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 intinm mirAnm eA i ia
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN
 
 
 
 
 
 " Wholly delightful and satisfying." 
 
 — Brookhn Eugle. 
 
 
 Ihe House in the 
 Woods 
 
 By ARTHUR HENRY 
 
 iSECOND EDITION) 
 
 "A good breezy healthful story — the 
 more readers it has the better." 
 
 -5V:. Y. Times. 
 
 "As fine as a great forest, a great 
 city or a great man — it is a pleasure to 
 recommend it to the reader." 
 
 -5V:. Y. 'Press. 
 
 "A jolly, cheerful, restful, story of 
 the kind that makes a dweller in the 
 city long to get into the quiet woods." 
 
 -N. y. Sun. 
 
 An Island Cabin 
 
 By ARTHUR HENRY 
 
 (.NEW EDITION) 
 
 "A book of individuality and power. 
 The author is a homespun Thoreau, 
 homespun because he writes without 
 the literary pose, and doesn't leave out 
 the very things we like to know." 
 
 -The World's Work. 
 Each. l2mo. cloth. Illustrated. $1.50 
 
 A. S. BARNES & CO. 
 
 

 
 Trinity Church on New Year's Eve. 
 From a painting by Everett Shinn.
 
 LODGINGS 
 
 IN 
 TOWN 
 
 By 
 
 ARTHUR HENRY 
 
 Author of "The House in the Woods" 
 
 "An Island Cabin" and "The 
 
 Unwritten Law " 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 New York 
 
 A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 
 
 1905
 
 Copyright, 1905, by 
 A. S. BARNES & CO. 
 
 Published September, 1906
 
 URL 
 
 
 «rii«i tf r T . 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 In the days when I was wandering about New 
 York in an aimless way, doing no harm, I wrote a 
 story and called it, "The Young Wife of Old 
 Pierre Prevost." 
 
 Ainslcc's Magacine was new, and took it. On 
 a certain day I ascended the dingy elevator leading 
 into the clouds and there met the group of angels 
 that had accepted me. A moment later another 
 mortal entered, hat in hand, and we were intro- 
 duced. His clothes were about as shabby as my 
 own. He was small and thin. Dark rings about 
 his eyes suggested anxiety, but the eyes themselves 
 were filled with visions of things beyond the realm 
 of hunger, of weariness and of sleep. 
 
 "This," said the editor blandly, "is Everett 
 Shinn, a young artist who will illustrate your 
 story for us." 
 
 We were two very much unknown people, but 
 we neither of us noticed that. It seemed very 
 
 [7]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 natural to be standing there, face to face, among 
 those smiling angels in the clouds. A little later 
 we walked out together and down North William 
 street, under the arch of the bridge and down the 
 alley called a street. We turned the corner of 
 Pearl, and saw the face of Franklin beaming 
 through the grime, and the temple that the Har- 
 pers built. We had come that way at random, 
 wandering still in cloudland, but I remember that 
 we stopped by a common impulse and stood at the 
 curbing just to look. And some of the exultation 
 passed. 
 
 "Do you think," I said, "that we will ever get in 
 there?" 
 
 "I'd like to see 'em keep us out," he answered, 
 his black eyes snapping wickedly. 
 
 These were the first of Shinn's pictures to ap- 
 pear in a magazine, and it was the first story that 
 Isold. 
 
 It was late in the fall when I saw Shinn again. 
 He was in Central Park, peering at the line of 
 Eighth avenue biu'ldings, rising in irregular 
 patches of color between the treetops and the sky. 
 He still wore the straw hat of summer. There 
 was paint on his fingers. 
 
 J8]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 "I have been, to Paris," he said, "but I think 
 there is more real beauty and a better interest 
 here." 
 
 I did not see him again until the other day. He 
 was packing many cases of pictures and a very 
 large wardrobe, preparing to go for the summer 
 to his estate in Vermont. 
 
 "Shinn," 1 said, "I am trying to put into a book 
 something of what New York has meant to me, 
 and I would like to make a frontispiece of one of 
 the things you pulled out since we met in Ainslee's 
 that day." 
 
 "You hit me," he said. "Go help yourself." 
 
 I took the New Year's Eve at Trinity, which is 
 reproduced by the courtesy of The Ladies' Home 
 Jourtial, and now, to all such friendly impulses 
 that give warmth and light to commence : 
 
 To 
 AN OPTIMISTIC COUNTRY 
 
 AND 
 
 "LITTLE OLD NEW YORK," 
 
 This Book is Dedicated. 
 I9]
 
 aflUHb. 
 
 b 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. From the Schoolhouse to the Saloon. . 17 
 
 II. From the Saloon to Broadway 32 
 
 III. The Exclusive Door 46 
 
 IV. A Pile of Granite and a Mound of 
 
 Grass 56 
 
 V. The Need OF A Hairbrush 71 
 
 VI. Intimate Strangers 92 
 
 VII. Peter and the Fairies in 
 
 VIII. Truants 141 
 
 IX. An Opening AT the Bridge 159 
 
 X. Freedom in Captivity 173 
 
 XI. The Plight of Crcesus 189 
 
 XII. A Call from the Wild 196 
 
 XIII. The City and the Dog 215 
 
 XIV. On Baxter Street 238 
 
 XV. The Battle of the Streets 258 
 
 XVI. The Fortune Gained 274 
 
 XVII. Two Years and Back 288 
 
 XVIII. The Walls of Jericho 303 
 
 ["]
 
 irtfirirr ns 
 
 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Trinity Church on New Year's Eve Frontispiece 
 
 Page 
 "New York Seemed to be Those Fantastic 
 
 Visions Realized" 25 
 
 (From a North River Ferryboat.) 
 
 "Out of the Ferry House" 29 
 
 (West Street.) 
 
 Claremont 68 
 
 ("I Slept Soundly on the Grass.") 
 
 Summer in Madison Square 89 
 
 (The Tower of Madison Square Garden.) 
 
 "I Crossed to Blackwell's Island" 107 
 
 The City Hall 134 
 
 "Pushing to the Entrance to the Brooklyn 
 Bridge" 161 
 
 Removing the Snow 175 
 
 "A Beautiful Place for the People to Enjoy". , 182 
 (Central Park South.) 
 
 [13]
 
 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 "Over the Roofs of the City" 226 
 
 (Looking Down Lower Broadway.) 
 
 "From the Window in Front the Brooklyn 
 Bridge Could Be Seen" 240 
 
 Chatham Square 247 
 
 (Near Our Home on the East Side.) 
 
 "Inhabited by Italians and Germans" 259 
 
 Where the Other Half Live 275 
 
 (A Street Bath.) 
 
 The Colossus Known as the Flatiron at Twenty- 
 third Street and Broadway 310 
 
 The frontispiece of this book is from a painting by 
 Mr. Everett Shinn. 
 
 The designs for initials and page-headings are by Mr. 
 John Rae. 
 
 The other illustrations of scenes in New York are 
 from photographs by George P. Hall & Sons, copy- 
 righted by them, and reproduced by special permission. 
 
 [141
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 I 
 
 w
 
 ^^^tmmg^^i 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 y FROM THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO THE SALOON 
 
 HEN a boy in the country I 
 dreamed of cities. I lay in the 
 grass of the orchard watching 
 their changing forms in the 
 clouds. Our next door neigh- 
 bor lived half a mile down the 
 road and every morning lit- 
 tle Sadie Heslop, carrying 
 her lunch pail and books, was waiting at her 
 gate, that we might walk together to the school 
 at the crossroads, two miles away. Sometimes 
 she talked of the Chicago Stockyards, where 
 her father worked before they bought the farm. 
 Her words are forgotten ; perhaps they were 
 heard vaguely at the time. It was not until a few 
 years later that I knew what the stockyards were. 
 When we separated at the schoolhouse door I 
 could slip into my seat and gaze from the pages 
 
 [17]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^ll^^ 
 
 of a geography, through an openi window, across 
 the cornfields, seeing my own familiar city of Con- 
 stantinople and Sadie's stockyards harmoniously 
 blending in the September haze. 
 
 Of course, the time came when I knew that if 
 ever these templed cities of the clouds were to be 
 realized I must go to work. The future was in- 
 definite. I only knew that I was to become some- 
 thing great. Why must we apologize for these 
 early aspirations ? Is it because that which stands 
 for greatness nowadays is not a thing to boast of? 
 That to achieve it we must no longer believe in 
 fairies, nor in angels, nor in the ideals that these 
 impersonate to the mind of a child? When we 
 have learned to be silent concerning our dreams, 
 a clerkship is given to us and we are assured that 
 Honesty, Industry and Thrift are the elements of 
 greatness in a man. Sometimes our preacher in 
 his sermon to boys preached this. Our Congress- 
 man, the great man of our district, repeated the 
 phrase in his Fourth of July orations, and one of 
 our prominent bankers, once drawn from his con- 
 servatism, at a picnic where his wife and daugh- 
 ters brought him, uttered a sentence with these 
 three words in it, and sat down. 
 
 [i8]
 
 SCHOOLHOUSE TO SALOON 
 
 .%r»firirrir 
 
 My dreams these days were filled with dancing 
 ladders, and the troublesome hours were spent in 
 adjusting old conceptions of heroes in the light of 
 this later wisdom. Were Shakespeare, Milton 
 and Caesar respectable and rich, and, if so, how 
 much of their greatness was due to Honesty, In- 
 dustry and Thrift ? 
 
 The first great city was Chicago, and the first 
 visit was made holding to my mother's hand. I 
 vaguely remember that it was tense and feverish. 
 We slipped from the street into a small dark office, 
 and I was placed upon a stool to write my name. 
 It was an employment agency. The man said 
 something, and my mother answered : "I wish 
 you could get him in there. I feel that he would 
 be quite safe in there." 
 
 A few days later I was employed as a runabout 
 boy in a Bible house. 
 
 In those days I had a great and tender rever- 
 ence for the Scriptures and for hymns, and I used 
 to hide in the cellarway to watch the inviting 
 salesroom, its high walls and broad tables covered 
 with alluring books. Lost in longing, I sometimes 
 did not hear when I was called. Now and then a 
 salesman, in a hurry, rushed past or bawled an 
 
 [■9]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 order down the cellarway for so many copies of 
 "Moody and Sankey, No. 2." Sometimes a sales- 
 man, coming up, pushed me angrily from his path 
 and went smiling to his customer, a collection of 
 Bibles in his hand. The clink of money, the sharp 
 look of a superintendent trying to drive a bargain 
 in hymnals for his Sunday-school, the alert, sharp 
 glances of salesman and manager, the whispered 
 conferences in corners, the glibness, craftiness, the 
 arts of the actor, filled me with apprehension and 
 unrest. For a long time I stood at the bottom of 
 this ladder, shrinking from the climb. One day I 
 overheard two preachers telling stories amusing 
 to their minds. They laughed aloud, but talked in 
 low voices, out of consideration for the ladies 
 standing near. 
 
 One of my daily tasks was to carry the mail in 
 a pushcart from the store to the postoffice. The 
 handle came to my chin. The mailbags and pack- 
 ages were piled higher than my head. Through 
 the crowded streets, dodging frantically among 
 the straining tumult of teams, in terror at my 
 task and equally afraid to fail, in the dusk of win- 
 ter evenings, through rain and snow, through 
 slush and mud, I made this daily journey. Noth- 
 
 [20]
 
 SCHOOLHOUSE TO SALOON 
 
 ^n^w 
 
 ing ever happened to the load, but once, returning, 
 the cart was run over and destroyed. Carrying 
 what pieces I could, I returned weeping, and my 
 boss, a sort of foreman in the Bible house, kicked 
 me for my carelessness. All sense of misery was 
 kicked out of me, and in its place came rage. If I 
 could I would have killed the man. An incoherent, 
 passionate protest burst from me. I reviled the 
 establishment, referred to them as whited sepul- 
 chres, and fled the place, pursued by the laughter 
 of astonishment. 
 
 It was past nightfall, for it was almost six, and 
 December. I hurried through slush and darkness 
 and biting wind. It was the same slush, the same 
 darkness, the same cold blast from the lake, the 
 same confusion of crowding people and threaten- 
 ing teams, and I was no bigger than before, and 
 more at sea. I should never be a great publisher 
 now, for I had lost my job; but, curiously enough, 
 there was no sense of loss. There was no longer 
 either misery or rage, only a feeling of liberty and 
 escape. Escape from what? It took me twenty 
 years to learn — twenty years of struggling in the 
 net. 
 
 When at last I came from the West and stood 
 
 [21]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 «r*««rirr'TB 
 
 Upon the ferry skimming the North River, be- 
 tween Jersey City and New York, I had a Httle 
 less than eight dollars in my pocket. A small paper 
 grip contained the rest of my possessions — a clean 
 collar, a night dress, a roll of manuscript and a 
 corn-cob pipe. 
 
 New York is chiefly remarkable in that it can 
 allure to it IxDth Russell Sage and me. It is said 
 that Mr. Sage, in his gaunt youth, strode to the 
 city with nothing but Honesty, Industry and 
 Thrift. I had nothing but a poem. I had lived 
 long enough to see most of my friends become 
 successful and blase. The progress of life had 
 made me errand boy, clerk, private secretary, re- 
 porter, city editor, politician, promoter and the 
 proprietor of a business. I had helped to build an 
 electric railroad, to lobby a bill through Congress, 
 to give Illinois its only Democratic victory since 
 the war. 
 
 In the midst of the vigorous struggle fortune, 
 in one of her coquettish moods, had left me penni- 
 less. I knew, however, that in a moment she 
 would smile again. In fact, the certain prospect 
 of an electric railroad of my own leered at me 
 with seductive eyes. Bankrupt to-day, I might 
 
 ' [22]
 
 SCHOOLHOUSE TO SALOON 
 
 drink champagne with Morgan tomorrow and on 
 Sunday sit with Rockefeller in his pew. And then 
 it was that a miracle was wrought, like that which 
 transforms the convict into a preacher. A great 
 light blinded me, and, abandoning forever the 
 wild pursuit of wealth and respectability, as the 
 prodigal left his husks, I turned in my tracks, and 
 made for New York, a boy again, with nothing 
 but my ticket, a night-dress, eight dollars, a pipe 
 and a poem. 
 
 The final liberation came, when in packing my 
 grip, I put in the poem and threw the scheme 
 away. It was the prospectus of an electric rail- 
 way, a splendid one, and not difficult to manage. 
 It would be necessary to haggle with some two 
 hundred farmers for a right-of-way, to move 
 quickly, stealthily, adroitly, to bribe some of the 
 Councilmen of three small towns, in order to se- 
 cure franchises for nothing. When this was ac- 
 complished there would be something valuable to 
 offer the honest, thrifty, industrious, great man of 
 capital. It would be, in fact, the solid foundation 
 of a fortune secured for almost nothing by a 
 shrewd manipulation of one's fellows. I could 
 have found the backing in New York. It has 
 
 [23 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 *^M^ 
 
 since been done, and the promoter made more than 
 one hundred thousand dollars by a year of clever 
 scheming. He is still promoting. I saw him re- 
 cently at the Imperial. 
 
 "Here," he said, "are two tickets for Lohen- 
 grin. I wish you would take my wife and go. I 
 thought I had this night free, but I'm caught 
 again. My God, I can't get time to breathe." 
 
 The scheme was good among schemes, the poem 
 feeble among poems, but I took it because I had no 
 better, and, after twenty years, it, of all my pos- 
 sessions, seemed the most to resemble those im- 
 ages of cities I had in the beginning set forth to 
 find. 
 
 Standing on the ferry. New York, across the 
 water, gleaming in the sunlight, seemed to me to 
 be those fantastic visions realized. A strong wind 
 was blowing in from the bay, whipping the sur- 
 face of the river. Ferryboats, tugs and steamers 
 left wakes of sparkling foam, and innumerable 
 sailing craft, varnished pleasure yachts and wea- 
 ther-beaten smacks alike leaned gracefully from 
 the wind, throwing showers of spray about their 
 bows. The afternoon sun flashed from the win- 
 dows of the city we were approaching. It tinted 
 
 [24]
 
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 L I 
 
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 '11 
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 Sif 1
 
 SCHOOLHOUSE TO SALOON 
 
 Jb^^ 
 
 the floating plumes of steam that rose from roofs, 
 and traced the progress of elevated trains. It ac- 
 centuated shadows and projections and heightened 
 the effect of the gilt of the cornices of tall, white 
 buildings. In those days New York was smoke- 
 less, immaculate, and I, in smiling eagerness, ap- 
 proached her as a lover runs to a mistress that 
 holds out her arms, for I had learned what good 
 fortune is, and in seeking this was seeking what 
 the lover seeks, affection and delight. 
 
 As the boat passed into its slip a young man 
 with an earnest countenance and the uniform of a 
 clergyman touched my arm, inquiring the quickest 
 way to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals. 
 
 "This is my first visit to New York," he ex- 
 claimed, with an ingenuous smile. 
 
 "And mine, too," I answered, smiling, I trust, 
 as ingenuously. 
 
 "Perhaps you are here on the same pilgrimage 
 as my own ?" 
 
 "That, among other things." 
 
 "Are you really going to the Conference?" 
 
 "I might." 
 
 'But," he said, elevating his brows and opening 
 
 [27] 
 
 "1
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 his eyes with an expression of surprise, at once 
 amiable and scholarly, "if you came for that?" 
 
 "Only that, among' other things. I only just 
 now heard of it. I am seeking my fortune, and I 
 might, perhaps, find it there." 
 
 "I see," he said, "you are off on a junket. Well, 
 I would like your company if you would come." 
 
 We were out of the ferry house, and the clergy- 
 man inquired the way. 
 
 "Are you coming?" he said, turning from the 
 policeman to me. 
 
 "I am hungry. Let's step in here for a sand- 
 wich first." 
 
 He took a step and stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Oh," he exclaimed, "you have made a mis- 
 take. It's a saloon." 
 
 "No, that's all right. They sell sandwiches 
 there." 
 
 "But you know I could not " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He hesitated a moment, for he disl'ked to 
 preach, and then murmured with an apologetic 
 smile, "I think we should avoid the appearance of 
 evil. Don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, and of good." 
 
 [28]
 
 o 
 
 en * y 
 
 CO T] 
 
 o 
 
 c
 
 SCHOOLHOUSE TO SALOON 
 
 ^fW 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "I like to avoid appearances." 
 
 The clergyman laughed nervously, and, slipping 
 his hand from mine, ran for his car, forcing a 
 way into the mass of people that swarmed it. The 
 gaunt horses staggered in their effort to start the 
 over-crowded car bearing the clergyman to his 
 humane conference, and I, lifting my grip from 
 the sidewalk, stepped into the saloon. 
 
 c/ei. /^-/9/i 
 
 [3t]
 
 "^kHM 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 o 
 
 FROM THE SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 HE place shone with the pleas- 
 ant, subdued lustre of polished 
 oak. The walls, the floor, the 
 round tables with brass legs, 
 the bar were spotless. There 
 was a sideboard covered with 
 white linen and thin china dishes, filled with a 
 tempting lunch ; a bowl of potato salad, a pile of 
 plates with paper napkins between, platters filled 
 with slices of tongue and ham. arranged in regu- 
 lar rows, and garnished with parsley. 
 
 There came the sound of a bell, and the bar- 
 tender took something from the cash drawer, re- 
 placing it with a slip of paper, on whfch he wrote. 
 He turned about briskly and held the money across 
 the bar toward two sisters in flowing black robes 
 and black bonnets. A very plump hand issued 
 from a robe and was demurely extended, palm 
 
 [32]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 f.r*t«rirr' 
 
 upward. It closed and retreated. Both bonnets 
 bent in a curtsey. 
 
 "Wait a minute," said the bartender. "That 
 was on the house. Here is one with me." He 
 pulled a coin from his pocket, the plump hand re- 
 appeared empty, opened, closed and vanished. 
 The bonnets bowed again, and the sisters, side by 
 side, moved slowly away, their eyes solemnly cast 
 upon the floor. 
 
 The bartender wiped the bar from force of 
 habit, and looked at me. He was, perhaps^ twenty- 
 three, clean-shaven, with bright red hair and blue 
 eyes, a large, pleasant mouth and clear skin. He 
 looked very cool and spruce in his white clothes 
 and apron. As he was making my sandwich a 
 door opened behind the bar and a buxom woman 
 entered. Her sateen dress was nearly covered by 
 a newly-laundered apron and false sleeves, fas- 
 tened with blue baby ribbons, tied in a bow. Al- 
 though her hair was dark, I knew she was his 
 mother by the mouth and eyes. 
 
 "How is that?" she asked, smiling broadly at 
 him and at me as she held a cookie to his mouth. 
 
 He took a bite, still bending over my sandwich. 
 
 "What do we want a cook for, anyway?" 
 
 [33]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^ 
 
 "Do you like it?" 
 
 "You're it. Send down some more." 
 
 "Where is your father?" 
 
 "One of the Callahan kids came after him." 
 
 "A case of bail?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 Through the swinging doors, at the street 
 entrance, came three large gentlemen in nobby 
 summer suits, fancy vests and immaculate straw 
 hats. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Mrs. Casey. It's a hot day, 
 
 ma'am." 
 
 "It's not cool in the kitchen. My cook's gone 
 to Seabright for a week in the surf." 
 
 There was an amiable laugh all around, and 
 she asked with sobriety : 
 
 "How is Jerry?" 
 
 The big man pursed out his lips and said sol- 
 emnly : 
 
 "He's pretty bad," and then cheerily: "Well, 
 boys, what will it be?" 
 
 "Mint julep." 
 
 "Claret punch." 
 
 "A julep for me. Won't you take something, 
 Mrs. Casey?" 
 
 [34]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 ,jb^l^ 
 
 "With pleasure. Whiskey and soda, Jack. Just 
 a spoonful of rye." 
 
 "No use of asking- you, Jack ?" 
 
 The boy smiled and shook up the drinks vigor- 
 ously with cracked ice. 
 
 "Where is Tim?" 
 
 "Gone out." 
 
 "No telling when he will be back ?" 
 
 "You know how it is with him ?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "Well, you tell him my end of it is all right. 
 But Larry here " 
 
 "You tell him," said Larry, leaning over the 
 bar, "that them Italians need seein'." 
 
 "All right, Larry," came in mellow tones from 
 behind, "I'll see 'em." 
 
 Tim, the newcomer, was taller than the others — 
 a fine, portly, red-headed, big-faced Irishman, clad 
 in blue serge trousers and coat, a belt, no vest, silk 
 shirt, tan shoes and an Alpine panama. He took 
 this off to wipe the sweat from the inner band. 
 
 "It's hot. Jack, give me some buttermilk. Mag- 
 gie " 
 
 Larry took him by the arm to lead him into a 
 comer. 
 
 [35]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^rt««r«rrrr.B 
 
 "Wait a minute," he said. "Say, Maggie, you'd 
 better go 'round to Callahan's yourself. The 
 baby's dead." 
 
 "Dear, dear," she exclaimed, and away she 
 went, a genuine expression of concern upon her 
 motherly countenance. 
 
 "This is great," I said to my neighbor. 
 
 "What's great?" He glared at me over the 
 paper he held. He was a short, bald, middle-aged 
 man, with a moustache much chewed and a pair of 
 steel-bowed glasses. 
 
 "These glimpses of life," I answered, somewhat 
 disconcerted. 
 
 "Oh, hell," he answered, "what's the matter, 
 anyhow ? Are there no vacant tables in the room ?" 
 
 Sure enough, this was the only one occupied. 
 
 "Excuse me," I said hastily, gathering up my 
 lunch. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," he said, in a tone of tired 
 apology. "Don't get up. I've been jostled by the 
 three million people of this city for fifteen years, 
 and I should be used to it." 
 
 The glitter left his eyes, and, as a further pallia- 
 tion, he remarked that it was a ghastly day. 
 
 I ate my lunch as unobtrusively as possible, and 
 
 [36]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 I 
 
 he returned to his paper. In a few moments 
 he threw it down, and, looking pointblank at 
 me, exclaimed : "Well, what do you think of 
 that?" 
 
 "I think it's all right," I said. "What is it?" 
 
 "See here, I hope you're not one of those windy 
 people who think whatever is is right?" 
 
 "I have here," I said, reaching for my grip, "a 
 carefully prepared statement of what I think." 
 
 I unrolled the manuscript before me. 
 
 "Hold on," he exclaimed, "you're not going to 
 read ;hat ?" 
 
 "I thought I would." 
 
 "Well, not to me. I have all I can do to read 
 my own stuff." 
 
 I looked at him inquiringly. He answered with 
 a nod, and pointed to the paper, saying : 
 
 "Anywhere from one to three columns a day for 
 that thing. I don't read it. I measure it." 
 
 "You chose your own career?" 
 
 "When I was eighteen." He smiled cynically, 
 the cynicism of a man who has once possessed 
 dreams and missed them. 
 
 "It was such a pretty world," he mused. "I 
 dreamed of liter-a-chure." 
 
 [37]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ****** 
 
 "You are older now," I ventured; "why don't 
 you choose again?" 
 
 "I haven't the nerve." 
 
 "What would you like to do?" 
 
 He smiled sardonically. 
 
 "I would like to hit Carnegie over the head with 
 a crowbar and step into his shoes." 
 
 "Rather a violent method of becoming a phil- 
 anthropist?" 
 
 "Very much like his own. It is more direct, 
 and only a trifle quicker, but more difficult to 
 evade the law. I might be hung." 
 
 "Why so anxious to build libraries?" 
 
 "If I had his plunder I could throw purses to 
 the rabble, too. There would be enough left." 
 
 "What would you do with it ?" 
 
 "T would buy all the newspapers in New York 
 and blow them up. Then I would go away 
 into remote parts and do the Rip Van Winkle 
 act." 
 
 "That last you can do now." 
 
 He leaned over, and poking his finger into my 
 breast, said shrewdly : 
 
 "But not the first, sweetheart — not the first." 
 
 Just then Larry passed us, and, touching him 
 
 [38]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 i.rMiririr:';:n.lB 
 - :-.;:'::Av:':. :■:•:* 
 
 on the shoulder, said : ''Tim wants you." He 
 shoved back his chair. 
 
 "A good story for you?" 
 
 "Oh, no better than six inches at the most." 
 
 **If you feel that way, why don't you skip it?" 
 
 "You talk as if you had money." 
 
 "I have." 
 
 "Well, I haven't, and it costs a dollar a minute 
 to breathe this air." 
 
 He sauntered into the back room for his six 
 inches, and I went out upon the street. 
 
 I have forgotten just why I left that corner. 
 The old fruit-seller has remained there by his 
 stand for eighteen years. In the beginning he 
 thought if he failed to do this he would starve. 
 Now that he has enough to keep him for the little 
 while he can live he arrives earlier and goes later 
 than before. On hot days he complains of the 
 heat. On cold days of the cold. A rush of custom 
 irritates him and dull trade makes him mad. He 
 follows the passing multitude with an accusing 
 e3^e. He grows weary of this constant attendance 
 on his stand, but deprive him of it and he will 
 curse you. Sickness is a misfortune, because it 
 
 [39]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 interrupts his routine, and he fears death, first, 
 because after it he can come no more. 
 
 I, too, might have found something to keep me 
 here. I could have secured a job in one of the 
 establishments on this corner, and after many 
 years of toil and scheming I might have owned it. 
 On such traditions our cities are built, and be- 
 cause of this men are not happy there. 
 
 He who seeks to possess the earth shall lose it. 
 Toil on, then, votaries of ambition, of vanity and 
 of greed; promote, erect, adorn, for in the end 
 your splendors shall become the inheritance of the 
 meek. Give no thought of the morrow. Go to 
 the ant, thou sluggard. Consider the lilies of the 
 field. 
 
 There is a beauty in this combination of gems, 
 which the wisdom of future ages may reveal. 
 This much is true, at least : If life be more than 
 meat, Phil Armour is not its prophet ; and insofar 
 as the body is more than raiment, a youth is put 
 upon a foolish scent when apprenticed to a tailor. 
 
 As for me, if life be a pursuit, I choose to follow 
 the winds and the flight of wings. The smallest 
 insect shall take me for a long journey. The tint 
 of a cloud, a vagrant odor shall lead me, and any 
 
 [40]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 ^^y®' 
 
 one of a thousand I pass upon the street, the 
 chance note of a song or a sigh shall bear me on 
 my way. 
 
 Not far from the ferry a man stood in a wagon, 
 near the curb, proclaiming lustily the delights of 
 literature to a gaping world. He wore a linen 
 duster. His face rose from the base of his broad 
 jowls to a pyramidal forehead, on which rested a 
 derby hat. His small, shrewd eyes moved rest- 
 lessly over his audience. His continuous gestures 
 were the most natural in the world, for they were 
 the movements of a man distributing his wares. 
 He took ten cents from extended fingers and hand- 
 ed in exchange a large manila envelope, package 
 size. The purchaser opened it, looked in, smiled 
 and went his way. In the lull of custom, the man 
 stood up, drew his floating duster about his form, 
 and challenged the crowd with a glance of sur- 
 prised resentment. 
 
 "Remember who this fellow is !"he cried. "He's 
 Balzac ! He's Beecher and Bill Nye in one. Kip- 
 ling was a typesetter compared to him. Do you 
 want real warm love? It's there. The scandals 
 in his works will keep you up all night. What you 
 stand there gaping for? Why don't you buy? 
 
 [41]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^r»tirirr>*rt 
 
 The complete works of Balzac here for ten 
 cents. Go into a tookstore, and they'll ask you one 
 hundred dollars for a set ! Ten cents ! Ten cents !" 
 
 By this time there was a movement in the 
 crowd and hands were reached up again. 
 
 "That's the eye," he said. "Let's not waste time 
 in talking while one of these packages remains." 
 
 I bought my package, looked in, and, smiling, 
 went my way. I got more than I had bargained 
 for. There was not only a pamphlet on the com- 
 plete works of Balzac, but several other little 
 documents as well, and slipped in to make the 
 measure good, an Omar Khayyam calendar, muti- 
 lated, it is true, but with a good dime's worth of 
 beauty in the verses that were left. 
 
 As I walked I read, looked often at the passing 
 pageant, mused and smiled. Why underneath the 
 bough? I said. One may have pleasant fancies 
 on Twenty-third street if he will. 
 
 I did not envy the driver on his truck, the lady 
 in her brougham, the shoppers that went in to buy. 
 They made a pleasing, stirring spectacle for me, 
 and so did these spacious emporiums that I passed, 
 with all their entertaining novelties so generously 
 displayed. 
 
 [42]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 I do not know why I was impelled to leave any 
 of these show windows, any of these majestic 
 doorways, through which the pleasant throng 
 surged in and out, nor why I should have drifted 
 idly East. No one was expecting me. I had no 
 place in mind that I must reach. I almost touched 
 a thousand hands I think I should have been glad 
 to clasp. I looked into a thousand faces, and saw 
 there glimpses of something that I might have 
 loved. New York has a smiling countenance, a 
 genial voice, an optimistic eye. I think I know 
 why this is so. On that day I vaguely caught the 
 hint. Most of those who had come in with me 
 upon the ferry were the city's guests. They had 
 been met by friends, and in the joyous greetings 
 there were no inquiries after Sal and Dick. The 
 folks at home were not mentioned. There were 
 babblings about the "dear old town." The stranger 
 was shaken by the hand and eagerly assured that 
 he had landed in New York at last. I heard one 
 bustling, gaunt-faced man exclaim tOi a group of 
 well-fed, beaming, sleek companions: "Walk? 
 Well, I guess not. I've been two years from 
 Broadway. Get a cab." 
 
 At this hour of the day, at least, the trend was 
 
 [43]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^^fW 
 
 all one way, and I must have followed it as a chip 
 upon the tide. Shoppers drove up in carriages, 
 went in, came out and drove away again. I miss- 
 ed the eager strain that pervades the scrambles of 
 the West, but New York on Twenty-third street 
 is busy there upon its errands — quick to come and 
 quick to go away. But it is here, as elsewhere, on 
 parade — a hostess busy with the thought of guests 
 — its soul renewed by the holiday spirit of those 
 who come to find their holiday — made courteous 
 and alert in the need to meet the demands of those 
 who come to find. I was in a world of color and 
 beauty. Bewitching costumes fluttered past. Bows, 
 smiles and odds and ends of wit and laughter and 
 glimpses of beaming faces caught and lost. And 
 presently I was so bewitched that I could not quite 
 restrain my arms and legs, for I seemed to be one 
 of a multitude of dancing marionets. 
 
 "And here," said a voice beside me, hushed, yet 
 big with significance, "here is Broadway, and 
 there," serenely, "is Fifth avenue." The little 
 group paused and looked, and the little hostess 
 sighed with that complacent satisfaction the ama- 
 teur usher feels when his own friends are seated 
 and the performance has iDcgun. 
 
 [44]
 
 SALOON TO BROADWAY 
 
 AiJ^i 
 
 ^^^^r 
 
 Here the crowds were multiplied, but there was 
 no sense of dancing here. The city may seem to 
 be in a hurry on the side streets, but on Broadway 
 it is at home. Some day, I think, the smoking 
 jacket and slippers will be the fashion there. This 
 is the lounging room, convenient to the sideboard, 
 the place to meet informally, to chat, digest our 
 dinners, glance at our bric-a-brac. When we leave 
 it, it is to dress, and in the evening we pass 
 through it again to the door of the amusement 
 hall. Fifth avenue seems quite homelike, too, but 
 this is the art gallery — the salon. Here we attend 
 to the formalities, and, on Sundays, think of God. 
 
 5. 
 
 
 [45]
 
 ^nW 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 S I walked up Broadway, I took 
 the poem from my bag and 
 dropped it on the walk. It was 
 the best I had to offer, and it 
 seemed to me to be g-iven in 
 the proper way. It would, at 
 least, prove if the thing had wings. A hundred 
 feet passed over it before I turned away. Two 
 blocks up I crossed over to Fifth avenue, and 
 stood for, perhaps, an hour by the curbstone, mar- 
 veling at the enticing splendors of the scene, and 
 there came again to me the feeling that this world 
 I was supposed to inhabit was a foreign world. 
 These lordly gentlemen I felt w^uld be worth 
 while to know, but would the acquaintance be 
 worth that much when one figfured all the cost? 
 The equipages looked alluring and the beaming 
 creatures in exquisite govms were still sufficiently 
 
 [46]
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 4m 
 
 human to make a mere man wonder if this fairy- 
 land he moved in were all a myth. A purse falling 
 at my feet awaked me from the trance. I hurried 
 after the being who had dropped it. She took it 
 in mild surprise, opened it to see if the money was 
 still there, looked past me, smiling sweetly, stepped 
 into her carriage and drove away. Dazzled by 
 her beauty and by the splendors of her world, I 
 felt for a moment like an intruding outcast there. 
 I could not enter their drawing-rooms — not born 
 within their pale, without a fortune or a name, but 
 these, their shops, were open. I entered the one 
 my lady had just left — a place where nothing but 
 hosiery was sold. By adroit inquiry I learned that 
 the average price of stockings was ten dollars a 
 pair, but that any one who wished to could pay 
 one hundred and fifty dollars. That elegance just 
 then was represented by black lisle, with white em- 
 broidery or insertion of real lace. Some of the 
 stockings were so fine that they could be wadded 
 into a thimble. An unusually attractive design 
 was conceived not long before by a manufacturer 
 in Philadelphia. The leg was of black lisle, and 
 might have been woven by a spider. The lower 
 half was an open web, and over it ran a delicate 
 
 [47 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 i^rvftrirriTB 
 
 vine, in black. This was hand embroidered. It 
 was, indeed, a distinguished and beautiful bit of 
 hosiery, worthy, in fact, of these creatures almost 
 divine, but there were now no more of these par- 
 ticular stockings to be had. The girl employed to 
 make them was in the hospital, and this Philadel- 
 phia manufacturer was so peculiar that he had re- 
 fused to put another to the task. 
 
 Somewhat reconciled, I went out again. A lit- 
 tle farther up the avenue was a jewelry store, into 
 which no one might look. Close against the win- 
 dow was a carved oaken panel, obstructing the 
 view. There was nothing but a word, in small 
 gilt letters, on the door to indicate that there jew- 
 els might be had. Within the store glass cases 
 were filled with brilliant gems. At a roll-top desk 
 in the rear was a pleasant-faced, gray-haired old 
 gentleman, leisurely writing a letter with a quill 
 pen. 
 
 "Why do you have no window display?" I ask- 
 ed. He looked up curiously and answered, "Be- 
 cause we do not want any." 
 
 It took some time to convince him that so per- 
 sonal a question might properly be asked, but final- 
 ly he explained . 
 
 [48]
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 "Our customers," said he, "are a class of people 
 who Hke to think their deaHngs are exclusive. 
 They would not readily buy a necklace that every 
 passing eye had seen. It would lose its value if it 
 became too common. 
 
 "And then," he added, "a jewel thief seldom 
 enters a store after what he has not seen." He led 
 the way into a little reception room, quiet and 
 richly furnished. In the centre was a small cabinet 
 on a table. 
 
 "It does not look much," said he, tapping it 
 with his fingers. Taking a key from his pocket, 
 he lifted its front, and revealed, against a back- 
 ground of exquisite white velvet, four diamond 
 collarettes, a tiara and a necklace of pearls. 
 
 "Here," said he, indicating the necklace, "is 
 one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It 
 is intrinsically worth all that, but a woman who 
 wears it about her neck would rather take it from 
 this hidden cabinet thart from under the nose of 
 the people on a holiday." Still more reconciled, I 
 went outside. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, I could not have enjoyed a 
 very close communion with my lady of the quick 
 
 [49 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 coupe, for I think that our sense of values affects 
 our sentiments. I entered what seemed to be a 
 daintily furnished apartment of three small rooms. 
 The proprietor of this receives a customer as a 
 gentleman of leisure does a caller, and discusses 
 business as they loimge in upholstered chairs. He 
 has nothing to sell, but when the business is over 
 he may, perhaps, put a check of twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars in his pocket. The walls are adorned 
 with sketches in water-colors. These are his stock. 
 A customer wanting a room furnished may have 
 ideas of his own, or he may leave the whole matter 
 to this house-scape artist. There are those who 
 worry about the smallest detail, who spend weeks 
 in giving an order, and who haunt the job until it 
 is finished. But a man will sometimes enter, stand 
 by the door, and while consulting his watch, give 
 the number of his residence, just finished, leave in- 
 structions to fit it up all right, and be seen no more 
 until he pays the bill of thousands. The ordinary 
 cost of furnishing and decorating a bedroom is 
 from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, but 
 he can, if put to it, charge three thousand for a 
 table. 
 
 Serenely musing, I passed with lighter feet 
 
 [50]
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 along my way, content to enjoy impersonally the 
 vivid scene. The entrances to many basement 
 doors were decorated with gayly-colored sporting 
 prints. Hunters, in blue coats, red waists and 
 buff-colored breeches, dashed madly after spotted 
 hounds, over fields of gaudy green. Coaches filled 
 with round-faced Englishmen rolled along wind- 
 ing roads between the even hedgerows. There 
 were pictures of game cocks, fighting in the pit, of 
 cricket and of golf. I learned that, without much 
 effort, in the last few years the trade in these old 
 English prints and their imitations has enjoyed 
 amazing growth. 
 
 "It is a fad," said one of the dealers, "made 
 popular, no doubt, by the great increase in country 
 homes and the travel in England, w^hich has been 
 heavy of late, but, like all fads, it will die out. 
 American scenes by American painters are begin- 
 ning to find a demand. Look at the fortune that 
 one man Clark made. He was a dealer in collars 
 and cuffs, but he had a shrewd eye for a painting 
 just the same. He bought the early productions of 
 Inness, Wyant, Homer Martin and Winslow Ho- 
 mer — bought them for a song. He held to them 
 for years, lent them on exhibition to clubs all over 
 
 [51]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 the country, and if any one asked the price they 
 were not for sale. He always insured them heav- 
 ily at the club's expense, and when the bill came up 
 for payment the clubmen opened their eyes. When, 
 at last, he announced an auction sale, buyers came 
 in from everywhere, and, out of sheer competition 
 and surplus wealth more than in real apprecia- 
 tion of them, ran the prices up against each 
 other to fabulous amounts. He cleared a fortune, 
 and since then good American art has had a 
 show." 
 
 These were mteresting glimpses through the 
 windows of a highly-frescoed world. There is an 
 ornate knocker on the exclusive door. Its fasten- 
 ings are, no doubt, worth the attention of gentle- 
 manly thieves or of those who can find their inter- 
 est in solving the problems of an ingenious lock. 
 Such adventurers and artisans may force an en- 
 trance quickly, but, believe me, Honesty, Industry 
 and Thrift must use the knocker, and spend a life- 
 time tapping, tapping, with their backs turned on 
 a fairer world outside; and so, considering the 
 lilies, I reached the WaJdorf, recalled the mandate 
 to the sluggard, and went inside. I leaned upon 
 
 [52]
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 the counter of the office until the tall, blond gen- 
 tleman behind it caught my eye. 
 
 "Do you furnish, pen, ink and paper to the 
 passerby ?" 
 
 He smiled good-naturedly. 
 
 "Down that hall to the right. You will find 
 some desks 'round the corner. They're usually 
 supplied." 
 
 "But I am not a guest, you know." 
 
 He made a gesture as if to say, "This is the 
 caravanserai of the world. Our pockets are full 
 and open. Dip right in." 
 
 As I turned away he said quickly, "Wait a 
 minute." He tapped a bell. A slim youth in uni- 
 form stepped up. 
 
 "Show this gentleman to a desk, and see that 
 there's paper there." But I knew, of course, that 
 this temple could not stand on gestures and a 
 courteous way, and to prove that I am not a wan- 
 dering dreamer, without business parts, once long 
 after, discovering a dress suit upon me, I bought 
 me a dinner there. With this intention forming 
 in my mind, I followed the bellboy to a desk and 
 toiled two hours with a pen. "If we are wise, we 
 will be happy," and so on, through ten pages. 
 
 [53]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 In the air around me, an accompaniment to my 
 simple screed, was a murmur of stirring sounds, 
 such as those the foolish poets think to find only in 
 the forests and the fields. Ghostly whispers, fitful 
 rustlings, laughter, phrases, words, low notes that 
 lightly flecked my ears; odors from the farthest 
 gardens of the earth, and in place of stars there 
 were the twinkling lights of intelligence moving 
 past me. 
 
 Presently I discovered that for some moments 
 I had been looking steadily into one pair of these 
 twinkling lights. They were blue, clear and tran- 
 quil. They beamed upon me from beneath a low- 
 crowned hat, adorned with silken poppies, its 
 broad brim drooping slightly at the sides. 
 
 As consciousness peered out from mine, she 
 turned her eyes away, saying quietly : 
 
 "Now, papa, the place is really pleasanter than 
 this." 
 
 The well-built gentleman looked down at her, 
 his broad, smooth-shaven face beaming with good 
 nature. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "if you and mamma think 
 so, it must be so." 
 
 The mother, a youthful, slim brunette, nodded 
 
 [54]
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE DOOR 
 
 i!f;irt»ir,lFr'J!;|| 
 
 emphatically, but it was evidently in approval of 
 his sentiment, rather than of her daughter's view. 
 
 "I would rather stay here, but Puss " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders daintily and pouted 
 prettily. 
 
 The daughter looked up at papa in the most 
 alluring way. 
 
 "It's so much nicer there — grandma is so un- 
 comfortable here. She just fell in love with the 
 landlady' — a regular, old-fashioned New Eng- 
 lander — a dear " 
 
 The father's eyes began to shift. He looked at 
 his watch. 
 
 "All right. Puss. What was the number again ?" 
 
 She gave it slowly, her glance unconsciously 
 passing mine, and I, in absent-mindedness, wrote 
 the number down. Of course, I should want a 
 boarding house myself, and this might answer if 
 it were not too dear. 
 
 [ 55 ]
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PILE OF GRANITE AND A MOUND OF GRASS. 
 
 NCE more upon the avenue, I 
 came to a book store, and went 
 in. Instantly the old chaos of 
 desires arose. I wanted them 
 all — a vast room to put them 
 in, and then, how I would 
 stand in the midst of them and glow with memory 
 and expectation, marvelling at these treasures of 
 the ages and that they were mine. But, alas ! the 
 thousand things that must be done before that 
 could be. If I had a hundred lives, I thought, or 
 even ten, or two, it might pay to devote one of 
 them to such an end. But when there are so many 
 flowers on the earth, so many mysteries in the 
 grass, so many sweet fruits that I can quickly 
 reach, why pass through this one brief life, in 
 eager and unseeing haste, my eyes fixed even on a 
 star ? 
 
 [56]
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 ^fW 
 
 There was a marvelous copy of "The Senti- 
 mental Journey," with pictures by Maurice Le- 
 loir; price, fifteen dollars. But now, see how 
 ready to our hand is grace and plenty. Why rail 
 at life? Even the idler is preserved — the majority 
 of criminals go unhung, and the greatest of them 
 receive homage, tribute and an aspiring praise. In 
 spite of all our pessimism, a persistent spirit of 
 benevolence rules and showers gratuitous bless- 
 ings, though it be ignored. I found a dainty little 
 copy of the "Jo^^rney," with the same pictures, re- 
 duced, for twenty-five cents, and it was exactly 
 the size convenient for my use. 
 
 At the next corner I was suddenly confronted 
 with a man whose heavy jowls were generously 
 covered with a week's growth of red beard. His 
 shabby coat was pinned across his hairy breast. 
 He wore no shirt. His large round eyes were close 
 together. They were blue and guileless. 
 
 "I want a shave," he said. "I want a shave and 
 a shirt." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Yes; I lost a job this morning because when 
 they seen me I looked so bad they sent me off." 
 
 "How much do you need ?" 
 
 [57]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 nrfitvtrryrm 
 
 "I've got some towards it," he said, emptying 
 his pocket of a number of pennies and nickels, and 
 holding them toward me in the palm of his hand. 
 He said ten cents was all he needed. I gave him 
 this, and passed on. Perhaps I should have gone 
 with him to see that he spent this sum judiciously, 
 but I did not feel that my ten cents had given me 
 so many rights over him, and then, I disliked to 
 take him from this corner, which should have been 
 a good place, with so many people of such vast 
 surplus wealth living close at hand. Thank God, 
 there are wretches of so low a grade that I, with 
 only seven dollars, could still enjoy the pleasures 
 of philanthropy. If he bought his shirt and shave, 
 he would do well ; if not, he would still do well, 
 for there are so many who really long in vain for 
 shirts and shaves, and will say nothing, that with- 
 out these plausible impostors we might forget. 
 
 My way now lay between brownstone walls, and 
 I wondered that any one could envy these people 
 their sombre fronts. A carriage stopped ; a man 
 climbed up the stairs. The oak door closed be- 
 hind him with a click. Poor prisoner, I thought ; 
 you must go in because the house is yours ! But 
 even here the falling twilight bestowed a grace, 
 
 [58]
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 invoked a mystery, beguiling fancy with its tender 
 hues. Rapid hoofbeats, the quick closing of coupe 
 doors, the rumbling, rustling, clattering, talking, 
 laughing of the avenue began again to have a 
 pleasant sound. Perhaps, I thought, there are 
 people who live well and happily in this exclusive 
 luxury. There may be natures great enough to 
 be happy when they need not be. And presently, 
 the lights appearing in the windows made me 
 dream of home. Here was the Plaza and the resi- 
 dence of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Would I care for 
 that? I might. "But I can wait," I thought, 
 "until the patent has expired. If in the end such 
 places are really found worth while, they will be- 
 come as common as II Trovatore. The prices of a 
 first performance are too high." 
 
 Having denied myself this mansion, I thought 
 I could afford bananas for my evening meal. I 
 bought them from a fruit stand at the entrance to 
 the park. Two hours later I escaped from the 
 gauntlet of policemen, to find myself upon One 
 Hundred and Tenth street, vaguely suspecting 
 that one might find many beauties in that marvel 
 of a park when he had mastered the puzzle of 
 where he might not go and could escape the clam- 
 
 [59]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^J'w^ 
 
 orous conflict of its guardians, with their rabid 
 gestures and their cold blue eyes. 
 
 If there are people in New York whom you 
 have known elsewhere, you will meet them, usual- 
 ly, on Broadway. These meetings, that might be 
 called chance in other places, are not so here. They 
 are the certainties. I did not know this on that 
 day, and so when I met my old friend, Mr. 
 Churchill, near the park exit, I ran to him as if he 
 were a fallen star, and mistaking the reason of his 
 serene reception, felt a sudden chill. He had been 
 in the city five years, and there was nothing in this 
 encounter unexpected. 
 
 He took my hand without stopping, and as- 
 sumed I would accompany him, treating me, in 
 fact, as a belated guest for whom dinner has been 
 waiting. As we exchanged news, I forgot him 
 and these surroundings, carried back to a summer 
 of my youth when I worshipped this man's wife 
 with the fever of a passionate boy, awakened to 
 romantic feeling, but without knowledge of love, 
 except through its embryo desires — without 
 knowledge of law, except through the arbitrary 
 mandates of my elders, who interfered with me. 
 She was thirty-eight, and I was twelve. I could 
 
 [60]
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 4m 
 
 not sleep the night after 1 called her Mabel, look- 
 ing ^yly into her smiling eyes. She curtsied to 
 me, laughed softly, and sometimes I thought she 
 grew rosy when I kissed her hand. Once, for a 
 long time, I sat at her feet, my cheek against her 
 knee. 
 
 Mr. Churchill was very wealthy then, and this, 
 my lady, was the good fairy of our suburban town. 
 I was sad because her many social duties kept me 
 from her. When others were seated with her, 
 under the Japanese lanterns on the lawn, I lay in 
 the shadow watching her. How could she seem* 
 so merry when she confessed to me afterwards it 
 was all a bore? When the guests were gone she 
 would come to my shadow, take my hand, lean 
 back and close her eyes in weariness. And then 
 Mr. Churchill would come, and after a time of 
 peace, they would talk with me about the mysteries 
 of life and religion, for these things were a tor- 
 ment to me then. 
 
 Mr. Churchill was my teacher in our Sunday- 
 school, and the substance of his teaching was that 
 it was not wise to speculate too much upon these 
 mysteries ; that in this maze of life one would be 
 lost unless he kept a hold on faith ; that to be good 
 
 [6i]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 I must love God, and that if I was good I would, 
 perhaps, be happy. 
 
 Life, however, in its material phases, was evi- 
 dently a mystery a man must solve. He told me 
 often that the smallest detail was of great 
 importance, and that to succeed I must master 
 them. 
 
 "If you do," he said, "they will fit you to make 
 use of opportunities others pass by." 
 
 He was the one who acquainted me with that 
 dazzling gala:xy of men who had risen from pov- 
 erty to great wealth. 
 
 "Remember," he would say, "that Marshall 
 Field began with as little as you." 
 
 About this time, Mr. Churchill was induced to 
 merge his business into one of the earlier trusts. 
 He became involved in a dispute over his position, 
 withdrew in defense of his rights, compelled his 
 associates to his point of view, and when the trust 
 was formed, waged a merciless war upon those 
 companies that would not come in. In this in- 
 stance, the independents were the stronger, and 
 Mr. Churchill lost his fortune in the end. His 
 health was undermined, and when, years later, his 
 scheme was forced through by other men, he Wcis 
 
 [62]
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 ^n™w 
 
 glad to take a modest position with them at two 
 thousand a year. 
 
 I experienced a shock when, entering their 
 apartments in Harlem, I took Mrs. Churchill's 
 hand. She might have been the grandmother of 
 my Mabel. Distress lurked in her countenance, 
 and yet there was the spirit of perennial spring in 
 her eyes. They filled quickly as I kissed her hand, 
 and this time I knew the blush was there. 
 
 "How I have changed," she said. Her voice no 
 mcfre than reached me, and yet in my heart it 
 sounded like a wail. 
 
 "But I am not unhappy," she said anxiously, 
 
 "Of course not," I said lightly. "Why should 
 you be?" 
 
 Until her son arrived, however, there was not a 
 moment when the shadow of loss was entirely 
 lifted. Is it possible, I thought, that a sane person 
 in comfort can really grieve for the added posses- 
 sions and social place that once wearied them? 
 With her son beside her at the table, she became 
 more animated. Her eyes were brighter, and 
 sometimes, as they turned toward him, they were 
 all alight. This was love, no doubt, but the sparkle 
 of it was caused by hope. 
 
 [63]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 The boy was a clerk in a commission house, and 
 when the first diffidence was overcome he told 
 me of his duties, becoming enthusiastic as he 
 talked. 
 
 "My chances are good," he assured me' with 
 sparkling eyes. "If anything should happen to 
 the shipping clerk, I will get his job." 
 
 "And then what?" I asked politely. 
 
 "Well, of course, I want to be a salesman some 
 day, and when I have learned the business and 
 got acquainted, I expect to start in for myself." 
 He smiled in the half -apologetic manner of a boy 
 who is afraid his ambition may seem presump- 
 tuous; but in his mother's eyes the flame of hope 
 burned bright. 
 
 "And then?" I asked him. 
 
 He stared at me in amazement. 
 
 "Why, then," he answered, "I shall be all 
 right." 
 
 "Yes," said his father, like an echo from other 
 years upon his distant lawn, "Charles M. Schwab 
 began with less." 
 
 When I rose to go Mr. Churchill asked me 
 where I was stopping, and I told him that I had 
 not yet begun to stop. 
 
 [64]
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 JirMirirrrTB 
 
 "We can't offer beds as we used to," said Mrs. 
 Churchill sadly. 
 
 "Such things are not so important on these 
 summer nights." 
 
 This was taken as a bit of pleasant humor, and 
 I left them smiling at the quaint conceit. 
 
 I walked past endless rows of hotels and dwell- 
 ings, gaping first in senseless wonder at the wrecks 
 of buildings, the half-dug cellars, the rising walls 
 of stone, the litter of material, the derricks, scaf- 
 foldings and the countless structures finished yes- 
 terday. They were tearing down good buildings 
 to build larger, better ones. At last the signifi- 
 cance of this spectacle joined me and cheered my 
 way. It spoke serenely, saying : 
 
 "Splendor has a virtue that pride cannot ab- 
 sorb. Enterprise, though it be greedy, may dig 
 forth treasures and pile them into piles, but Van- 
 ity may keep exclusive only the burdens that en- 
 cumber, and those baubles which lose their value 
 when worn about the common neck." 
 
 "I think that's so," I answered, "But not to- 
 night. To-night I'll let Cornelius sleep alone." 
 
 In Riverside Park I found a man dozing on a 
 bench flooded with electric light. He lifted hi3 
 
 [65]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^fi^iw 
 
 head quickly at my approach, saw no uniform and 
 was at peace. 
 
 "What time is it?" he asked. 
 
 I made a guess, and sat down to talk. 
 
 "Why don't you get out of this light? You 
 would sleep better on the grass ofif there." 
 
 "I don't like to bother the cop." 
 
 I laughed, and he gave me a kind of ogling 
 glance. 
 
 "Does that make you happy?" 
 
 "If we are wise," I said, "we will be happy." 
 
 I took my manuscript from the bag, held it 
 to the light and read it through. He listened, his 
 somewhat bleary eyes cocked on me shrewdly. 
 
 There was a decent silence, then he said : 
 
 "That sounds first-rate. It's what I call pcv- 
 etical. I'm an educated man, but I have been a 
 fool. If we are wise we will be happy, and if we 
 are happy we will be good. That's the gist of the 
 idea, eh? But, supposing you're a fool? You 
 know I'm not the only one." He chuckled to 
 himself and added : "I think you'd be more useful 
 if you'd find out how to be happy and a fool." 
 
 "All right. Be a happy fool, and Wisdom will 
 include your folly." 
 
 [66]
 
 n 
 
 en 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 
 3 
 
 r- 
 > 
 
 CTQ
 
 GRANITE AND GRASS 
 
 "I hate to ask it/' he said, "but could you give 
 me fifteen cents for a bed ? Just think of it ! I 
 am reduced to begging for a* bed." 
 
 When he was gone I walked to darker regions 
 and, finding a little mound, lay down- beside it 
 and slept soundly on the grass. In the morning 
 I found that my pillow was a grave. On the 
 headstone, almost hidden by the grass, was cut 
 this white inscription: 
 
 "In Memory of an Amiable Child." 
 
 Amazing epitaph! placed there by unknown 
 hands, and now preserved^ — by whom, for what? 
 — ^upon this public hillside. 
 
 Then I knew that this city had a soul, for in 
 its progress it had reverently stepped over this. 
 
 From here I could see Grant's Tomb. Was 
 the city, then, a thing with vast and barbarous 
 ambitions and a little soul? 
 
 The sun upon my eyes had wakened me. The 
 driver of a milk wagon drove whistling down the 
 boulevard. The breeze was balmy. The river 
 reflected the tints of early morning. The palaces 
 across the avenue revealed a natural beauty no 
 
 [69]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 .^/itirirr'-rB 
 
 artifice could hide, and even here beside the as- 
 phalt, through boughs and irritable sparrows and 
 carping insects, the familiar optimistic voices 
 hummed to me. 
 
 While I may choose my way, I will not hesi- 
 tate between that pile of granite and this mound 
 of grass. 
 
 [70]
 
 MBHllllHBHiHk 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH. 
 
 
 ■^' . ,--1 
 
 : r 
 
 ! 
 
 >^ 
 
 H 
 
 
 HE boarding-house proved to be 
 an old-fashioned, four-story 
 residence of plain brownstone, 
 flanked by Muschenheim's and 
 the Life Building. It was an 
 unlikely place to find a dear 
 lady. Her little sitting-room, with its whatnot 
 in the corner, round marble-top table covered 
 with an embroidered doily, her work basket and 
 Bible, and a few books of poems and essays ; with 
 its two cushioned rockers and one cane-bottom 
 chair, was a little gem of New England in this 
 modern Babylon. She was a cousin of Phillips 
 Brooks. I sometimes thought it singular that she 
 should gain distinction from this fact. All the 
 human tenderness, the rugged faith, the quick 
 resentment of all unorthodox conceits, the spirit 
 
 [71]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 of generosity, of affection, beauty and simplicity 
 that made his sermons famous, shone from her 
 face. She had for thirty years conducted a New 
 York boarding-house successfully, and like a true 
 •Christian. Did that not require as much genius 
 as to conduct a church ? 
 
 She was past seventy when she took me under 
 her watchful and sympathetic eye. Her hair was 
 gray, fluted at the sides, and covered with a square 
 of lace. Her skin was fair and sensitive. She 
 personally did her own marketing, going forth 
 in the morning with a cane, moving slowly — a 
 distinguished and exquisite figure of age, main- 
 taining in herself the personality of a passing day, 
 serenely observant of a new rod that hemmed her 
 in, crowding closer and closer tO' her door. Hour 
 after hour she sat by her first-floor window and 
 looked out upon the busy street. These hand- 
 some men and women were good to see. She 
 wore good black cashmere herself, but the bril- 
 liant costumes of these ladies, who stepped from 
 carriages and swept with smiles and laughter to 
 the restaurant stairs, burst upon her view and gave 
 her a wholesome pleasure, uncritical and sane. 
 She never mentioned the midnight orgies, the fre- 
 
 [72]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 .fruvim' 
 
 qiient wild sounds of revelry ; but I have seen her 
 blush at them. 
 
 She could look with kindly eyes upon the but- 
 terflies of pleasure and yearn over the thoughtless 
 failings of the foolish, but her neighbor, on the 
 other hand, the brilliant spirit of cynicism work- 
 ing silently within its ornate temples filled her 
 with a kind of dread, and so, between the flesh 
 and the devil she kept an unobtrusive portal lead- 
 ing to the narrow way. 
 
 After a little visit by her front window she ac- 
 cepted me without references. I was to pay seven 
 dollars a week for a cosy hall bedroom and three 
 good meals a day. 
 
 "There is the money for the first week," I said, 
 leaning toward her and dropping the bills in her 
 lap. 
 
 "But it is all you have?" she ventured, 
 anxiouslv. 
 
 "There is thirty cents left for a toothbrush and 
 a cake of soap." 
 
 "And carfare?" 
 
 "I like to walk." 
 
 "You need some one to look after you. Let 
 "me see vour bag." 
 
 [73]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 She opened it and poked within as my mother 
 used to do. 
 
 "Don't you brush your hair?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. "I must get me a hairbrush, 
 two shirts, four collars, some stockings and 
 underwear. I shall wear cuffs, for they 
 look nice, if I can get them without a chain and 
 ball." 
 
 "In a way," she answered, "that reminds me 
 of Thoreau." 
 
 She took a book from her table and read a 
 paragraph or two. 
 
 "Thoreau and Emerson combined come pretty 
 near the truth. But perhaps we should add Ches- 
 terfield and this new philosopher, the young Mr. 
 Rockefeller, too." 
 
 "Come — do keep this money for the present. I 
 can wait." 
 
 "I think I can get a few dollars without en- 
 gaging upon a prolonged chase for a million." 
 
 "Is it so bad as that ?" 
 
 "I have just escaped from twenty years of it. 
 One must look out. Once I made five thousand 
 dollars in eight months, and still I needed a little 
 more to pay a bill for fourteen pairs of cuffs." 
 
 [74]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 ^nW 
 
 She lifted her hands, murmuring, "What ex- 
 travagance !" 
 
 "Of course it was," I said. "Do men scheme 
 and toil extravagantly that they may live temper- 
 ate lives?" 
 
 She went out to buy her Sunday roast, and I 
 went with her. 
 
 Between the house and an old-fashioned iron 
 fence was a little grassy space of about six feet. 
 Coming to the gate, we encountered the mother 
 and daughter I had seen at the Waldorf. I op- 
 ened the gate and waited. They smilingly per- 
 mitted the older lady tO' pass out. Then they 
 passed in with a graceful, impersonal recognition 
 of my services, but in the daughter's eyes was a 
 quick, frank look of surprise, and I thought that 
 a spirit of mischief lurked in the dimples as she 
 smiled her thanks. 
 
 On the corner of Broadway stands a large 
 clothing house, the windows filled with proper 
 figures, wanting only a spark of life sufficient to 
 send them airily down Broadway. They all wore 
 cuffs, and no one could doubt for a moment that 
 their hair was brushed. 
 
 I went inside, bought my toothbrush and cake 
 
 [75]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 '^f rfviriFriirp 
 
 of soap, and asked for the manager. I found him 
 talking to a salesman in the rear. He was a big, 
 handsome man, with a trim black mustache and 
 rosy, olive skin. His thick black hair was parted 
 cleanly in the middle. His sparkling black eyes 
 were alive with intelligence concerning gents' fur- 
 nishing goods. 
 
 "I want a hairbrush," I said. He bowed and 
 motioned amiably, saying, "In front — ^to the 
 right." 
 
 "But," I said, "I would like to earn it if I may. 
 Would it be possible to find work here for a hair- 
 brush, and no more?" 
 
 He looked me over, saw that my clothes were 
 good, and that my eye was sane. He smiled and 
 said : 
 
 "Is this a campaign bet?" 
 
 "All I need in the world at this minute is a 
 hairbrush. I would like to get it without binding 
 myself to service by the month." 
 
 "Is it an assignment for a Sunday paper?" 
 
 "That's a good idea," I said, looking at him 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I might help you out." He 
 led the way to the parcel counter, looked over the 
 
 [76]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 addresses, selected five, and said : "If you will de- 
 liver these I will give you a hairbrush worth fifty 
 cents." 
 
 I took up two of the bundles and briskly went 
 my way. 
 
 The first one was for a physician on Thirtieth 
 street, near Fifth avenue. The hallboy took the 
 bundles and the slip to be signed and, returning, 
 told me to wait until the clothes had been tried 
 on. From the reception room. I presently heard 
 the physician dismissing a patient. 
 
 "Cheer up now," he said, "or you will only 
 make things worse." 
 
 His tone was rich, full and reassuring — that 
 of a man whose health was good and who could 
 look upon sickness philosophically. 
 
 Twenty minutes later he suddenly confronted 
 me, indignation in his eye. 
 
 "They never altered them at all !" he exclaimed, 
 throwing the clothes upon the table. "You can 
 take them back and tell them that I am very much 
 annoyed by this delay." 
 
 "Cheer up," I said. 
 
 "What's that?" he snapped. 
 
 "Cheer up, or you'll only make things worse." 
 
 [77]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 "Young man," he remarked with dignity, "I 
 shall report your impertinence, you may be sure." 
 
 The second bundle, like a fairy hand, led me 
 into an inner room, where a famous editor of a 
 famous magazine sat at his desk reading with 
 weary eyes a manuscript entitled, "The Light of 
 Our Civilization Illuminates Japan." The door, 
 with his name upon it, had been left open. There 
 had been no one to stop me, and so I had 
 stepped inside, and then this suddenly seemed 
 to be one of those golden opportunities we read 
 about. 
 
 "I have an article." 
 
 "Leave it with the boy outside." 
 
 "Here is a bundle from " 
 
 "Leave it with the boy outside." 
 
 I began to succumb tO' the sense of remoteness 
 that filled the silent room. Still, I faltered : 
 
 "Will you sign this slip?" 
 
 "Give it to the boy outside." 
 
 And in a voice that had, in spite of me, become 
 sepulchral, I said : 
 
 "There is no boy outside." 
 
 He looked quickly up at this, and banged a bell 
 savagelv until a startled boy appeared. 
 
 [78]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 
 "What do you mean by running about? I 
 can't be interrupted in this way." 
 
 We retired hastily, leaving him to the civiliza- 
 tion that illuminates Japan. 
 
 The manager was waiting for me at the door. 
 "Here," he said, "I don't think you'll do." 
 "I suppose not," I answered, "but let me deliver 
 the others. It won't be long." 
 
 He took the returned bundle, saying : 
 "What did you do to the doctor, anyway ?" 
 "Did you hear from him?" 
 "Did I ? He almost broke the 'phone." 
 "He was mad because they didn't fit ; I told him 
 to cheer up, and that only made things worse." 
 As I took the remaining bundles the manager 
 watched me with an uncertain mind. 
 
 "This may be fun for you," he said, "but it's 
 only fair for you to do it right." 
 
 "Like I wanted to some day own the store?" 
 "That's it," he answered, brightening. "That's 
 the way." 
 
 "And he polished up the handle so carefully that 
 now he's the ruler of the Queen's Navee. You 
 know," I added, "that was one of the things writ- 
 ten by order of the Crown to inspire enlistment 
 
 [79]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 v;hen the British youth began to doubt the real 
 joys and glories of the service. The author was 
 knighted for his success in allaying that sus- 
 picion." 
 
 A moment more of this and the manager would 
 have asked me to take my brush and go, so I 
 hurried out, delivering two bundles, oblivious of 
 incident, with all the concentrated alertness of an 
 ambitious lad who had in him the making of a 
 merchant prince. 
 
 The last errand took me to a room resounding 
 with outlandish sounds. Through a haze of to- 
 bacco smoke I saw a number of people lounging, 
 talking, walking up and down. 
 
 At a piano in one corner a lady with a very 
 droll countenance, very blonde hair and a gor- 
 geous hat and gown, was trying a new song, with 
 the assistance of an amiable accompanist. 
 
 At another piano in another corner a very fat 
 man was hanging, as it were, over the keys, 
 thrumming and humming a song he was com- 
 posing. I suspected that his was the name upon 
 my bundle, for I had heard of it before. The 
 song was very sad, and in spite of his exuberant, 
 well-fed appearance, he seemed to feel it. I surely 
 
 [80]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 *^^\f^ 
 
 saw a tear roll down his big fat face as, a verse 
 completed, he sang it softly through. 
 
 "I think that will fetch 'em," he said, turning 
 to a friend upon his left, and he tenderly repeated 
 the refrain : "When Mother Says Good-by." 
 
 He turned about with a broad smile and a 
 sparkle of satisfaction in his eyes, took the bundle, 
 asked how all the sports were in the store, taking 
 me, I suppose, for a new clerk who had been 
 pressed into messenger service, signed my slip 
 with a bold hand, arose, patted his protruding 
 stomach absently, and sauntered out the door. 
 
 As I followed, admiring his easy roll, I noticed 
 the sign of a somewhat obscure periodical and, 
 on an impulse, climbed the stairs. 
 
 In a dingy little room, just large enough for 
 two chairs and a table, I found my friend. That 
 much was determined the moment I looked into 
 his eyes. Deep, sympathetic, questioning, ready 
 to receive or to bestow. 
 
 We looked at each other for a moment, smiled 
 and became at once intimate, as from our youth 
 up. He took the manuscript I handed him, and 
 leaning back in his chair, read it through. 
 
 For me the room was no longer dark and 
 
 [8i]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 shabby — it was a cosy corner of my home. From 
 the table between us rose famiHar forms, and I 
 knew that my friend, in those scattered pages be- 
 fore him, had been summoning to earth our mu- 
 tual companions in Dreamland. 
 
 "I would like to use this," he said, "but I can 
 only offer you fifteen dollars for it. I am limited 
 to a cent a word." 
 
 "I could use five dollars of it now." 
 
 He made out an order for the entire amount. 
 
 "If you are free," he said, "we might lunch 
 together. We can stop on our way and get this 
 cashed." 
 
 In the office were a number of girls folding 
 and addressing circulars and working tensely at 
 typewriters. Men with green shades over their 
 eyes were pointing their noses at ledgers, and 
 other men and boys were carrying packages, like 
 ants scurrying about the business of a great com- 
 mune. But this was no commune. In the midst 
 of it a short, thin man moved with quick gestures, 
 short orders and sharp glances from his rest- 
 less eyes. 
 
 My friend caught him, as it were, upon the 
 fly, handed him the order, and watched him run 
 
 [82]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 «r*tirir,r TB 
 
 off with it. In course. of time he managed to 
 countersign it and hand it to us as we passed. 
 
 "What is he doing?" 
 
 "He is succeeding." * 
 
 We got the money from the cashier and, reach- 
 ing the street, heard the pandemonium of pianos 
 and voices from the room where Mother said 
 Good-by. 
 
 "What are they doing in there?" 
 
 "Succeeding." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I am drawing a good salary. The things I 
 am able to get the boss to publish that I believe 
 in are very few. The rest must tickle the vanity 
 or cater to the foibles and prejudices of readers. 
 From my standpoint, I am not succeeding." 
 
 At lunch I told him of the little tombstone in 
 memory of the amiable child. His eyes glowed 
 as he said : 
 
 "Write me something about that." 
 
 We talked of love, of beauty, of happiness; 
 we revealed to each other memories that made our 
 eyes moist, and we felt no shame. As we pressed 
 this vintage, articles appeared like drops of wine. 
 By labor of the most delightful kind, two hours 
 
 [83]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^nW 
 
 a day for about two weeks at what I wished to 
 write, I could secure my expenses for four months 
 or more. How difficult it is, I thought, to escape 
 a surplus. 
 
 "I have a subject for you," said my friend. 
 "You can write it for another magazine." 
 
 There was a fine light in his eyes as he leaned 
 forward, saying, "It's about the foundlings." 
 
 "Good heavens," I exclaimed, "that has been 
 written about for a hundred years!" 
 
 "That's just the trouble," he said, "the very 
 reason why it should be written about again. 
 
 "Let me tell you how I happened to get this 
 idea. One storm.y day last winter I was passing 
 by the New York Foundling Asylum, when a girl 
 turned from the walk and hastened to the lower 
 entrance. She carried a bundle, and I knew by the 
 way she held it what it contained. She rang the 
 bell, and this fact interested me, for these poor 
 creatures usually place their babies in the criB 
 in the vestibule outside and hurry stealthily away ; 
 but now I saw (here he looked at me impress- 
 ively) that there was no crib in the vestibule. I 
 knew it used to be there, and wondered why it 
 had been taken inside. I immediately rang the 
 
 [84]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 
 bell, and was admitted. The girl was seated in 
 the reception hall. The old clothes about fier 
 bundle had been partially removed, and a little of 
 the child's face had been uncovered. 
 
 "I was suddenly impressed by the fact that the 
 hall was finished in bright kalsomine and polished 
 wood. It was so warm and clean, and smelled 
 so sweet that it seemed a cheerful place, in spite 
 of the gloomy day. 
 
 "In the center of the floor was a wicker cradle 
 containing a mattress covered with a fine white 
 sheet. There was a pillow trimmed with wide 
 embroidery, and the word 'Baby' was worked 
 across the front in blue silk. There was a clean 
 blue and white canopy over the cradle, with the 
 curtains held back by new ribbons. 
 
 "I expected to witness an unpleasant scene. And 
 when they've kept her waiting long enough, I 
 thought, some hard-featured woman of foreboding 
 virtue will come for the child, read the girl a lec- 
 ture, and warn her to make no effort to see the 
 baby again. She will have a very enjoyable ten 
 minutes — will this representative of the church 
 and city — and when she has added all she can 
 to the humiliation of the victim will dismiss her 
 
 [85]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 to the merry streets. This expectation was war- 
 ranted by what I had seen in plays and books. 
 Now, this is what happened : A sister entered, and 
 quickly going toward the girl, apologized for the 
 delay. 
 
 " 'What a pretty baby !' she said, taking the 
 little one from the bundle. *Is it a boy or a girl ?' 
 
 " 'A girl,' said the mother. 
 
 " 'Have you named her yet?' 
 
 " 'No.' 
 
 " 'She is pretty young to be named,' and the 
 sister bent over the baby so that the little hand 
 that was reaching out could touch her bonnet. 
 
 " 'Is there any name you want to give her?' 
 
 "There was a moment's pause, and then there 
 came a very low answer : 'No.' 
 
 " 'You are the mother ?' 
 
 " 'Yes.' 
 
 " 'I am glad of that. We like to have the chil- 
 dren, especially the young babies, brought to us 
 by the mothers. Well, now, if you will take your 
 daughter and place her in the cradle we will send 
 her up to be looked after. Do you want to give 
 the baby to us ?' 
 
 "The girl took the child and held it for a long 
 
 [86]
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 time silently. She was hesitating. She had, of 
 course, brought it there for that purpose, but it 
 was hard to do. 
 
 "Presently the sister asked, quietly : 
 
 " 'Would you like to stay here with the child?' 
 
 "The girl looked up eagerly. 
 
 " 'I haven't any money — I haven't anything 
 at all.' 
 
 " 'You won't need anything if you come here. 
 You can help take care of your baby.' 
 
 "Then the girl broke down. When this scene 
 was over I talked with the sister, and she told me 
 that she used to leave the cradle outside the door, 
 but she said, 'We found that it was often as great 
 a charity to receive the mother as it is the child. 
 They are almost always young, and so far as real 
 morality is concerned, they are innocent. They 
 need a good atmosphere, education, and, above all 
 things, having brought them into the world, they 
 need their babies.' 
 
 "Now," said my friend, "I went all through 
 that institution. You will be amazed. Go 
 up there. You will get something good out of 
 it." 
 
 "Indeed I will." 
 
 [87]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "I tell you, that taking the crib inside is an evi- 
 dence of progress that fairly shouts." 
 
 "Who did it?" 
 
 "I don't know. I suppose it was just one of 
 those great things that drop — like the gentle 
 dew." 
 
 When he left me I bought a paper and, walking 
 to Madison Square, sat down to read. In a col- 
 umn of odds and ends I found my poem. 
 
 "The following lines," it said, "were picked up 
 on Fifth avenue, near Twenty-fifth street, yes- 
 terday afternoon : 
 
 " *My soul greets the soul of the sunlight, 
 
 I feel a caress in the rain. 
 There are blossoms that spring from the pavement, 
 
 Companions for me on the plain. 
 
 " 'The winds, as they pass, bring a message, 
 
 And bear one from me as they go; 
 A post that delivers my missives. 
 
 To those I have known or might know. 
 
 " *At random I send forth my treasures, 
 
 By vessels outbound on the sea, 
 And every man's incoming cargo 
 
 Has ingots and spices for me.' 
 
 [88]
 
 Summer in Madison Square. 
 (The Tower of Madison Square.)
 
 THE NEED OF A HAIRBRUSH 
 
 
 "It is said that Russell Sage dropped this as 
 he was walking home in the sunlight after a day 
 of busy coupon-clipping and rent-collecting. Did 
 he receive this from some one in lieu of rent? 
 If so, it is to be hoped that an eviction followed. If 
 Mr. Sage wrote it this foolish poem becomes some- 
 thing. In that case, as a bit of frank naivete, it 
 is simply great!" 
 
 And so, after all, it was Honesty, Industry and 
 Thrift that had given a significance to my verse. 
 
 In pleasant meditation I walked to the board- 
 ing-house and went upstairs to get ready for din- 
 ner. Standing before the mirror, I remembered 
 the hairbrush I had forgotten to claim. 
 
 [91]
 
 mJtOUB^^m 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS. 
 
 E have made of society a kind of 
 horse show. We enter our- 
 selves, and etiquette is a col- 
 lection of rules by which our 
 points are judged. 
 
 We are not innocent, be- 
 cause we are content to be respectable. We are 
 not happy, because we wish to be admired. 
 
 I can eat toast without making a noise. Be- 
 hold, my napkin is across my knee. I sip my 
 soup from the back of my spoon. Prejudiced 
 judges may withhold a blue ribbon, but, thank 
 God, I cannot be excluded from the show. 
 
 There were three single ladies who sat opposite 
 me at the table, whose very silence made the web 
 kin ring. "Be careful," shrieked their eyelids, 
 
 [92]
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 "what you say or do, for we have our positions 
 to maintain." 
 
 They reminded me of the guardians of the 
 park. In their presence none but a fool or a mad- 
 man would pick a flower or put his feet upon the 
 grass. As a reward for keeping in the middle of 
 the walk, I was invited to their rooms and per- 
 mitted to stroll with them over such portions of 
 the common as are designated for public use by 
 flags floating from conspicuous poles. 
 
 We spent the evening skirting the edges. The 
 game consisted in preventing Miss Minnie, the 
 younger of the three, from tripping over the 
 border, or telling what she thought she saw when 
 peeping through the brush. 
 
 I longed to take these ladies by the hand and 
 lead them into the prohibited places, that they 
 might see how beautiful and harmless they 
 were Would it have reassured them to be told 
 that these also were the haunts of God and 
 His angels? They would have thought me 
 irreverent or irrelevant — synonymous terms to 
 them. 
 
 They were not seeking for beauty, but for the 
 credit of circumspection — a dull game, indeed, 
 
 [93]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 .t''.9^wtttnrvU 
 
 were it not for the imaginary evils they were 
 escaping. 
 
 It would be cruel to convince them of this, for 
 their pride was in it. It would be cruel — but have 
 no fear for them, it is impossible. 
 
 The gentleman upon my right was lean, and 
 he upon my left was stout. The one looked like 
 Mr. Evarts, the other like Mr. Morgan. If there 
 were other and profounder differences between 
 them, we could not know it, for all differences 
 were punctiliously concealed. We could talk of 
 the weather, of foreign and domestic events, if 
 we raised no issue, of the sermons of orthodox 
 ministers, of the Grand Opera, ignoring, of 
 course, any moral significance in the themes, and 
 we might mention in a casual way that the stock 
 market was up or down. 
 
 Both my neighbors were courteous. They did 
 not speak often, but when they did they spoke 
 clearly. I concluded without any evidence that 
 the one upon the right, the lean one, was a bach- 
 elor. He could turn a phrase in such a way as to 
 permit the single ladies to suspect a. joke and in- 
 dulge a smile. I imagine he had it in him to 
 raise their hair, but of this I was not sure. 
 
 [94]
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 Our two families had tables by themselves. The 
 Bigelows were so seated that I could see the eyes 
 of the daughter when they lifted, but only the 
 backs or profiles of the other three. 
 
 The Townsends were but two — an imposing 
 couple, very large, very wealthy, but genial and 
 simple with it all. 
 
 Mr. Townsend was a kind of composite pic- 
 ture of the Quaker of Quaker Oats, Prince Bis- 
 marck, General Miles and DeWolf Hopper. His 
 wife was Wilhelmina, enormously enlarged. Her 
 eyes were frank and luminous. Her full round 
 cheeks were as soft and brilliant as the petals of 
 crimson poppies. They were often out, but when 
 they were home they spent the evenings at back- 
 gammon, and I was sometimes invited to take a 
 hand. I only remember that these evenings were 
 pleasant. We laughed and played, and said things 
 not worth repeating. Ideas would have been a 
 nuisance here. Books would not be written if all 
 the world were happy, well and sane, but it was 
 only now and then that I could drop in there. 
 
 One day there came a charming little woman, 
 with a good, plump figure, real blonde hair, and 
 a countenance ingenuous and demure. She brought 
 
 [95]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^fi^W^ 
 
 a letter of introduction from Theodore Thomas, 
 an old friend of our landlady. She had for a 
 number of years sung acceptably with the orches- 
 tras, but had not become famous. She believed 
 that her successful obscurity was due to the fact 
 that she would not go upon the stage. I accom- 
 panied her to church one morning to hear her sing. 
 Her voice was clear and sweet, and of just suf- 
 ficient volume for a church. Seen in the dim 
 organ loft, through eyes affected by her melody, 
 she seemed a vision of earth and heaven, sug- 
 gesting not so much the angelic woman, as the 
 womanly angel who, when the song is over, will 
 need protection from the rain outside. 
 
 On the way home almost every sentence was a 
 reference to the career she had let pass by. There 
 was no hint of dissatisfaction. Far from it ; nor 
 did she boast vaingloriously. She was serenely 
 conscious of her own respectable estate, taking 
 without apology as a thing of course the 
 expressions of approval that complacence feeds 
 upon. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "we both know that 
 stage life is not necessarily immoral. No one 
 who knows anything believes that nowadays ; but, 
 
 [96]
 
 INTIiMATE STRANGERS 
 
 "iUMi 
 
 still, I never could quite get my own consent. Do 
 you think that so fooHsh? No?" 
 
 She talked a good deal about her husband, in- 
 sisting upon their fondness for each other, as if 
 I had persisted in thinking it was the most amaz- 
 ing thing, conchiding each assurance with some- 
 thing he had said in praise of her refusal to go on 
 the stage. 
 
 She asked me to her room, and as I was about 
 to close the door behind me, said sweetly : 
 
 "You had better leave it open just a little, don't 
 you think?" 
 
 The Bigelows occupied the entire second floor. 
 They paid sixty dollars a week for their accom- 
 modations and their board. The ladies dressed 
 with expensive taste, hired a carriage when they 
 wished, visited the art rooms on Fifth avenue, 
 buying what they fancied, and their discrimina- 
 tion cost them dear. We saw very little of Mr. 
 Bigelow. He was too busy winning the money 
 for these things. I say winning, for with the 
 standard of wages at a dollar and a half a day 
 no one can be said to earn so much. The standard 
 must be raised considerably before such an equa- 
 tion can be true. 
 
 [97]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 I 
 
 Miss Nettie was a pure delight — impulsive and 
 merry, frank, affectionate; but through it all a 
 persistent, old-fashioned habit of reflection. She 
 possessed the form of a girl, the impulses of a 
 child, the mind of a woman. Her sentimental 
 nature was a blend of these. 
 
 They sometimes took me with them to the art 
 stores, and her unaffected knowledge and percep- 
 tion of this world — almost closed to me — were 
 given freely, and to my understanding there came 
 great, new things, and to my ears her pleasant 
 voice. As she discoursed quietly a touch of color, 
 a fine effect, a novel idea seen suddenly, might 
 prompt her to seize my hand and press it. I would 
 say this was done unconsciously, except for this — 
 never at these times was her mother looking. And 
 yet this may have been due to instinct, the pre- 
 caution and the impulse alike unconscious. 
 
 One morning as I was walking toward Broad- 
 way I heard some one behind me calling. 
 
 "What do you think," she exclaimed, her face 
 beaming, "mamma is not feeling very well, and 
 I am out alone !" 
 
 "Come with me." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 [98] 
 
 I
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 ^R^w 
 
 "Across the ferry at One Hundred and Twenty- 
 fifth street and along the road by the river. We 
 can have dinner at an inn I know. We can 
 have a fine day in the open, watch the sunset 
 from the PaHsades, see the lights of the city 
 appear." 
 
 "A fairyland!" 
 
 She looked, not at Broadway, but far up it 
 wistfully, and then : 
 
 "I can't." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 She gave one of the usual reasons, but I have 
 forgotten which. 
 
 It was some time after this that her mother 
 changed places with her at their table. That even- 
 ing I was invited to their rooms for a little music 
 and parchesi. Miss Nettie slipped a note into 
 my hand, and in my room I read: 
 
 "Don't think it is my fault. My mother says 
 I must not look at you so much. That makes 
 me feel uncomfortable. I can't help it, so if I 
 grow suddenly cross-eyed when you chance on my 
 unthinking gaze, remember I am not to blame. I 
 wish I were a boy and could run. away. 
 
 [99]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "Come here only when she asks you. It makes 
 me creep to write that. 
 
 "Why don't you become famous or something? 
 Then she would not care. This is all so unneces- 
 sary, so hideous, absurd. I have forgotten just 
 what century we live in, and so no date to this. 
 
 "Until we meet, and then look down." 
 
 Some two weeks later the Bigelows sailed for 
 Europe, and four other strangers filled the places 
 they had left. 
 
 It is an easy thing to make one's living ini the 
 world. We are mistaken when we think our 
 anxieties or our unhappiness spring from the dif- 
 ficulties of securing our material needs. We need 
 affection, and that is difficult to give or take. 
 There are so many petty considerations, so many 
 misleading desires in the way. 
 
 A man may put himself in order, give himself 
 a good government, and so, taking his kingdom 
 with him, move freely in the world, received, but 
 not subjugated by the authorities outside. We 
 may flout the laws with sound principles, and so 
 be free, but if in our liberty we move alone the 
 best we can receive is tranquillity and a hungry
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 
 heart. No philosophy can last that would ease 
 men of their need of men. We may learn to move 
 in this world of strangers with serene, perceiving 
 eyes, but delight comes only through affection. 
 I can pass by this door complacently, but I would 
 rather be welcomed in. So much for philosophy. 
 
 And equity is this : Cast off the laws that hem 
 us in, turn from vain desires, obey the laws that 
 give us liberty and run with the desires that spring 
 from affection and good-will. 
 
 Some of this I proved alone — the rest with 
 Nancy. 
 
 A summer and a winter passed, during which 
 I made three times what it cost to live, by con- 
 sidering the lilies and the ways of the ant. There 
 is no denying that I was often lonely. There 
 were long walks with my friend, searching 
 through the city for significant things, and 
 evenings together, when we discussed what we 
 had seen and what we hoped tO' do. But one such 
 friendship cannot suffice a man. And our rela- 
 tionship was a thing of speculation and endeavor 
 — an inspiration to brooding and to activity; but 
 there was no peace in it, no sense of happy fulfil- 
 ment, of a final home. 
 
 [ lOI ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 *^^ 
 
 I could move serenely among these millions of 
 people, for I did not envy them their possessions 
 and I could escape their fetters ; but I have walked 
 the streets all night, listening wistfully to a multi- 
 tude of voices, unable to sleep for the haunting 
 echoes in my heart. 
 
 During these months, also, life appeared in 
 some appalling aspects. As my own liberty in- 
 creased the seemingly hopeless entanglement of 
 others became more apparent, amazing and ter- 
 rible in its senseless reality. I used up my surplus 
 while pursuing these tragic phases, hoping to 
 throw some light into sombre places. It is singu- 
 lar that these tragedies should have become more 
 vivid and more insistent as I escaped from their 
 power to involve myself, but it is true. 
 
 With a few dollars in my pocket I wanted noth- 
 ing except more and dearer friends ; and because 
 of this the haggard broker, the slouching beggar, 
 the lady weary of her functions, and the women 
 whO' sold papers in the biting wind, startled and 
 confused me, and would not let me be. 
 
 But through all this ran memories of those 
 youthful days when I hunted for the fairies in the 
 neighboring woods, and radiant cities beckoned 
 
 [ 102]
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 from the clouds. These memories became more 
 insistent as the spring advanced, accompanying 
 me even through those vast, ill-smelHng regions 
 that line the East River on both sides. Why v^as 
 this squalor permitted to pollute my city ? It took 
 me a long time to learn that it was the natural 
 complement of Fifth avenue and the great West 
 End, the inevitable reverse of a gaudy tapestry, 
 one side of which only is for show. 
 
 This was not the city of my visions. We must 
 create what we are seeking. For this end is youth 
 allured by dreams. But how could I, an obscure 
 atom among the millions, in any way fashion this 
 unwieldy mass? 
 
 For months I vibrated between the Waldorf 
 and the Mills Hotel, the Metropolitan Opera 
 House and the music halls, Mr. Rockefeller's Bible 
 class and Tim Sullivan's saloon. Ocean Grove and 
 Coney Island. 
 
 What bewildering, pathetic sights! 
 
 On a morning, at the beginning of another sum- 
 mer, I watched the policemen chasing children 
 and adventurous couples over Central Park, and 
 observed the brilliant company of people in car- 
 riages driving through, inspecting with complac- 
 
 [ 103 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ■frtfirirr^nM 
 
 ent pleasure the beauties their guardians pre- 
 served for them. Leaving the park about noon, 
 I wandered to the foot of Twenty-sixth street, 
 where the city makes a disposal of its odds and 
 ends. 
 
 The usual line of wretches was passing by 
 the superintendent's desk. A little, withered old 
 woman, eighty years at the least, thin, bright-eyed 
 and able, bobbed her head at the superintendent 
 in a sprightly manner, and then, with a glance 
 of almost animal fright, asked abruptly: 
 
 "I can get back on the Island, can't I, pretty 
 soon?" 
 
 "You have been there before?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ; I come and go. I can't endure to stay 
 there all the time." 
 
 She ran her thin hand along the rail, drew her 
 lips in between the gums, and looked dreamily 
 through the window across the water, intoning, 
 as if to herself, "But I am getting on in years." 
 
 "Do you want to go over now ?" 
 
 "Not yet — not for a month or so; but I wanted 
 to be sure I could." 
 
 "All right ; come back when you want to." 
 
 "Will you know me again?" 
 
 [ 104 ]
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 He smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes, I'll know 
 you." 
 
 Her place was taken by a young Irishwoman 
 with a baby in her arms. Her eyes were snapping 
 with venom. 
 
 "They turned me out with my sick baby 
 the day after you sent me there!" she cried 
 angrily. 
 
 "What was that for?" 
 
 "They wanted me to give the baby medicine 
 every half hour during the night and break me 
 of my sleep." 
 
 "You don't say !" exclaimed the superintendent. 
 "Do you know, my young woman, that I have 
 sat up all night to give my children medicine more 
 than once? What do you expect me to do for 
 you now?" 
 
 "What can you do? I won't go back there 
 again." 
 
 "I can do nothing for you if you will do noth- 
 ing for yourself. You are able to." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 "You can go and sit down until I can think 
 of you calmly." 
 
 She walked away, and the stalwart young oflfi- 
 
 [ 105 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 cer who stands outside the rail went over to her. 
 In a Httle while he brought her back. 
 
 > "I have been talking to her," he said, "and she 
 wants to know if you can put the baby in a nur- 
 sery somewhere, if she will pay five dollars a 
 month. She can get work if she don't have the 
 baby." 
 
 "I hate to let him go," cried the woman pas- 
 sionately. In a moment she was leaning against 
 the rail hugging the baby to her face and sobbing. 
 The superintendent got up hastily and stepped to 
 her, his eyes and mouth wide open in surprise 
 and pity. He put his hand on her shoulder, and 
 said gently : 
 
 "That is the best thing to do, my dear. You 
 can't get along with the nurses, but your baby 
 will be in good hands. You can pay half for its 
 care, and when it is well and you have a place 
 for it you can take it again." 
 
 The matter was so arranged, and the young 
 mother went away subdued and sorrowful. 
 
 I was told that there were thirty-seven thou- 
 sand such children, wards of the city, and that 
 it cost nearly two million dollars a year to care 
 for them. 
 
 [io6]
 
 o 
 
 •-t 
 
 o 
 
 cn 
 
 n 
 
 o 
 
 a. 
 
 j 
 
 1 '^ ^■ 
 
 H 1 
 
 'i 
 
 r
 
 INTIMATE STRANGERS 
 
 f rffiriFTiTB 
 
 I crossed to Blackwell's Island on the ferry, 
 and found a familiar seat on a bench, surrounded 
 by the grim old buildings. Up and down the walk 
 limped a wreck of a man, his hands behind his 
 back. 
 
 I wondered what the young Mr. Rockefeller 
 would say to him, and what Christ would say to 
 the young Mr. Rockefeller. Would it still be 
 simply: "Go, sell and give," or have we really 
 taught Him something since those days? Have 
 so many rich men passed to Heaven that the way 
 has grown easy, and the needle's eye is now as 
 big as a church door ? 
 
 I dislike these sinister questions, but there is 
 such a startling contrast between the slender, well- 
 groomed millionaire, the lay priest dwelling in 
 exclusive elegance, and his penniless Master, foot- 
 sore and homeless. Should Christ have set a bet- 
 ter example for the rich, or has His attitude to^ 
 ward them changed ? Are we mistaken concern- 
 ing Standard Oil, and is this heir to it the true 
 disciple of this day of trusts? Then may we all 
 have fathers like to his, that we may be benevolent 
 on a per cent, of our inheritance and famous by 
 uttering old sayings from our pews. 
 
 [ 109]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 I left the island hastily to escape such thoughts, 
 and going to my room, began the writing of a 
 fairy tale, for the pleasure the whimsical ways 
 and cheery faces of the little people are to me. 
 
 In the morning I took the manuscript to have it 
 typewritten, and so found Nancy. 
 
 [no] 
 
 I
 
 ^ftw 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES. 
 
 ANCY'S copying office was on 
 the thirteenth floor of one of 
 the great office buildings on 
 lower Broadway. There were 
 two rooms, with windows 
 looking over a wide stretch of 
 the world below. 
 
 As I entered Nancy was busy with a customer. 
 As she stood before him, looking up talking, she 
 sometimes raised upon her tiptoes, and then her 
 head came almost to his chin. She was a very 
 small body, but, for all that, the place seemed 
 filled with her. She gave me a quick glance, her 
 blue eyes sparkling with enterprise, smiled as if 
 she had known me always, and asked me to be 
 seated. "J^^t a moment, please." 
 
 [Ill]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 irtfirirrrra 
 
 The first impression of these rooms was of their 
 cheery atmosphere, and this impression has re- 
 mained. There were four very contented-look- 
 ing girls in the inner office. I never heard a 
 brisker or more continuous sound of operation, 
 but I noticed that from time to time these girls 
 at their typewriters cast pleasant glances through 
 a row of windows. They could see a narrow strip 
 of the city, more than a mile of the broad North 
 River, and the cities and hills of New Jersey. They 
 could note the ocean steamers as they left and 
 entered their slips, the barges, sailing vessels, tugs 
 and yachts, and the ferryboats criss-crossing like 
 magnetic toys. 
 
 "Come," the man was saying, "I must have it 
 in the morning." 
 
 "Well," answered Nancy, "we can do it for 
 you in time, but it will mean late hours." 
 
 "All right. Now, what will it cost?" 
 
 "The regular rate is fifteen cents a page for the 
 typewriting, and ten dollars a thousand for the 
 mimeographing. That will be sixteen." She 
 looked sweetly up at him, and added, in a soft, 
 persuasive voice, "Ten dollars extra for the late 
 hours. That will make it twenty-six in all." 
 
 [ 112 J
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 "Whew!" he exclaimed. "That's pretty steep, 
 isn't it ?" 
 
 "Oh, but," she said, still holding his eyes with 
 her own, "just think how badly you need it. It 
 would be a pleasure to work for you all night for 
 nothing, but we won't insist upon it. You would 
 rather pay us, I know." 
 
 He looked into her smiling face, so pleasant, 
 shrewd and girlish, and laughed gleefully. 
 
 "Well, I should say I would!" he exclaimed, 
 and left the order. 
 
 "And now?" she asked, coming over to me. 
 
 "I would like to dictate something." 
 
 "Letters?" 
 
 "No; a fairy tale." She laughed merrily. 
 
 "Do you know our prices?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "A dollar an hour." 
 
 "It won't take long," I said, "for it is written. 
 I will dictate from the manuscript and you may 
 take it on your machine." 
 
 "Well, now, if you don't mind interruptions 
 I will take it myself. Of course," she added, 
 smiling, "I won't charge you for the inter- 
 ruptions." 
 
 [113]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Rw^ 
 
 She brought a table and typewriter, and sat 
 briskly down beside me. She adjusted the paper, 
 looked at me, smiled and waited, her capable little 
 hands hovering over the keys. 
 
 We were in the reception room, and I, seated 
 before her desk, could see over the lower buildings 
 the spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral, faint and 
 blue, and fainter yet, Grant's Tomb. The sun 
 shone over the spreading mass of clean buildings, 
 flashed from exposed window panes, and tinted 
 the clouds of white steam rising from the roofs. 
 
 Viewed from this window, the city was alto- 
 gether a fair and shining thing. Only a far-off, 
 pleasant murmur rose from below. The person- 
 ality of individuals was lost, and only that of the 
 city remained — a personality prosperous, hopeful, 
 luxurious, ambitious, vast in its serene, progress- 
 ive contentment and egotism. 
 
 I began the story. "When Old Peter the Rich 
 gave up his business and his mansion in the vil- 
 lage and went to live in the forest with his daugh- 
 ter Susette, he turned over all his possessions to 
 his brother Abner, on condition that he should 
 provide for his grandson, little Peter Forester, 
 when the time came. It was with a last thought 
 
 [114]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 for this little likeness of all that was good in his 
 own youth, and a prayer for his blessing, that Old 
 Peter died. His death brought a great change to 
 little Peter. He had known no other playfellow 
 except the fairies, and it had been only through 
 his grandfather that he had known them. After 
 his death he suddenly realized that he had never 
 really seen the little people, unless, indeed, it had 
 been in his babyhood. He half-remembered their 
 figures perched upon his cradle, and could some- 
 times hear a faint echo of their merry voices. As 
 soon as Peter was big enough his father would 
 sometimes take him for a day's patrol of the for- 
 est. These were times of mingled pleasure and 
 disappointment. When they started in the early 
 morning the boy's heart was full of excitement. 
 The squirrels cocked knowing eyes at him; a 
 sparrow, evidently on the watch, darted eagerly 
 ahead. Woodpeckers sent flying signals through 
 the forest and thrushes, finches and bluebirds flitted 
 about him as if impatient at his slow approach. 
 
 " 'Come, father,' he would cry in his delight, 
 'let us hurry, for the fairies will appear to-day.' 
 
 "Before the day was over he lagged behind, 
 troubled because he could see and hear so little, 
 
 ["5]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 and then his father, taking his hand, would say, 
 'You are tired, little man.' 
 
 "In the evening he sat silently on the doorsill, 
 looking wistfully into the forest, listening for 
 those little familiar ones whom he was not sure 
 he had ever seen." 
 
 Nancy was called away by a customer, who had 
 closed the door behind him briskly. He had 
 brought an order for one hundred mimeograph 
 letters, but she, from her tiptoes, told him that 
 while one hundred might be enough for him, it 
 would be more profitable for her if he should order 
 five hundred or a thousand. He ventured to dis- 
 cuss the matter, and she got the extra order. She 
 returned to me, smiling sweetly in apology. 
 
 "When Peter was fifteen years old his Uncle 
 Abner took him to the village to live. He did not 
 do this with any pleasure, but if Peter were to 
 have a share in the fortune he must help to in- 
 crease it. As Peter went with him, all the way 
 from the cottage to the town his heart, looking 
 both ways at once, viewed his home with tender 
 regret and the town with eager anticipations. His 
 room in the great house looked into the garden 
 of a neighbor, and he saw, in place of the forest, 
 
 [ii6]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 ^^^fn^ 
 
 a prim little lawn, a few orderly flower-beds and 
 a contented-looking cottage covered with vines. 
 He sighed as he stood by his window on the first 
 night. The few trees in the garden seemed to 
 speak another language than those of the forest. 
 There was something fretful in the piping of a 
 few lonely crickets. Here in the midst of the 
 town, when for the first time he was to dwell with 
 hundreds of his kind, this little creature of the 
 companionable woods felt utterly alone. He awak- 
 ened early the next morning, and thought at first 
 it was because of the birds that usually aroused 
 him. By a window opposite his own stood a little 
 girl, singing gaily as she fastened a pink bow in 
 her hair." 
 
 We were again interrupted by a customer with 
 an order to be filled at once. 
 
 "We cannot possibly do it until to-morrow," 
 said Nancy, taking his manuscript from him, how- 
 ever, and folding it to her breast. 
 
 "Oh, but you must." 
 
 "You wanted this yesterday?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes," he assented eagerly, thinking he had 
 made his point. "I should have attended to it 
 yesterday."
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "Surely," she said, "you can't expect me to do 
 more than you have done." 
 
 It was her soft voice, the pleasant accent on the 
 "me" and "you," the irresistible allurement of her 
 ingenuous eyes that convinced him, and he agreed 
 to wait. 
 
 She returned to me with what I thought 
 was a genuine eagerness, and I continued the 
 tale. 
 
 "Peter went down to his uncle with a light 
 heart, which even the unfriendly silence of the 
 breakfast table could not reach. 'Peter,' said his 
 uncle sharply as they were leaving the house, *I 
 hope you intend to be useful at once.' He slammed 
 the great iron gate behind them and looked sternly 
 down. 'I can't have any idlers about me. What 
 do you know ?' Peter would have been distressed 
 by this had he heard it, but he was at that mo- 
 ment looking toward the window opposite his 
 own. 'Why don't you listen to me?' asked the 
 old man, giving a twist to his arm. 'You hurt 
 me,' said Peter. His uncle relaxed his grip and 
 walked on in silence. Presently he said, in what 
 he intended for a kindly manner : 'I have no doubt 
 that you will soon be useful. The great thing' in 
 
 [ii8]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 %r,M»*r!tt:t'i!r u 
 
 life is to be able to cajole or force others to do of 
 their own free will the things that are profitable 
 for you. 
 
 " *I now possess land and dwellings once held 
 dearer than life by their owners, but mark you, 
 Peter, these good people were glad to give them 
 over, and escape with their hides before I was 
 through with them. Some of them I have been 
 able to employ to my profit, thereby securing not 
 only their property, but their services and grati- 
 tude as well. To some I have leased their fonner 
 possessions, for they were willing to pay more than 
 others; so you see that even the tenderest senti- 
 ments have their uses. In dealing with men, one 
 must not ignore their virtues.' 
 
 "As they reached the center of the square he 
 pointed to the town pump, about which was gath- 
 ered a merry group with buckets. 
 
 " 'I will give you at once,' said Abner, look- 
 ing from the pump to Peter and from Peter to the 
 pump, 'an opportunity to be useful. The town 
 pump is a great public evil. It encourages people 
 in idleness and gossiping, and teaches them the 
 bad habit of getting something for nothing. It 
 needs only a little wit to induce them to tear it 
 
 [119J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^Xw^ 
 
 clown and close up the well. If they dig wells of 
 their own they must come to us for the tools, and 
 it may be that a larger quantity of our wines will 
 be used. So you see you already have something 
 to think of at spare times/ 
 
 "As Peter listened with his mouth open, the 
 laughter and chatter of the people as they filled 
 each other's buckets lost its merriment. 
 
 "It was a tragic day for Peter, but that night 
 as he stood again by his window, the moonlight 
 falling over the neighboring cottage finally illum- 
 inated his own heart as if with a reflected and 
 softened radiance. In the morning he was awak- 
 ened by the song of the girl. He hurried to his 
 window, and saw to his delight that she was look- 
 ing in his direction, as if expecting him. She 
 smiled when he appeared, and then, as if her 
 mission were performed, flitted away like the birds 
 of his forest when they had called to him." 
 
 Again the door opened. This time Nancy 
 looked up with vacant eyes, and in a voice that 
 sounded far away asked one of her girls to at- 
 tend to customers when they came in. She drew 
 a screen about us. She lifted the carriage of her 
 machine and read, "Like the birds of his forest 
 
 [ 120]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 ^litttt 
 
 when they had called to him." "Go on," she said. 
 The lines sounded beautiful as she read them. 
 Perhaps it was her voice and eyes. And then, in 
 our little enclosure, the rest of the story seemed 
 real to us. 
 
 "Peter greeted his uncle cheerfully at break- 
 fast, because he was not thinking of him, and 
 Abner was also agreeable, because he already saw 
 in his nephew a promising youth. 
 
 "That day Peter was put upon a high stool 
 and a pile of great books placed before him. 
 
 " 'You must first learn everything in these by 
 heart,' said his uncle, 'for many difficult things 
 can easily be managed if a man knows how others 
 have succeeded or failed, if he can construe the 
 laws for himself and figure nimbly.' 
 
 "Peter's instructor was a little, withered old 
 man named Jacob. He was one of those who had 
 seen his house and garden mysteriously pass into 
 the hands of Abner Rich, and who now gratefully 
 served him for permission to still cultivate his 
 flower and vegetable beds. 
 
 "He had but one cause for anxiety. All his 
 life he had met with delights. Every morning as 
 he worked in his garden his most familiar friends, 
 
 [121]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vrttirirr'T-a 
 
 such as the beet or the four-o'clock, the lady-bug 
 or the gooseberry bush, the plum or apple tree, ad- 
 mitted him to a still closer intimacy. 
 
 "Jacob found that in spite of every effort to 
 banish them they would follow him in swarms to 
 his work. More than once Abner had discovered 
 him gazing dreamily away from his account 
 books. 
 
 " 'Come, Jacob,' he would say, 'perhaps you 
 have worked enough in your lifetime. If you 
 don't wish to keep the place where you live any 
 longer I can rent it.' 
 
 "At this every thought of delight was swept 
 away in a panic, and Jacob would pounce upon his 
 books like a ravenous bird, 
 
 "All the time that he was teaching Peter 
 to read, and whenever a book was before 
 him, he felt the most perfect content. For 
 what word is there, what sentence however 
 dry or evil, but reveals a world of beauty to such 
 as he? 
 
 "One day he said to Peter, 'Last night the fair- 
 ies brought the pollen to my poppies.' 
 
 " 'Did you see them ?' cried Peter, almost jump- 
 ing from his stool. 
 
 [ 122 ]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 " 'Oh, no,' said Jacob. They just brought the 
 pollen and sHpped away.' 
 
 "But the time came when Jacob and Peter could 
 no longer read together. 
 
 " 'It is time,' said Abner, 'that you should use 
 what you know.' 
 
 "After this Peter saw nothing all day but long 
 columns of figures. He sat perched upon his stool 
 hour after hour, the great ledgers spread before 
 him. Pie looked at the figures until they danced. 
 It became necessary, after awhile, to pin each one 
 with his pen to hold it in place. 
 
 "He could not do it. Before a month had passed 
 he no longer tried, but sat with his hot face buried 
 in his hands, his thoughts sometimes busy with 
 his haunts in the forest, sometimes lost in smiling 
 contemplation of the little girl at her window. 
 He had never spoken with her, although he knew 
 there had been times when he might have done so. 
 Once she called him by a song from the garden. 
 She was standing near the gate between the two 
 enclosures, dressed in a pretty blue and white 
 frock, with a v/ide blue sash and blue ribbons in 
 her hair. He could not have joined her, because 
 his uncle was already at breakfast. He did not 
 
 [ 123 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 speak to her, for the forest, the song and the 
 smile of the girl, and the long columns of figures 
 were confusing his thoughts. There were tears 
 in his eyes when he entered the breakfast-room. 
 He dropped listlessly in his chair. 
 
 " 'What's the matter ?' asked his uncle sharply. 
 
 " *I am tired,' said the boy. 
 
 "Abner cast a look of displeasure upon him, but 
 said nothing. 
 
 "That day he came suddenly to the desk where 
 Peter sat and found him bent over a ledger long 
 out of use. The book that he should have been 
 working on was discovered where it had been 
 hastily slipped by Jacob under a pile of his own. 
 
 "Every day for a long time the watchful Jacob 
 had made this exchange, unknown to Peter or to 
 any one, and so the shortcoming of the boy had 
 gone unnoticed. 
 
 "Abner discovered all this at a glance, for the 
 accounts were all in Jacob's hand, 
 
 " 'Go back to the fools that own you,' he 
 shouted, pushing Peter from his stool. 'I want 
 none of you and you shall have none of mine.' 
 
 "He turned toward Jacob, who was standing 
 white and trembling by his desk. 
 
 [1^4]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 /t'fMirirri'RB 
 
 " *I will need that house where you live. Get 
 your old woman and go — nothing- else there be- 
 longs to you.' 
 
 "Peter took the old man by the hand and led 
 him home. 
 
 " 'Where will you go?' said he, when they 
 had reached the gate. 
 
 " 'I will not know when I leave,' said Jacob, 
 feebly. 'I will die in my garden,' he added, looking 
 tenderly toward the flowers, the vines and the vege- 
 tables. 'The fairies and my friends will protect me.' 
 
 "A moment more and he seemed to have for- 
 gotten the calamity that threatened him. He 
 stood in his garden like one listening to the greet- 
 ings of a troop of merry children. 
 
 "Peter hurried away. He was anxious now 
 only to get home that he might send his father 
 to help old Jacob. His heart was heavy as 'ne 
 looked for a last time over his shoulder at the 
 window of the little girl. 
 
 " 'She will sing there in the morning and I 
 will not see her.' 
 
 "That night Peter slept in his old room in the 
 forest cottage. He was awakened by a clear, 
 sweet sound, such as sometimes visits the dreams 
 
 [125]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 of innocence. He sat up in his bed and listened, 
 and presently from far away he heard a voice, like 
 the echo of a tiny silver bell, calling him to the 
 forest. There was a path of light from his bed 
 to the window. Dressing hastily, he clambered 
 to the ground by the vines that covered the cot- 
 tage, and hurried away through the forest in the 
 direction of the moon. In all directions the only 
 sound was the intermittent movement of the wind 
 in the heavy foliage — the long, faint sighs which 
 gave to the profound darkness an added ghostli- 
 ness. But Peter did not think of returning. He 
 knew^ that he had reached the depths of the forest 
 and that the great trees about him cast no evil 
 shade. He knew how tenderly their giant arms 
 cradled the timid birds that sought their shelter. 
 He knew that far above him the moonlight rested 
 on their heads as lovingly as on the safe enclosure 
 of his father's house. And so, though the most 
 inquisitive of the familiar stars could find no 
 crevice through which to watch him, he was not 
 afraid, but stood quietly w-aiting and listening for 
 the voice that had called him there. He was not 
 prepared, however, for what followed. First, a 
 globe of light, as large as an orange, came toward 
 
 [126]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 him and, before he could move, it broke against 
 his cheek Hke a soap bubble, filling- the air with an 
 odor of locust blooms. Then another and another 
 came, breaking on his head and hands and shoul- 
 ders until he was wet with the luminous perfume, 
 and the light of these shattered missiles illumi- 
 nated the hollow in the forest where he stood. He 
 heard the chiming sounds of revelry and caught 
 the flitting colors of carnival gowns and the twink- 
 ling of busy wings. Then the sounds ceased and 
 the enquiring gaze of such a bewildering and bril- 
 liant multitude would have been impossible to bear 
 had not a fortunate diversion occurred. Far up 
 the hollow stood what looked at that distance to 
 be a phosphorescent butter ball. It was, however, 
 the very round body of Chuck-Chucket, the jovial- 
 souled gourmand of the fairies. He stood, or 
 rather rested, like a ripe plum, upon the top of a 
 tree stump, where, all unconscious of the sudden 
 silence, he continued his lusty song : 
 
 " 'Oh, Time is young and the world is green, 
 
 I drink to more capacity ; 
 And here's to the health of the rosy, posy Queen, 
 
 And here's to the health of me.' 
 
 [ 127]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 irfvirirriira 
 
 "A short arm appeared as if from the crease in 
 the butter ball and raised a gourd of moonshine 
 from a large hollow in the stump. There was a 
 melodious gurgle, such as is sometimes heard 
 when a wooden pump is primed, followed by the 
 next verse of the song : 
 
 " 'When the moon is full, I'll not go lean, 
 
 (Here's to you, old distillery) 
 And here's to the health of the rosy, posy Queen, 
 
 And here's to the health of me.' 
 
 " 'Come, Chuck-Chucket,' said the Queen, *I 
 think that neither your health nor mine will need 
 further encouragement.' 
 
 "A very bald pate and two astonished eyes ap- 
 peared slowly at the top of the butter ball, like the 
 head of a turtle peeping from its shell. The gourd 
 was dropped into the hollow of the stump, and 
 Chuck-Chucket, rolling himself into a position that 
 would permit him to look below, fastened his in- 
 quisitive eyes upon Peter. 
 
 " 'Who's this?' he asked,. and instantly a chorus 
 of voices cried, 'It's Peter.' 
 
 " 'Well, well,' said Chuck-Chucket genially, 'I 
 say it would be only decent to drink to this Peter.' 
 
 [128]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 "Then all the countless throng of little creatures, 
 hovering in the air, extended their hands cup- 
 shape, like the most exquisitely tinted shells, and 
 drank of the nectar of the moon. 
 
 "Peter fell upon his knees and called to them in 
 passionate whispers, 'Oh, fairies, fairies, let me be 
 one of you !' 
 
 "The little hands were emptied at the parted 
 lips, and the throng settled to the earth like a con- 
 tented sigh. The Queen dropped upon Peter's 
 shoulder, and, putting her hands to his lips, left 
 upon them the taste of the moonlight. 
 
 " 'Dear Peter,' she said, 'you are as much one of 
 us as a boy can be.' 
 
 "She made herself comfortable on his shoulder, 
 saying, 'Here will I make my throne.' 
 
 "This did not sound at all strange to him, for 
 the words of the fairies, like their forms, carry 
 their own lights with them. 
 
 "The sound of the murmuring voices revealed 
 to Peter the secret of the mystery of the night. A 
 sigh of wings announced the arrival or departure 
 of groups bound for the succor of distressed fire- 
 flies that had been beaten to the ground by a gust 
 of rain, or returning frorrj the wheat fields after 
 
 [ 129]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 filling the heads with grain. There were com- 
 panies dressed in white and gold, with vests of 
 crimson, carr^'ing little bags of pollen, workmen 
 of the field and highway. There were songs of 
 fruit and odors of the oil of nuts. Here and there 
 a company of fairies laid aside their garments for 
 a bath in the dew. 
 
 "At the summons of the Queen, a rosy maiden, 
 still shining with the dew, alighted on Peter's 
 knee, that he might see how exquisite is the 
 form and how radiant the hues of purity and 
 
 joy. 
 
 "There was a sudden rush of wings and a band 
 of fairies poured from an opening in the hillside, 
 bearing aloft a salver heaped with pearls as large 
 as peas. The salver was borne swiftly three times 
 aroimd the grove, while all the multitude shouted. 
 It was borne to where Peter sat with the Queen 
 upon his shoulders. Those who carried the salver 
 alighted on his knees, holding it aloft on their 
 hands. Peter saw the heap of pearls. Their beauty 
 was greater than the eye alone could perceive. 
 Having once beheld them, they became a posses- 
 sion of the soul. A second company of fairies 
 brought a purse and held it open, while the Queen 
 
 [ 130]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 dropped the pearls into it. When the purse was 
 filled she handed it to Peter, saying : 
 
 " T place these in your hands. He who pos- 
 sesses them will desire nothing. But they will be 
 yours only when you part with them. Those that 
 remain in the purse will be to you only as pebbles. 
 Bestow or spend them all, dear Peter, or they will 
 become a burden.' 
 
 'The purse was placed in his hands, and Peter 
 knew that he held enough treasure to enrich the 
 world. 
 
 " 'And now, let me go,' said he eagerly, 'for 
 early in the morning, I would give one to Jacob, 
 that he may not lose his house and garden; and 
 one to my uncle, that he may not strive any more 
 for the possessions of others. I will give one to 
 my mother, so that she will no longer want for 
 everything in the shops; and one to my father, 
 that he may have tlie happiness of giving it to her 
 also. I will give one to th-e little girl who woke 
 me with her songs, because — because — and then 
 there are all the others in the town to supply, so 
 that by another night I will not have a pearl left.' 
 
 " 'If thirsty at night,' called a mellow voice, 
 'remember there is nothing like a pull of moon- 
 
 [131]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 shine. By day you need not go thirsty, for every- 
 thing conceals a spigot, if you know where to look 
 for it.' 
 
 "Peter looked up, and saw Chuck-Chucket 
 ogling him kindly from the tree stump. He held a 
 bowl, half his own size, between his outstretched 
 legs, and a dripping ladle in his hand, containing 
 some exceedingly luscious little balls and over- 
 flowing with a savory liquid. 
 
 " 'If you are ever hungry and deserted,' he said, 
 after swallowing the contents of the ladle, 'open 
 your mouth and I will drop into it, wherever you 
 are, a large number of fat dew dumplings, swim- 
 ming in the odor of cinnamon.' 
 
 "He waved his ladle in a manner expressive of 
 great liberality and friendliness and dipped it deep 
 into the bowl again. 
 
 "So Peter returned the next morning to the 
 town with more wealth in his possession than 
 could be recorded in all his uncle's ledgers. 
 
 "Those who have looked from their bower of 
 youth upon the great world before them, and felt 
 the joy of a mission of love, will know the beauty 
 of that morning to Peter as he entered the town to 
 set all things right at once." 
 
 [ 132]
 
 o 
 
 en 
 
 n 
 (k; r-. 
 
 e« 
 
 cr 
 
 o 
 
 S. 
 
 5" 
 at) 
 
 
 
 
 1^
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 ^-Ww 
 
 This was the conclusion, and I stopped. 
 
 "Is that all?" asked Nancy. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And what became of Peter?" 
 
 "I wish I knew. I think we wonder about that 
 more and more as we grow older. We all seem 
 to lose him somewhere between six and seventeen. 
 Some cling to him longer, but we lose him in the 
 end. This is a fine view from your windows. 
 The men who own these buildings and those who 
 are toiling in them have all known this little Peter, 
 and something of the memory remains. These 
 memories constitute the soul of the city, invisible, 
 working as the fairies and the angels work, 
 through all we do. New York is the fairest of 
 our cities, approaching nearer to a spectacle of 
 fairyland, because to it have come in greater num- 
 ber those to whom Peter has been most real. The 
 vast enterprises centered here have required imagi- 
 nation, sentiment and the stuff of dreams. The 
 souls of many artists, poets and musicians have 
 been marooned on Wall street." 
 
 Nancy gave me a glance of pleased surprise. 
 
 "You really believe that ?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 [135]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "I wish I could." 
 
 "Why don't you?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 As she was looking over the manuscript for cor- 
 rection, she read aloud the passages that pleased 
 her most. 
 
 "And what became of the little girl at the win- 
 dow ?" she asked. 
 
 "She is somewhere putting ribbons in her hair, 
 and singing still." 
 
 She smiled and looked at me for a moment, 
 when, behold, out of her eyes, peered the 
 little girl, as if coming from the shadows of a 
 room. 
 
 "I think," I said impulsively, "that I see her 
 
 now." 
 
 "I had almost forgotten," she said softly, "that 
 she was there." 
 
 "Don't forget her," I said. "She is worth more 
 than the clever woman." 
 
 Nancy leaned a little toward me, across the arm- 
 rest of the desk. 
 
 "There is a prudence," says Emerson, "which 
 asks but one question of anything, 'Will it bake 
 bread?'" 
 
 [136]
 
 PETER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 She opened a drawer in her desk and took out 
 Mr. Emerson. 
 
 " 'The Islander,' she read, 'may ramble all day 
 at will. At night he may sleep on a mat, under 
 the moon; and wherever a wild date tree grows, 
 nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table 
 for his evening meal.' " 
 
 She looked up at me and said : "I have often 
 longed to be an Islander, haven't you?" 
 
 ''Then she read : 'The Northerner is, perforce, 
 a householder. He must brew, salt and preserve 
 his food. He must pile up wood and coal.' " She 
 looked at me. 
 
 "How much of what you make," I asked, "is 
 spent for these things ?" 
 
 She laughed and turned over the pages, 
 
 " 'Why are health, beauty and genius the ex- 
 ception, now?' she read. 'We have violated law 
 upon law until we stand amid the ruins. * * * 
 In the noon and afternoon of life we still throb at 
 the recollection of days when happiness was not 
 happy enough, and when the day was not long 
 enough, but the night must be consumed in keen 
 recollections. When the head boiled all night on 
 the pillow with the generous deed it resolved on ; 
 
 [ 137]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^n^w 
 
 when the moonlight was a pleasant fever; when 
 the stars were letters, and the flowers ciphers, and 
 the air was coined into song; when all business 
 seemed an impertinence and all the men and 
 women running to and fro in the streets mere 
 pictures.' " 
 
 And so we talked and read and talked for 
 hours, until the great clock on the New York Life 
 building struck five, and it was time for Nancy's 
 girls to go. 
 
 "What are you going to do Sunday?" I asked. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, for the first time, and 
 for the first time did not look frankly at me. 
 
 "I have an engagement to go sailing," she said, 
 and, after a moment, "what are you going to do?" 
 
 "I am going on my wheel somewhere." 
 
 "Do you care where?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well," she said, "if you will be at the head of 
 Bedford avenue at nine o'clock, I will try to be 
 there. I will break that engagement if I can." 
 
 She asked one of the girls to stay with her to 
 finish the orders that were promised. As the 
 others were leaving, the sounds of feminine rust- 
 ling, of pleasant voices making adieux, reminded 
 
 [138]
 
 PFTER AND THE FAIRIES 
 
 
 me of the exit from a tea party. When they were 
 gone Nancy stood before me, a look of astute de- 
 termination in her eyes. 
 
 "When I'm a man — a man," she said, "I will 
 do as I have a mind to, if I can — and I can." 
 
 "Then you will be there Sunday?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What are you gfoing to do to-night ?" 
 
 "Work." 
 
 "And to-morrow?" 
 
 She looked at me inquiringly. 
 
 "Work." And, after a moment, "I suppose." 
 
 "Let's not wait until Sunday." 
 
 "That would be foolish," she said. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" 
 
 "Anywhere out of the city." 
 
 She looked from her window toward the distant 
 Palisades. "We might go there. Do you know," 
 she added, "I pay two hundred and fifty dollars 
 extra rent for the view of them, and yet I have 
 never been there. That's true." 
 
 "And we can do it for ten cents." 
 
 She laughed merrily, and then said briskly, 
 "Well, now, I must get to work." 
 
 But I did not go. 
 
 [ 139]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 She made a cup of tea and boiled some eggs on 
 a little gas stove in the inner room, and from a 
 closet took graJiam bread, fruit, cream and nuts. 
 The girl who had remained to help seemed to 
 think it a privilege. 
 
 The meal was served and eaten, the dishes 
 washed and put away. The hours passed like 
 minutes. 
 
 I put the sheets from the mimeograph between 
 the blotters as Nancy, with her sleeves turned up, 
 swiftly rolled them off. 
 
 At eight o'clock Miss Brewster left us, but it 
 was past midnight when the work was done. 
 
 Hand in hand, we walked down Broadway, 
 stopped to watch the fountain in the City Hall 
 Park, playing in the moonlight, and then slowly 
 to the bridge. 
 
 "I have been a long time looking for you," I 
 said. 
 
 She answered quietly, "And I for you." 
 
 [ 140]
 
 -^gnmMH^^r 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TRUANTS. 
 
 NEVER could remember just 
 when or how we came to 
 Nancy's home. I discovered 
 later that it was in the interior 
 of Brooklyn, about four miles 
 from the bridge. I have a con- 
 fused remembrance of gliding and teetering in a 
 trolley car and of walking through a deserted, 
 dusky, sleep-haunted Brooklyn street. 
 
 I was conscious only of Nancy, and that I held 
 her by the hand, and that it rested in mine confi- 
 dently. 
 
 We were admitted by Elizabeth, and even in the 
 twilight of the hall I knew that I had found an- 
 other friend. Nancy reached up impulsively and 
 drew her down and kissed her, and said : 
 *'He has come to stay." 
 
 [■4']
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 llfititf 
 
 Elizabeth laughed and looked at me, bewildered 
 by the news, and then she closed the door and 
 slipped the chain in place. 
 
 My room was at the back of the house, with 
 windows overlooking a double row of little, green 
 enclosures, with even walks, closely cropped sod, 
 shrubs and flower-beds. The fences were almost 
 hidden by flowering vines. The room itself was 
 large and home-like, and a large, soft-looking 
 rocking chair was waiting by a window. I turned 
 the gas out, and arranged the rocker so that I 
 could lean back on it with my feet against the 
 casement and still look out upon these pleasant 
 gardens. And, then, from the actual happenings 
 of the day and from the peace of this home-coming 
 and the moon and the stars and the vines on the 
 fences, and the shrubs in the corners stirring as 
 with stealthy visitors gossiping among the leaves, 
 came a second story of Peter and his adventures 
 in the world. 
 
 And presently I heard Nancy at her window 
 just above. 
 
 "Hello," I said; "you are not in bed?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Will you take dictation at this hour?" 
 
 [ 142]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 irifinirrH^i 
 
 "I'll be there in a minute with my notebook." 
 
 When she came in she held out her hands and I 
 took them, and we laughed. 
 
 "I could not sleep." 
 
 "Nor I." 
 
 "I'll get a lamp," she said, "and not light the 
 gas. 
 
 She arranged her table near me and hooded the 
 lamp with a dark shade, in such a way that the 
 light shone on her book, but did not fill the 
 room. This left me by the open window in the 
 shadow. 
 
 When she bent her head above her notebook it 
 came within the circle of light. 
 
 "Poor, lonely scribblers," I thought, "who must 
 find their cold comfort in the moon." 
 
 When the story was finished Nancy blew out 
 the light, for day was breaking. Together we 
 leaned upon the window sill and watched the sun 
 rise over the opposite buildings, and now, of 
 course, I could see that these were ordinary paint- 
 ed brick walls, and that there were spaces where 
 the grass had given out, and the ground was bare. 
 Some of the fantasies of the night were gone, but 
 the fences were still covered with climbing roses, 
 
 [143]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 the syringa was in bloom, the air of the morning 
 was cool and fresh upon our faces, and the joys 
 of life were real. 
 
 We heard sounds of stirring in the house. Eliza- 
 beth was preparing breakfast, and presently my 
 door was opened and Nancy's mother appeared. 
 She thought that we might better have spent the 
 night in slumber, but she gave me a pleasant wel- 
 come for her daughter's sake. I think she liked 
 me on her own account when, at breakfast, she 
 was permitted to help me to the fourth lamb chop. 
 She was full of human kindness at that time. She 
 possessed a sense of humor and was interested in 
 people and events. 
 
 She ate heartily herself, told an excellent story, 
 thought no evil, and smiled indulgently upon my 
 returning plate. 
 
 I hurried over to New York, and came back 
 upon my wheel. The girls were waiting for me 
 at the gate. I was glad Elizabeth was to go with 
 us, there was such a look of expectation in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Have you got your notebook ?" I asked Nancy. 
 
 "Yes ; I thought we might hear something more 
 of Peter on the way." 
 
 [ 144]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 ''When will you be back?" asked the mother 
 from the doorway. 
 
 "Perhaps by Monday," I replied. 
 
 "I'll telegraph you now and then," called Nancy 
 as we rode away. 
 
 The roads of Long Island are as smooth as 
 asphalt. For an hour the rubber tires hummed 
 without interruption. We did not talk. There 
 was at first exhilaration and content, and then con- 
 tent. The sun grew warm. A grove appeared. 
 We looked at each other with heavy eyes, and, dis- 
 mounting, pushed our wheels across a field and 
 slept, and while we sleep you may read this study 
 of Elizabeth, prepared long after, when I knew 
 her well : 
 
 Elizabeth had originally entered the household 
 as a maid, but that had been forgotten long since. 
 Nancy knew some of her brothers and sisters in 
 Brooklyn, and when Elizabeth came to them from 
 Ireland she secured her at once. 
 
 Elizabeth was a young girl then, but from the 
 first she seemed to know how to do things by in- 
 stinct. It was only necessary for her to put the 
 pot upon the stove, and, behold, it brought forth 
 good coffee. She could apparently mix at hap- 
 
 [145]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 .frjiiViryAr^n 
 
 hazard a few things in a dish, leave it in the oven, 
 for a while, and it would come out a delicious 
 pudding. 
 
 In the evening of ironing day, when the laun- 
 dry, spotless, smooth and stiff, was hung upon the 
 bars by the fireside for its final warming, it was an 
 ornament to the room. I have sometimes caught 
 an expression in Elizabeth's eyes as they lifted to 
 quietly contemplate this white array, that one 
 might expect to see in those of an artist, who views 
 with complacence the finished statuary. Some- 
 times, in passing, she buried her face in the 
 clothes, laughing and calling our attention to their 
 odor of cleanliness. When she went shopping, she 
 seemed to gather from every corner impressions 
 of styles and designs. She would come from an 
 afternoon's outing, impatient to reproduce for 
 Nancy or herself a shirtwaist, a skirt or a hat she 
 had seen. Sometimes when she spoke there was 
 a trace of accent. When she was gayest, and this 
 accent most pronounced, her voice was so soft 
 that the quaint expressions and phrases, with the 
 old Gaelic twang, reminded you more of the pecu- 
 liarities of the refined Southerner. She sometimes 
 pronounced "cook" "coo-ke," but it sounded from 
 
 [146]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 her lips like a coo. Pretty and attractive as she 
 was, loving life and laughing in her enjoyment of 
 it, it is strange that in all these years she had never 
 formed a friendship outside of her own family. 
 Her idea of a good time was a romp with them. 
 
 In the winter, when the snow fell, she hailed it 
 with the glee of a child. She returned one even- 
 ing, her eyes dancing with delight, her cheeks red 
 with the wind, and told us of the fun she had had 
 with her brothers and sisters rolling each other 
 in the snow, leaving their images in it, making 
 effigies of their long-ago neighbors in Ireland. 
 There were two in particular — those of old Mr. 
 and Mrs. Murphy, the eccentric, lawless school 
 teachers of their childhood. Elizabeth delighted 
 in the memories of this old life in Ireland, dwell- 
 ing affectionately on its least detail. 
 
 They lived on an inherited lease of seventy-five 
 acres, adjoining Goldsmith's place in Auburn. 
 Every morning all of the children carried their 
 bedclothes to the meadows, or into the garden, for 
 an airing. They took their morning bath in the 
 nearby brook. They were sent to the National 
 School, a high-sounding name for a crude affair. 
 It was an old, one-story structure in the country, 
 
 [147]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^n^w 
 
 presided over by Mr. Murphy and his portly wife. 
 To these worthy instructors there was but one 
 important exercise of the w^eek, the collection of 
 the fees Monday morning. They taught a few 
 easy exercises for use in case the parish priest 
 should call. 
 
 On a fine morning the quiet of the school might 
 be disturbed by the halloas of the hunt, which 
 swept that way, and then there was a riotous rush 
 for the door — a stampede which a poor old 
 woman encumbered with flesh, or the more active 
 Mr. Murphy, could not withstand. The whole 
 school rushed after the horses and the hounds, 
 and when these were lost to view they followed 
 some sport of their own through the fields, with 
 no more thought of school that day. If there was 
 to be a housewarming or a barn-raising, or any 
 event of sufiicient inspiration, the school would 
 vanish through doors atid windows, pursued by 
 Mrs. Murphy as far as the gate. Here she would 
 stand, shaking her fist and shouting threats. So 
 when they built their snow images, they inscribed 
 upon the breast of Mr. Murphy his favorite 
 phrase, "Ye inveterate puppies, I'll scald the 
 hearts and bodies of yez," and on Mrs. Murphy 
 
 [148]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 they wrote, "Wait till the maarnin', whin I'll 
 murther yez." 
 
 It was a pleasure for Nancy and me to find 
 ways of giving her delight. 
 
 To travel with us in a witless way, sleeping 
 where the night overtook us, was a joy to her, and 
 she helped us find merriment in simple things. 
 She sat with us as we read aloud. If I tried 
 to talk with her concerning what she heard, 
 she had little to say, but if, unknown to her, 
 I watched her face as she listened, I could 
 follow the changing moods as readily as the 
 movements of the boughs reflected in a clear 
 stream. 
 
 There were many times when she w^as quietly 
 reading to herself, sewing or idly thinking, when 
 I wondered what her thoughts could be. There 
 was something almost sad at these times — some- 
 thing suggesting the tender melancholy of the twi- 
 light in her face; but if I spoke to her, then all 
 this was swept away instantly, and if I asked her 
 for her thoughts she would laugh. Her good 
 spirits were as simple and spontaneous as her re- 
 ligion. When she was with us in the country she 
 could not ahvays go to mass. 
 
 [ 149]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "Do you confess that to the priest?" I asked 
 her. 
 
 "No," she said, "I wouldn't bother him with it." 
 
 She seemed to combine the spirit of a child with' 
 the skill of a perfect housekeq^er. She shopped, 
 she paid the bills, kept the household account in 
 the bank, saw to the wardrobes, managed every- 
 thing, and seemed never to have much to do. She 
 was without art or design. Her philosophy was 
 that of the brook. She lived naturally and gayly 
 that which others preach. 
 
 When we awoke, it was still pleasanter among 
 the trees than on the road, and so, mindful of the 
 mandate to the sluggard, we wrote a little and ate 
 the lunch Elizabeth had brought. Fortunately, 
 we were not obliged to go. 
 
 By one o'clock we felt like moving, and, fortu- 
 nately, we need not stay. 
 
 Thoreau found the world at WaJden, but he 
 could have found it also in Kalamazoo or a corn- 
 field. We need not go a hundred miles for a peck 
 of dirt, but sometimes it is worth while just to go 
 a hundred miles. And a wheel beneath you makes 
 a pleasant sound. Up hill, down dale, through 
 towns and a changing world of fields, idly looking, 
 
 [150]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 the wind brushing our cheeks, the song of the 
 chains and the rhythmic drumming of the pneu- 
 matic tires, now and then a word requiring no 
 answer. In this way three hours passed, as might 
 three hundred years, without a sense of time. A 
 song, a Httle laughter, a glance of love, a com- 
 passionate word or two, and life is over — why pro- 
 long it with a dull complaint? Suspicion is a 
 thankless load. Good-will, good faith will carry 
 you. They are as wings to the feet. They change 
 uncertainty into innocent delight, smooth dog- 
 matic wrinkles from the face of life, and in the 
 cheeks of fate poke foolish dimples such as cherubs 
 have. 
 
 We saw four cows in a pasture, boys playing 
 marbles near a fountain in Flushing, a cat dozing 
 on a stone wall, an old lady in a print gown, apron 
 and sunbonnet, running strings for her morning 
 glory vines, a flock of hens dusting in the road, 
 pigs in a mud puddle, back of a barn a man plow- 
 ing, women and children in the truck gardens, 
 apple orchards in full bloom, a girl putting milk 
 pans in a row on the wood pile to sun, a chipmunk 
 running a fence, and before we were aware the 
 road made a short turn at the foot of a hill and 
 
 [151]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 skirted the rippling edges of the sound at high 
 tide. It was a curving beach of white sand. We 
 splashed our faces, and, climbing a green em- 
 bankment, made pillows of our wheels and stretch- 
 ed ourselves upon the grass and looked over the 
 sound. Here we lay until the twilight fell, blend- 
 ing the tints of sunset on the water into purple. 
 The white sails became shadows and vanished and 
 appeared again like ghosts in the moonlight. But 
 this increasing beauty was not so wonderful to me 
 as had been the moment between sundown and 
 dark, for even then with Nancy beside me I was 
 content. And since that moment, though years 
 have passed, the twilights have lost their once 
 familiar melancholy when she is near. 
 
 At that time Nancy was thirty-seven, but she 
 was glad to forget the last seventeen years, and 
 that made her twenty. 
 
 We were not foolish enough to ignore tele- 
 phones, however, simply because they were not in 
 common use seventeen years before. Every morn- 
 ing, in fact, Nancy telephoned to her office for a 
 week, from College Point, Sea Cliff, from Tarry- 
 town, from Perth Amlx>y, the Atlantic High- 
 lands and from Far Rockaway. 
 
 [152]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 f rttiryr-cB 
 
 I had started with ten dollars, and at the end of 
 the week it was almost gone. We had been a little 
 extravagant, for on the two or three occasions 
 when we had wanted dinner at a shore hotel or at 
 a road house we had not hesitated, and one 
 night, when it rained, we had thought it best to 
 sleep inside. For the rest we lived very hap- 
 pily on bread, milk, bananas, figs, crackers and 
 cheese. 
 
 Our only thought for the morrow was con- 
 nected with the morning bath ; our only concern 
 that we awake by the sound or the sea. Some- 
 times we took our breakfast from a bag; some- 
 times w^e foraged for it. And through all these 
 days ran the story of Peter and his adventures in 
 the world ; we wrote it by the roadside, in fields, 
 in groves, on the sunny side of stone walls, on the 
 banks of the Hudson, the edge of the Palisades. 
 It was finished in a meadow of Prospect Park, as 
 we watched the old shepherd and his collies tend- 
 ing the city's sheep. 
 
 I think it would be impossible for three people 
 to spend six happier days. For Nancy, Elizabeth 
 and me, they were the beginning of six happy 
 years. The future troubled us very little then, 
 
 [153]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 *^4p 
 
 although a hundred comphcations were waiting to 
 undo us if we but said the word. 
 
 We ignored traditions, assuming our right to 
 be happy on a Httle, and to make that Httle in a 
 pleasant way. The summer was passed in ram- 
 bles, with no excuse for our behavior except our 
 delight in it. 
 
 Nancy was in her office now and then and some- 
 times she spent a night at home. 
 
 In the course of that first summer Nancy 
 and Elizabeth deserted me, going for August 
 and September into the mountains. I re- 
 mained in New York alone, because I was too 
 poor to follow them. Their occasional letters 
 tempted me with visions of cool forests and 
 mountain brooks. I missed these companions 
 dear to me. 
 
 In September Nancy wrote that the summer 
 boarders had gone and the mountains were begin- 
 ning to assume their greatest beauty. This letter 
 spoke to me with a familiar voice, friendly, tender 
 and beseeching. Then I received fifty dollars for 
 my first article in one of the regular magazines. 
 Three hours after the money was in my hands I 
 was on the train for the mountains. 
 
 [>54]
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 When we returned that fall we had a little piece 
 of land to pay for. For two months we worked 
 systematically, and the thing was done. Then, 
 following a vagrant impulse, we built a cabin on 
 an island in the sound and spent a summer there, 
 testing the dream of idleness in its most alluring 
 haunt. The record of this experiment and the 
 things it brought to us have been truthfully told 
 in the form of a book.* 
 
 Then followed another visit to the mountains, 
 and the wish to have a home. 
 
 "When we have seven thousand dollars," said 
 Nancy, 'Til go." 
 
 We were sitting by her office window at the 
 close of a fall day. 
 
 "Why do you wait for that?" I asked. 
 
 "How could we do anything without it?" 
 
 "But you long so much to go?" 
 
 "I do; I wish I could leave this business and 
 the city to-night, and never see them again." 
 
 "If I felt that way about it I would start with 
 no more than a ferry ticket, and if I didn't have 
 that I would not wait, I'd swim. But, you see, 
 the fact is you don't really want to go up there as 
 
 * "An Island Cabin." 
 
 [155]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 much as you want to stay here and get seven 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 "But don't you think that would be safer?" 
 
 "There is danger in it." 
 • "You don't think I could form the money- 
 making habit?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "There is danger of wasting the present for 
 some future thing. You might easily lose five or 
 ten years that way." 
 
 "I am sure we ought to have seven thousand," 
 said Nancy pensively. 
 
 It was a year and a half since I had brought the 
 story of Peter to her shop. At that time I would 
 have read her a lecture for persisting in this folly, 
 and left her. There is nothing gained in wishing 
 for two opposing things at once. "I long to go, 
 but I must stay," is the way to trick ourselves into 
 unhappiness. If we must stay, it is because we 
 desire something here. Then let us be frank with 
 ourselves, acknowledge that we are really doing 
 the thing we wish most to do, and do it gladly. 
 If, then, there is no happiness in it, the thing is 
 not worth the doing, whatever be the end in view, 
 for the liberty of to-morrow is never worth the 
 slavery of to-day. 
 
 [>56j
 
 TRUANTS 
 
 But I did not lecture Nancy. I agreed, in fact, 
 to give five years to hoarding with her. Those 
 who have read "An Island Cabin" and "The 
 House in the Woods" will understand the reasons. 
 In the first place, Nancy herself was worth the 
 concession. But, aside from, this, after an ex- 
 perience together in complete liberty, we were 
 ready to make a voluntary return to some of the 
 requirements of civilization. We had escaped from 
 the greedy fever of ambition. Free to choose, we 
 had tasted for ourselves the dream of solitude and 
 of idleness, and had found that, while any one 
 may have an island who will take it, there is no 
 sea wide enough to separate us from the world. 
 Our very abandonment to delight had brought us 
 in the end to a comfortable reconciliation with 
 some of the practical requirements of the world, 
 and so when we chose our retreat in the mountains 
 and planned a home our vision took more ma- 
 terial, if poetic, forms. 
 
 We had lived for a season as one drinks water 
 from a spring, and on a stolen holiday picks wild 
 berries from the bushes of the wilderness. And 
 now, because w^e still felt free to do this, we suc- 
 ceeded in our plan; that is, we really secured a 
 
 [157]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 comfortable nest in the forest, and were not en- 
 slaved by it. And because we found our interest 
 and pleasure in very simple living, five years were 
 not required, but only three. And all this was 
 accomplished in doing only what we had been 
 glad to do, without pay other than the free rations 
 from life's common store. There are thousands of 
 ways of making our bed and board in New York, 
 and for our pleasure there is the continuous per- 
 formance of the streets. 
 
 <) 
 
 A^O^Xft^ 
 
 X? 
 
 [158]
 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AN OPENING AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 N the days when I had worked 
 on newspapers I had conceived 
 a horror for that hfe. Now it 
 occurred to me that this was 
 due, perhaps, to my point of 
 view. If Hfe be looked upon 
 as a battle with personal glory for the prize, the 
 regiment of journalism is a poor one to choose. 
 It is used to fill up ditches with, that heroes may 
 pass over. 
 
 But now that I no longer cared to own a news- 
 paper nor envied the success of diplomats, thieves, 
 gamesters or warriors, nor feared to lose my job, 
 it might be possible to work on one and succeed 
 in my own way. 
 
 In the effort to find a first enterprise that would 
 
 ['59]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 fit a newspaper and my point of view, I thought 
 of the mob that pours out of Broadway into Cham- 
 bers street and pushes irresistibly, hke a hungry 
 serpent, through the walks of the park, across 
 Park Row, to the entrance to the bridge. Often 
 in this frightful melee, I have gripped the handle 
 of the car, to have my arm almost dragged out of 
 me. I have fought to keep my feet, to hold my 
 position, to move ahead, to mount the steps, and 
 been jammed into a corner of the rear platform, 
 my hat over my eyes, my glasses broken, my feet 
 and ribs sore from blows. The car was filled, and 
 yet it seemed to me I was among the first to 
 mount. 
 
 In all this struggle I was conscious of a certain 
 commanding presence, a powerful arm that stood 
 between me and destruction, and I knew that the 
 old woman gasping close to me would be shielded 
 from the pillar and the corner of the car. On 
 many nights I had iDeen conscious of this influence 
 and had frequently glanced at the man who exer- 
 cised it. He was certainly a marvel to see, this 
 giant who keeps the mobs in place. Six feet three 
 inches tall, he towered atove the mass of frantic 
 'heads, which he constantly scanned, as a mariner 
 
 [i6o]
 
 c 
 
 3 
 TO 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 O 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 D3 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 cc 
 
 ni
 
 AN OPENING AT THK BRIDGE 
 
 ^n^w 
 
 the threatening sea, and from his clear, blue eyes 
 came a steady, magnetic light of watchfulness, 
 intelligence and command. I marveled at the 
 pushing, clamoring multitude, and, more than all, 
 at his unruffled temper, in the midst of so much 
 madness. I began to wonder if he were always 
 good-natured and self-possessed, if he held these 
 qualities unconsciously or if he cultivated them, 
 and from this wondering came speculation con- 
 cerning this attitude toward the world, and that 
 of the world toward him. 
 
 I thought this subject might answer for a be- 
 ginning, and in the morning I took my stand near 
 the loop, determined to see if he kept his temper 
 for eleven hours of such a strain. 
 
 I was early, and during the ten minutes before 
 his appearance I shivered in the wind. This 
 bridge entrance is the coldest spot in New York. 
 A strong draft sweeps through it, and there is 
 neither sunlight nor shelter anywhere. I stood 
 near the stairs that lead to the elevated trains, but 
 the bitter wind rushed after me, now from this 
 side, now from that. I turned up my coat collar, 
 blew on my hands and humped my shoulders. 
 This thing was possible for half an hour or so, but 
 
 [163]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vrMirirr',r 
 
 the thought of enduring it until ten at night was 
 appalhng. 
 
 At two minutes to nine he came briskly out of 
 Park Row, and walked to the track over which 
 he presides. His gigantic form was clothed in a 
 long, thick overcoat that came to his ankles. The 
 collar, turned up to his ears, was met by the flaps 
 of a felt cap. He wore overshoes and leather 
 gloves. A DeKalb avenue car had just swung 
 around the loop and stopped. The passengers 
 were coming out by the front door, those in the 
 car pushing, close upon each other's heels, and 
 there was great confusion. Here was a man hold- 
 ing back, in considerable vexation, against those 
 pressing from behind. An uncertain old lady 
 would hobble down, pausing on each step, and, 
 when the ground was reached, stand for a men 
 ment in every one's way, to look about her anx- 
 iously or to fumble in her bag for an address. 
 John Doyle strode at once to this car, and, behold 
 the change! He reached his long arm into the 
 platform, and, taking the first passenger by the 
 elbow, brought him along quickly down the steps, 
 and, with a strong sweep outward, helped him 
 some distance from the car. In a twinkling he had 
 
 [164]
 
 AN OPENING AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 reached in again for the elbow of the next one. 
 He worked Hke a man swinging a scythe. The 
 whole line moved swiftly and steadily now and 
 the car was emptied. Then he stepped briskly to 
 the rear platform to bring order out of the confu- 
 sion of those who were seeking to enter. When 
 he arrived, there was no longer hesitation or delay. 
 He lifted children and old ladies from the ground 
 to the platform, and, placing his broad palm 
 against the back of others, pushed them steadily 
 up the steps. If you will watch this spectacle of 
 the bridge for a day you will discover that we, a 
 civilized people, cannot enter or leave a car in a 
 considerate and rational manner, and that, like 
 any drove of beasts, we must have our herdsman. 
 
 As the car moved on, the giant walked briskly 
 back and forth along the track. He held his head 
 up and his shoulders back. He took deep breaths 
 of the cold air, filling his great chest with it and 
 blowing it out in steam. Now and then he flayed 
 his body with resounding blows. I came from 
 under the stairs, took the hump from my back, 
 threw out my chest, walked near him, beat my 
 body also and grew warmer. 
 
 Another car came out and was emptied and 
 
 [165]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^f^^f^ 
 
 filled, with his assistance. Every few moments 
 this task was repeated, and in the intervals he 
 paced his beat. There wa^ no great crowd at this 
 time in the morning, but a scattering swarm of 
 people were constantly passing. During one hour 
 I counted eighty people, more than one to the 
 minute, who stopped and spoke to him. Six of 
 these were friends, the rest were strangers who 
 questioned him. 
 
 A woman caught the giant by the arm, and he 
 bent his head toward her. 
 
 "I have been waiting here ten minutes for a 
 Court street car !" 
 
 He stretched out his arm and pushed her away 
 from the track as a car came around the curve. 
 She tried to get in front of him, and he was 
 obliged to hold her firmly out of reach of the man- 
 catcher. As he helped the passengers out she 
 stood at his elbow, saying in a loud voice : 
 
 "What has happened to the 0)urt street 
 cars?" 
 
 "They are running on time." 
 
 "They ain't, either ! I am freezing here in this 
 wind. You ought to have this place enclosed; 
 
 you " 
 
 [i66]
 
 AN OPENING AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 
 "There comes a Court street car, madam, on 
 the second track." 
 
 A man poked him with his cane. 
 
 "I want to go to Seven-ninety-nine street." 
 
 "Don't know the street." 
 
 "You don't ? What are you here for ?" 
 
 "What part of Brooklyn is it?" 
 
 "That's what I want to find out." 
 
 "Better look in a directory." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw !" He wore side- burns and a white 
 lawn tie. 
 
 A pleasant-looking woman, with a soft voice, 
 stopped to tell him he must have a hard job 
 there. 
 
 "I hate to trouble you," she added, "but could 
 you tell me what car I should take to reach Han- 
 cock near Lewis?" 
 
 "Putnam and Halsey." 
 
 A little, battered old woman, wrapped in a 
 dirty shawl, was squinting about her and mum- 
 bling to herself. 
 
 "Where are you going, grandmother?" asked 
 the giant, stooping over her. 
 
 "Grandmother yourself. Go on ; to with 
 
 you!" 
 
 [167]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 He put his arm about her and looked at a scrap 
 of paper she held. 
 
 "You want a Greene and Gates," he said. 
 "Stand here by this post, and Fll tell you when 
 
 one comes." 
 
 He moved toward a car that had stopped, and 
 the old woman hobbled on to the track. He 
 stepped back quickly, lifted her off, and took her 
 with him, holding her under his arm as he helped 
 the passengers out and in. She continued to mum- 
 ble through her toothless gums, attempting to slip 
 away. He held her gently, patting her crooked 
 shoulders. When her car came he took her to it 
 and helped her on board, laughing good-naturedly 
 at her bald abuse. 
 
 During these morning hours he had time to 
 amuse himself. Handsome women, coquettish 
 girls, came his way, but he did not heed their 
 smiles or glances. He lent his ear to their ques- 
 tions, gave his brief answers, and dismissed them 
 with a motion of the hand. Politeness, painful 
 consideration for the trouble caused him, impa- 
 tience or abuse, he received with like patience. 
 He listened, answered, moved on to the next car. 
 He showed no feeling whatever, except where very 
 
 [i68]
 
 AN OPENING AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 old ladies were concerned. With them he was all 
 gentleness. The alert and cultivated old lady, he 
 treated with considerate respect; the blear-eyed, 
 the simple-minded, with humorous affection. An 
 old Italian woman, with a tag on her breast, kept 
 edging too close to the track. He moved her away 
 several times, and finally picked her up and placed 
 her at a distance of six feet. He whisked a piece 
 of chalk from his pocket and drew a line just in 
 front of her toes. Then he shook his finger at 
 her and left her there. She kept her toes to the 
 line until he came for her and took her to her car. 
 Hour after hour I watched and wondered. He 
 noticed me at last, and we talked a little. He had 
 held this job for four years, and in all that time 
 he had neither come to blows nor lost his 
 temper. 
 
 "This is no place for a man who get's mad," 
 said he. *T have a hundred chances for a row 
 every day. I can't afford to get angry at any- 
 thing ; if I did, I would be raving all the time. A 
 job like this will fix a man one way or the other 
 pretty soon. He will be good-natured or morose 
 for keeps. I am naturally good-natured, and I 
 would rather stay so." 
 
 [169]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "You were chosen for this place on that ac- 
 count, I suppose?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "How about those fellows on the other tracks?" 
 
 "Same with them. They are all good-natured 
 brutes. Sometimes one of 'em lets go and gets 
 cranky. If he starts that way once he goes pretty 
 fast and is soon discharged." 
 
 "You seem to be fond of the old ladies." 
 
 The giant laughed. "What makes you say 
 that?" 
 
 "I have been watching you." 
 
 "It comes out, does it?" 
 
 "Yes, it comes out." 
 
 "Well, I am fond of them." 
 
 A car came in, and he left me to attend to it. 
 As the day passed, our conversation became more 
 and more interrupted, and finally ceased, for he 
 was as busy as a mill wheel. But I had learned 
 that he was a bachelor, and that he lived with and 
 supported his old mother. She was now in her 
 eightieth year. She would not have a girl in the 
 house, because she wanted to do for him herself, 
 and she was afraid some designing hussy might 
 lead him astray. Every night she heated his bed 
 
 [ 170]
 
 AN OPENING AT THE BRIDGE 
 
 '/ifMnrirrrn.B 
 
 with a warming pan. Every morning she asked 
 him if he had put on his flannel chest-protector. 
 She prepared him a warm dinner at two o'clock, 
 and when he left her after it she always told him 
 to come straight home at night. She saw to it 
 that he went to confession and to mass once every 
 week. She called him "Johnny." 
 
 After four o'clock I could not speak with him 
 again. The tramp of feet, the sound of voices, 
 became a dull roar. Through the falling twi- 
 light poured the multitude like a deluge, threaten- 
 ing to sweep the bridge away. In the centre of 
 each struggling mass stood John Doyle, meeting 
 the mad onslaught ^vith cool good-nature. Fists 
 were shaken in his face, angry voices roared and 
 screamed up at him, but he held his head above 
 the scramble and gave heed only to his labor. 
 
 A thousand years ago such a man would have 
 served his master differently. He would have cut 
 down mobs, and been hailed as a hero by them. 
 He would have hewn his way to glory and riches. 
 The world has changed. The giant now is not 
 offered a principality for his services, but is paid 
 two dollars and a half a day for the strength of a 
 Hercules, the disposition of a Job, the wisdom of 
 
 [171]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 Socrates. But now, at least, the strong man is 
 paid to be gentle, if only two dollars and a half a 
 day. Perhaps the time will come when he who 
 serves faithfully in this will find as great honor 
 in his success as did the ancient victors of the 
 sword. 
 
 In this day's experience I saw only what any 
 one might see, told it simply, and taking it to the 
 Post, a place was given to me as a reporter, with 
 a salary of thirty dollars a week. 
 
 [ 172]
 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 HERE had been a heavy fall of 
 snow. One of the assistants, 
 temporarily in charge of the 
 city desk, sent me forth to see 
 Major Woodbury, the newly 
 appointed Commissioner of 
 Streets, saying: 
 
 "Have a good, hot column of roast in here by 
 eleven o'clock. We turned Tammany out because 
 of its incompetency, but the streets were never 
 like this ten hours after an eight-inch fall of snow. 
 Roast him !" 
 
 In those former years I would have gone forth 
 quaking, bent desperately on gathering what I 
 was sent to get, thinking only of my job, and of 
 the hard necessity that forced me to such tasks, 
 and I would have secured the hot roast of Wood- 
 
 [ 173 1
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vr»f«riFr rp 
 
 bury, while longing for the day when I would be 
 as conspicuous and as rich as he. 
 
 As it was, I said to myself: "I will find out 
 what a snowfall in the city means, what the task 
 of removing it is; just what has been done about 
 this one, and what the ideas of this man are." 
 
 When I returned Mr. LeRoyd, the city editor, 
 was in his chair, but I reported to the one who 
 sent me. 
 
 "We don't want a roast on Woodbury," I said. 
 
 "See here," said the assistant sharply, "we don't 
 want excuses, we want clean streets. There have 
 been forty protests from the West Side since 
 morning." 
 
 "Woodbury is a great man." 
 
 "Prove it," said LeRoyd. 
 
 "The department was wrecked by Tammany. 
 The equipment worn out and not replaced " 
 
 "Cut that," said LeRoyd. 
 
 "More snow has been removed during the same 
 number of hours, and for a less sum, by $12,000, 
 than on any other occasion in the history of the 
 city." I gave the figures. 
 
 "Where was it taken from?" asked the assis- 
 tant, "from the housetops?" 
 
 [174]
 
 TO 
 n 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 5' 
 
 CTQ 
 
 =r 
 m 
 
 3 
 O
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 MHiMHBiHiBk 
 
 "1 
 
 'From the East Side. The department never 
 had machinery enough to attend to the whole city 
 at once, and always before this the West End was 
 looked after first. Woodbury has been cleaning 
 the crowded tenement sections because filthy snow 
 is a breeder of disease." 
 
 LeRoyd pointed his finger at my breast, and, 
 glancing at me with his snapping black eyes, said : 
 
 "Write your story. It's great." 
 
 During that winter this young genius of an edi- 
 tor and I ransacked the city and searched events 
 for the soul of them. 
 
 One day in the spring I said to him : 
 
 "It would be interesting to find out why Pros- 
 pect Park is given freely to the people and Central 
 Park maintained as a playground for the police." 
 
 "I will give you three days to find that out," 
 said LeRoyd, "but if you need more take them." 
 
 I started upon this mission with conflicting mo- 
 tives. In the old days I would have recognized 
 but one — the desire for revenge. 
 
 Here was surely an opportunity to repay the 
 policemen of Central Park for their marvelous 
 activity in preventing my enjoyment of it. For 
 every time they had driven Nancy and me from a 
 
 D 177 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 pleasant nook I could sting them with a. para- 
 graph. Now it was not difficult to silence these 
 petty voices, and I began in earnest to search for 
 the real reason of the amazing contrast between 
 the relations of the people to Central Park and 
 Prospect Park. 
 
 Both are places of unusual beauty. In the one, 
 however, there is a warning sign and a busy po- 
 liceman at every turn. The plantations of shrub- 
 bery, the shaded slopes, the wooded hills are 
 guarded, and no one may step upon the meadows 
 without a permit. In the other there are no rules, 
 no signs, any one may enter the gates and wander 
 where he pleases. It had always seemed to me 
 that there was a peculiar significance in the official 
 appearance and moral atmosphere of the very 
 offices of these two parks. Just inside Central 
 Park, at Sixty-fourth street, is a building of 
 frowning red brick ; originally it was an armory, 
 and it still looks like one, austere and forbidding. 
 This is the home of the Manhattan Park Depart- 
 ment. No one entering could mistake its char- 
 acter now. It is rigidly official — a fit place in 
 which to hatch rules and oversee their strict en- 
 forcement. 
 
 [178]
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 ^rtfirirr'P 
 
 I went there first upon my quest and put my 
 questions to Mr. Wilcox, who' was then Commis- 
 sioner. 
 
 "Brooklyn is not New York," he said. "There 
 are one hundred people here to every ten in Pros- 
 pect Park. From the beginning Central Park has 
 been maintained as a show place. In Prospect 
 Park they do not have the great plantations of 
 rare ornamental shrubs that we have here. We 
 are expected to preserve these bushes, trees and 
 flower-beds, and the one way to do it is to keep 
 the people from them." 
 
 "How about the open meadows?" 
 
 "On certain days the people are permitted there 
 if they secure permits. It would be impossible to 
 throw them open and preserve the grass." 
 
 These seemed to be fitting sentiments tO' issue 
 from so grim a place. 
 
 Now, in Prospect Park, high on a hill, in the 
 midst of a thicket, stands the old Litchfield Man- 
 sion, at one time a lordly residence in the centre 
 of private grounds. It is now the office of the 
 Brooklyn Park Department. This place still has 
 a hospitable and inviting look. High trees shelter 
 it; vines, the kind that housewives love; honey- 
 
 [ 179 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 suckle, trumpet and wistaria climb up the porches 
 and drape the bay windows with fragrant cur- 
 tains. The doors are the old doors of the house. 
 The entrance does not seem official, and the rooms 
 inside are still those of a comfortable dwelling". 
 There are seats in the hall for callers and an 
 amiable butler to attend them. The centre-table is 
 covered with books and magazines. The police 
 headquarters occupy the old drawing-rooms, and 
 the long, old-fashioned windows swing open upon 
 verandas and look out upon a pleasant dooryard 
 of flower-beds and lawns. Any one may saunter 
 around this room unnoticed by the captain, seated 
 in a cushioned rocking chair in the bay window, 
 reading the daily paper. 
 
 "Captain," he was asked, "what are the rules 
 of this park ?" 
 
 "None to speak of," he said. "Of course, if 
 we caught you at it, we'd prevent you from break- 
 ing the limbs of trees or bushes, or from rolling in 
 the flower-beds. That's about all." 
 
 He looked up over his glasses with a smile of 
 genial tolerance. 
 
 Mr. Young, the Commissioner, occupied the old 
 library. He was a large man, with a homelike 
 
 [i8o]
 
 cr 
 n 
 
 c 
 
 c' 
 
 5 o 
 
 c 
 
 ft 
 
 a 
 
 o
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 ^Trw 
 
 face, capable, kindly and as simple as a fanner. 
 He was leaning back in his chair, holding' a porta- 
 ble 'phone, and talking in a companionable way to 
 his coal dealer. 
 
 "Now," he said, in friendly, ponderous tones, 
 "you will do that for me, won't you ? Be sure and 
 send it in one-ton carts, and you had better send 
 only one or two loads to-day, for it's washday, 
 you know, and the wash will be hung out on the 
 lines." 
 
 When he turned at last to me I felt as if I were 
 about to talk things over with my father, and that 
 I had the kind of a father one can talk things over 
 with. 
 
 "Why is it," I asked, "that you are willing to 
 throw this whole park open, unrestricted, as you 
 do?" 
 
 "That is what a park is for," he answered 
 slowly. "We are here tO' make it a beautiful place 
 for the people to enjoy, and we work for that end 
 only." 
 
 "How many people are here on a pleasant 
 day?" 
 
 "A hundred thousand or more. The number is 
 increasing every year." 
 
 [183 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 '.■«r*firirrrirB 
 
 "If the crowds become too great you will have 
 to restrict them ?" 
 
 "I don't think so. It would be a pity to do that. 
 Any number of people could roam over this park 
 without injury to it, so long as they don't tramp 
 in single file." 
 
 "If you see a path forming, do you put up a 
 sign?"" 
 
 "I don't like signs. Who can enjoy a park with 
 signs slapping him in the face? We just drive a 
 couple of stakes and nail a stick across until the 
 trail is gone." 
 
 "They say in Central Park the crowds will kill 
 the grass." 
 
 "They don't take the care of it over there that 
 we do. They don't want the people on the grass, 
 and we do. If a place gets a little worn we attend 
 to it at once, and then we use great care, in the 
 first place, in selecting our seed, and we have 
 men at work all the time searching for an- 
 nual grass and destroying it. If you get a good, 
 strong sod, and take the right care of it no 
 amount of use will hurt it. There is no finer 
 piece of lawn in the world than our croquet 
 ground, and it is used all the time. Even in 
 
 [184]
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 the winter it is cleaned of snow to let people play 
 on it." 
 
 After this plain interview I went to Manhattan's 
 Commissioner again and repeated the hopeful 
 words of Mr. Young to him. Then Mr. Wilcox 
 seemed amazed, and, admitting that he was not 
 an expert, sent for Samuel Parsons, the city's 
 landscape architect. He might have been the 
 brother of Mr. Young, a little mellower, perhaps, 
 and fashioned upon a bigger scale. When he 
 looked at me I surely saw the memorj' of Peter in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I am glad to find some one 
 every now and then who takes an interest in this. 
 The reason why Central Park must be protected is 
 because the soil is worthless. You may not see it. 
 Certainly, the great masses of the people don't 
 realize it, but I know that the park is dying." 
 
 Then followed the interview that awoke New 
 York one day from its complacent sleep. Mr. 
 Parsons himself at that time was weary with 
 years of fruitless appeals. 
 
 Since parks were first laid out in Manhattan it 
 had been the same old story — the effort to make 
 as g^eat a. show as possible. Administrations had 
 
 [i8s]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 •-Ww 
 
 vied with each other in this until there was not a 
 park on the island with sufficient soil. Just enough' 
 dirt had been spread over the surface of rock and 
 sand to produce a showy, ephemeral growth of 
 grass and shrubs. For eighteen years Samuel 
 Parsons had persistently preached more soil, and, 
 through incredible toil, had accomplished some- 
 thing here and there. The story of his long battle 
 is told by an object lesson on Eighth avenue. The 
 trees there reveal it, like the actors in a play. The 
 first trees planted, some twenty years ago, were 
 put in what Mr. Parsons calls "pot holes." When 
 he came to the department two years later he 
 began his plea for more soil, and there was a little 
 improvement, as the planting proceeded up the 
 avenue, year by year. Finally, when the million 
 dollars was given the parks by the Legislature, to 
 help the poor, by giving them work, Mr. Parsons 
 had his way, and he made the holes fourteen feet 
 long, six feet wide, and four feet deep, and now 
 the trees planted eight years ago are bigger and 
 better than those half-starved, struggling for ex- 
 istence through twenty years. 
 
 "The trouble with us in all our park-building," 
 said he, "is this: We have laid out walks and 
 
 [i86]
 
 FREEDOM IN CAPTIVITY 
 
 ^iwtf 
 
 drives and built monuments and marble buildings, 
 and scoured the earth for costly trees and shrubs, 
 and then, if we had any money left, we have spent 
 it on the soil. Here in Manhattan, at least, it 
 should have been the other way. But it is impossi- 
 ble to get the people to see the importance of such 
 things here. They have not acquired the depth of 
 feeling necessary. They don't seem to realize 
 what a beautiful tree is, and what it means to have 
 one, and until they do they won't make parks as 
 God makes them." 
 
 All this and more I published in my first story 
 in the Post; and in the weeks and months that fol- 
 lowed, Mr. Parsons renewed his youth, for we dis- 
 covered that when the soul of the city was ap- 
 pealed to, it responded. Newspapers, city officials, 
 aldermen and taxpayers were aroused by the is- 
 sue. A commission was appointed, and the work 
 of renewing the soil begun — an undertaking in- 
 volving many years and millions of dollars. 
 
 Had I been rich I would have spent my fortune 
 for the privilege of doing such work. With my 
 regular salary and the special stories sold to the 
 supplement, I made from fifty to sixty dollars a 
 week. In the course of two years I sold twenty- 
 
 187]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 three articles to the magazines, receiving eighteen 
 hundred dollars for them. Most of the subjects 
 had been suggested to me as I rambled in my free- 
 dom and could have been written by anybody who 
 could find interest in what might not appear to 
 serve himself, who could hunt for good in things, 
 take pleasure in them, and think a little over what 
 he saw. 
 
 [i88]
 
 ^MS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PLIGHT OF CRCESUS 
 
 OW long will men convert their 
 cities into prisons, corrupt in- 
 dustry by intrigue and sap the 
 joys of society by exclusive- 
 ness and arbitrary forms? 
 The one who gets too much 
 becomes not a master, but a slave. 
 
 More than one man has told me that he has not 
 walked in the open fields or idled a day in the 
 woods for years. The earth was surely not made 
 for such as these, and yet a goodly share of it be- 
 longs to them. The earth is still a paradise, and 
 those who are attune with its simple beauty and 
 content with its bounty may find in it a perpetual 
 joy. It is only the desire for things other than 
 paradise offers us that can bring disappointment 
 and sorrow. Luxurious abodes and fine raiment 
 
 [189]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 are the legitimate perquisites of civilization, and 
 we will have them ; but as we manage now, they 
 cost too much. Under our present system. Hon- 
 esty, Industry and Thrift are not the secret of suc- 
 cessful enterprise. The secret lies in inducing 
 people to buy of you, and in making them pay. 
 Competition may be the life of trade, but it is 
 death to the trader. 
 
 Now that the history of the Standard Oil is 
 spread before us, we see a multitude of good citi- 
 zens seeking to cut each others' throats, until one 
 particularly faithful brother is charged with es- 
 tablishing a central slaughter house and doing the 
 butchering for them all. Many a man who holds 
 a respected place in society, who' sits in his office 
 at the head of a substantial business, who is promi- 
 nent in church and benevolences, and from his 
 comfortable position condemns the conduct of the 
 criminal, is often himself deterred from crime 
 only by love of the place in society that he has 
 won. Even this good citizen, with a malicious 
 heart, has his ideals and strives to attain them. 
 But let me ask you. Is it possible for one man in 
 ten thousand to conceive of an ideal in rags ? Does 
 not our modern conception of Greatness, of Good- 
 
 [ 190]
 
 THE PLIGHT OF CRGESUS 
 
 urifirHrmi 
 
 ness, of Philanthropy sit in a fine office and write 
 large checks ? 
 
 One day I was at a stockholders' meeting, talk- 
 ing with a reporter I knew, when a young man, 
 who seemed familiar to me, passed us, smiling in 
 a friendly way. 
 
 "Who is that young fellow?" I asked. 
 
 "Charles M. Schwab." 
 
 He looked very young and unpretentious. 
 
 "So that is Schwab?" I said wonderingly. 
 
 "I wish I had his dough," said the reporter', 
 with a half-humorous, half-savage laugh. 
 
 "What would you do with it?" 
 
 "Do?" he exclaimed quickly; "I'd do as he 
 does." 
 
 "Automobiles, yachts, fast horses, clubs?" 
 
 "The same." 
 
 In a few moments Mr. Schwab returned. 
 
 "Do you work for money?" I asked. He was 
 evidently used to this kind of question, for he an- 
 swered with good-natured readiness: 
 
 "Last year I could not spend ten per cent. 
 o;f my income on anything pertaining to my- 
 self." 
 
 "There was a time when you did?" 
 
 [191]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ■-Ww 
 
 "When I began to work, I worked for nothing 
 else. I wanted to be rich." 
 
 "Did you think very much about it then ?" 
 
 "Yes ; in a way. I know that I used to laugh at 
 Carnegie and considered philanthropy as a sop 
 successful men throw to their consciences. I be- 
 lieved that all men like myself wanted to be rich, 
 that they might live extravagantly and spend what 
 they pleased." 
 
 "Your views have changed?" 
 
 "Yes ; they are still changing." 
 
 "When did the change begin?" 
 
 "When I found myself possessed 'of more than 
 I could spend for my own goo<l. As my income 
 increased I tried to live up to it. I discovered 
 that it was more than I could do profitably. I dis- 
 covered that I must draw the line somewhere if I 
 were to enjoy anything. Since then I have some- 
 times tried to draw the line closer. The simpler I 
 live the better I feel. If to-day I were compelled to 
 choose between living up to five hundred thousand 
 dollars a year and five hundred a year I would 
 choose the five hundred," 
 
 "And what are you working for now ?" 
 
 "I am trying to find that out. The old incen- 
 
 [ 192 ]
 
 THE PLIGHT OF CRCESUS 
 
 ^liwtf 
 
 tive is gone, but I find myself as eager as before. 
 Perhaps it is the interest in the game, and yet I 
 don't think that is all. I am not altogether satis- 
 fied with commercial success. I would like to do 
 good with my surplus." 
 
 He smiled in an earnest, friendly way, and 
 added, "But it is hard to see just how." 
 
 For many generations we have pointed to this 
 rich man or that and urged our youths to fix their 
 ideals there. Is it to be wondered at, then, that 
 while every one possessing a sound mind is, in a 
 general way, striving toward an ideal, we are 
 usually seeking to reach it through social and 
 financial success? Social position generally fol- 
 lows in the wake of wealth ; and wealth, therefore, 
 becomes the great central figure in our aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 It is true that this is the prevailing incentive, 
 but it is the incentive of a passing age. We are 
 casting suspicious glances upon the siren. In the 
 last few years, so many have reached her and 
 found her out ! The greatest figures in our aris- 
 tocracy of wealth and power no longer fire the 
 imagination. They have been suddenly discov- 
 ered walking stealthily in the shadow of the peni- 
 
 [ 193]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vrifirirri'r.B 
 
 tentiary and unable to find pleasure in their 
 wealth, even were they free to claim it as their 
 own and enjoy it. Rockefeller still works like a 
 drudge and has no time for pleasure, and they say 
 he is afraid. He enjoys, at most, no more than do 
 thousands of the people he employs. 
 
 "I would give a million a year," he exclaimed, 
 "to the man who could relieve me and let me rest." 
 
 Russell Sage assures us that what happiness he 
 receives comes, not from his riches, but from his 
 simple living. He is happy in so far as he can 
 escape his surplus wealth. Carnegie reached the 
 siren, received her treasures, and is giving them 
 away. 
 
 These are men of strongly contrasting types. 
 And now comes Schwab, the man of the world, 
 whose blood is still hot with the desires of youth, 
 in whose eyes all the extravagant luxuries of this 
 inventive age take alluring forms, to add to the 
 verdict a new significance. He has learned that to 
 enjoy his possessions he should limit them. There 
 is a line over which he may not go without loss to 
 himself. 
 
 The line of profitable possession will some day 
 be clearly drawn, and it will be so contrived that 
 
 [ 194]
 
 THE PLIGHT OF CRCESUS 
 
 all men may toe it. To find this line will be the 
 next great prevailing incentive, a project involved 
 in Altruism, the dream of the Future. I am not 
 endeavoring, however, to solve the social problem, 
 in the little trilogy of which this book is third, but 
 to complete a true record of one who tested cer- 
 tain ancient dreams and precepts for himself. And 
 so I return to a narrative of simple things, such 
 things, in fact, as any one may encompass in his 
 life, filling it with significance beyond the feverish 
 successes of a day, with delight beyond the satis- 
 faction of personal ambition or of vanity. 
 
 [195]
 
 ^Il^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 M~ ''J^ 1) i 
 
 ^M 
 
 M 
 
 EAR little Bobbie," said Nancy, 
 with the sidewise, partly 
 drooping poise of the head that 
 attends reflection. I did not 
 answer her, but continued to 
 gaze from the window over 
 the great stretch of city far below me. 
 
 It was at the close of a November day, and a 
 dazzling glint flashed from innumerable windows. 
 Details of the vast picture were already lost in the 
 softening shadows, but the outlines of the build- 
 ings, the ribbon of the North River, and the Jer- 
 sey hills beyond were bold and clear in the cold 
 twilight. At this hour the river shone with a 
 peculiar lustre, and the ferryboats crossing it, the 
 steamers moving imposingly to or from their slips, 
 
 [196]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 fr»»irirr.'.r|i 
 
 and the few small craft with sails spread, stood 
 out distinctly. We were in Nancy's copying office. 
 Her girls had gone home, and I was waiting for 
 her to finish her task. She worked at a table near 
 the window and glanced out continually, watch- 
 ing the fading light from the city and the increas- 
 ing lustre of the river. The same memory was 
 ours as we viewed the water. We had gone at 
 once to work upon our return from the island, 
 joining in the rush of the city without the loss of 
 a step ; but we had not been here long enough yet 
 to lose ourselves in its thoughts, its movements 
 and its feelings. We moved with the throngs 
 that crossed the Brooklyn bridge twice a day ; we 
 struggled in the stampede for the cars at night; 
 we toiled at the tasks a city provides ; but we were 
 moving like people in a mist. 
 
 The sea was still sounding in our ears. We 
 instinctively noticed the direction of the wind and 
 estimated its strength and stability. We woke 
 with a start to find Broadway before us rather 
 than the pathway of the sound where it leads to 
 the ocean. But we were beginning to realize the 
 change in our surroundings. As the days passed 
 the most persistent memory was of the night of 
 
 [ 197 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 our departure, when we sailed to Noank for the 
 last time, leaving our dog behind. 
 
 So now, when Nancy said "Dear little Bob- 
 bie," I saw him as he stood on the dock of our 
 neighbor's island, disappearing in the darkness, 
 his nose pointed to the stars, his mournful howls 
 growing fainter and more mellow as the water 
 between us widened. 
 
 Bob had been left upon Mystic Island with 
 Gibbie Wilcox, because we knew that Scotch col- 
 lies were not meant for the city. Their active 
 intelligence requires something to do. 
 
 I had seen a beautiful collie once on Fifth ave- 
 nue. His coat of long hair was like silk, and to 
 all outward appearance he was a perfect dog; but 
 he seemed old beyond his years, and as he walked 
 quietly by his master, with his head a little bent, 
 he watched the life of the street as it rushed past 
 him with swift glances from suspicious eyes. This 
 dog was duly exercised and well cared for. He 
 had been taught to avoid the dangers of the town, 
 and that prompt obedience which his liberty of 
 the street required of him, but his spirit had been 
 subdued, and developed into one of protest, of 
 watchfulness and distrust. Other collies I had 
 
 [198]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 ^nW 
 
 seen in town were either pitifully afraid, or, like 
 him, distrustful. From every side I heard men 
 say, "Collies are intelligent and they are hand- 
 some dogs, but you cannot rely on them. They 
 are treacherous." 
 
 A breeder said to me, "You should not get a 
 collie if you expect to keep him in the city. Few 
 of them can stand the noise and confusion and 
 lack of exercise. Those that survive are likely 
 to be cowardly or mean." 
 
 It had been hard to part with Bob. We were 
 afraid that he would forget us, for he was only 
 five months old when we left him there. 
 
 In her first letter to us Nora, Gibbie's wife, had 
 written, "We are gathering up the apples now, 
 and of course Bob must help. He runs for them 
 far and near and brings them to the basket. He 
 is the busiest of us all. But this afternoon he 
 suddenly disappeared, and where do you think 
 we found him ? In your sharpie. Gibbie has not 
 taken it from the water yet. It was moored to 
 the dock where you left it. Bob had jumped in 
 and was sitting gravely in the stern seat. He 
 looked very thoughtful." 
 
 After this letter my memories of the island 
 
 [ 199 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 3wtv%rur<'r.m\ 
 
 were less insistent, for they were only memories, 
 and the present was at hand. Now when my 
 thoughts flew up the sound I saw Bob, the com- 
 panion of my fine September days, sitting alone 
 in the sharpie we had sailed together, wondering 
 in his dog's heart what had become of me, with 
 no means of finding out, wistfully waiting for the 
 familiar call. 
 
 And then Nora wrote again : "You must send 
 for Bob. Gibbie is afraid he will be sick. He goes 
 off alone to the north end of the island and looks 
 across the run toward your cabin. He sits for 
 hours at a time in the sharpie where Gibbie has 
 hauled it on the beach." 
 
 "What shall we do?" asked Nancy, with a sud- 
 den brimming of the eyes. 
 
 "We must send for him," I said. "It can't be 
 helped. Bob is evidently the kind that don't for- 
 get. He might die up there." 
 
 "But where shall we keep him ?" 
 
 That was a serious question, and I could not 
 answer it. Nancy's mother had told us more than 
 once that she would not have him in the house. 
 You must not think from this that Nancy's mother 
 is unkind, for she is one of the tenderest-hearted 
 
 [ 200 ]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 women in the world. There is nothing she will 
 not undertake and patiently and lovingly perform 
 in the service of any one who suffers. She would 
 wash with her own hands and clothe in her own 
 garments the outcast fallen at her door. 
 
 She shut Bob out because she had had dogs and 
 loved them. They had ruined her carpets and 
 torn her curtains and cried at night. They ruled 
 and tormented her. There was no use in plea or 
 arguments. — she would not have him. 
 
 "Of course," said I to Nancy, "I can get a room 
 somewhere else in the neighborhood and keep him 
 there." 
 
 This was possible as a last resort, but neither of 
 us liked the plan. I have lived half my natural 
 life, and never since my boyhood until then had I 
 found myself settled in a home where I might live 
 peaceably in my own way, and where the other 
 members of the household found it a pleasure to 
 add comfort to my lot. 
 
 Of course, I would have foregone this and 
 cheerfully sought a new shelter among strangers, 
 enduring the wear and tear that may be expected 
 on such a pilgrimage, if any necessity arose, and 
 I would surely have done it for the sake of Bob. 
 
 [201 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Tw^ 
 
 "Perhaps," I said, ''when Bob once gets here 
 and she sees him, she will relent. He is such a 
 dear little fellow." 
 
 Nancy looked grave. "You don't know how 
 firm mother can be at times." 
 
 "We must send for him anyhow, and do what 
 is best when he comes." 
 
 We felt the gravity of the situation, its pathos 
 and humor as well, and took hold of the business 
 in hand with some anxiety, some merriment and a 
 great deal of care. The picture of Bob in the 
 sharpie, waiting patiently with his memories and 
 dumb longings, was with us also, and we felt its 
 subduing influence. 
 
 We consulted the express agent and wrote to 
 Gibbie telling him to put Bob in a strong box, 
 with slats on top, and ship him by the 9 153 
 train on Saturday morning. He should then 
 reach the Grand Central Station by 4 :30 
 o'clock. 
 
 "Are you sure," we asked the agent, "he will be 
 sent straight through ?" 
 
 "He probably will," was the soft reply. "Such 
 matter usually has the right of way, as we don't 
 like to have live stock on our hands." 
 
 [ 202 ]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 
 As we left him we looked at each other anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "I hope," said Nancy, ''there will be no de- 
 lay." 
 
 "It is a dangerous thing," I replied, "to send a 
 pup by express. A single fright, a little rough 
 treatment just now might leave its taint through 
 life. It is terrible to think of him alone for hours 
 in all that noise and confusion he cannot under- 
 stand. But there is no help for it." 
 
 "We had better not tell mother, but just take 
 him home on trust," Nancy said. 
 
 When the letter was posted, and we walked 
 down Broadway towards the bridge and home, 
 we felt somewhat out of place in the great city 
 with our island memories and our problem of a 
 dog. 
 
 If we were to shout aloud the things that con- 
 cerned us then, who among this seething multi- 
 tude would take them seriously? Where there 
 are banks to rob and franchises to steal, where 
 gleaming prizes multiply with every race; in a 
 city of palaces, where the meanest tenement is but 
 an hour removed from Coney Island — in this 
 great wonderland of ambition, of malice, of toil 
 
 [ 203 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 and delight — who can consider the grief of a little, 
 lone dog? 
 
 At four o'clock Saturday afternoon Nancy and 
 I were at the Grand Central Station waiting for 
 the 4 130 train, on which Bob should be. A tele- 
 gram from Gibbie announced that he had been 
 shipped that morning. That November was a 
 cold and windy month, and that Saturday was 
 one of its worst days. A biting draught swept 
 through the open depot shed, and the men at 
 the gates slapped themselves constantly to keep 
 the blood going. Their breath came out in 
 clouds of frost. Their coat-collars were turned 
 up, their cap flaps were pulled down, their noses 
 and cheeks, exposed, were bitten red by the 
 weather. 
 
 We approached one of these sentinels, walking 
 with hunched shoulders, and flapping arms before 
 the gate. 
 
 "On what track," I asked, "does the 4 i^o train 
 from New London enter ?" 
 
 "This one," he growled. 
 
 He was so forbidding that I let him pass up 
 and down several times before I spoke again. 
 
 "Can you tell me," I ventured, "how I can get 
 
 [ 204]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 ^n^w^ 
 
 a dog from the train as soon as he comes in ? He 
 h only a pup — a Scotch collie — and " 
 
 "By express?" asked the gateman, facing me 
 now with a kindlier expression in his eyes. 
 
 "Yes — in a box." 
 
 "You will have to get him from the express 
 office. It's right back of the station on Forty- 
 eighth street. Go up there now and tell them to 
 get him on the first wagon and handle him care- 
 fully. They'll do that for you." 
 
 We turned our faces to the wind, and pushing 
 against it, with heads bent, struggled out of the 
 shed, along Forty-second street, and turned up 
 Lexington avenue. Now the wind was behind 
 us, and we leaned backward, holding to our hats 
 as it blew us along. 
 
 We found the express depot to be another great 
 shed, open on both sides. There was no shelter 
 anywhere from wind and cold. The men at work 
 needed none, for every moment huge covered 
 wagons came rumbling in to be loaded and un- 
 loaded. We watched the men wrestling with bar- 
 rels and boxes until the sweat moistened their 
 faces, and envied them. Our feet were sore with 
 the cold, our hands stung, our cheeks ached, our 
 
 [205]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 clothes had ceased to protect us. We might as 
 well have stood there naked in the wind. 
 
 We told the foreman of our errand. He was a 
 tall, powerful Irishman, with a clean-shaven face, 
 strong and kindly. He smiled at Nancy, shaking 
 and chattel ing beside me, and told us to run up 
 and down and get warm. 
 
 "The dog," he said, "will be brought up 
 here at once. I will see to that. The first 
 wagon from the 4 130 won't arrive until ten 
 minutes after five. Go on, now, and run up and 
 down." 
 
 We turned and walked briskly to the end of the 
 wide platform. 
 
 "I can't run here," said Nancy, "with everyone 
 looking." 
 
 "And so," I said, "we become staid and formal. 
 We are held by invisible leashes. Every eye turn- 
 ed our way lassoes us. Why do' we make captives 
 of one another? It is not enough to live inno- 
 cently, to harm no one. In the smallest way we 
 may not be simple, impulsive and free. The prob- 
 lem we shall face with Bob does not differ from 
 our own. The moment he arrives the city will 
 seek to grind him into its grist, limiting his lib- 
 
 [ 206 ]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 :,|r»»iri'r:rT» 
 
 erty, subduing his spirit, until he becomes the 
 watchful, world-wise creature of the town." 
 
 Nancy looked up at me with an expression of 
 distress, but she was too cold to talk about it. 
 
 ''Let us walk faster," I said, taking her hand, 
 **or, here, I'll warm you." I turned her about and 
 slapped her back smartly, until she jumped away 
 from my blows. 
 
 "We might as well run," she said. "Those men 
 are laughing at us." 
 
 "All right ; they have done their worst. Let 
 us run." We started off at a trot and did not stop 
 until we were breathless. 
 
 At a quarter past five the big foreman came to 
 us with a long face. "There is no dog on the 
 train," he sarid. 
 
 "No dog!" we exclaimed. "How can that be?" 
 
 "You know it was shipped?" 
 
 "He left Noank at 9:53 this morning." We 
 showed him the telegram. 
 
 "Well," he said, thoughtfully, "he may have 
 been laid off at New London or at New Haven. 
 If that is the case he may come on 'most any 
 train." 
 
 "How often do they come?" 
 
 [207]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 "Almost every hour until midnight. The next 
 one is due now, and the first wagon from that 
 gets here at six." 
 
 And so we waited until six. He did not come. 
 We watched every wagon that entered, looked at 
 every box thrown off, and forgot the wind and 
 cold somewhat in our anxiety. 
 
 At seven o'clock we heard a voice from some- 
 where in the darkness outside call out, "No dog 
 on No. 40." He was an express messenger from 
 the station who had walked up the tracks, bound 
 home for dinner. We now had two hours to wait. 
 
 "We will have time," I said, "to get warm and 
 eat." 
 
 "It doesn't seem possible," said Nancy, as we 
 made ourselves comfortable in a warm restaurant 
 on Forty-second street, "that they could deliber- 
 ately put a dog to one side and hold him back 
 this way. They must see that he is a gentle little 
 fellow. I can't understand how they can bear to 
 see him cooped up in his box and left to pine and 
 worry. How can they do it?" 
 
 When we went out again upon our quest we 
 stopped at the depot. If we could only get per- 
 mission to go through the gate and meet the in- 
 
 [208]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 ^,|y|w 
 
 coming trains, just to inquire at the express car if 
 the dog were there, it would save us nearly an 
 hour of uncertainty. As we passed under the 
 shed a gruff voice inquired, "Did Bob come yet ?" 
 We turned and saw only the towering hulk of a 
 policeman. 
 
 "No," I answered; "we are still waiting for 
 him." 
 
 "It's a damn shame," he said, "to hold a dog 
 up like that." 
 
 A few steps further on we heard another 
 voice calling and saw to our right the agent of 
 Westcott's Express leaning over the counter 
 toward us. 
 
 "Are you the folks looking for a dog?" 
 
 "Yes ; has he come ?" 
 
 We hurried over to him, 
 
 "He wasn't on the local just in from New 
 Haven. It don't carry an express car, but I 
 thought they might have put him aboard. But he 
 wasn't there. They oughtn't to hold a dog up that 
 way." 
 
 "When does the next express car come in?" 
 
 He glanced up at the clock in the apex of the 
 shed. 
 
 [209]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 >^>:*«irvri'r'|i 
 
 'In fifteen minutes. He ought to be on that, 
 
 sure." 
 
 "I wonder if we could meet it when it comes 
 in and ask?" 
 
 "I'll find out for you, if you want, but the gate- 
 man'll let you through." 
 
 "He cut us pretty short before." 
 
 "Hey, there, Charley!" he called. "Here are 
 the folks for the dog." 
 
 The gateman beckoned to us, and when we ap- 
 proached, said amiably : "Wait here till the train 
 comes. When the passengers get through you can 
 go in and ask." 
 
 "What do you suppose has become of him?" 
 asked Nancy. 
 
 "Laid him off at New Haven." 
 
 "I can't understand why they should do that?" 
 
 "You never can tell," said the man, with an ex- 
 pression of astute scorn, "what some folks will 
 do." 
 
 A little old man, very thin and active, came out 
 of the darkness of the tracks and stood near the 
 iron fence on the other side. 
 
 "Waiting for Bob?" he asked. "I'm the ex- 
 press agent. There's a couple of our cars over 
 
 [ 210]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 there 'tain't been emptied yet. I just went through 
 'em to see for sure 't he weren't overlooked." 
 
 "Where do you suppose he is?" asked Nancy, 
 pressing against the fence near him. 
 
 "New Haven. They throw off most of the ex- 
 press there, and reship it." 
 
 "They wouldn't throw a box with a dog in it, 
 would they?" 
 
 "They're supposed to ship live stock straight 
 through, and to handle it carefully; but you can't 
 always tell. They don't have much time to con- 
 sider." 
 
 The last train came at midnight, and both the 
 gateman and express agent went with us to the 
 car. It was a solemn, anxious company. I know 
 that my own pulse was suspended. 
 
 "Got a dog in there?" asked the agent, peering 
 through the door. 
 
 "No dog," came the reply. 
 
 "Are you sure?" asked the gateman over his 
 shoulder. "Are you sure?" repeated the agent. 
 
 "Nope; there ain't no dog here." 
 
 "Mercy !" said Nancy, in something like a gasp. 
 "What shall we do?" 
 
 "There is no other train to-night ?" I asked. 
 
 [211]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "The next one gets here about seven in the 
 morning. He will surely be on that." 
 
 "But just think of him shut up in that box all 
 day and all night without food or water. It's 
 enough to ruin him." 
 
 "I suppose they'll feed him and give him a 
 drink," said the gateman, and the agent replied 
 that they ought to. 
 
 We could do nothing more but go home and 
 return in the morning. We said good-night to 
 our friends, heard a last sympathetic oath from 
 the policeman at the entrance, climbed the elevated 
 steps and began our long night journey to Macon 
 street, in Brooklyn. 
 
 "Shall we tell your mother?" I asked. 
 
 "No, no," said Nancy, anxiously. "Not a word 
 about him yet. She will forbid our bringing him 
 at all. She will be afraid if he once gets in he will 
 stay. I know her." 
 
 "But she will ask what kept you so late. She 
 always does, you know." 
 
 "I suppose I must lie then," she said pleasantly. 
 
 "What will you say — that you had to work?" 
 
 "No. I never tell her that unless it's so. I 
 have to lie sometimes, but never in a serious thing, 
 
 [ 212 ]
 
 A CALL FROM THE WILD 
 
 vrfvirirriTB 
 
 and I discriminate. I always feel badly about it 
 anyhow. It would be such a delight to always 
 tell the truth. But I manage to keep my con- 
 science easy by coming as close to the truth as I 
 can and avoid unpleasant conflicts. I could not 
 tell her I remained to work when I did not. There 
 is a virtue in labor, and when I have been doing 
 something that she might not approve, I cannot 
 shield myself behind my work — a thing she re- 
 spects and usually yields to, and that reflects credit 
 on me in her eyes. It is not credit I am seeking, 
 but just escape from trouble. Now I am willing 
 to tell her that I have been off on a junket. Any 
 objection she may have to that will not be serious. 
 She believes in pleasure for me and will not really 
 mind. So I will tell her we went to the show. It's 
 the dog I don't want her to know about, not the 
 way I spent the evening. Do you see?" 
 
 "You make it very clear," I said. 
 
 "And am I right?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "We can't help lying to our mothers, can we ?" 
 
 "Not always. It is impossible for parents and 
 their children to conform altogether to each other's 
 ways and wishes. They live together, but are 
 
 [213]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 creatures of differing times and customs. We 
 should be absolutely honest and truthful with our 
 contemporaries, but with the passing generation 
 we should be simply considerate, adroit, if need 
 be, and always kind. It is better to lie to them 
 for the sake of peace and pleasantness than to 
 argue and contend. They are through with effort. 
 It is different with the people of our own genera- 
 tion. They are entitled to the truth of us to make 
 what use of it they can." 
 
 When we spoke of Bob again it was to assure 
 each other that he would be fed and cared for on 
 the way. 
 
 "We have found," I said, "that even in a cold 
 and dreary place like the express office or the sta- 
 tion the thought of a dog can make men kind." 
 
 As I thought it over it occurred to me that 
 there could be no better test of a city's virtue than 
 its treatment of a dog like Bob. It would at least 
 reveal the attitude of men towards all that is joy- 
 ous, gentle and affectionate moving among them 
 without protection of the law. 
 
 [214]
 
 ^K^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 HERE was no wind next day. 
 The cold of November was 
 tempered by a flood of sun- 
 light. We reached the express 
 depot in comfort and found it 
 very quiet. The few necessary 
 deliveries had been made. A long row of wagons 
 were backed against the wall, their tongues upon 
 the ground. A corpulent watchman, in the centre 
 of the great platform, was seated in an arm-chair, 
 reading a Sunday paper. As we approached him 
 eagerly he divined our errand, and, pointing to- 
 wards a large box near him, said : 
 "There he is." 
 
 We saw Bob leaning against the corner of his 
 prison, his head drooping on his breast. The voice 
 
 [215]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^rttnttTiT-m 
 
 of the watchman did not affect him. His eyes 
 were half closed. He looked very limp and weary. 
 
 "It's the boy," I answered joyfully. At the 
 first sound of my voice Bob jumped to his feet, 
 with head up and ears pricked alertly. The watch- 
 man seized a hatchet and gave two of the slats 
 such proper blows under their overhanging ends 
 that they went flying into the air. With them 
 came Bob as if shot from a mortar. He fell head- 
 long to the floor, leaped up again, and came bound- 
 ing to us with choking yelps of delight. His eyes 
 gleamed, every inch of his body was in motion. 
 He crouched at our feet, leaped to our faces, back- 
 ed away from us, ran in wide circles, his tail 
 thrashing the air, his voice raised in a prolonged 
 outcry. As we moved at last towards the door he 
 ran constantly back and forth in front of us. He 
 was conscious only of our presence and that he 
 was free and with his own again. There was a 
 faucet by the wall and a pail under it. I filled this 
 with water and stood near while he drank. He 
 kept his eye rolled up at me and lapped uneasily. 
 Thirsty as he was, he would have left the pail at 
 my first step from him. 
 
 "Take it easy," I said quietly. "We will wait 
 
 [216]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 for you.'' He moved his tail in answer, took a few 
 more laps and looked around at Nancy. 
 
 "Let us stand closer," she said. "He must be 
 thirsty." 
 
 We moved to the pail and Nancy knelt by his 
 head. He thrust his wet nose into her face, gave 
 her cheek one swift lick, and settled to his work 
 contentedly. 
 
 "He seems to be all right," murmured Nancy, 
 putting her hand on his back. He lifted his head, 
 gave her cheek another lap and returned to the 
 water. 
 
 After his drink Bob was more subdued. His 
 joy at seeing us had at first closed his senses to all 
 other sounds, but now, as we came to the great 
 doorway leading to the street, the thundering rat- 
 tle of heavy wagons on the stones fell upon him 
 like a rain of blows. 
 
 He stopped suddenly, dropped his tail, lifted his 
 head and shot quick, nervous glances over the 
 noisy world. In my sympathy with him I was 
 made conscious again of a multitude of sounds, 
 which long since had been lost to me in the silence 
 of familiarity. I heard in the monotonous, far- 
 spreading rumble the shouts of drivers, the shrill 
 
 [217]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 call of children, the sharp beating of horse-shoes, 
 the clang of gongs, the crash of heavy boxes as 
 they fell from wagons to the walk, the swelling 
 and screeching rush of elevated trains and surface 
 cars, the puffing of engines, the melody of a 
 hurdy-gurdy a block away, the voices of the "I- 
 cash-clothes" man and the street venders as they 
 intoned their peculiar cries. 
 
 Bob listened and looked for a moment with in- 
 tense attention, turning his head this way and 
 that, glancing, starting, pricking his ears to each 
 new sound. He was trying to distinguish, to 
 locate, to understand. But in this vast uproar he 
 could make out nothing — things moved so swiftly, 
 one sound followed and interrupted another with 
 such rapidity. Confusion overcame him. He laid 
 his ears back, closing them to keep out this end- 
 less din. He dodged into a doorway, and, sitting 
 on his haunches, began to tremble violently. I 
 called to him, but he did not hear me. My voice, 
 which had always before brought an instant re- 
 sponse, was now lost in a multitude of sounds. To 
 one of his peculiarly keen sense of hearing these 
 noises must have been terrible. 
 
 "Is he afraid?" asked Nancy in great distress. 
 
 [218]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 JjUiil 
 
 I observed him closely and learned that it was 
 not fear. 
 
 "He is simply bewildered and nerve-racked," I 
 said. "We must be gentle with him now." I 
 picked him up and carried him to a car. As we 
 stepped on the platform the conductor stopped me. 
 
 "We are supposed to carry lap-dogs," said he, 
 "but you've got a bear." I begged him to let us 
 on. "He is as gentle as a lamb," I said. "See 
 how he trembles." 
 
 He put us off and rang the bell savagely. He 
 looked like a man who would beat his wife and 
 send his children to bed hungry. The next car 
 took us on, and the conductor, a rosy, round- 
 cheeked fellow, looked on Bob with affection. 
 
 "He is a beauty," said he. "Looks like a fox, 
 don't he?" 
 
 Whenever this conductor passed us as he was 
 collecting fares he patted Bob's head, and his 
 genial round face was moved with sympathy. 
 
 As we neared the Brooklyn bridge Nancy be- 
 came restless, and I saw in her eyes the hovering 
 shadow that told of gathering uncertainty and 
 alarm. 
 
 "And what's the trouble now?" I asked. 
 
 [219]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "Do dogs like livery stables?" 
 "When they are used to them they do." 
 "There is one on Halsey street, not far from 
 
 us." 
 
 "You are afraid to take Bob home?" I said in 
 some disgust. 
 
 "I am not," she declared emphatically, turning 
 her eyes full upon me. They were very bright, 
 shining with simulated surprise and the most gen- 
 uine alarm. 
 
 "Mother might not let him in," she said plain- 
 tively. "It would be better, I guess, to tell her all 
 about it first. Can't we leave him in the stable for 
 a little while?" 
 
 "It would be better," I said, "to take him to 
 your office. We could go there now and spend the 
 day with him." 
 
 Bob lay very still, his head upon my knee, but 
 his glances shot apprehensively toward every mov- 
 ing thing. When the conductor rang the bell he 
 would start and lift his head quickly. 
 
 "I don't know," I said, "but the office may be 
 the best place to keep him. It is so high above the 
 city that he can get used to its roar and rumble 
 little by little." 
 
 [ 220 ]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 ^nW 
 
 "Perhaps we can't keep him there." 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "They don't allow dogs in some of the buildings 
 at all, and I doubt if they would let one live in 
 
 ours." 
 
 "I think we can trust the superintendent for 
 that," I said. "When he was at the island Bob 
 slept between us on the floor, and I know Horton 
 was fond of him. A big-hearted, generous fellow 
 like Horton would do as much for Bob as for you 
 or me, and more, for Bob is helpless." 
 
 We left the car on Chambers street. I put Bob 
 on the sidewalk, and he scurried at once to the 
 nearest doorway. His tail was down, but it was 
 not between his legs. He threw himself on his 
 haunches in a corner, and from this comparative 
 shelter looked alertly out upon the world. 
 
 "Good boy," I called to him quietly. "Take a 
 good look. It's all right, Bobbie. You're all right 
 
 now." 
 
 He answered me with a nervous yelp and an 
 affectionate duck of the head. A wagon rattled 
 by, a car rushed up and passed with clanging 
 gong, a thousand noises from far and near assail- 
 ed him. We walked slowly past, calling him to 
 
 [221 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "iUm 
 
 follow. He watched us with troubled eyes. He 
 barked sharply and made little lunges from his 
 corner, but we were some distance up the street 
 before he came. It was with a rush at last, and 
 when he reached us, barking reproachfully, I took 
 him up and carried him. He had followed, and 
 that was enough for now. 
 
 We found the superintendent in his office, going 
 over his accounts, the usual morning job. 
 
 "Here, Horton," I said, "is a friend of 
 yours." 
 
 Horton weighs 250 pounds and is tall in propor- 
 tion. He is a child's ideal of a giant. At first 
 glance he is a formidable-looking man, square- 
 jawed and swarthy, with lowering sombre eyes, 
 deep set under heavy eyebrows. He is as strong 
 as he is big. His fists are like sledge hammers, 
 and he has been known to do some terrible pound- 
 ing with them. When he saw Bob the aspect of 
 his face changed. It grew a shade lighter. He 
 beamed in boyish pleasure and took the half- 
 grown collie, a clumsy armful for me, to his heart 
 as he would a kitten. 
 
 "You oughtn't have brought him to town," he 
 said; "it's no place for him." 
 
 [ 222 ]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 >.frffirirr<T-p 
 
 "Gibbie told me I must. He was grieving him- 
 self sick." 
 
 "Of course, he would. He is a good boy, is 
 Bobbie." 
 
 "We want to keep him in the office," said 
 Nancy, and the superintendent nodded approv- 
 ingly. Perhaps it did not occur to him that he 
 could have prevented such a thing. If not, so 
 much the more praise to him. For he could have 
 done this, and I know of no surer sign of virtue 
 than to be unconscious of our opportunities for 
 meanness, to have the power to oppress and to for- 
 get that we have it. 
 
 The watchman took us up in the elevator. We 
 entered the office and shut the door. I put Bob 
 on a rug, and we made ourselves comfortable with 
 our chairs where he could see us both without 
 moving. It was very quiet in there and very 
 homelike, for, in spite of the roll-top desk and the 
 five typewriters, it seemed more like a two-room 
 flat where a very cheery and domestic woman 
 lived. Bob looked at us for a few moments anx- 
 iously, then more serenely. His head began to 
 droop. Nancy took a book from the table, "Pan 
 Michael," a-nd, turning to the place where we had 
 
 [223]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww^ 
 
 left the story, began to read aloud. Bob dropped 
 his head on his paws with a great sigh. He slept 
 long and soundly. We spent the day with our 
 book, reading, dreaming, speaking at long inter- 
 vals of the lost Poland and of the living city 
 below us. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, when Bob awoke, he 
 found a basin of bread and milk. He ate it greed- 
 ily and went with us for a walk on the roof. 
 
 Again in the office, he seemed to realize that so 
 much quiet comfort could not last. He watched 
 us closely, and as we made ready to go ran franti- 
 cally from one to the other, protesting loudly. 
 
 "Now, Bob," I said, "be quiet. Lie down there, 
 and be quiet. This is your home. You will sleep, 
 and in the morning you will see us again. You are 
 to stay here with Nancy, and every day I will take 
 you for a journey into the world." 
 
 As I talked he became quiet. He watched us 
 go out reproachfully, and when the door was 
 closed we heard a mournful cry. We listened a 
 long time, but that was all. Poor Bob; his first 
 great lesson in life was that of resignation to its 
 mysterious ways, and he had learned it well. 
 
 Bob and I spent the next day together upon the 
 
 [ 224]
 
 r 
 
 o 
 o 
 J- 
 
 5' 
 at) 
 
 a. 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 ?^ 
 
 O 
 
 a, O
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 
 roof. This was fourteen stories above the street 
 and the sounds of the city came up to us in pleas- 
 ant confusion. Bob, as eager for a game as any 
 healthy child, ran for a stick, played hide and seek 
 and tag and pom, pom, pullaway, and the sounds 
 of our hilarity brought Nancy and her girls and 
 the superintendent of the building and some of the 
 tenants. There was a gray-haired contractor who 
 left an estimate he had been toiling over for weeks, 
 involving millions, and a lawyer who for the first 
 time in fifteen years permitted a pleasure to in- 
 terrupt the preparation of a brief. We roared with 
 laughter to see the gigantic superintendent sprint- 
 ing across the roof with Bob clinging tO' his coat 
 tails. It was the aged contractor who suggested 
 Ring Around the Rosy, but, alas ! we had all for- 
 gotten how the thing was done. 
 
 By degrees, I induced Bob to stand by the edge 
 of the roof and peer through the loopholes upon 
 the swarming, noisy street below. From here he 
 saw the cars pass by in endless succession, heard 
 the gongs and bells, the shouts of drivers, the clat- 
 ter of hoofs and wheels and the roar of voices, 
 and, by degrees, his alarm changed to fascina- 
 tion. Then we rode up and down in the elevators 
 
 [227 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ir»*irirr T. 
 
 until he ran in and out before me and no longer 
 crowded against my leg with his ears folded back. 
 It was not long after this before he learned what 
 floor he lived on, remaining quietly in one corner, 
 out of the way of careless feet, until his floor was 
 reached. 
 
 At the entrance of the building was a huge re- 
 volving door — an air-tight turnstile, with four 
 compartments. To pass in or out, you stepped 
 into one of these as the door revolved. Bob watch- 
 ed this manoeuvre with anxious eye. I waited 
 until no one was passing through and the door was 
 motionless, then pushing it gently I stepped be- 
 tween two of the blades and called Bob to me. He 
 was trembling with excitement and apprehension, 
 but he came. In a moment we were upon the side- 
 walk, in the midst of the tramp and shuffle of a 
 thousand feet. Bob backed away from the din 
 and movement until his haunches hit the build- 
 ing. He cast a swift glance behind him, saw a 
 corner and darted into it. There he sat, his ears 
 folded back, the sweat dripping from his mouth. 
 I walked back and forth and watched for the 
 glance of recognition he would presently give me. 
 When it came I spoke to him. He stood up a 
 
 [228 ]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 moment, whimpered, gave his tail a nervous wave 
 and dropped back into his comer. A Httle later 
 he darted to me and thrust his nose into my hand. 
 
 "Go back to your corner," I said. He obeyed, 
 and the habit of obedience, the sense of confidence, 
 was restored. I stood before him, shielding him 
 from the confusing sights. Presently he thrust 
 his head between my legs that he might see. There 
 was a saner observation in his eyes, and when I 
 spoke he looked up at me. I walked away and he 
 followed. We turned the corner and walked east 
 on Duane street for half a block. It was quieter 
 here, and once or twice he ran a little ahead, his 
 ears pricked, his tail waving like a plume. Sud- 
 denly he stopped, uttering a short bark of surprise 
 and delight. A cat was dozing on a doorsill. He 
 pranced toward her in friendly overture. The cat, 
 surprised and all abristle, leaped past him and 
 scurried across the street. Bob gave a joyful pur- 
 suit. Of course, I called him ofi, but the street 
 had lost its terror. For the time being it was alive 
 with only an infinite possibility of cat. 
 
 After this it was not necessary for me to spend 
 the day with Bob. He roamed about the roof alone 
 or remained in Nancy's office while I was about 
 
 [ 229 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 'I'll""* 
 
 my business for the Evening Post. As the girls 
 were seated at their typewriters, their skirts trail- 
 ed upon the floor at one side of the chairs, Bob 
 would select one of these, and, spreading it a 
 little, make for himself a friendly bed and sleep. 
 
 But the few days I had devoted entirely to him 
 were not wasted, even from a practical standpoint. 
 I made good my absence to the Post by writing 
 the experiences that caused it. Mr. Morgan, no 
 doubt, made more money during those days, but I 
 made my living, and when living brings delight, 
 what more is there to wish for ? 
 
 After three in the afternoon I w^as free to go 
 where I chose, usually finding in my wanderings 
 some subject acceptable to the Post and interest- 
 ing to me. As time passed, Bob became my com- 
 panion on longer and longer journeys. I first 
 taught him to walk alone on the sidewalk while I 
 walked in the street. If he started to join me I 
 said, "Keep to the sidewalk," repeating this over 
 and over until he understood just what it meant. 
 Then I boarded a passing car and stood on the 
 rear platform. When he saw me moving rapidly 
 away he stopped short, his head erect, surprise 
 and alarm bristlins: in his alert attitude. Then he 
 
 [ 230]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 >^r>«<rirFt<r''|| 
 
 dashed into the street, unconscious of the dangers 
 he just escaped, and overtook the car. I leaned 
 over the rail and, looking steadily into his excited 
 eyes, said quietly, "Keep to the sidewalk.'' Crest- 
 fallen, he returned and stood still, watching me. 
 Then, unmindful of the hundreds who might hear, 
 I called aloud to him to come on and keep to the 
 sidewalk. He thought he caught the idea, but. 
 not quite sure, he moved hesitatingly, his eyes 
 fixed on me anxiously. The cars move slowly on 
 lower Broadway because of the constant interfer- 
 ence of traffic, and I could still direct him easily. 
 Approval or disapproval is conveyed to all forms 
 of life by the same most elemental methods. If 
 you understand a dog or a man, they will under- 
 stand you, if you are direct and honest in your 
 expressions. If you neither understand yourself 
 nor another, you are likely to be misunderstood. 
 Bob was doing the proper thing, and I told him so. 
 "That's right," I called genially. "Come on and 
 keep to the sidewalk." He moved with more as- 
 surance. "That's right," I said again, and from 
 that time he has known exactly what "That's 
 right" means. 
 
 Bob would have had no more trouble in follow- 
 
 [ 231 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ing me about the city if the people on the walks 
 had left him alone. Some of them I could sympa- 
 thize with — those who were surprised, by the sud- 
 den effect of his joyousness and beauty, into reach- 
 ing out to seize and caress him for a moment. 
 But there was now and then one who was so com- 
 pletely a puppet of his own desires that he could 
 observe nothing, and seeing this handsome crea- 
 ture approaching, would waylay him and attempt 
 to make good the capture, delightfully excited by 
 the thought that he had chanced upon a stray dog. 
 Arrived to Bob's rescue, I would say : 
 
 "Why did you stop him?" 
 
 "Oh, is he yours? Excuse me, I thought he 
 was lost." 
 
 "Can't you tell the difference between a stray 
 dog and a dog that is running on some purpose of 
 his own ?" 
 
 This question was usually taken as an insult, 
 and Bob and I were permitted to proceed without 
 comment from the nuisance who had mistaken an 
 impulse to blind greed for one of benevolence. 
 
 In the end I found it safer to allow him to fol- 
 low behind the car. This was a delight to him, 
 and the problem of his proper exercise was solved. 
 
 [ 232 ]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 Sunday morning Nancy and I mounted our 
 wheels and rode to the office for Bob. There was 
 Httle traffic on the streets, and he readily accepted 
 this new form of sport, following us or running 
 in advance as we crossed the bridge again to 
 Brooklyn. We wheeled to Bedford avenue, to the 
 Boulevard, entered Prospect Park and spent the 
 day there, checking our wheels and wandering 
 over the meadows and through the woods and 
 along the shores of the lake. Some boys were play- 
 ing informally at ball, and Bob, trotting up to 
 them politely, was permitted to join the game. 
 He became very popular because of his intelli- 
 gence and good spirits. He waited until the ball 
 was tossed to him or thrown a distance for him 
 to chase. He would bring it promptly to the one 
 who threw it and eagerly wait for his turn again. 
 These boys loved him and treated him with the 
 most considerate and affectionate respect. When 
 we left they said good-bye to him. 
 
 Two little girls had a happy hour throwing 
 sticks in the water for him to catch. 
 
 He made acquaintance with other dogs, but 
 only two proved to be worth the trouble. One was 
 a fox terrier that circled and doubled and dodged 
 
 [233]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 irtfirirrj'n 
 
 with him in a delirium of good spirits, and the 
 other was a full-grown, awkward Irish setter pup 
 that did his best. This last dog's master proved to 
 be a neighbor of ours, and a very amiable gentle- 
 man. 
 
 "You must come over," he said. "Mike wants 
 a friend like Bob to play with." 
 
 Late in the afternoon we stopped at Nancy's 
 home on our way to New York with Bob. 
 
 "Whose dog is that?" asked Nancy's mother 
 from the doorway. 
 
 "Ours." 
 
 "I can't have him here — I can't have him here." 
 She put her hands out in protest and backed away 
 nervously. 
 
 "We keep him at the office." 
 
 "Do you ?" wonderingly. "Why, how long have 
 you had him — is that Bob? When did he come?" 
 
 Nancy told the story. "We are taking him back 
 to the office." 
 
 "Come, Bobbie," said the mother softly, walk- 
 ing out upon the steps. Bob ran to her and pressed 
 against her knees, looking lovingly up. She 
 stooped and took his exquisite head to her bosom. 
 
 "You had better put him in the cellar over- 
 
 [234]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 night," she said. "It is too far to go just to take 
 him back." 
 
 Nancy winked at me. 
 
 "Come, Bobbie." He followed the mother into 
 the house. We put our wheels in the basement en- 
 trance and went upstairs. When we entered the 
 sitting-room, Bob was eating cookies from a 
 mother's hand. He slept in my room that night 
 and every night thereafter until Nancy and I went 
 to housekeeping for ourselves. 
 
 Every morning, while we lived in Brooklyn, 
 Bob went to New York with us. Sometimes we 
 started in the cool of the dawn and walked five 
 miles ; sometimes we rode our wheels. In giving 
 him his proper exercise we secured our own and 
 exchanged the old, uncomfortable journey in a 
 crowded car for an exhilarating pleasure at the be- 
 ginning of the day. 
 
 We secured a permit for him and in wet wea- 
 ther we took him in a car. If we left the office for 
 home between five and seven we were, of course, 
 caught in the rush of people that crowd lower 
 Broadway and stampede the bridge between those 
 hours. Bob became familiar with the confusion 
 and the riot. In the evening, when we reached the 
 
 [ 235]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^^p^ 
 
 street, he would disappear among the dense mass 
 of legs and work his way rapidly far ahead of us, 
 intent on a certain project of his own. We would 
 not see him again until we reached Mary, our 
 news woman, who sat by her basket at the edge of 
 the park walk, near the old Hall of Records. We 
 would find him here, standing close by her side, 
 wagging his tail gently, looking with affection 
 into her cheery face as she called him pet names 
 and handed out her papers briskly. 
 
 Arrived at the bridge entrance, Nancy and I 
 stood just under the stairs, outside the radius of 
 riot about the cars, and waited. Bob sat alertly at 
 my feet. When the Putnam and Halsey cajne 
 around the curve I would say : "There it is," and 
 Bob, slipping deftly between the crowding legs, 
 would reach it with amazing speed and enter 
 among the first. The people came to know him 
 and looked upon his exploit with affectionate 
 good-will. It was, "Hello, Bobbie," or "Look out 
 there. Don't step on Bob." 
 
 He would jump on a seat and hold it until 
 Nancy came. 
 
 In the morning Bob had no Mary to visit, nor 
 v/as he as anxious for the office as for home. And 
 
 [236]
 
 THE CITY AND THE DOG 
 
 
 the morning itself called to him with the voices of 
 youth and expectation and delight. He was a 
 wild and joyous spirit in the morning. He would 
 seize Nancy's skirt and coax her to race with him. 
 He would snatch her bag and prance away with 
 it, casting roguish glances behind. When we 
 reached City Hall Park, he would dash into the 
 green enclosures and send the sparrows into the 
 air. He would chase them into the bushes and 
 into the open, nmning swiftly in wide circles, 
 leaping, dodging — a creature of such grace and 
 life and beauty that thousands of hurrying people 
 would stop and stare until a policeman would ap- 
 pear and good-naturedly ask us to call the dog 
 away and move on, as the walks were blocked. 
 Bob has sent a great many people to their labor 
 smiling. For him the city has been friendly, for 
 he learned to look upon it as a friend. 
 
 Mr. Morgan has a great many more collies than 
 I, and yet he does not neglect business for them. 
 He could not have so many and such expensive 
 ones if he did. I spent a great deal of time with 
 Bob that might have been devoted to speculation, 
 or to commerce. It was during this time that Mr. 
 Morgan formed the steamship trust. 
 
 [237]
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 -^ 
 
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 i 
 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 'Ww\ 
 
 ! 
 
 f^ 
 
 N three years we made, between 
 us, enough to live on and saved 
 seven thousand dollars, and 
 during the summers we ran 
 away for four months on the 
 island or in the mountains. 
 We were able to do this, because, romantic as our 
 life was, filled with the most absurd and whimsi- 
 cal delights, it cost us little — about five hundred 
 dollars a year, in fact. For a while we lived on 
 the upper West Side, paying thirty-five dollars a 
 month for our flat, in order that we might have 
 air and sunlight, and we secured this by looking 
 for it and finding an apartment house adjoining a 
 vacant lot. We wondered why it was that people 
 requiring but three rooms could not secure less 
 than six unless they paid a fortune for them in 
 some huge apartment hotel. 
 
 [238]
 
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 3
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 ^^^ff^f 
 
 One day I was riding up Park Row, when I 
 saw, a few blocks above the Brooklyn bridge, a 
 new apartment house, seven stories high, towering 
 a considerable distance above the squalid build- 
 ings in the neighborhood. It was of cream-colored 
 brick; the windows and doors were framed in 
 granite and cased with polished hardwood. 
 
 The ground floor was enclosed with huge panes 
 of plate glass. I stared at this apparition, and 
 read the sign, "Apartments to Let — Three and 
 Four Rooms. All the Modern Improvements." 
 
 Twenty minutes later I had reached the top 
 floor on a tour of inspection with the janitor. 
 Every room and every window opened to a broad 
 view. From those in front the Brooklyn bridge 
 could be seen. We went to the rear, and as we 
 entered the three-room apartment in the northwest 
 corner I felt that here was what I had been seek- 
 ing. The centre room was a good-sized kitchen 
 and dining-room, with a combination gas and coal 
 stove, stationary tubs and a neat little sink, buffet 
 and china closet. 
 
 On one side of the kitchen was a little bedroom, 
 done in terra-cotta, hard finish, and on the other 
 side a sunny parlor, with a carved mantel, covered 
 
 [241]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^i^ii 
 
 ^^n^ 
 
 with green and gilt paper, and daintily decorated 
 ceiling. The gas fixtures were in themselves a 
 graceful ornament. There were four large win- 
 dows in the three rooms, and as nothing in the 
 neighborhood arose to this height, the view was 
 uninterrupted to north and west. It was two 
 o'clock and the little flat was filled with the pleas- 
 ant sunshine. 
 
 "How much?" I asked. 
 
 "Fifteen dollars a month." 
 
 It would require a whole book to portray the 
 astonishment of Nancy at my news. 
 
 "Is there a bathroom?" she asked. 
 
 "No; but there are the stationary tubs. The 
 parlor will, of course, be your room, and it's really 
 beautiful." 
 
 As she hesitated, I said : 
 
 "It would be nice to have a bathtub, but it is 
 worth doing with the makeshift for a while to 
 live on the corner of Baxter street and Park Row. 
 It is a wonderful thing to be able to do so." 
 
 And we found this to be true. 
 
 I know that we were as happy there as, no 
 doubt, we could have been even on Fifth avenue. 
 It is a poor philosophy that cannot reconcile a man 
 
 [ 242 ]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 :i$f*w%rtft--r.m 
 
 to wealth and luxury. It may be easier to find a 
 joyous interest and remain innocent on Baxter 
 street. But if it is easier that is all. 
 
 Of course, for a man or woman to be happy 
 anywhere, each must have a happy mate. Bach- 
 elors and maids may find serenity within them- 
 selves, but they cannot avoid the haunting loneli- 
 ness of the closed up portions of a dwelling-. Each 
 is but the half of something perfect. Happiness 
 is not a gift from the world outside, but it is the 
 fruit and perfume of the world within. In nature 
 the complete individual is man and wife. To be 
 happy, then, we must possess the mind and soul 
 of happiness, and be mated with the same. Our 
 happiness is not dependent upon others, but we 
 are at the mercy of ourselves and of our mates. 
 We may delight in such virtues as we find in those 
 about us and remain unruffled by their vices, their 
 encroachments or attacks; but any meanness in 
 ourselves or in our mates must be got rid of or it 
 becomes our woe. 
 
 Our idyl of the tenements was, therefore, possi- 
 ble because of Nancy. To a friend she wrote : 
 
 "We agreed to spend one hundred dollars for 
 the furnishing. You will think that was a little 
 
 [243 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Pjtw^ 
 
 sum, and so did I, but the result surprised me. 
 Really, the things will do, and there was a new 
 kind of pleasure for me in hunting them. I did 
 not know how elastic the delights of shopping are. 
 They, too, seem to be tempered to the shorn. My 
 lord's views always did seem beautiful to me in the 
 pages of a book, but I am still a little dazed by the 
 fact that we may really live by them. He says 
 this condition of mind becomes me, for it keeps 
 me docile. I am so happy I sometimes fear I am 
 asleep. Was our summer on the island a fantastic 
 dream ? Did you really come there once, or were 
 you only a phantom from a phantom boat ? I am 
 certain of the mountains, for we have a deed and 
 the remnant of a debt to pay. We are going to 
 build a house up there. I shall fly from the win- 
 dows of my office some day and alight in that en- 
 chanted forest. Meanwhile, we are on Park Row 
 and Baxter street. We live on the most ridiculous 
 amount. I must give you the details, or you won't 
 believe. We have very pleasant little suppers that 
 cost us almost nothing. We have always bought 
 lx)iled ham at thirty-five cents a pound, and never 
 less than that quantity. Now, my good John 
 Canella has four dainty little slices, all done up in 
 
 [ 244]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 
 white paper, which he passes over to me for ten 
 cents. These I make crisp with hot butter in a fry- 
 ing pan (bought at the ten-cent store), and with 
 the sort of waffles that you and I used to make at 
 the island, coffee and apple sauce, they serve as our 
 main meal. Sometimes we have chops — four little 
 French chops, for fifteen cents, and really very 
 good, too. We poke about among the apple carts 
 for our apples, sometimes getting a dozen for a 
 dime and sometimes fifteen. 
 
 "Near the cart where we usually buy our fruit 
 stands an old truck horse. We always manage to 
 afford him one, but once w^hen I forgot to pass 
 over his share he sharply nipped my arm. 
 
 "One of our Italian grocers makes a specialty of 
 spaghetti and macaroni, cheeses and candles — 
 the short, thick kind used by the Italian peasant, 
 and which we, too, burn sometimes. One whole 
 side of his store is partitioned off, and there are, at 
 least, twenty little boxes, arranged like nests, filled 
 with the different sorts of spaghetti — some flat 
 and long, like tape worms, some in queer, slender 
 spirals, some like a dainty white shell, and others 
 like rings and noodles. I love spaghetti, and when 
 my Tonv isn't too busy he tells me how to make it 
 
 [ 245 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ..%r*<.«rirrr 
 
 into delicious and wholesome dishes. And he has 
 such curious loaves of bread, in crusty rolls, that 
 he sells for a cent a loaf. You break off the outer 
 crusty roll, and lo! there is still another outer 
 crusty roll. Such a loaf serves us for two meals. 
 Such an odd assortment of cheeses, which we both 
 love, and queer nuts and fruits. 
 
 "I think, however, that I spend more in sul- 
 phur candles than I do for bread, for I fumigate at 
 least three times a week, and sometimes scatter 
 chloride of lime between us and the Casa Pologgi, 
 which I once forgot to clean up in the early morn- 
 ing before they got up. There are two prd:ty, 
 bright-eyed little girls who suspect me. They 
 told me, in a whisper, that night, that there was a 
 bad man who came around at night and scattered 
 things that made bad smells — and sometimes, they 
 said, they thought it might be me. 
 
 "I stayed all alone in this great house for a 
 whole week. I had heard such fearsome things 
 about this terrible old place, but I thought I'd risk 
 it, for it is so convenient to the office, and I can 
 stay there as late as I please. When I pleased to 
 stay late, I had the dark stairway to climb — seven 
 flights up, with all sorts of horrors lying low for 
 
 [ 246 ]
 
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 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 me on each landing. An old Italian janitor — not a 
 word of English passed between us — would admit 
 me about half-past ten, and between us and the sky- 
 there was only a faint flicker of economic light, at 
 the very top, and I palpitated up and up the long 
 flights; but it was the sort of palpitation that I 
 wanted. Nobody ever climbed my easy fire es- 
 cape, though I waited for him with an open win- 
 dow all the night through, and there were no lone 
 shrieks from below and no flashing of stilettos and 
 no squabbling, and no vendettas, but only just the 
 peaceful quiet that I found always on our deserted 
 Brooklyn streets. Sometimes the good old janitor 
 would climb all the way up to the top with me 
 when I could not make him understand, with 
 my free and easy gestures, that I wasn't at all 
 afraid. 
 
 "I fear if you and I had to live forever on this 
 East Side, we wouldn't do much reforming, with 
 the limited conveniences these people have. This 
 Monday morning our water was turned off. It 
 doesn't flow ever, any morning, except Sunday, 
 after seven. There was a mass meeting of anxious 
 women at the janitor's apartments, five flights up. 
 The good landlord had neglected to get in the 
 
 [249 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "iUiii 
 
 week's supply of coai, and we had no power to 
 pump the water up. Luckily, I had put some aside. 
 And so these busy workers, who are up at five in 
 the morning to get to their shops early, had to go 
 to neighboring pumps and carry water, some up 
 five, some seven flights, for washing and cooking. 
 How many baths do you suppose you and I, who 
 find the daily plunge a necessity, would take, if we 
 had to carry water such a way? And we haven't 
 any yet, either, and this is Saturday morning. My 
 little Louis comes and gets me some. We did dip 
 it out of the great tank on the roof, but that has 
 frozen over. When you rub up against some poor 
 devil in the street car, just think of this. The life 
 here throws quite a new light on things. 
 
 "I thought I would set quite a shining example 
 when I first came, but I was nearly caught again ; 
 and now, when anything goes wrong, my little 
 girls come and tell me, with suspicion in their 
 eyes. 
 
 "There was no receptacle for ashes, and I 
 couldn't get anybody to carry them away. Every- 
 body over here is so busy, you can't hire things 
 done as you can on the West Side, but must do 
 things yourself. And so I carried my ashes down 
 
 [ 250]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 ^rt««rirr TB 
 
 in some thick newspapers, but I got too many in, 
 or they burned through, or the string came untied, 
 before I could reach the lower floor. Anyhow, 
 they were leaking on the stairs, and when I heard 
 the fat janitress puffing up the stairs toward me, I 
 laid them in a dark corner of one of the private 
 stairways. When I returned an hour later I hearcl 
 her scolding an innocent Italian woman (who 
 couldn't speak enough to deny the charge) for 
 dirtying up the halls of a decent house. She 
 turned to me, as one lady to another, and exclaim- 
 ed, as if for sympathy, 'I never did see such dirty 
 people, nohow !' And I was ashamed not to be 
 the lady she meant, and couldn't own up. Arthur 
 threatens to write a story, entitled, 'Blue-eyed 
 Nancy ; or. The Dainty Little Terror of the Tene- 
 ments.' 
 
 "And I didn't scrub my private hall — that is, the 
 Pologgi hall and ours. So little Louis told me 
 this morning that I must either do it myself or 
 pay his sister to do it, as this was my week and 
 the hall must be kept clean. This was the first 
 labor I had been able to hire. 
 
 "Thursday night one of the Pologgi girls was 
 married, and we had the genuine Italian wine, 
 
 [251]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 which was very sweet and very bad, and the sort 
 of confetti that the peasants eat, and we had to 
 shake hands all around and watch the young peo- 
 ple dance their national dances in a twelve by fif- 
 teen-foot room. How gay they were, and yet they 
 work so hard. I hear these young girls at their 
 sewing machines at five in the morning. I sus- 
 pect them of eating their cats. They always have 
 a new one — a-fatteuing, I think. When one dis- 
 appears I smell the weirdest smells, and hear a 
 great sizzling, and soon after, I find a new, sleepy- 
 looking cat dozing on their doorsill. 
 
 "They are all very kind to me, especially the old 
 padre, because I say 'Si, si' to him as long as he 
 will, and we smile and bow and scrape. He often 
 brings me over kindlings. He picks up old boxes 
 in the streets, and I take them because it pleases 
 him. We buy wood in funny little bundles, three 
 for five cents, and my Louis sometimes buys coal 
 in bags, and retails it to us by the scuttle. I simply 
 can't carry a bundle upstairs, if any of them catch 
 me at it. Even the old madre, if she has her head 
 and shoulders and arms full, and she is no bigger 
 than I am, pleads with me, up flight after flight, 
 unhappy if I won't permit." 
 
 [ 252]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 "And now," said Nancy, when we were settled, 
 "we'll have a little dinner and invite the girls." 
 We looked complacently at our sunny rooms. 
 
 "Have we the dishes?" 
 
 "Oh," said Nancy easily, "we'll manage that." 
 
 "Let us see," I said, reaching for a favorite 
 book, "how these things are done." 
 
 "Mrs. Sherwood?" asked Nancy, laughing. 
 
 "Don't laugh. This book is full of tragedy. 
 Here is something which seems beautiful." 
 
 In the "Manual of Social Usages," I read : 
 
 "The people who enter a modern dining-room 
 find a picture before them, the result of painstak- 
 ing thought, taste and experience. The open- 
 work white table-cloth lies on a red ground, and 
 above it rests a mat of red velvet, embroidered 
 with peacock's feathers and gold lace. Above this 
 stands a large silver salver, or oblong tray, lined 
 with reflecting glass, on which Dresden swan and 
 silver lilies seem floating in a veritable lake. In 
 the middle of this long tray stands a lofty vase of 
 silver or crystal, with flowers and fruit cunningly 
 disposed in it, and around it are placed tropical 
 vines. At each of the four corners of the table 
 
 [253 ] 
 
 1
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 >f rfvirirrt^r: 
 
 stand four rnby glass flagons, set in gold, stand- 
 ards of beautiful and rare designs. Cups or silver 
 gilt vases, with centres of cut glass, hold the bon- 
 bons and smaller fruits. Four candelabra hold up 
 red wax candles, with red shades. Flat glass 
 troughs, filled with flowers, stand opposite each 
 place, grouped in a floral pattern." 
 
 "A very beautiful dinner far up Fifth avenue 
 had this winter an entirely new idea, inasmuch as 
 the flowers were put overhead. The delicate vine, 
 resembling green asparagus in its fragility, was 
 suspended from the chandelier to the four corners 
 of the room, and on it were hung delicate roses, 
 lilies of the valley, pinks and fragrant jasmine, 
 which sent down their odors, and occasionally 
 dropped into a lady's lap. This is an exquisite bit 
 of luxury." 
 
 I looked at Nancy, and she at me. 
 
 "We'll have all that some time." 
 
 "Really?" she asked, and a glow of pleasure 
 filled her eyes, nor was her smile incredulous, for, 
 the fact is, she believes in me. 
 
 "I think we will some time, when the world has 
 
 [254]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 really become a fairyland, and such pleasures may 
 be had by dropping a nickel in the slot. And that 
 is not so wild a dream. Mrs. Sherwood seems to 
 think we have reached that now. 'Truly/ she says, 
 *we live in the days of Aladdin. Six weeks after 
 the ground was broken in Secretary Whitney's 
 garden, in Washington, for his ball-room, the 
 company assembled in a magnificent apartment, 
 with fluted gold ceiling and crimson brocade hang- 
 ings, bronzes, statues and Dresden candlesticks, 
 and a large wood fire at one end, in which logs six 
 feet long were burning — all looking as if it were 
 a part of an old baronial castle of the middle 
 ages.' 
 
 "But," I said, "there is too much back of all 
 that now. For one thing, there is the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Deal, and here is a glimpse that 
 Mrs. Sherwood gives herself : She complains that 
 our elegance, as a nation, is marred by the lack of 
 well-trained servants. *A mistress of a house,' 
 she says, 'should be capable of teaching her ser- 
 vants the method of laying a table and attending 
 it if she has to take, as we commonly must, the 
 uneducated Irishman from his native bogs, as a 
 house servant. If she employs the accomplished 
 
 [255]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 and well-recommended foreign servant, he is too 
 apt to disarrange her establishment by disparag- 
 ing the scale on which it is conducted, and to en- 
 gender a spirit of discontent in her household.' " 
 
 "I certainly wouldn't like that," interrupted 
 Nancy. 
 
 " 'Servants of a very high class who can as- 
 sume the entire management of affairs are only 
 possible to people of great wealth, and they be- 
 come tyrants, and wholly detestable to the master 
 and mistress after a short slavery.' " 
 
 We mused a while over this, as I turned the 
 pages. 
 
 "Here is something/' I said, "that we can give 
 heed to. She warns us against overcrowding at a 
 feast. 'In a gas-lighted, furnace-heated room in 
 New York,' she says, 'the sufferings of the diners- 
 out are sometimes terrible. Twenty-four people 
 often sit down at a modern dinner table, and are 
 well served by a butler and two men, though some 
 luxurious dinner-givers have a man behind each 
 chair ' " 
 
 "Isn't that ridiculous?" exclaimed Nancy. 
 
 "Yes. Mrs. Sherwood says, 'This, however, is 
 ostentation.' " 
 
 [256]
 
 ON BAXTER STREET 
 
 ^ittftf 
 
 We gave our dinner, and it cost us ninety cents 
 — spaghetti, six slices of ham, baked potatoes with 
 milk gravy, rolls, coffee with cream, and apple 
 sauce. But we were six people, glad to be together 
 at any price, enjoying alike our silence and our 
 noise. When the feast was over we went upon the 
 roof, and leaned our elbows on the wall and watch- 
 ed the swarming streets, the elevated trains riding 
 past like phosphorescent serpents, the spectacle of 
 the illuminated bridge — a band of splendor arch- 
 ing an abyss, the tall buildings like constellations, 
 and to our ears came the sounds of life, a rhythmic 
 roar, songs, street instruments, and, above them 
 all, a shriek of laughter or an angry cry. 
 
 [257 ]
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 HE famous block of Baxter 
 street, bounded by Park Row 
 and Park street, is not wHat it 
 was before the Hebrews aban- 
 doned it for the Hvelier trade 
 of Division and Canal streets. 
 In the old days, both sides of the block were lined 
 with junk shops and second-hand clothing dens, 
 the curbs were filled with push-carts, and the 
 passer-by was compelled to fight his way along 
 the seething walks, shaking off the greedy hands 
 of brokers and pushing through excited groups of 
 merchants and customers. The block is quieter 
 now, for it is inhabited almost entirely by Italians 
 and Germans. Some three or four families are all 
 that remain of the alert and clamoring Hebrew 
 multitude. The rickety, low buildings are occu- 
 
 [258]
 
 "Inhabited by Italians and Germans.'
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 ^fW 
 
 pied by German saloons, Italian groceries, baker- 
 ies and candy stores, the saloon of William 
 O'Shea, a Hebrew shoe store and three or four 
 second-hand clothing stores, kept by Hebrews and 
 Italians. The old life of the street is surely doom- 
 ed. The few barkers left upon it stand before 
 their dark, ill-smelling dens, eyeing with a kind of 
 stupefaction the sober, intelligent, well-dressed 
 people who more and more frequently pass by 
 them. Their attempts to seize upon a customer 
 have become fitful and the intervals of oppression 
 and inertia grow longer day by day. They look 
 upon the towering, clean apartment house on the 
 corner, peer stupidly at the self-contained pedes- 
 trians, shrug their shoulders, and wonder what 
 will happen if they can no longer sell. There are 
 push-carts still by the curbing, but they are few in 
 comparison with those of other times. The tene- 
 ments of the block are still swarming with people 
 who loiter along the street to examine and buy, 
 but every day the percentage of Germans and Ital- 
 ians and American day laborers increases, and the 
 clamor grows less and less. 
 
 Every day, however, after four o'clock, and all 
 Saturday and Sunday the block is filled with chil- 
 
 [261]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 dren freed from school and it then becomes a pan- 
 demonium of sound and motion. To move through 
 the street is hke tramping through an ant-hill. A 
 stranger to the scene would see only the boisterous 
 confusion, the rags and dirt, and hear only the 
 piercing din. "These are the children of the 
 slums," he would say; "they are unclean, savage, 
 unruly, hopeless." But there is promise in this 
 boisterous uproar. It has been centuries since such 
 robust sounds have come from the children of poor 
 Italians and Jews. 
 
 One Friday afternoon, not far from our hall- 
 way, I saw my little neighbor, Louis Pologgi, and 
 his friend, Gabriel Canepa, perched upon a barrel 
 in the gutter, swinging their bare legs and yelling 
 with all their might. They sat close together fac- 
 ing the street, each with a faded blue jockey cap 
 perched upon his bullet head. They used no words. 
 They were just yelling for the joy the noise and 
 the exercise gave them. To them came Augustus 
 Ringler, a sturdy German warrior of the streets. 
 He clutched their knees and shook them, bawling 
 up into their faces : 
 
 "Look here, I tell you. Look here." 
 Gabriel Canepa was quiet. He cast a shifting 
 
 [262]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 ■.V,-. ,i'-"''>»v' 
 
 glance at the interloper and writhed away from 
 his grip. Louis Pologgi continued to yell as l^e- 
 fore. 
 
 "My sister is dead," said Augustus solemnly. 
 "The undertaker has come already." 
 
 Gabriel slipped from the barrel and ran up the 
 street to join a crowd assembling about an over- 
 turned apple cart. Augustus cast a resentful 
 glance after him, and turned to Louis. "My sister 
 is dead," he bawled. "My sister is dead, I tell 
 you!" 
 
 Louis looked down contemptuously. "Forget 
 it," he said with a lofty philosophy. He lifted his 
 free leg and kicked Augustus in the breast. Au- 
 gustus gave the barrel a push that sent it rolling, 
 but Louis landed on his feet. He thrust his stom- 
 ach far out and went wriggling and strutting 
 along the walk, making grotesque gestures and 
 grimaces, issuing loud, strange sounds and keep- 
 ing a corner of his eye on the enraged Augustus. 
 But the German blood was not boiling yet, and 
 there was no pursuit. I>ouis was joined by Ga- 
 briel, devouring an apple, the pockets of his tight 
 coat bulging with two others. 
 
 "Give me," said Louis, grabbing for a pocket. 
 
 [263]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^V^ 
 
 Gabriel ducked and ran. Louis gave pursuit. The 
 chase took them to the end of the block and back 
 again. They leaped among the clothes hanging 
 before a second-hand store, tore down a pair of 
 trousers, and were kicked into the gutter by the 
 barker. Here they rolled and twisted in a close 
 embrace, until Louis sat astride of Gabriel and 
 took the apples from his pocket. Then they walk- 
 ed, panting, to a doorway, and, sitting down side 
 by side, divided the spoil equally and ate it to- 
 gether. Neither had received a scratch in the com- 
 bat. Italian boys do not inflict wounds in the 
 open. They are careful through bodily fear. 
 
 As they sat in the doorway a little girl of three 
 came slowly down the walk, sucking a banana peel 
 she had gleaned from a garbage can. She was 
 little Filipina Pologgi. A mass of glossy black 
 hair, waving and tangled, tumbled about her 
 shoulders and framed her olive cheeks. Her red, 
 moist lips were puckered about the banana peel, 
 moving with a caressing motion as she sucked. A 
 little stream oozed from the corners of her mouth, 
 and, mixing with the grime, covered her dimpled 
 chin with paste. Her eyes were big and black and 
 glowing with a soft light, like that reflected in a 
 
 [264]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 ^ifWtf 
 
 shaded pool. She looked about her calmly, as a 
 lady who strolls through the secluded walks of her 
 garden, lost in the serene reveries of contentment. 
 
 When Louis saw his little sister passing, his 
 heart became like warm wax. He ran to her, got 
 upon his knees beside her, took her in his arms 
 and kissed her yielding cheeks over and over. She 
 offered him her banana peel, and he took it, throw- 
 ing it away with a wry face and putting the half 
 of his apple in her chubby hand. He pushed the 
 hair from her eyes. Sweet, crooning sounds came 
 from his lips. He held his head back and gazed 
 at her with the tender idolatry of a mother. The 
 unrestrained doting, the affectionate contortions 
 of the eyes and mouth gave him the expression of 
 an imbecile. 
 
 A kick in the rear brought him to his feet. It 
 was Augustus Ringler, taking the easy opportu- 
 nity offered to vent his displeasure. Louis darted 
 across the street, and, gathering apple cores, pieces 
 of wood and odds and ends of refuse, threw them 
 viciously. Augustus walked slowly along the op- 
 posite walk without looking. Louis was joined by 
 Gabriel Canepa, and the allies, growing bold to- 
 gether, crept nearer. Gabriel found a rotten tomato 
 
 [265]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 «rf«iriFr>'r. 
 
 near an overflowing garbage can, and threw it 
 with such effect that it plastered the back of the 
 German's neck from his hat rim to his coat collar. 
 Augustus turned in quick pursuit. His eyes were 
 full of fire now. His cheeks were aflame. He 
 caught both his tormentors in a hallway, knocked 
 their heads together violently, banged them 
 against the wall, threw them to the floor, stamped 
 upon them, and left them writhing and moaning. 
 
 "I'll stick the Dutchy," gasped Gabriel, crawl- 
 ing about the floor like a sick cat. Louis sat up 
 and wiped his face. There was blood on his sleeve 
 and hand. He stared at it, and shuddered. "I'll 
 kill him," he shrieked. "I'll kill him— I'll kill 
 him." As the boys were stumbling home they 
 found a brick and broke it, each taking a half. 
 All that evening they lurked in the hallways 
 waiting for Dutchy to pass, but they did not see 
 him. 
 
 Saturday morning Louis Pologgi descended 
 into the street with his half brick buttoned under 
 his coat. His swarthy, pinched face was full of 
 fear, of cunning, of passionate longing for re- 
 venge. He looked stealthily toward the Ringler 
 hallway opposite, trying to believe he would have 
 
 [266]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 the courage to attack in the daytime, but misera- 
 bly conscious of his fear. 
 
 An open hack came rapidly down the street, 
 scattering the children and drawing them after it 
 in a clamoring swarm. It stopped in front of 
 Ringler's saloon. Great floral pieces were propped 
 in the seats. The sides were overflowing with 
 roses and ferns. The wonder with which Louis 
 beheld this blooming carriage was hardly at its 
 full when a still more amazing spectacle appeared. 
 This was a white cathedral on wheels — a glitter- 
 ing, enameled hearse, with plate-glass sides, silk 
 cords with tassels, with towers and crosses and 
 steeples and figures of smiling angels. It was 
 drawn by white horses, covered with white net- 
 ting that almost swept the ground. 
 
 To the mature, even to the critical eye, this 
 white hearse must have been an appealing symbol 
 of things unseen. For, although it was the prop- 
 erty of the undertaker to the poor, James Murphy, 
 and was by no means as costly as it looked, it pos- 
 sessed in reality a value no single man could have 
 given it, and which not even a Rockefeller or a 
 Rothschild could have made his own. It was a 
 product of the centuries, an embodiment of the 
 
 [267]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 loftiest ideals, the most poetic fancies, the tender- 
 est and noblest religious feelings of the greatest 
 natures of the world, gathered together by the 
 Catholic Church through the ages, put into this 
 compact form, and rendered so cheap by the slow 
 process and the universal use that James Murphy 
 could afford one for the little corpses of Baxter 
 street. It was, on this bright morning, its enam- 
 eled surface gleaming in the sun, a vision to stir 
 even the fat, inert imagination of Grandpa Ring- 
 ler. It is impossible, therefore, to exaggerate its 
 effect on Louis Pologgi. The days of our youth 
 are for us all the time of our most fantastic con- 
 ceptions. Age gives to our visions a form and sub- 
 stance, but that which most allured in them has 
 escaped to the glittering limbo beyond the outlines, 
 a boundless limbo for dreamers still to come. 
 
 These mincing horses, with their flowing nets ; 
 this gleaming edifice of steeples, crowns and 
 crosses and winged figures, appeared to Louis 
 Pologgi as a messenger from that world he viewed 
 at night through the starry peep-holes. His face 
 grew luminous and white, his dark eyes glowed. 
 He forgot the half brick in his bosom. 
 
 After the hearse came a line of hacks extending 
 
 [268]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 imrtfirirrt'r'!! 
 
 to the corners and beyond. The street was becom- 
 ing packed with people. All the windows of the 
 block were open and crowded with women and 
 children leaning far over the sills. A great noise 
 of voices arose, and made the ordinary clamor and 
 turmoil of the street seem like a country stillness. 
 The name of Ringler filled the air. 
 
 Towering above the throng of squat Italians 
 before Ringler's saloon was the tall figure of 
 James Murphy, his broad, rotund and elegant 
 shape set off by a broadcloth Prince Albert coat 
 and striped trousers. A brand new silk hat was 
 set a little to one side and back. His broad, strong 
 face was cleanly shaved. He looked at the crowds 
 about him with a lofty, solemn good humor, and, 
 waving his right arm as if wielding a scythe at 
 their necks, called loudly : 
 
 "Git back there. Line up, line up, and 
 leave a little way clear for the corpse and the 
 
 mourners." 
 
 Some one touched his arm. It was Grandpa 
 Ringler, who stood by the doorway, erect and im- 
 pressive, surveying the packed street and peopled 
 windows from his bulging blue eyes, as Prince 
 Bismarck might have done on a similar occasion. 
 
 [269 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 James Murphy inclined an ear, and Grandpa 
 mumbled huskily : 
 
 "That driver back there has a derby hat on." 
 
 James Murphy started as if shot, and, glancing 
 along the line of hacks, extended his long arm and 
 bawled : 
 
 "Here, there, you monkey-faced Sheeney, what 
 
 the have you got that hat on for ? Go back to 
 
 the bam for your tile. These people are paying 
 for silk hats." 
 
 "There weren't none left," yelled the driver. 
 
 "Well, get down here, then, and buy one at 
 Cohen's in there. These people are paying for 
 silk hats." 
 
 He turned to the crowd with a smiling counte- 
 nance and opened the door of the first hack, for 
 the first of the mourners had appeared. As Mrs. 
 Ringler brushed past the garbage can standing by 
 the door a cabbage leaf was caught by her dress. 
 It was removed by the deft fingers of Mr. Murphy 
 as he helped the lady in with an air of mingled 
 commiseration and gallantry. After her came 
 Mr. Ringler and Augustus. 
 
 For some time there had been no romajice in 
 the scene for Louis Pologgi. The name of Ring- 
 
 [ 270 ]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 ^n^^ 
 
 ler drumming in his ears, the thousands of faces 
 turned in wondering admiration toward the home 
 of his enemy, had changed his accessible soul from 
 a heavenly vista, where visions walked, into a hell 
 of rage and envy. His acrobatic face was screwed 
 into lines of eager resentment. When Augustus 
 appeared, dressed in a new suit of black, a black 
 derby fixed trimly on his cropped curls, his head 
 erect, his chest thrown out, his legs moving with 
 imposing stiffness, Louis felt for his brick. A 
 moment later he shuddered at the certain conse- 
 quences of the act he had intended. 
 
 The floral carriage and the hearse moved slowly 
 down the street. One by one the carriages rolled 
 up and stopped. The doors were opened and 
 slammed shut with quick precision. Some of the 
 hacks were passed on with but a single passenger, 
 for thirty had been ordered, and Mr. Murphy 
 feared there w-ere not mourners enough to fill 
 them. At the last there were a few unprovided 
 for, but this possibility had been also considered. 
 They would be picked up as the procession came 
 past again. The carriages, when they left the 
 saloon, were driven around the block and formed 
 in line on Park street. The final parade, as it 
 
 [271 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 i^r.ivtCir'ri'irp 
 
 turned the corner and moved slowly through Bax- 
 ter street, was all that a proud man could have 
 asked for. A great sigh of satisfaction swept the 
 block like a breath of wind. For more than five 
 minutes there was scarcely a sound but the roll of 
 wheels and the clatter of horses' feet. 
 
 Behind the last carriage came an army of chil- 
 dren, with Thomas Patrick O'Shea at the head. 
 "Come along," he called to Louis, standing by his 
 hallway. "Come on, Louis ; do honor to the dead. 
 Long life to the Dutch, and bad luck be wid them." 
 
 Louis sat down on the door-sill and looked 
 gloomily at Filipina playing on the sidewalk with 
 a broken broom handle. He called her to him and 
 had her sit by his side. She was always like putty 
 in his hands. For a long time he held her close to 
 him, motionless. Then he led her upstairs and 
 put her to bed. He said to his mother : "Filipina 
 is sick. We must have the doctor and a big 
 funeral." The woman laughed at him. "I must 
 have my sister dead," he yelled, stamping his foot 
 passionately. His mother pushed him into the hall. 
 
 That evening, when his family was out, he car- 
 ried upstairs a great pile of sticks and paper he had 
 gathered through the afternoon. An hour later a 
 
 [ 272 ]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STREETS 
 
 loud cry came from the window across the way, 
 and a hundred voices Hfted the alarm. And pres- 
 ently there was a sound of clanging gongs and the 
 fire engines came thundering down the street. A 
 patrol of police were driving back the crowds. 
 
 And then we saw an excited boy standing upon 
 the wall that guards the edges of the roof. The 
 shouts of the firemen, the cries of the dense crowds 
 held outside the lines, must have been sweet to 
 Louis. He saw Mrs. Ringler leaning from her 
 window opposite. He thought of Augustus some- 
 where among the rabble, beyond the ropes, strain- 
 ing his eyes to catch a glimpse of the glory of the 
 Pologgi excitement, and his heart swelled with tri- 
 umph. At first I had thought he was afraid until 
 I saw him shoot his right arm upward, and heard 
 him yell mightily : "Me— me. Look at me !" 
 
 A fireman below, thinking he was about to 
 jump, turned the hose on him and sent him tum- 
 bling to the roof. 
 
 The fire was out in ten minutes, and Louis was 
 very wet. Alas, poor Louis ! Your enterprise was 
 worthy the Cssars, the Neros, the Napoleons of 
 the world, but to become a great man now you 
 must learn to form stock companies. 
 
 [273]
 
 ^w 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 HE people in our building lived 
 horribly because they did not 
 know how to avoid accumu- 
 lating rubbish. They had 
 swarmed to this new building 
 because it was clean and beau- 
 tiful and tempting. Surely, one orange peel would 
 make no difference, but presently the halls were 
 littered and piles of ashes were in the corners; 
 rags, papers, tin cans and cast-off shoes were kick- 
 ing about the stairs. And then arose a noise of 
 protest. The building resounded with shrill 
 voices, shrieking accusations. This thing must 
 not be so. To deface and litter these fine halls was 
 infamous. Their neighbors were to blame; and 
 then there were rumors of a Tenement House De- 
 partment. It was said that landlords must supply 
 
 [ 274 ]
 
 Where the Other Half Live. 
 
 (A street bath.)
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 1 
 
 receptacles for this waste, and that janitors must 
 keep the halls clean. Strange letters of appeal 
 were written and posted to this new agent of the 
 law. An inspector came. He could speak the 
 languages, was a man of skill and tact. He in- 
 formed them of their own shortcomings, took the 
 landlord to task, secured rubbish and garbage 
 cans, woke up the janitor and assured them all 
 that he would come again. 
 
 Up to this time I had seen almost nothing, ex- 
 cept an occasional criticism, concerning the opera- 
 tions of the new department, and I suggested the 
 subject to Le Royd, 
 
 I found Mr. de Forest patiently toiling at his 
 desk, and learned from him an amazing story. 
 This department, the good Samaritan of the peo- 
 ple, at the very beginning of its career, before it 
 could complete its vast machinery, and do it wise- 
 ly, was threatened with destruction. Almost all 
 the real wealth of the city had assailed it in its 
 wrath. All the moral forces of Brooklyn had 
 originally helped to enact the law because it was 
 supposed to be a measure concerning only the old 
 East Side, but when it was found that Brooklyn 
 and Harlem, and even the palatial apartment 
 
 [ 277]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 house, without sufficient hght and air, were all 
 involved, behold the moral forces evaporated ! The 
 handful of gentlemen who still stood by this de- 
 partment, without regard to whom it affected, or 
 the material damage done, for the sake of its neces- 
 sity in morals, the pitiful human need of it, be- 
 lieved defeat to be almost inevitable. 
 
 For me, this was an opportunity such as I had 
 longed for when the squalid regions of the city 
 allured and troubled me. This department was a 
 tabernacle where an unorthodox believer might 
 find service with his God. All the forces of the 
 world that are seeking to fashion it after ideal 
 forms were centered here. Men had dreamed and 
 failed, and from their dreams and failures this 
 effective enterprise was born. It was creating for 
 me my city of the clouds. 
 
 Its purpose was to secure such alterations in old 
 tenements as would make them wholesome habi- 
 tations, and where this was impossible, to destroy 
 them, that others might be built. All new tene- 
 ments must be fire-proof, contain the necessities 
 for cleanliness, and every room must have suffi- 
 cient light and air. The swarms of ignorant ten- 
 ants who knew no better than to nest in vile holes 
 
 [278]
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 ^^^fi^f 
 
 would be given pleasant quarters as by an unseen 
 hand, and the multitudes who, in their poverty, 
 were crying for relief from dilapidation and dis- 
 ease would be heard and helped. 
 
 Every month the department was receiving- 
 more than two thousand appeals, most of them 
 unintelligible jumbles, written on scraps of paper 
 picked from the street or torn from flour sacks and 
 manila bags. While landlords and real estate own- 
 ers, contractors and builders and lumber dealers 
 were seeking to destroy the department, these 
 ludicrous and pathetic appeals came pouring in : 
 
 "Pleas at this House thire is not a bit of lith in 
 the Halls at Night and the tenants are afred to 
 speak for if th does the will be Put out see to it at 
 one no gass top floar nor second floare the Will giv 
 No lith to us and all Wood Fire Booard if the 
 hous is on fire afor you nor whar Wee are and 
 smoaking chinbles God help the Pooar the hav to 
 Put up with a lot and has no lith to see Whar Wee 
 are goane." 
 
 "Pleas and call at 51 1 & 513 W. 44 st. whare 
 the small poakes wear lat Spring the houses and 
 
 [279]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 hall are in a fearsh condison and the sinkes the 
 odor from them are verry bad and if not seet to i 
 fear you will hav the same lease soon again. Pleas 
 and investigat the rooms as thire are 7 & 8 chil- 
 dern in too rooms which i think is grat shame. 
 See fo youself the housekeeper sade she will not 
 let the Board of Heath inter in her house keep- 
 mg. 
 
 "If you would please be so kind and call to No. 
 4 Franklin St. and examine the house as it is im- 
 possible to live there the place is in a very bad con- 
 dition and when the people go down in the hall 
 they faint from the smell as I have got malaria 
 and cannot move at present until I feel better the 
 wash tubs smell and leak and the landlady will not 
 have it fixed she says if not satisfied move and will 
 not have anything fixed the rooms are dirty and 
 filthy and she wont have them painted absolutely 
 she will not repair anything the stairs are all 
 broken tins and when I go up with a child I tear 
 all my clothes and if I send the children down they 
 fall down stairs last week a girl from 13 years fell 
 down and broke her arm and the landlady only 
 tells you if you dont like it move I dont like to 
 
 [ 280]
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 i.fr.lifirilfirrr.B 
 
 trouble you but as I say I am unable to move at 
 present by doing this and call to examine the house 
 at 4 Franklin St. you will do a piece of Charity. 
 
 "Oblige me as a Friend 
 
 for my childrens sake the traps 
 in the wash tubs smell that I must keep the win- 
 dows open the waste water does not run off. 
 
 "Please call to see that we do not lie." 
 
 "I notify you of a very serious thing that hap- 
 pened to me the last days in the house No. 34 
 Chrystie Street. 
 
 "Last Saturday I w'ent out looking for a new 
 residence and I found it at No. 34 Chrystie Street 
 top floor left after a few days when I went up to 
 see if the rooms are ready to move in, Oh ! what it 
 happened, while standing the ceiling from the 
 front room fell down. I'm lucky I wasn't in the 
 room at that time. Now I retard taking such 
 rooms but the landlord keeps my deposit and force 
 me to move there, just imagine how landlords 
 keep poor neighbors in great danger. Hence, as a 
 member of the greatest union in the world I lay 
 my protest before the Board of Health and show 
 your power of justice and defendantcy for the 
 
 [281]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 poor with my greatest regard I'll hope that my 
 voice will do some good." 
 
 When I had read hundreds of these appeals and 
 listened to Mr. de Forest's story, and had seen for 
 myself what the department was doing, and con- 
 ceived dimly the marvelous fruits of its intentions, 
 I believed that it was only necessary to reveal the 
 situation without fear or reticence to silencethe op- 
 position, however formidable it might appear. I 
 believed this as I believed that the city had a soul. 
 
 It was, perhaps, fortunate that my paper was 
 the Post. It is certainly unique among newspa- 
 pers, although we might possibly find its generous 
 and impersonal spirit in the others, should we take 
 it there. 
 
 "It seems to me," I said to Mr. Villard one day, 
 "that a singularly friendly atmosphere pervades 
 these offices. As a reporter here, I still feel like a 
 good citizen and a welcome member of society, 
 with a good part to play. Can you explain the 
 mystery?" 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "it is because we look upon 
 the Evening Post as an institution, and not simply 
 as a newspaper that must be made to pay." 
 
 [282]
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 "^HiMi^ 
 
 When I left Mr. de Forest, very much alive to 
 the importance of my discovery, for the imminent 
 danger to the departinent was not then known, I 
 asked the Post for the privilege of a free-lance, 
 and it was given. The Tribune had always been a 
 friendly paper to the measure, and when I went 
 there with an article, a busy editor looked at me 
 squarely in the eyes, and said : "Brooklyn de- 
 clares the department is an outrage as it stands; 
 the whole borough's agreed — the best business 
 men, the lawyers, preachers — everybody. Most 
 of the newspapers, too, and the Eagle is silent, 
 but I know personally that it is for amendment. 
 Now, you can't expect us to dictate to these peo- 
 ple. They ought to know. If you are right, you 
 must prove it to Brooklyn." 
 
 I left the Tribune feeling as a man feels who 
 starts on a long journey through a fearsome wil- 
 derness alone, and in the dark. And this feeling, 
 perhaps, increased when I found myself in the 
 formidable presence of Mr. McKelway, the editor 
 of the Eagle. 
 
 "I am connected with the Evening Post," I said. 
 "I have come to talk with you in regard to the 
 tenement house law." 
 
 [283]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 f rt«.«rirr.<n.B 
 
 "I see," he said, with a humorous twinkle, "that 
 the Post is engaged upon another mission of phil- 
 anthropy." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "it is at present in favor of the 
 law." 
 
 "Well," he said, "the law will be amended." 
 
 I replied that Mr. de Forest would probably 
 favor some necessary amendments, but that they 
 would not make it less offensive. 
 
 "Mr. de Forest is an able man," he said, "and I 
 believe in him. That is why the Eagle has so far 
 been silent, but some radical amendments must 
 be made." 
 
 "All right," I answered, "that is your position 
 now. Let me tell you what I know. Brooklyn is 
 threatened with leprosy. If the enemies of this 
 law succeed you will receive into your capacious 
 lap all that is objectionable and unclean. This 
 measure was thought to apply only to the East 
 Side. The East Side is the only section of the 
 city that does not need it. You can wipe the 
 statutes out, but if there is any virtue in religion, 
 philanthropy, the spirit of social ethics or altruistic 
 designs, the East Side will be saved. It has for 
 many years been the experiment station in mor- 
 
 [284]
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 ality. Aside from that, Manhattan is small. Its 
 desires are artistic, it loves luxurious accommoda- 
 tions, and it will need that land. We have been 
 cleaning the East Side for several years, and for 
 several years Brooklyn has been taking the sweep- 
 ings. When Seward Park was built, tens of thou- 
 sands of wretched creatures swarmed like rats 
 from demolished holes and came to Brooklyn. 
 You have a worse and wider tenement house re- 
 gion now than Manhattan ever had." 
 
 "I think," said Mr. McKelway, "that you exag- 
 gerate." 
 
 *'If so," I said, "I can be corrected. I am here 
 to write something about this for the Post, and I 
 only want the truth. I have tramped through 
 these regions many times, but I am willing to go 
 again, and if you will send some one from your 
 paper with me I will agree to write nothing except 
 what we both see." 
 
 "I will agree to that," he said with vigor. 'The 
 Eagle wants the truth." 
 
 The man he sent with me had been connected 
 with the paper for thirty years. He was the liv- 
 ing image of Henry Ward Beecher and a very 
 capable man. 
 
 [285]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 "I send him with you," said the managing- edi- 
 tor, as we were leaving, "because I know you can't 
 make him think he sees what he don't see." 
 
 After our first hour my companion suggested 
 that we get a pohceman. 
 
 I need not describe the discoveries of those four 
 terrible days. A vivid synopsis may be found in 
 the files of the Eagle — an entire page of it. It was 
 not an argument, but a revelation vivid and fright- 
 ful. When the good citizens of Brooklyn discov- 
 ered that the respectable gentlemen, leaders in 
 business and the church, who were conducting 
 their army of protest, drew their income from 
 these swarming incubators of vice and disease, 
 they mutinied. Then the Tribune unmasked its 
 batteries and joined with the other papers — except 
 the Sim. 
 
 I was busy all that winter helping to keep the 
 papers full. There was a great uprising. At a 
 mass meeting of tenement dwellers, held in the 
 City Hall, one of the speakers was an anarchist. 
 He was a magnificent animal, very tall and im- 
 pressive, with a melodious and powerful voice. In 
 his speech, he said : 
 
 "It is, perhaps, worthy your notice, Mr. Mayor, 
 
 [ 286]
 
 THE FORTUNE GAINED 
 
 .f rf»iri>'r>:ri 
 
 ^j 
 
 that this is the first time in the history of the 
 world when an anarchist arose in piibhc to support 
 a law. If all the laws were like this one, and their 
 spirit was observed throughout society, there 
 would be no anarchists." 
 
 When, finally, in spite of the protests, the 
 threats, the cajolery and the wrath of real wealth, 
 the Legislature was made afraid, and sullenly ad- 
 mitted it could accept no amendments, except 
 those Mr. de Forest should suggest, I was grateful 
 because in obscurity I had helped to accomplish 
 this. 
 
 I have referred to it now because it shows that 
 a man may be indifferent to his advancement, pur- 
 sue his fancies, be ambitious only for delight, and 
 still be active and do good. 
 
 When this interesting incident was over, the way 
 was open for me to win reputation and a fortune 
 in New York. I declined it, and two days later 
 Nancy and I were speeding on a Lake Shore train 
 to a valley in the Catskills to make our home. 
 How long will men convert their cities into 
 prisons? The paths leading from the forest to 
 the city run both ways for me. and if the field be 
 tempting, I may loiter in the field. 
 
 D287 ]
 
 wJutmOB^m 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 O 
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 HERE are three great things for 
 civiHzation to accompHsh. It 
 must discover the exact frac- 
 tion of the earth and its prod- 
 ucts that is the citizen's due, 
 give it to him for the amount 
 of labor necessary for his health, and teach him 
 how to enjoy it in contentment, desiring no more. 
 The place we had chosen in the Catskills was on 
 a hillside, some distance from the road — a corner 
 of the forest that covers the sides of Round Top 
 and High Peak. A mountain brook came out of 
 the woods at this point, and crept down the open 
 hillside. Through the branches of the balsams we 
 could see the Valley of the Plaaterkill. 
 
 Days upon the hillside, long rambles through the 
 
 [ 288 ]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 
 woods, hour after hour of quiet reading, pleasant 
 labor in the garden, years of peace, simplicity and 
 content — this was the home we had conceived. 
 
 I think we came as near to an actual realization 
 of this dream as two people can. In "The House 
 in the Woods" you will find a truthful record of 
 our successes and failures during the first year. 
 After the book was written we gave up the back- 
 breaking struggle for the Simple Life, and hired 
 a boy and a girl to do our work for us. And after 
 that first summer we had no garden — it was 
 cheaper to buy our vegetables from the pedlers 
 that drove through the valley three times a week. 
 
 Our chore boy was of a joyous temper. We 
 delighted in his jokes, the merry blue Irish eyes of 
 him, his rosy cheeks, his curling blond locks, the 
 sound of his voice as he sang snatches of such 
 popular songs as had slipped in through the moun- 
 tain gaps. On his way to the brook for a mess of 
 trout he would often yodle melodiously, and the 
 notes coming fainter and fainter from the forest 
 were very sweet. 
 
 But the cows in his care were going dry. Nancy 
 and I often argued the question, "Can a happy- 
 hearted boy be depended on to milk regularly 
 
 [289 J
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 always at a certain time?" "And should we keep 
 the happy-hearted boy ?" 
 
 We settled the matter by selling the cows. We 
 kept the chickens, because they could be given what 
 food they needed when convenient. 
 
 We found that it required at least sixty dollars 
 a month to be comfortable in the woods, and thirty 
 of the sixty was spent for labor. 
 
 Our buildings were beautiful. They cost us 
 thirty-five hundred dollars, but their value was far 
 greater. I doubt if just such an effect could be 
 produced again. The house was built by no de- 
 sign — it grew day by day, giving a substance to 
 our desires. It was fashioned by the instinct with 
 which wild creatures build, and when we slipped 
 inside, and lit the fire on the wide hearth, and drew 
 the door to, the lines of the walls and windows, 
 the height and extent of the ceilings, the nooks 
 and angles, adjusted themselves to our moods and 
 fancies — the rooms became vistas down which re- 
 flection moved or snug shelter that wrapped us 
 close. 
 ^•^ We felt toward the house as a woodchuck to 
 
 his hole. 
 
 As things are now arranged it requires too hard 
 
 [ 290]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 ^n^ 
 
 work to get your living from the soil. Life in the 
 country ceases to be pleasant if you must support 
 yourself there with your hands. Manual labor in 
 the country, as in the city, is pleasant only as a 
 voluntary exercise — as recreation. Men must 
 learn how to supply their needs without too great 
 toil if they would be well and happy. 
 
 During the first years in the mountains, with 
 all the paraphernalia of the simple country life 
 about us, we worked like beavers for a bare living, 
 and sat up late in order to steal a few moments of 
 conscious rest. But we were often too tired to 
 rest. 
 
 When we sold the cows and pigs and hired a 
 boy to do the never-ending odds and ends of 
 chores, and a girl to cook and wash the dishes, 
 and keep the house in order, we could still be busy 
 enough to be healthy, and idle enough. We work- 
 ed a little, read a little, explored the forest, played 
 Pedro with our neighbors, followed the trout 
 streams with a hook and line, and the long, glow- 
 ing days of the second summer slipped past like 
 smiling phantoms. There is a curiously unreal 
 quality to these dreams when they do come true. 
 
 The fall approached. We stood for a moment 
 
 [291 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 in our dooryard, watching the leaves turn, and the 
 fall was gone. The first crimson and yellow leaves 
 ran like a flame over the valley and up the moun- 
 tain sides. We were in a bowl of brilliant hues. 
 A cold wind descended, the sky and the earth 
 were grey, the trees were bare and the snow fell. 
 We slipped into our comfortable home and built 
 great fires on the hearths and crammed the stoves 
 with wood. The timbers cracked with the frost 
 at night. The snow bent the limbs of the trees 
 and rose to the window sills. We scraped the 
 frost from the panes and peered out upon a world 
 of crystal. 
 
 But we were warm and snug inside. From 
 October until March we burned eighty cords of 
 wood. 
 
 My neighbors came with long, two-handled, 
 cross-cut saws and axes. They wore sheepskin 
 coats and felt boots and heavy caps, with earlaps. 
 Their beards and eyebrows were icy and their 
 cheeks covered with frost. We waded into the 
 forest, through snow to our hips, floundering in 
 the underbrush beneath the snow, and chose tfie 
 trees for the slaughter. Then the snow was 
 tramped and the trees felled and hauled with oxen 
 
 [292]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 to the house. Cord upon cord was cut and heaped 
 upon the pile and the stoves and fireplaces con- 
 sumed it day and night. 
 
 The trees were too crowded in the forest and 
 this careful trimming did it good. 
 
 A little work in the frosty air gave constant 
 variety to salt pork and roast apples and the flour 
 barrel. The sound of the saws and the axes just 
 back of the house became good company. And in 
 the evening there was the open fire, the peace of 
 two serene lovers, in a little circle of soft lamp- 
 light, in a great, warm room, with shadow cor- 
 ners, and the wind in the forest outside. 
 
 And there were five dogs. Bob and two of his 
 sons, Jamie and Laurie, his daughter Bonnie, and 
 Billy, the bull terrier. Bob lay always near my 
 chair ; Jamie in a cool corner, for his coat was long 
 and thick and he was more like a dog than the 
 others. Bonnie and Laurie lay by Nancy, and 
 Billy, the bull, on the hearthstone, nodding and 
 blinking at the fire. 
 
 Those long, peaceful winter evenings passed in 
 a companionable silence, in dreaming, in reading 
 aloud, in munching apples until the plate was 
 cleared. Early in March there was a thaw and a 
 
 [293]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^^^fi^l 
 
 day of rain. The air was filled with the roar of 
 brooks. Then the wind changed suddenly and 
 blew cold from the north. There was still more 
 than a foot of snow. The thermometer fell to 
 twelve degrees below zero, and then we knew that 
 we needed no more winter. We were made sud- 
 denly impatient by that tantalizing trick of spring. 
 
 While the timbers of the house were cracking 
 with the frost, we sat together late one night, talk- 
 ing of the strawberry bed we expected to start, of 
 the little patch we should sow to peas. At mid- 
 night we woke the sleepy dogs and let them out 
 for a few moments before they came in for the 
 night. 
 
 The stars were legion and cast a clear light 
 through the skeleton trees upon the icy crust of 
 snow. The forest seems most alert when the night 
 is still. We stood in the open doorway, watching 
 and listening until the persistent frost drove us in. 
 We filled the stoves with wood for the night and 
 put fresh logs in the fireplaces. The boys and the 
 girl, one after another, scratched upon the door 
 and were admitted. Jamie and Bonnie went to 
 their padded box in the woodshed, Laurie climbed 
 the stairs to Nancy's room and Bob to mine. Billy 
 
 [294]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 
 slept alone in the main room. He always waited 
 on the hearthstone until Nancy had retired and 
 then made his nest among the cushions on the 
 window seat. She did not care, provided he never 
 let her see him there, and he seemed to under- 
 stand this perfectly and humored her. If I re- 
 mained, he ignored my presence or noticed me 
 only as one who also understood, settling himself 
 among the cushions with a brief tattoo of the tail 
 and a happy sigh. 
 
 Our maid slept over the kitchen, and the pipe 
 from the kitchen stove passing through her room 
 before entering the chimney, kept it comfortable. 
 As we were fixing the fire for the night we heard 
 a sleepy voice from above. 
 
 "I think," said the maid — we heard her faint- 
 ly — "that this chimney is on fire." 
 
 Nancy looked at me incredulously. 
 
 "I just had it cleaned last Tuesday." 
 
 "What makes you think so?" I called to Belle. 
 
 "I can hear it crackling inside of it," came from 
 above. 
 
 We took a light, and, mounting the back stairs, 
 asked Belle to unlock the door. 
 
 "You mustn't bring a light," she protested. 
 
 [ 295 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^rMicirriTB 
 
 We laughed at her and presently the lock clicked. 
 
 "Now wait," she urged, "till I get under the 
 bedclothes." A moment later we heard a muffled, 
 "It's all right now." 
 
 There was a crackling sound in the stove pipe, 
 but the chimney itself gave no sign. 
 
 "A little salt will fix that," I said. 
 
 While Nancy was getting the salt and throwing 
 it on the fire in the stove, I went outside and 
 glanced up at the chimney. There were no sparks, 
 and my apprehensions were at rest. 
 
 We never looked at the house or the woods or 
 over the valley indifferently. Satisfied with a 
 glance at the chimney, I stood for a moment drink- 
 ing in the aspect of this home of ours — its pic- 
 turesque and comfortable appearance, its length, 
 its fine lines and the soft light from its windows. 
 
 Nancy was standing by the fireplace when I 
 entered, talking to Billy, waiting to bid me good- 
 night. Our two candles were on the mantel. We 
 mounted the stairs together as far as the landing, 
 where our ways diverged. My room was at the 
 end of the house adjoining the library. Nancy 
 occupied the room in the centre, between Belle 
 and me. 
 
 [296]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 ^nW 
 
 Nothing had ever been said about it, but 
 Nancy's door and the Hbrary door and mine 
 were usually left open. I know that I liked to 
 have thein so, in a half-conscious thought for 
 that possible cry in the night — the appeal of 
 anxiety or restlessness or terror that I might not 
 hear. 
 
 There was a heavy frost on the windows, al- 
 though it was the last of March. I opened mine 
 and fled from the cold blast to the quilts and thick 
 blankets, leaving only my eyes uncovered. It was 
 long past twelve and the wind had risen. I watch- 
 ed the moving tree-tops until their intricate passes 
 put me into a profound sleep. 
 
 It was still night when I found myself standing 
 on the floor, trying to waken, reaching out to feel 
 the way I could not see. My eyes opened, and I 
 was conscious of a sickening fright. Then I heard 
 what Nancy had really spoken a moment before. 
 It was the strained voice, the horror, the despair 
 of it that sickened me — not what she said. 
 
 I knew the house was burning up, but I thought 
 only of Nancy and the note of agony in her cry. 
 
 I remember now that her voice was not raised — 
 that she spoke quickly and clearly. Had she said 
 
 [ 297 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^||^ 
 
 an ordinary thing, I could not have heard her in 
 my sleep, through the intervening rooms. 
 
 It was her spirit that had startled mine and 
 wakened me. It was her fear. 
 
 The moment I was fully awake I shook this 
 fright from me. I had never believed in disasters, 
 and never really suffered from them. 
 
 I saw Nancy standing very still in her door- 
 way, silhouetted against the moonlight flooding 
 her room. 
 
 "The house is gone," she said. "Belle's room 
 and the woodshed are ablaze." 
 
 My heart stood still for a moment. The library 
 back of me, filled with books to the ceiling; the 
 quaint little vestibule where I stood confronting 
 Nancy ; her bedchamter — all so serene and famil- 
 iar ; this house of ours, ancient with the anticipated 
 peace and comfort of all the years to come — gone? 
 It seemed grotesque, impossible. And then in the 
 silence I heard Bob whining in the room below, 
 and a sudden, faint sound of sharp crackling. 
 
 I shall not forget the moments that followed. 
 Down the stairs, through the long main room and 
 dining-room and laundry, I hurried, hearing the 
 increasing sound of the fire, my mood changing 
 
 [298]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 vrttirirr T.B 
 
 with the rapidity of my heart-beats, growing faint 
 and furious by turns, losing hope and defying the 
 danger as I ran. I threw open the door between 
 the laundry and woodshed. The sudden blaze of 
 light blinded me. The flames were leaping over 
 the walls and ceiling. Sparks and burning shin- 
 gles were falling like hail. Through the roar and 
 snapping came the shrieks of Jamie and Bonnie 
 cowering in a distant comer. As I ran to them 
 through the falling fire they darted toward me and 
 leaped into my arms, yelping hysterically through 
 chattering teeth. 
 
 I turned on the water in the laundry, Nancy ran 
 to the brook with pails and Belle to the faucet in 
 the cellar. In fifteen minutes the fire in the wood- 
 shed was subdued. It leaped to life here and there, 
 but I was sure to master it, and the lurking 
 sense of hopelessness and despair gave way to 
 triumph. 
 
 Then Belle cried aloud, "The roof is on fire!" 
 I ran outside and saw the flames shooting up 
 through the shingles for a distance of fifty feet 
 along the ridge. The fire was raging through the 
 attic the length of the house. A moment later and 
 the smoke was pouring through the windows of 
 
 [299]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ______ f||4 i\fif _____ 
 
 the entire second story. Nancy was already in 
 the barn, trying in vain to pull the pony out by the 
 bridle. We covered her head with a blanket and 
 led her out. 
 
 We saved nothing- but one unfinished manu- 
 script and the tin box of legal papers. 
 
 We stood in our bare feet and nightclothes on 
 the crust of snow just outside the little grove and 
 watched the amazing spectacle. Dense clouds of 
 smoke poured from the windows. A roof fell in. 
 The boiler of the kitchen stove blew up, sending a 
 shower of hot water and splinters and burning 
 wood high a1x)ve the trees. 
 
 Up the hill came Tom and Fred Seifferth. 
 
 From far up the mountain sides, through the 
 still night, came the faint call of voices. They 
 were neighbors hurrying to us through the forest. 
 
 Nancy and I, with one accord, turned our backs 
 and started down the road. We had not gone far 
 before the dazed stupor in which I was blindly 
 hurrying passed like a fog before a fresh breeze. 
 I straightened up suddenly and looked at Nancy, 
 hurrying beside me, her head bent, her hands 
 clasped tightly over the tin box under her night- 
 robe. 
 
 [300]
 
 TWO YEARS AND BACK 
 
 
 "What's our hurry?" I said. "We may never 
 see a spectacle like this again." 
 
 She looked up at me and the shadow left 
 her face, .the drawn, set look vanished. The 
 blue of her eyes grew dark and she smiled. We 
 turned about and looked at the illuminated 
 forest — the gaunt trees standing boldly in the 
 foreground, the glare of light, the leaping 
 flames, the clouds of sparks, the scurrying 
 shadows, and in the background the world of 
 woods climbing the steep slopes, silent and 
 dark. 
 
 And then I said to myself, "There shall be not 
 one moment more of regret or sense of loss. A 
 thing of this sort, if taken as a tragedy, would dis- 
 color and overshadow an entire life. It is too real 
 and big a thing to trifle with. It cannot be ig- 
 nored. We must carry it with us as a burden of 
 grief or accept it as an impetus to a changed and 
 better fortune." 
 
 We trudged through the snow, unconscious of 
 the cold and our bare feet, and reached the Seif- 
 ferths' house in the valley at half-past three in 
 the morning. 
 
 These good neighbors of ours were pale with 
 
 [301 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 trt%trtrp\r^ 
 
 distress. It was impossible for them to realize 
 this sudden disaster. 
 
 "We shall not think of it as a disaster," said 
 Nancy. "It is only the sudden ending of two 
 happy years — we " her voice failed her sud- 
 denly. Her lips trembled, the tears came. She 
 looked at me foolishly and laughed, as women do 
 when confessing to a weakness they cannot con- 
 ceal. 
 
 "That's the truth of it, just the same," I said 
 stoutly, and from that moment every passing day 
 has proved it. The two happy years are still our 
 own, and the fire but a brilliant incident. 
 
 We think now that if we can we shall rebuild 
 again, but in the meantime these present places 
 reveal an interest, and the hour bells have a mellow 
 chime. 
 
 [302]
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 ND now it was fortunate that 
 the road between the country 
 and the city ran both ways for 
 us. We did not hover over the 
 ruins of our home. At day- 
 break, while the smoke was 
 still rising above the trees, we were in the Seif- 
 ferths' cutter, speeding along the valley road to- 
 ward the railway station in Stony Clove. 
 
 Our night's rest had been broken, and there 
 had been some hours of fear and fierce toil and 
 strain. We were physically jaded. And every- 
 thing we wore was borrowed, from our hats to 
 our stockings and shoes. Everything we owned, 
 the accumulation of years — books, furniture, keep- 
 sakes, hairpins, handkerchiefs — were among the 
 ashes in the forest. We slept a little on the train, 
 
 [ 303 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 •^Tf^W 
 
 and talked a little — assuring each other that we 
 did not mind. 
 
 "Of course, I am tired out," said Nancy, "but I 
 am not going to grieve." 
 
 The one thing we were sure of at that moment 
 was the intrinsic value of good spirits — just good 
 spirits, without regard for the reason why. The 
 one thing we feared was the appalling sadness that 
 hovered over us like a malevolent spirit. If there 
 be a Power in the universe to curse mankind, these 
 are the moments of his victory. Health, hope, 
 good fortune and a serene mind see nothing of the 
 vultures of the invisible world — they are busy 
 elsewhere feeding upon fallen spirits and minds 
 diseased. But let disaster hit him suddenly, and 
 the thing the optimist has most to fear is fear — 
 the misfortune lies in the assaults of grief, the in- 
 visible hordes of despair, of rage, of sadness, that 
 rush in to bear him off. These are the times when 
 a man has need of holy water. Has ill-luck be- 
 fallen me? Then, for God's sake, let me sing. 
 
 During that long ride in the train, it was an 
 uncanny struggle to keep our hold on happiness 
 and our spirits free. If we held too closely, we 
 would crush it; if too tightly, it would fly away. 
 
 [304]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 ir«<irir^r 
 
 "For my own sake," 1 said, "I don't mind so 
 much. In a way I'm glad it happened. We were 
 becoming house-bound. The world is full of fine 
 places and the years of fine days." 
 
 Nancy smiled, but her face was drawn and 
 weary. 
 
 "If you care to, we can rebuild up there. We 
 made it out of nothing once, and we can again." 
 
 Nancy's lips trembled, and she turned away. 
 She slept for two hours, and only awoke when the 
 train arrived at Weehawken. 
 
 As we stood on the ferry, hand in hand, she 
 smiled cheerily. 
 
 "You know 1 think just as you do about it — but I 
 can't always help feeling bad. But I know it will 
 be all right when I have had a good night's sleep." 
 
 "And shall we start right in to enjoy the old 
 town again?" 
 
 "As much as I ever did — but you know " 
 
 "You will feel better when you get some clothes 
 of your own." 
 
 We bought a Herald, and Nancy, standing on 
 the street corner, read advertisements while I went 
 into a saloon near the Forty-second street ferry to 
 telephone. 
 
 [305 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "Hello — yes, it's me — I am here in New York. 
 So am I glad. Can you lend me a hundred? — a 
 hundred. Right off. I will be there in twenty 
 minutes. All right. I don't know when I can 
 pay it, and I may need more. Our home burned 
 up this morning — yes, just burned, still smoking 
 up there. It is too bad in a way, but let's forget it. 
 Nancy is outside waiting in somebody's clothes. 
 I'll be there in a minute for the hundred. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 I would not let my friends commiserate with 
 me. 1 started the talking first. In all the weeks 
 that followed I made it a point, if I saw any one 
 I knew before they saw me, to prepare a jovial 
 greeting and a question about some interest of 
 their own. A man with an accident must look out 
 or he will be kept harping on a single theme. The 
 most hopeful nature in the world may be perverted 
 by an endless succession of sympathizing friends 
 who grieve in passing. It is but an hour each for 
 them, but for him a year — until what might have 
 been no more than a momentary note of discord in 
 a pleasant life becomes a mournful dirge that lasts 
 him to the grave. 
 
 "Here are some bargains in misses' suits," said 
 
 [306]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 ^Ww 
 
 Nancy. "And on Fifth avenue! I can't believe 
 these prices, but we might see." 
 
 Try as we might, we could not step right out in 
 those borrowed shoes. Nancy's skirt was too 
 long, and it hung askew,, and the waist was 
 wrinkled in the back. Her hat was on crooked, 
 but it was not worth while to straighten it. I am 
 used to old clothes myself, but to my own. It is 
 all right when you grow used to them by degrees. 
 Strange old clothes confuse you — it is like being 
 another person in your dreams. 
 
 Nancy walked with her head held sideways and 
 the Herald gripped tightly in her hand. We reach- 
 ed the store on Fifth avenue and sidled in. Nancy 
 made straight for a dressing-room and disap- 
 peared. A moment later she peered at me around 
 the edge of the door and I knew by the light in 
 her eyes and the beaming expression of blank re- 
 lief that 
 
 It is a wonderful thing to find yourself at forty 
 re-entering life as God made you, with all the 
 added wonders of civilization before you — and to 
 get. I left Nancy getting them and went to see 
 my friend. He promptly side-stepped the misfor- 
 tune with me, placed a hundred dollars in my 
 
 [ 307 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 hand, called up the store where Nancy was and 
 told them to charge the bill to him, 
 
 "Are those really borrowed clothes?" he asked. 
 
 "They be." 
 
 "How lucky to have a neighbor who would fit." 
 
 He slapped me on the hick and laughed and I 
 laughed, and he pushed me good-naturedly out the 
 door. "I must hustle like old Harry," he said, "to 
 make up the hundred I've just lost." 
 
 As I hurried toward the elevator he called out, 
 "You had better come back to lunch." 
 
 "We shall lunch," I answered, "in a department 
 store." 
 
 The old place in Broadway, where I had once 
 earned and left a hairbrush, tempted me. I went 
 there now in a different mood. In those old days 
 nothing mattered, for I had lost nothing that I 
 ever really cared to own. Then it was a pleasure 
 to wander, unattached to life, unknown, alone, a 
 little wistful, but still proving that one might be 
 uncertain of a crust and bed and be serene. But I 
 •had proved that once, and now, perhaps, I felt 
 a secret fear of mourning and of the morbid in- 
 clination to shuffle with a seedy air. There is a 
 difference in accepting Poverty as a good 
 
 £308]
 
 f 
 
 The Colossus, known as the Flat-iron, 
 at Twenty-third Street and Broadway.
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 companion, and in yielding to it when it with 
 violence would strip you bare. One may choose 
 rags rather than hang on to an electric railway 
 and the privilege of struggling to get rich, but 
 when the things I love are taken from me, and 
 I am put, willy-nilly, into rags, I will not wear 
 them. I will find me a warm climate and go 
 naked first. 
 
 So I went inside and bought a beautiful serge 
 suit, the best I ever had, a cream-colored top-coat. 
 a five-dollar Fedora, shirts, collars, ties, under- 
 clothes, stockings and shoes. 
 
 And yet the first thing Nancy asked me was, 
 "Did you think of handkerchiefs?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I knew you wouldn't, so I got you one." 
 
 She slipped it to me as we walked down Fifth 
 avenue, and I kept the thoughtful hand. 
 
 And then, as we came near to Twenty-third 
 street, we noticed for the first time the likeness of 
 the Flatiron building to the Winged Victory. 
 We caught the thing together and stopped and 
 looked. 
 
 "It seems to be flying toward us," said Nancy. 
 
 A beautifully groomed old gentleman stopped 
 
 [3"]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^nW 
 
 beside us, smiled with fatherly benevolence and 
 said: 
 
 "That is certainly true — quite a marvelous ef- 
 fect." 
 
 He bowed and renewed his way leisurely, ap- 
 pearing and passing like an amiable party in a 
 fairy tale. 
 
 Nancy was looking intently at the walk. "Do 
 you think he might have dropped a snuff box that 
 will turn into a chest of gold ?" 
 
 "I am thinking that we need " 
 
 "My dear," I said,- "we have enough just now 
 to walk upon the avenue. We have toiled at get- 
 ting all the day. Let's think we're surfeited with 
 things and glad to get away." 
 
 She left me talking and went into a store upon 
 the corner for the things. I put them in my pocket 
 meekly, for I have learned that while I might in 
 time make something of a philosopher of Nancy, 
 she can be an adorable woman with no help from 
 me. 
 
 And then I saw a most amazing sight. Down 
 Broadway, rolling majestically through the crowd- 
 ing vehicles, making the little cabs to scurry like 
 hens, passed a huge automobile. Some thirty peo- 
 
 [312]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 ^Uw 
 
 ^^^^r 
 
 pie sat composedly on top, gaping like children as 
 they listen to a grandma's tale. In front and 
 facing them stood a tall man in uniform, a mega- 
 phone waving from his lips, a long, lean arm ex- 
 tended. "Seeing New York" had developed in 
 my absence. But how perfectly it seemed to 
 fit. This was the thing the city needed to fix its 
 place. 
 
 Come now, all ye inhabitants of Kalamazoo, and 
 see the way we do it. The show place of the na- 
 tion has been thrown open. The generations have 
 completed little dramas interesting to hear. You 
 may ride through the open avenue, with smiling, 
 gaping multitudes on either hand, and hear the 
 dramas bawled at you through megaphones. How 
 this man made his money, and the new way some 
 woman has for spending it. Here Mr. Clark is 
 putting the last touches to his booth, and here is 
 where the Vanderbilt and Astor shows, old-time 
 favorites, like Punch and Judy, have been held 
 for years. It was a long time building, this Luna 
 Park and Dreamland of the ages — but it is real 
 and lasting. These spectacles are real, not made 
 of painted cardboard, with hired actors for the 
 parts. They grew from hopes and fears that men 
 
 [313]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vrt«irirr^rB 
 
 have really laughed and wept over. Families have 
 come from the grass and dwelt in palaces, and 
 passed away, unconscious workmen, serving to 
 construct this great centennial we offer you. 
 Seats, two dollars for the all-day show. 
 
 Even the born New Yorker might find an in- 
 terest in this trip. On Friday morning Nancy and 
 I climbed the seats in the third row. We went for 
 amusement, but we returned to think. The spirit 
 of the enterprise affected us. The familiar avenue 
 seemed strange. There was the old hotel upon 
 the corner, and there the tower of the Garden ris- 
 ing above the trees of Madison Square. These 
 things had grown so common that I no longer saw 
 them as I passed, but now, from the seat of the 
 sightseer, they stood out with a new and strange 
 distinctness. I turned from side to side, looked 
 up the avenue and down, and the fog of the habi- 
 tual lifted, revealing the world again. 
 
 The lecturer took his place before us. The 
 vehicle turned about, and, with a solid, even 
 motion and a purring sound, rolled swiftly south. 
 I saw the green trees of Washington Square 
 in the distance, and the tall, familiar buildings 
 gliding past. Then came the lecturer's voice, 
 
 [314]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 ^^^T®' 
 
 like a blast, and I caught a keen glance from 
 his eye at the left of the megaphone, cocked on 
 me. 
 
 "Here we are at Twentieth street. There is 
 Lord & Taylor's on the left, and on the right the 
 Methodist Book Concern, that divides its enor- 
 mous profits between Home mid Foreign MIS- 
 SIONS !" 
 
 His glance became piercing and uncanny to- 
 ward the last, and his voice and the words grew 
 clearer and more penetrating, until the last one 
 nearly lifted me from my seat. After the assault 
 he retreated and approached, as from a distance, 
 softly. 
 
 Meanwhile the automobile was moving at good 
 speed. 
 
 "This is Sixteenth street, and up to the right 
 the New York Hospital. In the next block, the 
 last of the brownstone houses on your right, is the 
 
 home of Mrs. " (I shot an apprehensive 
 
 glance at the windows — what might the lady 
 think if, seated at an open casement sewing, she 
 heard this shouting of her name) ; "this is the 
 house where the police made one thousand 
 dollars a week by watching for the young million- 
 
 [315]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 aire, . He zvasn't there, and they knew it 
 
 ALL THE TIME!" 
 
 Again his eye bored me like a gimlet, and his 
 voice and glance grew mild, and his gestures now 
 this side, now that, smooth and easy. 
 
 "Fourteenth street — New York's longest cross- 
 town street. 
 
 "The Lenox Home. 
 
 "General Sickles' house. 
 
 "The old Presbyterian Church, organized in 
 1716. 
 
 "Here is the old colonial house of the Ward 
 family — the first house built upon Fifth avenue. 
 
 "Before you is the famous Washington Arch, 
 that cost one hundred and seventy-seven thousand 
 dollars. It stands at the entrance of Washington 
 Square, where now a thousand children play. It 
 used to be a Potter's Field. The bodies were not 
 removed. One hundred thousand paupers still 
 LYE SLEEPING THERE! 
 
 "Now we are turning into Waverley Place, once 
 the most aristocratic portion of the city, and some 
 of the oldest families of New York (pointing) 
 STILL LIVE THERE ! 
 
 "I'll show you the old home of Samuel Morse, 
 
 [316]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 mmm' 
 
 inventor of the telegraph. The first telegram ever 
 sent sped over the trees of the old cemetery. There 
 (pointing) was the home of Charles Dana, and 
 there the house w^here Bishop Potter lived before 
 he married." (Then followed a cynical comment 
 bellowed at the top of his voice.) 
 
 "Now we turn into Broadway, so called be- 
 cause it is so narrow. I call it the Canyon of the 
 Skyscrapers. To your right is the Broadway Cen- 
 tral Hotel, the place where Stokes murdered Jim 
 Fiske. Fiske got off, and this is the first case in 
 Democratic America where a man escaped the gal- 
 lows by the free use of money. 
 
 "We are coming to Bleecker street. Look out 
 for the yellow buildings on the corner, one block 
 to your left, with the old English lettering. This 
 is the saloon opened by Bishop Potter, called the 
 Subway Saloon. 
 
 "The building on the corner to your right is the 
 store of Charles Broadway Rouss, the blind mil- 
 lionaire who kept no books. He offered one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars to anybody who would re- 
 store his sight. He came to the city with noth- 
 ing and died worth eighteen million. I will show 
 you the park he gave to the poor. 
 
 [317]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 "On those seven blocks down there to your left 
 you can buy a railroad ticket to anywhere, on any 
 line. 
 
 "We are now coming to Canal street, once a 
 canal for deep-sea schooners. A good many 
 schooners go through this street now, but they 
 only cost a nickel ! 
 
 "Franklin street. Down to the left is the Bridge 
 of Sighs, and the Criminal Courts building on the 
 north. They took twenty thousand prisoners over 
 the Bridge of Sighs last year. 
 
 "This is the New York Life building. Does 
 one million dollars worth of business. Employs 
 five thousand clerks. Cost six million dollars. 
 
 "The building on your right, Broadway and 
 Duane, is the Mutual Reserve building." 
 
 Nancy pinched my arm. I woke as from a 
 trance and glanced up with her to a window on 
 the thirteenth floor, from which we ha.d so often 
 gazed over the city we were now passing through, 
 for this was the building where her office was. 
 
 "Little Peter," murmured Nancy in my ear. I 
 took the hand she slipped to me, and murmured 
 back, "And, after all, he did bake bread. We have 
 been the Islander and the householder." 
 
 [318]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 iilMM 
 
 "When happiness was not happy enough; 
 when the moon was a pleasant fever; when the 
 stars were letters and the flowers ciphers, and the 
 air was coined into song ; when all business seemed 
 an impertinence, and all the men and women run- 
 ning to and fro in the streets — " (she made a 
 little gesture toward the swarming walls) "like 
 pictures." 
 
 But the lecturer caught us whispering, and 
 pierced us with his eye. 
 
 "The estate that owns the property on the cor- 
 ner to your right was in litigation over twenty 
 years. This building, newly erected, was boarded 
 up for twenty years!" 
 
 We passed the City Hall Park, where Bob once 
 chased the birds — were shown the Municipal 
 building, on which Boss Tweed made twenty 
 million; the spot where Nathan Hale was exe- 
 cuted; Newspaper Row beyond the trees; St. 
 Paul's building, twenty-five stories high 
 
 "And here is Maiden Lane, so called because 
 the youths and maidens once made love there on 
 moonlight nights, and now, naturally, it is a 
 wholesale jewelers' street. 
 
 "The Equitable building, where they are at 
 
 [319]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 vrtfirirri'VtB 
 
 present playing Hyde and seek. Trinity Court 
 building, on your right, will be one of the tallest 
 in the world when finished. It is owned by the 
 Trinity Church Corporation, the richest church 
 corporation except Canterbury. And here is Trin- 
 ity Church. Look at it well. It is the only thing 
 that ever got ahead of Wall Street and stayed 
 
 THERE ! 
 
 "And now we turn down Wall Street. When 
 New York was a flag station it was full of sheep 
 and bulls and lambs. This is where the people 
 came to see them gambol. The building on the 
 next block to your left is the Sub-Treasury. Op- 
 posite is the bank of Morgan. The Treasury is 
 there, but here, in Morgan's corner, is where the 
 MONEY IS! 
 
 "We come now to the Stock Exchange, where 
 they make thirty cents look like thirty million 
 dollars, and get real money for it, too!" 
 
 He took the megaphone from his lips with a 
 flourish, jumped to the sidewalk, put up the lad- 
 der and we all climbed down. 
 
 Broad street was alive with people running to 
 and fro, in and out of buildings, up and down the 
 pavements, forming masses that moved from walk 
 
 [320]
 
 TP^E WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 to walk, and gathered and dispersed about the 
 agitated circle of speculators on the curb. 
 
 We followed the lecturer inside the Stock Ex- 
 change, and were taken up in elevators, escorted 
 briskly through an ornate hall, and came out upon 
 the gallery that surrounds the mighty chamber 
 where Belshazzar feasts, awaiting the handwrit- 
 ing on the wall. 
 
 The ceiling was of virgin gold suspended over 
 a vast area without a pillar to uphold it, seven 
 stories high. The floor beneath was covered with 
 a litter of yellow envelopes and telegrams. There 
 were groups of men packed close together, shout- 
 ing and gesticulating. There were men strolling 
 alone, like idlers through a meadow on a pleasant 
 day, and others hurr>'ing from group to group. 
 Here two met for a conference and were off again. 
 Pencils were put to notebooks. The scene was 
 kaleidoscopic, intense, mysterious. Through the 
 swarms of men moved another swarm of boys in 
 gray uniforms, carrying dispatches, running, call- 
 ing, their piping voices penetrating through the 
 almost savage roar. 
 
 Close beside us stood the lecturer talking, famil- 
 iarly, easily, and loud enough for all to hear. These 
 
 [.-^21 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 ^TV 
 
 mighty men, these captains of finance, were the 
 puppets of his performance, the incidental paying" 
 features of his two-dollar show. 
 
 "You see that man with the bald head? That's 
 Straus. He has eight memberships. These mem- 
 berships come fairly high. The last one sold for 
 eighty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Last 
 week it was. In another year it will be one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. The next year after that 
 no one can buy any. There's . He dis- 
 pleased his family by his marriage. He was en- 
 gaged in the contest of the will for twenty-five 
 years, and got thirty million out of the estate. 
 There's the Beau Brummel of the Exchange — the 
 man there with the silk hat on the back of his 
 head. It's Stillman. He buys a new hat every 
 Friday. Do you see that little man over there — 
 the natty man in the smoking-jacket, with his hair 
 parted in the middle? That's George Gould. He 
 doesn't look to be over fifty, but he is. I want you 
 to see that man with the gray beard. His name is 
 Lawrence — the farmer of the Stock Exchange. 
 He was once a squatter and is worth to-day 
 twenty-two million." 
 
 Of course neither Gould nor Stillman was there. 
 
 [322 ]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 Mr. Stillman does not own a seat, and, while Mr. 
 George Gould does, he is never on the floor. The 
 entire lecture of the giiide was taken stenographi- 
 cally. He made some amazing errors, but on the 
 whole I think the spirit of the age spoke through 
 his megaphone. 
 
 And so he picked and pointed, and we gazed and 
 smiled until this spectacle, grotesque and singu- 
 lar, was over and we went outside. 
 
 We drove over all the ancient portions of the 
 city, past the landmarks of its growth, and sud- 
 denly, from the days of De Peyster, Stuyvesant, 
 Franklin and Cooper, we emerged, as from a. tun- 
 nel, to the bright daylight of Twenty-third street. 
 
 We hurried through our lunch, climbed to our 
 seats again, and rolled briskly up Fifth avenue. 
 The lecturer waved his arm toward the residences 
 we passed and bawled through the megaphone the 
 names of those who lived there and their histories. 
 How futile then became the iron gateways and 
 the heavy oaken doors ! These imposing man- 
 sions, where the winners in the game would sit 
 remote, like the walls of Jericho, have crumbled 
 at this trumpet blast. 
 
 "And here is Sherry's on your left. There was 
 
 [323 ]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 a banquet there last night. We didn't attend, but 
 we feel better than those who did. There is the 
 church that Roosevelt attended. The Belgravia 
 apartments, fifteen thousand a year. The home of 
 Russell Sage. Do you see that parlor window? 
 That's been cracked for twenty years. The resi- 
 dence of the Goelets. The Democratic Club. Some 
 people think that those initials carved upon the 
 granite mean Dick Croker. Here is the Church 
 of the Heavenly Rest. It has the largest win- 
 dow of miy in the world!" 
 
 Then followed several houses — names were 
 shouted, the windows pointed at, and town topic 
 paragraphs flung through the megaphone. 
 
 "The home of Rockefeller. The St. Regis Ho- 
 tel, where they come to live the Simple Life! 
 
 "Millionaires' Row ! See, ladies, here is your 
 old friend Woolworth, of the Ten-Cent Store, and 
 here is Pyle's Pearline, and here is Carnegie, who, 
 to meet the demands of his benevolence, is re- 
 duced to forty-six servants! — the largest number 
 of any civilized man in the world. Here is the 
 residence of Castoria, with the image of an infant 
 on its dormer peak." 
 
 We rolled through Central Park, and over the 
 
 [324]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 *Ww 
 
 hill to the Hudson, past Grant's Tomb and the 
 grave of the amiable child, and down Riverside 
 Drive, with the automobile at full speed. 
 
 A confusion of names and thoughts and con- 
 ceptions were pouring from the megaphone, and I 
 was held spellbound by the piercing eye. But to- 
 ward the end I looked away, and saw the last of 
 the green banks of the river and the children play- 
 ing there. 
 
 I heard no more, and gradually the Boulevard 
 became familiar, leading me back into a friendly 
 world. I saw the beauty of these houses, the 
 pleasant faces of the people on the walks and in the 
 vehicles we passed. Since my own childhood it 
 was a better world in which to work and live. 
 
 Toil on, votaries of ambition and of greed ; pro- 
 mote, erect, adorn, for in the end your palaces 
 shall become the inheritance of a friendly and a 
 happy race. Youth will still remain nature's sav- 
 ing anarchy. Laws and customs will be tested by 
 its dreams. Children born in luxury still seek a 
 fairyland and listen to the stories of Utopia. How- 
 ever fair the nest, it will not hold them — they need 
 a happy world. The things men strive for may be 
 vain, but not all vain. In the finished master- 
 
 [325]
 
 LODGINGS IN TOWN 
 
 
 piece the clown and charlatan has each his part to 
 play. There are great men everywhere. What 
 matters it who wears the crown? If we find our 
 heroes of the horse and palace are mountebanks or 
 men of straw, we need not be disturbed, for the 
 streets are full, and if we look serenely we may 
 find real heroes there. 
 
 On Saturday we found apartments and on Mon- 
 day I looked about me for a job. 
 
 Two months have passed. I have paid my 
 debts except some small ones, where the folks I 
 owe would rather wait until the house is built 
 again. 
 
 By the time this book is published the ashes in 
 the forest will be cleared away and Brice will have 
 the new foundation and the chimney built. 
 
 I have learned some lessons, among them these : 
 The city is man's workshop, the country is his 
 home. 
 
 A city, a forest, a green field, each alike, will 
 become to a man according to the spirit with which 
 he enters them. The thing he seeks he must be- 
 stow. In town or country a man must deal with 
 men, and he will have his work to do, but even on 
 the pavements he may see the wood sprites if he 
 
 [326]
 
 THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
 
 thinks of them, and in the silence of the forest he 
 can do no more. 
 
 The philosophy in this little trilogy is very old. 
 I have sought only to picture an effort to live by it, 
 and in this there may be something new. 
 
 THE END 
 
 ^. 
 
 io-/S 
 
 [327]
 
 BY JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 
 
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