A SEAT IN UNION SQUARE
Within a day's journey of Kennedy Square lay another wide
breathing-space, its winding paths worn smooth by countless hurrying
feet.
Over its flat monotony straggled a line of gnarled willows, marking the
wanderings of some guileless brook long since swallowed up and lost in
the mazes of the great city like many another young life fresh from
green fields and sunny hill-sides. This desert of weeds and sun-dried,
yellow grass, this kraal for scraggly trees and broken benches,
breasted the rush of the great city as a stone breasts a stream,
dividing its current--one part swirling around and up Broadway to the
hills and the other flowing eastward toward Harlem and the Sound.
Around its four sides, fronting the four streets that hemmed it in, ran
a massive iron railing, socketed in stone and made man-proof and
dog-proof by four great iron gates. These gates were opened at dawn to
let the restless in, and closed at night to keep the weary out.
Above these barriers of stone and iron no joyous magnolias lifted their
creamy blossoms; no shy climbing roses played hide-and-seek, blushing
scarlet when caught. Along its foot-worn paths no drowsy Moses ceased
his droning call; no lovers walked forgetful of the world; no staid old
gentlemen wandered idly, their noses in their books.
All day long on its rude straight-backed benches and over its
thread-bare turf sprawled unkempt women with sick babies from the
shanties; squalid, noisy children from the rookeries; beggars in rags,
and now and then some hopeless wayfarer--who for the moment had given
up his search for work or bread and who rested or slept until the tap
of a constable's club brought him to consciousness and his feet.
At night, before the gates were closed--ten o'clock was the hour--there
could always be found, under its dim lamps, some tired girl, sitting in
the light for better protection while she rested, or some weary laborer
on the way home from his long day's work, and always passing to and
fro, swinging his staff, bullying the street-rats who were playing tag
among the trees, and inspiring a wholesome awe among those hiding in
the shadows, lounged some guardian of the peace awaiting the hour when
he could drive the inmates to the sidewalk and shut the gates behind
them with a bang.
Here on one of these same straight-backed wooden seats one September
night--a night when the air was heavy with a blurred haze, through
which the lamps peered as in a fog, and the dust lay thick upon the
leaves--sat our Oliver.
Outside the square--all about the iron fence, and surging past the big
equestrian statue, could be heard the roar and din of the great
city--that maelstrom which now seemed ready to engulf him. No sound of
merry laughter reached him, only rumbling of countless wheels, the slow
thud of never-ending, crowded stages lumbering over the cobbles, the
cries of the hucksters selling hot corn, and the ceaseless scrapings of
a thousand feet.
He had sat here since the sun had gone down watching the crowds,
wondering how they lived and how they had earned their freedom from
such cares as were now oppressing him. His heart was heavy. A
long-coveted berth, meaning self-support and independence and
consequent relief to his mother's heart, had been almost within his
grasp. It was not the place he had expected when he left home. It was
much more menial and unremunerative. But he had outlived all his bright
hopes. He was ready now to take anything he could get to save him from
returning to Kennedy Square, or what would be still worse--from asking
his mother for a penny more than she had given him. Rather than do this
he would sweep the streets.
As he leaned forward on the bench, his face in his hands, his elbows on
his knees, his thoughts went back to his father's house. He knew what
they were all doing at this hour; he could see the porches crowded with
the boys and girls he loved, their bright voices filling the night-air,
Sue in the midst of them, her curls about her face. He could see his
father in the big chair reading by the lamp, that dear old father who
had held his hands so tenderly and spoken with such earnestness the day
before he had left Kennedy Square.
"Your mother is right," Richard had said. "I am glad you are going, my
son; the men at the North are broader-minded than we are here, and you
will soon find your place among them. Great things are ahead of us, my
boy. I shall not live to see them, but you will."
He could see his mother, too, sitting by the window, looking out upon
the trees. He knew where her thoughts lay. As his mind rested on her
pale face his eyes filled with tears. "Dear old mother," he said to
himself--"I am not forgetting, dear. I am holding on. But oh, if I had
only got the place to-day, how happy you would be to-morrow."
A bitter feeling had risen in his heart, when he had opened the letter
which had brought him the news of the loss of this hoped-for situation.
"This is making one's way in the world, is it?" he had said to himself
with a heavy sigh. Then the calm eyes of his mother had looked into his
again, and he had felt the pressure of the soft hand and heard the
tones of her voice:
"You may have many discouragements, my son, and will often be ready to
faint by the way, but stick to it and you will win."
His bitterness had been but momentary, and he had soon pulled himself
together, but his every resource seemed exhausted now. He had counted
so on the situation--that of a shipping-clerk in a dry-goods
store--promised him because of a letter that he carried from Amos
Cobb's friend. But at the last moment the former clerk, who had been
laid off because of sickness, had been taken back, and so the weary
search for work must begin again.
And yet with everything against him Oliver had no thought of giving up
the struggle. Even Amos Cobb would have been proud of him could he have
seen the dogged tenacity with which he clung to his purpose--a tenacity
due to his buoyant, happy temperament, or to his devotion to his
mother's wishes; or (and this is more than probable) to some drops of
blood, perhaps, that had reached his own through his mother's
veins--the blood of that Major with the blue and buff coat, whose
portrait hung in the dining-room at home, and who in the early days had
braved the flood at Trenton side by side with the Hero of the Bronze
Horse now overlooking the bench on which Oliver sat; or it may be of
that other ancestor in the queue whose portrait hung over the mantel of
the club and who had served his State with distinction in his day.
Whatever the causes of these several effects, the one dominating power
which now controlled him was his veneration for his mother's name and
honor. For on the night succeeding Amos Cobb's visit after she had
dropped upon her knees and poured out her heart in prayer she had gone
into Oliver's bedroom, and shutting the door had told him of the
mortgage; of his father's embarrassment, and the danger they suffered
of losing the farm--their only hope for their old age--unless success
crowned Richard's inventions. With his hand fast in hers she had given
him in exact detail all that she had done to ward off this calamity;
recounting, word by word, what she had said to the Colonel, lowering
her voice almost to a whisper as she spoke of the solemn promise she
had made him--involving her own and her husband's honor--and the
lengths to which she was prepared to go to keep her obligations to the
bank.
Then, her hand still clasping his, the two sitting side by side on his
bed, his wondering, startled eyes looking into hers--for this world of
anxiety was an unknown world to him--she had by slow stages made him
realize how necessary it was that he, their only son, and their sole
dependence, should begin at once to earn his daily bread; not only on
his own account but on hers and his father's. In her tenderness she had
not told him that the real reason was his instability of purpose;
fearing to wound his pride, she had put it solely on the ground of his
settling down to some work.
"It is the law of nature, my son," she had added. "Everything that
lives must WORK to live. You have only to watch the birds out here in
the Square to convince you of that. Notice them to-morrow, when you go
out. See how busy they are; see how long it takes for any one of them
to get a meal. You are old enough now to begin to earn your own bread,
and you must begin at once, Ollie. Your father can no longer help you.
I had hoped your profession would do this for you, but that is not to
be thought of now."
Oliver, at first, had been stunned by it all. He had never before given
the practical side of life a single thought. Everything had gone along
smoothly from his earliest remembrance. His father's house had been his
home and his protection; his room with its little bed and pretty
hangings and all its comforts--a room cared for like a girl's--had
always been open to him. He had never once asked himself how these
things came about, nor why they continued. These revelations of his
mother's therefore were like the sudden opening of a door covering a
vault over which he had walked unconsciously and which now, for the
first time, he saw yawning beneath him.
"Poor daddy," were his first words. "I never knew a thing about his
troubles; he seems always so happy and so gentle. I am so sorry--dear
daddy--dear dad--" he kept repeating.
And then as she spoke there flashed into his mind the thought of his
own hopes. They were shattered now. He knew that the art career was
dead for him, and that all his dreams in that direction were over.
He was about to tell her this, but he stopped before the words were
formed. He would not add his own burden to her sorrow. No, he would
bear it alone. He would tell Sue, but he would not tell his mother.
Next there welled up in his heart a desire to help this mother whom he
idolized, and this father who represented to him all that was kind and
true.
"What can I do? Where can I go, dearie?" he cried with sudden resolve.
"Even if I am to work with my hands I am ready to do it, but it must be
away from here. I could not do it here at home with everybody looking
on; no, not here! not here!"
This victory gained, the mother with infinite tact, little by little,
unfolded to the son the things she had planned. Finally with her arms
about his neck, smoothing his cheek with her hands she told him of Amos
Cobb's advice and of his offer, adding: "He will give you a letter to
his friend who lives at Haverstraw near New York, my boy, with whom you
can stay until you get the situation you want."
The very impracticability of this scheme did not weigh with her. She
did not see how almost hopeless would be the task of finding employment
in an unknown city. Nor did the length of time her son might be a
burden on a total stranger make any difference in her plans. Her own
home had always been open to the friends of her friends, and for any
length of time, and her inborn sense of hospitality made it impossible
for her to understand any other conditions. Then again she said to
herself: "Mr. Cobb is a thoroughly practical man, and a very kind one.
His friend will welcome Oliver, or he would not have allowed my son to
go." She had repeated, however, no word of the Vermonter's advice "to
chuck the boy out neck and heels into the world and let him shift for
himself," although the very Spartan quality of the suggestion, in spite
of its brusqueness, had greatly pleased her. She could not but
recognize that Amos understood. She would have faced the situation
herself if she had been in her son's place; she said so to herself. And
she hoped, too, that Oliver would face it as bravely when the time came.
As for the temptations that might assail her boy in the great city, she
never gave them a thought. Neither the love of drink nor the love of
play ran in her own or Richard's veins--not for generations back. "One
test of a gentleman, my son," Richard always said, "lies in the way in
which he controls his appetites--in the way he regards his meat and
drink. Both are foods for the mind as well as for the body, and must be
used as such. Gluttons and drunkards should be classed together." No,
her boy's heart might lead him astray, but not his appetites, and never
his passions. She was as sure of that as she was of his love.
As she talked on, Oliver's mind, yielding to her stronger will as clay
does to a sculptor's hand, began to take shape. What at first had
looked like a hardship now began to have an attractive side. Perhaps
the art career need not be wholly given up. Perhaps, too, there was a
better field for him in New York than here--old Mr. Crocker had always
told him this. Then, too, there was something of fascination after all,
in going out alone like a knight-errant to conquer the world. And in
that great Northern city, too, with its rush and whirl and all that it
held for him of mystery! How many times had Mr. Crocker talked to him
by the hour of its delights. And Ellicott's chair! Yes, he could get
rid of that. And Sue? Sue would wait--she had promised him she would;
no, there was no doubt about Sue! She would love him all the better if
he fought his battle alone. Only the day before she had told him of the
wonderful feats of the White Knight, that the new English poet had just
written about and that everybody in Kennedy Square was now reading.
Above all there was the delight of another sensation--the sensation of
a new move. This really pleased him best. He was apparently listening
to his mother when these thoughts took possession of him, for his eyes
were still fixed on hers, but he heard only a word now and then. It was
his imagination that swayed him now, not his will nor his judgment. He
would have his own adventures in the great city and see the world as
Mr. Crocker had done, he said to himself.
"Yes, dearie, I'll go," he answered quickly. "Don't talk any more about
it. I'll do just as you want me to, and I'll go anywhere you say. But
about the money for my expenses? Can father give it to me?" he asked
suddenly, a shade of anxiety crossing his face.
"We won't ask your father, Ollie," she said, drawing him closer to her.
She knew he would yield to her wishes, and she loved him the better for
it, if that were possible. "I have a little money saved which I will
give you. You won't be long finding a good place."
"And how often can I come back to you?" he cried, starting up. Until
now this phase of the situation had not entered his mind.
"Not often, my boy--certainly not until you can afford it. It is costly
travelling. Maybe once or twice a year."
"Oh, then there's no use talking, I can't go. I can't--can't, be away
from you that long. That's going to be the hardest part." He had
started from his seat and, stood over her, a look of determination on
his face.
"Oh, yes, you can, my son, and you will," she replied, as she too rose
and stood beside him, stopping the outburst of his weakness with her
calm voice, and quieting and soothing him with the soft touch of her
hand, caressing his cheek with her fingers as she had so often done
when he, a baby, had lain upon her breast.
Then with a smile on her face, she had kissed him good-night, closed
the door, and staggering along the corridor steadying herself as she
walked, her hand on the walls, had thrown herself upon her bed in an
agony of tears, crying out:
"Oh, my boy--my boy! How can I give you up? And I know it is forever!"
And now here he is foot-sore and heart-sore, sitting in Union Square,
New York, the roar of the great city in his ears, and here he must sit
until the cattle-barge which takes him every night to the house of Amos
Cobb's friend is ready to start on her voyage up the river.
He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, not
stirring until a jar on the other end of the bench roused him. A negro
hod-carrier, splashed with plaster, and wearing a ragged shirt and a
crownless straw hat, had taken a seat beside him. The familiarity of
the act startled Oliver. No negro wayfarer would have dared so much in
his own Square at home.
The man reached forward and drew closer to his own end of the bench a
bundle of sawed ends and bits of wood which he had carried across the
park on his shoulder.
Oliver watched him for a moment, with a feeling amounting almost to
indignation. "Were the poverty and the struggle of a great city to
force such familiarities upon him," he wondered. Then something in the
negro's face, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the
back of his hand, produced a sudden change of feeling. "Was this man,
too, without work?" Oliver asked himself, as he felt the negro's
weariness, and realized for the first time, the common heritage of all
men.
"Are you tired, Uncle?" he asked.
"Yes, a little mite. I been a-totin' dis kindlin' from way up yander in
Twenty-third Street where the circus useter be. Dey's buildin' a big
hotel dere now--de Fifth Avenue dey calls it. I'm a-carryin' mortar for
de brick-layers an' somehow dese sticks is monst'ous heavy after
workin' all day."
"Where do you live?" asked Oliver, his eyes on the kindling-wood.
"Not far from here, sah; little way dis side de Bow'ry. Whar's yo'r
home?" And the old man rose to his feet and picked up his bundle.
The question staggered Oliver. He had no home, really none that he
could call his own--not now.
"Oh, a long way from here," he answered, thoughtfully, without raising
his head, his voice choking.
The old negro gazed at him for a moment, touched his hat respectfully,
and walked toward the gate. At the entrance he wheeled about, balanced
the bundle of wood on his shoulder and looked back at Oliver, who had
resumed his old position, his eyes on the ground. Then he walked away,
muttering:
"'Pears like he's one o' my own people calling me uncle. Spec' he ain't
been long from his mammy."
Two street-rats now sneaked up toward Oliver, watched him for a moment,
and whispered to each other. One threw a stone which grazed Oliver's
head, the other put his hand to his mouth and yelled: "Spad, spad," at
the top of his voice. Oliver understood the epithet, it meant that he
wore clean linen, polished shoes, and perhaps, now and then, a pair of
gloves. He had heard the same outcry in his own city, for the slang of
the street-rat is Volapuk the world over. But he did not resent the
assault. He was too tired to chase any boys, and too despondent to
answer their taunts.
A constable, attracted by the cries of the boys, now passed in front of
him swinging his long staff. He was about to tap Oliver's knees with
one end of it, as a gentle reminder that he had better move on, when
something in the young man's face or appearance made him change his
mind.
"Hi, sonny," he cried, turning quickly and facing Olivr, "yer can't bum
round here after ten, ye know. Keep yer eyes peeled for them gates,
d'ye hear?"
If Oliver heard he made no reply. He was in no mood to dispute the
officer's right to order him about. The gates were not the only
openings shut in his face, he thought to himself; everything seemed
closed against him in this great city. It was not so at home on Kennedy
Square. Its fence, was a shackly, moss-covered, sagging old fence,
intertwined with honeysuckles, full of holes and minus many a paling;
where he could have found a dozen places to crawl through. He had done
so only a few weeks before with Sue in a mad frolic across the Square.
Besides, why should the constable speak to him at all? He knew all
about the hour of closing the New York gates without the policeman
reminding him of it. Had he not sat here every night waiting for that
cattle-boat? He hated the place cordially, yet it was the only spot in
that great city to which he could come and not be molested while he
waited for the barges. He always selected this particular bench because
it was nearest the gate that led to the bronze horse. He loved to look
at its noble contour silhouetted against the sky or illumined by the
street-lamps, and was seldom too tired to be inspired by it. He had
never seen any work in sculpture to be compared to it, and for the
first few days after his arrival, he was never content to end the day's
tramping until he stood beneath it, following its outlines, his heart
swelling with pride at the thought that one of his own nationality and
not a European had created it. He wished that his father, who believed
so in the talent of his countrymen, could see it.
Suddenly, while he was still resenting the familiarity of the
constable, his ears were assailed by the cry of a dog in pain; some
street-rat had kicked him.
Instantly Oliver was on his feet. A small spaniel was running toward
him, followed by half a dozen boys who were pelting him with stones.
Oliver sprang forward as the dog crouched at his feet; caught him up in
his arms and started for the rats, who dodged behind the tree-trunks,
calling "Spad, spad," as they ran. Then came the voice of the same
constable.
"Hi, yer can't bring that dog in here."
"He's not my dog, somebody has hurt him," said Oliver in an indifferent
tone, examining carefully the dog's legs to see if any bones were
broken.
"If that ain't your dog what yer doin' with him? See here, I been
a-watchin' ye. Yer got ter move on or I'll run ye in. D'ye moind?"
Oliver's eyes flashed. In all his life no man had ever doubted his
word, nor had anyone ever spoken to him in such terms.
"You can do as you please, but I will take care of this dog, no matter
what happens. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to see him hurt, and
not want to protect him. You're a pretty kind of an officer."
A crowd began to gather.
Oliver was standing with the dog under one arm, holding the little
fellow close to his breast, the other bent with fist tight shut as if
to defend himself.
"I am, am I? yer moon-faced spad! I'll show ye," and he sprang toward
Oliver.
"Here now, Tim Murphy," came a sharp voice, "kape yer hands off the
young gintleman. He ain't a-doin' nothin', and he ain't done nothin'.
Thim divils hit the dog, I seen 'em myself."
The officer turned quickly and faced a big, broad-shouldered Irish
woman, bare-headed, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, every line in
her kindly face replete with indignation.
"Don't put yer hands on him, or I'll go to the lock-up an' tell
McManus."
"Oh, it's you, is it, Mrs. Mulligan?" said the officer, in a
conciliatory tone.
"Yes, it's me. The young gintleman's right. It's the b'ys ye oughter
club into shape, not be foolin' yer time over the dog."
"Well, ye know it's agin the rules to let dogs inside the gates," he
retorted as he continued his stroll along the walk, swinging his club
as he went, puffing out his chest and cheeks with his old air as he
moved toward the gate.
"Yes, an' so it's agin the rules," she called after him, "to have them
rapscallions yellin' like mad an' howlin' bloody murder when a body
comes up here to git a breath o' air."
"Is the dog hurt, sir?" and she stepped close to Oliver and laid her
big hand on the dog's head, as it lay nestling close to Oliver's side.
"No, I don't think so--he would have been if I had not got him."
The dog, under the caress, raised his head, and a slight movement of
his tail expressed his pleasure. Then his ears shot forward. A young
man about Oliver's own age was rapidly walking up the path, with a
quick, springy step, whistling as he came. The dog, with a sudden
movement, squirmed himself from under Oliver's arm and sprang toward
him.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Fred, is it?" broke out the woman, "and it's Miss
Margaret's dog, too. Of course it's her dog, an' I was that dumb I
didn't know it. But it's not me ye can thank for savin' its skin--it's
the young gintleman here. Them divils would have killed it but for him."
"Is the dog yours, sir?" asked Oliver, raising his hat with that
peculiar manner of his which always won him friends at first sight.
"No, I wish it were. It's Miss Margaret Grant's dog--one of our
students. I am taking care of it while she is away. The little rascal
ran out and got into the Square before I knew it. I live right across
the street--you can see my house from here. Miss Grant will be ever so
much obliged to you for protecting him."
"Oh, don't mention it. I got hold of him just in time, or these
ruffians would have hurt him. I think the old lady here, however, is
most to be thanked. We might both have been locked up," he added,
smiling, "if she had not interfered. You know her, it seems."
"Yes, she's Mother Mulligan, as we call her. She's janitress of the
Academy of Design, where I draw at night. My name's Fred Stone. Come
over to where I live--it's only a step," and he looked straight into
Oliver's face, his big blue eyes never wavering.
"Well, I will if you don't think it's too late," and the two young
fellows, with a wave of their hands to the old woman, left the Square,
the dog bounding before them.
Within the hour--in less time indeed, for the friendly light in the
eyes of his new-found friend had shone straight into our boy's soul,
warming and cheering him to his finger-tips, opening his heart, and
bringing out all his secrets--Oliver had told Fred the story of his
fruitless tramps for work; of his mother's hopes and fears; of his own
ambitions and his aims. And Fred, his own heart wide open, had told
Oliver with equal frankness the story of his own struggles; of his
leaving his father's farm in the western part of the State, and of his
giving up everything to come to New York to study art.
It was the old, old story of two chance acquaintances made friends by
reason of the common ground of struggle and privation on which they
stood; comrades fighting side by side in the same trenches for the same
end, and both dreaming of the morrow which would always bring victory
and never death. A story told without reserve, for the disappointments
of life had not yet dulled their enthusiasm, nor had the caution
acquired by its many bitter experiences yet checked the free flow of
their confidences.
To Oliver, in his present despondent mood, the hand held out to him was
more than the hand of a comrade. It was the hand of a strong swimmer
thrust into the sea to save a drowning man. There were others then
besides himself, he thought, as he grasped it, who were making this
fight for bread and glory; there was something else in the great city
besides cruelty and misery, money-getting and money-spending--something
of unselfishness, sympathy and love.
The two sat on the steps of Fred's boarding-house--that house where
Oliver was to spend so many happy days of his after-life--until there
was only time enough to catch the barge. Reluctantly he bade his
new-found comrade good-by and, waving his hand, turned the corner in
the direction of the dock.
The edge of Oliver's cloud had at last caught the light!