The glimpse which Felix had caught of these two poor, unappreciated old
men, living contentedly from hand to mouth, gayly propping each other
up when one or the other weakened, had strangely affected him. If, as
he reasoned, such battered hulks, stranded these many years on the dry
sands of incompetency, with no outlook for themselves across the wide
sea over which their contemporaries were scudding with all sails set
before the wind of success--if these castaways, their past always with
them and their hoped-for future forever out of their reach, could laugh
and be merry, why should not he carry some of their spirit into his
relations with the people among whom his lot was now thrown?
That these people had all been more than good to him, and that he owed
them in return something more than common politeness now took possession
of his mind. Few such helping hands had ever been held out to him.
When they had been, the proffered palm had generally concealed a hidden
motive. Hereafter he would try to add what he could of his own to the
general fund of good-fellowship and good deeds.
He would continue his nightly search--and he had not missed a single
evening--but he would return earlier, so as to be able to spend an hour
reading to Masie before she went to bed, or with his other friends and
acquaintances of “The Avenue”--especially with Kitty and John. He had
been too unmindful of them, getting back to his lodgings at any hour of
the night, either to let himself in by his pass-key--all the lights out
and everybody asleep--or to find only Kitty or John, or both, at work
over their accounts or waiting up for Mike or Bobby or for one of their
wagons detained on some dock. And since Kling had raised his salary,
enabling him not only to recover his dressing-case, which then rested
on his mantel, but to take his meals wherever he happened to be at the
moment--he had seldom dined at home--a great relief in many ways to a
man of his tastes.
Kitty, though he did not know it, had demurred and had talked the matter
over with John, wondering whether she had neglected his comfort. When
she had questioned him, he had settled it with a pat on her shoulders.
“Just let me have my way this time, my dear Mrs. Cleary,” he had said
gently but firmly. “I am a bad boarder and cause you no end of trouble,
for I am never on time. And please keep the price as it is, for I don't
pay you half enough for all your goodness to me.”
Now under the impulse of his new resolution, and rather ashamed of his
former attitude in view of all her unremitting attentions, he resumed
his place at her table. Nor did he stop here. He taught her to broil a
chop over her coal fire by removing the stove lid--until then they had
been fried--and a new way with a rasher of bacon, using the carving-fork
instead of a pan. The clearing of the famous coffee-pot with an
egg--making the steaming mixture anew whenever wanted instead of letting
the dented old pot simmer away all day on the back of the stove--was
another innovation, making the evening meal just that much more
enjoyable, greatly to the delight of the hostess, who was prouder of her
boarder than of any other human being who had come into her life, except
John and Bobby.
These renewed intimacies opened his eyes to another phase of the life
about him, and he soon found himself growing daily more interested in
the sweet family relations of the small household.
“What do I care for what we haven't got,” Kitty said to him one night
when some economies in the small household were being discussed. “I'm
better off than half the women who stop at my door in their carriages.
I got two arms, and I can sleep eight hours when I get the chance, and
John loves me and so does Bobby and so does my big white horse Jim.
There ain't one of them women as knows what it is to work for her man
and him to work for her.” All the other married couples he had seen had
pulled apart, or lived apart--mentally, at least. These two seemed bound
together heart and soul.
More than once he contrived to stop at the Studio Building, where both
of the old fellows were almost always to be found sitting side by side,
and, picking them up bodily, he had set them down on hard chairs in a
rathskeller on Sixth Avenue, where they had all dined together, the old
fellows warmed up with two beers apiece. This done, he had escorted them
back, seen them safely up-stairs, and returned to his lodgings.
It was after one of these mild diversions that, before going to his
room, he pushed open the door of the Clearys' sitting-room with a cheery
“May I come in, Mistress Kitty?”
“Oh, but I'm glad to see ye!” was the joyous answer. “I was sayin' to
myself: 'Maybe ye'd come in before he went.' Here's Father Cruse I been
tellin' ye about--and, Father, here's Mr. O'Day that's livin' wid us.”
A full-chested man of forty, in a long black cassock, standing six feet
in his stockings, his face alight with the glow of a freshly kindled
pleasure, rose from his chair and held out his hand. “The introduction
should be quite unnecessary, Mr. O'Day,” he exclaimed in the full,
sonorous voice of a man accustomed to public speaking. “You seem to have
greatly attached these dear people to you, which in itself is enough,
for there are none better in my parish.”
Felix, who had been looking the speaker over, taking in his thoughtful
face, deep black eyes, and more especially the heavy black eyebrows that
lay straight above them, felt himself warmed by the hearty greeting and
touched by its sincerity. “I agree with you, Father, in your praise
of them,” he said as he grasped the priest's hand. “They have been
everything to me since my sojourn among them. And, if I am not mistaken,
you and I have something else in common. My people are from Limerick.”
“And mine from Cork,” laughed the priest as he waved his hand toward his
empty chair, adding: “Let me move it nearer the table.”
“No, I will take my old seat, if you do not mind. Please do not move,
Mr. Cleary; I am near enough.”
“And are you an importation, Father, like myself?” continued Felix,
shifting the rocker for a better view of the priest.
“No. I am only an Irishman by inheritance. I was brought up on the soil,
born down in Greenwich village--and a very queer old part of the town it
is. Strange to say, there are very few changes along its streets since
my boyhood. I found the other day the very slanting cellar door I used
to slide on when I was so high! Do you know Greenwich?”
He was sitting upright as he spoke, his hands hidden in the folds of his
black cassock, wondering meanwhile what was causing the deep lines on
the brow of this high-bred, courteous man, and the anxious look in the
deep-set eyes. As priest he had looked into many others, framed in the
side window of the confessional--the most wonderful of all schools for
studying human nature--but few like those of the man before him; eyes so
clear and sincere, yet shadowed by what the priest vaguely felt was some
overwhelming sorrow.
“Oh, yes, I know it as I know most of New York,” Felix was saying; “it
is close to Jefferson Market and full of small houses, where I should
think people could live very cheaply”; adding, with a sigh, “I have
walked a great deal about your city,” and as suddenly checked himself,
as if the mere statement might lead to discussion.
Kitty, who had been darning one of John's gray yarn stockings--the
needle was still between her thumb and forefinger--leaned forward.
“That's the matter with him, Father, and he'll never be happy until he
stops it,” she cried. “He don't do nothin' but tramp the streets until I
think he'd get that tired he'd go to sleep standin' up.”
Felix turned toward her. “And why not, Mrs. Cleary?” he asked with a
smile. “How can I learn anything about this great metropolis unless I
see it for myself?”
“But it's all Sunday and every night! I get that worried about ye
sometimes, I'm ready to cry. And ye won't listen to a thing I say! I
been waitin' for Father Cruse to get hold of ye, and I'm goin' to say
what's in my mind.” Here she looked appealingly to the priest. “Now, ye
just talk to him, Father, won't ye, please?”
The priest, laughing heartily, raised his protesting hands toward her.
“If he fails to heed you, Mrs. Cleary, he certainly won't listen to me.
What do you say for yourself, Mr. O'Day?”
Felix twisted his head until he could address his words more directly to
his hostess. “Please keep on scolding me, my dear Mrs. Cleary. I love
to hear you. But there is Father Cruse, why not sympathize with him?
He tramps to some purpose. I am only the Wandering Jew, who does it for
exercise.”
Kitty held the point of the darning-needle straight out toward Felix.
“But why must you do it Sundays, Mr. O'Day? That's what I want to know.”
“But Sunday is my holiday.”
“Yes, and there's early mass. Ye'd think he'd come, wouldn't ye,
Father?”
One of O'Day's low, murmuring laughs, that always sounded as if he had
grown unaccustomed to letting the whole of it pass his lips, filtered
through the room.
“You see what a heathen I am, Father,” he exclaimed. “But I am going to
turn over a new leaf. I shall honor myself by visiting St. Barnabas's
some day very soon, and shall sit in the front pew--or, perhaps, in
yours, Mrs. Cleary, if you will let me--now that I know who officiates,”
and he inclined his head graciously toward the priest. “I hope the
service is not always in the morning!”
“Oh, no, we have a service very often at night, sometimes at eight
o'clock.”
“And how long does that last?”
“Perhaps an hour.”
“And so if I should come at eight and wait until you are free, you could
give me, perhaps, another hour of yourself?”
“Yes, and with the greatest pleasure. But why at those hours?” asked the
priest with some curiosity.
“Because I am very busy at other times. But I want to be quite frank. If
I come, it will not be because I need your service, but because I shall
want to see YOU. Your church is not my church, and never has been, but
your people--especially your priests--have always had my admiration
and respect. I have known many of your brethren in my time. One in
particular, who is now very old--a dear abbe, living in Paris. Heaven is
made up of just such saints.”
The priest clasped his hands together. “We have many such, sir,” he
replied solemnly. The acknowledgment came reverently, with a gleam that
shone from under the heavy brows.
Felix caught its brilliance, and the sense of a certain bigness in the
man passed through him. He had been prepared for his quiet, well-bred
dignity. All the priests he had known were thoroughbreds in their manner
and bearing; their self-imposed restraint, self-effacement, absence of
all unnecessary gesture, and modulated voices had made them so; but
the warmth of this one's underlying nature was as unexpected as it was
pleasurable.
“Yes, you have many such,” O'Day repeated simply after a slight pause
during which his thoughts seemed to have wandered afar. “And now tell
me,” he asked, rousing himself to renewed interest, “where your work
lies--your real work, I mean. The mass is your rest.”
The priest turned quickly. He wondered if there were a purpose behind
the question. “Oh, among my people,” he answered, the slow, even,
non-committal tones belying the eagerness of his gesture.
“Yes, I know; but go on. This is a great city--greater than I had ever
supposed--greater, in many ways, than London. The luxury and waste are
appalling; the misery is more appalling still. What sort of men and
women do you put your hands on?”
“Here are some of them,” answered the priest, his forefinger pointing to
Kitty and John.
“We could all of us do without churches and priests,” ventured Felix,
his eyes kindling, “if your parishioners were as good as these dear
people.”
“Well, there's Bobby,” laughed the priest, his face turned toward the
boy, who was sound asleep in his chair, Toodles, the door-mat of a dog,
sprawled at his feet.
“And are there no others, Father Cruse?”
The priest, now convinced of a hidden meaning in the insistent tones,
grew suddenly grave, and laid his hand on O'Day's knee. “Come and see
me some time, and I will tell you. My district runs from Fifth Avenue
to the East River, from the homes of the rich to the haunts of the poor,
and there is no form of vice and no depth of suffering the world over
that does not knock daily at my study door. Do not let us talk about it
here. Perhaps some day we may work together, if you are willing.”
Kitty, who had been listening, her heart throbbing with pride over
Felix, who had held his own with her beloved priest, and still
fearing that the talk would lead away from what was uppermost in her
mind--O'Day's welfare--now sprang from her chair before Felix could
reply. “Of course he'll come, Father, once he's seen ye.”
“Yes, I will,” answered Felix cordially. “And it will not be very
long either, Father. And now I must say good night. It has been a real
pleasure to meet you. You have been a most kindly grindstone to a very
dull and useless knife, and I am greatly sharpened up. After all, I
think we both agree that it is rather difficult to keep anything bright
very long unless you rub it against something still brighter and keener.
Thank you again, Father,” and with a pat of his fingers on Kitty's
shoulder as he passed, and a good night to John, he left the room on his
way to his chamber above.
Kitty waited until the sound of O'Day's footsteps told her that he had
reached the top of the stairs and then turned to the priest. “Well, what
do ye think of him? Have I told ye too much? Did ye ever know the beat
of a man like that, livin' in a place like this and eatin' at my table,
and never a word of complaint out o' him, and everybody lovin' him the
moment they clap their two eyes on him?”
The priest made no immediate answer. For some seconds he gazed into
the fire, then looked at John as if about to seek some further
enlightenment, but changing his mind faced Kitty. “Is his mail sent
here?”
“What? His letters?”
“Yes.”
“He don't have any--not one since he's been wid us.”
“Anybody come to see him?”
“Niver a soul.”
The priest ruminated for a moment more, and then said slowly, as if his
mind were made up: “It does not matter; somebody or something has hurt
him, and he has gone off to die by himself. In the old days such men
sought the monasteries; to-day they try to lose themselves in the
crowd.”
Again he ruminated, the delicate antennae of his hands meeting each
other at the tips.
“A most extraordinary case,” he said at last. “No malice, no
bitterness--yet eating his heart out. Pitiful, really; and the worst
thing about it is that you can't help him, for his secret will die with
him. Bring him to me sometime, and let me know before you come so I may
be at home.”
“You don't think there's anything crooked about him, Father, do you?”
said John, who had sat tilted back against the wall and now brought the
front legs of his chair to the floor with a bang.
“What do you mean by crooked. John?” asked the priest.
“Well, he blew in here from nowheres, bringin' a couple of trunks and
a hat-box, and not much in 'em, from what Kitty says. And he might blow
out again some fine night, leavin' his own full of bricks, carting
off instead some I keep on storage for my customers, full of God knows
what!--but somethin' that's worth money, or they wouldn't have me take
care of 'em. There ain't nothin' to prevent him, for he's got the run
of the place day and night. And Kitty's that dead stuck on him she'll
believe anything he says.”
Kitty wheeled around in her seat, her big strong fist tightly clinched.
“Hold your tongue, John Cleary!” she cried indignantly. “I'd knock any
man down--I don't care how big he was--that would be a-sayin' that of ye
without somethin' to back it up, and that's what'll happen to ye if ye
don't mend your manners. Can't ye see, Father, that Mr. Felix O'Day is
the real thing, and no sham about him? I do, and Kling does, and so does
that darlin' Masie, and every man, woman, and child around here that can
get their hands on him or a word wid him. Shame on ye, John! Tell him
so, Father Cruse!”
The priest kept silent, waiting until the slight family squall--never
very long nor serious between John and Kitty--had spent itself.
“Well, I'm not sayin' anything against Mr. O'Day, Kitty,” broke in John.
“I'm only askin' for information. What do you think of him, Father?
What's he up to, anyhow? There ain't any of 'em can fool ye. I don't
want to watch him--I ain't got no time--and I won't if he's all right.”
The priest rose from his chair and stood looking down at Kitty, his
hands clasped behind his back. “You believe in him, do you not?”
“I do--up to the handle-and I don't care who knows it!”
“Then I would not worry, John Cleary, if I were you.”
“Well, what does she know about it, Father?”
“What every good woman always knows about every good man. And now I must
go.”