When the little seamstress had climbed to her room in the story over the
top story of the great brick tenement house in which she lived, she was
quite tired out. If you do not understand what a story over a top story
is, you must remember that there are no limits to human greed, and
hardly any to the height of tenement houses. When the man who owned that
seven-story tenement found that he could rent another floor, he found no
difficulty in persuading the guardians of our building laws to let him
clap another story on the roof, like a cabin on the deck of a ship; and
in the southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor the little
seamstress lived. You could just see the top of her window from the
street--the huge cornice that had capped the original front, and that
served as her window-sill now, quite hid all the lower part of the story
on top of the top story.
The little seamstress was scarcely thirty years old, but she was such an
old-fashioned little body in so many of her looks and ways that I had
almost spelled her "sempstress," after the fashion of our grandmothers.
She had been a comely body, too; and would have been still, if she had
not been thin and pale and anxious-eyed.
She was tired out to-night, because she had been working hard all day
for a lady who lived far up in the "New Wards" beyond Harlem River, and
after the long journey home she had to climb seven flights of
tenement-house stairs. She was too tired, both in body and in mind, to
cook the two little chops she had brought home. She would save them for
breakfast, she thought. So she made herself a cup of tea on the
miniature stove, and ate a slice of dry bread with it. It was too much
trouble to make toast.
But after dinner she watered her flowers. She was never too tired for
that, and the six pots of geraniums that caught the south sun on the top
of the cornice did their best to repay her. Then she sat down in her
rocking-chair by the window and looked out. Her eyry was high above all
the other buildings, and she could look across some low roofs opposite
and see the further end of Tompkins Square, with its sparse spring green
showing faintly through the dusk. The eternal roar of the city floated
up to her and vaguely troubled her. She was a country girl; and although
she had lived for ten years in New York, she had never grown used to
that ceaseless murmur. To-night she felt the languor of the new season,
as well as the heaviness of physical exhaustion. She was almost too
tired to go to bed.
She thought of the hard day done and the hard day to be begun after the
night spent on the hard little bed. She thought of the peaceful days in
the country, when she taught school in the Massachusetts village where
she was born. She thought of a hundred small slights that she had to
bear from people better fed than bred. She thought of the sweet green
fields that she rarely saw nowadays. She thought of the long journey
forth and back that must begin and end her morrow's work, and she
wondered if her employer would think to offer to pay her fare. Then she
pulled herself together. She must think of more agreeable things or she
could not sleep. And as the only agreeable things she had to think about
were her flowers, she looked at the garden on top of the cornice.
A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, and she saw a cylindrical
object that glittered in the twilight, advancing in an irregular and
uncertain manner toward her flower-pots. Looking closer, she saw that it
was a pewter beer-mug, which somebody in the next apartment was pushing
with a two-foot rule. On top of the beer-mug was a piece of paper, and
on this paper was written, in a sprawling, half-formed hand:--
_porter
pleas excuse the libberty And
drink it_
The seamstress started up in terror and shut the window. She remembered
that there was a man in the next apartment. She had seen him on the
stairs on Sundays. He seemed a grave, decent person; but--he must be
drunk. She sat down on her bed all a tremble. Then she reasoned with
herself. The man was drunk, that was all. He probably would not annoy
her further. And if he did, she had only to retreat to Mrs. Mulvaney's
apartment in the rear, and Mr. Mulvaney, who was a highly respectable
man and worked in a boiler-shop, would protect her. So, being a poor
woman who had already had occasion to excuse--and refuse--two or three
"libberties" of like sort, she made up her mind to go to bed like a
reasonable seamstress, and she did. She was rewarded, for when her light
was out, she could see in the moonlight that the two-foot rule appeared
again with one joint bent back, hitched itself into the mug-handle, and
withdrew the mug.
The next day was a hard one for the little seamstress, and she hardly
thought of the affair of the night before until the same hour had come
around again, and she sat once more by her window. Then she smiled at
the remembrance. "Poor fellow," she said in her charitable heart, "I've
no doubt he's _awfully_ ashamed of it now. Perhaps he was never tipsy
before. Perhaps he didn't know there was a lone woman in here to be
frightened."
Just then she heard a gritting sound. She looked down. The pewter pot
was in front of her, and the two-foot rule was slowly retiring. On the
pot was a piece of paper, and on the paper was--
_porter
good for the helth
it makes meet_
This time the little seamstress shut her window with a bang of
indignation. The color rose to her pale cheeks. She thought that she
would go down to see the janitor at once. Then she remembered the seven
flights of stairs; and she resolved to see the janitor in the morning.
Then she went to bed, and saw the mug drawn back just as it had been
drawn back the night before.
The morning came, but somehow the seamstress did not care to complain to
the janitor. She hated to make trouble--and the janitor might
think--and--and--well, if the wretch did it again she would speak to him
herself, and that would settle it. And so on the next night, which was a
Thursday, the little seamstress sat down by her window, resolved to
settle the matter. And she had not sat there long, rocking in the
creaking little rocking-chair which she had brought with her from her
old home, when the pewter pot hove in sight, with a piece of paper on
the top. This time the legend read:--
_Perhaps you are afrade i will
adress you
i am not that kind_
The seamstress did not quite know whether to laugh or to cry. But she
felt that the time had come for speech. She leaned out of her window and
addressed the twilight heaven.
"Mr.--Mr.--sir--I--will you _please_ put your head out of the window so
that I can speak to you?"
The silence of the other room was undisturbed. The seamstress drew back,
blushing. But before she could nerve herself for another attack, a piece
of paper appeared on the end of the two-foot rule.
_when i Say a thing i
mene it
i have Sed i would not
Adress you and i
Will not_
What was the little seamstress to do? She stood by the window and
thought hard about it. Should she complain to the janitor? But the
creature was perfectly respectful. No doubt he meant to be kind. He
certainly was kind, to waste these pots of porter on her. She remembered
the last time--and the first--that she had drunk porter. It was at home,
when she was a young girl, after she had the diphtheria. She remembered
how good it was, and how it had given her back her strength. And without
one thought of what she was doing, she lifted the pot of porter and took
one little reminiscent sip--two little reminiscent sips--and became
aware of her utter fall and defeat. She blushed now as she had never
blushed before, put the pot down, closed the window, and fled to her bed
like a deer to the woods.