"All aboard for Coney Island!" The gates of the bridge train slammed, the
whistle shrieked, and the cars rolled out past rows of houses that grew
smaller and lower to Jim's wondering eyes, until they quite disappeared
beneath the track. He felt himself launching forth above the world of men,
and presently he saw, deep down below, the broad stream with ships and
ferry-boats and craft going different ways, just like the tracks and
traffic in a big, wide street; only so far away was it all that the
pennant on the topmast of a vessel passing directly under the train seemed
as if it did not belong to his world at all. Jim followed the white foam
in the wake of the sloop with fascinated stare, until a puffing tug
bustled across its track and wiped it out. Then he settled back in his
seat with a sigh that had been pent up within him twenty long, wondering
minutes since he limped down the Subway at Twenty-third Street. It was his
first journey abroad.
Jim had never been to the Brooklyn Bridge before. It is doubtful if he had
ever heard of it. If he had, it was as of something so distant, so unreal,
as to have been quite within the realm of fairyland, had his life
experience included fairies. It had not. Jim's frail craft had been
launched in Little Italy, half a dozen miles or more up-town, and there it
had been moored, its rovings being limited at the outset by babyhood and
the tenement, and later on by the wreck that had made of him a castaway
for life. A mysterious something had attacked one of Jim's ankles, and,
despite ointments and lotions prescribed by the wise women of the
tenement, had eaten into the bone and stayed there. At nine the lad was a
cripple with one leg shorter than the other by two or three inches, with a
stepmother, a squalling baby to mind for his daily task, hard words and
kicks for his wage; for Jim was an unprofitable investment, promising no
returns, but, rather, constant worry and outlay. The outlook was not the
most cheering in the world.
But, happily, Jim was little concerned about things to come. He lived in
the day that is, fighting his way as he could with a leg and a half and a
nickname,--"Gimpy" they called him for his limp,--and getting out of it
what a fellow so handicapped could. After all, there were compensations.
When the gang scattered before the cop, it did not occur to him to lay any
of the blame to Gimpy, though the little lad with the pinched face and
sharp eyes had, in fact, done scouting duty most craftily. It was partly
in acknowledgment of such services, partly as a concession to his sharper
wits, that Gimpy was tacitly allowed a seat in the councils of the Cave
Gang, though in the far "kid" corner. He limped through their campaigns
with them, learned to swim by "dropping off the dock" at the end of the
street into the swirling tide, and once nearly lost his life when one of
the bigger boys dared him to run through an election bonfire like his
able-bodied comrades. Gimpy started to do it at once, but stumbled and
fell, and was all but burned to death before the other boys could pull him
out. This act of bravado earned him full membership in the gang, despite
his tender years; and, indeed, it is doubtful if in all that region there
was a lad of his age as tough and loveless as Gimpy. The one affection of
his barren life was the baby that made it slavery by day. But, somehow,
there was that in its chubby foot groping for him in its baby sleep, or in
the little round head pillowed on his shoulder, that more than made up for
it all.
Ill luck was surely Gimpy's portion. It was not a month after he had
returned to the haunts of the gang, a battle-scarred veteran now since
his encounter with the bonfire, when "the Society's" officers held up the
huckster's wagon from which he was crying potatoes with his thin, shrill
voice, which somehow seemed to convey the note of pain that was the
prevailing strain of his life. They made Gimpy a prisoner, limp, stick,
and all. The inquiry that ensued as to his years and home setting, the
while Gimpy was undergoing the incredible experience of being washed and
fed regularly three times a day, set in motion the train of events that
was at present hurrying him toward Coney Island in midwinter, with a
snow-storm draping the land in white far and near, as the train sped
seaward. He gasped as he reviewed the hurrying events of the week: the
visit of the doctor from Sea Breeze, who had scrutinized his ankle as if
he expected to find some of the swag of the last raid hidden somewhere
about it. Gimpy never took his eyes off him during the examination. No
word or cry escaped him when it hurt most, but his bright, furtive eyes
never left the doctor or lost one of his movements. "Just like a weasel
caught in a trap," said the doctor, speaking of his charge afterward.
But when it was over, he clapped Gimpy on the shoulder and said it was all
right. He was sure he could help.
"Have him at the Subway to-morrow at twelve," was his parting direction;
and Gimpy had gone to bed to dream that he was being dragged down the
stone stairs by three helmeted men, to be fed to a monster breathing fire
and smoke at the foot of the stairs.
Now his wondering journey was disturbed by a cheery voice beside him.
"Well, bub, ever see that before?" and the doctor pointed to the gray
ocean line dead ahead. Gimpy had not seen it, but he knew well enough what
it was.
"It's the river," he said, "that I cross when I go to Italy."
"Right!" and his companion held out a helping hand as the train pulled up
at the end of the journey. "Now let's see how we can navigate."
And, indeed, there was need of seeing about it. Right from the step of the
train the snow lay deep, a pathless waste burying street and sidewalk out
of sight, blocking the closed and barred gate of Dreamland, of radiant
summer memory, and stalling the myriad hobby-horses of shows that slept
their long winter sleep. Not a whinny came on the sharp salt breeze. The
strident voice of the carpenter's saw and the rat-tat-tat of his hammer
alone bore witness that there was life somewhere in the white desert. The
doctor looked in dismay at Gimpy's brace and high shoe, and shook his
head.
"He never can do it. Hello, there!" An express wagon had come into view
around the corner of the shed. "Here's a job for you." And before he could
have said Jack Robinson, Gimpy felt himself hoisted bodily into the wagon
and deposited there like any express package. From somewhere a longish
something that proved to be a Christmas-tree, very much wrapped and
swathed about, came to keep him company. The doctor climbed up by the
driver, and they were off. Gimpy recalled with a dull sense of impending
events in which for once he had no shaping hand, as he rubbed his ears
where the bitter blast pinched, that to-morrow was Christmas.
A strange group was that which gathered about the supper-table at Sea
Breeze that night. It would have been sufficiently odd to any one
anywhere; but to Gimpy, washed, in clean, comfortable raiment, with his
bad foot set in a firm bandage, and for once no longer sore with the pain
that had racked his frame from babyhood, it seemed so unreal that once or
twice he pinched himself covertly to see if he were really awake. They
came weakly stumping with sticks and crutches and on club feet, the lame
and the halt, the children of sorrow and suffering from the city slums,
and stood leaning on crutch or chair for support while they sang their
simple grace; but neither in their clear childish voices nor yet in the
faces that were turned toward Gimpy in friendly scrutiny as the last
comer, was there trace of pain. Their cheeks were ruddy and their eyes
bright with the health of outdoors, and when they sang about the "Frog in
the Pond," in response to a spontaneous demand, laughter bubbled over
around the table. Gimpy, sizing his fellow-boarders up according to the
standards of the gang, with the mental conclusion that he "could lick the
bunch," felt a warm little hand worming its way into his, and, looking
into a pair of trustful baby eyes, choked with a sudden reminiscent pang,
but smiled back at his friend and felt suddenly at home. Little Ellen,
with the pervading affections, had added him to her family of brothers.
What honors were in store for him in that relation Gimpy never guessed.
Ellen left no one out. When summer came again she enlarged the family
further by adopting the President of the United States as her papa, when
he came visiting to Sea Breeze; and by rights Gimpy should have achieved a
pull such as would have turned the boss of his ward green with envy.
It appeared speedily that something unusual was on foot. There was a
subdued excitement among the children which his experience diagnosed at
first flush as the symptoms of a raid. But the fact that in all the waste
of snow on the way over he had seen nothing rising to the apparent dignity
of candy-shop or grocery-store made him dismiss the notion as untenable.
Presently unfamiliar doings developed. The children who could write
scribbled notes on odd sheets of paper, which the nurses burned in the
fireplace with solemn incantations. Something in the locked dining-room
was an object of pointed interest. Things were going on there, and
expeditions to penetrate the mystery were organized at brief intervals,
and as often headed off by watchful nurses.
When, finally, the children were gotten upstairs and undressed, from the
headpost of each of thirty-six beds there swung a little stocking, limp
and yawning with mute appeal. Gimpy had "caught on" by this time: it was a
wishing-bee, and old Santa Claus was supposed to fill the stockings with
what each had most desired. The consultation over, baby George had let him
into the game. Baby George did not know enough to do his own wishing, and
the thirty-five took it in hand while he was being put to bed.
"Let's wish for some little dresses for him," said big Mariano, who was
the baby's champion and court of last resort; "that's what he needs." And
it was done. Gimpy smiled a little disdainfully at the credulity of the
"kids." The Santa Claus fake was out of date a long while in his tenement.
But he voted for baby George's dresses, all the same, and even went to
the length of recording his own wish for a good baseball bat. Gimpy was
coming on.
Going to bed in that queer place fairly "stumped" Gimpy. "Peeli'" had
been the simplest of processes in Little Italy. Here they pulled a
fellow's clothes off only to put on another lot, heavier every way, with
sweater and hood and flannel socks and mittens to boot, as if the boy were
bound for a tussle with the storm outside rather than for his own warm
bed. And so, in fact, he was. For no sooner had he been tucked under the
blankets, warm and snug, than the nurses threw open all the windows, every
one, and let the gale from without surge in and through as it listed; and
so they left them. Gimpy shivered as he felt the frosty breath of the
ocean nipping his nose, and crept under the blanket for shelter. But
presently he looked up and saw the other boys snoozing happily like so
many little Eskimos equipped for the North Pole, and decided to keep them
company. For a while he lay thinking of the strange things that had
happened that day, since his descent into the Subway. If the gang could
see him now. But it seemed far away, with all his past life--farther than
the river with the ships deep down below. Out there upon the dark waters,
in the storm, were they sailing now, and all the lights of the city
swallowed up in gloom? Presently he heard through it all the train roaring
far off in the Subway and many hurrying feet on the stairs. The iron gates
clanked--and he fell asleep with the song of the sea for his lullaby.
Mother Nature had gathered her child to her bosom, and the slum had lost
in the battle for a life.
The clock had not struck two when from the biggest boy's bed in the corner
there came in a clear, strong alto the strains of "Ring, ring, happy
bells!" and from every room childish voices chimed in. The nurses hurried
to stop the chorus with the message that it was yet five hours to
daylight. They were up, trimming the tree in the dining-room; at the last
moment the crushing announcement had been made that the candy had been
forgotten, and a midnight expedition had set out for the city through the
storm to procure it. A semblance of order was restored, but cat naps ruled
after that, till, at daybreak, a gleeful shout from Ellen's bed
proclaimed that Santa Claus had been there, in very truth, and had left a
dolly in her stocking. It was the signal for such an uproar as had not
been heard on that beach since Port Arthur fell for the last time upon its
defenders three months before. From thirty-six stockings came forth a
veritable army of tops, balls, wooden animals of unknown pedigree,
oranges, music-boxes, and cunning little pocket-books, each with a shining
silver quarter in, love-tokens of one in the great city whose heart must
have been light with happy dreams in that hour. Gimpy drew forth from his
stocking a very able-bodied baseball bat and considered it with a stunned
look. Santa Claus was a fake, but the bat--there was no denying that, and
he _had_ wished for one the very last thing before he fell asleep!
Daylight struggled still with a heavy snow-squall when the signal was
given for the carol "Christmas time has come again," and the march down to
breakfast. That march! On the third step the carol was forgotten and the
band broke into one long cheer that was kept up till the door of the
dining-room was reached. At the first glimpse within, baby George's wail
rose loud and grievous: "My chair! my chair!" But it died in a shriek of
joy as he saw what it was that had taken its place. There stood the
Christmas-tree, one mass of shining candles, and silver and gold, and
angels with wings, and wondrous things of colored paper all over it from
top to bottom. Gimpy's eyes sparkled at the sight, skeptic though he was
at nine; and in the depths of his soul he came over, then and there, to
Santa Claus, to abide forever--only he did not know it yet.
To make the children eat any breakfast, with three gay sleds waiting to
take the girls out in the snow, was no easy matter; but it was done at
last, and they swarmed forth for a holiday in the open. All days are spent
in the open at Sea Breeze,--even the school is a tent,--and very cold
weather only shortens the brief school hour; but this day was to be given
over to play altogether. Winter it was "for fair," but never was coasting
enjoyed on New England hills as these sledding journeys on the sands where
the surf beat in with crash of thunder. The sea itself had joined in
making Christmas for its little friends. The day before, a regiment of
crabs had come ashore and surrendered to the cook at Sea Breeze. Christmas
morn found the children's "floor"--they called the stretch of clean, hard
sand between high-water mark and the surf-line by that name--filled with
gorgeous shells and pebbles, and strange fishes left there by the tide
overnight. The fair-weather friends who turn their backs upon old ocean
with the first rude blasts of autumn little know what wonderful surprises
it keeps for those who stand by it in good and in evil report.
When the very biggest turkey that ever strutted in barnyard was discovered
steaming in the middle of the dinner-table and the report went round in
whispers that ice-cream had been seen carried in in pails, and when, in
response to a pull at the bell, Matron Thomsen ushered in a squad of
smiling mamas and papas to help eat the dinner, even Gimpy gave in to the
general joy, and avowed that Christmas was "bully." Perhaps his acceptance
of the fact was made easier by a hasty survey of the group of papas and
mamas, which assured him that his own were not among them. A fleeting
glimpse of the baby, deserted and disconsolate, brought the old pucker to
his brow for a passing moment; but just then big Fred set off a snapper at
his very ear, and thrusting a pea-green fool's-cap upon his head, pushed
him into the roistering procession that hobbled round and round the table,
cheering fit to burst. And the babies that had been brought down from
their cribs, strapped, because their backs were crooked, in the frames
that look so cruel and are so kind, lifted up their feeble voices as they
watched the show with shining eyes. Little baby Helen, who could only
smile and wave "by-by" with one fat hand, piped in with her tiny voice,
"Here I is!" It was all she knew, and she gave that with a right good
will, which is as much as one can ask of anybody, even of a snow baby.
If there were still lacking a last link to rivet Gimpy's loyalty to his
new home for good and all, he himself supplied it when the band gathered
under the leafless trees--for Sea Breeze has a grove in summer, the only
one on the island--and whiled away the afternoon making a "park" in the
snow, with sea-shells for curbing and boundary stones. When it was all
but completed, Gimpy, with an inspiration that then and there installed
him leader, gave it the finishing touch by drawing a policeman on the
corner with a club, and a sign, "Keep off the grass." Together they gave
it the air of reality and the true local color that made them feel, one
and all, that now indeed they were at home.
Toward evening a snow-storm blew in from the sea, but instead of scurrying
for shelter, the little Eskimos joined the doctor in hauling wood for a
big bonfire on the beach. There, while the surf beat upon the shore hardly
a dozen steps away, and the storm whirled the snow-clouds in weird drifts
over sea and land, they drew near the fire, and heard the doctor tell
stories that seemed to come right out of the darkness and grow real while
they listened. Dr. Wallace is a Southerner and lived his childhood with
Br'er Rabbit and Mr. Fox, and they saw them plainly gamboling in the
firelight as the story went on. For the doctor knows boys and loves them,
that is how.
No one would have guessed that they were cripples, every one of that
rugged band that sat down around the Christmas supper-table, rosy-cheeked
and jolly--cripples condemned, but for Sea Breeze, to lives of misery and
pain, most of them to an early death and suffering to others. For their
enemy was that foe of mankind, the White Plague, that for thousands of
years has taken tithe and toll of the ignorance and greed and selfishness
of man, which sometimes we call with one name--the slum. Gimpy never
would have dreamed that the tenement held no worse threat for the baby he
yearned for than himself, with his crippled foot, when he was there. These
things you could not have told even the fathers and mothers; or if you
had, no one there but the doctor and the nurses would have believed you.
They knew only too well. But two things you could make out, with no
trouble at all, by the lamplight: one, that they were one and all on the
homeward stretch to health and vigor--Gimpy himself was a different lad
from the one who had crept shivering to bed the night before; and this
other, that they were the sleepiest crew of youngsters ever got together.
Before they had finished the first verse of "America" as their good night,
standing up like little men, half of them were down and asleep with their
heads pillowed upon their arms. And so Miss Brass, the head nurse,
gathered them in and off to bed.
"And now, boys," she said as they were being tucked in, "your prayers."
And of those who were awake each said his own: Willie his "Now I lay me,"
Mariano his "Ave," but little Bent from the Eastside tenement wailed that
he didn't have any. Bent was a newcomer like Gimpy.
"Then," said six-year-old Morris, resolutely,--he also was a Jew,--"I
learn him mine vat my fader tol' me." And getting into Bent's crib, he
crept under the blanket with his little comrade. Gimpy saw them reverently
pull their worsted caps down over their heads, and presently their tiny
voices whispered together, in the jargon of the East Side, their petition
to the Father of all, who looked lovingly down through the storm upon his
children of many folds.
The last prayer was said, and all was still. Through the peaceful
breathing of the boys all about him, Gimpy, alone wakeful, heard the deep
bass of the troubled sea. The storm had blown over. Through the open
windows shone the eternal stars, as on that night in the Judean hills when
shepherds herded their flocks and
"The angels of the Lord came down."
He did not know. He was not thinking of angels; none had ever come to his
slum. But a great peace came over him and filled his child-soul. It may be
that the nurse saw it shining in his eyes and thought it fever. It may be
that she, too, was thinking in that holy hour. She bent over him and laid
a soothing hand upon his brow.
"You must sleep now," she said.
Something that was not of the tenement, something vital, with which his
old life had no concern, welled up in Gimpy at the touch. He caught her
hand and held it.
"I will if you will sit here," he said. He could not help it.
"Why, Jimmy?" She stroked back his shock of stubborn hair. Something
glistened on her eyelashes as she looked at the forlorn little face on the
pillow. How should Gimpy know that he was at that moment leading another
struggling soul by the hand toward the light that never dies?
"'Cause," he gulped hard, but finished manfully--"'cause I love you."
Gimpy had learned the lesson of Christmas,
"And glory shone around."