"WHAT A LITTLE SCHEMER IT IS!"
A RIOT! Not among men, which is sufficiently terrifying, nor yet among
women, which is worse, but that most awful of all sights and sounds
of sin—a riot among the children. Swearing, spitting at one another,
tearing one another's hair, scratching like tigers, growling like wild
beasts, throwing garbage at one another! This was the sort of crowd
upon which Mrs. Roberts, in her black silk walking-dress, with her
velvet hat and seal furs, presently came. She grasped at Dick's arm in
horror, but a feeling that was more than terror was taking her strength
away.
"Oh!" she said, and the agony in her voice really suggested more than
terror to the young fellow beside her. "And they are little children!
They cannot be more than seven or eight! Oh, what can I do?"
"You needn't be scared, mum!" There was a little hint of something
like pity in Dick's voice. She clung to him so that he could not help
feeling himself her protector. "It ain't an uncommon row at all. They
mostly act like this: most likely one of 'em's found a bone and t'other
one wants it, and then they're gone in for a row, and all the young
ones crowd around and fight, on one side or t'other."
Did this fearful explanation make the situation less terrible?
There was a lull, however, in the quarrel. The elegantly-dressed lady
was seen approaching—an unusual sight in that alley—and both parties
paused to get a view,—paused in their attentions to each other, that
is; but at Mrs. Roberts they hooted and jeered, and one threw a handful
of mud.
Then did Nimble Dick rise to his position as protector.
"Shut up, there!—Stand aside, Pluck, and let us pass!—Look out there,
you Smirchy!—Don't you throw that over here unless you want your head
broke for you when I get back!"
This threat was thrown at a wretched little girl, who had dived her
hand deeply into a box or cask of garbage, and brought it forth reeking
with rotten apples, pork fat, and any liquid horror which the name
suggests to you. She had her hand uplifted ready to throw, and was
evidently intending to give the strange lady the benefit of what she
had prepared for one of the rioters.
The assured tone in which Nimble Dick spoke had its effect; the
combatants were all small, and he was large, and was evidently
recognized as a power. There were some defiant glances thrown at him,
but the motley crowd gave way, and allowed him to pass uninjured. Still
he kept an alert watch of them until quite out of reach, and was not
sparing of his admonitions:—
"Hold on there, Bill; I see that!—Look out, Sally! You'll be sorry if
you throw anything, mind you that!"
And at last they were through the crowd—not out of danger, it seemed;
for there, directly in their narrow path, was a drunken man, swaying
from side to side in the way which is so terrible to one unused to such
sights.
Dick felt the hold on his arm tighten, and was astonished at the sound
of his own voice as he said soothingly,—
"You needn't be scared at him, mum; that's only old Jock. He's as ugly
as Old Nick himself, but he knows better than to be very ugly to me. I
can throw him in the gutter as easy as I could them young ones and he
knows it. That's Dirk's father, that is! Ain't he a beauty?"
And again Mrs. Roberts uttered an exclamation of dismay, and part of
her terror went out in sorry over the wrongs of a boy who had such a
home and such a father. What ought to be expected of him?
That interminable alley was conquered at last, and they emerged into
respectability on the broad avenue. Mrs. Roberts released her hold of
her protector's arm, and his new character vanished on the instant.
"You're here, mum," he said, with a saucy twinkle in his eye and a
saucy leer on his face. "Can you get yourself home from this spot? Or
shall I borrow a wheel-barrow and take you there?"
Much shaken with various emotions though she was, Mrs. Roberts forced
herself to laugh. She would not frown on his fun when it was not
positively sinful. He might not be aware that it was disrespectful; he
might never have heard the word.
"I know the way now, thank you; at least I think I do. Can you tell me
whether I take a green car or a yellow one to get to East Fifty-fifth
Street?"
"You take a green one," he said quietly, his character of protector
having returned to him with the question, which still showed her
dependence on him.
"Thank you," she said again, with great heartiness. "I shall never
forget your care of me."
Her hand was in her pocket, and a bright coin was between her fingers.
She longed to give it to Nimble Dick: he had saved her from so much
this morning; and he was so miserably clad, surely he needed help. A
moment's reflection, and she resolutely withdrew her hand. He should
be paid by a simple, hearty "Thank you!" this morning for kindness
rendered. He might not consider it a current coin, but possibly it
would be his first lesson in the courtesies of life.
Later in the day, when Mrs. Roberts was somewhat rested from her
morning's campaign, young Reid received a little note:—
"DEAR MR. REID,—I know the names of all the boys, and enclose you a
list. It is possible that you may fall in with some one during the day
who can impart knowledge concerning them. Anyway, I thought you would
like to know their names. Keep me posted, please, as to your success
in making their acquaintance. We are allies, remember.—Yours for the
Master,—
"MRS. E. L. ROBERTS."
Alfred Reid twisted the delicate note-paper thoughtfully in his hand, a
look of perplexity on his face. He felt committed for labour; glad was
he, very, yet perplexed. He did not in the least know where to commence.
Well, neither had this little lady; yet she had accomplished more in
her one day's acquaintance than he after a lapse of weeks. Either she
had found opportunities, or had made them. There must be chances; he
would be sure to keep his eyes open after this.
In the handsome house on East Fifty-fifth Street where Mr. Roberts had
settled his bride, after a somewhat extended business tour, involving
months of absence, matters were in train for a cosy evening in the
library. That was the name of the beautiful room where the husband
and wife sat down together; but it was quite unlike the conventional
library. Books there were in lavish abundance; but there were also
pictures and flowers, and a singing bird or two, and an utter absence
of that severe attention to business details which characterizes most
rooms so named. Little prettinesses, which Mr. Roberts smilingly
admitted did not belong to a library, were yet established there, with
an air of having come to stay.
"We will call it the library for convenience," the master of the house
said, "and then we will put into it whatever we please. It shall be a
conservatory, and a sewing-room, and a lounging-room, and anything else
that you and I choose to make it."
And Mrs. Roberts gleefully assented, and gave free rein to her pretty
tastes. Flossy Shipley had been wont to be much trammelled with the
ways in which "they" did everything; but Mrs. Evan Roberts was learning
that, in unimportant matters at least, they had a right to be a law
unto themselves. Perhaps it helped her, to be aware that a large class
of people were all ready to quote "Mrs. Even Roberts" as an authority
on almost any point of taste.
On the evening in question, Mr. Roberts, in dressing and slippers,
had drawn his lounging-chair to the drop-light, preparatory to a
half-hour of reading aloud. But it transpired that there was something
preparatory to that, or at least that must take the precedence. Certain
business telegrams followed him home, which required the writing of two
or three business letters.
"It will not take me long," he explained to his wife; "and they are
not complicated affairs, so I give you leave to talk right on while I
despatch them."
She laughed at this hint about her fondness for talk, but presently
made use of the privilege.
"Evan, what sort of a young man do you consider Mr. Reid?"
"Reid? Who? Oh, my clerk! The very best sort; a most estimable
fellow—one of a thousand. By the way, did you tell him how you became
interested in that sister of his?"
"Not yet. I want to get better acquainted; but, Evan, do you know where
he boards?"
"Hardly; on Third Avenue somewhere, I believe, or possibly Second. The
store register would show. Do you want his address?"
"Oh, I know where it is; but I mean, what sort of a place is it?"
Mr. Roberts slightly elevated his shapely shoulders.
"It is a boarding-house where many clerks board: that tells a doleful
story to the initiated, I suspect. Poor fare and dismal surroundings;
still, it is eminently respectable."
"Where does he spend his Sabbaths?"
The rapidly-moving pen executed nearly two lines of handsome writing
before Mr. Roberts was ready to respond to this question.
"Why, at church, principally, I fancy. He is very regular in his
attendance at morning service, and the South End Mission absorbs his
afternoons. I suppose he goes to church in the evening; but since we
have been giving our attention to that evening mission I have not seen
him."
"Ah, but, Evan, I mean the rest of the time—those little bits of
Sabbath time that are sacred to home. The twilight, for instance, or
for an hour in the morning. Do you know what sort of a place he has for
those times?"
Nearly three more lines were added to the paper, then Mr. Roberts
raised his head.
"No, my dear, I don't. Now that you bring me face to face with the
question, it seems a surprising thing to say that I should not know
where a young man who has been for more than a year in our employment
spends his choice bits of time, but I don't."
"Then I want to tell you something about it. He has a dingy, fourth
story back room—small, I fancy, from the way in which he spoke of it,
and not a speck of fire ever! In such weather as this, how can a young
man read his Bible, or even pray, under such circumstances?"
Mr. Roberts laid down his pen and sat erect, regarding his wife with a
thoughtful, faraway air.
"Flossy," he said at last, "it is an immense question! You open a
perfect mine of anxiety and doubt. I have hovered around the edges for
some time, but have generally contrived to shut my eyes and refuse to
look into it, because I was afraid of what I might see, and because I
did not know what to do with my knowledge. I have not been the working
member of the firm very long, you know, and my special field, until
lately, has been the other side of the ocean.
"But I have been at home long enough to know that there are several
hundred young men in our employment who are away from their homes, and
knowing, as I do, the price of board in respectable houses, and knowing
the salaries which the younger ones receive, it does not require a
great deal of penetration to discover that they must have rather dreary
homes here, to put it mildly.
"The fact is, Flossy, I haven't wanted to look into this thing very
closely, because I do not see the remedy. Look at our house, for
instance, with its three hundred clerks, we'll say, who are away
from their friends. Suppose one-half, or even one-third of them are
miserably situated, what can I do?"
"Are they not sufficiently well paid to have the ordinary comforts of
life?"
"Doubtful. The truth is, what you and I call the ordinary comforts
of life takes a good deal of money. And in the city, rents are high,
and the boarding-house keepers have hard struggles to make their
expenditure meet their income, and they carry economy to the very
verge of meanness—some of them fairly over the verge, I presume.
And the result is cheap food badly cooked—because well-cooked food
means high-priced help—and cold rooms and dreariness and discomfort
everywhere.
"Now what can be done about it? Then our house is only one of hundreds,
and in many of these hundreds they employ more help and give less wages
than we; in fact, I know that some of our clerks are looked upon with
envy by a great many young men. We never have any trouble in supplying
vacancies. People swarm around us, because we have the reputation of
being liberal. We are not liberal, however; sometimes I am inclined
to think we are hardly fair; yet there is nothing I can do. I am a
junior partner, with a great deal of the responsibility, and a third of
the voting power, and I can't get salaries raised. I've been working
at that problem at intervals for a year, and have accomplished very
little. Do you wonder that I keep my eyes as closely shut as I can?"
His wife's face wore a thoughtful, not to say perplexed look. She
seemed to have no answer ready; and, after waiting a moment for it, Mr.
Roberts bent himself again to the task of getting his business letters
answered. Before he had written one more line, her face had cleared.
She interrupted him:—
"Evan, when you talk about three hundred clerks, and multiply that by
hundreds of houses and more hundreds of clerks, I cannot follow you at
all. It is not that I am not impressed with the number—I am—it appalls
me; but I don't want to be appalled, I want to be helpful.
"Perhaps just now there is nothing that I can do for the hundreds, so I
want to narrow my thoughts down to what, possibly, I can do. What, for
instance, can be done towards getting a good young man like Alfred Reid
into a place that will be just a little bit like a home, that will give
him a spot where he can study his Bible in comfort, and invite a friend
with whom he wants to pray, or whom he wants to reach and help in any
way? That isn't a large problem. Can't it be solved?"
Her husband smiled.
"He is only one of thousands," he said.
"Yes, I know; but he is one of thousands. Since we cannot reach
thousands, shall we fail to reach one? Evan, I am only one of
thousands, but how would you argue about me?"
Mr. Roberts laughed again.
"You are one out of thousands and thousands!" he said emphatically.
A line more, and he signed the firm's name with an unusually fine
flourish.
"There! I've accomplished one letter. What do you want to do, Flossy?"
"I want Mr. Reid to have a room where he can invite one of my boys
occasionally, and make him comfortable, and do for him what we cannot
with our rooms—do for him what only a young man can do for a young man.
I don't clearly know what I want further than that, but I see that one
thing as a stepping-stone. Remember, I want all your thousands to have
just as pleasant rooms, and I would like to help to bring it about, but
I don't just now see the way."
"Do you see the way to this?"
"No; but doesn't it seem as though we ought to be able to accomplish so
much?"
"It does, certainly. What is your desire, Flossy? Do you want him to
have a room in our house?"
She shook her head.
"No, that would not further my plan for those boys. I would like to
have him here, and it would be a good thing for him—at least I think it
would; but I can see things which he could accomplish for those young
men, set by himself in a different part of the city. Besides, Evan, I
have other plans for our rooms, entirely different ones, some of them I
am afraid you will think are very strange."
He answered the doubt with a smile that said he had no fears of her or
her plans.
"What a little schemer it is!" he said, looking down on her with fond,
proud eyes. "Who would have imagined that she could plot, and plot so
mysteriously? I used to think she was a very open-hearted woman."