hauled up to the platform. When the wounded had been taken to the
hospital, they bore from the train the body of a youth, clutching yet in
his hand a torn, blood-stained paper, tied about with a purple ribbon. It
was Paolo. The awakening had come. Brighter skies than those of sunny
Italy had dawned upon him in the gloom and terror of the great crash.
Paolo was at home, waiting for his mother.
THE LITTLE DOLLAR'S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY
"It is too bad," said Mrs. Lee, and she put down the magazine in which she
had been reading of the poor children in the tenements of the great city
that know little of Christmas joys; "no Christmas tree! One of them shall
have one, at any rate. I think this will buy it, and it is so handy to
send. Nobody would know that there was money in the letter." And she
inclosed a coupon in a letter to a professor, a friend in the city, who,
she knew, would have no trouble in finding the child, and had it mailed at
once. Mrs. Lee was a widow whose not too great income was derived from the
interest on some four-per-cent. government bonds which represented the
savings of her husband's life of toil, that was none the less hard
because it was spent in a counting-room and not with shovel and spade.
The coupon looked for all the world like a dollar bill, except that it was
so small that a baby's hand could easily cover it. The United States, the
printing on it said, would pay on demand to the bearer one dollar; and
there was a number on it, just as on a full-grown dollar, that was the
number of the bond from which it had been cut.
The letter traveled all night, and was tossed and sorted and bunched at
the end of its journey in the great gray beehive that never sleeps, day or
night, and where half the tears and joys of the land, including this
account of the little dollar, are checked off unceasingly as first-class
matter or second or third, as the case may be. In the morning it was laid,
none the worse for its journey, at the professor's breakfast-plate. The
professor was a kindly man, and he smiled as he read it. "To procure one
small Christmas tree for a poor tenement," was its errand.
"Little dollar," he said, "I think I know where you are needed." And he
made a note in his book. There were other notes there that made him smile
again as he saw them. They had names set opposite them. One about a
Noah's ark was marked "Vivi." That was the baby; and there was one about a
doll's carriage that had the words "Katie, sure," set over against it. The
professor eyed the list in mock dismay.
"How ever will I do it?" he sighed, as he put on his hat.
"Well, you will have to get Santa Claus to help you, John," said his wife,
buttoning his greatcoat about him. "And, mercy! the duckses' babies! don't
forget them, whatever you do. The baby has been talking about nothing else
since he saw them at the store, the old duck and the two ducklings on
wheels. You know them, John?"
But the professor was gone, repeating to himself as he went down the
garden walk: "The duckses' babies, indeed!" He chuckled as he said it, why
I cannot tell. He was very particular about his grammar, was the
professor, ordinarily. Perhaps it was because it was Christmas eve.
Down-town went the professor; but instead of going with the crowd that was
setting toward Santa Claus's headquarters, in the big Broadway store, he
turned off into a quieter street, leading west. It took him to a narrow
thoroughfare, with five-story tenements frowning on either side, where
the people he met were not so well dressed as those he had left behind,
and did not seem to be in such a hurry of joyful anticipation of the
holiday. Into one of the tenements he went, and, groping his way through a
pitch-dark hall, came to a door 'way back, the last one to the left, at
which he knocked. An expectant voice said, "Come in," and the professor
pushed open the door.
The room was very small, very stuffy, and very dark, so dark that a
smoking kerosene-lamp that burned on a table next the stove hardly lighted
it at all, though it was broad day. A big, unshaven man, who sat on the
bed, rose when he saw the visitor, and stood uncomfortably shifting his
feet and avoiding the professor's eye. The latter's glance was serious,
though not unkind, as he asked the woman with the baby if he had found no
work yet.
"No," she said, anxiously coming to the rescue, "not yet; he was waitin'
for a recommend." But Johnnie had earned two dollars running errands, and,
now there was a big fall of snow, his father might get a job of shoveling.
The woman's face was worried, yet there was a cheerful note in her voice
that somehow made the place seem less discouraging than it was. The baby
she nursed was not much larger than a middle-sized doll. Its little face
looked thin and wan. It had been very sick, she explained, but the doctor
said it was mending now. That was good, said the professor, and patted one
of the bigger children on the head.
There were six of them, of all sizes, from Johnnie, who could run errands,
down. They were busy fixing up a Christmas tree that half filled the room,
though it was of the very smallest. Yes, it was a real Christmas tree,
left over from the Sunday-school stock, and it was dressed up at that.
Pictures from the colored supplement of a Sunday newspaper hung and stood
on every branch, and three pieces of colored glass, suspended on threads
that shone in the smoky lamplight, lent color and real beauty to the show.
The children were greatly tickled.
"John put it up," said the mother, by way of explanation, as the professor
eyed it approvingly. "There ain't nothing to eat on it. If there was, it
wouldn't be there a minute. The childer be always a-searchin' in it."
"But there must be, or else it isn't a real Christmas tree," said the
professor, and brought out the little dollar. "This is a dollar which a
friend gave me for the children's Christmas, and she sends her love with
it. Now, you buy them some things and a few candles, Mrs. Ferguson, and
then a good supper for the rest of the family. Good night, and a Merry
Christmas to you. I think myself the baby is getting better." It had just
opened its eyes and laughed at the tree.
The professor was not very far on his way toward keeping his appointment
with Santa Claus before Mrs. Ferguson was at the grocery laying in her
dinner. A dollar goes a long way when it is the only one in the house; and
when she had everything, including two cents' worth of flitter-gold, four
apples, and five candles for the tree, the grocer footed up her bill on
the bag that held her potatoes--ninety-eight cents. Mrs. Ferguson gave him
the little dollar.
"What's this?" said the grocer, his fat smile turning cold as he laid a
restraining hand on the full basket. "That ain't no good."
"It's a dollar, ain't it?" said the woman, in alarm. "It's all right. I
know the man that give it to me."
"It ain't all right in this store," said the grocer, sternly. "Put them
things back. I want none o' that."
The woman's eyes filled with tears as she slowly took the lid off the
basket and lifted out the precious bag of potatoes. They were waiting for
that dinner at home. The children were even then camping on the door-step
to take her in to the tree in triumph. And now--
For the second time a restraining hand was laid upon her basket; but this
time it was not the grocer's. A gentleman who had come in to order a
Christmas turkey had overheard the conversation, and had seen the strange
bill.
"It is all right," he said to the grocer. "Give it to me. Here is a dollar
bill for it of the kind you know. If all your groceries were as honest as
this bill, Mr. Schmidt, it would be a pleasure to trade with you. Don't be
afraid to trust Uncle Sam where you see his promise to pay."
The gentleman held the door open for Mrs. Ferguson, and heard the shout of
the delegation awaiting her on the stoop as he went down the street.
"I wonder where that came from, now," he mused. "Coupons in Bedford
street! I suppose somebody sent it to the woman for a Christmas gift.
Hello! Here are old Thomas and Snowflake. I wonder if it wouldn't surprise
her old stomach if I gave her a Christmas gift of oats. If only the shock
doesn't kill her! Thomas! Oh, Thomas!"
The old man thus hailed stopped and awaited the gentleman's coming. He was
a cartman who did odd jobs through the ward, thus picking up a living for
himself and the white horse, which the boys had dubbed Snowflake in a
spirit of fun. They were a well-matched old pair, Thomas and his horse.
One was not more decrepit than the other. There was a tradition along the
docks, where Thomas found a job now and then, and Snowflake an occasional
straw to lunch on, that they were of an age, but this was denied by
Thomas.
"See here," said the gentleman, as he caught up with them; "I want
Snowflake to keep Christmas, Thomas. Take this and buy him a bag of oats.
And give it to him carefully, do you hear?--not all at once, Thomas. He
isn't used to it."
"Gee whizz!" said the old man, rubbing his eyes with his cap, as his
friend passed out of sight, "oats fer Christmas! G'lang, Snowflake; yer
in luck."
The feed-man put on his spectacles and looked Thomas over at the strange
order. Then he scanned the little dollar, first on one side, then on the
other.
"Never seed one like him," he said. "'Pears to me he is mighty short. Wait
till I send round to the hockshop. He'll know, if anybody."
The man at the pawnshop did not need a second look. "Why, of course," he
said, and handed a dollar bill over the counter. "Old Thomas, did you say?
Well, I am blamed if the old man ain't got a stocking after all. They're a
sly pair, he and Snowflake."
Business was brisk that day at the pawnshop. The door-bell tinkled early
and late, and the stock on the shelves grew. Bundle was added to bundle.
It had been a hard winter so far. Among the callers in the early afternoon
was a young girl in a gingham dress and without other covering, who stood
timidly at the counter and asked for three dollars on a watch, a keepsake
evidently, which she was loath to part with. Perhaps it was the last
glimpse of brighter days. The pawnbroker was doubtful; it was not worth
so much. She pleaded hard, while he compared the number of the movement
with a list sent in from Police Headquarters.
"Two," he said decisively at last, snapping the case shut--"two or
nothing." The girl handed over the watch with a troubled sigh. He made out
a ticket and gave it to her with a handful of silver change.
Was it the sigh and her evident distress, or was it the little dollar? As
she turned to go, he called her back:
"Here, it is Christmas!" he said. "I'll run the risk." And he added the
coupon to the little heap.
The girl looked at it and at him questioningly.
"It is all right," he said; "you can take it; I'm running short of change.
Bring it back if they won't take it. I'm good for it." Uncle Sam had
achieved a backer.
In Grand street the holiday crowds jammed every store in their eager hunt
for bargains. In one of them, at the knit-goods counter, stood the girl
from the pawnshop, picking out a thick, warm shawl. She hesitated between
a gray and a maroon-colored one, and held them up to the light.
"For you?" asked the salesgirl, thinking to aid her. She glanced at her
thin dress and shivering form as she said it.
"No," said the girl; "for mother; she is poorly and needs it." She chose
the gray, and gave the salesgirl her handful of money.
The girl gave back the coupon.
"They don't go," she said; "give me another, please."
"But I haven't got another," said the girl, looking apprehensively at the
shawl. "The--Mr. Feeney said it was all right. Take it to the desk,
please, and ask."
The salesgirl took the bill and the shawl, and went to the desk. She came
back, almost immediately, with the storekeeper, who looked sharply at the
customer and noted the number of the coupon.
"It is all right," he said, satisfied apparently by the inspection; "a
little unusual, only. We don't see many of them. Can I help you, miss?"
And he attended her to the door.
In the street there was even more of a Christmas show going on than in the
stores. Peddlers of toys, of mottos, of candles, and of knickknacks of
every description stood in rows along the curb, and were driving a lively
trade. Their push-carts were decorated with fir-branches--even whole
Christmas trees. One held a whole cargo of Santa Clauses in a bower of
green, each one with a cedar-bush in his folded arms, as a soldier carries
his gun. The lights were blazing out in the stores, and the hucksters'
torches were flaring at the corners. There was Christmas in the very air
and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been a very busy day. He
thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the
brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had
paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow said: "Merry Christmas, Mr.
Stein! Here's yer paper."
It was the newsboy who left the evening papers at the door every night.
The storekeeper knew him, and something about the struggle they had at
home to keep the roof over their heads. Mike was a kind of protege of his.
He had helped to get him his route.
"Wait a bit, Mike," he said. "You'll be wanting your Christmas from me.
Here's a dollar. It's just like yourself: it is small, but it is all
right. You take it home and have a good time."
Was it the message with which it had been sent forth from far away in the
country, or what was it? Whatever it was, it was just impossible for the
little dollar to lie still in the pocket while there was want to be
relieved, mouths to be filled, or Christmas lights to be lit. It just
couldn't, and it didn't.
Mike stopped around the corner of Allen street, and gave three whoops
expressive of his approval of Mr. Stein; having done which, he sidled up
to the first lighted window out of range to examine his gift. His
enthusiasm changed to open-mouthed astonishment as he saw the little
dollar. His jaw fell. Mike was not much of a scholar, and could not make
out the inscription on the coupon; but he had heard of shin-plasters as
something they "had in the war," and he took this to be some sort of a
ten-cent piece. The policeman on the block might tell. Just now he and
Mike were hunk. They had made up a little difference they'd had, and if
any one would know, the cop surely would. And off he went in search of
him.
Mr. McCarthy pulled off his gloves, put his club under his arm, and
studied the little dollar with contracted brow. He shook his head as he
handed it back, and rendered the opinion that it was "some dom swindle
that's ag'in' the law." He advised Mike to take it back to Mr. Stein, and
added, as he prodded him in an entirely friendly manner in the ribs with
his locust, that if it had been the week before he might have "run him in"
for having the thing in his possession. As it happened, Mr. Stein was busy
and not to be seen, and Mike went home between hope and fear, with his
doubtful prize.
There was a crowd at the door of the tenement, and Mike saw, before he had
reached it, running, that it clustered about an ambulance that was backed
up to the sidewalk. Just as he pushed his way through the throng it drove
off, its clanging gong scattering the people right and left. A little girl
sat weeping on the top step of the stoop. To her Mike turned for
information.
"Susie, what's up?" he asked, confronting her with his armful of papers.
"Who's got hurted?"
"It's papa," sobbed the girl. "He ain't hurted. He's sick, and he was took
that bad he had to go, an' to-morrer is Christmas, an'--oh, Mike!"
It is not the fashion of Essex street to slop over. Mike didn't. He just
set his mouth to a whistle and took a turn down the hall to think. Susie
was his chum. There were seven in her flat; in his only four, including
two that made wages. He came back from his trip with his mind made up.
"Suse," he said, "come on in. You take this, Suse, see! an' let the kids
have their Christmas. Mr. Stein give it to me. It's a little one, but if
it ain't all right I'll take it back, and get one that is good. Go on,
now, Suse, you hear?" And he was gone.
There was a Christmas tree that night in Susie's flat, with candles and
apples and shining gold on, but the little dollar did not pay for it. That
rested securely in the purse of the charity visitor who had come that
afternoon, just at the right time, as it proved. She had heard the story
of Mike and his sacrifice, and had herself given the children a one-dollar
bill for the coupon. They had their Christmas, and a joyful one, too, for
the lady went up to the hospital and brought back word that Susie's father
would be all right with rest and care, which he was now getting. Mike came
in and helped them "sack" the tree when the lady was gone. He gave three
more whoops for Mr. Stein, three for the lady, and three for the hospital
doctor to even things up. Essex street was all right that night.
* * * * *
"Do you know, professor," said that learned man's wife, when, after
supper, he had settled down in his easy-chair to admire the Noah's ark and
the duckses' babies and the rest, all of which had arrived safely by
express ahead of him and were waiting to be detailed to their appropriate
stockings while the children slept--"do you know, I heard such a story of
a little newsboy to-day. It was at the meeting of our district charity
committee this evening. Miss Linder, our visitor, came right from the
house." And she told the story of Mike and Susie.
"And I just got the little dollar bill to keep. Here it is." She took the
coupon out of her purse and passed it to her husband.
"Eh! what?" said the professor, adjusting his spectacles and reading the
number. "If here isn't my little dollar come back to me! Why, where have
you been, little one? I left you in Bedford street this morning, and here
you come by way of Essex. Well, I declare!" And he told his wife how he
had received it in a letter in the morning.
"John," she said, with a sudden impulse,--she didn't know, and neither
did he, that it was the charm of the little dollar that was working
again,--"John, I guess it is a sin to stop it. Jones's children won't have
any Christmas tree, because they can't afford it. He told me so this
morning when he fixed the furnace. And the baby is sick. Let us give them
the little dollar. He is here in the kitchen now."
And they did; and the Joneses, and I don't know how many others, had a
Merry Christmas because of the blessed little dollar that carried
Christmas cheer and good luck wherever it went. For all I know, it may be
going yet. Certainly it is a sin to stop it, and if any one has locked it
up without knowing that he locked up the Christmas dollar, let him start
it right out again. He can tell it easily enough. If he just looks at the
number, that's the one.
A PROPOSAL ON THE ELEVATED
The sleeper on the 3:35 A. M. elevated train from the Harlem bridge was
awake for once. The sleeper is the last car in the train, and has its own
set that snores nightly in the same seats, grunts with the fixed
inhospitality of the commuter at the intrusion of a stranger, and is on
terms with Conrad, the German conductor, who knows each one of his
passengers and wakes him up at his station. The sleeper is unique. It is
run for the benefit of those who ride in it, not for the company's. It not
only puts them off properly; it waits for them, if they are not there. The
conductor knows that they will come. They are men, mostly, with small
homes beyond the bridge, whose work takes them down-town to the markets,
the Post-office, and the busy marts of the city long before cock-crow.
The day begins in New York at all hours.
Usually the sleeper is all that its name implies, but this morning it was
as far from it as could be. A party of young people, fresh from a
neighborhood hop, had come on board and filled the rear end of the car.
Their feet tripped yet to the dance, and snatches of the latest waltz
floated through the train between peals of laughter and little girlish
shrieks. The regulars glared, discontented, in strange seats, unable to go
to sleep. Only the railroad yardmen dropped off promptly as they came in.
Theirs was the shortest ride, and they could least afford to lose time.
Two old Irishmen, flanked by their dinner-pails, gravely discussed the
Henry George campaign.
Across the passage sat a group of three apart--a young man, a girl, and a
little elderly woman with lines of care and hard work in her patient face.
She guarded carefully three umbrellas, a very old and faded one, and two
that were new and of silk, which she held in her lap, though it had not
rained for a month. He was a likely young fellow, tall and straight, with
the thoughtful eye of a student. His dark hair fell nearly to his
shoulders, and his coat had a foreign cut. The girl was a typical child
of the city, slight and graceful of form, dressed in good taste, and with
a bright, winning face. The two chatted confidentially together, forgetful
of all else, while mama, between them, nodded sleepily in her seat.
A sudden burst of white light flooded the car.
"Hey! Ninety-ninth street!" called the conductor, and rattled the door.
The railroad men tumbled out pell-mell, all but one. Conrad shook him, and
he went out, mechanically blinking his eyes.
"Eighty-ninth next!" from the doorway.
The laughter at the rear end of the car had died out. The young people, in
a quieter mood, were humming a popular love-song. Presently above the rest
rose a clear tenor:
Oh, promise me that some day you and I
Will take our love together to some sky
Where we can be alone and faith renew--
The clatter of the train as it flew over a switch drowned the rest. When
the last wheel had banged upon the frog, I heard the young student's
voice, in the soft accents of southern Europe:
"Wenn ich in Wien war--" He was telling her of his home and his people in
the language of his childhood. I glanced across. She sat listening with
kindling eyes. Mama slumbered sweetly; her worn old hands clutched
unconsciously the umbrellas in her lap. The two Irishmen, having settled
the campaign, had dropped to sleep, too. In the crowded car the two were
alone. His hand sought hers and met it half-way.
"Forty-seventh!" There was a clatter of tin cans below. The contingent of
milkmen scrambled out of their seats and off for the depot. In the lull
that followed their going, the tenor rose from the last seat:
Those first sweet violets of early spring,
Which come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing
Of love unspeakable that is to be,
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!
The two young people faced each other. He had thrown his hat upon the seat
beside him and held her hand fast, gesticulating with his free hand as he
spoke rapidly, eloquently, eagerly of his prospects and his hopes. Her own
toyed nervously with his coat-lapel, twisting and twirling a button as he
went on. What he said might have been heard to the other end of the car,
had there been anybody to listen. He was to live here always; his uncle
would open a business in New York, of which he was to have charge, when he
had learned to know the country and its people. It would not be long now,
and then--and then--
"Twenty-third street!"
There was a long stop after the levy for the ferries had left. The
conductor went out on the platform and consulted with the ticket-chopper.
He was scrutinizing his watch for the second time, when the faint jingle
of an east-bound car was heard.
"Here she comes!" said the ticket-chopper. A shout, and a man bounded up
the steps, three at a time. It was an engineer who, to make connection
with his locomotive at Chatham Square, must catch that train.
"Hullo, Conrad! Nearly missed you," he said as he jumped on the car,
breathless.
"All right, Jack." And the conductor jerked the bell-rope. "You made it,
though." The train sped on.
Two lives, heretofore running apart, were hastening to a union. The lovers
had seen nothing, heard nothing but each other. His eyes burned as hers
met his and fell before them. His head bent lower until his face almost
touched hers. His dark hair lay against her blond curls. The ostrich
feather on her hat swept his shoulder.
"Moegtest Du mich haben?" he entreated.
Above the grinding of the wheels as the train slowed up for the station a
block ahead, pleaded the tenor:
Oh, promise me that you will take my hand,
The most unworthy in this lonely land--
Did she speak? Her face was hidden, but the blond curls moved with a nod
so slight that only a lover's eye could see it. He seized her disengaged
hand. The conductor stuck his head into the car.