laughed; but not with the upward glee of a bird--downward rather, until
it died in a croak in her throat. But then Hattie Krakow was ten years
older than Sara Juke; and ten years in the arc-lighted subcellar of the
Titanic Department Store can do much to muffle the ring in a laugh.
"Gee, you're as funny as your own funeral--you are! You keep up the
express pace you're going and there won't be another October left on
your calendar."
"That's right; cheer me up a bit, dearie. What's the latest style in
undertaking?"
"You'll know sooner 'n me if--"
"Aw, Hat, cut it! Wasn't I home in bed last night by eleven?"
"I ain't much on higher mathematics."
"Sure I was. I had to shove you over on your side of the bed; that's how
hard you was sleeping."
"A girl can't gad round dancing and rough-housing every night and work
eight hours on her feet, and put her lunch money on her back, and not
pay up for it. I've seen too many blue-eyed dolls like you get broken.
I--"
"Amen!"
Sara Juke rolled her blue eyes upward, and they were full of points of
light, as though stars were shining in them; and always her lips
trembled to laugh.
"There ain't nothing funny, Sara."
"Oh, Hat, with you like a owl!"
"If I was a girl and had a cough like I've seen enough in this basement
get; if I was a girl and my skirtband was getting two inches too big,
and I had to lie on my left side to breathe right, and my nightie was
all soaked round the neck when I got up in the morning--I wouldn't just
laugh and laugh. I'd cry a little--I would."
"That's right, Hat; step on the joy bug like it was a spider. Squash
it!"
"I wouldn't just laugh and laugh, and put my lunch money on my back
instead of eggs and milk inside of me, and run round all hours to dance
halls with every sporty Charley-boy that comes along."
"You leave him alone! You just cut that! Don't you begin on him!"
"I wouldn't get overheated, and not sleep enough; and--"
"For Pete's sake, Hat! Hire a hall!"
"I should worry! It ain't my grave you're digging."
"Aw, Hat."
"I ain't got your dolly face and your dolly ways with the boys; but I
got enough sense to live along decent."
"You're right pretty, I think, Hat."
"Oh, I could daub up, too, and gad with some of that fast gang if I
didn't know it don't lead nowheres. It ain't no cinch for a girl to
keep her health down here, even when she does live along decent like
me, eating regular and sleeping regular, and spending quiet evenings
in the room, washing-out and mending and pressing and all. It ain't
no cinch even then, lemme tell you. Do you think I'd have ever asked
a gay bird like you to come over and room with me if I hadn't seen
you begin to fade like a piece of calico, just like my sister Lizzie
did?"
"I'm taking that iron-tonic stuff like you want and spoiling my
teeth--ain't I, Hat? I know you been swell to me and all."
"You ain't going to let up until somebody whispers T.B. in your
shell-pink ear; and maybe them two letters will bring you to your
senses."
"T.B.?"
"Yes--T.B."
"Who's he?"
"Gee, you're as smart as a fish on a hook! You oughtta bought a velvet
dunce cap with your lunch money instead of that brown poke bonnet. T.B.
was what I said--T.B."
"Honest, Hat, I dunno--"
"For heaven's sake! _Too Berculosis_ is the way the exhibits and the
newspapers say it. L-u-n-g-s is another way to spell it. T.B."
"Too Berculosis!" Sara Juke's hand flew to her little breast. "Too
Berculosis! Hat, you--you don't--"
"Sure I don't. I ain't saying it's that--only I wanna scare you up a
little. I ain't saying it's that; but a girl that lets a cold hang on
like you do and runs round half the night, and don't eat right, can
make friends with almost anything, from measles to T.B."
Stars came out once more in Sara Juke's eyes, and her lips warmed and
curved to their smile. She moistened with her forefinger a yellow spit
curl that lay like a caress on her cheek. "Gee, you oughtta be writing
scare heads for the _Evening Gazette_!"
Hattie Krakow ran her hand over her smooth salt-and-pepper hair and sold
a marked-down flannellette petticoat.
"I can't throw no scare into you so long as you got him on your mind.
Oh, lud! There he starts now--that quickstep dance again!"
A quick red ran up into Miss Juke's hair and she inclined forward in the
attitude of listening as the lively air continued.
"The silly! Honest, ain't he the silly? He said he was going to play
that for me the first thing this morning. We dance it so swell together
and all. Aw, I thought he'd forget. Ain't he the silly--remembering me?"
The red flowed persistently higher.
"Silly ain't no name for him, with his square, Charley-boy face and
polished hair; and--"
"You let him alone, Hattie Krakow! What's it to you if--"
"Nothing--except I always say October is my unlucky month, because it
was just a year ago that they moved him and the sheet music down to the
basement. Honest, I'm going to buy me a pair of earmuffs! I'd hate to
tell you how unpopular popular music is with me."
"Huh! You couldn't play on a side comb, much less play on the piano like
Charley does. If I didn't have no more brains than some people--honest,
I'd go out and kill a calf for some!"
"You oughtta talk! A girl that ain't got no more brains than to gad
round every night and every Sunday in foul-smelling, low-ceilinged
dance halls, and wear paper-soled slippers when she oughtta be wearing
galoshes, and cheesecloth waists that ain't even decent instead of wool
undershirts! You oughtta talk about brains--you and Charley Chubb!"
"Yes, I oughtta talk! If you don't like my doings, Hattie Krakow,
there ain't no law says we gotta room together. I been shifting for
myself ever since I was cash-girl down at Tracy's, and I ain't going
to begin being bossed now. If you don't like my keeping steady with
Charley Chubb--if you don't like his sheet-music playing--you gotta
lump it! I'm a good girl, I am; and if you got anything to in-sinuate;
if--"
"Sara Juke, ain't you ashamed!"
"I'm a good girl, I am; and there ain't nobody can cast a reflection
on--on--"
Tears trembled in her voice and she coughed from the deep recesses of
her chest, and turned her head away, so that her profile was quivering
and her throat swelling with sobs.
"I--I'm a good girl, I am."
"Aw, Sara, don't I know it? Ain't that just where the rub comes? Don't I
know it? If you wasn't a good girl would I be caring?"
"I'm a good girl, I am!"
"It's your health, Sara, I'm kicking about. You're getting as pale and
skinny as a goop; and for a month already you've been coughing, and
never a single evening home to stick your feet in hot water and a
mustard plaster on your chest."
"Didn't I take the iron tonic and spoil my teeth?"
"My sister Lizzie--that's the way she started, Sara; right down here
in this basement. There never was a prettier little queen down here.
Ask any of the old girls. Like you in looks and all; full of vim too.
That's the way she started, Sara. She wouldn't get out in the country
on Sundays or get any air in her lungs walking with me evenings. She
was all for dance halls, too, Sara. She--she--Ain't I told you about
her over and over again? Ain't I?"
"Sh-h-h! Don't cry, Hat. Yes, yes; I know. She was a swell little kid;
all the old girls say so. Sh-h-h!"
"The--the night she died I--I died too; I--"
"Sh-h-h, dearie!"
"I ain't crying, only--only I can't help remembering."
"Listen! That's the new hit Charley's playin'--Up to Snuff! Say, ain't
that got some little swing to it? Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m! Some little
quick-step, ain't it? How that boy reads off by sight! Looka, will you?
They got them left-over ribbed undervests we sold last season for
forty-nine cents out on the grab table for seventy-four. Looka the
mob fighting for 'em! Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m!"
The day's tide came in. Slowly at first, but toward noon surging
through aisles and round bins, upstairs and downstairs--in, round
and out. Voices straining to be heard; feet shuffling in an
agglomeration of discords--the indescribable roar of humanity, which
is like an army that approaches but never arrives. And above it all,
insistent as a bugle note, reaching the basement's breadth, from
hardware to candy, from human hair to white goods, the tinny voice
of the piano--gay, rollicking.
At five o'clock the patch of daylight above the red-lighted exit door
turned taupe, as though a gray curtain had been flung across it; and
the girls, with shooting pains in their limbs, braced themselves for
the last hour. Shoppers, their bags bulging and their shawls awry,
fumbled in bins for a last remnant; hatless, sway-backed women, carrying
children, fought for mill ends. Sara Juke stood first on one foot and
then on the other to alternate the strain; her hands were hot and dry as
flannel, but her cheeks were pink--very pink.
At six o'clock Hattie Krakow untied her black alpaca apron, pinned a hat
as nondescript as a bird's nest at an unrakish angle and slid into a
warm gray jacket.
"Ready, Sara?"
"Yes, Hat." But her voice came vaguely, as through fog.
"I'm going to fix us some stew to-night with them onions Lettie brought
up to the room when she moved--mutton stew, with a broth for you, Sara."
"Yes, Hat."
Sara's eyes darted out over the emptying aisles; and, even as she pinned
on her velveteen poke bonnet at a too-swagger angle, and fluffed out a
few carefully provided curls across her brow, she kept watch and, with
obvious subterfuge, slid into her little unlined silk coat with a
deliberation not her own. "Coming, Sara?"
"Wait, can't you? My--my hat ain't on right."
"Come on; you're dolled up enough."
"My--my gloves--I--I forgot 'em. You--you can go on, Hat." And she must
burrow back beneath the counter.
Miss Krakow let out a snort, as fiery with scorn as though flames were
curling on her lips.
"Hanging round to see whether he's coming, ain't you? To think they shot
Lincoln and let him live! Before I'd run after any man living, much less
the excuse of a man like him! A shiny-haired, square-faced little rat
like him!"
"I ain't neither, waiting. I guess I got a right to find my gloves.
I--I guess I gotta right. He's as good as you are, and better. I--I
guess I gotta right." But the raspberry red of confusion dyed her face.
"No, you ain't waiting! No, no; you ain't waiting," mimicked Miss
Krakow, and her voice was like autumn leaves that crackle underfoot.
"Well, then, if you ain't waiting here he comes now. I dare you to come
on home with me now, like you ought to."
"I--you go on! I gotta tell him something. I guess I'm my own boss. I
got to tell him something."
Miss Krakow folded her well-worn hand bag under one arm and fastened her
black cotton gloves.
"Pf-f-f! What's the use of wasting breath!"
She slipped into the flux of the aisle, and the tide swallowed her and
carried her out into the bigger tide of the street and the swifter tide
of the city--a flower on the current, her blush withered under the
arc-light substitution for sunlight, the petals of her youth thrown to
the muddy corners of the city streets.
Sara Juke breathed inward, and under her cheaply pretentious lace blouse
a heart, as rebellious as the pink in her cheeks and the stars in her
eyes, beat a rapid fantasia; and, try as she would, her lips would
quiver into a smile.
"Hello, Charley!"
"Hello yourself, Sweetness!" And, draping himself across the white-goods
counter in an attitude as intricate as the letter S, behold Mr. Charley
Chubb! Sleek, soap-scented, slim--a satire on the satyr and the
haberdasher's latest dash. "Hello, Sweetness!"
"How are you, Charley?"
"Here, gimme your little hand. Shake."
She placed her palm in his, quivering.
You of the classes, peering through lorgnettes into the strange world
of the masses, spare that shrug. True, when Charley Chubb's hand closed
over Sara Juke's she experienced a flash of goose flesh; but, you of
the classes, what of the Van Ness ball last night? Your gown was low,
so that your neck rose out from it like white ivory. The conservatory,
where trained clematis vines met over your heads, was like a bower of
stars; music; his hand, the white glove off, over yours; the suffocating
sweetness of clematis blossoms; a fountain throwing fine spray; your
neck white as ivory, and--what of the Van Ness ball last night?
Only Sara Juke played her poor little game frankly and the cards of her
heart lay on the counter.
"Charley!" Her voice lay in a veil.
"Was you getting sore, Sweetness?"
"All day you didn't come over."
"Couldn't, Sweetness. Did you hear me let up on the new hit for a
minute?"
"It's swell, though, Charley; all the girls was humming it. You play it
like lightning too."
"It must have been written for you, Sweetness. That's what you are, Up
to Snuff, eh, Queenie?" He leaned closer, and above his tall, narrow
collar dull red flowed beneath the sallow, and his long white teeth and
slick-brushed hair shone in the arc light. "Eh, Queenie?"
"I gotta go now, Charley. Hattie's waiting home for me." She attempted
to pass him and to slip into the outgoing stream of the store, but with
a hesitation that belied her. "I--I gotta go, Charley."
He laughed, clapped his hat slightly askew on his polished hair and slid
his arm into hers.
"Forget it! But I had you going--didn't I, sister? Thought I'd forgot
about to-night, didn't you? and didn't have the nerve to pipe up. Like
fun I forgot!"
"I didn't know, Charley; you not coming over all day and all. I thought
maybe your friend didn't give you the tickets like he promised."
"Didn't he? Look! See if he didn't!"
He produced a square of pink cardboard from his waistcoat pocket and she
read it, with a sudden lightness underlying her voice:
HIBERNIAN MASQUE AND HOP
Supper Wardrobe Free
Admit Gent and Lady Fifty Cents
"Oh, gee, Charley! And me such a sight in this old waist and all. I
didn't know there was supper too."
"Sure! Hurry, Sweetness, and we'll catch a Sixth Avenue car. We wanna
get in on it while the tamales are hot."
And she must grasp his arm closer and worm through the sidewalk crush,
and straighten her velveteen poke so that the curls lay pat; and once
or twice she coughed, with the hollow resonance of a chain drawn upward
from a deep well.
"Gee, I bet there'll be a jam!"
"Sure! There's some live crowd down there."
They were in the street car, swaying, swinging, clutching; hemmed in by
frantic, home-going New York, nose to nose, eye to eye, tooth to tooth.
Round Sara Juke's slim waist lay Charley Chubb's saving arm, and with
each lurch they laughed immoderately, except when she coughed.
"Gee, ain't it the limit? It's a wonder they wouldn't open a window in
this car!"
"Nix on that. Whatta you wanna do--freeze a fellow out?"
Her eyes would betray her.
"Any old time I could freeze you, Charley."
"Honest?"
"You're the one that freezes me all the time. You're the one that keeps
me guessing and guessing where I stand with you."
A sudden lurch and he caught her as she swayed.
"Come, Sweetness, this is our corner. Quit your coughing there, hon;
this ain't no T.B. hop we 're going to."
"No what?"
"Come along; hurry! Look at the crowd already."
"This ain't no--what did you say, Charley?"
But they were pushing, shoving, worming into the great lighted entrance
of the hall. More lurching, crowding, jamming. "I'll meet you inside,
kiddo, in five minutes. Pick out a red domino; red's my color."
"A red one? Gee! Looka; mine's got black pompons on it. Five minutes,
Charley; five minutes!"
Flags of all nations and all sizes made a galaxy of the Sixth Avenue
hall. An orchestra played beneath an arch of them. Supper, consisting
of three-inch-thick sandwiches, tamales, steaming and smelling in their
buckets, bottles of beer and soda water, was spread on a long picnic
table running the entire length of the balcony.
The main floor, big as an armory, airless as a tomb, swarmed with
dancers.
After supper a red sateen Pierrette, quivering, teeth flashing beneath
a saucy half mask, bowed to a sateen Pierrot, whose face was as slim as
a satyr's and whose smile was as upturned as the eye slits in his mask.
"Gee, Charley, you look just like a devil in that costume--all red, and
your mouth squinted like that!"
"And you look just like a little red cherry, ready to bust."
And they were off in the whirl of the dance, except that the
close-packed dancers hemmed them in a swaying mob; and once she fell
back against his shoulder, faint.
"Ain't there a--a upstairs somewheres, Charley, where they got air? All
this jam and no windows open! Gee ain't it hot? Let's go outside where
it's cool--let's."
"There you go again! No wonder you got a cold on you--always wanting air
on you! Come, Sweetness; this ain't hot. Here, lemme show you the dip I
get the girls crazy with. One, two, three--dip! One, two, three--dip!
Ugh!"
"Gee, ain't it a jam, though?"
"One, two, three!"
"That's swell, Charley! Quit! You mustn't squeeze me like that
till--till you've asked me to be engaged, Charley. We--we ain't engaged
yet, are we, Charley?"
"Aw, what difference does that make? You girls make me sick--always
wanting to know that."
"It--it makes a lot of difference, Charley."
"There you go on that Amen talk again. All right, then; I won't squeeze
you no more, Stingy!"
Her step was suddenly less elastic and she lagged on his arm.
"I--I never said you, couldn't, Charley. Gee, ain't you a great one to
get mad so quick. Touchy! I only said not till we're engaged."
He skirted the crowd, guiding her skillfully.
"Stingy! Stingy! I know 'em that ain't so stingy as you."
"Charley!"
"What?"
"Aw, I'm ashamed to say it."
"Listen! They're playin' the new one--Up to Snuff! Faster! Don't make me
drag you, kiddo. Faster!"
They were suddenly in the center of the maze, as tight-packed as though
an army had conspired to close round them. She coughed and, in her
effort at repression coughed again.
"Charley, I--honest, I--I'm going to keel. I--I can't stand it packed in
here--like this."
She leaned to him, with the color drained out of her face; and the crowd
of black and pink and red dominos, gnomes gone mad, pressed, batted,
surged.
"Look out, Sweetness! Don't give out in here! They'll crush us out.
Ain't you got no nerve? Here; don't give out now! Gee! Watch out, there!
The lady's sick. Watch out! Here; now sit down a minute and get your
wind."
He pressed her shoulders downward and she dropped whitely on a little
camp chair hidden underneath the balcony.
"I gotta get out, Charley; I gotta get out and get air. I feel like I'm
going to suffocate in here. It's this old cough takes the breath out of
me."
In the foyer she revived a bit and drank gratefully of the water he
brought; but the color remained out of her cheeks and the cough would
rack her.
"I guess I oughtta go home, Charley."
"Aw, cut it! You ain't the only girl I've seen give out. Sit here and
rest a minute and you'll be all right. Great Scott! I came here to
dance."
She rose to her feet a bit unsteadily, but smiling.
"Fussy! Who said I didn't?"
"That's more like it."
And they were off again to the lilt of the music but, struggle as she
would, the coughing and the dizziness and the heat took hold of her and
at the close of the dance she fainted quietly against his shoulder.
And when she finally caught at consciousness, as it passed and repassed
her befuddled mind, she was on the floor of the cloak room, her head
pillowed on the skirt of a pink domino.
"There, there, dearie; your young man's waiting outside to take you
home."
"I--I'm all right!"
"Certainly you are. The heat done it. Here; lemme help you out of your
domino."
"It was the heat done it."
"There; you're all right now. I gotta get back to my dance. You fainted
right up against him, dearie; and I seen you keel."
"Gee, ain't I the limit!"
"Here; lemme help you on with your coat. Right there he is, waiting."
In the foyer Sara Juke met Charley Chubb shamefacedly.
"I spoilt everything, didn't I?"
"I guess you couldn't help it. All right?"
"Yes, Charley." She met the air gratefully, worming her little hand into
the curve of his elbow. "Gee! I feel fine now."
"Come; here's a car."
"Let's walk up Sixth Avenue, Charley; the air feels fine."
"All right."
"You ain't sore, are you, Charley? It was so jammed dancing, anyway."
"I ain't sore."
"It was the heat done it."
"Yeh."
"Honest, it's grand to be outdoors, ain't it? The stars and--and
chilliness and--and--all!"
"Listen to the garden stuff!"
"Silly!"
She squeezed his arm and drew back, shamefaced. His spirits rose.
"You're a right loving little thing when you wanna be."
They laughed in duet; and before the plate-glass window of a
furniture emporium they must stop and regard the monthly-payment
display, designed to represent the $49.50 completely furnished sitting
room, parlor and dining room of the home felicitous--a golden-oak room,
with an incandescent fire glowing right merrily in the grate; a lamp
redly diffusing the light of home; a plaster-of-Paris Cupid shooting
a dart from the mantelpiece; and, last, two figures of connubial bliss,
smiling and waxen, in rocking chairs, their waxen infant, block-building
on the floor, completing the picture.
"Gee, it looks as snug as a bug in a rug! Looka what it says too: 'You
Get the Girl; We'll Do the Rest!' Some little advertisement, ain't it?
I got the girl all right--ain't I, hon?"
"Aw!"
"Look at the papa--slippers and all! And the kid! Look at the kid,
Sweetness."
Her confusion nearly choked her and her rapid breath clouded the window
glass.
"Yeh, Charley! Looka the little kid! Ain't he cute?"
An Elevated train crashed over their heads, drowning out her words; but
her smile, which flickered like light over her face, persisted and her
arm crept back into his. At each shop window they must pause, but the
glow of the first one remained with her.
"Look, Sweetness--Red Swag, the Train King! Performance going on now.
Wanna go in?"
"Not to-night. Let's stay outside."
"Anything your little heart de-sires."
They bought hot chestnuts, city harbingers of autumn, from a vender and
let fall the hulls as they walked. They drank strawberry ice-cream soda,
pink with foam. Her resuscitation was complete; his spirits did not
wane.
"I gotta like a queen pretty much not to get sore at a busted evening
like this. It's a good thing the ticket didn't cost me nothing."
"Ain't it, though?"
"Look! What's in there--a exhibit?"
They paused before a white-lighted store front and he read laboriously:
FREE TUBERCULOSIS EXHIBIT
TO EDUCATE PEOPLE HOW TO PREVENT CONSUMPTION
"Oh!" She dragged at his arm.
"Aw, come on, Sweetness; nothing but a lot of T.B.'s."
"Let's--let's go in. See, it's free. Looka--it's all lit up and all;
see, pictures and all."
"Say, ain't I enough of a dead one without dragging me in there? Free! I
bet they pinch you for something before you get out."
"Come on, Charley; I never did see a place like this."
"Aw, they're all over town."
He followed her in surlily enough and then, with a morbid interest,
round a room hung with photographs of victims in various emaciated
stages of the white plague.
"Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful? Ain't it awful? Read them symptoms. Almost with
nothing it--it begins. Night sweats and losing weight and coughing,
and--oh--"
"Look! Little kids and all! Thin as matches."
"Aw, see, a poor little shaver like that! Look! It says sleeping in
that dirty room without a window gave it to him. Ugh, that old man!
'Self-indulgence and intemperance.' Looka that girl in the tobacco
factory. Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful! Dirty shops and stores, it says;
dirty saloons and dance halls--weak lungs can't stand them."
"Let's get out of here."
"Aw, look! How pretty she is in this first picture; and look at her
here--nothing but a stack of bones on a stretcher. Aw! Aw!"
"Come on!"
"Courage is very important, it says. Consumptives can be helped and many
are cured. Courage is--"
"Come on; let's get out of this dump. Say, it's a swell night for a
funeral."
She grasped at his coat sleeve, pinching the flesh with it, and he drew
away half angrily.
"Come on, I said."
"All right!"
A thin line filed past them, grim-faced, silent. At the far end of the
room, statistics in red inch-high type ran columnwise down the wall's
length. She read, with a gasp in her throat:
1--Ten thousand people died from tuberculosis in the city of New York
last year.
2--Two hundred thousand people died from tuberculosis in the United
States last year.