully until some one kicks him, and who 
 knows everything until he meets a man who 
 knows one thing. But Elsa saw in him the 
 first handsome fellow who had singled her out 
 to pay her court. 
 
 They went to what they called " the picker- 
 nick," and danced, and swung in the scups, and 
 bowled, and had ice-cream and Frankfurters. 
 Towards dusk Mose Eisenstone, the Senator 
 from the most thickly populated district in 
 America, in which the Big Barracks stands, 
 came to the park, and spent twenty-five dollars 
 setting up several kegs of beer and u cigars all 
 round." Yank Hurst drank too much free 
 beer, and began to show the effects of it. Elsa 
 was obliged to fight him until they went home, 
 as so many tenement girls have to do to pro 
 tect themselves. A few lose both innocence 
 and virtue before they know they have them ; 
 
60 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 but the great majority become wise as ser 
 pents, and quite as savage when they are as 
 sailed. 
 
 " Shall I kiss you, Elsa ?" That was how 
 Yank began his nonsense, before twenty of 
 the Pinochle Club men. 
 
 " Don t bother to try it," she replied ; " I ve 
 got trouble enough." 
 
 After a time they found themselves away 
 from the lights, among the trees, and they 
 kissed a great deal. In private that was ro 
 mantic, and there was no harm in it, Elsa 
 thought ; but presently she found her limit of 
 amiability passed, and she fought till her beau 
 came back to his senses. This happened sev 
 eral times that night, but Elsa was too young 
 to judge the case shrewdly, and too proud of 
 being with her first adult beau. Besides, only 
 death itself could make her other than a girl 
 of strong character and upright life. She had 
 not expected to fight so often and so savagely, 
 but the entire situation was just as novel. 
 Once she screamed because of her sex rather 
 than her danger and she was chagrined and 
 vexed to see Jake run up and hurl Yank 
 
- 
 
 SHALL I KISS YOU, KLSA ? 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BAKKACKS 61 
 
 twenty feet with a mere jerk of his elbow. 
 Hurst slunk back, and whined that he " wasn t 
 doin nartin "; but Elsa told her champion she 
 " wisht he d leave her be ; he was always mind 
 ing her business." 
 
 "Scream again," said Jake, "and I ll sew a 
 button on dat feller s face." 
 
 Many a happy summer evening Elsa spent 
 with Yank. The places where they walked 
 and chattered are the lovers haunts of the 
 downtown tenement folk, such as it is too bad 
 to dismiss with mere enumeration the flirta 
 tion end of Second Avenue, with its swarm of 
 happy prornenaders ; the bottom of Broad 
 way, down to Battery Park to hear the music 
 on Friday nights ; and the breezy East River 
 wharves, where the abundant lovers dance and 
 sing to the music of a mouth-organ in the 
 hands of some boy genius who knows the 
 dance tunes of last season and the street son^s 
 
 c> 
 
 of the moment these were some of their 
 haunts. But the Big Barracks roof was in 
 high favor. There the Barracks girls flaunt 
 ed their sweethearts in each other s faces ; and 
 Elsa thought she had the best of the competition. 
 
62 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Elsa fell more and more in love, and Yank 
 less and less. She had a way of saying, " Cer 
 tainly, when we re married," a dozen times of 
 an evening. Her words seemed to suggest 
 that she was trying to trap him into a seri 
 ous relationship he who never was serious 
 except in his vices. So he drifted from her, 
 and nights came when she stood at the Ear- 
 racks doorway and he was on the roof with 
 Cordelia Angeline Mahoney, of the floor above 
 the Mullers . Some girl was sure to drop 
 down to the door and chat long enough to tell 
 Elsa who was on the roof, when Elsa went to 
 her bedroom and cried, oh ! so convulsively. 
 Very soon Yank Hurst and Cordelia Ange 
 line were acknowledged to be one another s 
 " best feller" and best girl, and Elsa was con- 
 sumedly miserable. She was so visibly wretch 
 ed that her jilting became the talk of the tene 
 ment and Mantilini s shop, and her chum, 
 Rosie Mulvey, chided her for " making a holy 
 show of herself." In the kindest ways Jake 
 tried to cheer and amuse her; but him she 
 treated as if no degree of insensibility and 
 unkindness expressed her dislike for him. He 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BAKRACKS C3 
 
 endeavored to distract her mind, instead of 
 divining that to brood over her misery was 
 her only joy. From being a cheerful, normal 
 girl, she became a prey to morbid thoughts, 
 and even ungentle schemes. She knew Cor 
 delia Angeline Mahoney very well. Like 
 most tenement girls, Cordelia had a little 
 store of pictures of elegant women stylishly 
 dressed, among them being several of actresses 
 in scant dresses and no dresses at all the cos 
 tumes of pages. But, unlike most girls, Cor 
 delia Angeline had attempted to vie with such 
 women about whose clothes and beauty most 
 good girls only dream and had paid an extra 
 dollar to a Grand Street photographer to be 
 photographed in the tights and trunks with 
 which more than one east-side photographer 
 ministers to the weakness of the vainest cus 
 tomers who come. Cordelia Angeline had 
 given one of these pictures to Elsa, who took 
 it reluctantly, and then hid it as young girls 
 do with a possession that brings a guilty feeling 
 in the one place that was hers alone, a little 
 locked box containing Napoleorfs Oracle and 
 Dream Book, two or three gushing love-poems 
 
G4 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 cut from newspapers, a valentine, a lock of 
 Rosie Mulvey s hair, the white-bead necklace 
 she wore at confirmation, and the wreckage of 
 several rings and pins broken or worn out. 
 
 After a deep reflection mainly upon how 
 she should get the picture to Yank Hurst 
 she took the guilty portrait out of her box. 
 She determined to write upon it a sentence 
 that should guide his mind to a proper view 
 of a girl who would have such a picture taken 
 her view, of course. First she wrote under 
 the picture "A Bowery Actress" but she drew 
 a line through the words, leaving them just as 
 legible as at first. She turned the photo 
 graph over and wrote on the back, "No Good 
 girl Would " She stopped, then drew a 
 very thin line through those words. At last 
 triumphantly she wrote : " C. A. M. Stuck 
 on her Shape /" When Jake came in she 
 smiled so sweetly, and took such affectionate 
 pains to make up a good supper for him, that 
 the silly fellow fancied the reward for all his 
 love and patience had come. But Elsa was 
 disingenuous. She was working up to the 
 point of getting Jake to bribe Yank s little 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 65 
 
 brother to put the photograph on Yank s bed, 
 and never tell how it came there ; useless 
 trouble of Elsa s, because Jake would have 
 done anything she asked, and because when 
 Yank opened the paper and saw the photo 
 graph he simply grinned with the mischievous 
 light of a satyr s eyes in his beadlike optics. 
 After that Yank Hurst was more attentive to 
 Cordelia Angel ine, and little Elsa was more 
 wretched, and Jake was more puzzled and 
 anxious to please her. 
 
 Elsa lived neck -deep in superstition, and 
 when she agitated the general pool its waves 
 submerged her. Everybody she knew was 
 superstitious the Irish, the Germans, the 
 Jews, the Slavs just as much so as Chop 
 Suey, the neighboring laundryman, who 
 burned perfumed punk at night to keep evil 
 spirits away. The weather, the days of the 
 week, the dropping of scissors, the leaves in 
 the teacups, the pins on the floor, the antics 
 of cats and dogs, everything was more or less 
 cabalistic in the minds of the women who 
 dropped in to drink beer or tea with Elsa s 
 mother. So it was with her girl friends and 
 
66 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 the women at Mantilini s. In her heart-sick 
 ness she naturally turned first to Napoleorfs 
 Oracle, but it told her her dreams meant 
 riches, which did not interest her ; meant ill 
 ness, which she did not fear; meant that her 
 lover was Jake, for whom she did not care ; 
 or that her enemy was short and red-haired, 
 whereas Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was tall 
 and a brunette. At Madame Mantilini s she 
 heard of a book called Black Art, which she 
 found no trouble in buying. It told her how 
 to cause an enemy to die, how to test a per 
 son s love, how to bewitch a person, how to 
 invoke the terrible " seven curses " that afflict 
 a generation unborn and hundreds of such 
 wonders. But it recommended the use of 
 herbs of which she had never heard, the slay 
 ing of cats, the broiling of rabbits tongues 
 and dogs livers, and a multitude of things 
 that witches may do and do with, but not hon 
 est young girls. One receipt she thought of 
 copying to send, in a disguised hand, to Yank. 
 It read : " To test a sweetheart : Rub the sap 
 of a radish in her hand. If she does not resist 
 she is worthy to be a wife." But she did not 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 67 
 
 copy it. She was no coward. The photo 
 graph of her rival, Cordelia, that she had sent 
 in that way, she knew could be readily traced 
 to her, and yet of sending that she remained 
 ashamed ever afterwards. 
 
 She had been to more than one fortune 
 teller s when her heart was free and light, but 
 only for fun. Now she went to one in ear 
 nest, taking with her Rosie Mulvey, of the Big 
 Barracks. She went to Madame Starr, in Ave 
 nue A, and was shown into a room in which 
 feeble spirit-lamps were burning under heavy 
 globes, one blood-red and one green. By their 
 faint light the fortune-teller moved about like 
 a shadow. Her confederate sat with Rosie 
 Mulvey in an anteroom, and easily led the 
 girl to tell all that the madame needed to 
 know about the cause of Elsa s coming. A 
 pack of cards was shuffled, and worked unsat 
 isfactorily, and Elsa was asked to rub the pack 
 with a half-dollar, after which the madame re 
 tired, ostensibly to read the cards, in reality 
 to meet the confederate and learn the client s 
 story. The room was flooded with electric light 
 as Madame Starr, re-entering, pressed the neces- 
 
68 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 sary but hidden button. The cards again failed, 
 she said. They guided her to where a thin 
 dark man entered Elsa s life and left it. There 
 they stopped. For a silver dollar the madame 
 would enter the trance state, and describe the 
 heart and thoughts of this man. Elsa paid 
 the money, the room became dark, and the 
 woman, after a creepy interval of silence, be 
 gan to chant a mixture of fact and shrewd 
 guess-work, which to Elsa seemed little short 
 of supernatural divination. The gist of it was 
 that the thin dark man was in the toils of a 
 designing woman tall, with ebon tresses 
 but he truly loved Elsa, to whom he was 
 powerless to return. Elsa must secretly ad 
 minister a love-potion to the thin dark man ; 
 but it would not work its charm save on her 
 luckiest day, which came once a year. She 
 must come again for the philter, which would 
 cost ten dollars, and then any astrologer 
 would determine for her which day was her 
 luckiest. 
 
 Ten dollars could not be taken from the 
 family treasury for a young girl s romantic 
 nonsense, though Elsa s mother had spent 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BAEKACKS 69 
 
 twenty dollars to have a German seer make 
 her last baby boy brave and proof against 
 poison and bad luck by writing Paz Zap 
 Paraz on the baby s forehead in the blood of 
 a bear cub from the Black Forest. Elsa could 
 spend only three dollars for a philter, and her 
 quest for one at that price busied her for a 
 fortnight. She got it at last, in Ninth Ave 
 nue, of a West-Indian negro, who wore a wig 
 made of the tail ends and head ends of small 
 snakes, that stuck out all over it like wisps of 
 devils hair. He said she must wear only one 
 garment, and steal into her lover s room and 
 put the love-potion in his food without the 
 knowledge of any blood-relation of his. 
 
 "Ain t it terrible?" Elsa asked Eosie. 
 " S posin I was ter have on on y one gar 
 ment an was to git caught ? I never kin do 
 it." 
 
 " You ll be a livin picture. However will 
 yer do it ?" Rosie asked. But, presently, she 
 clapped her hands and exclaimed : " Say ! I 
 know a Jim-Dandy way. You kin put on 
 me new shady-go-naked ; it ll cover yer from 
 yer neck to yer heels." 
 
70 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 "Oh, Eosie! will you len it to me? No 
 body couldn t suspect notliin , if I had that 
 on." 
 
 " Shady-go-naked " is the expressive term 
 wliich many of the Irish use to describe a 
 mackintosh or rubber storm-coat. 
 
 In another week Elsa was able to employ 
 an astrologer to read her stars and fix her 
 luckiest day. It proved to be September 
 28th, and the choicest minute of it was the 
 first one, at sharp midnight of September 
 27th. So Elsa at last had her way clear to re 
 gain her recreant lover with the potent aid 
 of the stars, the gods, and the devils. 
 
 As she would need the help of the despised 
 but submissive Jake on the momentous day, 
 then three weeks off, Elsa began to be very 
 gracious to him, so that presently she had the 
 heart to ask him to be sure to be at her serv 
 ice on the fateful midnight. "Sure; why 
 not, yet?" was his ready answer. Her plan 
 was to put the love-charm in certain edibles 
 which Yank, who was a newspaper stereo- 
 typer, had said his mother always left out for 
 him in the kitchen, against his home-coming 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BAKKACKS 71 
 
 at two o clock in the morning. She must en 
 ter his flat by means of the fire-escape ladders 
 that reached up to it, two floors above her 
 own home. The night came, and, barefooted, 
 she stole out with Jake. Him she sent ahead 
 to see that the way was clear, and then she 
 ran up, and sent him down to watch below. 
 She succeeded in finding Yank s supper of 
 baked beans and cold tea, and in sprinkling 
 both with the powder. But just as she re 
 turned to the fire-balcony a noise in the Hurst 
 flat startled her. She leaped forward, slipped 
 on something unsteady, and fell down the 
 ladder-way, a dozen or fifteen feet, upon her 
 back on the under balcony. She was uncon 
 scious when Jake tenderly carried her into 
 their own flat. Returning consciousness found 
 her screaming with the pain. 
 
 Some rich young philanthropists, who main 
 tained a charity hospital near by, tried a plas 
 ter coat to straighten and heal her back, but 
 the torture it caused obliged them to strip 
 off the plaster before it had hardened. So 
 she lay and moaned for weeks. The old wom 
 en who sat with her mother every afternoon 
 
72 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 in the sitting-room brought tidings of the ex 
 hibition in an uptown church of two small 
 bits of the bones of a mediaeval saint, to touch 
 which relics with faith was to be cured of any 
 ailment. Elsa would have to make a novena, 
 or nine days prayer, to obtain the miraculous 
 relief. But the girl was strangely indifferent 
 to this chance of recovery. The truth was 
 that since Yank Hurst had not come to tell 
 her of his love, she did not long to be cured. 
 She preferred to die. Before she could be 
 brought to begin her novena the sacred relics 
 were removed to a distant city. But in the 
 mean time a priest had come, and brought a 
 little book prescribing the formula of a novena 
 to the Blessed Virgin " Our Lady of Perpet 
 ual Help," she was beautifully called. Elsa 
 read this by snatches, and was greatly im 
 pressed by the statement that the Blessed 
 Virgin denies absolutely nothing that is asked 
 of her with perfect faith. A new idea, a new 
 hope, came to Elsa. She sent for the priest, 
 and most adroitly cross-examined him to have 
 him confirm, if possible, the hope that a sup 
 pliant might make the novena for any boon 
 
A XOISK IN THE HUKST FLAT STARTLED HER 
 
LOVE IN THE BIG BARRACKS 73 
 
 whatsoever. The good man, fancying her 
 burdened by some weighty sin, urged her to 
 obtain pardon through confession, and make 
 the no vena afterwards for restoration of her 
 health. 
 
 " But please tell me," she urged, " can I 
 make a novena for anything I want, even 
 money ?" 
 
 " You certainly can, my child," said the 
 good priest. 
 
 Then into her eyes came a new light, and to 
 her heart a great joy. She visibly rallied 
 strength and patience. She was permitted to 
 make the novena at home, before a picture of 
 the Virgin, and on the ninth day she was carried 
 to church, to complete the devotion. Through 
 out the ceremony she kept but one sentence 
 on her lips, and on her mind but one thought, 
 and neither was a prayer for health. 
 
 Back again in bed, she beckoned to Jake, 
 and whispered : " I ve prayed for him to come 
 for Yank. Do you think he will ?" And 
 Jake replied, " Sure ; why not, yet?" 
 
 Then he went to the Pinochle Club, over 
 Rag Murphy s cafe, where he \vas heartily 
 
74 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 liked, and Yank had not one warm friend. In 
 a voice louder than he intended to use, before 
 all the fellows, he poured upon Yank a talk 
 so earnest, and so divided into pleading and 
 threats of physical violence, that the stereo- 
 typer forgot to swagger. 
 
 " Stuck on me that bad ?" he exclaimed. 
 " Done herself putting love-stuff in me grub ? 
 The hell you say ! Go n see her ? "Why 
 wouldn t I?" 
 
 He called on Elsa straightway, and be 
 cause of his humanity or because Jake s 
 threats rung in his ears he spoke to Elsa 
 so that she all but swooned with joy. It 
 required very little more than his presence to 
 do that. 
 
 She died next day, with her eyes upon a 
 broad beam of sunlight that fell full and glo 
 riously on the lithograph before which she 
 had made her novena. 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 
 
 THE Pinochle Club over Rag Murphy s 
 cafe, near the Big Barracks tenement, is one 
 of scores of New York city clubs that are so 
 little like our great social clubs as to be but 
 one notch above the thousands of unorgan 
 ized bands of men who daily meet in our 
 saloons the clubs of the people. The touch 
 of politics is needed to convert a saloon co 
 terie into a district club, and that touch the 
 Pinochle Club enjoys. The club -room is 
 an unattractive, bare-walled apartment, con 
 taining a few walnut card-tables and chairs. 
 Pinochle a German card game is little 
 played there. Poker is the main source of 
 fun and of the club s income. A hole in one 
 wall, fitted with a sliding-door to a dumb 
 waiter, admits the drinks and cigars from 
 Rag Murphy s gorgeous " cafe " which is 
 New - Yorkese for dram - shop. Murphy is 
 
78 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 political " captain " of that election dis 
 trict. 
 
 In all such places the young men spend 
 most of their time when not at work and 
 when out of work. The tenements are too 
 crowded for use except for the necessities of 
 eating and sleeping. The saloons are pre 
 ferred to any substitutes which religion or 
 philanthropy has yet devised, because in them 
 the men are treated respectfully as independ 
 ent beings who pay their way, and because 
 no rules or Bible texts on the walls reflect 
 upon their civilization or morality. There 
 they get credit between Saturday and Satur 
 day, or even loans of money. There they 
 gamble, drink as the best of our ancestors 
 used to, skylark, sing, dance, and gossip. The 
 luckiest are those who make a pretence of 
 club organization and ally themselves with 
 the political rulers, who owe them everything, 
 and pay them generously, asking only for a 
 "solid vote" from all once a year. What 
 the Church does for them for the next world 
 their political party does in this. To many 
 the " party " seems the more substantial 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 79 
 
 friend, for it provides work and wages, coal 
 and food, and loans of money, and it procures 
 a tangible forgiveness of sins by literally 
 pulling its votaries out of the prisons and the 
 hands of the police. 
 
 The treasurer of the Pinochle Club, Yank 
 Hurst, was ruining himself with drink, and 
 aggravating his troubles with jealousy. He 
 had for his sweetheart Cordelia Angeline Ma- 
 honey, the prettiest girl in the ward, but she 
 was tired of him. As Cordelia approached 
 the corner nearest her home in the Big Bar 
 racks tenement, coquettish, stylish, with a 
 swish and a swing to her skirts, Yank stepped 
 forward with the hesitating, nervous, spas 
 modic movement of a heavy drinker. 
 
 " You left me wait here half an hour," 
 said he. 
 
 " I m only out on an arrand now" said 
 Cordelia, meaning that otherwise he would 
 have waited indefinitely. Even then she 
 looked away from him, and stood on one foot 
 and then on the other, impatient to pass on. 
 
 "Are you tryin to t row me down, Delia?" 
 Yank asked. 
 
80 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " Ah, what s hurting you, Mr. Hurst ? I 
 never gave you any rights over inc." 
 
 " It s me er no one, s I ve told you before," 
 said Hurst " me er no one, mind you." 
 
 " Ah, what would any girl do with a man 
 that s always full, like you ?" And she swept 
 by contemptuously, and an instant later rolled 
 her brown eyes at a self-satisfied letter-carrier, 
 who, without knowing it, put his life in dan 
 ger by smiling at her in full view of the club 
 treasurer. Luckily Yank was too disturbed 
 to notice the flirtation. 
 
 He had got his dismissal, but he could not 
 realize it. He was going to follow Cordelia 
 and insist upon his status as her " best beau." 
 But what was the use ? There was time 
 enough, and he would show her he was not 
 to be trifled with. Presently he walked to 
 the club-room, a block away, muttering : " It s 
 me er no one, an she ll find it out. Always 
 full, am I? Well, if I get sacked for it" (he 
 was a stereotyper for the Daily Camera), 
 " Senator Eisenstone 11 have to get me a city 
 job. Damn him," said he, thinking with 
 what I may call the joint rnind of the whole 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 81 
 
 club, " I wonder is he dead, that he leaves 
 his dee&trict like he does ?" 
 
 That was on a Saturday evening. At ten 
 o clock on Sunday morning the Pinochle mem 
 bers began to gather in front of Murphy s to 
 see the girls go to and from late mass. Those 
 who came along one by one and joined the 
 group were good-looking German Americans 
 and Irish Americans, with sturdy necks and 
 deep chests and reasonably frank faces. They 
 knew little of American history and less of 
 true public morality, but they were good ac 
 cording to their lights ; moderately temper 
 ate, still more law-abiding, and aiming to do 
 six days work a week as mechanics, store 
 porters, barbers, truckmen, clerks, and labor 
 ers. It would astonish most Europeans to 
 see that they dressed well, in clothes of the 
 prevailing cut and materials. Every one was 
 known by his given name or nickname. 
 " H are yer, Limpy ?" "Hullo, Bill!" Morn 
 ing, Tommy;" "Ve gates, Dutch?" thus 
 the new-coiners were saluted. And each re 
 plied, politely, "Good-morning, gents." 
 
 " Is dat mug been around ? Dat mug dat 
 
82 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 chucked us der slack las Sunday?" So one 
 inquired as he joined the group. 
 
 He broached a subject keenly interesting 
 to all of them, and would have gained the 
 attention of every man in the party were it 
 not that the women were beginning to pass 
 on their way to church. 
 
 " You mean the hayseed on the police ? 
 Ah, there, Julia ! Oh, my ! Get on to Julia s 
 new dress !" 
 
 " Dat s dandy, Julia. Say, Julia, will you 
 wear dat to de chowder wid me when " 
 
 " Cheese it, Bill ! Here s her old woman. 
 Good-mornin , Mrs. Moriarty ; good-mornin , 
 Mrs. Riordan." 
 
 " Good-marnin , gintlemen," said Mrs. Mori 
 arty. " Can t yez 1 ave the corner long enough 
 to go to church ? Ye d oughter set betther 
 manners to yer fri nds, Johnny Callahan ; and 
 you too, Tim Donahue." 
 
 " I was at church already two hours ago, 
 Mrs. Moriarty," said Callahan. 
 
 " I don know as he s a hayseed," said the- 
 one who first spoke of the policeman on that 
 beat, " but I mean der cop dat give us der 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 83 
 
 chase inside when we was standin here las 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Cert nly he s a hayseed," said Callahan. 
 " Couldn t you tell it by the look of him ? 
 The policQ had to get votes for something er 
 other, and they gave out places on the force 
 to the farmers in the Legislature, and this 
 feller that gave us the chase was got on by a 
 farmer that s a Senator from the northern 
 end of the State. He hain t been round 
 yet." 
 
 "What 11 we do?" Dutch Kollock in 
 quired. " Will we down him ? Dey can t 
 do nartin to us. I m williri to tear de clo se 
 off his back if youse fellers 11 jump in an 
 t ump him. We got pull enough fer dat, 
 hain t we?" 
 
 " Now that don t go see ?" said Callahan. 
 " When Rag Murphy can t keep that feller 
 off of us, what s the good of talking about 
 our pull ?" 
 
 A pull, the reader understands, is political 
 influence, such as redresses a man s own 
 grievances and permits him to wrong oth 
 ers with impunity. The possession of "the 
 
84 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 pull" has created a political aristocracy in 
 New York. 
 
 " I don t want no scrapping anyhow," said 
 Tim Donahue. " This ain t no tough mob. 
 We re the cream of the ward. Slugging 
 people don t go see ?" 
 
 " Naw," said two or three, heartily. " We re 
 dead decent, we are." 
 
 " If that hayseed gives us trouble," said 
 Callahan, " I ll take it like medicine. But 
 what pull ah! morn in , Miss Vleimer; rnorn- 
 in , Rosey Mulvey ah, there, my size ! what 
 pull have we got? You can t see it without 
 a telerscope. The Senator went to Germany 
 an left us in the cold for two months. Two 
 of our fellers got chucked out of the ap 
 praiser s stores, and Jennings got fired from 
 the post-office. Now the Senator s stuck 
 on a rich lady in Harlem, and he s always 
 there, like Harlem Bridge. And here we 
 are, chased around like bums in the Park." 
 
 " I suppose if der Senator catches on to a 
 lady, his old friends won t be good enough 
 fer him. What does he want to get married 
 out of der district fer, anyhow ?" 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 85 
 
 " Fer der shoog, I guess," said one, who 
 abbreviated the word " sugar," which stands 
 for money in their lexicon. 
 
 " It s for money ; ain t it funny ?" sang a 
 light-hearted juvenile in the background. 
 
 " Well," said Callahan, " I tell you, fellers, 
 Rag Murphy don t like the way things is 
 goin the hull district is gittin dead sore." 
 
 " Oh, rats !" said Tim Donahue. " Hello ! 
 Look, gents, here comes Cordelia Mahoney. 
 Ain t she a loo-loo? She s oh, my! Wait 
 till I win a smile off her pretty face, an I ll 
 get good-luck for a week. Say, fellers, thump 
 me if Chop Miller ain t with her ! If Yank 
 Hurst gets on to that, he ll be hot in the 
 collar." 
 
 " Yank s dead crazy after Miss Mahoney." 
 
 "Yes, and she don t care a nickel for him. 
 Say, there ll be music if Yank gets on to Chop 
 Miller being with her. Good-mornin , Miss 
 Mahoney ; hello, Chop, old man !" 
 
 "Well, as I was a-sayin ," Donahue con 
 tinued, " the Senator is all right. He s back 
 home, an he ll fix things to the Queen s taste. 
 I know the Senator, an he knows us. He 
 
86 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 knows he was nothin but Motser * Mose when 
 we took him up and gave him his start, in the 
 Assembly. Didn t the club turn down Mat 
 Kelly when he was Assemblyman ? We was 
 Republicans then. Kelly got the big head, 
 and neglected the boys, and wouldn t go to 
 our ball, but sent a hundred dollars instead. 
 Well, Murphy took up Mose Eisenstone 
 against Kelly, and we mopped the deestrict 
 with him, all turning Democrats to elect him. 
 We don t forget that, and he can t afford to 
 see?" 
 
 Nevertheless, the talk that followed showed 
 that the obtuse activity of their new perse 
 cutor on the police force disturbed them, and 
 that their political patronage had been weak 
 ened by ill-luck due to their leader s absence. 
 It behooved the Senator to return and let the 
 district feel his directing and friendly hand. 
 One knot of gossips showed a keener interest 
 in the appearance of Cordelia Mahoney with 
 Chop Miller, the rival of Yank Hurst. Though 
 Hurst was treasurer, he was not generally 
 
 * From the Hebrew matzoth, meaning unleavened 
 bread," but here used as a nickname for a Hebrew. 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 87 
 
 liked. He was too much inclined towards 
 "toughness" that lawless pugnacity which 
 distinguishes a great mass of New York street 
 youth apart from all other bodies of the poor 
 in the other capitals of the world. But Hurst 
 was one of the Senator s favorites, and had 
 what the Senator wanted him to have in re 
 turn for close personal service to the great 
 man. 
 
 The girls and women soon came back from 
 church, thick and fast. They made a pretty 
 nutter in the street. Unlike the tenement 
 men, they do not call for praise coupled with 
 apologies or weakened by reservations. Like 
 all women, they have their higher atmosphere 
 of morality and polish, to which their sterner 
 companions neither penetrate nor aspire. As 
 usual, they showed their peculiar fondness for 
 red, green, and pink dresses, and for fresh 
 hats and bonnets bravely decked with false 
 flowers and green leaves. Alas ! only the 
 little girls were prettily shod. Their mothers 
 and elder sisters exposed foxy and spreading 
 shoes. But who looked so far from their 
 faces, so certain to reveal the types of all 
 
88 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 styles of the beauty of our theatrical and so 
 cial queens? some of these types being pret 
 tier, by-the-way, in the rough than in the 
 more delicate forms. 
 
 The clubmen looked at, but without seeing 
 it, their own peculiar neighborhood, with its 
 towering walls of tenements fretted with fire- 
 escapes and peppered with windows. It was 
 not true that within their vision every tene 
 ment supported a beer-saloon, but it was near 
 ly so. Could the reader see how much beer 
 is drank in this typical district how the men, 
 women, and children wag forever between 
 the saloons and the homes, with those cans 
 and pitchers they call "growlers," he would 
 wonder how so much luxury even if it is 
 all of one kind could be afforded by people 
 so poor. But they are not so poor as most 
 of us think. Many are not poor at all; many 
 are poor only as they make themselves so. As 
 a rule, each family includes several wage-earn 
 ers, worth to the common treasury five dollars 
 a week apiece. The rent of each flat is little; 
 the cost of food is less than most of us would 
 believe possible, for these people only eat to 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 89 
 
 live. There is left plenty of money for dress, 
 cheap life-insurance, father-land societies, for 
 charity to organ-grinders and beggars, for the 
 church, funerals, festivals and beer. The 
 beer-saloons are in the side streets, under the 
 tenements, handy for the " growlers," and 
 supported by the women. The full-fledged 
 liquor-stores beside which the famed gin-pal 
 aces of London are cheap and solemn are 
 on the side-street corners, maintained by the 
 tenement men and the cross -town trade. 
 There are no drug-shops, or furniture, carpet, 
 or hardware stores in such a district. They 
 are in Grand Street and in the Bowery, serving 
 a whole quarter of the city. The groceries 
 are few and small and wretched; the butcher 
 shops look like bait for flies. The smallness 
 and idleness of even the tobacco-shops are elo 
 quent of a protest against the bias towards beer. 
 One shop alone in the Big Barracks neigh 
 borhood vies with the gorgeous dram-shops 
 and outshines the beer-saloons. That is the 
 marble -lined shop of a delicatessen - dealer, 
 whose second wife works amicably beside the 
 first wife, No. 1 having come over from Ger- 
 
90 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 many when the merchant became rich, but 
 only to find that a second marriage made him 
 so a marriage with a wealthy widow of im 
 measurable amiability, the motto of whose 
 placid life is, "All is goot so long I don t have 
 drouble." 
 
 Something else than all this interested the 
 Pinochlers. It was the approach of the new 
 policeman, who, a week before, had ordered 
 them not to loiter on that corner. A stalwart, 
 fearless fellow, he had been handsome as well, 
 but his good looks were now lost sight of un 
 der bits of court -plaster and several ugly 
 bruises, mementos of a recent " razzle-dazzle." 
 This form of initiation and test of new police 
 men in lawless neighborhoods had been ob 
 served in his case in another end of the ward. 
 There he had been led to chase a rowdy into 
 a tenement -house fixed for the occasion, with 
 ropes across the pitch-dark stairways, coal 
 scuttles in the still darker halls, and a rain and 
 fusillade of missiles and blows wherever he 
 went, from basement door to skylight. Still, 
 he carried his pluck undiluted. 
 
 " Come, now, young fellows," he said to the 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 91 
 
 Pinochlers; " I told you not to loaf here, and I 
 meant it. Move on, now, and don t come 
 back." 
 
 " A-a-a-h," said one Pinochler, with the 
 tiger snarl of the street boy, " we ain t doin 
 nartin !" 
 
 " But I am," said the officer ; " I m doing 
 my duty, and you ll have to move on." 
 
 "All right," said Donahue," we ll sash-shay ; 
 but we belong here, an you ll get the worst of 
 it for chasin us see ?" 
 
 " That 11 do, now," said the bluecoat, firm 
 ly. " Move on, and don t let me catch you 
 here again." 
 
 "Come along, gents; come on, Dutch," 
 said Callahan, particularly addressing Kollock, 
 who did not budge. 
 
 "Naw I wun t," said Kollock, rooting 
 himself on his legs, and assuming the bull-like 
 stare of an ugly New York loafer at bay., 
 
 The policeman touched Kollock lightly on 
 the arm, and instantly Kollock struck him a 
 frightful blow in the face. The officer 
 stepped back to find and use his club, but Kol 
 lock sprang forward and dealt him another 
 
92 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 blow that might stagger an ox. They 
 clinched, and began a rough-and-tumble bat 
 tle in a heap on the pavement, now with one 
 on top, and now with that one under. The 
 usual crowd piled from the pavement to the 
 windows and thus up to the roofs, with scream 
 ing women, with the inevitable appearance of 
 the offender s mother these were the accom 
 paniments of the fight. It ended with Kol- 
 lock s journey to the station-house. The 
 Pinochlers were dumfounded. Up to that 
 man s coming the police had deferred to them. 
 Life and luck seemed savorless. And Senator 
 Eisenstone was love-making miles away! 
 
 In the club-room, in the afternoon, the first- 
 comers surprised Tommy Dugan flinging his 
 legs about, with the place all to himself, prac 
 tising a new jig step he had seen at the Lon 
 don Theatre. Dugan had not the first ambi 
 tion of a tenement boy, which is to be a poli 
 tician ; but lie nursed the fifth, which is to be a 
 song-and-dance "artist." He stopped jigging 
 when one of the new-comers whistled a bar of 
 the " Shatchen s Song," the newest ballad by 
 Eugene Kelly, the song-writer, who lived near 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 93 
 
 by. It was being sung, with five encores, at 
 the Vaudeville Music Hall. The instant the 
 first notes struck the ears of the young men 
 they were all attention. With them one must 
 know the favorite song of the moment, else 
 he might as well be a deaf-mute, or in jail. 
 
 "Say, fellers," said one, "youse dat knows 
 de Shatchen s Song all stand togedder an 
 cough it out, an de rest kin sneak in on de 
 chorus. Den we kin learn it see ?" 
 
 It was a spirited, melodious tune that welled 
 from the throats of the clubmen. The awk 
 ward verse described the vocation of a shat- 
 chen, or marriage - broker, among the Polish 
 and Russian Jews of the East Side. 
 
 " Say, dat s great !" cried one of the vocal 
 ists. " Tommy Dugan, come in wid de tara- 
 ra see 2" 
 
 Coming in with the tarara consists in intro 
 ducing that sound at the major pauses in a 
 song, as one sometimes hears the bass in a 
 brass band. Thus the song was repeated : 
 
 I m Levi, the sliatchen, von Hester Street ; 
 
 Tarara. 
 I ll get you all partners that can t be beat. 
 
94 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 I tell the girls, if a man one fancies 
 
 Tarara, 
 
 Offers marriage, just take no chances. 
 I say to the men, "If you ask but a kiss, 
 
 Tarara. 
 Don t let her whisper that isn t biz." 
 
 Get it in writing, I say to you, 
 Men and girls and widows old ; 
 
 Get it in writing, then you can sue. 
 Naught heals a heart like good yellow gold. 
 
 " Hully Moses, but dat s great !" shouted 
 the youth who might be called the leader of 
 the concert. "Say, now, youse fellers dat 
 ain t siugin nor nartin , come in wid de street 
 cries bertween de lines de way youse done 
 at de chowder, an at de ball las winter. Dat 
 11 be corkin wid dis song." 
 
 Very clever mimics are the theatre -bred 
 boys and young men of the tenements, and 
 a keen sense of humor strengthens their per 
 formances. They can parrot every familiar 
 street call, and on this occasion the one who 
 called out " War Cry, ten cents," imitated 
 the rich girlish voice of a young Salvation 
 Army lass so cleverly that his associates inter 
 rupted their singing to laugh aloud. The ef- 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 95 
 
 feet of the song rendered with that strange 
 accompaniment was like hearing a band of 
 street singers through the noises of Grand 
 Street on Saturday night. 
 
 Get it in writing, I say to you, 
 
 iStrawberreez ! Strawbaze ! ! 
 Lozengers, cent a pack! 
 
 Men and girls and widows old ; 
 
 Annie Rags! ould ire-run! 
 Ould bottles ! War Cry, ten cents ! 
 Orngeez! Chairs ter mend! 
 
 Get it in writing, then you can sue. 
 
 Sellee-yar, fine clams! sellee- 
 Yarf Porgies! oh, p-o-r-gies! 
 Twenny-eigJit Street next 
 Fine clams, sellee-yar ! 
 
 Naught heals a heart like good yellow gold. 
 
 " Oh, but dat s dandy !" said the leader. 
 " We ll paralyze de gang wid dat, when dey s 
 all here to-night." 
 
 The song and the joyous spirit of the occa 
 sion were abruptly broken off by the arrival 
 of Yank Hurst, who darted in, slammed the 
 door, and stood before the others, white, hag 
 gard, trembling like a coward who has seen 
 a ghost. 
 
96 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " I ve cut a man," said he. " For God s 
 sake, hide me ! Give me whiskey, quick ! 
 They re after me." 
 
 He had been drinking down to the verge of 
 delirium. He was pitiful to see and hear. 
 
 "Who d you cut?" 
 
 " Chop Miller. Quick, they re after me. Pie 
 come between me and me girl. Give me whis 
 key, will yer? and put me somewhere." 
 
 As he spoke, Dutch Jake, the iceman, swung 
 into the room and flung himself upon the 
 wretched outlaw. Jake had a new grudge 
 against Hurst in addition to his resentment of 
 Hurst s treatment of his little playmate, Elsa 
 Muller, as set forth in the story called " Love 
 in a Tenement." He hit Hurst a blow which 
 sent him across the room and against the wall 
 like a baseball hot from a bat. An outcry 
 of surprise and protest arose. 
 
 " Keep away, gents," said Jake. He spoke 
 with the German pronunciation that is almost 
 as common as the Irish. " He cut Chop Mil 
 ler in ter back, like a coward, an he sait he t 
 serve me ter same. JSTow let him put up his 
 hants." Again he struck the wretch, who did 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 97 
 
 raise his hands, but only to ward off the blow 
 that beat him back against the wall. 
 
 " He ll be in ter electric chair in Sing Sing 
 pefore I ll get a chance at him again," said 
 Jake, and again he hit the club treasurer, who 
 fell like a log on the floor. 
 
 " Cheese it ! Der cop s cornin ," said a boy, 
 who darted in. " He s close to der door." 
 
 Airing on a line out of the back window 
 was a large heavy rug. Two men dragged it 
 in and, pulling the insensible treasurer against 
 a wall, threw it over him. It made a great 
 heap that more than covered the criminal. 
 Two or three men tore off their coats and 
 threw them on the rug. Just as the irrepres 
 sible new policeman entered the room, Tom 
 my Dugan lounged over to the rug heap, sat 
 on it, and nonchalantly spat from it to the op 
 posite surbase. The officer looked the crowd 
 of young men over, and saw Hurst s blood on 
 Dutch Jake s hands. He asked how it came 
 there. 
 
 " Been scrapping," said Jake. 
 
 " Who with ?" 
 
 " Wit a frient." 
 
98 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 "Are you Yank Hurst? Boys, is his name 
 Hurst?" 
 
 " Naw," in a chorus. 
 
 " Do you know where he is?" 
 
 " Hain t seen him to-day." 
 
 The officer knew Dugan. He bade him 
 name every man in the room. Dugan named 
 all but the one under the rug. Suspecting no 
 trickery, the officer went away. 
 
 The next notable incident was the arrival 
 of Senator Eisenstone, happening in most op 
 portunely. He found a gloomy assemblage, 
 with Hurst lying like a sack across a table. 
 The Senator would have looked well any 
 where, but just there he appeared heaven 
 sent, radiant like an angel. 
 
 " Fetch some wine," said he to the waiter. 
 He was as cool as if he had been to Coney Isl 
 and and brought it back with him. In the 
 lapel of his neat new black coat he wore a car 
 nation. His light checked trousers were new 
 ly creased, his russet shoes shone with the 
 bloom of new leather, his silk hat caught the 
 light so as to form a halo above his head. 
 
 " Well, boys," said he, " here goes. I hear 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 99 
 
 that a new cop has been making trouble. He 
 will be chasing goats in Mott Haven di 
 rectly. I ll have him transferred. Who do 
 you want in his place ? Farrelley, eh ? I ll 
 see that he gets this post. One of our fellows 
 locked up? Kollock? You don t say? I ll 
 step up to the station-house and get him out. 
 Here [to the waiter] here s a dollar for the 
 drinks when Kollock gets back from the cool 
 er. And say, Barney, will you go to Hurst s 
 old woman and give her this five dollars, and 
 tell her not to worry about Yank? Thank 
 you, Barney. Tell Yank s old woman I m 
 looking out for him." 
 
 " What 11 we do about Yank, Senator ?" Cal- 
 lahan asked, as he drained his champagne glass. 
 
 " Keep him shady," said the district leader. 
 " What s the matter with keeping him here a 
 day or two, till we see is the man he cut bad 
 ly hurt or not? I hear tisn t serious. Some 
 of you must pull that fellow off, and let him 
 drop the thing and not prosecute. Stake him 
 with a little money if you have to. If he s 
 ugly, what good 11 it do him ? There were 
 no witnesses, were there ? n 
 
100 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 "Damned a one," said Barney Kelly. 
 
 " Then Yank 11 be able to make out a case 
 of self-defence, with all the witnesses he 
 wants." 
 
 " Twasn t self-defence," said Dutch Jake. 
 " It was a mean, cowardly " 
 
 "I understand," said the Senator. "Yank s 
 been hitting the bottle till he was crazy but 
 I ll stand by him this time, anyhow. That s 
 me, lads, and you know it." 
 
 With applause and admiration shining upon 
 him from every face, the Senator slipped out 
 of the club, and stopped a moment in the cafe 
 to tell Rag Murphy that if he knew of any 
 needy men in the club he could place one in 
 the navy-yard, one on the Brooklyn Bridge, 
 and a couple on the elevated railway perqui 
 sites of Murphy s captaincy that would in 
 crease his political strength. Thus did the 
 suave and genial Senator dissipate the gloom 
 at the Pinochle Club. Thus he distracted the 
 attention of the members from their misfort 
 unes, and, indeed, made those sorrows seem 
 trivial. 
 
 " I don t care," said Dutch Jake ; " ter Sen- 
 
A DAY OF THE PINOCHLE CLUB 101 
 
 ator s all right, but Hurst has left a stain on 
 ter club." 
 
 "Naw, he ain t," said Tim Donahue. "Dere 
 ain t no stain on us if the name of the club 
 don t get into the noozepapers." 
 
 " That s so, Tim," said the others. 
 
 Ten minutes later Kollock came back from 
 the lock-up. One eye was closed, and his 
 clothing was sadly torn, but his thirst was nor 
 mal. His return seemed a guarantee that the 
 new policeman would disappear on the mor 
 row, and that, somehow or other, the Senator 
 would bring; Yank Hurst out of his trouble 
 
 O 
 
 unpunished. The Pinochle Club was itself 
 again. 
 
 And even Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was 
 in quite as high spirits on her way to a sum 
 mer night s ball at Jones s Wood with a new 
 admirer. 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE ypfv 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 
 
 CORDELIA ANGELINE MAHONEY was dress 
 ing, as she would say, " to keep a date " with a 
 beau, who would soon be waiting on the cor 
 ner nearest her home in the Big Barracks ten 
 ement-house. She smiled as she heard the 
 shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She 
 knew it was Dutch Johnny s signal to Chris- 
 sie Bergen to come down and meet him at 
 the street doorway. Presently she heard an 
 other call a birdlike whistle and she knew 
 which boy s note it was, and which girl it 
 called out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. 
 She smiled, a trifle sadly, and yet triumphant 
 ly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no 
 wiser and looked no higher than the younger 
 Barracks girls, who took up the boys of the 
 neighborhood as if there were no others. 
 
 She was in her own little dark inner room, 
 which she shared with only two others of the 
 
106 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene- 
 light. The photograph of herself in trunks 
 and tights, of which we heard in the story of 
 Elsa Muller s hopeless love, was before her, 
 among several portraits of actresses and sala 
 ried beauties. She had taken them out from 
 under the paper in the top drawer of the bu 
 reau. She always kept them there, and al 
 ways took them out and spread them in the 
 lamp-light when she was alone in her room. 
 She glanced approvingly at the portrait of 
 herself as a picture of which she had said to 
 more than one girlish confidante that it showed 
 as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs 
 as any actress s she had ever seen. But the 
 suggestion of a frown flitted across her brow 
 as she thought how silly she was to have once 
 been "stage-struck" how foolish to have 
 thought that mere beauty could quickly raise 
 a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia 
 Fogarty s case proved that. Julia and she 
 were stage-struck together, and where was 
 Julia or Corynne Belvedere, as she now 
 called herself? She started well as a figu 
 rante in a comic opera company uptown, but 
 
ARRANGING A CAKKFUL TO1LKT BV KKKOSKNK LIGHT 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 107 
 
 from that she dropped to a female minstrel 
 troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch 
 told Cordelia, she was " tooing ter skirt-tan ce 
 in ter pickernic parks for ter sick-baby fund, 
 ant passin ter hat arount afterwarts." And 
 evil was being whispered of her a pretty 
 high price to pay for such small success ; and 
 it must be true, because she sometimes came 
 home late at night in cabs, which are devilish, 
 except when used at funerals. 
 
 It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller s 
 sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to her side, and left 
 Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it 
 was Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he 
 took to drink and stabbed the young man 
 who, during a mere walk from church, took 
 his place beside Cordelia. And yet Cordelia 
 was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men 
 live who would not look twice at her. She 
 was not of the stunted tenement type, like 
 her friends Eosey Mulvey and Minnie Bech- 
 man and Julia Moriarty. She was tall and 
 large and stately, and yet plump in every out 
 line. Moreover, she had the "style" of an 
 American girl, and looked as well in five dol- 
 
 7 
 
108 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 lars worth of clothes all home-made, except 
 her shoes and stockings as almost any girl in 
 richer circles. It was too bad that she was 
 called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck- 
 up thing by the girls, when in fact she was 
 merely more shrewd and calculating than the 
 others, who were content to drift out of the 
 primary schools into the shops, and out of the 
 shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia 
 was not lovable, but not all of us are who 
 may be better than she. She was monopolized 
 by the hope of getting a man ; but a mere al 
 liance with trousers was not the sum of her 
 hope ; they must jingle with coin. 
 
 It was strange, then, that she should be 
 dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, who was no 
 better than gilly to the Commissioner of Pub 
 lic Works, drawing a small salary from a clerk 
 ship he never filled, while he served the Com 
 missioner as a second left-hand. But if we 
 could see into Cordelia s mind we would be 
 surprised to discover that she did not regard 
 herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as ro 
 mantic Clarice Delamour, and she only thought 
 of Jerry as James the butler. The voracious 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 109 
 
 reader of the novels of to-day will recall the 
 story of Clarice, or Only a Lady s - Maid, 
 which many consider the best of the several 
 absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Til ley has writ 
 ten. Cordelia had read it twenty times, and 
 almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream 
 was that she could be another Clarice, and 
 shape her life like hers. The plot of the 
 novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided 
 Cordelia s course. 
 
 Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dow 
 ager. James the butler fell in love with Cla 
 rice when she first entered the household, and 
 she, hearing the servants gossip about James s 
 savings and salary, had encouraged his atten 
 tions. He pressed her to marry him. But 
 young Nicholas Stuyvesant came home from 
 abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice nurs 
 ing her. Every day he noticed the modest 
 rosy maid moving noiselessly about like a sun 
 beam. Her physical perfection profoundly 
 impressed him. In her presence he constantly 
 talked to his mother about his admiration for 
 healthy women. Each evening Clarice re 
 ported to him the condition of the mother, 
 
110 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 and on one occasion mentioned that she had 
 never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. 
 The young man often chatted with her in the 
 drawing -room, and James the butler got his 
 conge. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to 
 make Clarice her companion, and then he met 
 her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park 
 by chance, and next every one will recall the 
 exciting scene he paid passionate court to 
 her " in the pink sewing-room, where she half 
 reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her 
 tiny slippers upon the head of a lion whose 
 skin formed a rug before her." Clarice saw 
 that he was merely amusing himself with 
 her and repulsed him. When the widow 
 recovered her health and went to Newport, 
 the former maid met all society there. A 
 gifted lawyer fell a victim to Clarice s 
 charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlook 
 ing the sea, warned her against young Stuy 
 vesant. On learning that the roue had already 
 made an attempt to weaken the girl s high 
 principles, he determined to rescue her. Sym 
 pathy for her developed into love, and he made 
 her his wife. He was soon afterwards elected 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE m 
 
 Mayor of New York, but remained a suitor for 
 his beautiful wife s approbation, waiting upon 
 her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight 
 of old. 
 
 Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself 
 just such another beautiful, ambitions, poor, 
 with a future for her own carving. Of course 
 such a case is phenomenal. No other young 
 woman was ever so ridiculous. 
 
 " You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," 
 said her mother. " It 11 soon be wore out, an 
 ye ll git no other, wid your father oidle, an 
 no one airnin a pinny but you an Johnny an 7 
 Sarah Rosabel. Fwliere are ye goin ?" 
 
 " I won t be gone long," said Cordelia, half 
 out of the hall door. 
 
 "Cordalia Angeline, darlin ," said her moth 
 er, " mind, now, doan t let them be talkin 
 about ye, f wherever ye go shakin yer shkirts 
 an rollin yer eyes. It doan t luk well for a 
 gyuii to be makin hersel attractive." 
 
 " Oh, mother, I m not attractive, and you 
 know it." 
 
 With her head full of meeting Jerry Dona 
 hue, Cordelia tripped down the four flights 
 
112 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she 
 thought of Jerry as James the butler ; in fact, 
 all the beaux she had had of late were so many 
 repetitions of the unfortunate James in her 
 mind. All the other characters in her ac 
 quaintance were made to fit more or less loose 
 ly into her romance life, and she thought of 
 everything she did as if it all happened in 
 Lulu Jane Tilley s beautiful novel. Let the 
 reader fancy, if possible, what a feat that must 
 have been for a tenement girl who had never 
 known what it was to have a parlor, in our 
 sense of the word, who had never known court 
 ship to be carried on in-doors, except in a ten 
 ement hallway, and who had to imagine that 
 the sidewalk flirtations of actual life were 
 meetings in private parks, that the wharves 
 and public squares and tenement roofs where 
 she had seen all the young men and women 
 making love were heavily carpeted drawing- 
 rooms, broad manor-house verandas, and the 
 fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions ! 
 But Cordelia managed all this mental necro 
 mancy easily, to her own satisfaction. And 
 now she was tripping down the bare wooden 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 113 
 
 stairs beside the dark greasy wall, and think 
 ing of her future husband, the rich Mayor, 
 who must be either the bachelor police cap 
 tain of the precinct, or George Fletcher, the 
 wealthy and unmarried factory-owner near by, 
 or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district 
 leader, who, she was forced to reflect, was an 
 unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since he was 
 a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street 
 door and decided that Jerry would do well 
 enough as a mere temporary James the butler, 
 and while Jerry was waiting for her on the 
 corner, she stepped from the stoop directly in 
 front of George Fletcher. 
 
 " Good -evening," said the wealthy young 
 employer. 
 
 "Good-evening, Mr. Fletcher." 
 
 " It s very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletch 
 er; "I know your given name Cordelia, isn t 
 it ? but your last na Oh, thank you Miss 
 Mahoney, of course. You know we met at 
 that very queer wedding in the home of my 
 little apprentice, Joe the line-man s wedding, 
 you know." 
 
 " Te he !" Cordelia giggled. " Wasn t that 
 
114 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 a terrible strange wedding? I think it was 
 just terrible." 
 
 " "Were you going somewhere ?" 
 
 " Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with anoth 
 er nervous giggle or two. " I have no plans 
 on me mind, only to get out-of-doors. It s 
 terrible hot, ain t it?" 
 
 " May I take a walk with you. Miss Maho 
 ney?" 
 
 It seemed to her that if he had called her 
 Clarice the whole novel would have come true 
 then and there. 
 
 "I can t be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," 
 said she, with a giggle of delight. 
 
 " Are you sure I am not disarranging your 
 plans? Had you no engagements?" 
 
 " Oh no," said she ; " I was only going out 
 with me lonely." 
 
 " Let us take just a short walk, then," said 
 Fletcher; "only you must be the man and 
 take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I nev 
 er walked with a young lady in my life." 
 
 " Oh, certainly not ; you never did I don t 
 think." 
 
 " Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I know 
 
COKDELIA S NIGHT OP ROMANCE 115 
 
 only one woman in this city Miss Whitfield, 
 the doctor s daughter, who lives in the same 
 house with you; and only one other in the 
 world my aunt, who brought me up, in Ver 
 mont." 
 
 Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All 
 the neighborhood knew it, and most of the 
 other girls were conscious of a little flutter in 
 their breasts when his eyes fell upon them in 
 the streets, for it was the gossip of all who 
 knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder- 
 builder lived in his factory, where he had 
 spent the life of a monk, without any society 
 except of his canaries, his books, and his work 
 men. 
 
 "Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How 
 terrible cunning you men are, to get up such 
 a story to make all the girls think you re ro 
 mantic !" 
 
 But, oh, how happy Cordelia was ! At last 
 she had met her prince the future Mayor 
 her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, 
 sticky, midsummer heat among the tenements, 
 every other woman dragged along as if she 
 weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt 
 
116 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 like a feather floating among clouds. The 
 babel did the reader ever walk up Forsyth 
 Street on a hot night, into Second Avenue, 
 and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins 
 Park? The noise of the tens of thousands on 
 the pavements makes a babel that drowns the 
 racket of the carts and cars. The talking of 
 so many persons, the squalling of so many ba 
 bies, the mothers scolding and slapping every 
 third child, the yelling of the children at play, 
 the shouts and loud repartee of the men and 
 women all these noises rolled together in the 
 air make a steady hum and roar that not even 
 the breakers on a hard sea-beach can equal. You 
 might say that the tenements were empty, as 
 only the very sick, who could not move, were 
 in them. For miles and miles they were bare 
 of humanity, each flat unguarded and un 
 locked, with the women on the sidewalks, with 
 the youngest children in arms or in perambu 
 lators, while those of the next sizes romped in 
 the streets ; with the girls and boys of four 
 teen giggling in groups in the doorways (the 
 age and places where sex first asserts itself), 
 and only the young men and women missing ; 
 
THE STROLL 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 147 
 
 for they were in the parks, on the wharves, 
 and on the roofs, all frolicking and love-mak 
 ing. And every house front was like a Rus 
 sian stove, expending the heat it had sacked 
 from the all -day sun. Arid every door and 
 window breathed bad air air without oxygen, 
 rich and rank and stifling. 
 
 But Cordelia was Clarice, the future May 
 oress. She did not know she was picking a 
 tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and 
 the mothers and babies and baby - carriages. 
 She did not notice the smells, or feel the 
 bumps she got from those who ran against her. 
 She thought she was in the blue drawing-room 
 at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count 
 was thrilling the soft prelude to a csdrdds on 
 the piano, and Mr. Stuyvesant had just intro 
 duced her to the future Mayor, who was spell 
 bound by her charms, and was by her side, a 
 captive. She reached out her hand, and it 
 touched Mr. Fletcher s arm (just as a raga 
 muffin propelled himself head first against 
 her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his elbow, and 
 her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, 
 her dream was true ; her dream was true ! 
 
118 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly 
 in a more natural relation. He was trying to 
 think how the men talked to women in all the 
 literature he had read. The myriad jokes 
 about the fondness of girls for ice-cream re 
 curred to him, and he risked everything on 
 their fidelity to fact. 
 
 "Are you fond of ice-cream ?" he inquired. 
 
 " Oh no ; I don t think," said Cordelia. 
 "What ll you ask next? What girl ain t 
 crushed on ice-cream, I d like to know ?" 
 
 " Do you know of a nice place to get some ?" 
 
 " Do I ? The Dutchman s, on the av noo, 
 another block up, is the finest in the city. You 
 get mo that is, you get everything way up 
 in G there, with cakes on the side, and it don t 
 cost no more than anywheres else." 
 
 So to the German s they went, and Cordelia 
 fancied herself at the Casino in Newport. All 
 the girls around her, who seemed to be trying 
 to swallow the spoons, took on the guise of 
 blue-blooded belles, while the noisy boys and 
 young men (calling out, " Hully gee, fellers ! 
 look at Nifty gittin out der winder widout 
 payin !" and, " Say, Tilly, what kind er cream 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF BOMANCE 119 
 
 is dat you re feedin your face wid ?") seemed 
 to her so many millionaires and the exquisite 
 sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the German s 
 back -yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, 
 and its rusty dead Christmas trees in painted 
 butter -kegs, appeared uncommonly brilliant 
 and fine. The fact that whenever he took a 
 swallow of water the ice-cream turned to cold 
 candle - grease in his mouth made no differ 
 ence. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an 
 ecstasy by the time he had paid a shock-head 
 ed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were 
 again on the avenue side by side. She put 
 out her hand and rested it on his arm again 
 to make sure she was Clarice. 
 
 One would like to know whether, in the 
 breasts of such as these, familiar environment 
 exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it 
 could have been in but one direction. For 
 that part of town was one vast nursery. Ev 
 erywhere, on every side, were the swarming 
 babies a baby for every flag -stone in the 
 pavements. Babies and babies, and little be 
 sides babies, except larger children and the 
 mothers. Perambulators with two, even three, 
 
120 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 baby passengers ; mothers with as many as 
 five children trailing after them ; babies in 
 broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, babies 
 creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into 
 the gutters. Such was the unbroken scene 
 from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square ; 
 aye, to Harlem and to the East River, and al 
 most to Broadway. In the park, as if the 
 street scenes had been merely preliminary, the 
 paths were alive, wriggling, with babies of 
 every age, from the new-born to the children 
 in pigtails and knickerbockers and, lo ! these 
 were already paired and practising at court 
 ship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was 
 amid a fever, a delirium, of maternity a rhap 
 sody, a baby s opera, if one considered its noise. 
 In that vast region no one inquired whether 
 marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old 
 and long-beloved and human is a failure there. 
 In Tompkins Park, while they dodged ba 
 bies and stepped around babies and over them, 
 they saw many happy couples on the settees, 
 and they noticed that often the men held their 
 arms around the waists of their sweethearts. 
 Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 121 
 
 heads against the young men s breasts, bliss 
 fully regardless of publicity. They passed a 
 young man and woman kissing passionately, 
 as kissing is described by unmarried girl nov 
 elists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge 
 Mr. Fletcher and whisper : 
 
 " Sakes alive ! They re right in it, ain t they ? 
 c It s funny when you feel that way, ain t 
 it?" 
 
 As many another man who does not know 
 the frankness and simplicity of the plain peo 
 ple might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged 
 the girl. He thought her the sort of girl he 
 was far from seeking. He grew instantly cold 
 and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she 
 had displeased him. 
 
 " I think people who make love in public 
 should be locked up," said he. 
 
 " Some folks wants everybody put away that 
 enjoys themselves," said Cordelia. Then, lest 
 she had spoken too strongly, she added, " Pres 
 ent company not intended, Mr. Fletcher; but 
 you said that like them mission folks that 
 come around praising themselves and tellin 
 us all we re wicked." 
 
122 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 "And do you think a girl can be good who 
 behaves so in public ?" 
 
 " I know plenty that s done it," said she ; 
 " and I don t know any girls but what s good. 
 They ain t got wings, maybe, but you don t 
 want to monkey with em, neither." 
 
 He recollected her words for many a year 
 afterwards and pondered them, and perhaps 
 they enlarged his understanding. She also 
 often thought of his condemnation of love- 
 making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, es 
 pecially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be 
 a debatable pastime, but she also knew that 
 there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in 
 which a girl could carry on a courtship. Fan 
 cy her attempting it in her front room, with 
 the room choked with people, with the baby 
 squalling, and her little brothers and sisters 
 quarrelling, with her mother entertaining half 
 a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and 
 with a man or two dropping in to smoke with 
 her father ! Parlor courtship was to her, like 
 precise English, a thing only known in novels. 
 The thought of novels floated her soul back 
 into the dream state. 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 123 
 
 "I think Cordelia s a pretty name," said 
 Fletcher, cold at heart but struggling to be 
 companionable. 
 
 "I don t," said Cordelia. "I m not at all 
 crushed on it. Your name s terrible pretty. 
 I think my three names looks like a map of 
 Ireland when they re written down. I know 
 a killin name for a girl. It s Clarice. Maybe 
 some day I ll give you a dare. I ll double dare 
 you, maybe, to call me Clarice." 
 
 Oh, if he only would, she thought if he 
 would only call her so now ! But she forgot 
 how unelastic his strange routine of life must 
 have left him, and she did not dream how her 
 behavior in the park had displeased him. 
 
 " Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. 
 " At any rate, I think we should try to make 
 the most and best of whatever name has come 
 to us. I wouldn t sail under false colors for a 
 minute." 
 
 " Oh !" said she, with a giggle to hide her 
 disappointment ; " you re so terrible wise ! 
 When you talk them big words you can pass 
 me in a walk." 
 
 Anxious to display her great conquest to 
 
124 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 the other girls of the Barracks neighborhood, 
 Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what 
 she called " the dock," to enjoy the cool breath 
 of the river. All the piers and wharves are 
 called " docks " by the people. Those which 
 are semi-public and are rented to miscellane 
 ous excursion and river steamers are crowded 
 nightly. 
 
 The wharf to which our couple strolled was 
 a mere flooring above the water, edged with a 
 stout string - piece, which formed a bench for 
 the mothers. They were there in groups, some 
 seated on the string-piece with babes in arms or 
 with perambulators before them, and others, 
 facing these, standing and joining in the gos 
 sip, and swaying to and fro to soothe their lit 
 tle ones. Those who gave their offspring the 
 breast did so publicly, unembarrassed by a 
 modesty they would have considered false. 
 A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl 
 by boy, sat on the string-piece and whispered, 
 or bandied fun with those other lovers who 
 patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A u gang " 
 of rude young men toughs walked up and 
 down, teasing the girls, wrestling, scuffling, 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF ROMANCE 125 
 
 and roaring out bad language. Troops of 
 children played at leap-frog, high-spy, jack- 
 stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the 
 far end of the pier some young men and wom 
 en waltzed, while a lad on the string -piece 
 played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, 
 cool, vivifying breeze from the bay swept across 
 the wharf and fanned all the idlers, and blew 
 out of their heads almost all recollection of 
 the furnacelike heat of the town. 
 
 Cordelia forgot her desire to display her 
 conquest. She forgot her true self. She lik 
 ened the wharf to that " lordly veranda over 
 looking the sea," where the future Mayor 
 begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew just 
 what she would say when her prince spoke 
 his lines. She and Mr. Fletcher were just about 
 to seat themselves on the great rim of the 
 wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike 
 voices of half-grown men caused them to turn 
 around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding tow 
 ards them, but with difficulty, because half a 
 dozen lads and youths were endeavoring to 
 hold him back. 
 
 " Dat s Mr. Fletcher," they said. " It ain t 
 
126 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 his fault, Jerry. He s dead square ; he s a 
 gent, Jerry." 
 
 The politician s gilly tore himself away 
 from his friends. The gang of toughs gath 
 ered behind the others. Jerry planted him 
 self in front of Cordelia. Evidently he did 
 not know the submissive part he should have 
 played in Cordelia s romance. James the but 
 ler made no outbreak, but here was Jerry an 
 gry through and through. 
 
 k You didn t keep de date wid me," he be 
 gan. 
 
 "Oh, Jerry, I did I tried to, but you" 
 Cordelia was rose red with shame. 
 
 " The hell you did ! Wasn t I" 
 
 " Here !" said Mr. Fletcher ; " you can t 
 swear at this lady." 
 
 " Why wouldn t I ?" Jerry asked. " What 
 would you do ?" 
 
 " He s right, Jerry. Leave him be see ?" 
 said the chorus of Jerry s friends. 
 
 " A-a-a-h !" snarled Jerry. " Let him leave 
 me be, then. Cordelia, I heard you was a 
 dead fraud, an now I know it, and I m a-tellin 
 you so, straight see? I was a-waitin cross 
 
" HKRE WAS JERRY " 
 
CORDELIA S NIGHT OF EOMANCE 137 
 
 der street, an I seen you come out an meet 
 dis mug, an you never turned yer head to see 
 was I on me post. I seen dat, an I m a-tellin 
 yer friend just der kind of a racket you give 
 me, der same s you ve give a hundred other 
 fellers. Den, if he likes it he knows what 
 he s gittin ." 
 
 Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed 
 his distorted face against that of the humili 
 ated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher 
 gently moved her backward a step or two, and 
 advanced to where she had stood. 
 
 " That will do," he said to Jerry. " I want 
 no trouble, but you ve said enough. If there s 
 more, say it to me." 
 
 "A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expecto 
 rating theatrically over one shoulder. " Me 
 friends is on your side, an I ain t pickin no 
 muss wid you. But she s got der front of der 
 City Hall to do me like she s done. And say, 
 fellers, den she was goin ter give me a song 
 an dance bout lookin ferme. Ba-a-a! She 
 knows my pinion of her see ?" 
 
 The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish 
 his first evening s gallantry to a lady by escort- 
 
128 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 ing Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly and 
 mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly 
 apologized for Jerry s misbehavior, but she 
 inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he 
 did not fully join her in blaming the angry 
 youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her finger-tips 
 in bidding her good-night, and nothing was 
 said of a meeting in the future. Clarice was 
 forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself 
 again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs 
 awoke the little brother and sister who shared 
 her bed. 
 
DUTCH 
 
 KITTY S y 
 
 JH$L9 ^ 
 
 WHITE 
 
 fliwsL 
 
 IPPERS 
 
 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 
 
 KITTY WINDHURST S white slippers lay side 
 by side on the roof of the Big Barracks tene 
 ment. They were what we would call her 
 ball slippers. One could not look at them 
 without feeling their story, as one often feels 
 the tragedies and romances of inanimate 
 things which have endured or enjoyed, and 
 yet cannot voice their sensations. The reader, 
 with his power to buy new things whenever 
 new are needed, would say that the story of 
 these slippers was a tale that was told and 
 ended, for they were discolored half-way up 
 the sides and over the toes with greasy black 
 New York mud, and they were badly run 
 down at the heels. The reader would say 
 that they had given some girl a good time 
 and had served their limit of usefulness, and 
 ought to go to one of the eight sorts of men 
 and women who fish in the ash-barrels for a 
 
132 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 living the eight sorts who search the barrels 
 for metal, for bone, for rags, for glass, for 
 shoes, for coal, for paper, and for food. And 
 that was true ; at least it is true that they had 
 given Kitty a good time, and it ought to be 
 true that the days of their usefulness were 
 over. 
 
 Kitty had bought them by saving a whole 
 week s allowance for luncheons and car rides 
 and pin-money, by going without her mid-day 
 apple or sandwich for seven days, by walk 
 ing miles and miles after being on her feet 
 nearly eleven hours each day in the china- 
 ware department of an uptown shop. And 
 then she had got them at a bargain, for eighty- 
 seven cents. They were bought to dance in at 
 the annual target -shoot of the big society of 
 immigrants from the Rhenish Palatinate to 
 which Kitty s mother and father belonged, 
 the shoot when the best marksman and marks- 
 woman became king and queen, every autumn 
 at the time when, in the father-land, the new 
 wine and the sausages reappear together. 
 There the slippers had first danced with Lewy 
 Tusch, and had danced Kitty into his heart, 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 183 
 
 so that he was crazy about her, and had long 
 been on the point of asking her to marry him. 
 The slippers were certain that they had done 
 this, and would grant none of the credit to Kit 
 ty s winning nature or her trim little ankles 
 or her pretty face, or to her genius for mak 
 ing any sort of slippers dance like shoes be 
 witched. And, since then, the slippers had 
 danced up the Hudson to lona Island on 
 the Pinochle Club excursion, and up the East 
 River and the Sound on another excursion, 
 and they had danced in Lion Park and Jones s 
 Wood and the 155th Street Casino and Wal- 
 halla Hall and Tammany Hall, and I don t 
 know where they had not danced, all in eleven 
 months. This was not extraordinary. The 
 young men and girls of the neighborhood 
 especially the German -Americans had at 
 tended most of these dances, and there was 
 scarcely a young fellow mentioned in these 
 stories that these slippers had not danced with, 
 but only one had ever taken one of them in 
 his big hand and squeezed it on Kitty s foot 
 once, when it fell off. That was Lewy 
 Tusch, whom they loved because he loved 
 
134 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Kitty, and who, we shall have reason to think 
 by what he did with them at the end, must 
 have loved them in return. 
 
 But why were they up there on the roof? 
 Were they to be left there, to rot in the rain 
 and sun ? "Wait ! The door of the stairway 
 shed opens. A little brown curly head comes 
 out on a level with the nob, two beadlike 
 black eyes follow, then a very shapely little 
 nose, a generous, red -lipped, kissable mouth, 
 a dimpled chin, a sturdy little brown neck, a 
 shapely bust and waist and all the rest of 
 Kitty, in a shabby house dress, to be sure, yet 
 looking very comely and pert and graceful. 
 In one hand she carries a small bottle of white 
 paint and a little paint-brush both got in 
 tenement fashion the brush rented, and the 
 paint bought for three " pennies." She lays 
 them down, closes the shed door, and looks 
 around her. No one, nothing, except herself 
 and her belongings, is on the roof. Across 
 the street, on another tenement -top, some 
 women are hanging up wet clothes. On the 
 very next tall tenement-house down the street 
 a young man is chasing a young girl and kiss- 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 135 
 
 ing her when he catches her. In the other 
 direction a mother croons over a baby in her 
 lap in the shade of a stairway shed ; and at 
 one side, in the top story of a sort of factory 
 building, some printers are setting type by 
 the windows. She therefore considers herself 
 alone. She is more nearly alone, perhaps, 
 than she ever was except during very short 
 periods in her bedroom she who can scarcely 
 conceive what the word "alone" really means. 
 So she begins to dance. 
 
 There is an endless dispute in the Big Bar 
 racks as to whether Kitty is a "spieler" or 
 not. Some of the younger married women 
 not yet wholly content in the new monotony 
 of childbearing and childrearing, and conse 
 quently a trifle jealous of Kitty call her a 
 " spieler " because she is forever dancing. 
 The young men, with whom she is a general 
 favorite, take up the cudgels of argument for 
 her. They say, truly, that a spieler is a vaga 
 bond girl who does no work at home or for 
 her living, but goes to dances by night arid 
 day, the year around, with any man who will 
 pay the way. Kitty, they say, is a decent, 
 
136 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 bard-working girl, who is very fond of dan 
 cing, that s all. Then the young married wom 
 en silencing all recollection of their own 
 past retort that Kitty dances in the hall 
 ways on her way to the street ; that when 
 she is ironing she dances from the table to 
 the stove to change her irons; that when she 
 pins up wet clothes to dry on her mother s 
 pulley-line she dances from the basket to the 
 window ; and that once, when a piece fell off 
 the line into the back court, she was seen to 
 dance out and pick it up, and dance back into 
 the house with it. And if that does not prove 
 that she is a spieler, what does it prove, these 
 young wives would like to know ? 
 
 As Kitty dances one two three, waltz 
 measure, right foot out with a graceful kick ; 
 one two three, right about face, left foot 
 out with a little kick a tune springs from 
 her throat, and she sings to time her foot 
 steps. Around and around on the roof she 
 whirls this way, and a kick, then that way, 
 and another kick for perhaps five minutes, 
 lost to every sense except that of enjoyment 
 of her graceful, agile movements. At last she 
 
137 
 
 dances up to the paint bottle and brush, and 
 dances with them over to her slippers, beside 
 which she bends down upon one knee. As 
 she paints the first slipper freshly white all 
 over she thinks, almost aloud. 
 
 She thinks what best of all fun dancing is, 
 and how strange and unheard-of a thing Lewy 
 Tusch is doing in assuming the right to criti 
 cise her because she likes to dance a little bet 
 ter than he does himself she, who has no 
 other fun, and nothing else but hard work. 
 Lewy has been worked upon by the minister 
 at the Lutheran mission, and has become a 
 trifle religious a mere phase, she thinks, that 
 must soon pass away. She has been to the 
 mission with him once too often, in her opin 
 ion, since the "terrible" mission minister cor 
 nered her the last time and lectured her about 
 her passion for dancing. Her passion for dan 
 cing? Why was it Tier passion any more than 
 her mother s, or her grandmother s ? For love 
 of dancing was thick in her blood. 
 
 Kitty was a natural-born dancer. She would 
 enjoy dancing with girls as much as with men. 
 She was of the blood and temperament of 
 
138 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 those unquestionably innocent little children 
 that we see, scarcely beyond babyhood, dan 
 cing on the pavement to the organ-grinder s 
 tunes. She had been one of those children. 
 Perhaps a thousand times perhaps not quite 
 so often the strains of the barrel-organs had 
 called her forth to dance on the sidewalk, 
 partly because there was no room in-doors for 
 dancing, and partly because everything except 
 working, eating, and sleeping must be done 
 out-of-doors in that most populous district in 
 America. The love of dancing was part of 
 her apart from herself (if that can be under 
 stood), apart from her control. When a dance 
 tune sounded it went to her toes instead of 
 her ears, and set them tingling until they 
 got relief in dancing. 
 
 It is worth while to note that though there 
 is little of privacy in a tenement girl s routine, 
 and that though profanity (and some speech 
 that is worse) may often load the air around 
 her, she may yet be so inoculated with self- 
 respect that evil will pass her by, unless some 
 one drives at her with it, and makes it per 
 sonal to her. So it was with Kitty. She had 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 139 
 
 danced as much as any working-girl in New 
 York, but she had never connected evil with 
 herself before the Lutheran minister had 
 talked to her at the mission. 
 
 While she reflected and painted she heard a 
 step behind her. She turned and saw Lewy 
 Tusch, the journeyman plumber who had 
 been very constant in his devotion for many 
 months. She liked him more than that she 
 had not told even herself. She ran to him, 
 laughing. She put a hand on his shoulder 
 and a little arm part way round his burly 
 waist. 
 
 " Now, Lewy," said she, " let s have a 
 waltz." And she tried to move him around. 
 But he would not dance. 
 
 " Naw," said he ; " I der want ter." 
 
 " Oh, come on," said she, coaxing. " I ll 
 tell you what. I ll teach you the varsovien- 
 na, that everybody s dancing. It s too kill 
 ing for anything. See, now ; you stand be 
 hind me or beside me, and we dance so, and 
 then that brings me on the other side, to your 
 other arm. You won t ? Then I ll dance it 
 by meself." Filling the air with a blending 
 
140 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 of light laughter and still lighter music, she 
 whirled around him and at him, and away 
 again. 
 
 He had come looking very serious. She 
 melted him. He ran and caught her, and put 
 an arm around her to lead her to a seat. 
 
 "Come," said he "come ant sit behint 
 der shet, ant we ll talk togetter." 
 
 That suited her. 
 
 " Here t ey can t any one see us," said he, 
 and he drew her to him. and kissed her. She 
 contributed her full share of the embrace, and 
 yet, the instant he released her, she sprang 
 from him and pointed a finger at him, and 
 shouted, laughing between her words : 
 
 " Oh, for shame ! Those ladies saw you 
 over there on the roof ! They saw you ; oh, 
 shame be to you !" 
 
 He felt obliged to leap after her and catch 
 her again, and force her to sit down beside 
 him. He did not try to kiss her again, be 
 cause he believed the washer-women on the 
 other roof really might see him. 
 
 " Kit, what about ter tance up at Crim- 
 mins s Park to-night ?" 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 141 
 
 " I m going, Lewy." 
 
 " Say, Kit, what makes you want to be tan- 
 cin all ter time, wit all ter people backcap- 
 pin you ant sayin yer gittin to be a de t 
 spieler ? No, t at ain t no jolly ; t at s straight ; 
 I hope to tie if it ain t." 
 
 " Lewy," said the girl, trying to look grave 
 through her superabundant mirth, "do you 
 know anything against me ?" 
 
 " Naw ; what s ter matter wit you ? You 
 know I ton t." 
 
 u Well, then, you know what you d oughter 
 do if people talks mean about me, stead of 
 comma- to me with the talk. I m ^oino; to 
 
 O O c3 
 
 the dance. Mother hain t said I shouldn t, 
 and if me mother s pleased, others has got to 
 be. Besides, I m earning me own living, and 
 I m big enough to take care of rneself. I don t 
 believe any one s sore on me going except you 
 and your old mission minister. And now, 
 Lewy Tusch, I ll just tell you what I think of 
 him. He ain t no true minister, for a cent. 
 Lewy Tusch, if you said such things to me 
 like lie did, I wouldn t leave you be near me." 
 " I t ink he tone feat wrong, tacklin you 
 
142 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 wit out you bein in tor church. But, say, 
 trop ter tance see ? I got somet ing I come 
 up to say t you. I ve got a steaty job, wit 
 t ree hundert tollars in ter cooler see? Ant 
 I t ink ter sun on y shines when you re arount; 
 ant say " 
 
 " Oh, g way, Lewy ! don t be talking silly." 
 
 " Kit, I m a-talkin ter way I feel. If I 
 ain t in it wit yer, you kin say so." 
 
 " I see clean through you, Lewy," said she, 
 laughing merrily. " I can give you away to 
 yourself. Will you go with me to the pic 
 nic to-night?" 
 
 " Naw ; I can t." 
 
 " You won t that s what you mean." 
 
 ISTo answer. 
 
 " You der want me to go," said Kitty. 
 
 " I tolt yer. Ter hull Barracks is talkin 
 bout yer tancin ter hull time." 
 
 " See !" cried the girl, leaping to her feet 
 with a peal of laughter. " You was thinking 
 if you could get engaged to me you could 
 give me me orders to stay home. Oh, Lewy, 
 ain t you terrible deep?" 
 
 Lewy flushed to the roots of his hair. She 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 143 
 
 had laid bare his simple thoughts, but lie 
 would not be laughed out of his plan. 
 
 " Then, for Gord s sakes, Kit, if ter feller 
 t at likes you ter best der want you to go, 
 what makes you go ?" 
 
 "Because I ain t got no boss except rne 
 mother, and I der want none. I ain t ready 
 to settle down yet. I m t young. Wait till 
 I get tired first. What s come over you, 
 Lewy ? Ain t I danced with you more than 
 any feller alive ? and now it s suddenly 
 wrong. That s what it is makes me go. 
 It ain t about to-night. It s whether I m 
 to say that dancing is leading me wrong 
 or not. Everybody s talking, says you. 
 Well, since I ve got the name, I ll take the 
 game." 
 
 " Oh, hoi on, now, Kit !" 
 
 " Well, I take that back. But I never seen 
 any more out of the way at a dance than I ve 
 seen in me own home. I ain t a-going to say 
 I did when I didn t. No harm 11 come to a 
 girl if she respects herself, and if she don t re 
 spect herself she ain t safe locked up in her 
 own home. I m promised to go with Rosy 
 
144 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Stalling, and I m going. After to-night- 
 well, that s different." 
 
 " Wit Kosy Stelling !" 
 
 "Yes; why not? What s plaguing you 
 now, Lewy ?" 
 
 " Say, Kitty, I der want no girl t at goes no 
 place wit Kosy Stelling. She ain t straight- 
 see?" 
 
 " Oh, pity s sakes, Lewy !" said Kitty, in 
 mock despair. "I der want to quarrel with 
 you. I der know no harm of Rosy. She ain t 
 a-going to eat me up. Anyhow, you ain t got 
 no girl to boss yet, so leave me go with who 
 I please." 
 
 "Well, I der want no girl see? not no 
 girl t at gets talked about ant goes wit tough 
 people. Good-bye, Kit." 
 
 " Is it sure good-bye, Lewy ?" She looked 
 archly towards him. But his back was turned 
 her way. " Here, Lewy, come back." 
 
 "What t ye want?" Still with his back 
 towards her. 
 
 "I want another you know. Quick, 
 while them ladies cross the way ain t look- 
 ing." And she loosed a merry peal of laughter. 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 145 
 
 There was no seriousness in her, Lewy 
 thought. Regretfully rather than angrily he 
 closed the door behind him, and shut out from 
 his ears the ringing, bubbling proof of her 
 frivolity. Kitty presently returned to her 
 task of renewing her slippers. " I do like 
 Lewy," she thought. " Ain t he mad, though ? 
 Oh, my sakes ! I ll have to give up dancing, 
 maybe." 
 
 Just as her mother giggled and laughed 
 during all the excitement of the line-man s 
 wedding to Minnie Bechman, when it took 
 place in her flat a year before, so she giggled 
 and laughed now that Lewy Tusch dropped in 
 to visit her on his way down from his quarrel 
 with Kitty on the roof. But the old woman 
 soon saw that he was disturbed. She was sur 
 prised when she learned the reason. 
 
 "Kitty ton t t ink of nartin but tancin ," 
 said he. " Ant she hat ongliter stay home 
 more. Ter people s all talkin behint her 
 back." 
 
 " Oh, veil," said she, " ve can t help dot. 
 Kitty iss young yet. Py-and-py she settles 
 town all you vant. Den she tances ter baby 
 
146 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 eh ? Vhen she iss marrit, dot settles her, 
 sure." 
 
 Little comfort Lewy got. But did he real 
 ly want more ? His love for Kitty bore down 
 on him like a great wave. Lord ! suppose she 
 thought him really angry ; suppose she should 
 be really angry ! He lingered half an hour 
 hoping she would come in and see that he was 
 willing to be "glad again," as reconciliation is 
 termed in the tenements. What nonsense to 
 quarrel with her before she "got engaged," 
 and when she was going where other men 
 were to be ! Thus the truth thought itself 
 out that jealousy was the root of his beha 
 vior. When she did not come, he started to 
 go and patch up peace with her. But he was 
 ashamed, and he could not tell how angry she 
 was. So he went off to be very wretched by 
 himself. 
 
 Crimmiris s Park proved to be a typical up 
 town pleasure-ground, mainly covered by a 
 dancing pavilion, and having a few trees and 
 tables, and a merry-go-round on the smaller 
 remaining space. A picnic in New York is 
 simply a dance held in such a place. The 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 147 
 
 pavilion was crowded by hundreds of dancers, 
 women forming the great majority. Kitty 
 was one of the few who were singled out for 
 admiration. She was lithe and elastic to a 
 wonderful degree, and she danced, as no one 
 can be taught to do, with consummate grace 
 and freedom. She had danced herself down 
 to little else than muscle and bone, though 
 her budding womanhood was making itself 
 apparent in her figure. 
 
 That was something she did not take into 
 account that she could no longer enjoy child 
 ish freedom, as in the past. Another fact that 
 might produce its consequences was that, for 
 almost the first time, she was attending a gath 
 ering made up of strangers. The Barracks 
 people had always been around her; now she 
 knew no one but .Rosy Stelling. 
 
 Like most such affairs in New York, this 
 picnic attracted a strange mixture of types 
 and grades of the people. The members of 
 the secret society that gave it were rich or 
 poor as it happened, but now their wives had 
 come together some to share in the demo 
 cratic relations between the men, but a greater 
 
148 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 number to form little exclusive groups, as 
 women are so apt to do. And in at the gate, 
 welcomed for the quarter -dollar each paid, 
 came "spielers" and their slouching escorts, 
 servant-girls, genteel folk who heard the mu 
 sic and happened in, bohemians studying life 
 in the great city ever so many widely differ 
 ing persons. The brilliant pavilion drew all 
 these moths to it. The band was excellent, 
 filling the air with soft, intoxicating music. 
 All who could be accommodated were dan 
 cing ; others looked on from the benches. 
 Apart, at the tables, sat others, drinking, 
 smoking, and listening. 
 
 The dancing was peculiar, vigorous, enthu 
 siastic. The sturdy floor heaved under it. 
 At times a roar like a roll upon a gigantic 
 drum came from it, and then all the dancers 
 slid simultaneously, and it hissed like a super 
 natural serpent. In the frequent round dances 
 the partners danced side by side, or the men 
 whirled the women from one arm to the other, 
 or the men would dance behind their partners 
 and then in front of them. At times the 
 couples merely linked fingers and galloped 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 149 
 
 along, each kicking up the left foot and then 
 the right, at intervals. In the lanciers, when 
 they should have balanced corners, they 
 shot away clear across the great floor and 
 back. Sets were composed of whoever came 
 along. Servants balanced employers. Rich 
 men and "spielers" frolicked at "all hands 
 around." Bejewelled matrons and sewing- 
 girls were squeezed together at "ladies in the 
 centre." In the lanciers the lady opposite 
 Kitty was an exquisite Jewess, but at the cor 
 ner she balanced was a street arab, who fre 
 quently stood on his hands and waved his 
 feet at her. Nothing strange was seen in 
 such conditions, ever familiar to the plain 
 people in the democracy of the dance. Near 
 ly every one was extravagant in praise of 
 Kitty and Rosy, who performed the round 
 dances together. They seemed scarcely to 
 touch the floor. Kitty s face was glorious 
 with pleasure, and though the revel of her 
 skirts was wondrous, modesty guided their 
 every movement. 
 
 Two well - dressed young men came in, 
 strangers to every one. They hobnobbed 
 
150 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 with the cashier at the bar, who pointed out 
 Rosy Stelling as a girl often seen in the park 
 and easy to get acquainted with. " You don t 
 need it," said he, "but I ll send a waiter to in 
 troduce you." 
 
 The waiter said, " Chendlemen, I make you 
 acgwainted mit dese ladies." 
 
 Kitty tried to escape, but Rosy held her. 
 
 "I m Miss Strange, and this is Miss Queer," 
 said Rosy. 
 
 " No," said Kitty. " My name is good 
 enough for me. Miss Windhurst s my name." 
 
 The young men gave what names came first 
 to their lips. 
 
 Kitty felt uncomfortable, though the occur 
 rence would not seem extraordinary to every 
 such girl. Her uneasiness soon gave way to 
 something like fascination, however, for her 
 new acquaintance proved an adept at flatter 
 ing women, and such polished, pretty flattery 
 as he dealt in would be a novelty to any tene 
 ment girl. 
 
 " You dance divinely," said he. " I m a 
 little afraid of you. I seem to be among the 
 stars floating with an angel. Are you an an- 
 
"THE CASHIKR POINTED OUT UOSY STELLING" 
 
DUTCH KITTY S AVIIITE SLIPPERS 151 
 
 gel or a witch ? Don t look at me with those 
 pretty eyes. I can t stand it. Are your eyes 
 real, or did you get them at Tiffany s ? Why 
 don t the music begin, so that I can fly away 
 from this world with you again ?" 
 
 Kitty distrusted him ; and yet how pleasant 
 it was to hear him ! How soft was his voice, 
 and how elegant he was ! His perfect clothes, 
 his fine linen, his rings, his jewelled cigarette- 
 case, his gold match-box, his soft hands like 
 chamois-skin to the touch really, he was a 
 revelation to the poor working-girl. 
 
 At last, she must go home. It was far past 
 the hour when she should have started. Her 
 mother \vould be cross, and there would be 
 more gossip about her in the Barracks. The 
 young men offered champagne, and Rosy had 
 seemed though that was hard to believe 
 about to accept it; but, in Kitty s opinion, 
 champagne and cabs were two irons that 
 branded a woman indelibly. Kitty ordered 
 lemonade, and the others drank beer. Then 
 they started for the elevated railroad and 
 Kitty reached it alone, flying, with her hat in 
 her hand. It does not matter what was said 
 
152 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 or done. There was enough to frighten 
 Kitty worse than the mission preacher had 
 frightened her. She needed help, but the 
 street was deserted, and Rosy Stelling only 
 laughed at her revealing her true character 
 to Kitty in a way that doubled her alarm. 
 Kitty fought, and even used her nails, and 
 then ran like mad. One of the young men 
 ran after her a long way until she thought 
 she would drop. Presently she came to the 
 railroad and was whirling homeward. 
 
 As she approached the Big Barracks she 
 saw some one on the stoop. It was Lewy 
 Tusch. What was he doing there after one 
 o clock in the morning? But, oh, how glad 
 she was to see him ! 
 
 " Oh, Lewy! Lewy!" she shouted, as she 
 ran up to him. "I ve had a terrible time. I 
 ran away. I had to, Lewy. I der want no 
 more dancing. You was right about it about 
 Eosy, too." 
 
 " I coultn t sleep goot, so I come town 
 here," said Lewy, who had been sitting there 
 for hours waiting to make up with her. " I 
 t ought you was home long ago." 
 
" I T INK I LL POCKKT EM, SAID LKWY ; 
 
DUTCH KITTY S WHITE SLIPPERS 153 
 
 " You was right ; and I can t take care of 
 meself, neither. I ain t got no more conceit 
 left in me," said Kitty. 
 
 "Ain t you mat at me?" he asked. 
 
 "I ve been glad with you all the time." 
 
 There was a little interval of somewhat 
 muffled and disjointed speech, expressive of 
 nothing but great happiness, and then Kitty 
 said she must go to bed. 
 
 "Wait here a minute, Lewy," said she, 
 " and I ll show you how much I m crushed on 
 dancing." 
 
 Three minutes later two white slippers fell 
 upon the pavement, hurled from Kitty s win 
 dow. 
 
 " I t ink I ll pocket em," said Lewy. And 
 he did. " She ll want em to tance in at ter 
 wetting." 
 
PEItY BUKKfc AMU HIS PUPIL 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 
 
 I IIAVE said before that all who lived in the 
 Big Barracks tenement in Forsyth Street wor 
 shipped Doctor Whitfield s daughter the 
 beautiful, patient, deserted mother who kept 
 house for the shabby-genteel doctor in that 
 crowded human hive. Yet it was a wonder 
 that she was liked by the Burkes, on the sec 
 ond floor back (uptown side). Petey Burke s 
 way of forever insisting that his mother and 
 sister admire "Miss" Whitfield, as he did, 
 idolatrotisly, must certainly have distressed 
 them if the doctor s daughter had not proved 
 herself worthy of adoration by her constant 
 kindness and self-sacrifice towards the ruder 
 folks around her. Petey s father long gone 
 from earth had been an upper servant in a 
 nobleman s house in the old country, and his 
 respect for good-breeding was so strong that 
 it descended in full force to his children. The 
 
158 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 consequence was that Petey Burke grew up 
 to be the tidiest lad in the Barracks colony 
 always in black, and as neat and sober as an 
 undertaker. And his sister Norah a pretty, 
 stunted little thing, like a dwarfed tree of 
 Japan seemed to the boys of the block as ex 
 quisite as a confection. Neither Petey nor 
 Norah held aloof from the rude, hearty life 
 around them, but Petey carried himself like a 
 leader, and Norah was the only girl who could 
 keep the men and boys around her and at a 
 distance besides. As one of the lads expressed 
 it, " She s de on y girl a feller wants to maul, 
 and she s de on y one a feller can t." 
 
 Petey gave no credit to his father for No- 
 rah s genteel appearance and pretty ways. He 
 ascribed them, and even her irreproachable 
 morals, to the influence of Doctor Whitfield s 
 daughter, transmitted through himself. While 
 his mother drank beer in the kitchen, proof 
 against every influence but that of her peasant 
 training, her children felt the impetus of New 
 World conditions, and soared far beyond her 
 sphere, and beyond even her understanding 
 a common miracle of our social system. Petey 
 
PETEY BUKKE AND HIS PUPIL 159 
 
 took his mother s place as the guide and in 
 structor of his sister. 
 
 Norah Adeline Burke was nearly seventeen, 
 and was already first helper to the Head of 
 Department of the Made-up Millinery Room 
 in one of the great shopping stores. That is 
 proof of her remarkable natural taste that 
 and the fact that she was often successful in 
 trimming hats and bonnets as stylish as any 
 the shop turned out. And, as is the case with 
 American shop-girls of far lower grade, she 
 dressed with as good an imitation of the fash 
 ions as many a woman of greater pretensions 
 a difficult thing, because the girls who do it 
 have to find cheap goods that will do duty as 
 the bases of styles which are created w r ith 
 cloths made only in high-priced patterns. The 
 reader would never have taken her for what 
 she was if he saw her on the way to the shop 
 with a silk bag on her arm, such as ladies 
 carry, and two or three fat, well-bound books 
 under one elbow, to make believe she was go 
 ing to the Normal College two hours ahead of 
 time. The carrying of these school-books was 
 
 a trick that was not copied from " Miss " 
 10 
 
160 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Wliitfield. Therefore it was gravely displeas 
 ing to Petey. 
 
 "Norah," said lie, once, "them books 11 
 queer you dead s long as yer carry em ; that s 
 straight. You ll never get no rich feller ; an 
 if yer was to catch a shoe -black for your 
 steady, he d be a rank no good. Der reason 
 is because say, Norah, der doctor s daughter 
 wouldn t lug dem books around if she was in 
 your place, an you know it. She wouldn t, 
 cause it ain t up-an -up ; tain t honest an 
 square see? It s nartin but a bluff, and it 
 shows you ain t on de level. De doctor s 
 daughter wouldn t make out she s ariyt ing but 
 what she is. Den why don t yer quit, sis $ 
 Come, now, gir-yul, what s eating you to make 
 yer do sich a t ing ?" 
 
 " Petey, why shouldn t I? Miss Reilly 
 fetches school-books to her work," says Miss 
 Norah ; " and so do plenty others. Maggie 
 Hurley does too, and you re the only one that s 
 sore about it." 
 
 " Say, Norah, you give me a pain. Miss 
 Keilly! and Maggie Hurley! you ve got to 
 trot out something better than them tamers if 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 161 
 
 you re goin to put up agin de doctor s daugh 
 ter. And say, I seen you lookin at a gang in 
 de street coming home yesterday de gang 
 dat was monkeying wid de drunken man. 
 Now, gir-yul, I ve told you many s de time dat 
 she don t never look at annyt ing in de street 
 not if a house fell down over de way, she 
 wouldn t give it de satisfaction to t row one 
 eye at it. All de jays an dudes looks at her 
 wherever she goes. She s so tony dat she 
 lives like she was on de stage in de tee-ayter 
 wid dead crowds piping her off der hull time 
 see ? But she looks straight ahead, till some 
 one tries fer to catch her eye from de front, 
 and den she looks at der sidewalk. She kin 
 see all she wants to widout seemin to ; and so 
 kin you, Norah, unless you ain t got no re 
 spect fer yerself and yer out on de mash." 
 
 " That 11 do, now, Petey Burke. Ain t you 
 terrible ? You re the only one on the block 
 that doesn t respect me." 
 
 " Fwhat s ailing oo, Petey ?" cried the old 
 mother from an inner room. " Korah, darlin , 
 f what s he sayin to oo ?" 
 
 " He he called me out of my name, moth- 
 
162 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 er," said the girl, sobbing ; "and that s not the 
 first time. Trying to make me better than a 
 saint, and yet calling me worse than I am." 
 
 In an instant Petey was down beside the 
 sofa on which his sister sat, with his black but 
 ton head in her lap. 
 
 " Soak me one, sis," he said; " yes, sure; on 
 de side of me head. . . . Oh, but dat was a 
 Peter Hickey ! Now you feel better. Dere s 
 a cream-drop fer you" (kissing her with a 
 clumsy show of tenderness). " You know I m 
 dead gone on you, Norah ; and fer a gir-yul 
 dat s born poor, dere ain t no lady dat s in it 
 wid you." 
 
 " I never look at any man out-of-doors, 
 Petey." 
 
 " If I fought you would," said Petey, " I 
 wouldn t take you out and buy you de best 
 ring you kin git off de biggest jeweller in de 
 Bowery and dat s what I m a-goin to do to 
 night, Norali ; I m a farmer if I don t. See ?" 
 
 " A ring, Petey ! Are you ? You re the 
 best brother in the ward. But but, Petey, 
 I d rather have you trust me than have a dia 
 mond from you." 
 
PETEY BUKKE AND HIS PUPIL 163 
 
 With the doctor s daughter, whom he saw 
 as often as he could pluck up the needed 
 courage to sidle into her front room, fumbling 
 his hat in his hand, Petey never tried, as 
 others did, to talk what was called "tony 
 talk," or " blooded English." He was perfect 
 ly natural in his speech with her. 
 
 " I got ter talk tough," he explained ; " der 
 boys wouldn t take no other kinder talk. We 
 all study it like we used ter study rit mertic 
 in school, an de one dat s on to de latest 
 words is de one dat leads de mob, y under- 
 stand." 
 
 He saw her almost as frequently as did Mr. 
 Fletcher, the rich but bashful mill-owner of 
 the neighborhood, who hoped to win her love 
 the same Mr. Fletcher who once upon a 
 time told Cordelia Mahoney truly that he 
 knew no woman, and never had known one, 
 except the dead aunt who left him a boy 
 on a Vermont hill-side. For quick wit and 
 unceasing alertness there are not many of 
 Petey s equals, even in that abnormally sharp 
 street -bred population. Therefore one day 
 when he was bidden to come in and found 
 
164 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " Miss " Whitfield s eyes red from weeping, 
 and a photograph lying in her lap, he stole 
 such a look at the portrait as he passed behind 
 her chair that he thought he should never for 
 get the pictured man s features. 
 
 " Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. 
 Burke, or for any one in the house ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I guess I m the one to be askin ef I kin 
 do sump n fer you. What s gone ag in you, 
 ma am ? I didn t know you ever could look 
 anyways cept sunshiny." 
 
 " Oh yes, Mr. Burke ; I am only a woman, 
 with a woman s share of trouble." 
 
 " Ef dat mug sense me, ma am, dat face 
 you re a-lookin at ef it queers you like dat, 
 why don t you chuck it?" 
 
 " That would do no good," said she, with a 
 sad smile ; and then she added, not knowing 
 why her habitual reserve should so break down 
 (but friends were few with her) : " That is my 
 husband s portrait. I do not often look at it, 
 but whether I do or no, it means life-long un- 
 happiness, just the same." 
 
 " Is he er did he er " 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 165 
 
 " He left me a month after we were mar 
 ried ; before baby was born." 
 
 " Say, he s a well, English ain t in it to 
 tell what he is ! I should t ink you d be so 
 dead sore on him say, I d be so hot in de 
 collar I couldn t cry. Sense me, but hain t 
 you got de stuff fer to pay no lawyer to git you 
 quit of him ?" 
 
 " I don t believe in divorce," she said, rising 
 and putting the photograph away; "but I 
 never speak of him or of myself as a rule. 
 I cannot tell why I have done so to you." 
 
 " Hoi on, ma am," said Petey. " Do you 
 know where he is does he do annyt ing fer 
 you ?" 
 
 " No," said she, in answer to both questions. 
 " There, now, tell me how I can be of service 
 to you." 
 
 " I der want nartin dat s straight. I just 
 t ought yer wouldn t mind my comin in, and 
 mebbe you d give me some good talk, like you 
 did oncet." 
 
 She was ten years older than Petey, and 
 hers was such innate dignity that she risked 
 nothing in displaying a kindly feeling for her 
 
166 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 rude admirer. " I cannot help you," said she, 
 stopping before him to arrange his hair with 
 the light touch that a sister might bestow 
 upon him. " You will never be anything but 
 a good man when you are grown up. You 
 will always be kind to your mother, and guard 
 your sister, and keep good companions and 
 good habits. That is all except always to be 
 sure of your own self-respect and you will 
 not find that too hard to do." 
 
 Petey repeated these simple rules for an 
 honorable life to his sister as if he had origi 
 nated them. " Norah," said he, " I d bank all 
 I ever get dat you ll be a dead lady. All you 
 got to do, Norah, is ter do de square act wid 
 mother, an be up -an - up wid me, an don t 
 monkey wid no tough mob of gir-yuls nor no 
 crooked fellers. Dat s der hull shootin - 
 match, cept yer ve got to be square wid yer- 
 self and really b leeve yer as good as yer let 
 on." 
 
 She seemed to be in no need of so much ad 
 vice, so frank and proud was her appearance. 
 " Petey," said she, "any one would think you 
 wanted me to catch a Yanderbilt ; but if I 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 167 
 
 minded you I d be such a saint that nothin 
 but priests would look at me." 
 
 His admiration for his sister seemed lost in 
 his efforts to have her copy Miss Whitfield. 
 Yet it was his sister that he truly loved. 
 
 " It s as bad for folks to have too much 
 money," said he, " as it is to be rotten poor. 
 De best folks is de half-wayers, what has to 
 fight fer whatever dey git. Dat s where you 
 come in, Norah ; you got ter keep boosting 
 yerself over de crowd, or you ll climb back 
 into de gutter wid de mob dat s satisfied wid 
 bein walked over." He glanced proudly at 
 his sister s neat boots and gloves, peculiar in 
 the neighborhood, and flattered himself that 
 he had led Norah to value many such little 
 but important marks of good - breeding. 
 "Y ain t blooded like she is, he said, "but 
 yer nee nter give it way. Make a big bluff at 
 what you ain t got, every time ! Say, gir-yul," 
 he said, "I m all broke up over what I ve got 
 on to. Mr. Fletcher 11 never tie up wid Miss 
 Whitfield. He comes one in a box like a dol 
 lar seegar, and them two was like a pair of 
 lips, made to come together but it don t go 
 
168 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 see? She s got a husband what ain t no 
 more dead dan me n you are. And she won t 
 never get no divorce she told me so on the 
 d. q. 
 
 " Is that her misery ?" Norah asked. " Ain t 
 it terrible? Of course she won t get a di 
 vorce. That s like putting on your shoes out 
 in the street to a lady. But she ain t like 
 me. I wouldn t eat my heart out for the best 
 man going." 
 
 " Yes, yer would," said he. " If you git de 
 double cross put on you, yer ll take it like it 
 was medicine. But I m dead sorry fer Mr. 
 Fletcher. He don t tog up in a silk dicer an 
 patent-leathers to call on de doctor not on 
 your life he don t." 
 
 Poor Fletcher! He had already learned 
 that the sole woman he had known well or 
 ever loved except his aunt was not a wid 
 ow, or of a mind to free herself from the 
 wretch who had so misused her. lie was 
 brooding over his disappointment at his of 
 fice desk one day, when Petey bolted in and 
 startled him with a volley of questions. 
 
 " Say, Mr. Fletcher, what s de name of de 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 169 
 
 mug what de doctor s daughter s married to ? 
 an where is he ? and what s his lay cause 
 he s a crook, of course; ain t he ?" 
 
 " Why do you ask ?" 
 
 " I ain t askin fer no harm. I can t give 
 you no talk now. Tell me quick s yer can." 
 
 " I only know the doctor told me," said 
 Fletcher " that he is a very sad rascal bad 
 in every drop of his blood. His name is Jen 
 sen. He had nice connections in Cincinnati, 
 where she was at school, and he married her 
 and beat her and robbed her and left her. It s 
 years since they ve heard 
 
 " Keerect !" shouted Petey, and bolted out 
 of the door. Straight to a grand house on the 
 north side of Washington Square he ran, and 
 straight to the area door. He had seen enter 
 that house, by the front door, a man who bore 
 the face of the photograph over which he 
 had seen the doctor s daughter crying. Very 
 adroitly he wormed from the servant-girl at 
 the basement door the little she knew of the 
 caller abovestairs. She said that he was Mr. 
 Holbrook, and that on " Tuesday come wan 
 week" he was to marry Miss Grandish, "the 
 
170 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 masther s daughter." For this information 
 Petey rewarded the maid with a startlingly 
 sudden kiss, and then cleverly dodged the 
 blow with which she meant to take her re 
 venge. Petey lounged across the street, on 
 the park side, until in an hour the man for 
 whom he waited came out by the Grandishs 
 door. Then Petey ran over, caught up with 
 the man, and said in his ear, " Hello, Jensen !" 
 The man started and all but stopped ; then his 
 nerve came back, and he quickened his pace, 
 as if to ignore the boy. 
 
 " I said, < Hello, Jensen ! " 
 
 Instantly the man turned and seized Petey 
 by the throat. 
 
 " You neeVt to do dat ; Pd stay wid you if 
 you left go of me. You can t lose me, Charley. 57 
 
 The man raised his cane to strike the lad 
 across the face. Petey did not flinch. 
 
 " What good 11 dat do yer," he asked, " s long 
 as I m on to you ?" The man dropped his 
 arm and released the lad. Then Petey did 
 what a street boy s training made it impossible 
 for him to resist. He pushed up against the 
 well-dressed man, shoved out his chin like a 
 
" I ETEY LOUNGED ACROSS THE STREET ON THE PARK SIDE 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 171 
 
 bully, and tried to press his face close up to 
 that of the man he threatened. " A-a-h," he 
 snarled, " why don t yer soak me ? Never 
 mind me bein littler ; hit me ; g on, I dare 
 yer !" 
 
 Jensen, for it was " Miss " Whitfield s hus 
 band, stepped back, and asked, " In God s 
 name*, how do you know me, and what do you 
 want?" 
 
 Petey was prompted to reply, "I ve got all 
 I want," but a new idea seized his quick brain, 
 and he said, " I was t inking who d give de 
 most fer what I know you er Mr. Grand- 
 ish?" 
 
 "- -you! I ll kill you !" 
 
 "Oh yes; I don t think," said Petey. 
 "You ll try ter get friends wid me, more 
 likely." 
 
 " Who are you ? What do you know ?" 
 " My name s Petey Burke. You often read 
 about me in de paper me an der Mayor and 
 Mr. Depew. I want you to cough up a hun- 
 derd, or I ll tell Mr. Grandish what I know. 
 Goo -bye; I ll chase rneself over to oP man 
 Grandish s stoop, and wait dere till you bring 
 
172 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 me der hunderd. Say, it s free o clock now; 
 I ll split at five if I don t git de boodle." 
 
 Petey sauntered back to the Grandisli house 
 and seated himself on the stoop. "A hunderd 
 11 come in pat to de doctor s daughter," he 
 thought. " It 11 be her own, too ; some of 
 what he stole. N I won t tell ole Grandish. 
 I kin promise dat. I ll let it go wid tellin de 
 police. Ole Grandish don t cut no ice wid 
 me." 
 
 Half an hour passed, and Miss Grandish 
 came out, dressed for the street. She looked 
 curiously at the black-eyed, bright-faced ten 
 ement lad, wondering why he sat on her stoop. 
 He glanced at her ; then looked at her point- 
 blank with wide-eyed admiration. He admit 
 ted to himself that she had a degree of youth 
 ful, rosy vigor that had gone from the doctor s 
 daughter, and yet she was just as " fine a lady," 
 he thought. 
 
 " Are you Miss Grandish ?" he inquired. 
 
 " I am. Why do you inquire ?" 
 
 " Oh, miss, don t t ink I m loony, but do 
 tell me are you the one that that 
 
 " I am the only young lady here," said she. 
 
" MISS GRANDISH CAME OUT, DRESSED FOR THE STREET " 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 173 
 
 " Then," said Petey, " I am de best friend 
 you got in de world. Your father ain t in it 
 wid me. Hully gee ! I pretty near slipped a 
 cog dat time. Don t be a-scared dat I ll forgit 
 you. You ll see me chasm meself back here 
 like I d left a di mond pin and come back fer 
 it. So long, miss." 
 
 Miss Grandish fancied she had held that in 
 terview with a lunatic licensed vender who 
 spoke English words without arranging them 
 in English order. Petey strode away, talking 
 to himself. 
 
 " Money kin come too high sometimes, de 
 same as Dutch cheese," he said. " I guess de 
 doctor s daughter der want no hunderd dat 11 
 leave anoder gir-yul in de same hole as she s in." 
 
 Petey lived on the people, and did little or 
 nothing for his keep. He was a lieutenant 
 and favorite of "Sheeny Mose," the State 
 Senator, who got him a place that was a sine 
 cure in the sheriff s office at three dollars a 
 day. It was too bad to demoralize so honest 
 a lad, and to teach him that (as he would have 
 said) " public office is a private snap " ; but 
 politics of the machine kind are demoralizing 
 
174 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 a large fraction of the population in this and 
 many other ways. Having "a pull" in poli 
 tics, he went at once to Police Headquarters, 
 and, with a knowledge born of long acquaint 
 ance with the place, went straight to the 
 " Rogues Galleiy," in the semi-court-room of 
 the " chief," where the detectives prisoners 
 are arraigned to give their " pedigrees." The 
 "gallery" is a great black- walnut book against 
 the wall, and its leaves are wooden, hinged 
 frames full of photographs. Petey turned 
 over a score of leaves, and then suddenly his 
 eyes brightened, and he studied a particular 
 picture as a bachelor might study the face of 
 a girl that a fortune-teller had declared would 
 one day become his wife. Presently he closed 
 the great book and walked straight into the 
 awesome presence of the chief of detectives. 
 Thirty seconds afterwards that great man was 
 listening eagerly to what Petey had to tell 
 him. 
 
 A week later Petey called upon "Miss" 
 Whitfield and gave her a copy of an evening 
 newspaper. " Read that, miss," he said. " I 
 always wanted to show yer dat I would do 
 
PETEY BUKKE AND HIS PUPIL 175 
 
 anyt ing I could fer you. You ll cry over dat 
 picture some more, I don t t ink." 
 
 The beautiful and kindly face was turned 
 upon the staring head-lines of the newspaper, 
 and presently she caught their meaning, and 
 recoiled as if she had been struck. " Merciful 
 heavens !" she exclaimed. "He? Arrested 
 shot ! Where is he, Peter Burke ? What has 
 been done with him ?" 
 
 " He s in de hospital, ma am," said Petey. 
 
 "Is he badly hurt?" 
 
 " He was collared in de house where he was 
 sparkin a girl he was a-goin to marry. He 
 made a lep for de winder, an he got a hole in 
 his back dat looks as if he d been plugged wid 
 a baseball." 
 
 The doctor s daughter sank upon the lounge 
 and buried her face in her hands. 
 
 "I found him, miss," said Petey; "I re 
 cognized him by de photo dat made you cry ; 
 it s all in de paper." 
 
 "You? You did this? Oh, Peter, why 
 did you do it ?" 
 
 " Why, miss ? Say aren t you glad ?" 
 
 "Glad?" she cried, almost hysterically; 
 11 
 
176 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 "glad to have my baby s father arrested 
 shot down by the officers publicly disgraced ! 
 Oh, Peter, why must you have dealt me this 
 blow ?" 
 
 Petey never knew how he left her presence 
 a guilty, shocked, and shrinking creature, 
 much more ashamed than he had been proud 
 earlier in the day. He went straight to his 
 sister. 
 
 "Norah," said he, "I kin give you a pointer. 
 You must always speak low an soft an quiet. 
 I know you do ; you ne enter say a word. But 
 what I mean is, can you do it all de way 
 t rough? Cause yer got to, sis. Never mind 
 if your heart s broke, or if a man hits you 
 never mind if you re all tore up an crazy 
 you must talk as if your mouth was chuck full 
 of butter. You der want ter be no tarrier, 
 sis, and holler like a foreman at a fire ; de 
 t oroughbreds never do it see ?" 
 
 Two days after this, at the hospital, Petey 
 was allowed to visit the wounded man, and 
 there he found the doctor s daughter seeking 
 her husband to befriend him. 
 
 " I made a bad break, miss," he whispered 
 
PETEY BUKKE AND HIS PUPIL 177 
 
 to her; "and I m dead sore on meself and 
 want to make meself solid again. D ye t ink 
 you could give him dese widout any one get 
 ting on to you ? They re files and a saw, so s 
 he kin cut his way out when he s in de cooler. 
 Don t be scared ; you ne enter bother. I can 
 pass em to him. Oh, you t ink you d be sus- 
 picioned? No 1 You t ink it ain t right; de law 
 should be respected? Shoot de law ! let de law 
 look out fer itself. I mustn t give em to him ? 
 You re way off, miss, but whatever you say goes 
 furder wid me dan de pull of a cable-car." 
 
 The wounded man opened his eyes as his 
 wife left Petey and approached his cot. It 
 was by a great effort that Jensen raised him 
 self upon one elbow and glared at the woman 
 whom he had so cruelly wronged. 
 
 " Is it you, you !" He called her a fear 
 ful name. " You are at the bottom of this. I 
 might have guessed it. Come closer. Ah, you 
 know me ; I d leave you a mark you d carry 
 
 to your grave you !" And then the 
 
 wretch cursed her so fearfully that it seemed 
 as if never did evil tongue and wicked heart 
 pour forth more bitter venom. 
 
178 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " Scuse me, ma am," said Petey, striding up 
 to the wretched wife, as she stood with her 
 head bent beneath the torrent of abuse. " You 
 can t stay and hear any more of that. Come 
 wid me, miss; you must or I ll choke him 
 to death in anoder second. You re an angel, 
 miss, and you don t know what he s a-sayin , 
 but I do, and I can t stand it." 
 
 " He is my husband" 
 
 " Come away, miss. You got to. Don t 
 shame a tough feller like me by letting me 
 know you stood and heard such talk as 
 dat." 
 
 Out in the hallway she again restrained 
 him. " If he grows worse," said she, " my 
 place is by his side. Do you not understand 
 that he is my husband that we each took the 
 other for better or worse ?" 
 
 "I can t understand nothing, miss," said 
 Petey, " except that you an me don t sagaci- 
 ate no more n if you was de Queen of Peru 
 an I was a Chinaman ; but go way please 
 g on home dat s right an I ll post you every 
 day." 
 
 When Petey returned to the sick-ward he 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 179 
 
 met the house surgeon. " Strange," said the 
 doctor, " but that villain s wife seems a per 
 fect lady." 
 
 " Seems ?" said Petey. " Hully gee ! She s 
 finer n silk, and harder to beat dan a china 
 
 egg." 
 
 " Jensen will not live the night out," said 
 the doctor. " He can t. No man wounded 
 as he is ever lived so long as he has already." 
 
 "If I had a hunderd, doctor, I d give it to 
 you fer just thinking what you say." 
 
 " I am certain of it." 
 
 " Oh, but that s dandy !" said Petey. " Say, 
 that s a bird, that news is." 
 
 A week passed, and then, at the same hour 
 that a slender young woman in deep mourn 
 ing laid an inexpensive wreath upon a new- 
 made nameless grave in Greenwood, Petey 
 Burke revealed to his sister more of his dis 
 coveries in the genteel world above him. 
 
 " I met dat Grandisli gir-yul, Norah," said 
 he, " and rnebbe she ain t blooded ! She s a 
 dead t oroughbred, or I m a farmer. Says I, 
 I m the lad dat told you I was de best friend 
 you had. Says she, I know you, an I wish 
 
180 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 I could see an officer ; I d hand you over. 
 Dat s what I got fer not lettin her imitate a 
 woman committing bigamy. As for de doc 
 tor s daughter, she looks at me cross-eyed, as 
 if I was a blast wid de fuse lighted. She don t 
 say nartin ugly wisht she would but she 
 talks to me s if I was a corpse, an she was 
 bending over me an t inking what a dead 
 failure I made of life." 
 
 "Poor Pete!" says Norah. "Both those 
 women were in love." 
 
 " Dat s just de size of it," said Petey. " An 
 now let me give you sump n straight. Bote o 
 dem women is dead ladies, blooded to de heels, 
 and dey never shake a husband or a lover or a 
 friend. Dat s a curve you want to get on to, 
 Norah. If you should git engaged to de best 
 man dat ever said his prayers, you want to try 
 yerself wid him. Set yerself to t inkin mean 
 about him. Make out he s a sneak dat collars 
 overcoats an lifts door-mats in de brown-stone 
 deestrict. When he sash-shays in of an even- 
 in make yourself b leeve dat he s chasin him 
 self for his life, an dat de coppers is lined up 
 on de sidewalk layin for him to come out. 
 
PETEY BURKE AND HIS PUPIL 181 
 
 And, say, Norali, when you really b leeve de 
 worst dat you can t ink agin him, I tell yer 
 what you do : walk right up an put your two 
 cute little arms around his neck, and says you, 
 Ole man, dere ain t nartin kin queer you wid 
 your Norah. Tell him cobbler s wax ain t 
 in it wid a lady for stickin to what she likes. 
 Cause dat s what I found out about t orough- 
 breds, Norah, and what dey do you kin make 
 a bluff at." 
 
LPW DUTCH IH 
 
 AMD HIGH 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 
 
 You will know Frenchtown by the signs on 
 its small and odoriferous restaurants and the 
 shops of its cabinet-makers., wine- dealers, 
 flower-workers, coppersmiths, and of its solitary 
 French bookseller. Some of the tenements 
 are old dwellings come down in the world ; 
 and of the factories and shops some are built 
 for the purpose, and others are " made over." 
 Mudder s was an old dwelling, in which she liad 
 absorbed flat after flat until her lodgers filled 
 the entire tenement. She also took boarders 
 from the tenements that towered on either side 
 of her house, making it look as lean and little 
 as the heart of a Coney Island sandwich. 
 
 George Fletcher was looking at it mourn 
 fully the other day, for it is again a tene 
 ment. The day was of that close, warm sort, 
 when a blind New Yorker can smell where 
 he is, and Fletcher noted the difference be- 
 
186 PEOPLE AVE PASS 
 
 tween the grease-and-garlic odor he had left in 
 Dutchtown and the bay-leaf-and-garlic tone 
 now present. The tires of a carriage ground 
 against the curb. A carriage here? he 
 thought; and wondered who was dead. He 
 looked around. 
 
 "Why, hullo, Leonie!" he said. 
 
 " Sakes ! Mister Fletcher ; I har ly knew 
 you," said the young woman, who was already 
 half out upon the walk. "Shake hands, for 
 old times." 
 
 She was a portly, dashing woman in a black 
 dress, with a deal too much red velvet down 
 the bodice and around the neck, sleeves, waist, 
 and hem. Her bonnet, also, was large and 
 startling ; but she had an honest, happy face, 
 and she was a splendid, vigorous creature. 
 
 "Now jist wait a minute till I tell Mr. 
 Johnsin, my coachman Mr. Johnsin, my old 
 friend Mr. Fletcher; now er Mr. Johnsin, 
 take a load of these children up to Washinnun 
 Square and don t put on that pained Fi th 
 Av noo look if they holler and scream. I 
 wouldn t keep no carriage, Mr. Fletcher, if I 
 couldn t do no good with it. I like to send 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 187 
 
 poor mothers and little folks like these here, 
 and me old girl-friends, around in it see ? My 
 Gord ! I wisht I had a carriage-ride many s the 
 time when I was a kid." 
 
 She turned to the group of impatient boys 
 and girls who waited on the flagging. 
 
 "Now, then, Clarrie n Skinny, youse can t 
 both go, cause you slapped the girls n made 
 em cry last time. Clarrie, you can stay be 
 hind ; dirty -faced again, after what I told you. 
 Tumble in, Eosabelle an Marta, and you, 
 Bridgy. Where s your little sister, Mary 
 Ann, Bridgy ? Well don t stan gapping 
 run an fetch her. Youse can all wait while 
 Bridgy fetches Mary Ann. Did your mother 
 git a gray wrap I sent her, Eosabelle ? She s 
 well, I hope ; that s good. Now be a good 
 girl. Mind, Mr. Johnsin, give 7 em a good 
 ride; drive slow. Fetch em back; then put 
 up the horses. 
 
 "Now come home with me; I m so glad to 
 have you," she said to Mr. Fletcher. " I want 
 you should see Henny and my baby. Do you 
 know, I never loved nothing and nobody, 
 cept meself, till two years after I married 
 
188 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 Henny. Then, first, I fell in love with baby, 
 and that must have opened ray heart like, for 
 I got to loving Henny. You d never thought 
 little Leonie was that kind spoony, eh? I 
 ain t so little, now. Henny says I m so big 
 he s scared I ll roll over on him and smother 
 him." 
 
 She led Mr. Fletcher to a doorway beside a 
 saloon, and up into a neat and cosey parlor. 
 Then Henny had to be called, and the baby 
 made ready, while Leonie disappeared to "take 
 off her things." In the mean time Fletcher 
 
 O 
 
 reviewed his recollections of Leonie s child 
 hood. 
 
 She was the child of the restaurant " la 
 fille du regiment," one young boarder dubbed 
 her. When Fletcher first knew her she wore 
 her hair in "Dutch braids" criss-crossed 
 against her head. Even as a tot she had not 
 been flat-figured, but was ripe and round like 
 an Italian girl -child. Mudder, as Madame 
 Metz was called, did everything except bring 
 up Leonie. She had too much to do to attend 
 to anything that had legs of its own to bring 
 itself up on. Leonie got about the same 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 189 
 
 caresses, slaps, and scoldings as the dog and 
 cats. Mudder had for an assistant a buxom 
 niece called Car line, whose baby demanded 
 attention because its legs were of no use to 
 it. So it inhabited a clothes-basket on the 
 kitchen floor. Car line made the beds and at 
 tended to the slops and did rough kitchen- 
 work, but avoided the dining-room, where no 
 waitress was needed, because every one reached 
 out for himself. The dining-room was the 
 general parlor, office, sitting, reading, writing, 
 smoking, and card room, and Mudder s sewing- 
 room, and Leonie s study-place. 
 
 The kitchen was Mudder s sanctum. No 
 boarder ventured there except to explain pri 
 vately why he could not pay his board. There 
 the baby lived in the basket. It was like 
 Car linein being pirikand chubby, withanover- 
 ripish way of bursting its jackets. Car line 
 was much too busy to pet and caress it. Every 
 time she happened by she fed it. She looked 
 able to nurse an asylum. Often she came by 
 twice in fifteen minutes, and the baby got 
 two dinners practically at once, and enjoyed 
 both. In putting it back Car line always 
 
190 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 tossed more toys into the basket, lest it should 
 tire of those it had. The toys were much 
 alike, being bits of kindling-wood. When 
 Car line was busy upstairs for a couple of 
 hoars, making the beds, the baby often cried. 
 Its little voice went ranging through the 
 house after Car line, first filling the basement 
 floor, then climbing the bottom stairs, and then 
 the next, and the next, and searching higher 
 and higher rooms, until at last it found 
 Car line. 
 
 " Madder !" Car line would call down ; " vot s 
 grying der papy ?" 
 
 " Gott in himmel, yah !" Mudder would call 
 up ; " der paby iss vaking up det beeples." 
 
 "Ach!" Car line would call down, "who 
 makes der papy gry ?" 
 
 "I dink," Mudder would call up, "may- 
 peen he s hoongry der paby." 
 
 " Hoongery ?" Car line would call back. 
 " Yhy, I yoost fillt im oop till ter tinner ran 
 hees mout out. Uf I come town I lig him." 
 
 It was evident to all the thinking boarders 
 that in much this fashion Leonie s babyhood 
 must have been spent. Now, at fourteen, she 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 191 
 
 was attending the Wooster Street school, play 
 ing in the street in the afternoons, and study 
 ing at the dining-room table in the evenings. 
 
 That dining-room was a landmark. Its big 
 door and windows left it open to the street, 
 and when the boarders were not seen around 
 the long table, brandishing French loaves a 
 yard long to point what they were saying, 
 they overflowed up the area-steps, and up the 
 stoop, and on the sidewalk. They were nearly 
 all young, and either German, French, or 
 Alsatian, like Mudder, who spoke English, 
 French, and German all at once an uncom 
 mon feat on Manhattan Island, where, as a 
 rule, but two languages are blended at a time. 
 
 They were young lithographers, designers, 
 wood-carvers, frescoers, and, now and then, a 
 cook out of work, or a " moosicker " in a theat 
 rical orchestra. Finding Mudder hearty and 
 free, with less prudishness than a camel, they 
 made her house like one of the clubs of the 
 tenement folk, a little freer than the homes, 
 as an up-town club is a little easier-fitting than 
 a gentleman s drawing-room. Theirs was 
 such untrammelled speech as used to be called 
 
192 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 license in the Elizabethan era, which era sur 
 vives in a great part of the tenement life in so 
 far as popular speech is concerned. The 
 papers they brought to Mndder s were the 
 boldest from Paris, the pictures they drew 
 and passed around were such as the Paris 
 press does not quite dare to publish, and their 
 jokes were such as coarse men whisper and 
 greet with loud guffaws. They were honest, 
 hard-working fellows, and Mudder enjoyed 
 seeing them happy. It was all in the way of 
 fun, anyhow. Yet this was the home of little 
 Leonie, and all around, out-doors, lay what was 
 then the notorious "ate" ward. Gamblers 
 and wicked women paraded their splendors. 
 The district was "run wide open." 
 
 No one could say how much or little of 
 what went on around her was understood by 
 Leonie except as students of street-life see 
 how children may be good and yet not inno 
 cent. But she was never out of Mudder s 
 mind. If a boarder spoke to Leonie in too 
 low a voice for Mudder to hear him, Mudder 
 cried, "Leaf der girl be, von t yer?" If a 
 man was joking freely and Leonie came in, 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 193 
 
 " H-s-s-li !" said Mudder. If she was not in 
 stantly obeyed, great was Mudder s anger. 
 
 With Leonie s growth into young woman 
 hood came two indoor lovers. They are classi 
 fied in that way, because how many hearts she 
 kindled on the pavement and in the neigh 
 borhood shops the boarders never knew. The 
 first of the indoor satellites was three times her 
 age ; the second was thirty-two, or twice as 
 old. Mr. Driggs was the older one an Eng 
 lishman, an employing printer, and reputed to 
 be rich. He was a quiet, masterful man when 
 sober, which was sometimes. He was less 
 quiet and more masterful when he was soggy. 
 The Irish of the near-by tenements called him 
 " fond," for he was so smitten by Leonie s 
 charms of modesty and figure that he left a 
 Broadway hotel to live amid the grease and 
 garlic and perspiration at Mudder s. Open 
 and above-board, he told Mudder at the outset 
 that he meant to marry Leonie when she was 
 of age. At the end of the week he gave Leonie 
 her first experience with a beau, taking her 
 to Booth s to hear one of Charlotte Cushman s 
 " final farewells" at five dollars for a seat, and 
 12 
 
194 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 after he had seen her home in triumph to the 
 long extension-table, and had delivered her to 
 the " family " at checkers, pinochle, dorninos, 
 and beer, he went out and drank until he had 
 just wit enough left to reach the house again. 
 This feat performed, his mind gave out, and 
 he undressed on the top step of the stoop, 
 hung his clothes on the door-knob, and laid 
 him down to rest in a single undergarment 
 on the stone slab. A policeman rang up M ud 
 der, who turned out all the boarders to inquire 
 of them whether " in all deir lifes dey efl er 
 haired uf such a dings ?" She commanded the 
 battalion to dress Mr. Driggs, and admit him 
 in full attire, as became the dignity of her 
 house. And after that, whenever Driggs spoke 
 matrimonially, she used to say : " Keeb gwiet, 
 vill yer ? Shtill vorters make no noise. Der 
 less beeple say der more dime dey got for 
 dinking. Blendy time for marriage und all 
 such rubbitch." 
 
 The younger lover of Leonie was a baby- 
 faced, curly-haired, rosy Lorrainischer,dubbed 
 Prinz Monaco, because he asked a boarder to 
 play pinochle for a dollar a game, or twenty 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 195 
 
 times the limit at Mudder s. He began by 
 borrowing $300 of Madder to buy out a paper- 
 flower-maker s business. Her sign -board re 
 mained on the premises, and so did she a 
 jolly Frenchwoman, whose three nieces were 
 the "hands" of the shop. The boarders 
 thought he had pocketed Mudder s money 
 and the flower-works besides. 
 
 The suitors came nearly together, and in the 
 second week Mr. Driggs asked Leonie to ac 
 company him to hear Booth. His tastes were 
 too cultivated Leonie explained that the 
 Prinz had invited her to "Tony s" Varieties, 
 which she liked better. Off. she went with 
 the curly-pated scamp, and the elderly Driggs 
 anchored himself at home and drank steadily. 
 When the Prinz returned with Leonie and a 
 great honeyed smile, then up rose Mr. Driggs 
 and spoke : 
 
 " Sir," said he, " hand that young girl over 
 to me, and give an account of how you have 
 behaved towards her." 
 
 " Go tririk yourselluf det," said the Prinz, 
 most contemptuously. 
 
 " I ask you one hie once," said Driggs. 
 
196 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 " I as hie ask you twice. I ask you thry 
 hie thrice." 
 
 "Ach, you mek me mooch tired," said 
 the Prinz. 
 
 Whack! Mr. Driggs reached up he was 
 short and spare and the Prinz was tall and big 
 and slapped his face so hard that it seemed 
 as though every boarder s heart and Mudder s 
 and Leonie s stopped beating. 
 
 The Prinz threw up a bent arm, staggered 
 backward, and burst into tears. He groped 
 his way to the dining-table and flung himself 
 half across it, and sobbed like a baby. 
 
 " Shame ! shame ! trunken Inglish !" cried 
 several boarders. 
 
 " Humph !" exclaimed Leonie ; " seems a little 
 English is better than a lot of German." 
 
 Mr. Driggs swelled with pride. " You ll 
 understand which escort to choose next time, 
 I hope," said he. 
 
 " Yes," said she, astounded at this turn ; 
 u and twunt be either of youse." She swept 
 out of the room with a saucy "good-night, 
 all," and Driggs sat down, crushed and un 
 happy. A little later, when Mudder was roll- 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 197 
 
 ing up her sleeves for bed, so as to have them 
 ready for work next morning, Driggs went to 
 her and whispered : " Take care of this watch 
 and money. Don t worry if I m away a few 
 days. I m a bit out of sorts, and I m er- 
 going er I m going 
 
 " Yhere you re going ?" 
 
 "Er-fishing, mum." 
 
 " Don t foolyourselluf," said Mudder. "Bed- 
 der you go to bed ; dake my adwice." 
 
 Often afterwards he went upon such " peri 
 odicals," always giving his valuables and 
 money in Mudder s charge, with some lame 
 explanation of his conduct. 
 
 To her oldest boarders Mudder whispered 
 that there was no fear of Leonie s " making any 
 humbuck peezness mit marrying him. She 
 hades der sighd uf herselluf vhen she is wit 
 him." But to Driggs she said: "Who tolt 
 you she ton d lige you ? Keeb gwied und vait. 
 She s on y a shild." 
 
 Perhaps her kind heart prompted this du 
 plicity. Perhaps she shrewdly planned that 
 Leonie should keep every friend she had. 
 
 There came to Mudder s a pallid German 
 
198 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 youth, little more than a lad, who tried very 
 hard to make his way by reporting for the 
 Staats Zeitung, but he was so weak and fre 
 quently ill that he could not earn the needed 
 five dollars a week for Mudder. He gave up 
 his room and went to sleep with four others 
 in a stuffy inside room in a tenement, paying 
 fifteen cents a night. lie contracted to pay 
 Mudder three dollars for board, and rested in 
 the dining-room for days together, too weak 
 to work. He was a loving, lovable invalid, 
 who awakened more tenderness in Mudder 
 than her self-reliant daughter ever drew forth. 
 Once, when he fancied he was dying, he told 
 Mudder he was of good birth, and showed her 
 letters with his (Schwarzwald) family arms at 
 top, and his wallet and cigar-case with their 
 crest upon them. "There are eight of us 
 boys," he said, "all counts of no count, as 
 you say in America." 
 
 " Yell, you can t help dot," said Mudder; but 
 she was very proud of him, and spread his 
 secret. Deliberately she the thriftiest dollar- 
 hunter in the ward sat down to lose money 
 to him at cards, to enable him to pay his way. 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 199 
 
 But luck was against her in being forever 
 with her. Moreover, he was a wretched, inat 
 tentive gamester, so that, do her worst, she 
 almost always won. The experiment all but 
 wrecked her temper. The more she won the 
 more cross she became, and her play was ac 
 companied by a running fire of donnerwetter- 
 ing and sacre-noming, and even Gottfer dam- 
 ing. He was alarmed at his fate, and gently 
 eluded her for causing him to add to his debts. 
 Then she took to dropping a five-dollar bill, 
 now and then, in his bedroom, and lurking 
 about the halls like a cat to watch lest 
 Car line should enter the room first and find 
 the money and keep it. But this only gave 
 the gentle youth the trouble of bringing the 
 bills to Car line, for her to find their owner. 
 And Mudder was obliged to lock Car line in a 
 hall-bedroom, and almost shake the bills out of 
 her clothing, for Car line was poor and needy, 
 in both pocket and soul, arid denied all knowl 
 edge of the mono} 7 until Mudder bethought 
 her to lie and say that young Schwarzwald 
 told her he had given the bills to Car 
 line. 
 
200 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 At last Madder ordered Leonie to apply to 
 Schwarzwald to be taught hoch-Deutsch, and 
 she told the youth she had money in her own 
 right with which to pay him. He believed 
 her, and there was begun a long series of 
 afternoon and evening lessons, which brought 
 trying work and delicate tasks to him, because 
 he sought to correct her gaucheries and her 
 English the while he taught her pure German. 
 To her the seances must have been revelations 
 of a cultivated delicacy of mind and bearing 
 such as she had obtained no glimpses of ex 
 cept vaguely in the best schools of the peo 
 ple the theatres. So Mudder paid his board 
 and got her money back, minus the cost of 
 his food. His bearing towards Leonie was 
 purely that of a teacher. He showed her less 
 tenderness, perhaps, than any man she had 
 ever known, yet he was grateful to her, and 
 told her, solemnly, that she had stayed his 
 hand from suicide. In the mean time she was 
 fought over by Prinz Monaco and old Driggs, 
 except when Driggs was on his periodicals, 
 when the Prinz (whom she detested) courted 
 her so fiercely, with such a gleam in his eyes 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 201 
 
 and such a note in his voice that poor old 
 Mudder was alarmed. 
 
 " He owns me mooch money," said she, 
 " und I ton d tare get mat wit him. Yot I 
 shall done I can d tink." 
 
 The problem might have plagued her slow 
 mind for months who can say how long? 
 But the Prinz grew bolder with Leonie, and 
 
 O / 
 
 thus goaded Mudder into a wonderful act a 
 bit of true heroism, such as should almost 
 entitle her memory to a monument. 
 
 She married the Prinz ! 
 
 " Ach Gott /" said she, to the older boarders ; 
 "he is noding but rnbbitch, but I can d bear 
 to see him aronnt Leonie wit his vicked, 
 handsome face und his tee-ayter talk und his 
 double meanings. So he is, any vay, only after 
 my two tousand tollars vhich I got safed up, 
 tint I tolt him so, und I tolt him der gwickest 
 vay to get it vos to dake me wit it. I am 
 dwice so olt as he more as a madder by him ; 
 so, maypeen, I can mannitch him. Yell, ve 
 done it, anyhow ; now ve see vot ve shall see." 
 
 On the night of the wedding-day a keg of 
 lager was set up in the dining-room, with a bot- 
 
202 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 tie of kimmel and a box of cigars on the man 
 tel-piece, and everybody drank to the red-faced, 
 stout old bride in widow s weeds and to the 
 shame-faced bridegroom, who was the first to 
 grow thick-tongued and unsteady on his feet. 
 All were happy until Mr. Driggs came in. 
 
 "Trink to der marritch," cried Car line, 
 who had ventured among the boarders. 
 
 " That I will," said Driggs. " Here s God 
 help poor old Mudder. Here s the devil take 
 the loafer she has married. Here s long life 
 to one good friend of the bride, who ll stick 
 to her like cobbler s wax. Ladies and gentle 
 men, I drink to the bride and myself." 
 
 There were hisses and shouts of disapproval, 
 and the fuddled bridegroom stood up and de 
 clared the house his, and ordered Driggs to 
 " back up und vent avay " ; but he ruined the 
 impressiveness of his words by whirling 
 around like a weathercock, and falling into 
 his chair with his face towards it instead of 
 his back. 
 
 At midnight the great bride-cake, made by 
 a former boarder, now cook at Delmonico s, 
 was cut into thirty-four pieces, one for each 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 203 
 
 person in the room. All ate their portions 
 slowly except Driggs, who ground his in his 
 fingers the quicker to find the prophetic ring. 
 But it was in Leonie s piece. 
 
 " See, Mudder," said she ; " I am the next 
 .to marry !" 
 
 "And Mudder burst into tears the first 
 that any one had ever seen her shed in 
 America. 
 
 " I m glad von vay," said she. " Gott knows 
 I done my best for you, Leonie. Yet I m 
 frightened for vhat s to come." 
 
 " Der drubble is mit Mudder dot she got too 
 much motchination," said Car line. " Motch- 
 ination ain t no good ; dot s vot makes folks 
 grazy." 
 
 " Sure," said the policeman on the beat, 
 who scented the feasting and dropped in at 
 the risk of losing three days pay ; " imagi- 
 nashun does bate the divvle. Oi have a frind 
 wid so much imaginashun that he can shmell 
 sewer-gas in a Pullman caar." 
 
 Within a month after the marriage the 
 Prinz, resplendent in lavender trousers and 
 wearing a pound of gold on his waistcoat and 
 
204 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 fingers, was reported to be frequently seen in 
 a shiny new wagon with the former proprie 
 tress of the flower factory. Yet the Prinz 
 loafed at home a great deal, and, asserting his 
 rights as head of the house, used to sit at the 
 other side of Leonie when she was taking her 
 lessons from Schwarzwald. Thus placed his 
 eyes devoured her (her coldest shoulder was 
 all she gave him for consumption), and spoke 
 to her often in a lo\y voice. She was frigidly 
 civil between her fear of the man and her 
 sense of duty to him in his new relation. On 
 one evening, when the Prinz was thus employ 
 ed, when the room was full of card and checker 
 playing groups, and when Mudder was elbow- 
 deep in dish -washing in the kitchen, young 
 Schwarzwald arose, paler than ever before, 
 arid asking to be excused for a moment, went 
 out and up to his tenement bedroom. He 
 passed through to the kitchen when he re 
 turned. 
 
 " Mudder," said he, " I burchased dis pistol 
 vhen I dought I could not face my debts ; but 
 now I got a bedder use for it. Your husband 
 is not fit to lif. He vill not bersecute Miss 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 205 
 
 Leonie von single hour more. He has not 
 shtopped vid marritch now I shtop him. I 
 dell you pecause you should know it. To der 
 resd der beeples vot I do is my peezness. 
 Come und see." 
 
 The sickly boy dragged himself, rather than 
 walked, back to the dining-room, carrying his 
 revolver behind his back, until he faced the 
 man who had so disturbed him. Then he 
 raised the weapon and levelled it at the 
 Prinz. 
 
 " Say, du" said he ; and then he staggered 
 backward from weakness, and while fumbling 
 for a chair-back with which to steady himself, 
 called to Driggs. " Holt me up," said he ; " I 
 am. not gwite strong so," as Driggs put a 
 firm hand under each arm-pit "choost like 
 dot, a minute, blease." Then he again ad 
 dressed the Prinz, in German : 
 
 " With this weapon I swear to kill you if 
 you do not leave this house. Arm yourself if 
 you will, and we will fight. Bah ! You are a 
 cur, and dare not fight, yet will I kill you if 
 you stay here an hour longer. I have weighed 
 what I say and what I mean to do. I will be 
 
206 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 glad to hang for putting such a rascal out of 
 the way. Go ! or, bei Gott, I will slay you like 
 a dog !" 
 
 " Mudder !" the Prinz cried, trembling like 
 an aspen leaf and retreating towards his burly 
 wife, who stood in the kitchen doorway wip 
 ing her boiled arms with her blue-checked 
 apron. "Mudder! He s grazy ! Slitop him !" 
 
 "Vait a leedle," said Mudder. "Leonie, is 
 somedings true vot I hear?" 
 
 " Oh, Mudder, he won t never leave me be." 
 
 " So," said Mudder. " Husband no longer ; 
 you are nodding but rubbitch. Glear owd, uf 
 you ton d vant to get holesfull of bullets in 
 your skin. I vosh myselluf of you." 
 
 So he went, cowering under the cover of 
 
 O 
 
 Schwarzwald s pistol. And with him went 
 every dollar of Mudder s savings and the 
 former proprietress of the flower- works." 
 
 " It vos a goot chob," was the most that 
 Mudder said. 
 
 The next startling occurrence in the board 
 ing-house was Mudder s death. She failed rap 
 idly and visibly even while she worked on like 
 a horse, cooking and carrying enormous sal- 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 207 
 
 vers of delicious ragouts and fruit puddings to 
 the still lively company in the dining-room. 
 But one morning she did not come down, and 
 Car line cooked with the aid of Leonie, who 
 stayed from school. Mudder sent for Mr. 
 Driggs, and feebly pulling her great red hand 
 from under the cloud of down that topped 
 her bed, she took the Englishman s hand. 
 
 " You luf her drue ?" she asked. 
 
 " Like a blooming old fool," said he. 
 
 " Dot s righd," said Mudder. " Now, I ask 
 you somedings. She s too young to dink 
 aboud luf, u nd uf she shouldn t luf you blease 
 be a farder to her, yoost der same, hem ?" 
 
 " I will, pon my honor," said Driggs, who 
 felt that this was his last talk with this ex 
 traordinary woman. And yet he bethought 
 him of himself. " But if I can make her love 
 me" 
 
 A smile broke over the dying woman s 
 face. 
 
 " Dot s righd," said she. " You men are 
 all conceited like monkeys but dot s righd. 
 Uf you can make her luf you yes, dot s 
 righd." 
 
208 PEOPLE WE PASS 
 
 To Leonie slie said, afterwards : " Mr. 
 Driggs looks afder der house und you und 
 Car line. Blease mind vot he says till you 
 get a goot man, Leonie ; but vhen he talks luf 
 und foolishness, gif him no satisfactions. He 
 is too olt und he s a trunkard." 
 
 " You ne enter fear, Mudder," said Leonie. 
 
 " Yot abowd young Schwarzwald, Leonie ?" 
 
 " He s mad at me," said the girl. " I told 
 him I had no more money since der Prinz ran 
 away, and he seen through our trick, and he s 
 ate up with shame. He s got money from 
 home to fetch him to his father that s dying, 
 and he wanted I d take the money and leave 
 him stay here and work for more. So then I 
 was hot, and I told him he had worked for his 
 money, and I could work for mine if I wanted 
 any. He ll be sailing pretty quick, you ll see." 
 
 " Dot s de last of him," said Mudder. 
 " Yell, ve done righd by him, tank Gott." 
 
 The house lost its head and heart, which 
 had been her shrewd head and gr.eat heart. 
 Mr. Fletcher never knew what became of 
 Leonie until the day with which this story 
 begins. 
 
LOW DUTCH AND HIGH 209 
 
 " Leonie," he asked, " whom did you marry ? 
 Who is Henny ?" 
 
 " Hear that !" she cried. " Who s Henny ? 
 Who should he be but Mr. Schwartzwald ? 
 Tlie sickly one, you remember. He fell into 
 a little fortune and sailed round the world for 
 his health. He got it, sure. His arm s as 
 big as your leg. And, say, he s ter good ter 
 live. And I say, Mr. Fletcher, I m a count 
 ess see ?" 
 
 THE END 
 
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 
 
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 Richard Harding Davis never writes a short story 
 that he does not prove himself a master of the art. 
 Chicago Times. 
 
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