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MY special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It
is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of
this city. It is simply a rush of the same people—hurrying this way or
that on the same errands—doing the same shopping or eating at the same
restaurants. It is a kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the
same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday.
Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a _genre_ specimen, or an odd
detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and holds in
its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old bookseller
with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar moldering in a
stall—but the general effect is one of sameness and soon tires and
bewilders.
Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the
most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the
houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose
the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things
never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient
murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months’ pretty
steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the
Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made
many acquaintances along the route—and on reaching the city my first
curiosity is in their behalf.
One of these is a boy about six years of age—akin in his fragile body
and his serious mien, a youngster that is very precious to one. I first
saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting
from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over
the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a
short round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic
picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate,
and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day.
On going up town that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still
at his place, white and patient and silent. Every day afterwards I saw
him there, always with the short stick in his hand. Occasionally he
would walk around the balcony rattling the stick in a solemn manner
against the railing, or poke it across from one corner to another and
sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and the stick
was the only plaything he had. But he was never without it. His little
hand always held it, and I pictured him every morning when he awoke from
his joyless sleep, picking up his plaything and going out to his
balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he slept with it, as
little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.
I could see that the room beyond the window was bare. I never saw any
one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no
ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white
head, moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little
fellow become a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of
him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even
for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree
responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was
patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What
thoughts filled that young head—what contemplation took the place of
what should have been the ineffable upbringing of childish emotion—what
complaint or questioning were living behind that white face—no one could
guess. In an older person the face would have betokened a resignation
that found peace in the hope of things hereafter. In this child, without
hope or estimation, it was sad beyond expression.
One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I
repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him—but without
avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his
pale lips trembled into a smile—but a smile that was soberness itself.
Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw
children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands
nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought of that
tiny watcher in the balcony—joyless, hopeless, friendless—a desolate
mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets—lifting his
wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking
with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length—but
why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no
father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his
sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself
all day? It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday,
and forgot the heat in the sharp saline breezes—watched the bathers and
the children—listened to the crisp, lingering music of the waves as they
sang to the beach—ate a robust lunch on the pier—wandered in and out
among the booths, tents, and hubbub—and that through all these manifold
pleasures, I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can
never hope to emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching—and that
as I came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the cordage,
music floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying
rays the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of
me a very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but
sober and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short
battered stick. And finally that whenever I pass by a certain
overhanging balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and
esteemed friend who lives there.
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