"Investigate Mrs. B., 124th Street, No. --. Investigator reports woman
never home. Questions morality. Urgent. W. L."
I found this slip on my desk one fine morning. An hour after I was at
the given address. The door was locked. No one was at home. Inquiry at
the neighbours informed me that I would have to wait until three o'clock
when the children came from school.
"And Mrs. B.? When does she come?" I asked.
"When the children come from school," I was answered.
Consequently I had to remain in the neighbourhood. New York's climate is
very fit for a cosmopolitan city. Just as the men of the South dwell in
the neighbourhood of the Northern, the Italian near the Norwegian and
the Spaniard in the same building with the Russian, so does the winter
live near the summer, the spring next to the autumn. One day a
snowstorm, the next day it rains. You put on the heaviest clothes one
morning and come home with your waistcoat on your arm, so to speak. Here
in the middle of winter, the second half of January, I had gone out with
a heavy winter coat and at one o'clock it looked more like the end of
May than winter. I walked up to Central Park to spend my time until
3 P. M. The squirrels had left their hiding places and were dancing to
and fro to replenish their reserve store of food. The little birds flew
and sang merrily. The children of the well to do, watched by the
ever-following servants, played with the caged prairie dogs, the goats
and other animals of the Park Zoo. Around the monkey cage the people of
the suburbs and more distant towns and villages were watching and
enjoying the antics of our gay ancestors. The lions roared, the tiger
groaned, and that money-saving elephant rang the bell every time some
one put a cent in his big snout. This was the only thing he had learned
from men--save money. I don't know why, but one forgets himself so
easily in the neighbourhood of children, farmers and wild animals. I had
not noticed how time passed and stood in the Zoo more than the required
time. I had completely forgotten my mission. But some one inquired the
time from the keeper. I heard his answer and ran.
In 124th Street again.
The children are out of school. The street has taken on life. Girls are
jumping the rope and the boys have taken out their skates and glide
gracefully up and down the sidewalk. Their faces are red, their eyes are
brilliant and their arms swing to and fro to keep their balance. In an
empty lot a group of Jewish boys fight it out with some Irish
youngsters. On another lot another group of Irish and Jewish boys play
base-ball.
I ring the bell of Mrs. B.'s home. No answer. I inquire of the
neighbour. "Are the B.'s home?"
"The children are back from school and are probably out in the street,
the little loafers." She closed up. I would like to speak with her
further, so I knock at the door.
"Excuse me for inconveniencing you, madam, but could you tell me when
Mrs. B. will be home--whether she is at home in the morning?"
"I could not tell you, sir."
"Does she go out to work?"
"I don't know--I don't care. Ask some one else. Every day another bother
about the poor woman. I am tired of answering. The charity again?"
"No, no," I assured her. "I have some other business with her. I am an
old friend from the time her husband was yet alive."
"She'll soon be in. She is probably talking with a neighbour. Wait;
I'll go and ask the boy. He must be near the house."
Presently she put a shawl over her shoulders, gave a last look to the
boiling pots, covered one, took another off, and was soon with me in the
street. She looked to the right and left, asked the grocer and butcher,
and finished by calling down the street: "Mike! Mike! Where are you,
loafer?" She soon distinguished him among the other boys and pointed him
out to me. He was standing with his back to us watching the other boys
as they glided on their skates.
"Mike, Mike!" the woman called, but the boy was too engrossed to hear
her. Together we walked up to him. "That gentleman wants to see your
mother, you loafer," the woman introduced him, and went her way. A boy
of twelve years old, who looked like one of eight by his physique, and
like an old man by his wrinkled and worn-out look. Pale, stooping, with
a little nervous twitch around the lips and a short tearing cough as he
spoke. This told the tale of his misery.
"What do you want?" he asked me angrily.
"Come into the house," I answered, and putting a hand on his shoulder I
signed him to follow me.
"I want to stay here," the boy said, and with a jerk he freed himself
from my hand. "I want to watch the boys play--run on the skates," and
he turned away to watch one particularly able boy as he made fancy
figures with his feet.
"Where are your skates, Mike?" I questioned.
"I have none. What's it your business?"
From the empty lot flew a ball. Mike caught it and was about to throw it
back when one of the boys called out:
"Hi, Hi, Mike--charity kid--hurry up. Throw the ball here. Hurry up."
Angry, Mike threw the ball in the opposite direction and flashed back a
short sentence that gave his opinion about his insulter. A fist fight
was the result and the poor lad would have gotten the worst of it had
not his mother suddenly appeared from behind, and hitting the aggressor
and the child she separated them and took her son home. He wriggled as
though he wanted to go back to fight, but his mother had him well in
hand. I followed them. At the entrance of the hall I waited a few
minutes before knocking at the door, listening. The mother scolded, the
boy cried and a little girl's voice pacified.
"Come in."
"Mrs. B.?" I inquired.
"Yes, sir," the woman answered, and as she spoke she removed her coat
and rubbers.
About thirty, care-ploughed face, weak eyes, colourless lips, stooped,
narrow, short of breath.
"What is it you want, sir?"
"Could we go into another room or would you send the children out so we
can talk at our ease, Mrs. B.?"
The woman thought for awhile, then she beckoned to the children, who
went into another room. I came straight to the point. I claimed that I
was from the Gerry Society and that the children were not well taken
care of.
"Where are you the whole day? You leave the children on the street,
their shoes are torn, their clothes not suitable to the season--they are
hungry, dirty."
The woman cried, whined. She was a poor widow. Charities gave her too
little and all the rest of the story that I expected.
"But where are you the whole day long and late at night?" I insisted.
She gave a thousand explanations, none of which were true. The last one
was that she went to neighbours in order to save coal. At this point the
boy came out from the other room. He looked determined, and he had a
little book folded in his hand.
"Mamma lies. She goes out for business. She sells laces and curtains."
"Shut up--shut up!" She sprang from her chair. I interfered. "Let the
boy alone."
"Mamma lies," the boy continued, and showed me the bank book. I opened
it and saw that the balance was almost five hundred dollars.
"What is this?" I asked. "Five hundred dollars in the bank and your
children hungry and naked?"
The woman looked like a criminal before the bar. The boy explained.
"It's not her fault, Mister. It's the fault of the ladies from the
charities. They come here and bother every day. She can't buy anything,
not even meat every day. She has to put the money in the bank. She has
promised that when we move out she will buy me a pair of skates like all
the other boys and girls have. Now she has enough money. Let her move
away from here to a place where nobody knows us. I don't want to be
called 'charity kid' any longer. I want roller skates. I want to move, I
want new pants, I want meat every day. I don't want to be called charity
kid any longer, and that's all."
The mother looked at her son and cried. The little girl hid in a corner.
The boy had finished. His nerves gave out and he too cried. A few
moments I looked at them and thought again of the poor wretches who are
in the clutches of organised charity, the mother that starved her
children because she dared not buy meat, because she dared not dress
them. In four years she had saved five hundred dollars. Just the price
of meat for every day of the year. A little more bread and fruit. She
certainly had saved with an object in view. To save herself. And all the
time the children knew that she had the price of food. The boy, longing
for childish pleasures, roller skates, which the mother dared not buy
because of the investigator's "Where did you get the money?" The bad
neighbour, for whom the poor woman may not have wanted to wash the
floor, would call in the "Lady" and tell her: "They have meat every day.
The children have pennies, and now they have skates too." And the "Lady"
would question, torture, menace, call names, insult. Ah! I knew the
whole game now. Knew it only too well. That little room at the top of
which is the sign "Investigator." I knew how they went in there. Knew
how they came out. No, it was not her fault.
"Here, Mrs. B.--your bank book. I am not from the Gerry Society. I am
from the charities."
The woman trembled. The boy looked at me.
"When does your month finish here?"
"On the first."
"Move away from here, woman, move away. It's your last chance to save
yourself. Move away and earn your living. You will not get a cent from
the charities, and that boy must not be touched. You are to let him
alone or I will take him away from you. Good-night."
I ran out. At home a party of friends awaited me. We were to go and hear
music. I could not. I wanted to drink. I stayed at home and drank brandy
until I fell asleep. I drank and swore until I slept.
The next morning when I had to make out my report I excused myself,
saying that I had to continue my investigation as I had more information
to gather. In reality it was to give me time to think out what to say
and what not to say. The next day I made out a report, simply saying
that I had found out the woman Mrs. B. had five hundred dollars in the
German Bank, Book No. 8..., that she does business in curtains; and
advised them to cut her off immediately. The Manager did not believe
what I said and consequently 'phoned to the bank, which corroborated my
statement. Immediately the investigators were called in, and in firm
tones the Manager lectured them on their tender-heartedness with
applicants. He told them that they must make their investigations in a
more thorough manner, otherwise they would lose their positions. Stupid
fool that I was. Whenever I wanted to do good I only made the poor
suffer more.
Promptly on the first of the next month I was in 124th Street. Mrs. B.
had moved a few days before. Through the Express Company I got her
address, way up in the Bronx. I went there, on Washington Avenue. I saw
the boy and girl in new clothes and on roller skates.
"Hullo," I greeted them. They both became pale.
"Where do you live now, children?"
The boy thought a moment and then he hissed out between his teeth: "What
in hell is it your business, now? We don't get any more money from you.
What do you come to bother us here for? We don't want you. We have got
enough of your dirty business."
"Listen," I told him: "I don't want to bother you any more, but tell me,
have you bread and meat every day now?"
"Meat and candies and butter and everything, and mamma has a million in
the bank and that's all, and don't come to bother us. We are no more
'charity kids.' For God's sake can't you leave us alone?"
"Good luck to you." I turned around and disappeared as quickly as
possible.