FULTON MARKET.
Just across from Fulton Ferry stands Fulton Market. It is nearly fifty
years old, having been built in 1821, on ground formerly occupied by
unsightly wooden buildings, which were, perhaps fortunately, swept away
by fire. It covers the block bounded by Fulton, South, Beekman, and
Front Streets, and was erected at a cost of about quarter of a million
of dollars.
This is the chief of the great city markets, and an immense business is
done here. There is hardly an hour in the twenty-four in which there is
an entire lull in the business of the place. Some of the outside shops
and booths are kept open all night, while the supplies of fish, meats,
and vegetables for the market proper are brought at a very early hour,
almost before it can be called morning.
Besides the market proper the surrounding sidewalks are roofed over,
and lined with shops and booths of the most diverse character, at which
almost every conceivable article can be purchased. Most numerous,
perhaps, are the chief restaurants, the counters loaded with cakes and
pies, with a steaming vessel of coffee smoking at one end. The floors
are sanded, and the accommodations are far from elegant or luxurious;
but it is said that the viands are by no means to be despised. Then
there are fruit-stalls with tempting heaps of oranges, apples, and in
their season the fruits of summer, presided over for the most part by
old women, who scan shrewdly the faces of passers-by, and are ready on
the smallest provocation to vaunt the merits of their wares. There are
candy and cocoanut cakes for those who have a sweet tooth, and many a
shop-boy invests in these on his way to or from Brooklyn to the New
York store where he is employed; or the father of a family, on his
way to his Brooklyn home, thinks of the little ones awaiting him, and
indulges in a purchase of what he knows will be sure to be acceptable
to them.
But it is not only the wants of the body that are provided for at
Fulton Market. On the Fulton Street side may be found extensive booths,
at which are displayed for sale a tempting array of papers, magazines,
and books, as well as stationery, photograph albums, etc., generally at
prices twenty or thirty per cent. lower than is demanded for them in
the more pretentious Broadway or Fulton Avenue stores.
Even at night, therefore, the outer portion of the market presents a
bright and cheerful shelter from the inclement weather, being securely
roofed over, and well lighted, while some of the booths are kept open,
however late the hour.
Ben Gibson, therefore, was right in directing Mark to Fulton Market,
as probably the most comfortable place to be found in the pouring rain
which made the thoroughfares dismal and dreary. Mark, of course, had
been in Fulton Market often, and saw at once the wisdom of the advice.
He ran down Fulton Street as fast as he could, and arrived there
panting and wet to the skin. Uncomfortable as he was, the change from
the wet streets to the bright and comparatively warm shelter of the
market made him at once more cheerful. In fact, it compared favorably
with the cold and uninviting room which he shared with Mother Watson.
As Mark looked around him, he could not help wishing that he tended
in one of the little restaurants that looked so bright and inviting to
him. Those who are accustomed to lunch at Delmonico's, or at some of
the large and stylish hotels, or have their meals served by attentive
servants in brown stone dwellings in the more fashionable quarters of
the city, would be likely to turn up their noses at his humble taste,
and would feel it an infliction to take a meal amid such plebeian
surroundings. But then Mark knew nothing about the fare at Delmonico's,
and was far enough from living in a brown stone front, and so his ideas
of happiness and luxury were not very exalted, or he would scarcely
have envied a stout butcher boy whom he saw sitting at an unpainted
wooden table, partaking of a repast which was more abundant than choice.
But from the surrounding comfort Mark's thoughts were brought back to
the disagreeable business which brought him here. He was to solicit
charity from some one of the passers-by, and with a sigh he began to
look about him to select some compassionate face.
"If there was only somebody here that wanted an errand done," he
thought, "and would pay me twenty-five cents for doing it, I wouldn't
have to beg I'd rather work two hours for the money than beg it."
But there seemed little chance of this. In the busy portion of the day
there might have been some chance, though this would be uncertain; but
now it was very improbable. If he wanted to get twenty-five cents that
night he must get it from charity.
A beginning must be made, however disagreeable. So Mark went up to
a young man who was passing along on his way to the boat, and in a
shamefaced manner said, "Will you give me a few pennies, please?"
The young man looked good-natured, and it was that which gave Mark
confidence to address him.
"You want some pennies, do you?" he said, with a smile, pausing in his
walk.
"If you please, sir."
"I suppose your wife and family are starving, eh?"
"I haven't got any wife or family, sir," said Mark.
"But you've got a sick mother, or some brothers or sisters that are
starving, haven't you?"
"No, sir."
"Then I'm afraid you're not up to your business. How long have you been
round begging?"
"Never before," said Mark, rather indignantly.
"Ah, that accounts for it. You haven't learned the business yet. After
a few weeks you'll have a sick mother starving at home. They all do,
you know."
"My mother is dead," said Mark; "I shan't tell a lie to get money."
"Come, you're rather a remarkable boy," said the young man, who was a
reporter on a daily paper, going over to attend a meeting in Brooklyn,
to write an account of it to appear in one of the city dailies in the
morning. "I don't generally give money in such cases, but I must make
an exception in your case."
He drew a dime from his vest-pocket and handed it to Mark.
Mark took it with a blush of mortification at the necessity.
"I wouldn't beg if I could help it," he said, desiring to justify
himself in the eyes of the good-natured young man.
"I'm glad to hear that. Johnny." (Johnny is a common name applied to
boys whose names are unknown.) "It isn't a very creditable business.
What makes you beg, then?"
"I shall be beaten if I don't," said Mark.
"That's bad. Who will beat you?"
"Mother Watson."
"Tell Mother Watson, with my compliments, that she's a wicked old
tyrant. I'll tell you what, my lad, you must grow as fast as you can,
and by and by you'll get too large for that motherly old woman to whip.
But there goes the bell. I must be getting aboard."
This was the result of Mark's first begging appeal. He looked at the
money, and wished he had got it in any other way. If it had been the
reward of an hour's work he would have gazed at it with much greater
satisfaction.
Well, he had made a beginning. He had got ten cents. But there still
remained fifteen cents to obtain, and without that he did not feel safe
in going back.
So he looked about him for another person to address. This time he
thought he would ask a lady. Accordingly he went up to one, who was
walking with her son, a boy of sixteen, to judge from appearance, and
asked for a few pennies.
"Get out of my way, you little beggar!" she said, in a disagreeable
tone. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself, going round begging, instead of
earning money like honest people?"
"I've been trying to earn money all day," said Mark, rather indignant
at this attack.
"Oh no doubt," sneered the woman. "I don't think you'll hurt yourself
with work."
"I was round the streets all day trying to sell matches," said Mark.
"You mustn't believe what he says, mother," said the boy. "They're all
a set of humbugs, and will lie as fast as they can talk."
"I've no doubt of it, Roswell," said Mrs. Crawford. "Such little
impostors never get anything out of me. I've got other uses for my
money."
Mark was a gentle, peaceful boy, but such attacks naturally made him
indignant.
"I am not an impostor, and I neither lie nor steal," he said, looking
alternately from the mother to the son.
"Oh, you're a fine young man. I've no doubt," said Roswell, with a
sneer. "But we'd better be getting on, mother, unless you mean to stop
in Fulton Market all night."
So mother and son passed on, leaving Mark with a sense of mortification
and injury. He would have given the ten cents he had, not to have asked
charity of this woman who had answered him so unpleasantly.
Those of my readers who have read the two preceding volumes of
this series will recognize in Roswell Crawford and his mother old
acquaintances who played an important part in the former stories. As,
however, I may have some new readers, it may be as well to explain that
Roswell was a self-conceited boy, who prided himself on being "the
son of a gentleman," and whose great desire was to find a place where
the pay would be large and the duties very small. Unfortunately for
his pride, his father had failed in business shortly before he died,
and his mother had been compelled to keep a boarding-house. She, too,
was troubled with a pride very similar to that of her son, and chafed
inwardly at her position, instead of reconciling herself to it, as many
better persons have done.
Roswell was not very fortunate in retaining the positions he obtained,
being generally averse to doing anything except what he was absolutely
obliged to do. He had lost a situation in a dry-goods store in Sixth
Avenue, because he objected to carrying bundles, considering it beneath
the dignity of a gentleman's son. Some months before he had tried
to get Richard Hunter discharged from his situation in the hope of
succeeding him in it; but this plot proved utterly unsuccessful, as is
fully described in "Fame and Fortune."
We shall have more to do with Roswell Crawford in the course of the
present story. At present he was employed in a retail bookstore up
town, on a salary of six dollars a week.