the top story of the great brick tenement house in which she lived, she
was quite tired out. If you do not understand what a story over a top
story is, you must remember that there are no limits to human greed,
and hardly any to the height of tenement houses. When the man who owned
that seven–story tenement found that he could rent another floor, he
found no difficulty in persuading the guardians of our building laws to
let him clap another story on the roof, like a cabin on the deck of a
ship; and in the southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor the
little seamstress lived. You could just see the top of her window from
the street—the huge cornice that had capped the original front, and
that served as her window–sill now, quite hid all the lower part of the
story on top of the top–story.
The little seamstress was scarcely thirty years old, but she was
such an old–fashioned little body in so many of her looks and ways
that I had almost spelled her sempstress, after the fashion of our
grandmothers. She had been a comely body, too; and would have been
still, if she had not been thin and pale and anxious–eyed.
She was tired out to–night because she had been working hard all day
for a lady who lived far up in the “New Wards” beyond Harlem River,
and after the long journey home, she had to climb seven flights of
tenement–house stairs. She was too tired, both in body and in mind, to
cook the two little chops she had brought home. She would save them
for breakfast, she thought. So she made herself a cup of tea on the
miniature stove, and ate a slice of dry bread with it. It was too much
trouble to make toast.
But after dinner she watered her flowers. She was never too tired
for that: and the six pots of geraniums that caught the south sun
on the top of the cornice did their best to repay her. Then she sat
down in her rocking chair by the window and looked out. Her eyry was
high above all the other buildings, and she could look across some
low roofs opposite, and see the further end of Tompkins Square, with
its sparse Spring green showing faintly through the dusk. The eternal
roar of the city floated up to her and vaguely troubled her. She was
a country girl, and although she had lived for ten years in New York,
she had never grown used to that ceaseless murmur. To–night she felt
the languor of the new season as well as the heaviness of physical
exhaustion. She was almost too tired to go to bed.
She thought of the hard day done and the hard day to be begun after the
night spent on the hard little bed. She thought of the peaceful days in
the country, when she taught school in the Massachusetts village where
she was born. She thought of a hundred small slights that she had to
bear from people better fed than bred. She thought of the sweet green
fields that she rarely saw nowadays. She thought of the long journey
forth and back that must begin and end her morrow’s work, and she
wondered if her employer would think to offer to pay her fare. Then she
pulled herself together. She must think of more agreeable things, or
she could not sleep. And as the only agreeable things she had to think
about were her flowers, she looked at the garden on top of the cornice.
A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, and she saw a cylindrical
object that glittered in the twilight, advancing in an irregular and
uncertain manner toward her flower–pots. Looking closer, she saw that
it was a pewter beer–mug, which somebody in the next apartment was
pushing with a two–foot rule. On top of the beer–mug was a piece of
paper, and on this paper was written, in a sprawling, half–formed hand:
_porter_
_pleas excuse the libberty And_
_drink it_
The seamstress started up in terror, and shut the window. She
remembered that there was a man in the next apartment. She had seen
him on the stairs, on Sundays. He seemed a grave, decent person;
but—he must be drunk. She sat down on her bed, all a–tremble. Then she
reasoned with herself. The man was drunk, that was all. He probably
would not annoy her further. And if he did, she had only to retreat
to Mrs. Mulvaney’s apartment in the rear, and Mr. Mulvaney, who was
a highly respectable man and worked in a boiler–shop, would protect
her. So, being a poor woman who had already had occasion to excuse—and
refuse—two or three “libberties” of like sort, she made up her mind to
go to bed like a reasonable seamstress, and she did. She was rewarded,
for when her light was out, she could see in the moonlight that the
two–foot rule appeared again, with one joint bent back, hitched itself
into the mug–handle, and withdrew the mug.
The next day was a hard one for the little seamstress, and she hardly
thought of the affair of the night before until the same hour had come
around again, and she sat once more by her window. Then she smiled at
the remembrance. “Poor fellow,” she said in her charitable heart, “I’ve
no doubt he’s _awfully_ ashamed of it now. Perhaps he was never tipsy
before. Perhaps he didn’t know there was a lone woman in here to be
frightened.”
Just then she heard a gritting sound. She looked down. The pewter pot
was in front of her, and the two–foot rule was slowly retiring. On the
pot was a piece of paper, and on the paper was:
_porter_
_good for the helth_
_it makes meet_
This time the little seamstress shut her window with a bang of
indignation. The color rose to her pale cheeks. She thought that she
would go down to see the janitor at once. Then she remembered the seven
flights of stairs; and she resolved to see the janitor in the morning.
Then she went to bed and saw the mug drawn back just as it had been
drawn back the night before.
The morning came, but, somehow, the seamstress did not care to complain
to the janitor. She hated to make trouble—and the janitor might
think—and—and—well, if the wretch did it again she would speak to him
herself, and that would settle it.
And so, on the next night, which was a Thursday, the little seamstress
sat down by her window, resolved to settle the matter. And she had not
sat there long, rocking in the creaking little rocking–chair which she
had brought with her from her old home, when the pewter pot hove in
sight, with a piece of paper on the top.
This time the legend read:
_Perhaps you are afrade i will_
_adress you_
_i am not that kind_
The seamstress did not quite know whether to laugh or to cry. But she
felt that the time had come for speech. She leaned out of her window
and addressed the twilight heaven.
“Mr.—Mr.—sir—I—will you _please_ put your head out of the window so
that I can speak to you?”
The silence of the other room was undisturbed. The seamstress drew
back, blushing. But before she could nerve herself for another attack,
a piece of paper appeared on the end of the two–foot rule.
_when i Say a thing i_
_mene it_
_i have Sed i would not_
_Adress you and i_
_Will not_
What was the little seamstress to do? She stood by the window and
thought hard about it. Should she complain to the janitor? But the
creature was perfectly respectful. No doubt he meant to be kind.
He certainly was kind, to waste these pots of porter on her. She
remembered the last time—and the first—that she had drunk porter.
It was at home, when she was a young girl, after she had had the
diphtheria. She remembered how good it was, and how it had given her
back her strength. And without one thought of what she was doing, she
lifted the pot of porter and took one little reminiscent sip—two little
reminiscent sips—and became aware of her utter fall and defeat. She
blushed now as she had never blushed before, put the pot down, closed
the window, and fled to her bed like a deer to the woods.
And when the porter arrived the next night, bearing the simple appeal:
_Dont be afrade of it_
_drink it all_
the little seamstress arose and grasped the pot firmly by the handle,
and poured its contents over the earth around her largest geranium. She
poured the contents out to the last drop, and then she dropped the pot,
and ran back and sat on her bed and cried, with her face hid in her
hands.
[Illustration]
“Now,” she said to herself, “you’ve done it! And you’re just as nasty
and hard–hearted and suspicious and mean as—as pusley!”
And she wept to think of her hardness of heart. “He will never give me
a chance to say I am sorry,” she thought. And, really, she might have
spoken kindly to the poor man, and told him that she was much obliged
to him, but that he really mustn’t ask her to drink porter with him.
“But it’s all over and done now,” she said to herself as she sat at her
window on Saturday night. And then she looked at the cornice, and saw
the faithful little pewter pot traveling slowly toward her.
She was conquered. This act of Christian forbearance was too much for
her kindly spirit. She read the inscription on the paper:
_porter is good for Flours_
_but better for Fokes_
and she lifted the pot to her lips, which were not half so red as her
cheeks, and took a good, hearty, grateful draught.
[Illustration]
She sipped in thoughtful silence after this first plunge, and presently
she was surprised to find the bottom of the pot in full view.
On the table at her side a few pearl buttons were screwed up in a bit
of white paper. She untwisted the paper and smoothed it out, and wrote
in a tremulous hand—she _could_ write a very neat hand—
_Thanks._
This she laid on the top of the pot, and in a moment the bent
two–foot–rule appeared and drew the mail–carriage home. Then she sat
still, enjoying the warm glow of the porter, which seemed to have
permeated her entire being with a heat that was not at all like the
unpleasant and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, an atmosphere heavy
with the Spring damp. A gritting on the tin aroused her. A piece of
paper lay under her eyes.
_fine groing weather_
_Smith_
it said.
Now it is unlikely that in the whole round and range of conversational
commonplaces there was one other greeting that could have induced
the seamstress to continue the exchange of communications. But this
simple and homely phrase touched her country heart. What did “_groing
weather_” matter to the toilers in this waste of brick and mortar? This
stranger must be, like herself, a country–bred soul, longing for the
new green and the upturned brown mould of the country fields. She took
up the paper, and wrote under the first message:
_Fine_
But that seemed curt; _for_ she added: “_for_” what? She did not know.
At last in desperation she put down _potatos_. The piece of paper was
withdrawn and came back with an addition:
_Too mist for potatos._
And when the little seamstress had read this, and grasped the fact
that _m–i–s–t_ represented the writer’s pronunciation of “moist,”
she laughed softly to herself. A man whose mind, at such a time, was
seriously bent upon potatos, was not a man to be feared. She found a
half–sheet of note–paper, and wrote:
_I lived in a small village before I came to New York, but I am afraid
I do not know much about farming. Are you a farmer?_
The answer came:
_have ben most Every thing_
_farmed a Spel in Maine_
_Smith_
As she read this, the seamstress heard a church clock strike nine.
“Bless me, is it so late?” she cried, and she hurriedly penciled _Good
Night_, thrust the paper out, and closed the window. But a few minutes
later, passing by, she saw yet another bit of paper on the cornice,
fluttering in the evening breeze. It said only _good nite_, and after
a moment’s hesitation, the little seamstress took it in and gave it
shelter.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
After this, they were the best of friends. Every evening the pot
appeared, and while the seamstress drank from it at her window, Mr.
Smith drank from its twin at his; and notes were exchanged as rapidly
as Mr. Smith’s early education permitted. They told each other their
histories, and Mr. Smith’s was one of travel and variety, which he
seemed to consider quite a matter of course. He had followed the
sea, he had farmed, he had been a logger and a hunter in the Maine
woods. Now he was foreman of an East River lumber yard, and he was
prospering. In a year or two he would have enough laid by to go home
to Bucksport and buy a share in a ship–building business. All this
dribbled out in the course of a jerky but variegated correspondence,
in which autobiographic details were mixed with reflections, moral and
philosophical.
A few samples will give an idea of Mr. Smith’s style:
_i was one trip to van demens_
_land_
To which the seamstress replied:
_It must have been very interesting._
But Mr. Smith disposed of this subject very briefly:
_it wornt_
[Illustration]
Further he vouchsafed:
_i seen a chinese cook in hong kong could cook flapjacks like your
Mother_
_a mishnery that sells Rum is the menest of Gods crechers_
_a bulfite is not what it is cract up to Be_
_the dagos are wussen the brutes_
_i am 6 1¾ but my Father was 6 foot 4_
The seamstress had taught school one Winter, and she could not refrain
from making an attempt to reform Mr. Smith’s orthography. One evening,
in answer to this communication:
_i killd a Bare in Maine 600 lbs waight_
she wrote:
_Isn’t it generally spelled Bear?_
but she gave up the attempt when he responded:
_a bare is a mene animle any way you spel him_
The Spring wore on, and the Summer came, and still the evening drink
and the evening correspondence brightened the close of each day for
the little seamstress. And the draught of porter put her to sleep each
night, giving her a calmer rest than she had ever known during her stay
in the noisy city; and it began, moreover, to make a little “_meet_”
for her. And then the thought that she was going to have an hour of
pleasant companionship somehow gave her courage to cook and eat her
little dinner, however tired she was. The seamstress’s cheeks began to
blossom with the June roses.
And all this time Mr. Smith kept his vow of silence unbroken, though
the seamstress sometimes tempted him with little ejaculations and
exclamations to which he might have responded. He was silent and
invisible. Only the smoke of his pipe, and the clink of his mug as he
set it down on the cornice, told her that a living, material Smith was
her correspondent. They never met on the stairs, for their hours of
coming and going did not coincide. Once or twice they passed each other
in the street—but Mr. Smith looked straight ahead of him, about a foot
over her head. The little seamstress thought he was a very fine–looking
man, with his six feet one and three–quarters and his thick brown
beard. Most people would have called him plain.
[Illustration]
Once she spoke to him. She was coming home one Summer evening, and a
gang of corner–loafers stopped her and demanded money to buy beer,
as is their custom. Before she had time to be frightened, Mr. Smith
appeared—whence, she knew not—scattered the gang like chaff, and,
collaring two of the human hyenas, kicked them, with deliberate,
ponderous, alternate kicks, until they writhed in ineffable agony.
When he let them crawl away, she turned to him and thanked him warmly,
looking very pretty now, with the color in her cheeks. But Mr. Smith
answered no word. He stared over her head, grew red in the face,
fidgeted nervously, but held his peace until his eyes fell on a rotund
Teuton, passing by.
“Say, Dutchy!” he roared.
The German stood aghast.
“I ain’t got nothing to write with!” thundered Mr. Smith, looking him
in the eye. And then the man of his word passed on his way.
And so the Summer went on, and the two correspondents chatted silently
from window to window, hid from sight of all the world below by the
friendly cornice. And they looked out over the roof, and saw the green
of Tompkins Square grow darker and dustier as the months went on.
[Illustration]
Mr. Smith was given to Sunday trips into the suburbs, and he never came
back without a bunch of daisies or black–eyed Susans or, later, asters
or golden–rod for the little seamstress. Sometimes, with a sagacity
rare in his sex, he brought her a whole plant, with fresh loam for
potting.
He gave her also a reel in a bottle, which, he wrote, he had “_maid_”
himself, and some coral, and a dried flying–fish, that was somewhat
fearful to look upon, with its sword–like fins and its hollow eyes. At
first, she could not go to sleep with that flying–fish hanging on the
wall.
But he surprised the little seamstress very much one cool September
evening, when he shoved this letter along the cornice:
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
Respected and Honored Madam:
Having long and vainly sought an opportunity to convey to you the
expression of my sentiments, I now avail myself of the privilege
of epistolary communication to acquaint you with the fact that the
Emotions, which you have raised in my breast, are those which should
point to Connubial Love and Affection rather than to simple Friendship.
In short, Madam, I have the Honor to approach you with a Proposal, the
acceptance of which will fill me with ecstatic Gratitude, and enable
me to extend to you those Protecting Cares, which the Matrimonial Bond
makes at once the Duty and the Privilege of him, who would, at no
distant date, lead to the Hymeneal Altar one whose charms and virtues
should suffice to kindle its Flames, without extraneous Aid
I remain, Dear Madam,
Your Humble Servant and
Ardent Adorer, J. Smith.]
[Illustration]
The little seamstress gazed at this letter a long time. Perhaps she was
wondering in what Ready Letter–Writer of the last century Mr. Smith
had found his form. Perhaps she was amazed at the results of his first
attempt at punctuation. Perhaps she was thinking of something else, for
there were tears in her eyes and a smile on her small mouth.
But it must have been a long time, and Mr. Smith must have grown
nervous, for presently another communication came along the line where
the top of the cornice was worn smooth. It read:
_If not understood will you mary me_
The little seamstress seized a piece of paper and wrote:
_If I say Yes, will you speak to me?_
Then she rose and passed it out to him, leaning out of the window, and
their faces met.
[Illustration]
ZENOBIA’S INFIDELITY.
[Illustration: “_’That there elephant’s been like my own child,’
groaned the keeper._”]
ZENOBIA’S INFIDELITY.
[Illustration]
Dr. Tibbitt stood on the porch of Mrs. Pennypepper’s boarding–house,
and looked up and down the deserted Main Street of Sagawaug with a
contented smile, the while he buttoned his driving–gloves. The little
doctor had good cause to be content with himself and with everything
else—with his growing practice, with his comfortable boarding–house,
with his own good–looks, with his neat attire, and with the world in
general. He could not but be content with Sagawaug, for there never was
a prettier country town. The Doctor looked across the street and picked
out the very house that he proposed to buy when the one remaining
desire of his soul was gratified. It was a house with a hip–roof and
with a long garden running down to the river.
There was no one in the house to–day, but there was no one in any of
the houses. Not even a pair of round bare arms was visible among the
clothes that waved in the August breeze in every back–yard. It was
Circus Day in Sagawaug.
The Doctor was climbing into his gig when a yell startled him. A
freckled boy with saucer eyes dashed around the corner.
“Doctor!” he gasped, “come quick! The circus got a–fire an’ the trick
elephant’s most roasted!”
“Don’t be silly, Johnny,” said the Doctor, reprovingly.
“Hope to die—Honest Injun—cross my breast!” said the boy. The Doctor
knew the sacredness of this juvenile oath.
“Get in here with me,” he said, “and if I find you’re trying to be
funny, I’ll drop you in the river.”
As they drove toward the outskirts of the town, Johnny told his tale.
“Now,” he began, “the folks was all out of the tent after the show was
over, and one of the circus men, he went to the oil–barrel in the green
wagon with Dan’l in the Lion’s Den onto the outside of it, an’ he took
in a candle an’ left it there, and fust thing the barrel busted, an’
he wasn’t hurted a bit, but the trick elephant she was burned awful,
an’ the ring–tailed baboon, he was so scared he had a fit. Say, did you
know baboons had fits?”
When they reached the circus–grounds, they found a crowd around a small
side–show tent. A strong odor of burnt leather confirmed Johnny’s
story. Dr. Tibbitt pushed his way through the throng, and gazed upon
the huge beast, lying on her side on the grass, her broad shoulder
charred and quivering. Her bulk expanded and contracted with spasms
of agony, and from time to time she uttered a moaning sound. On her
head was a structure of red cloth, about the size of a bushel–basket,
apparently intended to look like a British soldier’s forage–cap. This
was secured by a strap that went under her chin—if an elephant has a
chin. This scarlet cheese–box every now and then slipped down over her
eye, and the faithful animal patiently, in all her anguish, adjusted it
with her prehensile trunk.
[Illustration]
By her side stood her keeper and the proprietor of the show, a large
man with a dyed moustache, a wrinkled face, and hair oiled and frizzed.
These two bewailed their loss alternately.
“The boss elephant in the business!” cried the showman. “Barnum never
had no trick elephant like Zenobia. And them lynes and Dan’l was
painted in new before I took the road this season. Oh, there’s been a
hoodoo on me since I showed ag’inst the Sunday–school picnic!”
“That there elephant’s been like my own child,” groaned the keeper, “or
my own wife, I may say. I’ve slep’ alongside of her every night for
fourteen damn years.”
The Doctor had been carefully examining his patient.
“If there is any analogy—” he began.
“Neuralogy!” snorted the indignant showman; “‘t ain’t neuralogy, you
jay pill–box, she’s _cooked_!”
“If there is any analogy,” repeated Dr. Tibbitt, flushing a little,
“between her case and that of a human being, I think I can save your
elephant. Get me a barrel of linseed oil, and drive these people away.”
The Doctor’s orders were obeyed with eager submission. He took off
his coat, and went to work. He had never doctored an elephant, and
the job interested him. At the end of an hour, Zenobia’s sufferings
were somewhat alleviated. She lay on her side, chained tightly to the
ground, and swaddled in bandages. Her groans had ceased.
“I’ll call to–morrow at noon,” said the Doctor—“good gracious, what’s
that?” Zenobia’s trunk was playing around his waistband.
“She wants to shake hands with you,” her keeper explained. “She’s a
lady, she is, and she knows you done her good.”
“I’d rather not have any thing of the sort,” said the Doctor,
decisively.
When Dr. Tibbitt called at twelve on the morrow, he found Zenobia’s
tent neatly roped in, an amphitheatre of circus–benches constructed
around her, and this amphitheatre packed with people.
“Got a quarter apiece from them jays,” whispered the showman, “jest
to see you dress them wownds.” Subsequently the showman relieved his
mind to a casual acquaintance. “He’s got a heart like a gun–flint, that
doctor,” he said; “made me turn out every one of them jays and give ’em
their money back before he’d lay a hand to Zenobia.”
But if the Doctor suppressed the clinic, neither he nor the showman
suffered. From dawn till dusk people came from miles around to stare
a quarter’s worth at the burnt elephant. Once in a while, as a rare
treat, the keeper lifted a corner of her bandages, and revealed the
seared flesh. The show went off in a day or two, leaving Zenobia to
recover at leisure; and as it wandered westward, it did an increased
business simply because it had had a burnt trick elephant. Such, dear
friends, is the human mind.
[Illustration]
The Doctor fared even better. The fame of his new case spread far and
wide. People seemed to think that if he could cure an elephant he could
cure any thing. He was called into consultation in neighboring towns.
Women in robust health imagined ailments, so as to send for him and ask
him shuddering questions about “that _wretched_ animal.” The trustees
of the orphan–asylum made him staff–physician—in this case the Doctor
thought he could trace a connection of ideas, in which children and a
circus were naturally associated. And the local newspaper called him a
_savant_.