THE BATTLE OF MAXWELL STREET
“But what is it?” Petite Jeanne stepped back, half in terror, as she
gripped Florence’s arm and stared about her.
They had just alighted from a Halsted Street car and had entered the
maze of booths, carts, rough board counters, and wagons. “This is
Maxwell Street on a bright Sunday afternoon in late autumn,” replied
Merry with a smile.
They were on their way, Petite Jeanne and Merry, to the promised party
at which many mysterious bags and trunks were to be opened. Florence was
with them; so, too, was Angelo. Dan Baker also had agreed to come at the
last moment. So they were quite a party, five in all.
About these portable stores swarmed a motley throng. Some were white,
some brown, some black. All, stall keepers and prospective purchasers
alike were poor, if one were to judge by attire.
“Don’t be afraid,” Merry smiled at the little French girl. “These are
harmless, kindly people. They are poor, to be sure. But in this world,
ninety out of every hundred are poor and probably always will be.
“Some of these people have a few poor things to sell. The others hope to
purchase them at a bargain; which indeed they often do.
“So you see,” she ended, “like other places in the world, Maxwell Street
deserves its place in the sun, for it serves the poor of this great
city. What could be nobler?”
“Ah, yes, What could be nobler?” the little French girl echoed.
“How strange!” she murmured as they walked along. “There is no order
here. See! There are shoes. Here are cabbages. And here are more shoes.
There are chickens. Here are more shoes. And yonder are stockings to go
with the shoes. How very queer.”
“Yes,” Florence sighed, “there is no order in the minds of the very
poor. Perhaps that is why they are poor.”
“Come!” Merry cried impatiently. “We must find the shops of our friends.
They are on Peoria Street. Two blocks up.”
“Lead the way.” Petite Jeanne motioned her friends to follow.
As they wedged their way through the throng, Petite Jeanne found her
spirits drooping. “How sad it all seems!” she thought to herself. “There
is a little dried up old lady. She must be eighty. She’s trying to sell
a few lemons. And here is a slip of a girl. How pinched her face is!
She’s watching over a few wretched stockings. If you whistled through
them they’d go into rags.
“And yet,” she was ready to smile again, “they all seem cheerful.”
She had said this last aloud. “Yes,” Merry answered, “cheerful and kind.
Very considerate of one another. It is as if suffering, hunger, rags,
disease, brought friends who cannot be bought with gold.”
“It is true. And such a beautiful truth. I—”
Petite Jeanne broke short off, then dodged quickly to one side. She had
barely escaped being run down by an automobile. Coming in from behind,
the driver had not honked his horn.
The man was large. The companion at his side was large. The bright blue
car was large. The whole outfit fairly oozed comfort, riches and
self-satisfaction.
“Stand gawking around and you’ll get a leg taken off!” The driver’s
voice was harsh, unkind. He spoke to the little French girl.
The hot fire that smouldered behind Angelo’s dark eyes blazed forth.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” he demanded in a fury. “Running
people down! Crowding them about! You with your big car! If you want to
gaze, why don’t you walk as we do?”
The car came to a halt. A deep flush had spread over the driver’s face.
Springing from the car, he launched a blow that sent the slight Italian
youth spinning into the crowd behind him.
But what was this? Hardly had the man swayed back, a leer of
satisfaction on his face, than a whirling catapult launched itself upon
him. A circle of steel closed about his neck. He found himself whirling
through space. He landed with a mighty clatter atop a pile of frying
pans and stew kettles.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, he glowered at the gathering throng as
he demanded,
“Who did that?”
For the count of ten, no one answered. Then a scrawny little Irishman,
who wore a Cross of Honor on his ragged jacket, pushed Florence forward
as he whispered hoarsely,
“Tell ’im, Miss. I’m wid y’. Me, as never lost a battle yet.”
“I did!” The girl’s words were clear and quite distinct.
A hush fell over the thickening crowd. A fight on Maxwell Street is
always an occasion. But a fight between a prosperous man and a good
looking girl! Who had seen this before?
Florence, as you will recall, was not one of those weaklings who subsist
on pickles and ice-cream in order to develop a slender figure. She
weighed one hundred and sixty, was an athletic instructor, knew a few
tricks and was hard as a rock.
There was no fight. The man looked her up and down. Then he called her a
name. It was a nasty name, seldom heard on Maxwell Street. For the
people there, though poor, are a gentle folk.
Then Maxwell Street, slow going, gentle, kindly, poverty-stricken
Maxwell Street, went mad. Who threw the first ripe tomato that struck
this prosperous insulter squarely on the jaw? No one will ever know.
Enough that it was thrown. It was followed quickly by a bushel more, and
after that by a cart load of over-ripe fish.
When at last the irate but badly beaten man of importance turned his car
southward and fled from Maxwell Street, his beautiful car was no longer
blue. It was tomato-pink and fish-yellow. And his costume matched the
car.
Then Maxwell Street indulged in a good laugh. In this laugh Angelo did
not join. He divided his attention between the business of nursing his
swollen jaw and paying the poor venders of tomatoes and fish for their
missing wares.
“Some people,” he might have been heard to grumble to himself, “talk too
much.”
“The battle of Maxwell Street!” exclaimed Merry at his elbow. Her eyes
shone. “And we won!”
“I am sure of it!” Angelo agreed heartily. “However, I am out four
dollars and sixty-five cents for fish and tomatoes.”
“But look!” Merry pointed to the battered little Irishman with the Cross
of Honor. “He is taking up a collection. You will be paid.”
“No, no! That cannot be!” True distress was in the Italian boy’s eyes.
“Stop him.”
“No. We must not!” Merry’s tone was tense with emotion. “You are their
hero. You stood up for their rights. Would you be so mean as to rob them
of the right to do homage to their hero?”
“Ah, me!” Angelo rubbed his eyes. “This is a very strange world.”
In the end he departed with a heavy sack of nickels and pennies, while
the crowd shouted their approval of the “brave little Dago.” And for
once Angelo did not hate this name they had given his people.
They had gone another block before Angelo spoke again. What he said both
puzzled and troubled the little French girl. “That whole affair,” he
said quietly, “was a _faux pas_.”
“How could it be!” she exclaimed. “I thought it quite wonderful. What
right have those big, bluffing bullies to run down poor people on
Maxwell Street?”
“None at all,” Angelo replied soberly. “But after all, the battle of
Maxwell Street is not our battle. This is a large city. Yet it is
strange the way we meet the same people again and again. If that man
really comes upon me in some other place, if he finds out what I do and
where I live, he will do his best to ruin me. That is the way of his
kind.”
Little did Angelo guess the manner in which his prophecy was to come
true, much less the manner of vengeance that would be employed.
Petite Jeanne remained silent for a moment. Then she gave Angelo’s arm
an affectionate squeeze as she answered: “I shall pray every night that
he may never see you even once again.”