“’VIDING.”
“Papa!” said Louis, one autumn evening. The child, just five years old,
was perched, as usual, upon his father’s knee, his golden head nestled
against his father’s breast. They were an oddly contrasted pair;
Metzerott, with his powerful, yet apparently clumsy frame, brown, rugged
face, and hair just beginning—though he was not yet forty years old—to
be touched with gray, while Louis had his mother’s face, refined and
spiritualized into absolute loveliness. His grave blue eyes could be
merry enough at times; but as he lifted them now to his father’s face,
there was a solemn purity in their gaze, at sight of which Metzerott
drew the boy closer to his breast, in a sudden, irrational terror of
losing him.
“Well,” he said.
“Papa, why did my mamma die?” He spoke a baby patois, half English, half
German, which we should vainly attempt to reproduce.
“Because we are poor, my son, and were even poorer then. If your mother
could have been nursed and done for, like a rich lady with plenty of
money and crowds of servants, she would have been alive now. Money, my
boy, was the medicine she needed.”
“If I were President,” said Louis after a thoughtful pause, “I would
make more money, so that every one might have enough.”
Metzerott smiled, even while he shook his head. “There’s money enough,
or so people say, and making more would only lower the value of what
there is. That was tried during the war, Louis. The trouble is that all
the money is in too few hands. Some have more than enough, and others
have nothing. As if I should eat all the dinner, you know, and leave
none for you.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” said Louis confidently.
“Nor the millionnaires sha’n’t much longer,” said Metzerott. “When we
get the Commune, Louis, every man who has more than he needs—yes, and
we’ll cut his ‘needs’ down pretty close, too—will have to divide with
his poor neighbors.”
“What is ‘’vide’?” asked Louis, who had often heard of the Commune.
Metzerott showed him practically, by means of a box of lead soldiers
that had been given to the child that day, and which was cherished
fondly in one chubby arm.
“Now,” said the shoemaker, arranging these in two files upon his
mother’s old candle-stand, which stood at his elbow, “now, if you were
to give half of these to George Rolf, and keep this row for yourself,
that would be dividing with him.”
“I fink,” said Louis, “I don’t like ’viding.”
“No more will the millionnaires,” said Metzerott, laughing; “but if you
were George, my boy, with no lead soldiers at all to play with, maybe
you’d like it better. Why, Louis, there is money enough in the country
to buy every poor man in it all that he needs; and there is food enough
grown every year to fill every hungry mouth from Maine to Florida; yet
people die by hundreds, like your poor mother, of want and toil, just
because those who have won’t divide with those who have not.”
“_I_ will,” said Louis, “I’ll ’vide my soldiers with George, right
away.”
“George is abed long ago,” said Metzerott, surprised, amused, and a
little touched, at this unexpected result of his lecture; “and high time
you were there, too. Put off your ’viding until to-morrow.”
He was still more astonished, and almost remorseful, next morning, to
see the child march off, with a very sober face, and his box of soldiers
under his arm. Frau Anna’s rooms were still in the topmost story of the
house next door; and Louis climbed the stairs patiently, and arrived
panting, but resolute, at the familiar door.
“George,” he said, “I’ve come to ’vide my soldiers with you.”
“_Du Engelchen!_” cried Frau Anna, dropping her sewing to clasp her
hands. “Who put that into your head, my lamb?”
“Papa,” said Louis. “It’s so every one will have enough to eat and to
wear,” he added explanatorily.
“_Du lieber Himmel!_” said Frau Anna, “much good your ’viding will do,
you poor baby. Folks as poor as us must keep all we get for ourselves.”
Louis was happily far too busy to hear this speech, with which, as we
know, Frau Anna’s practice did not exactly correspond. The question of
dividing offered sufficient practical difficulty to absorb his whole
attention; but by following his father’s example and marshalling his
army into two columns, he at last succeeded, to the mutual satisfaction
of himself and his playmate.
Time passed very happily until noon, when Louis trotted home, to
announce to his father that it was “nice to ’vide. When we bofe play
togevver, it’s as good as if they was all mine,” he said.
For all reply, Metzerott produced a brown paper package of a charmingly
mysterious shape, and watched with a lurking smile the eager little
fingers struggle with the string.
“Oh! what is it?” cried little Louis.
It was of tin, painted in gay colors, and it spun upon the floor, upon
being wound, with a loud humming noise.
“Now,” said Metzerott, when the first edge of delight had worn off, “how
about George? you can’t divide a top with him.”
“No,” returned Louis with a mournful shake of his head, “you can’t ’vide
one top.”
He leaned his chin upon his two plump hands, as he sat tailor fashion on
the floor, and delivered himself up to contemplation of the top, which
lay just where it had toppled over from its last spin, as if there were
inspiration in its gaudy hues. Presently he looked up brightly.
“I know,” he said, “we can spin it togevver, and it can be bofe of ours.
That’s the only way to ’vide a top!”
“You’re your mother’s own son,” said Metzerott. “Come, dinner is ready,
let’s see how you ’vide that. There’s a splendid pot of soup, enough for
a dozen; so never say your father can’t cook.”
But scarcely had they seated themselves at the table when a heavy fall
in the room above was followed by two shrill, feeble, feminine shrieks.
Metzerott ran hastily up the stairs, which he had not ascended since the
death of his wife, followed more slowly by Louis, to whom they were more
familiar, though the silent pre-occupation of the sisters had not tended
to encourage his visits.
The Prices had recently taken a young niece to share their room, and
earn her own bread if she could; and she it was who now lay upon the
floor with her head upon Sally’s thin bosom, while Susan chafed the
unconscious hand, and wept. She was evidently quite young, and the
battle with want and toil, while it had wasted her form and paled her
cheek, had not lasted long enough to destroy her youth and beauty.
“She ain’t used to it yet, Mr. Metzerott,” said Sally Price half
apologetically. “I’m sorry to disturb you at your dinner, sir, specially
if it’s as good as it smells. Them that has ought to enjoy,” she added
without a trace of bitterness.
“I’m not caring for my dinner,” answered Metzerott roughly. “I’ll get
her some whiskey; that’s what she wants.”
There was silence in the room until he returned, except that, when
Louis, not seeing any other way of being useful, wiped the eyes of the
weeping Susan with his blue-checked gingham apron, she asked Sally if it
wasn’t beautiful to see how that child favored his mother, to which
Sally replied that the Lord knew it was indeed.
The whiskey, which Metzerott procured at the nearest saloon, was vile
stuff perhaps, but it brought back the color to Polly’s white lips.
“She’ll do now, Mr. Metzerott, and thank you kindly,” said Miss Price.
“We’ve got a little bread here we can give her; and this is Saturday,
bless the Lord, so we’ll be able to buy more.”
“More bread?” asked Metzerott, who, man-like, had never attained to a
realizing sense of his lodgers’ domestic affairs, “is that all you’ve
got to give her?”
“It’s all we ever have,” replied Sally calmly. “Bless you, sir, what can
you expect, with shirts five cents a dozen? But Polly, she was raised in
the country, till her father and mother both died in one week with the
typhoid, and her brother got married; and she come to the city to better
herself, the Lord help her! So, what with not being used to sewing so
constant, and nothing to eat, so to speak, and the smell of your dinner,
Mr. Metzerott,—though I’m the last to begrutch it to you, sir, as works
as hard as any, and has had your own troubles,—why, her head turned
giddy, and she fainted clean away. That’s all, sir.”
“And quite enough, too,” said Metzerott, watching how, as she spoke,
Sally fed her niece with fragments of bread, dipped in the whiskey and
water,—not a very palatable refreshment, one would suppose, yet Polly
swallowed it eagerly.
“Now, that’s enough liquor for the present, Polly Price,” said her aunt;
“you can eat the rest of your bread dry, and be thankful you’ve got it.
She’s a good girl, Mr. Metzerott, and a pretty girl, though I say so;
and there’s them that has eyes to see it, and would keep her like a
queen if she would listen to their wicked words.”
Polly groaned, and hid her face upon her aunt’s thin shoulder.
“It’s young Crushem, the contractor’s son,” continued Sally. “And when
he spoke to her as I tell you, sir, Polly she comes home, and she says,
says she, ‘It’s hard to put the bread from your mouth when you’re
starving,’ she says. And then Susan there, she says, ‘It’s only putting
off the starving a bit, Polly,’ says she. ‘Money made that way don’t
never last long, and you’ll come to the garret and the crust at last,’
says she. ‘But he’s promised to settle money on me, so as I could take
care of you both,’ says Polly. ‘Bless you, Polly Price,’ says I, ‘we’re
used to it,’ says I; ‘we can stand it if you can,’ says I. And Polly,
she says, kinder cryin’, ‘I thought I couldn’t, Aunt Sally,’ she says.
‘I told him I’d think over it, and I’d about made up my mind to say yes;
but when that child downstairs looked at me with his solemn blue eyes, I
knew I’d better starve than be a wicked girl,’ says Polly.”
Metzerott had listened to this long story with a frown of sympathy
contracting his rugged features. But at this point a hand pulled at his
short working-jacket, and a sweet voice said, “Papa, don’t you think
we’d better ’vide our dinner? There’s soup enough for a dozen, and don’t
ever say my father can’t cook!”
Metzerott caught the boy in his arms. “Do you hear the emperor?” he
cried. “Louis Napoleon must be obeyed. Come down to dinner, all of you!”
It was good to see the starving women eat, and Louis’ face bright with
the joy of ’viding. Metzerott, as he watched them, knew not whether to
be glad or sorrowful. That there should be no more starving under his
roof he was quite determined, yet how to take upon himself the support
of three full-grown women? At last a happy thought came to him.
“I have been thinking,” he said, when the meal was over, and his guests
were regretfully wiping their mouths, “I have been thinking, Miss Sally,
what a convenience it would be to me if one of you ladies would do my
cooking, and housekeep for me regular. You might take it in turn, if you
liked; a little exercise don’t hurt nobody, and I shouldn’t care. Then
we could all eat together sociable, and you could do your sewing just
the same, unless you could find other work.”
He said nothing of the rent, which indeed had not been demanded or paid
since Dora’s death.
The sisters looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Polly
burst at once into tears; then Susan’s head went down on the table, and
Sally, with clasped hands and eyes uplifted, cried fervently, “Bless the
Lord!”
“Don’t cry,” said Metzerott hastily; “it’ll be cheaper to me in the end,
now that trade’s so brisk, than knocking off to go to market and cook
every five minutes or so. I’ve been knowing for quite a while that I
should have to hire somebody; but I didn’t want no strange women around,
and I’m ashamed to say I never thought of you.”
“And you know,” said Louis, who had scrambled down from the table, and
was hugging Polly Price, “you know we’ve got to ’vide some day, and I’m
glad of it because it’s so awful jolly.”
“The boy is a good Communist,” said Metzerott, laughing; “and now, if
you ladies feel able to wash the dishes, I’ll go back to my work.”
“There’s pretty near enough soup for to-morrow,” said Sally Price,
peeping into the big iron pot. “My laws! wasteful ain’t the name for a
man!”