AN EVICTION
The three chief diversions in Calvary Alley, aside from fights, were
funerals, arrests, and evictions. Funerals had the advantage of novelty,
for life departed less frequently than it arrived: arrests were in high
favor on account of their dramatic appeal, but the excitement, while
intense, was usually too brief to be satisfying; for sustained interest
the alley on the whole preferred evictions.
The week after Nance and Dan had reported to Mrs. Purdy, rumor traveled
from house to house and from room to room that the rent man was putting
the Lewises out. The piquant element in the situation lay in the absence
of the chief actor. "Mis' Lewis" herself had disappeared, and nobody knew
where she was or when she would return.
For many years the little cottage, sandwiched between Mr. Snawdor's "Bung
and Fawcett" shop and Slap Jack's saloon had been the scandal and, it
must be confessed the romance of the alley. It stood behind closed
shutters, enveloped in mystery, and no visitor ventured beyond its
threshold. The slender, veiled lady who flitted in and out at queer
hours, and whom rumor actually accused of sometimes arriving at the
corner in "a hack," was, despite ten years' residence, a complete
stranger to her neighbors. She was quiet and well-behaved; she wore good
clothes and shamefully neglected her child. These were the meager facts
upon which gossip built a tower of conjecture.
As for Dan, he was as familiar an object in the alley as the sparrows in
the gutter or the stray cats about the garbage cans. Ever since he could
persuade his small legs to go the way he wanted them to, he had pursued
his own course, asking nothing of anybody, fighting for his meager
rights, and becoming an adept in evading the questions that seemed to
constitute the entire conversation of the adult world. All that he asked
of life was the chance to make a living, and this the authorities sternly
forbade until he should reach that advanced age of fourteen which seemed
to recede as he approached. Like most of the boys in the gang, he had
been in business since he was six; but it was business that changed its
nature frequently and had to be transacted under great difficulty. He had
acquired proficiency as a crap-shooter only to find that the profession
was not regarded as an honorable one; he had invested heavily in pins and
pencils and tried to peddle them out on the avenue, only to find himself
sternly taken in hand by a determined lady who talked to him about minors
and street trades. Shoe-shining had been tried; so had selling papers,
but each of these required capital, and Dan's appetite was of such a
demanding character that the acquisition of capital was well nigh
impossible.
From that first day when the truant officer had driven him into the
educational fold, his problems had increased. It was not that he disliked
school. On the contrary he was ambitious and made heroic efforts to keep
up with the class; but it was up-hill work getting an education without
text-books. The city, to be sure, furnished these to boys whose mothers
applied for them in person, but Dan's mother never had time to come. The
cause of most of his trouble, however, was clothes; seatless trousers,
elbowless coats, brimless hats, constituted a series of daily
mortifications which were little short of torture.
Twice, through no fault of his own, he had stood alone before the bar of
justice, with no voice lifted in his behalf save the shrill, small voice
of Nance Molloy. Twice he had been acquitted and sent back to the old
hopeless environment, and admonished to try again. How hard he had tried
and against what odds, surely only the angel detailed to patrol Calvary
Alley has kept any record.
If any doubts assailed him concerning the mother who took little heed of
his existence, he never expressed them. Her name rarely passed his lips,
but he watched for her coming as a shipwrecked mariner watches for a
sail. When a boy ponders and worries over something for which he dares
not ask an explanation, he is apt to become sullen and preoccupied. On
the day that the long-suffering landlord served notice, Dan told no one
of his mother's absence. Behind closed doors he packed what things he
could, clumsily tying the rest of the household goods in the bedclothes.
At noon the new tenant arrived and, in order to get his own things in,
obligingly assisted in moving Dan's out. It was then and then only that
the news had gone abroad.
For three hours now the worldly possessions of the dubious Mrs. Lewis had
lain exposed on the pavement, and for three hours Dan had sat beside them
keeping guard. From every tenement window inquisitive eyes watched each
stage of the proceeding, and voluble tongues discussed every phase of the
situation. Every one who passed, from Mr. Lavinski, with a pile of pants
on his head, to little Rosy Snawdor, stopped to take a look at him and to
ask questions.
Dan had reached a point of sullen silence. Sitting on a pile of
bedclothes, with a gilt-framed mirror under one arm and a flowered water
pitcher under the other, he scowled defiance at each newcomer. Against
the jeers of the boys he could register vows of future vengeance and
console himself with the promise of bloody retribution; but against the
endless queries and insinuations of his adult neighbors, he was utterly
defenseless.
"Looks like she had ever'thing fer the parlor, an' nothin' fer the
kitchen," observed Mrs. Snawdor from her third-story window to Mrs.
Smelts at her window two floors below.
"I counted five pairs of curlin' irons with my own eyes," said
Mrs. Smelts, "an' as fer bottles! If they took out one, they took
out a hunderd."
"You don't reckon that there little alcohol stove was all she had to cook
on, do you?" called up Mrs. Gorman from the pavement below.
"Maybe that's what she het her curlin' irons on!" was Mrs. Snawdor's
suggestion, a remark which provoked more mirth than it deserved.
Dan gazed straight ahead with no sign that he heard. However strong the
temptation was to dart away into some friendly hiding place, he was
evidently not going to yield to it. The family possessions were in
jeopardy, and he was not one to shirk responsibilities.
Advice was as current as criticism. Mrs. Gorman, being a chronic
recipient of civic favors, advocated an appeal to the charity
organization; Mrs. Snawdor, ever at war with foreign interference,
strongly opposed the suggestion, while Mrs. Smelts with a covetous eye on
the gilt mirror under Dan's arm, urged a sidewalk sale. As for the boy
himself, not a woman in the alley but was ready to take him in and share
whatever the family larder provided.
But to all suggestions Dan doggedly shook his head. He was "thinkin' it
out," he said, and all he wanted was to be let alone.
"Well, you can't set there all night," said Mrs. Snawdor, "if yer maw
don't turn up by five o'clock, us neighbors is goin' to take a hand."
All afternoon Dan sat watching the corner round which his mother might
still appear. Not a figure had turned into the alley, that he had not
seen it, not a clanging car had stopped in the street beyond, that his
quick ear had not noted.
About the time the small hand of the cathedral clock got around to four,
Nance Molloy came skipping home from school. She had been kept in for a
too spirited resentment of an older girl's casual observation that both
of her shoes were for the same foot. To her, as to Dan, these trying
conventions in the matter of foot-gear were intolerable. No combination
seemed to meet the fastidious demands of that exacting sixth grade.
"Hello, Dan!" she said, coming to a halt at sight of the obstructed
pavement. "What's all this for?"
"Put out," said Dan laconically.
"Didn't yer maw never come back?"
"Nope."
Nance climbed up beside him on the bedclothes and took her seat.
"What you goin' to do?" she asked in a business-like tone.
"Dunno." Dan did not turn his head to look at her, but he felt a dumb
comfort in her presence. It was as if her position there beside him on
the pillory made his humiliation less acute. He shifted the water
pitcher, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder:
"They all want to divide the things an' take keer of 'em 'til she comes,"
he said, "but I ain't goin' to let 'em."
"I wouldn't neither," agreed Nance. "Old man Smelts an' Mr. Gorman'd have
what they took in hock before mornin'. There's a coal shed over to Slap
Jack's ain't full. Why can't you put yer things in there for to-night?"
"He wouldn't let me. He's a mean old Dutchman."
"He ain't, neither! He's the nicest man in the alley, next to Uncle Jed
an' that there old man with the fiddle. Mr. Jack an' me's friends. He
gives me pretzels all the time. I'll go ast him."
A faint hope stirred in Dan as she slid down from her perch and darted
into the saloon next door. She had wasted no time in conjecture or
sympathy; she had plunged at once into action. When she returned, the fat
saloonkeeper lumbered in her wake:
"Dose tings is too many, already," he protested. "I got no place to put
my coal once de cold vedder comes."
"It ain't come yet," said Nance. "Besides his mother'll be here
to-morrow, I 'spect."
"Mebbe she vill, und mebbe she von't," said the saloonkeeper astutely. "I
don't want dat I should mess up myself mid dis here piziness."
"The things ain't goin' to hurt your old coal shed none!" began Nance,
firing up; then with a sudden change of tactics, she slipped her hand
into Mr. Jack's fat, red one, and lifted a pair of coaxing blue eyes.
"Say, go on an' let him, Mr. Jack! I told him you would. I said you was
one of the nicest men in the alley. You ain't goin' to make me out a
liar, are you?"
"Vell, I leave him put 'em in for to-night," said the saloonkeeper
grudgingly, his Teuton caution overcome by Celtic wile.
The conclave of women assembled in the hall of Number One, to carry out
Mrs. Snawdor's threat of "taking a hand," were surprised a few minutes
later, to see the objects under discussion being passed over the fence by
Mr. Jack and Dan under the able generalship of the one feminine member of
the alley whose counsel had been heeded.
When the last article had been transferred to the shed, and a veteran
padlock had been induced to return to active service, the windows of the
tenement were beginning to glow dully, and the smell of cabbage and
onions spoke loudly of supper.
Nance, notwithstanding the fourth peremptory summons from aloft, to walk
herself straight home that very minute, still lingered with Dan.
"Come on home with me," she said. "You can sleep in Uncle Jed's bed 'til
five o'clock."
"I kin take keer of myself all right," he said. "It was the things that
pestered me."
"But where you goin' to git yer supper?"
"I got money," he answered, making sure that his nickel was still in his
pocket. "Besides, my mother might come while I was there."
"Well, don't you fergit that to-morrow we go to Mis' Purdy's."
Dan looked at her with heavy eyes.
"Oh! I ain't got time to fool around with that business. I don't know
where I'll be at by to-morrow."
"You'll be right here," said Nance firmly, "and I ain't goin' to budge a
step without you if I have to wait all afternoon."
"Well, I ain't comin'," said Dan.
"I'm goin' to wait," said Nance, "an' if I git took up fer not reportin',
it'll be your fault."
Dan slouched up to the corner and sat on the curbstone where he could
watch the street cars. As they stopped at the crossing, he leaned forward
eagerly and scanned the passengers who descended. In and out of the
swinging door of the saloon behind him passed men, singly and in groups.
There were children, too, with buckets, but they had to go around to the
side. He wanted to go in himself and buy a sandwich, but he didn't dare.
The very car he was waiting for might come in his absence.
At nine o'clock he was still waiting when two men came out and paused
near him to light their cigars. They were talking about Skeeter Newson,
the notorious pickpocket, who two days before had broken jail and had
not yet been found. Skeeter's exploits were a favorite topic of the
Calvary Micks, and Dan, despite the low state of his mind, pricked his
ears to listen.
"They traced him as far as Chicago," said one of the men, "but there he
give 'em the slip."
"Think of the nerve of him taking that Lewis woman with him," said the
other voice. "By the way, I hear she lives around here somewhere."
"A bad lot," said the first voice as they moved away.
Dan sat rigid with his back to the telegraph pole, his feet in the
gutter, his mouth fallen open, staring dully ahead of him. Then suddenly
he reached blindly for a rock, and staggered to his feet, but the figures
had disappeared in the darkness. He sat down again, while his breath came
in short, hard gasps. It was a lie! His mother was not bad! He knew she
was good. He wanted to shriek it to the world. But even as he
passionately defended her to himself, fears assailed him.
Why had they always lived so differently from other people? Why was he
never allowed to ask questions or to answer them or to know where his
mother went or how they got their living? What were the parcels she
always kept locked up in the trunk in the closet? Events, little heeded
at the time of occurrence, began to fall into place, making a hideous and
convincing pattern. Dim memories of men stole out of the past and threw
distorted shadows on his troubled brain. There was Bob who had once given
him a quarter, and Uncle Dick who always came after he was in bed, and
Newt--his neck stiffened suddenly. Newt, whom his mother used always to
be talking about, and whose name he had not heard now for so long that he
had almost forgotten it. Skeeter Newson--Newt--"The Lewis Woman." He saw
it all in a blinding flash, and in that awful moment of realization he
passed out of his childhood and entered man's estate.
Choking back his sobs, he fled from the scene of his disgrace. In one
alley and out another he stumbled, looking for a hole in which he could
crawl and pour out his pent-up grief. But privacy is a luxury reserved
for the rich, and Dan and his kind cannot even claim a place in which to
break their hearts.
It was not until he reached the river bank and discovered an overturned
hogshead that he found a refuge. Crawling in, he buried his face in his
arms and wept, not with the tempestuous abandonment of a lonely child,
but with the dry, soul-racking sobs of a disillusioned man. His mother
had been the one beautiful thing in his life, and he had worshiped her as
some being from another world. Other boys' mothers had coarse, red hands
and loud voices; his had soft, white hands and a sweet, gentle voice that
never scolded.
Sometimes when she stayed at home, they had no money, and then she would
lie on the bed and cry, and he would try to comfort her. Those were the
times when he would stay away from school and go forth to sell things at
the pawn shop. The happiest nights he could remember were the ones when
he had come home with money in his pocket, to a lighted lamp in the
window, and a fire on the hearth and his mother's smile of welcome. But
those times were few and far between; he was much more used to darkened
windows, a cold hearth, and an almost empty larder. In explanation of
these things he had accepted unconditionally his mother's statement that
she was a lady.
As he fought his battle alone there in the dark, all sorts of wild plans
came to him. Across the dark river the shore lights gleamed, and down
below at the wharf, a steamboat was making ready to depart. He had heard
of boys who slipped aboard ships and beat their way to distant cities. A
fierce desire seized him to get away, anywhere, just so he would not have
to face the shame and disgrace that had come upon him. There was no one
to care now where he went or what became of him. He would run away and be
a tramp where nobody could ask questions.
With quick decision he started up to put his plan into action when a
disturbing thought crossed his mind. Had Nance Molloy meant it when she
said she wouldn't report to the probation officer if he didn't go with
her? Would she stand there in the alley and wait for him all afternoon,
just as he had waited so often for some one who did not come? His
reflections were disturbed by a hooting noise up the bank, followed by a
shower of rocks. The next instant a mongrel pup scurried down the levee
and dropped shivering at his feet.
The yells of the pursuers died away as Dan gathered the whimpering beast
into his arms and examined its injuries.
"Hold still, old fellow. I ain't goin' to hurt you," he whispered,
tenderly wiping the blood from one dripping paw. "I won't let 'em git
you. I'll take care of you."
The dog lifted a pair of agonized eyes to Dan's face and licked
his hands.
"You lemme tie it up with a piece of my sleeve, an' I'll give you
somethin' to eat," went on Dan. "Me an' you'll buy a sandich an' I'll eat
the bread an' you can have the meat. Me an you'll be partners."
Misery had found company, and already life seemed a little less desolate.
But the new-comer continued to yelp with pain, and Dan examined the limp
leg dubiously.
"I b'lieve it's broke," he thought. Then he had an inspiration.
"I know what I'll do," he said aloud, "I'll carry you out to the animal
man when me an' Nance go to report to-morrow."