BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
they all live?
At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me--poor girl! I'd
like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
up, too."
Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
thirty years ago--rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
broken steak or a half-eaten roll--and she could imaginatively enter
into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.
"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle--"'sure the
mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
drop in on him and surprise him with a check"--at the moment he forgot
that he was old and a cripple--"just to let him know the divil hadn't
claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
see you; he might say the divil had got _you_--but he couldn't pity
me."
She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
naturally locoes me to think of it."
"'Tis the only place to spend money--so the boys tell me. I've never
been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
fine swamp to lose a thief in."
"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.
"I did so--and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
chances."
Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
were but empty boasting--so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
potency of gold!--could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God--one derived
from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.
They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
do it to-night."
Bertha was tired, too--mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
with the Troy directory.
Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here--and I've earned many a dime
sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
said; "I don't know why--I had all the chance there was. I've been
moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that--I'll say I tuck it
as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
alone--it spiled me nerve--I let the other felly do the drinkin'."
Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
shouted, "'Tis old Otto--just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"
Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
off me alretty."
"I'm Mart Haney--you remember Mart Haney."
Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
Vell, vell--you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter--yes?"
"My wife," said Haney.
Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"
"That's what."
"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce--aind dot
right?"
Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"
"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn--so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
be clad to see you--"
"You don't know his address?"
"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."
"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."
"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
directory--Chon Donahue, barkeep."
"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
the boys are livin' here now?"
"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
are teadt--many are teadt," he added, on second thought.
"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"
For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
can't cheat a boy--he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
whole long day--not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
up with the Injuns."
Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
studying the scenes of his boyhood--her own childhood had been almost as
humble, almost as cheerless--and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.
Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.
It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
which she received what was said to her--something indefinably alert and
self-masterful without being self-conscious--gave her a mysterious
charm.
She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
of interest--even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
Kate--more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.
Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
folk live in one place?
Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
foreign capital.
It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp--a
palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
were put at his command.
Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.
Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
get a car."
"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.
"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
like me."
Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans--and all others
who have them not--struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
from the scramble on the pave.
Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."
Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.
In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"
"Oh no, I'll go down."
"They dress for dinner, ma'am."
"Do they? What'll I wear?"
He considered a moment. "Any light silk--semi-dress will do. I'll send a
maid in to help you."
"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.
Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful--it was paternal;
for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
of adaptability--was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
prejudice against both black and red men.
The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"
"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.
Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
very shy.
"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but--to
miss me sleep--"
"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
just about all in, myself."
"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
Lucius will take ye."
"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."
This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.
"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
turned off Broadway.
"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"
"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
quieter now till November."
They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
of a rank with Paris and London--the gateway city of the nation, where
the Old World meets and mingles with the New.