_Dear Kate_:
I ain't wrote you for quite a time, cause I have been in a lot of
trouble, and so busy and kinda tired out that any time I set down long
enough to write a letter, I go to sleep. Billy had an awful accident. I
was making some hot chocklate in my room, and he pulled the pan over on
him and burned his hand and arm and shoulder. I took him to St.
Vincent's hospital and they fixed him up, but said he didn't look well
and I orter leave him there awhile. They put him in a ward with a lot of
other babies, and I go every day to see him. He can set up now and play.
I take him up something every time I go, and some things for the other
kiddies too. There are twelve little tads in the room, and they are
awful good when you think that they are sick. One little kid had both
his hips broke, and he lies on his back with his feet in a sling that
holds his legs straight up and he plays with his toys and talks to
himself and never whimpers except when he sees the doctor come in the
ward. Then his face gets awful scared, and his eyes get big and black
with a helpless look of fear in them, cause he knows the doctor means
changing his bandages and that hurts. The doctors and the nurses talk
and handle the children just as if they loved them. There is a little
boy in the bed next to Billy who is only six months older than Billy,
and he looks something like him. He has got Billy's blond curls, and
great big eyes, only he is much stronger. I suppose it is because he
lives in the country. His mother is an English woman with an awful funny
accent, but I like her real well. She lives out in New Jersey, somewhere
on a little farm. Her kid is going to leave next week, and she asked me
to bring Billy and come and see her. I told her I would, but Lord, I
don't believe I know where New Jersey is. When I come to think of it, I
ain't never been even to Hoboken. All the United States of America I
know is bounded on the north by 59th Street, and on the south by 14th
Street, on the east by Third Avenue, and the sun sets on Seventh Avenue
for me. I never stopped to think that people lived anywhere else, but I
suppose all these folks that we see chasing up and down with packages in
their hands must be going somewhere. You know, Kate, we ain't never been
in the country in our lives. Honest, I don't believe we have ever seen
real grass and I never wanted to before, but when I saw the look in that
little woman's face, and how different her baby was than Billy, I kinda
thought I would like to see how she lived. I wonder if country kids do
have a better time than city kids? We had an awful good time, if doing
just as you please is having a good time. Do you remember how you used
to shake my teeth out for following the hand organ men around town? It
is funny we young ones didn't get run over or killed, the way we was
always in the streets. It might have been all right, but I would hate to
see Billy bringing himself up the way I did.
Oh, Kate, he is the cutest thing! He has a cot in the corner of the room
facing the doorway, and I step in the door and stand there a minute
until he looks up, and then his face all changes and breaks in little
dimples and smiles, and he holds out his arms to me and says, "Nannie,
my Nannie is tum." Why you know, I all choke up and I hold him close in
my arms and talk to him and play with him until the nurse comes with
their suppers, and all the visitors must leave. I go back to the room
which is empty without him. It is funny what a change a baby brings to a
place, and how it makes home out of a bum little six-dollar-a-week room.
I didn't put his things away when he was took to the hospital, cause I
like to see them laying around. His shoes look so funny under the bed
setting by mine, and I got a lot of his clothes hanging up on a line
behind the door. I washed lots of his clothes out myself, not so much
to save the money as I like to be a doing something for him. I must say
you dressed him nice, Kate, his clothes looked so pretty when they was
all ironed and hung up in a row and his funny little white
stockings--don't he wear them out fast? When I undressed him at night,
if there was a hole in his stocking, he would wiggle his little pink toe
out of it and point to it and say, "Naughty, naughty Billy." The girls
in the place were just crazy about him, but they gave him too much candy
and fussed over him more than I liked, yet I hated to call them down, as
the poor devils don't have a chance to see a baby often.
Mary Callahan is sick. I want her to go to the hospital, but she won't
do it. The other night coming home from the theatre in a lot of slush
and snow, she caught an awful cold. She is all in. I fussed around her
all morning and put a mustard plaster on her chest, which burned the
skin all off and made her awful mad at me. She says she won't be able to
cover it with make-up for a month, and it will mean a good fat
call-down from the manager, but between you and me, she will have time
to get a brand new skin before she will be able to show up at work
again.
Well, so long, old girl. I must go to bed. Gee, how I do miss Billy.
Night-times I used to have to lift him over on his own side, cause he
would lay cross wise on the bed, and when I would get in it would be all
warm where his little body had been. Oh, Kate, he is the dearest kid! I
bought him a funny little jumping jack to-day. You pull a string and a
man's neck goes away out and I can just see Billy's eyes and hear his
funny laugh when he first sees him.
_Nan_.
V
_Dear Kate_:
I got a lot to tell you cause things have shaken up a bit. Do you
remember that little English woman who had a baby in the hospital next
to Billy? Well, I went out to see her one Sunday. It was such a nice,
warm spring day, just seemed as though I had to do something different,
and the greatest shock I could give my system was to leave the pavements
of New York for a time. I dressed Billy in a blue velvet coat I bought
at Macy's, and he had on a blue hat over his little red curls, and his
shoes had dark blue tassels on the front of them, and he looked cunning
enough to eat. He was so proud of his tassels that he showed them to
everybody in the street car and in the train. It took us almost two
hours to get out there, and the people met us with a horse and buggy
and drove us to their house. Why, Kate, I didn't know there was such
places! The house is on a side hill with great trees around it, and in
the front of it is a little lake with ducks and geese swimming on it.
They had a great big stable opening on to a pasture where there was
calves and cows and horses and pigs. I think I stood half an hour
looking at the pigs. It is funny, but I always thought a pig a sort of a
ham hanging up in the window of a delicatessen, instead of being a live,
friendly animal that will come when you call it. There were a lot of
chickens, white leghorns, I think the woman called them, and they looked
friendly and home-like wandering around the place talking and singing to
themselves like a bunch of happy women. Mrs. Smith let me feed them. She
gave me a milk pan full of corn and told me to hit on its edge with a
spoon, and they came flocking from every direction, some half flying,
half running, as if they were afraid they would miss the party. They
were so tame that I had to hold the pan up high to keep some of the
sassy roosters from climbing into it. Mrs. Smith knows them all and can
tell if one is missing, though they all look alike to me. She says she
hates to kill them cause it seems like eating some of the family. Her
husband laughed and said, "I will tell you the tragedy of the wrong
hen." He said, "You know once a week we have chicken pot pie, and for
seven days Mary goes mourning around wondering which one of her precious
chickens she can part with,--and live. We hear the virtues and the vices
of each old biddy, cause my wife loves each feather. The other day after
heart breakening talks Mary decided that Peggy could be killed, and a
motherly old hen who wanted to set should be tied up. We caught them at
night and put a blue string on Peggy, and a white string on the motherly
hen, and tied them to the ice-house door. Mary took an hour and a half
to explain to me that the chicken with the blue string was to be eaten,
and she of the white string was to be left tied to the ice-house door
until her longings toward motherhood would stop. In the morning when I
went out to see those chickens, blest if I could tell which was to be
killed, and which was not, but I thought I would take my chance on the
fattest, and I took her head off. I suppose you noticed Mary's eyes--it
was the wrong head."
Billy and the kid played out-doors all day and his face got sun burnt
and his eyes sparkled, and he looked just like another baby. Her boy is
only six months older than Billy, but he is so much bigger, and it just
makes me sick to think I can't give this to Billy and let him have a
chance to grow up big and strong like other boys. All the way in on the
train, I kinda cussed under my breath, to think I had to take him back
to that dirty little room, and the girls who were always talking to him
and feeding him things he orter not have, and him a hearing things that
perhaps he will remember when he grows up, and it may make him do a lot
of thinking by himself. I wish I could do something, but I don't know
what I can do. I feel helpless, as if my hands was tied down by my
sides, and I couldn't get them loose. Good-bye, I am kinda sore
to-night. Seems to me we got in wrong somewhere, Kate, and I don't know
where nor how. It ain't your fault, and it ain't mine, but it don't seem
to me we have had our chance like other women have. I saw a picture the
other day on a calendar. It was a happy looking woman dressed in a long
blue gown carrying a baby up a beautiful stairs with flowers everywhere,
and they were looking over her shoulder at the father down below. Now,
can you imagine anything nicer than that to be in a home of your own
with a pretty dress on, your baby in your arms, going to put it in its
bed and your husband looking up at you proud? Nothing to be ashamed of,
and nothing to be afraid of. That is the biggest kind of heaven I know,
but I guess it ain't for us. We got in wrong from the start, but oh,
Kate, I do wish things was different. I don't care so much for myself,
but I do want to get Billy out of this life where thieving and being a
crook is the natural thing, and a person on the level is looked upon as
being queer. Sometimes when I see Billy do some little thing or have a
look in his face like Jim, my heart most stops beating. I don't pray,
but I do say, "Oh, if there is such a thing as a God, don't let Billy
grow up like his father." And, there are a lot of your little ways that
I would just as soon not see cropping out in him.
Well, good night, I am glad you are getting along so well. I can't send
you any money this time, cause I am flat broke since I paid your storage
bill, but I will give you twenty next month. Do write me a decent
letter, Kate. Your last letter was simply a touch from the beginning to
the end, and between you and your friends, I am kept pretty well cleaned
up.
_Nan_.