You are standing on an Eighth Avenue corner, looking down a side street
toward the ugly black streak made by the Ninth Avenue elevated railroad.
You see peddlers, right hands curving at the sides of their mouths, left
hands holding pails of potatoes; a woman with a basket of wash, which
is tucked under a sheet; many fire escapes that look like a jumbling of
giant gridirons, when seen from the corner. You notice the signs over
doorways: a gilded boot; a carpenter’s sign projecting a little farther;
glazier’s sign, of stained-glass squares trying to eclipse signs of
shoemaker and carpenter; tailor’s sign almost obscuring all of them.
In the tailor-shop windows are prints of the latest fashions, labeled,
“Types of American Gents.” American gents, going to work, in overalls and
sweaters, pause to enjoy the very latest in riding, golf, and hunting
costumes, and perhaps go in to order a three-dollar pair of breeches.
The tailor shop occupies the first floor of a three-story frame house—a
grimy-looking house; its grimy clapboards are stained by streaks of rain
dripping from the rusty fire-escape.
The McGibneys lived in the second-floor rooms. McGibney was log-shaped;
he seemed as big around at his ankles as at his chest, and, though
he wore collars, it was because everyone else wore collars, and not
because his neck was perceptible. Close-cropped hair, a rather sharp
nose, bright, alert eyes, cheeks red and all other visible parts of him
pinkish. Mrs. McGibney was a plump, delicately featured little woman,
who could express most amazing firmness upon her small features. When
she had household cares, she worried; when she had household duties, she
bustled. And it would surely please you to look at Mrs. McGibney when
she worried; left forefinger beginning over the fingers of the right
hand; left forefinger lodging on right little finger, Mrs. McGibney
pausing to look into space, counting up to assure herself that the
butcher had not cheated; forefinger beginning again and dealing with the
grocer, this time; another fixed look into space to be sure the grocer
had not imagined a can of tomatoes or a pound of flour. It would please
you, because you would know that not one penny, worked so hard for by
McGibney, would be wasted. When Mrs. McGibney bustles—ah, now that is
pretty! That means a very keen sense of responsibility, nothing shirked,
nothing that will make McGibney’s comfort neglected. Bustling to the oven
door, opening and shutting it; fingers dabbing at under lip and sizzling
on under side of a flat iron; frying-pan moved back on the stove; quick,
short steps to the table to roll out breadcrumbs; dash to a window to
sharpen a knife on the sill—when Mrs. McGibney bustles!
Evening! Both of them in the cheerful kitchen. Very cheerful kitchen!
Three conch-shells, like big pink ears, up on the mantelpiece, and four
palm leaves, painted green, stuck in a flower pot, just like a bit of
Florida. The dish-pan, on the stove murmuring; a subdued rattle and
good-natured growling of bubbles forming on the bottom of the pan, and
dishes fluttering on them. The oil-cloth was bright and new-looking,
except in the corner where heavy McGibney sat. There, chair legs had
indented as if someone had beaten around at random with a hammer. And in
his corner, reading the newspaper, sat McGibney, his wife sitting beside
the table his elbow was on, frowning, puzzling, and counting her fingers.
“Yes,” said Mrs. McGibney, “I can keep expenses down to five dollars a
week, but you mustn’t charge on my book what you spend. I don’t think I
ought to mark down the cent for your newspaper, do you? I’m not going to
have my book any more than it’s got to be. I’ll cross off this two cents
for a stamp. Now, you know you oughtn’t to charge me for that; it was for
your own letter—don’t sit like that! How often have I told you you ruin
the oil-cloth?”
McGibney not only continued to tilt back and dig into the oil-cloth but
rocked himself on the hind legs of the chair; one is sometimes tempted to
torment severe little women when they are too serious.
“Oh, I don’t care; you’re not harming me. Go ahead, if you feel like
paying for new oil-cloth.” McGibney could not sit straight without some
demonstration to cover his accession; he put out fingers like tongs and
pinched just above her knee. If you are an old married man, you know just
how far from dignified and severe that immediately made McGibney. Then
McGibney sat straight, sat as if he would have sat straight anyway.
A rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney put away her account book as if it were
wrong to keep account-books; McGibney sat crooked as if it were wrong
to sit straight. No matter what one is doing, one feels that someone
else coming makes a difference. Mrs. McGibney started toward the door,
went to the stove instead, and covered the dish-pan; started again but
paused to twitch a curtain; finally got to the door and opened it, but
had glanced back twice and had motioned to McGibney to put away a bag of
crackers.
“Oh, it’s you, Clara?” exclaimed Mrs. McGibney. “Why, come right in!”
Into the room came a stocky person, with a broad, flat, amiable face.
Everything about her seemed to suggest that she was made to work hard
and suffer, usually not complain, but, quite without reasoning, flash
into short-lived rebellion against hardships now and then. Like your
impression of peasantry more than a century ago, down-trodden, without
leaders, should be your impression of Clara. In her heavy arms was a huge
bundle, done up in a sheet, four corners of the sheet hanging loose at
top. She appeared to be carrying a monstrous turnip, all white, loose
ends like white turnip-tops.
“Why, good evening!” said Clara awkwardly, turning to the right, turning
to the left, with her huge bundle, looking for a place to set it down,
but still clinging to it, her chin buried in the top of it, the big
bundle making her look like a pouter-pigeon.
“Mrs. McGibney,” said Clara, turning to the right, to the left, still
clinging, “I don’t like to ask you, knowing you ain’t got accommodations,
but could you lend me the loan of your ironing-board for the night? I’ve
flew the coop on him for good and all this time, and tomorrow will get a
room for myself; but, if you can let me have your ironing-board, I can
sleep on it here, on the floor tonight. This is my wash, which I brought
with me, not to leave him so much as a stitch that’s mine. Would it be
too much to ask for your ironing-board?”
“Why, put down that heavy bundle, Clara!” cried Mrs. McGibney, having
dabbed at the bundle, but missed it; “it’s sopping wet!”
“Sopping wet!” repeated Mrs. McGibney, as if pleased. And she was
pleased, for here was an occasion for her to bustle around the room.
Very much did Mrs. McGibney like to bustle around a room. And Clara, by
the door, sat at the table at the other end of which McGibney sat.
“It’s wet because I just took it in off the line, not to leave him
anything of mine,” said Clara. She moved uneasily in her chair. And she
winked, as if in physical distress.
“I can’t move my line, because the rain’s made it too tight,” said Mrs.
McGibney, “but we can hang up the wash here to dry. Ironing-board?
Ironing-board, how are you!” She pounced upon the huge turnip, seizing
turnip-tops, plucking them apart. “No, but we can make you comfortable
in the front room, Clara.” Sheet spread out and wash in a mound. “And
you’ve carried this with you all the way through the streets? I’ll fix up
lines.” Two parallel lines, rigged up one from each end of the table to
the opposite wall, sheets thrown over them; kitchen looking like Monday
morning in your back yard. Room divided into three compartments: Clara
in one, by the door; middle one, including the table, reserved for Mrs.
McGibney; McGibney isolated in the third. Mrs. McGibney hung wash on the
backs of chairs, and, forgetting how picture frames collect dust, jumped
up at comers of picture frames, with more wash. Then she returned to her
chair, which was in the middle compartment.
“Not bothering you too much,” began timid Clara. An expression of pain
suddenly shot across her broad face. “Oh,” she breathed, “I guess that
must be the tintypes! Anyway, don’t bother about me. Oh! yes, I’m sure
it’s the tintypes. Tintypes has such sharp corners, even if there is pink
paper frames to them. I had nowhere else to carry my belongings, which
I’d not leave behind, as I have flew the coop on him.”
Clara stuck one foot out and lifted her skirt somewhat. Untied a
handkerchief from somewhere, though I have heard that the material is
usually more elastic—never mind; in a most matter-of-fact way, Clara
untied the handkerchief. As if it were the most natural thing in the
world to do, and very serious about it, she delved and drew forth an
alarm clock, a comb, shoe-strings, a looking-glass, a tea-strainer, a box
of matches, the tintypes——
“It was the tintypes!” cried Clara. “I knew, because they got such sharp
corners and was sticking me, all the way over, most every step I took.”
Mrs. McGibney and McGibney, who drew his sheet aside, stared at the
astonishing collection on the table and then laughed heartily. Clara,
looking calm and unintelligent, drew forth a can of baking powder.
Nothing to laugh at could she see, but the others seemed amused, so she
smiled sympathetically with them.
“Yes,” said Clara, no longer timid, for it was her way to be awkward at
first and then feel as much at home as anybody, “I’ve flew the coop on
him forever. I’ve said I meant it before, but this time I do mean it.
And he can be so nice when he wants to be. You know that yourself, Mrs.
McGibney.”
“He always seemed a perfect little gentleman whenever I saw him,”
declared Mrs. McGibney.
“It’s a shame you two can’t get along better!” was heard from behind
McGibney’s sheet. “I’ve always found Tommy all right.”
And Clara exclaimed: “He’s the nicest little man in the world! This time
I have flew the coop on him forever.” She smiled at her sheet, so that no
one within hearing should be depressed, just because she had troubles.
“I don’t know!” said Clara, with her broad, slow smile, “it’s pretty hard
for a woman to come home from her day’s work, and find the man stretched
on the floor before her sleeping it off. Isn’t it?” she asked, as if by
no means sure and wishing to hear what others thought.
From behind two sheets:
“It certainly is hard!”
Rumbling up over McGibney’s sheet:
“You hadn’t ought to put up with it! It is hard!”
“Isn’t it!” cried Clara, as if crying. “There, I was right, after all!
I thought, myself, it was hard, and here’s others thinks the same. And
then, when you’re getting along nice, both working and laying by a
little, and going to buy the brass lamp in Mason’s window, and get a
whole half-ton of coal instead of by the bag, which is robbery, and then
he goes out to change the savings into one big bill which you’d never be
tempted to break, and comes back in the morning without one cent—” Clara
paused. She would not like to be ridiculed for regarding trifles too
seriously. “I don’t think he does right by me—does he?”
Both sheets agitated. Over both sheets:
“He certainly don’t do right by you!”
“Does he!” cried Clara, almost excited, also triumphant, hearing her own
suspicions verified.
“He oughter be ashamed of hisself!” rumbled McGibney.
Clara looked up, and there was a slow heavy frown, instead of the slow
heavy smile.
“There’s worse than him!” she said sharply.
“I’ll never speak to him again!” declared Mrs. McGibney.
“You might speak to worse, Mrs. McGibney. I’m sure he always spoke most
kind of you——”
“How could he speak otherwise of me?” demanded Mrs. McGibney in quick
anger.
“Now! now! now!” rumbled McGibney, thrusting his sheet aside and looking
warningly at his wife.
“Not making you a sharp answer, Mrs. McGibney,” pursued thick, slow,
heavy Clara, “he never said nothing but kind words of you. There’s lots
worse than him and he was always a good husband to me, excepting when he
was bad, and I hope I’ll never lay my two eyes onto him again.”
And Mrs. McGibney looked at the McGibney sheet as if to say, “You’d best
always keep quiet!” and her resentment was over, for she was fond of
Clara and had known her many years.
“I’ll get a pint of beer,” said McGibney. “Can I leave youse two without
there being a clinch? You like a little ale in it, don’t you, Clara?”
“Don’t never mind me!” said Clara restlessly. “I just remember I left the
gas burning and him sleeping his buns off. Do you think the gas would
go out and then start up again and not burning? I’ve heard tell of such
cases. Not meaning to go back to him, maybe I’d better go back and turn
the gas out.”
“Do go back, Clara!” urged Mrs. McGibney, feeling through the sheet for
Clara’s hand and impulsively seizing Clara’s nose, trying again for the
hand, closing fingers upon Clara’s ear, Clara leaning over, with head
near her knees, “Give him another chance. A wife’s place is at home.
Don’t mind what others tell you—your husband is dearer to you than all
the rest of the world. Go back and make him promise to do better.”
“I don’t wish him no harm,” said Clara, hesitatingly. “This time I’ve
flew the coop on him forever, even if he is the nicest little man in the
world when he has a mind to be—if I thought the gas would go out on him,
I might go back and turn down the gas, anyway.”
Oh, then, here was a fine chance for Mrs. McGibney to bustle. Down came
everything on the lines, as if it were Monday night in the back yard.
Down came everything from the backs of chairs and from picture frames.
Back into a bundle with everything! Big white turnip again, loose,
sprawling turnip-tops.
“I might try him again for a week, anyway,” decided Clara. Out and
away and back home with her big white, turnip and its pouter-pigeon
effect, too bulky for her arms to go around, her chin lost in fluttering
turnip-tops; back home with bundle, alarm clock, looking-glass, box of
baking-powder and tintypes taken one almost impossibly happy day at Coney
Island.
An evening or two later. McGibney out for a walk. Mrs. McGibney up to
her elbows in the washing that had driven him out, for if he had remained
in he would have had to carry boilers of water to the stove from the sink
in the hall. So McGibney had said, “Marietta, I ain’t getting fresh air
enough. I don’t sleep good unless I take a little walk in the evening.”
Mrs. McGibney had to fill the boiler one dishpanful at a time and that
was satisfactory to McGibney.
Rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney quickly concealed socks with holes in them
and turned to the door. Vain little Mrs. McGibney! She paused to rummage
through the wash until she found curtains. They were very fine lace
curtains. The very fine curtains were placed where a caller would surely
see them and note how very fine they were. Then Mrs. McGibney’s hand did
around and around on the door knob, hand slippery with soap-suds, until
the slipperiness wore off and she could open the door. She exclaimed:
“Why, Tommy! come right in.” The “nicest little man in the world” was an
uneasy, squirming, twisting, little man; bald-headed; Hebraic nose like
a number six inclining at forty-five degrees; chin with a dimple looking
like a bit gouged out of it; very neat; fussy. And a very polite little
man, scraping, bowing, grinning.
“Sit down, Tommy. You won’t have much room to stir. The old man is out,
but will be back almost any minute. Sit down, but first I’ll trouble you
to fill the boiler for me, if you don’t mind. How is Clara?”
Tommy seemed to scrape and bow to the boiler, before lifting it, seemed
to scrape with his right foot and bow to the wash-tub as he passed it and
went scraping and bowing down to the sink, filled the boiler, came back
with it, set it on the stove and stood grinning, prepared to scrape and
bow, if given half a chance to, until invited again to sit down.
“My!” said Mrs. McGibney, “the wash does gather on one so!”
Tommy opened his eyes wide and wrinkled his forehead to express
profoundest sympathy. Not only with eyes and forehead, but with elbows,
feet, knees and hands, it was his way to show how very attentively he
listened to anyone speaking to him; ready to laugh heartily at anything
he might be expected to smile at; equally ready to commiserate with
anybody.
“Are you feeling pretty well?”—soap dabbed on a McGibney shirt. “How
is—” laundry-brush up and down where the soap was, which was at elbows;
McGibney _would_ lean on elbows. “Clara? Is she—” up and down with the
shirt on the wash-board—“feeling pretty—” wringing out and dropping shirt
on pile, on a newspaper, “well?” Pile too high and toppling over, top
pieces falling on the floor outside the newspaper. Not a speck on them,
but rubbing over for them, anyway.
“Oh, yes, ma’am; Clara is very well. I have left her.”
“You’ve what? You’ve left her?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” said Tommy, head bobbing, shoulders, arms, knees, all
of him bobbing. “I called to see would you keep these tintypes for me?
I’m going to Maddy-gascar, where I hear there’s openings.”
“Why, Tommy, what’s the matter?”
“She don’t keep the house picked up—not saying a word against her,”
answered Tommy. “These tintypes is mine, and she can have everything
else; but these is mine, and it was my money paid for them down to Coney
Island, me and her in them, and all I got in the world I care about, and
will you keep them for me till I can send for them from Maddy-gascar?”
“Why, of course I’ll do that, Tommy; but you know you’d never do such a
thing as leave Clara. That would be very wrong of you.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, ma’am, very wrong of me! Not saying one word against
her, she lies in bed all day and won’t so much as do any sweeping.
There’s never any cooking, and I’m tired to death of the delicatessens
and rather go to Maddy-gascar and eat spiders, me going in the spider-web
industry there. She don’t do no wash like you, Mrs. McGibney, but just
rinses out in cold water. She’s so lazy she washes dishes by rubbing
newspapers on them. That ain’t so bad as when she does wash them; she
washes clothes in the dish-pan and then washes dishes after them—not that
I’d say one word against her. So, will you mind the tintypes with her and
me in them, ma’am? They’re all I have to care about, ma’am.”
“Oh, now Tommy—” But how could one possibly argue with Tommy? With eyes
and forehead and elbows and knees, he would most emphatically agree with
everything said to him.
“Your wife is a very good woman.”
Of course she was! Best in the city! Best in the whole world! But would
Mrs. McGibney care for the tintypes?
“It’s very wrong of you, Tommy!”
Wrong? Shocking! Heartless! Wicked, shocking, heartless Tommy! Of course
he was, and he admitted every word of it; but would Mrs. McGibney take
care of the tintypes until he could send from “Maddy-gascar” for them?
Tommy left the tintypes on the mantelpiece, hoping he was disturbing
nothing by so doing; imploring Mrs. McGibney not to bother with them
if she thought they would take up too much room, begging her to throw
them in the ashes or burn them, or jump on them if they should be the
slightest annoyance to her; then he went away.
Back in five minutes. Well, after all, “Maddy-gascar” was pretty far away
and he had heard stories about the Esquimaux there, so he would take the
tintypes back with him; Clara might wonder where they were. Five minutes
later. Back again. Perhaps Mrs. McGibney had better not say anything to
anyone about the tintype matter. Bowing, bobbing, scraping.
Oh, not a word would Mrs. McGibney say! Rest assured of that! Indeed, she
had quite enough to do in attending to her own affairs. Mrs. McGibney
promised to say nothing, and like a busy little housewife with too much
to do to waste time gossiping, breathed not a word of it till McGibney
came in.
“It’s all Tommy’s fault!” said McGibney.
“I’m afraid Clara is a good deal to blame,” said Mrs. McGibney.
“Oh, yes, always stand up for the man, of course!”
“Oh, yes, take the woman’s part every time, won’t you?”
The next time the McGibneys saw Clara, there was no persuading her to go
home. She had no home.
“Because,” said Clara, “when we found there wasn’t no use in our trying
to get along together, we just broke up and gave away everything in the
rooms and went down the stairs and down the stoop together. We didn’t so
much as say good-bye nor nothing; he went up the street and I went down.”
“That’s right!” declared McGibney, “when two people can’t get along
together, it’s best for them to part, I say!”
“You say!” cried indignant Mrs. McGibney. And scornful Mrs. McGibney!
“Well, I’m entitled to speak, ain’t I?” grumbled McGibney.
“No!” firmly. “Leastwise, not when you talk like that.” She looked her
scorn and continued:
“No, Clara, there’s nobody dearer to any woman than her own husband.”
Looked at McGibney as if he were a pile of wash just toppled over into
the ash-pan. “Your husband will be with you when others are far away.”
Looked at him as if he were two piles of wash toppled over into three
ash-pans. “There ain’t any luck in any such advice as he’s giving you.
I know how I love my own dear husband, and you know you’re the same,
and you’ll find what the world is when you’re alone in it.” Glared her
indignation, scorn, contempt for McGibney, who mumbled, with an air of
sagacity, astonishing to himself:
“Ain’t wimmen the queer things, though!”
“I’ve flew the coop on him forever!” said Clara, with her broad, amiable,
unintelligent smile. “I got a little hall room for myself, and—me go back
to him? Oh, my! is that a step on the stairs? I wouldn’t wish it, not for
the world, for him to find me here! I never want to see the face of him
again!” Clara looked around for a place to hide; ran to the door of the
front room, and, with her hand on the knob, stood listening.
“’Tain’t him! It’s someone going upstairs,” she said, smiling her relief.
“I’ll never go back to him.”
A week later. Clara again. And Clara was out of breath.
“Oh, Mrs. McGibney, has the man come yet? I thought I saw him over on
Ninth Avenue, and I run clear around the block for fear he’d be after
me and track me here. I was just buying a bit of furniture and going to
start rooms for myself, when I get a few bits together. And is it too
much to ask you to store them for me till I get rooms, Mrs. McGibney?”
“We’re only too glad—” began Mrs. McGibney.
“Oh, on your life, don’t stir! It’s him! He mustn’t know where I am,
or he might try to get me back! I don’t never want to see him again!”
whispered Clara. “On your life, not giving no orders, don’t stir, or
he’ll know you’re in and see me here.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Oh, my! Look out—would he hear us?”
Out in the hall:
“McGibney! Anyone know where McGibney lives?”
“Oh!” breathed Clara, “that’s all right. It’s the furniture men.”
And two men from a Ninth Avenue furniture store came in with a bureau.
At least they set it in the hall, and turned to hasten down the stairs;
paused to do little better than that, and rolled the bureau half way into
the room; turned to run back to the store, but, in turning, thrust back
with their heels, and pushed the bureau quite into the room, which was
conscientious enough delivering of goods to suit anybody.
“I bought that!” said Clara, proudly. The bureau was rolled into the
front room, and she helped, her hands caressing more than pushing. There
was no back to the bureau. The varnish was worn off. Some one had broken
open the top drawer, splintering the wood on each side of the keyhole.
“It’s mine!” said Clara rapturously. “It took three days of hard
scrubbing on hands and knees, for me to buy that. It’ll be every bit
as good as new, with a few boards nailed on the back, and a little oil
rubbed over it.”
The bureau was rolled to a corner of the front room, but Clara could not
leave it, hovering over it, stooping and pulling out drawers, one by one,
gazing delightedly at the disgraceful old wreck.
“Yes!” said Clara. “The other day when I was scrubbing the restaurant
floor, there was customers looking at me, and they says, ‘Look at that
poor woman! Ain’t some got hard lots in life!’ They needn’t of pitied me!
I was earning that! Just a few boards and a little oil is all it needs,
and I’ll get as fine a home together as anybody’s got—what’s that?”
Clara ran to the kitchen to listen.
“I’m so afraid he’ll find me that I do be hearing sounds all the time!”
she said. “Ain’t that bureau something elegant? I’ll have my own bit of a
home and never see him again.” Then, as McGibney came out to the kitchen,
shutting the front-room door behind him, she asked;
“Ain’t that sounds of excitement in the street? Maybe there’s a fire!”
Clara ran to the front room and pretended to look out the window. She had
heard nothing; it was only a pretext to get back to the disgraceful old
wreck. On her own hands and knees she had earned it.
“Ain’t it nice!” said Clara, ecstatically. “I got my eye on a gilt-framed
mirror I’ll buy next week. It’s nice, ain’t it?”
Clara went away. Back in five minutes.
“I guess maybe I left my rolled-up apron in the front room.” Whether she
had or not, she stood looking at the bureau; turned to go; looked again;
moved it to get a better light on it; stepped toward the door; paused
and looked back.
“I bought that!”
And she went away, leaving McGibney standing in the front room. With an
expression of deep melancholy he stood looking at the clumsy, broken
bureau. He looked at his best furniture surrounding it—fragile, gilded
chairs, on a big rug better than any other rug in the neighborhood—a
sideboard with French plate glass in it; the very fine curtains. He was
a log-shaped man, and not remarkably æsthetic, but his eye was sorely
offended.
“Oh, well,” said the melancholy, log-shaped man, “if us poor folks
don’t help each other, who will?” And the eye of Mrs. McGibney was
equally offended; but Mrs. McGibney was not melancholy, for here was an
opportunity for her to bustle. Out with the sofa and around in front
of the bureau! The standing lamp placed where it would help to conceal
the bureau. To hide the bureau was quite a problem, but Mrs. McGibney
rejoiced in it. She bustled.
The next Saturday night Clara bought a wicker rocking-chair.
Fearful-looking old rocking-chair! Interstices of it filled with white
paint; all paint worn off wherever arms, legs, and backs had rested on it.
“It’s nice, ain’t it?” said Clara, dreamily, fondly.
McGibney sat straight, as if he had just dug through the oil-cloth and
feared reprimanding. Then he fell back limply.
“Yes, ve-ry,” he said, without enthusiasm.
“It’ll fill out your front room nice, while I’m waiting for it, won’t it?”
“Oh, ye-es; it’ll be ve-ry nice.”
“And so comfortable!” said Clara. She sat in the chair and clumsily
rocked it. “Try it, Mrs. McGibney! You ain’t got no idea how comfortable
it is. You sit in it, Mr. McGibney. Just lie back and push with your feet
and see what a comfort it is. My! I can just see myself in it, me with my
shoes off and resting after the day. Such comfort in it! I don’t guess I
ever made such a bargain before. But what do you think? That mirror I was
so set on was bought! That’s mean, ain’t it? I was awful provoked when
I heard it. Just the same, I got my eye on a stove that’s fine and well
worth the four dollars they ask for it. It’s all nickel in front, and
only one of the bricks broken, and can be fixed with five cents’ worth of
fire-clay. It’ll look nice in your front room, won’t it?”
“Ve-ry nice!” answered distressed McGibney.
Clara got up to go. Had to sink back and take another rock in the chair,
so comfortable after the day’s work, and one’s shoes off. It was indeed
worth scrubbing for! Up to go. Well, just one more rock—away back and
slowly down again, you know. And you, too, look again at it! My! but what
a bargain! And Clara bought it! On her own hands and knees she had earned
it. Before going away, Clara lingered at the door. Perhaps they would
laugh at her if she should take another rock, but she might look at the
chair for another moment.
“Ain’t this pretty oil-cloth you got!” Looking only at the chair.
“I must get a kitchen table like yours.” Looking only at her own
rocking-chair. She left McGibney staring gloomily, but saying, sturdily:
“Us poor folks must help each other!”
Mrs. McGibney bustled.
It was a different Clara when seen again. Her face was flushed; the
unintelligent but soft eyes were like eyes that could not see outward
things, as if they were engaged in the unusual occupation of looking
within at her own mind. Convince Clara that she had a grievance, and
thick, obstinate brooding replaced uncomplaining stolidity.
By force of habit, Clara’s slow, amiable smile flickered, but her eyes
were as if turned upon brooding within.
“Someone’s did that a-purpose!” said Clara, slowly, deliberately,
staring, seeming to see neither McGibney nor Mrs. McGibney. “Me that
thought I didn’t have a enemy in the world! Where would I get a enemy,
me always kind to everybody? I had my heart set on that stove that only
needed a little fire-clay. Someone’s bought it, just to annoy me. When
the mirror went, I didn’t think nothing of it, but the stove too, is to
annoy me. They won’t make nothing by that, and bad luck will come upon
them for it.”
“Why, Clara, it only happened that way,” reasoned Mrs. McGibney. “Nobody
would go and be as mean as that to you, specially as they’d have to spend
money.”
“It’s tricks done me!” declared sullen, dogged Clara. “Oh, there’s
somebody at the door. Maybe it’s him after me. Say I’m not here, Mrs.
McGibney! On your life, don’t let him find me! I got to work for my
living, anyway, and I’ll work for myself and not divide with no man.
Never—oh, I guess it’s the kitchen table!”
“A kitchen table, Clara?” demanded McGibney. “Did you say a kitchen
table?”
“Yes!” said Clara, brightening. “It’s nice! You can put it in the centre
of your front room and maybe have ornaments onto it. It’s a very nice
kitchen table.”
Door opened; a table thrust into the room; heels flying down the stairs.
“Don’t you think it’s nice?” Clara asked eagerly.
“Nice?” repeated honest McGibney. “Oh, is that the table?”
Scratched legs to it; two plain boards forming the top of it; heads of
nails sunk in the boards, and once filled with putty; putty fallen out.
Clara shook it to show that the legs were firm. She would varnish
it and cover it with a beautiful table cover she had seen in the
five-and-ten-cent store, though there was one just as good in the
three-and-nine-cent store.
“Next week,” said brightened Clara, “it’s going to be portcheers.
They’re chenille and grand for a doorway. No room ain’t complete without
portcheers.” She again shook the table to show how firm the legs were and
then went away.
McGibney and Mrs. McGibney stood out on the front stoop of the
rust-stained frame house, looking at the tailor, who was putting up a new
sign: “Pants pressed, ten cents. Full-dress suits cleaned and pressed,
one dollar.” McGibney thought of “full-dress” suits and looked down the
street, at rags and dirt and ashes. It was Saturday night and they were
going over to Ninth Avenue, to Paddy’s Market. Along came Clara, reaching
the stoop, starting up the stoop, half up the stoop before she saw the
McGibneys.
“Oh, is it you?” said Clara, with only the beginning of the slow, amiable
smile.
“The portcheers is gone!” she said, without excitement. “My heart was
set on them—the portcheers has gone. Would you say to me, now, that it
only happens that way, Mrs. McGibney? Is there somebody playing mean, low
tricks on me, or ain’t there? Does three times in succession just happen?
The portcheers was bought last Monday. Was that only accident? Oh, but
I came around to see would you lend me fifty cents? There’s a hat-rack
I want. It’s meant for a front hall, but the mirror in it is nice and
there’s a bit of marble to it, and it’ll look nice in my rooms, where,
to my longest day, no man’ll ever hang his hat on it, unless you, Mr.
McGibney, when you and Mrs. McGibney come and see me. I don’t like to ask
you for fifty cents, Mrs. McGibney, and you just going to do your bit of
marketing.”
“There’s fifty dollars in the bank that you can have any time you say so,
Clara!” exclaimed McGibney.
“We’d rather have you owing it than have it in the bank, Clara,” said
Mrs. McGibney, “because the bank might bust.”
Clara looked embarrassed. “Don’t you want to come look at the hat-rack?”
she asked. “It’ll set your front room off fine!” The McGibneys pinched
each other’s arms, as if saying, “Oh, Lord, preserve us!” All three went
down the street toward Ninth Avenue, Clara preferring one side of the
street; then, thinking the other side was darker, choosing the darker
side so that if they should meet “him” he might not recognize them.
Torches on wagons, wagonloads of oranges, twenty for twenty-five cents;
pairs of rabbits slung on headless barrels, plump rabbits hanging
outside, furry rags, shot to pieces, inside the barrels; piles of soup
greens and mounds of cabbages; cries of “Everything cheap! Only a few
more left!” Paddy’s Market! Then the second-hand furniture store, with
bed springs and pillows outside it; stoves with covers and legs in the
ovens; rolls of matting; everything second-hand, even crockery and
tea-kettles. Clara went into the store, Mrs. McGibney having paused to
dig a thumb-nail into potatoes to see whether they were frozen, McGibney
lingering with her, because he would have to carry the potatoes.
Clara came back to the sidewalk. Again her eyes were unseeing. “The
hat-rack,” said Clara, staring at nothing visible, “is sold. I ain’t been
gone from here ten minutes. It’s sold. Everything I got my heart on is
sold. I don’t know who’s doing it, but they’ll never have a day’s luck
for it.”
“But what could I do, lady?” The furniture man came cringing out to her.
“You know you didn’t leave no deposit. Would you like to look at some
mats for your front hall? You didn’t leave no deposit, so what could I
do? I got a very heavy, rich and elegant mat here for your front hall;
though the number of a house is onto it.”
“Look here, Jack,” said McGibney. “Who’s buying up all the things this
lady looks at? Is it any particular party?”
“Come to think of it, it is,” answered the furniture man. “He’s the gent
took the unfurnished rooms upstairs. ‘What’s he look like?’ Well, he bows
most polite every time my wife waits on him and I see his head was some
bald——”
“Wait for me!” said Clara. “Up on the next floor, you say? Just only wait
one minute for me, Mrs. McGibney, and I’ll only go to tell him what I
think of this latest meanness he’s playing me. Then I’ll be through with
him forever. This is the last trick he’ll play me!” And she went to the
stairs leading to the rooms over the store.
“It must be Tommy,” said McGibney.
“And I always took him for such a perfect little gentleman,” was Mrs.
McGibney’s comment.
“Just wait a minute!” Clara had said; but, after several minutes,
McGibney became uneasy.
“I’ll go up and see,” he said. “It maybe ain’t Tommy, and Clara may start
mixing it with some stranger that’s got as much right to the furniture as
her.”
But it was Tommy, for, as the McGibneys went up the stairs, Clara’s
words, plainly audible, told them so.
“Never!” they heard—“Was it my dying day, I’d never forgive you. It was
too cruel and I’ll never forget it.”
“Ain’t she the stubborn thing!” snapped Mrs. McGibney.
“Did I live to be as old as Mickthusalem, I’d not forgive you for it!
Oh, Tommy, how could you go up the street when I went down? To treat me
so! Don’t never mind nothing else; play me tricks and scold me and don’t
do right nor anywheres near right, but how could you do that? Oh, Tommy,
how could you go up the street when I went down? Me expecting your feet
after me every second, me looking back at the corner. You going up, and
me going down! Rob me of them portcheers I see you got there, and play me
tricks with that mirror, and do like you want to about all the hall-racks
in the world, but you never come to find me when I was hiding away! Have
the red portcheers and welcome to everything my heart was set on, but you
never come to me when I was hiding, and how could I tell you where I was
hiding away? Oh, I been so unhappy without you, Tommy; there’s nobody
got any sympathy for a deserted wife, but just a jeer at her and say,
‘No wonder he left, if you take one look at her big platter face’—but my
eyes is nice and my hair is lovely, I was always told. Take away the red
portcheers my heart was set on, Tommy, and I know you don’t love me,
but we belong to each other, just the same, but don’t—oh, if you ain’t
looking to break my heart—don’t never again go up a street when I’m going
down!”
The McGibneys saw them standing in the centre of the room, arms about
each other, hands patting each other’s shoulder-blades.
Tommy began to whimper. Arms mothered him. Steady tapping away on his
shoulder-blades. Then Tommy blubbered outright:
“Oh, Clara, I been missable! I been missable something fierce, living
alone! I ain’t ate nor slept, but been working straight along and got
a good job and doing pretty good, and so much as a day’s work you’ll
never have to do. No! not if it’s your longest day!” A bow and a bob
and a scrape, for he had discovered the McGibneys standing irresolute
in the hall. He continued to blubber and he continued to tap away at
shoulder-blades.
“But why didn’t you come to find me, Tommy, when I was hiding away? I
told the Finnigans and everybody, so you must of known where I was hiding
away!”
Clara would not have seen a hundred McGibneys. Clara was tapping most
mightily with both hands upon shoulder-blades.
“On account of the brass lamp!” blubbered Tommy. A bob and a bow and a
scrape! “I done fierce bad spending our savings that was for the brass
lamp, and I couldn’t go find you where you was hid till I had that here,
in this new home, for you to see, and be complete, and then you’d know
I was sorry and it would prove I was going to do right. But it wasn’t
tricks, Clara! Honest, it wasn’t tricks! Me standing on the other side
of the street, and looking in the store window at you, and no overcoat,
because I needed every cent to show I was going to do right. And you look
at the mirror. I say, ‘Clara likes that mirror. Then Clara must have
that!’ Me standing with my toes all pinched up, as my shoes is bad, and
you looking at them red portcheers. Then Clara must have red portcheers!
Me jumping up and down, like I’m froze, but standing there every Saturday
night to see what Clara likes and Clara’s going to have that!” Bobbing,
bowing, and scraping toward the hall, from Tommy; from Clara, rather a
look of resentment toward the hall.
A final tap on shoulder blades and: “Why, come in and see where we’re
going to start up again!”
“Ain’t it strange!” said calm, stolid Clara. “He found me, after all!”
And from all four of them, and all four meaning every word:
“In all the world, there ain’t nobody like your own! If it ain’t but big
enough to hold a trunk, there’s no place like your own!”
“And,” said supremely happy Tommy and Clara, “now we’ll celebrate!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Will It Keep Them Off?_
_Carter, in New York American_]
_The Money Power_
“All things come to him that waits.” Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when
the Farmers’ Alliance was flourishing throughout the West and South, it
was a matter of common occurrence to hear some old horny-handed farmer,
on a Saturday at the county seat, disputing with his neighbor about
existing conditions. Almost invariably the Alliance man blamed the “money
power” for causing things to go criss-cross. Occasionally the country
merchant or small banker would butt into the discussion. “The money
power,” he would say, with infinite scorn, “Humph! Why, you poor fool,
there ain’t any such thing as ‘the money power.’ Might as well talk of
the agricultural power, or the mercantile power. There are rich bankers
and rich farmers and rich merchants—but that don’t make them a ‘power’ in
the sense you use that term.”
For a number of years the “money power” has been given a much needed rest
in the West and South. Most of the pioneers there have substituted the
term “plutocracy.” But in the East reformers are just now beginning to
sit up and take notice. One hears the term frequently. “Roosevelt,” said
Jacob Riis, in a recent interview in the _New York Herald_, “is fighting
the greatest tyrant of them all. Slavery affected only the South, but the
Money Power means the enslavement of all human beings and all homes.”
Many an old, long-whiskered farmer said the same thing just as well
fifteen years ago—and the _Herald_ called him an anarchist.
“The Senate,” says Ernest Crosby in the March _Cosmopolitan_, “is now the
agent of the Money Power—the representative of Wall Street.” Absolutely
true; and no one can doubt the sincerity of either Mr. Crosby or the
_Cosmopolitan_; but when the farmers of the West and South said the same
thing fifteen years ago, they were greeted with hoots and jeers from the
East. I don’t say that Messrs. Riis and Crosby joined in the hooting and
jeering; I am quite sure they did not; but they are accorded a respectful
hearing in making statements for the making of which thousands of
respectable men fifteen years ago were branded as anarchists, wild-eyed
fanatics, lunatics, and so forth.
The world _do move_.