“_When we were lovers, you were my downfall,
Now I am sneered at and jeered at by all._”
SONGS OF THE CURB.
IT was the season of rains, and the great sewer that drains the
northwestern section of the city had burst again, and with its collapse
sunk a goodly part of two streets at the junction of Germantown Avenue
and Third Street. Gartenheim was doing the repairing as he had often
done before; great heaps of brick and timber lay about the break in
the street; a donkey engine, shrouded in a canvas covering loomed up
spectre like in the fog; from the small windows of the tool shanty
crept a pale flare of light; and a man could be seen within, bent over
a mass of papers and time-books. Martin and Bella paused at the foot of
a broken spile-driver.
“It’s our Dick,” breathed Bella. “Let’s go some other way.”
“Oh, come on! What’s the matter with ye. He won’t see ye.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ apast! He’d never let me hear the last of it if he
seen me out so late.”
“Well, speak yer piece, here. What d’ye want to say?”
“You know well enough what it is.”
“Say, is it that same old cry? Youse make me tired!”
“I don’t care! I on’y want you to do right by me; you promised you
would.”
Martin laughed. Bella’s face was pale, and the damp, penetrating mist
made her shiver; a single, heavy drop of water was falling from a
height upon her umbrella, with a measured beat that kept time with the
pulsation of her heart.
“I didn’t promise nothin’,” said he. “D’ye take me for a gilly?”
“But ye must!” she cried, desperately. “If ye don’t, what’ll I do?”
“Damn’f I know. But ye don’t tie me up in the t’ing, I know that.”
“You on’y think of yourself! What’ll Dick say? What’ll everybody say?
I can’t face it, Mart; I can’t face it!”
She began to sob huskily; Martin prodded a stone with the toe of his
shoe and reflected; he whistled a few bars from a popular song to
convey an impression of carelessness; nevertheless he was troubled.
“Well,” said he at length; “what are ye goin’ to do?”
“It’s for you to say that.”
“Well,” deliberately, “I ain’t a-goin to do nothin’.”
“Ye don’t want to, I know.” Then she added after a pause: “I was to see
Father Dawson, yesterday.”
“Eh?”
“He said he was comin’ to see you; and he said it was shameful.”
“So you’ve beefed, eh? Yer goin’ to try that racket, are youse? Well
you’ve made a scratch, see? Ye forgot to call yer play. I don’t go to
church; he can’t jump me because I won’t stand for it.”
“Then he’ll go to your father,” said she, “and I will, too. _He’ll_
make ye do what ye said ye would; he can’t help it!”
“I’ll jump the town,” said he, doggedly. “There ain’t no use chewin’
it up with the old man; he ain’t got no pull with me! I’d flag him as
quick as I would youse.”
Then she began to reproach him. He opened an extensive vocabulary of
abuse, and drenched her with epithets; she grew angry and responded in
kind; for a time their words reeked with foulness. Suddenly he drew
back his arm and struck her; she fell backward, the blood spirting from
her nostrils and mouth. Kelly did not give her a second glance, but
strode away, cursing under his breath.
People have an awkward habit of dying at all hours of the day and
night, and an undertaker is never care free for a moment. Roddy
Ferguson was revolving this fact with gloomy disapproval as he bowled
stableward in O’Connor’s black wagon, his mud spattered horse picking
its way along the broken street.
“Old Brannagan,” muttered Roddy, “has been dyin’ once a month reg’lar
for the last three years; and now, just because it’s the night of the
ball, he cashes in for real, an’ I have to hustle to fix him up.”
His horse shied, and the youth tightened the reins and chirruped
soothingly.
“Gartenheim,” he mused, “must be gittin’ paid by the day for this
sewer; he’s been long enough at it to sew tassels on every brick he
puts in. Go on there, ye big Indian, what’s the matter with youse,
anyhow?”
He jumped out to see what frightened the horse, and at once caught
sight of the prostrate figure at the foot of the spile-driver;
the pale, wavering rays of a gas lamp gave him a glimpse of the
blood-smeared face.
“It’s a woman,” he gasped, “she must be hurted!”
He threw his horse blanket over her as a protection from the rain and
then rushed toward the tool shanty and opened the door.
“Say,” panted he, “there’s a woman out here hurt. Kin I bring her in
here while I get a cop to ring up for the wagon?”
Dick Nolan stared at him, vacantly, chewing at the end of his pencil,
the figures of the time tickets buzzing in his head. He did not
catch the import of the words for a moment, neither did he recognize
Ferguson; then his brain burst through the maze of arithmetic and both
flashed upon him.
“Oh,” said he in sullen recognition. “Who is it?”
“I didn’t ask for no card,” returned Roddy, sarcastically. It was the
first words he had exchanged with Nolan for almost two years, and the
fact that he had spoken first, galled him. “Lend me a hand,” requested
he, “I don’t t’ink she kin walk.”
They found the girl upon her feet, leaning dazedly against the
heavy timbers of the machine. Roddy drew his breath, hissingly as
he recognized her; and Dick stabbed through the air at him with one
quivering finger.
“What is this, eh? Tell me, quick!” grated he.
“If there’s anything wrong,” answered Roddy, “may I rot and die if I
had a hand in it! You know I t’ought well o’ her, Nolan!”
Dick rubbed some of the blood from her face; she was sobbing and clung
to him tightly.
“Who done this?” demanded he.
Ferguson’s straining ears caught the whispered answer, and a sense of
smothering filled his breast.
“Kin ye walk?”
“I think so; he didn’t hurt me much.”
“I’ll take her home,” said Dick; “ye needn’t wait.”
He held out his hand and the other gripped it.
“If yer goin’ to do anyt’ing,” said Ferguson, eagerly, “I want to stand
in with ye.”
“Don’t say anything,” warned Nolan. “An’, say, where kin I see youse in
the mornin’?”
“At the club,” said Roddy, “afore ye go to work. And ye kin bank on me
not to say a word.”
And they parted.