coming--lay for a mile on the upper land, and its grain fields and pastures
looked down into the valley. The buildings, however, were set close to the
road and fixed their interest on such occasional wagons as creaked by. A
Switzer occupied the farm, who owned, in addition to the more immediate
members of his family, a cuckoo clock whose weights hung on long cords
which by Saturday night reached almost to the floor. When I have sat at his
table, I have neglected cheese and the lesser foods, when the hour came
near, in order not to miss the cuckoo's popping out. And in the duller
spaces, when the door was shut, I have fancied it sitting in the dark and
counting the minutes to itself.
The Switzer's specialty was the making of a kind of rubber cheese which one
could learn to like in time. Of the processes of its composition, I can
remember nothing except that when it was in the great press the whey ran
from its sides, but this may be common to all cheeses. I was once given a
cup of this whey to drink and I brightened, for until it was in my mouth,
I thought it was buttermilk. Beyond was the spring-house with cans of milk
set in the cool water and with a trickling sound beneath the boards. From
the spring-house there started those mysterious cow-paths that led down
into the great gorge that cut the farm. Here were places so deep that only
a bit of the sky showed and here the stones were damp. It was a place that
seemed to lie nearer to the confusion when the world was made, and rocks
lay piled as though a first purpose had been broken off. And to follow a
cow-path, regardless of where it led, was, in those days, the essence of
hazard; though all the while from the pastures up above there came the flat
safe tinkling of the bells.
The apple orchard--where Dolly was stung by the bee--was set on a fine
breezy place at the brow of the hill with the valley in full sight. The
trees themselves were old and decayed, but they were gnarled and crotched
for easy climbing. And the apples--in particular a russet--mounted to a
delicacy. On the other side of the valley, a half mile off as a bird would
fly, were the buildings of a convent, and if you waited you might hear
the twilight bell. To this day all distant bells come to my ears with a
pleasing softness, as though they had been cast in a quieter world. Stone
arrow-heads were found in a near-by field as often as the farmer turned up
the soil in plowing. And because of this, a long finger of land that put
off to the valley, was called Indian Point. Here, with an arm for pillow,
one might lie for a long hour on a sunny morning and watch the shadows of
clouds move across the lowland. A rooster crows somewhere far off--surely
of all sounds the drowsiest. A horse in a field below lifts up its head and
neighs. The leaves practice a sleepy tune. If one has the fortune to keep
awake, here he may lie and think the thoughts that are born of sun and
wind.
And now, although it is not yet noon, hunger rages in us. The pancakes, the
syrup, the toast and the other incidents of breakfast have disappeared
the way the rabbit vanishes when the magician waves his hand. The horrid
Polyphemus did not so crave his food. And as yet there is no comforting
sniff from the kitchen. Scrubbing and other secular matters engage the
farmer's wife. There is as yet not a faintest gurgle in the kettle.
To divert ourselves, we climb three trees and fall out of one. Is twelve
o'clock never to come? Have Time and the Hour grown stagnant? We eat apples
and throw the cores at the pig to hear him grunt. Is the great round sun
stuck? Have the days of Joshua come again? We walk a rail fence. Is it not
yet noon? Shrewsbury clock itself--reputed by scholars the slowest of all
possible clocks--could not so hold off. I snag myself--but it is nothing
that shows when I sit.
Ah! At last! My grandfather is calling from the house. We run back and
find that the lunch is ready and is laid upon a table with a red oil-cloth
cover. We apply ourselves. Silence....
The journey home started about five o'clock. There was one game we always
played. Each of us, having wisely squinted at the sky, made a reckoning and
guessed where we would be when the sun set. My grandfather might say the
high bridge. I named the Sherman House. But my brother, being precise,
judged it to a fraction of a telegraph pole. Beyond a certain turn--did we
remember?--well, it would be exactly sixteen telegraph poles further on.
What an excitement there was when the sun's lower rim was already below the
horizon! We stood on our knees and looked through the little window at
the back of the phaeton. With what suspicion we regarded my grandfather's
driving! Or if Dolly lagged, did it not raise a thought that she, too, was
in the plot against us? The sun sets. We cry out the victor.
The sky flames with color. Then deadens in the east. The dusk is falling.
The roads grow dark. Where run the roads of night? While there is light,
you can see the course they keep across the country--the dust of horses'
feet--a bridge--a vagrant winding on a hill beyond. All day long they are
busy with the feet of men and women and children shouting. Then twilight
comes, and the roads lead home to supper and the curling smoke above the
roof. But at night where run the roads? It's dark beyond the candle's
flare--where run the roads of night.
My brother and I have become sleepy. We lop over against my grandfather--
We awake with a start. There is a gayly lighted horse-car jingling beside
us. The street lights show us into harbor. We are home at last.
The Man Of Grub Street Comes From His Garret
I have come to live this winter in New York City and by good fortune I
have found rooms on a pleasant park. This park, which is but one block in
extent, is so set off from the thoroughfares that it bears chiefly the
traffic that is proper to the place itself. Grocery carts jog around and
throw out their wares. Laundry wagons are astir. A little fat tailor on an
occasion carries in an armful of newly pressed clothing with suspenders
hanging. Dogs are taken out to walk but are held in leash, lest a taste of
liberty spoil them for an indoor life. The center of the park is laid out
with grass and trees and pebbled paths, and about it is a high iron fence.
Each house has a key to the enclosure. Such social infection, therefore, as
gets inside the gates is of our own breeding. In the sunny hours nurses and
children air themselves in this grass plot. Here a gayly painted wooden
velocipede is in fashion. At this minute there are several pairs of fat
legs a-straddle this contrivance. It is a velocipede as it was first made,
without pedals. Beau Brummel--for the velocipede dates back to him--may
have walked forth to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells on a vehicle not
far different, but built to his greater stature. There is also a trickle
of drays and wagons across the park--a mere leakage from the streets, as
though the near-by traffic in the pressure had burst its pipes. But only at
morning and night when the city collects or discharges its people, are the
sidewalks filled. Then for a half hour the nozzle of the city plays a full
stream on us.
The park seems to be freer and more natural than the streets outside. A man
goes by gesticulating as though he practiced for a speech. A woman adjusts
her stocking on the coping below the fence with the freedom of a country
road. A street sweeper, patched to his office, tunes his slow work to fit
the quiet surroundings. Boys skate by or cut swirls upon the pavement in
the privilege of a playground.
My work--if anything so pleasant and unforced can carry the name--is
done at a window that overlooks this park. Were it not for several high
buildings in my sight I might fancy that I lived in one of the older
squares of London. There is a look of Thackeray about the place as though
the Osbornes might be my neighbors. A fat man who waddles off his steps
opposite, if he would submit to a change of coat, might be Jos Sedley
starting for his club to eat his chutney. If only there were a crest above
my bell-pull I might even expect Becky Sharp in for tea. Or occasionally I
divert myself with the fancy that I am of a still older day and that I have
walked in from Lichfield--I choose the name at hazard--with a tragedy in my
pocket, to try my fortune. Were it not for the fashion of dress in the park
below and some remnant of reason in myself, I could, in a winking moment,
persuade myself that my room is a garret and my pen a quill. On such
delusion, before I issued on the street to seek my coffee-house, I would
adjust my wig and dust myself of snuff.
But for my exercise and recreation--which for a man of Grub Street is
necessary in the early hours of afternoon when the morning fires have
fallen--I go outside the park. I have a wide choice for my wanderings. I
may go into the district to the east and watch the children play against
the curb. If they pitch pennies on the walk I am careful to go about, for
fear that I distract the throw. Or if the stones are marked for hop-scotch,
I squeeze along the wall. It is my intention--from which as yet my
diffidence withholds me--to present to the winner of one of these contests
a red apple which I shall select at a corner stand. Or an ice wagon pauses
in its round, and while the man is gone there is a pleasant thieving of
bits of ice. Each dirty cheek is stuffed as though a plague of mumps had
fallen on the street. Or there may be a game of baseball--a scampering
on the bases, a home-run down the gutter--to engage me for an inning.
Or shinny grips the street. But if a street organ comes--not a mournful
one-legged box eked out with a monkey, but a big machine with an extra man
to pull--the children leave their games. It was but the other day that I
saw six of them together dancing on the pavement to the music, with skirts
and pigtails flying. There was such gladness in their faces that the
musician, although he already had his nickel, gave them an extra tune. It
was of such persuasive gayety that the number of dancers at once went up to
ten and others wiggled to the rhythm. And for myself, although I am past my
sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a
fox-trot. Even a surly tune--if the handle be quickened--comes from the box
with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it
came out a dancing measure.
In this part of town, on the better streets, I sometimes study the fashions
as I see them in the shops and I compare them with those of uptown stores.
Nor is there the difference one might suppose. The small round muff that
sprang up this winter in the smarter shops won by only a week over the
cheaper stores. Tan gaiters ran a pretty race. And I am now witness to
a dead heat in a certain kind of fluffy rosebud dress. The fabrics are
probably different, but no matter how you deny it, they are cut to a common
pattern.
In a poorer part of the city still nearer to the East River, where
smells of garlic and worse issue from cellarways, I came recently on
a considerable park. It was supplied with swings and teeters and drew
children on its four fronts. Of a consequence the children of many races
played together. I caught a Yiddish answer to an Italian question. I fancy
that a child here could go forth at breakfast wholly a Hungarian and come
home with a smack of Russian or Armenian added. The general games that
merged the smaller groups, aided in the fusion. If this park is not already
named--a small chance, for it shows the marks of age--it might properly be
called _The Park of the Thirty Nations_.
Or my inclination may take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling
I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty
stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an endeavor to compute
the amount that is laid up inside. Also, lest I become discontented with my
poverty, I note the strain and worry of the faces that I meet. There is a
story of Tolstoi in which a man is whispered by his god that he may possess
such land as he can circle in a day. Until that time he had been living on
a fertile slope of sun and shadow, with fields ample for his needs. But
when the whisper came, at a flash, he pelted off across the hills. He ran
all morning, but as the day advanced his sordid ambition broadened and he
turned his course into a wider and still wider circle. Here a pleasant
valley tempted him and he bent his path to bring it inside his mark. Here
a fruitful upland led him off. As the day wore on he ran with a greater
fierceness, because he knew he would lose everything if he did not reach
his starting place before the sun went down. The sun was coming near the
rim of earth when he toiled up the last hill. His feet were cut by stones,
his face pinched with agony. He staggered toward the goal and fell across
it while as yet there was a glint of light. But his effort burst his heart.
Does the analogy hold on these narrow streets? To a few who sit in an inner
office, Mammon has made a promise of wealth and domination. These few run
breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten
thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their
ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas,
before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they too
are broken at the sunset.
Less oppressive are the streets where commerce is more apparent. Here,
unless you would be smirched, it is necessary to walk fast and hold your
coat-tails in. Packing cases are going down slides. Bales are coming up in
hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is
the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has?
English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here
its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the
boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain
Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had kept the
place.
Often I ride on a bus top like a maharajah on an elephant, up near the
tusks, as it were, where the view is unbroken. I plan this trip so that I
move counter to the procession that goes uptown in the late afternoon. Is
there a scene like it in the world? The boulevards of Paris in times of
peace are hardly so gay. Fifth Avenue is blocked with motor cars. Fashion
has gone forth to select a feather. A ringlet has gone awry and must be
mended. The Pomeranian's health is served by sunlight. The Spitz must have
an airing. Fashion has wagged its head upon a Chinese vase--has indeed
squinted at it through a lorgnette against a fleck--and now lolls home to
dinner. Or style has veered an inch, and it has been a day of fitting. At
restaurant windows one may see the feeding of the over-fed. Men sit in club
windows and still wear their silk hats as though there was no glass between
them and the windy world. Footmen in boots and breeches sit as stiffly as
though they were toys grown large and had metal spikes below to hold them
to their boxes. They look like the iron firemen that ride on nursery
fire-engines. For all these sights the bus top is the best place.
And although we sit on a modest roof, the shopkeepers cater to us. For in
many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The
commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the
waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as
sweet a simper.
My friend G---- while riding recently on a bus top met with an experience
for which he still blushes.
There was a young woman sitting directly in front of him, and when he came
to leave, a sudden lurch threw him against her. When he recovered his
footing, which was a business of some difficulty, for the bus pitched upon
a broken pavement, what was his chagrin to find that a front button of
his coat had hooked in her back hair! Luckily G---- was not seized with a
panic. Rather, he labored cautiously--but without result. Nor could
she help in the disentanglement. Their embarrassment might have been
indefinitely prolonged--indeed, G---- was several blocks already down the
street--when he bethought him of his knife and so cut off the button. As he
pleasantly expressed it to the young woman, he would give her the choice of
the button or the coat entire.
Reader, are you inclined toward ferry boats? I cannot include those persons
who journey on them night and morning perfunctorily. These persons keep
their noses in their papers or sit snugly in the cabin. If the market is
up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river.
Nor do I entirely blame them. If one kept shop on a breezy tip of the
Delectable Mountains with all the regions of the world laid out below,
he could not be expected to climb up for the hundredth time with a first
exhilaration, or to swing his alpenstock as though he were on a rare
holiday. If one had business across the Styx too often--although the
scenery on its banks is reputed to be unusual--he might in time sit below
and take to yawning. Father Charon might have to jog his shoulder to rouse
him when the boat came between the further piers.
But are you one of those persons who, not being under a daily compulsion,
rides upon a ferry boat for the love of the trip? Being in this class
myself, I laid my case the other night before the gateman, and asked
his advice regarding routes. He at once entered sympathetically into my
distemper and gave me a plan whereby with but a single change of piers
I might at an expense of fourteen cents cross the river four times at
different angles.
It was at the end of day and a light fog rested on the water. Nothing was
entirely lost, yet a gray mystery wrapped the ships and buildings. If New
Jersey still existed it was dim and shadowy as though its real life had
gone and but a ghost remained. Ferry boats were lighted in defiance of the
murk, and darted here and there at reckless angles. An ocean liner was
putting out, and several tugs had rammed their noses against her sides.
There is something engaging about a tug. It snorts with eagerness. It kicks
and splashes. It bursts itself to lend a hand. And how it butts with its
nose! Surely its forward cartilages are of triple strength, else in its
zest it would jam its nasal passages.
Presently we came opposite lower New York. Although the fog concealed the
outlines of the buildings, their lights showed through. This first hour of
dark is best, before the day's work is done and while as yet all of the
windows are lighted. The Woolworth Tower was suffused in a soft and shadowy
light. The other buildings showed like mountains of magic pin-pricks. It
was as though all the constellations of heaven on a general bidding had met
for conference.
The man of Grub Street, having by this time somewhat dispelled the fumes of
dullness from his head, descends from his ferry boat and walks to his quiet
park. There is a dull roar from the elevated railway on Third Avenue where
the last of the day's crowd goes home. The sidewalks are becoming empty.
There is a sheen of water on the pavement. In the winter murk there is a
look of Thackeray about the place as though the Sedleys or the Osbornes
might be his neighbors. If there were a crest above his bell-pull he might
even expect Becky Sharp in for tea.
Now that Spring is here
When the sun set last night it was still winter. The persons who passed
northward in the dusk from the city's tumult thrust their hands deep into
their pockets and walked to a sharp measure. But a change came in the
night. The north wind fell off and a breeze blew up from the south. Such
stars as were abroad at dawn left off their shrill winter piping--if it be
true that stars really sing in their courses--and pitched their voices to
April tunes. One star in particular that hung low in the west until the day
was up, knew surely that the Spring had come and sang in concert with the
earliest birds. There is a dull belief that these early birds shake off
their sleep to get the worm. Rather, they come forth at this hour to cock
their ears upon the general heavens for such new tunes as the unfaded
stars still sing. If an ear is turned down to the rummage of worms in the
earth--for to the superficial, so does the attitude attest--it is only that
the other ear may be turned upward to catch the celestial harmonies; for
birds know that if there is an untried melody in heaven it will sound first
across the clear pastures of the dawn. All the chirping and whistling
from the fields and trees are then but the practice of the hour. When the
meadowlark sings on a fence-rail she but cons her lesson from the stars.
It is on such a bright Spring morning that the housewife, duster in hand,
throws open her parlor window and looks upon the street. A pleasant park is
below, of the size of a city square, and already it stirs with the day's
activity. The housewife beats her cloth upon the sill and as the dust flies
off, she hears the cries and noises of the place. In a clear tenor she
is admonished that there is an expert hereabouts to grind her knives. A
swarthy baritone on a wagon lifts up his voice in praise of radishes and
carrots. His eye roves along the windows. The crook of a hungry finger will
bring him to a stand. Or a junkman is below upon his business. Yesterday
the bells upon his cart would have sounded sour, but this morning they
rattle agreeably, as though a brisker cow than common, springtime in her
hoofs, were jangling to her pasture. At the sound--if you are of country
training--you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a
grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle
persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling
for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an
unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might
extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and
her palace be skipped from sight, it will follow on the rubbing of it.
The call of red cherries in the park--as you might guess from its Italian
source--is set to an amorous tune. What lady, smocked in morning cambric,
would not be wooed by such a voice? The gay fellow tempts her to a
purchase. It is but a decent caution--now that Spring is here--that the
rascal does not call his wares by moonlight. As for early peas this
morning, it is Pan himself who peddles them--disguised and smirched lest
he be caught in the deception--Pan who stamps his foot and shakes the
thicket--whose habit is to sing with reedy voice of the green willows that
dip in sunny waters. Although he now clatters his tins and baskets and
cries out like a merchant, his thoughts run to the black earth and the
shady hollows and the sound of little streams.
I have wondered as I have observed the housewives lingering at their
windows--for my window also looks upon the park--I have wondered that these
melodious street cries are not used generally for calling the wares of
wider sale. If a radish can be so proclaimed, there might be a lilt devised
in praise of other pleasing merceries--a tripping pizzicato for laces and
frippery--a brave trumpeting for some newest cereal. And should not the
latest book--if it be a tale of love, for these I am told are best offered
to the public in the Spring (sad tales are best for winter)--should not a
tale of love be heralded through the city by the singing of a ballad, with
a melting tenor in the part? In old days a gaudy rogue cried out upon the
broader streets that jugglers had stretched their rope in the market-place,
but when the bears came to town, the news was piped even to the narrowest
lanes that house-folk might bring their pennies.