voted solidly for spontaneity in a self which found expression thus:
"Und in the Central Park stands a water-lake, und in the water-lake
stands birds--a big all of birds--und fishes. Und sooner you likes you
should come over the water-lake you calls a bird, und you sets on the
bird, und the bird makes go his legs, und you comes over the
water-lake."
"They could to be awful polite birds," Eva Gonorowsky was beginning
when Morris interrupted with:
"I had once a auntie und she had a bird, a awful polite bird; on'y
sooner somebody calls him he _couldn't_ to come the while he sets
in a cage."
"Did he have a rubber neck?" Isaac inquired, and Morris reluctantly
admitted that he had not been so blessed.
"In the Central Park," Isaac went on, "all the birds is got rubber
necks."
"What colour from birds be they?" asked Eva.
"All colours. Blue und white und red und yellow."
"Und green," Patrick Brennan interjected determinedly. "The green ones
is the best."
"Did you go once?" asked Isaac, slightly disconcerted.
"Naw, but I know. Me big brother told me."
"They could to be stylish birds, too," said Eva wistfully. "Stylish
und polite. From red und green birds is awful stylish for hats."
"But these birds is big. Awful big! Mans could to ride on 'em und
ladies und boys."
"Und little girls, Ikey? Ain't they fer little girls?" asked the only
little girl in the group. And a very small girl she was, with a softly
gentle voice and darkly gentle eyes fixed pleadingly now upon the bard.
"Yes," answered Isaac grudgingly; "sooner they sets by somebody's side
little girls could to go. But sooner nobody holds them by the hand
they could to have fraids over the rubber-neck-boat-birds und the
water-lake, und the fishes."
"What kind from fishes?" demanded Morris Mogilewsky, Monitor of Miss
Bailey's Gold-Fish Bowl, with professional interest.
"From gold fishes und red fishes und black fishes"--Patrick stirred
uneasily and Isaac remembered--"und green fishes; the green ones is
the biggest; und blue fishes und _all_ kinds from fishes. They lives
way down in the water the while they have fraids over the
rubber-neck-boat-birds. Say, what you think? Sooner a
rubber-neck-boat-bird needs he should eat he longs down his neck und
eats a from gold fish."
"'Out fryin'?" asks Eva, with an incredulous shudder.
"Yes, 'out fryin'. Ain't I told you little girls could to have fraids
over 'em? Boys could to have fraids too," cried Isaac; and then spurred
on by the calm of his rival, he added: "The rubber-neck-boat-birds
they hollers somethin' fierce."
"I wouldn't be afraid of them. Me pop's a cop," cried Patrick stoutly.
"I'd just as lief set on 'em. I'd like to."
"Ah, but you ain't seen 'em, und you ain't heard 'em holler," Isaac
retorted.
"Well, I'm goin' to. An' I'm goin' to see the lions an' the tigers an'
the el'phants, an' I'm goin' to ride on the water-lake."
"Oh, how I likes I should go too!" Eva broke out. "O-o-oh, _how_ I likes
I should look on them things! On'y I don't know do I need a ride on
somethings what hollers. I don't know be they fer me."
"Well, I'll take ye with me if your mother leaves you go," said Patrick
grandly. "An' ye can hold me hand if ye're scared."
"Me too?" implored Morris. "Oh, Patrick, c'n I go too?"
"I guess so," answered the Leader of the Line graciously. But he turned
a deaf ear to Isaac Borrachsohn's implorings to be allowed to join the
party. Full well did Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac's holiday
attire and the impressionable nature of Eva's soul, and gravely did
he fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue
cloth and brass buttons of his sire, might be outshone.
At Eva's earnest request, Sadie, her cousin, was invited, and Morris
suggested that the Monitor of the Window Boxes should not be slighted
by his colleagues of the goldfish and the line. So Nathan Spiderwitz
was raised to Alpine heights of anticipation by visions of a window
box "as big as blocks and streets," where every plant, in contrast to
his lanky charges, bore innumerable blossoms. Ignatius Aloysius
Diamantstein was unanimously nominated a member of the expedition; by
Patrick, because they were neighbours at St. Mary's Sunday-school; by
Morris, because they were classmates under the same Rabbi at the
synagogue; by Nathan, because Ignatius Aloysius was a member of the
"Clinton Street gang"; by Sadie, because he had "long pants sailor
suit"; by Eva, because the others wanted him.
Eva reached home that afternoon tingling with anticipation and
uncertainty. What if her mother, with one short word, should close
forever the gates of joy and boat-birds? But Mrs. Gonorowsky met her
small daughter's elaborate plea with the simple question:
"Who pays you the car-fare?"
"Does it need car-fare to go?" faltered Eva.
"Sure does it," answered her mother. "I don't know how much, but some
it needs. Who pays it?"
"Patrick ain't said."
"Well, you should better ask him," Mrs. Gonorowsky advised, and, on
the next morning, Eva did. She thereby buried the leader under the
ruins of his fallen castle of clouds, but he struggled through them
with the suggestion that each of his guests should be her, or his, own
banker.
"But ain't you got _no_ money 't all?" asked the guest of honour.
"Not a cent," responded the host. "But I'll get it. How much have you?"
"A penny. How much do I need?"
"I don't know. Let's ask Miss Bailey."
School had not yet formally begun and Teacher was reading. She was
hardly disturbed when the children drove sharp elbows into her shoulder
and her lap, and she answered Eva's--"Missis Bailey--oh, Missis Bailey,"
with an abstracted--"Well dear?"
"Missis Bailey, how much money takes car-fare to the Central Park?"
Still with divided attention, Teacher replied--"Five cents, honey,"
and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made
embarrassing explanations with admirable tact.
There ensued weeks of struggle and economy for the exploring party,
to which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person
of Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky's careful
mother had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole
responsibility, and he, with a guile which promised well for his future,
had complied with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken.
For Becky, poor child, though twelve years old and of an aspect
eminently calculated to inspire trust in those who had never held speech
with her, was a member of the First Reader Class only until
such time as room could be found for her in some of the institutions
where such unfortunates are bestowed.
Slowly and in diverse ways each of the children acquired the essential
nickel. Some begged, some stole, some gambled, some bartered, some
earned, but their greatest source of income, Miss Bailey, was denied
to them. For Patrick knew that she would have insisted upon some really
efficient guardian from a higher class, and he announced with much
heat that he would not go at all under those circumstances.
At last the leader was called upon to set a day and appointed a Saturday
in late May. He was disconcerted to find that only Ignatius Aloysius
would travel on that day.
"It's holidays, all Saturdays," Morris explained; "und we dassent to
ride on no cars."
"Why not?" asked Patrick.
"It's law, the Rabbi says," Nathan supplemented. "I don't know why is
it; on'y rides on holidays ain't fer us."
"I guess," Eva sagely surmised; "I guess rubber-neck-boat-birds rides
even ain't fer us on holidays. But I don't know do I need rides on
birds what hollers."
"You'll be all right," Patrick assured her. "I'm goin' to let ye hold
me hand. If ye can't go on Saturday, I'll take ye on Sunday--next
Sunday. Yous all must meet me here on the school steps. Bring yer money
and bring yer lunch too. It's a long way and ye'll be hungry when ye
get there. Ye get a terrible long ride for five cents."
"Does it take all that to get there?" asked the practical Nathan. "Then
how are we goin' to get back?"
Poor little poet soul! Celtic and improvident! Patrick's visions had
shown him only the triumphant arrival of his host and the beatific joy
of Eva as she floated by his side on the most "fancy" of boat-birds.
Of the return journey he had taken no thought. And so the saving and
planning had to be done all over again. The struggle for the first
nickel had been wearing and wearying, but the amassment of the second
was beyond description difficult. The children were worn from long
strife and many sacrifices, for the temptations to spend six or nine
cents are so much more insistent and unusual than are yearnings to
squander lesser sums. Almost daily some member of the band would confess
a fall from grace and solvency, and almost daily Isaac Borrachsohn was
called upon to descant anew upon the glories of the Central Park.
Becky, the chaperon, was the most desultory collector of the party.
Over and over she reached the proud heights of seven or even eight
cents only to lavish her horde on the sticky joys of the candy cart
of Isidore Belchatosky's papa or on the suddy charms of a strawberry
soda.
Then tearfully would she repent of her folly, and bitterly would the
others upbraid her, telling again of the joys and wonders she had
squandered. Then loudly would she bewail her weakness and plead in
extenuation: "I seen the candy. Mouses from choc'late und Foxy Gran'pas
from sugar--und I ain't never seen no Central Park."
"But don't you know how Isaac says?" Eva would urge. "Don't you know
how all things what is nice fer us stands in the Central Park? Say,
Isaac, you should better tell Becky, some more, how the Central Park
stands."
And Isaac's tales grew daily more wild and independent of fact until
the little girls quivered with yearning terror and the boys burnished
up forgotten cap pistols. He told of lions, tigers, elephants, bears
and buffaloes, all of enormous size and strength of lung, so that
before many days had passed he had debarred himself, by whole-hearted
lying, from the very possibility of joining the expedition and seeing
the disillusionment of his public. With true artistic spirit he omitted
all mention of confining house or cage and bestowed the gift of speech
upon all the characters, whether brute or human, in his epic. The
merry-go-round he combined with the menagerie into a whole which was
not to be resisted.
"Und all the am'blins," he informed his entranced listeners; "they
goes around, und around, und around, where music plays und flags is.
Und I sets on a lion und he runs around, und runs around, und runs
around. Say--what you think? He has smiling looks und hair on the neck,
und sooner he says like that 'I'm awful thirsty,' I gives him a peanut
und I gets a golden ring."
"Where is it?" asked the jealous and incredulous Patrick.
"To my house." Isaac valiantly lied, for well he remembered the scene
in which his scandalized but sympathetic uncle had discovered his
attempt to purloin the brass ring which, with countless blackened
duplicates, is plucked from a slot by the brandishing swords of the
riders upon the merry-go-round. Truly, its possession had won him
another ride--this time upon an elephant with upturned trunk and wide
ears--but in his mind the return of that ring still rankled as the
only grief in an otherwise perfect day.
Miss Bailey--ably assisted by Aesop, Rudyard Kipling, and Thompson
Seton--had prepared the First Reader Class to accept garrulous and
benevolent lions, cows, panthers, and elephants, and the exploring
party's absolute credulity encouraged Isaac to higher and yet higher
flights, until Becky was strengthened against temptation.
At last, on a Sunday in late June, the cavalcade in splendid raiment
met on the wide steps, boarded a Grand Street car, and set out for
Paradise. Some confusion occurred at the very beginning of things when
Becky Zalmonowsky curtly refused to share her pennies with the
conductor. When she was at last persuaded to yield, an embarrassing
five minutes was consumed in searching for the required amount in the
nooks and crannies of her costume where, for safe-keeping, she had
cached her fund. One penny was in her shoe, another in her stocking,
two in the lining of her hat, and one in the large and dilapidated
chatelaine bag which dangled at her knees.
Nathan Spiderwitz, who had preserved absolute silence, now contributed
his fare, moist and warm, from his mouth, and Eva turned to him
admonishingly.
"Ain't Teacher told you money in the mouth ain't healthy fer you?" she
sternly questioned, and Nathan, when he had removed other pennies, was
able to answer:
"I washed 'em first off." And they were indeed most brightly clean.
"There's holes in me these here pockets," he explained, and promptly
corked himself anew with currency.
"But they don't tastes nice, do they?" Morris remonstrated. Nathan
shook a corroborative head. "Und," the Monitor of the Gold-Fish further
urged, "you could to swallow 'em und then you couldn't never to come
by your house no more."
But Nathan was not to be dissuaded, even when the impressional and
experimental Becky tried his storage system and suffered keen discomfort
before her penny was restored to her by a resourceful fellow-traveller
who thumped her right lustily on the back until her crowings ceased
and the coin was once more in her hand.
At the meeting of Grand Street with the Bowery, wild confusion was
made wilder by the addition of seven small persons armed with transfers
and clamouring--all except Nathan--for Central Park. Two newsboys and
a policeman bestowed them upon a Third Avenue car and all went well
until Patrick missed his lunch and charged Ignatius Aloysius with its
abstraction. Words ensued which were not easily to be forgotten even
when the refreshment was found--flat and horribly distorted--under the
portly frame of the chaperon.
Jealousy may have played some part in the misunderstanding, for it was
undeniable that there was a sprightliness, a joyant brightness, in the
flowing red scarf on Ignatius Aloysius's nautical breast, which was
nowhere paralleled in Patrick's more subdued array. And the tenth
commandment seemed very arbitrary to Patrick, the star of St. Mary's
Sunday-school, when he saw that the red silk was attracting nearly all
the attention of his female contingent. If Eva admired flaunting ties
it were well that she should say so now. There was yet time to spare
himself the agony of riding on rubber-neck-boat-birds with one whose
interest wandered from brass buttons. Darkly Patrick scowled upon his
unconscious rival, and guilefully he remarked to Eva:
"Red neckties is nice, don't you think?"
"Awful nice," Eva agreed; "but they ain't so stylish like high-stiffs.
High-stiffs und derbies is awful stylish."
Gloom and darkness vanished from the heart and countenance of the
Knight of Munster, for around his neck he wore, with suppressed agony,
the highest and stiffest of "high-stiffs," and his brows--and the back
of his neck--were encircled by his big brother's work-a-day derby.
Again he saw and described to Eva the vision which had lived in his
hopes for now so many weeks: against a background of teeming jungle,
mysterious and alive with wild beasts, an amiable boat-bird floated
on the water-lake; and upon the boat-bird, trembling but reassured,
sat Eva Gonorowsky, hand in hand with her brass-buttoned protector.
As the car sped up the Bowery the children felt that they were indeed
adventurers. The clattering Elevated trains overhead, the crowds of
brightly decked Sunday strollers, the clanging trolley cars, and the
glimpses they caught of shining green as they passed the streets leading
to the smaller squares and parks, all contributed to the holiday
upliftedness which swelled their unaccustomed hearts. At each vista
of green they made ready to disembark and were restrained only by the
conductor and by the sage counsel of Eva, who reminded her impulsive
companions that the Central Park could be readily identified by "the
hollers from all them things what hollers." And so, in happy watching
and calm trust of the conductor, they were borne far beyond 59th Street,
the first and most popular entrance to the park, before an interested
passenger came to their rescue. They tumbled off the car and pressed
towards the green only to find themselves shut out by a high stone
wall, against which they crouched and listened in vain for identifying
hollers. The silence began to frighten them, when suddenly the quiet
air was shattered by a shriek which would have done credit to the
biggest of boat-birds or of lions, but which was--the children
discovered after a moment's panic--only the prelude to an outburst of
grief on the chaperon's part. When the inarticulate stage of her sorrow
was passed, she demanded instant speech with her mamma. She would seem
to have expressed a sentiment common to the majority, for three heads
in Spring finery leaned dejectedly against the stone barrier while
Nathan removed his car-fare to contribute the remark that he was growing
hungry. Patrick was forced to seek aid in the passing crowd on Fifth
Avenue, and in response to his pleading eyes and the depression of his
party, a lady of gentle aspect and "kind looks" stopped and spoke to
them.
"Indeed, yes," she reassured them; "this is Central Park."
"It has looks off the country," Eva commented.
"Because it is a piece of the country," the lady explained.
"Then we dassent to go, the while we ain't none of us got no sickness,"
cried Eva forlornly. "We're all, all healthy, und the country is for
sick childrens."
"I am glad you are well," said the lady kindly; "but you may certainly
play in the park. It is meant for all little children. The gate is
near. Just walk on near this wall until you come to it."
It was only a few blocks, and they were soon in the land of their
hearts' desire, where were waving trees and flowering shrubs and
smoothly sloping lawns, and, framed in all these wonders, a beautiful
little water-lake all dotted and brightened by fleets of tiny boats.
The pilgrims from the East Side stood for a moment at gaze and then
bore down upon the jewel, straight over grass and border, which is a
course not lightly to be followed in park precincts and in view of
park policemen. The ensuing reprimand dashed their spirits not at all
and they were soon assembled close to the margin of the lake, where
they got entangled in guiding strings and drew to shore many a craft,
to the disgust of many a small owner. Becky Zalmonowsky stood so closely
over the lake that she shed the chatelaine bag into its shallow depths
and did irreparable damage to her gala costume in her attempts to
"dibble" for her property. It was at last recovered, no wetter than
the toilette it was intended to adorn, and the cousins Gonorowsky had
much difficulty in balking Becky's determination to remove her gown
and dry it then and there.
Then Ignatius Aloysius, the exacting, remembered garrulously that he
had as yet seen nothing of the rubber-neck-boat-birds and suggested
that they were even now graciously "hollering like an'thing" in some
remote fastness of the park. So Patrick gave commands and the march
was resumed with bliss now beaming on all the faces so lately clouded.
Every turn of the endless walks brought new wonders to these little
ones who were gazing for the first time upon the great world of growing
things of which Miss Bailey had so often told them. The policeman's
warning had been explicit and they followed decorously in the paths
and picked none of the flowers which, as Eva had heard of old, were
sticking right up out of the ground. And other flowers there were
dangling high or low on tree or shrub, while here and there across the
grass a bird came hopping or a squirrel ran. But the pilgrims never
swerved. Full well they knew that these delights were not for such as
they.
It was, therefore, with surprise and concern that they at last debouched
upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a towering
pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children, with
here and there a beneficent policeman looking serenely on.
"Dast _we_ walk on it?" cried Morris. "Oh, Patrick, dast we?"
"Ask the cop," Nathan suggested. It was his first speech for an hour,
for Becky's misadventure with the chatelaine bag and the water-lake
had made him more than ever sure that his own method of safe-keeping
was the best.
"Ask him yerself," retorted Patrick. He had quite intended to accost
a large policeman, who would of course recognize and revere the buttons
of Mr. Brennan _pere_, but a commander cannot well accept the advice of
his subordinates. But Nathan was once more beyond the power of speech,
and it was Morris Mogilewsky who asked for and obtained permission to
walk on God's green earth. With little spurts of running and tentative
jumps to test its spring, they crossed Peacock Lawn to the grateful
shade of the trees at its further edge and there disposed themselves
upon the ground and ate their luncheon. Nathan Spiderwitz waited until
Sadie had finished and then entrusted the five gleaming pennies to her
care while he wildly bolted an appetizing combination of dark
brown-bread and uncooked salmon.
Becky reposed upon the chatelaine bag and waved her still damp shoes
exultantly. Eva lay, face downward beside her, and peered wonderingly
deep into the roots of things.
"Don't it smells nice!" she gloated. "Don't it looks nice! My, ain't
we havin' the party-time!"
"Don't mention it," said Patrick, in careful imitation of his mother's
hostess's manner. "I'm pleased to see you, I'm sure."
"The Central Park is awful pretty," Sadie soliloquized as she lay on
her back and watched the waving branches and blue sky far above. "Awful
pretty! I likes we should live here all the time."
"Well," began Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein, in slight disparagement
of his rival's powers as a cicerone; "well, I ain't seen no lions, nor
no rubber-neck-boat-birds. Und we ain't had no rides on nothings. Und
I ain't heard no hollers neither."
As if in answer to this criticism there arose upon the road beyond the
trees a snorting, panting noise, growing momentarily louder and
culminating just as East Side nerves were strained to breaking point,
in a long, hoarse and terrifying yell. There was a flash of red, a
cloud of dust, three other toots of agony, and the thing was gone.
Gone, too, were the explorers and gone their peaceful rest. To the
distant end of the field they flew, led by the panic-stricken chaperon,
and followed by Eva and Patrick, hand in hand, he making show of a
bravery he was far from feeling, and she frankly terrified. In a
secluded corner, near the restaurant, the chaperon was run to earth
by her breathless charges.
"I seen the lion," she panted over and over. "I seen the fierce, big
red lion, und I don't know where is my mamma."
Patrick saw that one of the attractions had failed to attract, so he
tried another.
"Let's go and see the cows," he proposed. "Don't you know the po'try
piece Miss Bailey learned us about cows?"
Again the emotional chaperon interrupted. "I'm loving much mit Miss
Bailey, too," she wailed. "Und I don't know where is she neither." But
the pride of learning upheld the others and they chanted in singsong
chorus, swaying rhythmically the while from leg to leg:
_"The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart Robert Louis Stevenson."_
Becky's tears ceased. "Be there cows in the Central Park?" she demanded.
"Sure," said Patrick.
"Und what kind from cream will he give us? Ice cream?"
"Sure," said Patrick again.
"Let's go," cried the emotional chaperon. A passing stranger turned
the band in the general direction of the menagerie and the reality of
the cow brought the whole "memory gem" into strange and undreamed
reality.