Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
Price 25 Cents.
The SHOEMAKER
A STORY BASED ON HAL REID’S PLAY OF THE SAME NAME.
BY OLIVE HARPER.
[Illustration: MORRIS GOLDBERG, THE SHOEMAKER.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: “I’M WILD BILL, THE BULL MAN.”]
* * * * *
THE SHOEMAKER.
A Powerful Picture of Nature, Adapted
From Hal Reid’s Famous Drama
Of the Same Name.
BY
OLIVE HARPER,
Author of “The Sociable Ghost,” “Letters From an American
Countess,” “A Desperate Chance,” “The Show Girl,” “When
We Were Twenty-One,” “A Daughter of the South,”
“Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl,” Etc.
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
* * * * *
THE SHOEMAKER
PROLOGUE.
In one of the small side streets that end in the Bowery, on the East
Side, is a row of small and dilapidated buildings, which once, in the
early days of New York, were the dwellings of fashionable people, but
which are now occupied by poor but industrious people. The majority
of these houses have some small business carried on in the basement
cellars.
The people who occupy the houses above the cellar stores or workshops
are mostly of the poor but industrious Hebrews who toil early and late
to build up a little business in this land of freedom, a business which
is really and truly their own, to have and to hold without persecution
or robbery.
The house where Morris Goldberg had found a shelter and a chance
to show of what stuff he was made was, if possible, a little more
disreputable in appearance than the others in that row, but to him, who
had gone through the horrors of the Kishineff massacre, robbed of his
all, save his wife and little daughter, it seemed a peaceful haven of
delight.
The little destitute family had been assisted to start, in this humble
location, by the noble and practical Benevolent Society of the Hebrews
in New York, and, though a cellar whose only light came through grated
windows or the opened cellar-doors, this seemed to him a palace. Was
he not free from persecution? His good wife and little daughter and
he were free, free. One must have been a Jew in Russia to know what
freedom means.
Morris Goldberg was a shoemaker and plied his humble calling with such
patient industry, and such thrift, that after a year of struggle he had
proudly paid back the money loaned him, and then he moved his wife and
daughter to the back room on the floor above, while he pegged and sewed
and smoked and sang at his work.
The daughter grew into a beautiful womanhood, with all the rich
coloring of her race, with snowy teeth, thick waving black hair, and
beautiful large dark eyes.
She was the loveliest girl in all the neighborhood, with a dainty,
graceful figure and a gay, merry soul. Words could not tell how she
loved her father; for, after a few years of peace and joy in this land,
the mother, who had never recovered from the horrors through which she
had passed, died. Her last hours were so sweetly peaceful that the loss
to those left behind was more of a chastened sorrow than a poignant
grief.
Dora was now sixteen, and matured like the maidens of her race.
The father loved Dora with a brooding tenderness almost womanlike in
its intensity, and her little hands held his very heart in their grasp.
Nothing she did seemed wrong to him, and everything she wanted, that
was in his power to give, she had.
Above all, he was proud of her education, for that had been his first
desire. Dora was kept in school when other girls of her age had worked
in factories. She kept house for him in the room above the shop, and
she was a good, sweet, obedient daughter. What more could a man ask? A
business that kept them from want, and something left over every month.
No wonder the honest shoemaker sang as he worked in his little shop as
he listened to the steps of his daughter above.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
This brief preamble brings the reader to the day and hour when the
first movements in this moving human drama began.
Morris Goldberg had left his humble store in charge of Dora and a
little semi-idiotic boy, whom he had rescued from the streets. The
little fellow was thin and white, and dressed in a medley of garments
purchased for him from a second-hand store nearby. The child was trying
to sew a shoe while seated upon the vacant bench. Dora sat beside him,
trying to guide the clumsy fingers, with infinite patience.
“Now, this way, Loney; both ends at the same time. One this way and
one that way. Oh, you will succeed if you keep on. You’ll be as good a
shoemaker as father some day.”
“I’m trying, Dora. I try so hard, but my hands won’t mind me. I’m just
no good at all.”
This the child said with such an expression of utter discouragement
that Dora put her plump arm around the little figure, saying:
“Oh, yes you are, Loney. You do lots of things, and you are splendid
for errands.”
“Anybody can run errands; but I want to be something else than an
errand-boy. I want to know how to do other things--how to be something
in the world, but my head won’t let me. It gets all ‘hurty’ when I try
to think what I want to do.”
“Poor little Loney! Tell me how you got hurt, Loney? You have never
told me that. Can’t you tell me now? Maybe the doctor could cure it if
we knew how it happened. Try to remember.”
The poor, thin little hand went to his head uncertainly, while Loney
knitted his brows trying to remember. Then he said; dreamily:
“Sometimes I can think it out right, and sometimes I can’t. I remember
I had a mother once--pretty, like you--but different. She had light
hair and such nice blue eyes. She was awful pretty. And I had a father,
too; and he was big and handsome. We used to ride in a carriage.
Sometimes I can remember the big Park, and all the people walking
around and in carriages, and then I forget. Then I remember that my
father quarreled a lot with my mother and she cried lots, and one
day he was going to hit her, and I ran between them and he struck me
instead. Then something fell out of my head that they remember with. I
guess it was when the blood ran so. Don’t you think so?”
“Poor boy! Poor little Loney!” said Dora, while great tears ran down
her rosy cheeks and fell on the bright curls of the little waif. He
continued, after a short silence:
“The next I remember, I was in a place where there were lots of
children. I was there a long time. Then I wanted my mother so bad
that I ran away. They searched for me and nearly found me, but I hid
in a box, and one of the men said, ‘Let him go. He hasn’t any sense,
anyway.’”
The little fellow broke down and sobbed pitifully, while Dora said:
“Don’t cry, Loney. Don’t cry. We will take good care of you.”
“And then I sold papers and half-starved. The other boys kicked me
around a lot and made fun of me ’cause I couldn’t remember. And they
named me Loney, and then I came here; and your father lets me run
errands--and--that’s all.”
“Don’t you worry, Loney. You know what my father says, that when
business picks up a little he will take you to the good doctor and see
if you can’t be cured, so you will remember.”
“That’s hard for me to think out, Dora.”
“Why hard? What do you mean?”
“I am nothing to your father. He is poor, and it seems so funny, for he
is--is----”
“A Jew. Say it, Loney. Don’t be afraid. A Jew can be a good man,
an honest one, a good father, and a good citizen. He loves me, his
daughter, and he has a heart--a big one--for all in need. He has pity
for them. You are mistaken if you think differently. I have seen him
divide his last crust with the hungry--yes, and give them the largest
share. Oh, Loney, my father is good.”
“You are right. He has divided with me; and, Dora, some day God will
bless him for it.”
At that moment there were steps heard on the rickety cellar-steps, and
in another moment a young man--scarcely more than a boy--came to the
door. He was a typical “Bowery tough,” made so by his life in this
part of the city, with its most unsavory reputation. He wore a faded
corduroy cap, set at an aggressive angle on his frowsy head, and for
the rest of his costume he wore a blue flannel shirt, open at the
throat, and corduroy pantaloons. His shoes looked as though in urgent
need of the services of the shoemaker. His face was dirty, and one
of his eyes was blackened and swollen. And, over it all, there showed
something so depraved and sinister, such a drawn look of pallor and
decay, in spite of his youth, a stranger would not have known how to
classify this strange output of city life, but the initiated would
have summed it all up in one word--dope. This means the unutterable
depravity of opium-smoking. In fact, he was generally known in his
haunts as Dopey.
As he stood on the floor of the shop, Dopey said, in a hoarse voice:
“Hello, Sis. Where’s de main squeeze?”
“Where is what?”
“Why, his gazootses; de motza crusher--de man wit’ de birt’mark o’
t’ree balls on his skull-front--de boss, if I must say it.”
“Do you mean my father?”
“I guess so. Where is ’e?”
“He went out to deliver a pair of shoes he has finished and to bring
back some to be mended.”
“Why, soy, go find ’im. I got a job fer ’im. Dey’s a couple of swell
guys up de street dat needs his ’sisterence. De he guy say dat he’ll
stake me ter a dollar. De moll kicked de heel off her Louie Fourteent’
an’ wants it nailed on. Dat dollar means de hop-joint if I get it, an’
to de bat-house if I don’t. Why, soy, dere’s nuttin’ to it.”
“I’ll go and find him,” said Loney, in his childish voice. He somewhat
understood this Bowery slang better than Dora.
“Dat’s de trick. Be sure ye does, for if I misses dis I kin see de
brassy cop on dis beat pullin’ de hook fer de ambylants, an’ me
t’rowin’ a fit in de suds-tub at de croak-joint--de horspittle. Hully
gee! mosey, kid. Shake yer skates.”
These last words were accompanied by so suggestive a movement that
Loney sprang lightly up the steps and disappeared in search of Mr.
Goldberg. As the child disappeared, he shouted:
“Hop! Go! Git!” Then, turning to Dora, he said: “Dat’s de racket. Your
old man’ll git more coin for dis job dan he ever seen afore.”
“I’ll be glad,” replied Dora, half-afraid of this strange-looking
creature, “for business has been very poor lately.”
There was a darkening of the cellar-door, and Dora raised her eyes to
see a tall, dark, handsome and well-dressed man assisting a lady down
the steps. She was a handsome and very stylishly dressed woman--large
and with a most unwomanly expression on her features. In short, it was
but too evident that she had been drinking and could scarcely maintain
her equilibrium.
“Be careful, Muriel, or you’ll fall,” said the man, whose name was John
Pierson. “Why the deuce can’t you wear sensible shoes, anyway? You’ll
break your neck with those high heels yet!”
As they reached the middle of the room, Muriel laughed idiotically and
mumbled something about him and accused him of trying to appear so
“su-su-perior, just because I kicked my heel off.”
“So this is the place, eh?” asked Pierson of Dopey, looking about him
curiously at the same time. Dopey took on an air of great importance
and replied, huskily:
“Dis is de j’int. It’s on de bum, all right, all right, but it’s de
nearest shoemaker dere is, but----”
“Oh, that’s all right. Any old port in a storm, you know,” stammered
Muriel, and, as she saw Dora, she said: “Who you, m’ dear?”
“Dora Goldberg, lady.”
“And who is the other girl? Your sister?”
“There is no one else here but me,” replied Dora, surprised at the
question.
“That’s funny. I must be seeing double. Last bottle gone to my head.
Time to quit. All your fault, John Pierson--all your fault, not mine,”
muttered the woman, with a maudlin laugh, staggering at the same time
so that Dora thought she was falling. She hastened to bring a chair,
where the woman tried to seat herself with extreme gravity, while Dora
said:
“Don’t thank me, lady. I’ll go and hurry father. Please have the
kindness to wait. I won’t be long.”
Dora tripped lightly up the steps and to the street, while Muriel
settled herself into the chair and dozed almost at once. In the
meantime Pierson silently watched Dora disappear, and then, turning to
Dopey, said, in a low voice:
“You are right. She is both young and beautiful.”
“Yes, cull, and poor; jes’ as poor as a choich mouse. Show her some
shines--dimints, I mean. Tell her about de glad rags, de nags and de
chariot--and, soy, dere’s nuttin’ to it!”
“Hush! Not so loud,” replied Pierson, looking toward Muriel, which
caused him to speak in a much lower tone as he gave his very
unfavorable opinion of the intoxicated woman, comparing her to a bunch
of wildcats. Suddenly Muriel roused and began to sing, in a drowsy
voice, the words of a drinking-song. Pierson rudely ordered her to
“shut up,” which had no other effect than to make the woman repeat her
song in a louder voice.
“Oh, I say, for heaven’s sake, keep still! Of all the disgusting things
on earth, a drunken woman is the worst,” said Pierson angrily, while he
stamped his foot in rage.
“Ah!” said she, acridly, “and how about a drunken man? Is there such a
wide difference?”
“I never took a drink in my life and you know it, Muriel Hamilton.”
“Well, I don’t count you a man. You are a beast, you are!”
“Thanks, awfully,” replied he, bowing scornfully.
Muriel tried to rise and bow, but fell back in the chair with a silly
laugh. “Oh, you are welcome. Gee! I nearly fell off my perch. Steady,
birdie, steady!”
Pierson strode back and forth in the little place, finally stopping
before the woman, saying:
“You may as well understand this, now, Muriel. I am sick and tired
of the way you are going on. I know I’ve done some things that would
not stand the light of day exactly, but I never drank. I’ve committed
some crimes, but drunkenness has never been one of them, and I hate
liquor. I tell you this, right now: you’ve got to sober up and stop
drinking--or--I’ll quit you cold.”
At this open threat, Muriel sat up straight and looked at the man
half-defiant, half-scared. He maintained his coldly resolute look,
while she scanned his face, and then half-laughed:
“By heaven! I believe you mean it. Just you try it on, Jack Pierson.
Just you try it on, that’s all!”
“I’ll take a stroll. I needs de fresh air. It’s de sidewalk fer mine,”
said Dopey, uneasily. He had seen too many drunken fights to wish to
see another, especially with a powerful woman like Muriel. But Jack
went to him and muttered:
“You stay here. I’ll have it out with her here and now. I want to make
room for the other one.”
“Ah,” said Muriel, as she rose almost steadily and advanced, “any
secrets that I cannot know?”
“No, there is not. I was just telling him that I am sick of your
constant sprees and temper. That’s all, and I mean it.”
“Ah,” said Muriel, advancing and with a dangerous light in her eyes,
“and, I suppose, you meant it when you deserted your honest wife for
me, and when you struck your child, and killed him, for all you know.
Yes, you must have meant both those things; as you never took a drink
in your life, you had not even the excuse of drunkenness. Mine was a
new face then, and now that the liquor that you gave me to gain your
ends has got the best of me, you’ll quit me cold, will you? Then, let
me tell you, when you do it will be cold for you, for you will be dead!”
“’Scuse me, cull, I hear me mudder callin’ me, an’ I has to go,” said
Dopey.
“Go to the devil, if you want to,” replied Pierson angrily.
“Dat’s jes’ where I don’t want to go. Her jigs is up to de boilin’
point, an’ all dem sharp shoe-knives lyin’ dere. See me eye. She put
dis on it last night. One’s enough fer me.”
“Now, Dopey, I’m sorry I hit you, honest I am. Say, Jack, you don’t
know what sent me on this spree, do you?” said Muriel.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Jack coldly. “There is no
excuse for it.”
“Yes, there is, I saw your forsaken, heart-broken wife slinking along
in the street--a wreck, a ragged, gin-soaked wreck--and I couldn’t
help remembering what she was when we robbed her, you and me. She was
honest and true, and, as I looked at her, the sight sickened me, body
and soul. I drank to forget it.”
“Why do you mention her to me. I have never seen her since, and never
want to.”
“Nor the boy, either? Poor little half-witted fellow. Give me credit
for one thing--I wanted to keep him and care for him, but, no, you
robbed his mother of him and put him in the asylum. These things haunt
me, Jack. Even drink will not blot them out.”
“Rot! That’s nothing but the drink. My ex-wife should have stayed in
the West. She was so pretty and pure and honest that she actually led
me to marry her. I hated her for that from the first.”
“Yours is coming to you, Jack, and you’ll get it good and plenty if
ever her brother sets eyes on you. Those cowboys know how to shoot,”
laughed Muriel meaningly.
“Don’t try to frighten me. William Hunter, or ‘Cactus Bill’ Hunter,
as they called him, is dead. I had a letter telling me that he has
disappeared, so I’m not afraid.”
“Maybe--and maybe not. But, if ever you two do meet, you’d better get
your gun-play in first. So, then,” she continued, in a softer tone,
“you want to quit your old pal? And just after my being up all night
on the Bowery, helping you fleece this ‘come on.’ Not much gratitude!”
“Ah, forget it,” said Pierson roughly, changing his tone and manner
suddenly, as he saw Dora returning with Loney. The young girl hastened
down the steps, flushed and rosy with her hurried search.
“My father is coming. I hope we did not keep you waiting too long.”
Muriel had sat down again in the chair, and her head had fallen forward
drowsily, while John, with a side look at Muriel, said to Dora:
“No, my little dear, I am repaid for the long wait by seeing you again.
Don’t you ever get tired of this musty old cellar? Wouldn’t you like
to live in a fine house, with servants to wait upon you, and have
beautiful diamonds and clothes to wear?”
“Oh no, sir! I would not leave papa and Bennie for all the fine houses
and jewels in the world. And, besides, we don’t _live_ in the cellar.
We only work here. We live upstairs.”
While this little conversation was taking place, Muriel had roused
again, but this time her eyes were fastened upon little Loney, who had
begun to wax some threads for the shoemaker. This was a task that he
delighted in doing. He had been told that it was a great help to the
kind old man. Muriel, after staring at the child, asked what his name
was. The little fellow looked at her in a vague manner as he said:
“Loney, lady. Just Loney. That’s all the name I know.”
As the pretty, though vague, eyes were raised to hers, Muriel gave a
start, saying to herself:
“Those eyes! That look in them. It is he without a doubt.”
The hardened woman gave a deep sob which, with Dora’s calm refusal of
all he offered her, made John angry, and he said, roughly shaking her
at the same time:
“What’s the matter with you, you idiot?”
“Nothing,” replied she, “only my sins are finding me out. That is all.”
Further conversation was checked by the arrival of Morris Goldberg, who
came quietly down the cellar-steps to his shop.
The old man wore his leather apron, and had his sleeves rolled to his
elbows, thus showing a pair of brawny arms and toil-roughened hands.
In one of them he carried a pair of old shoes to be mended. With
unconscious dignity the old man advanced toward his customers, and
when Dora asked, impetuously, what had kept him so long, he told her
quietly that there was more bad news from Russia, from Odessa this
time, where the unfortunate Jews were being butchered and driven like
noxious beasts before the terrible Cossacks.
“And I must stop to say somedings to ’courage Jake Rosenblum. He’s old
fader and moder are in Odessa.”
Then, turning to Jack Pierson, he said:
“Good-morning, sir. Can I do somedings for you?”
“Are you the shoemaker?” asked John.
“Am I a shoemaker? Am _I_ a shoemaker? Vell, I shust say I vos a
shoemaker. And I can make a pair of shoes vile you vait, if you vait
long enough. Say, who are you?”
“It’s none of your business. This lady here has knocked the heel of
her shoe off, and she wants you to put it on. That’s enough for you to
know; so get busy.”
“All right, all right,” said the old man, taking his seat on the bench
and preparing for his work.
Dopey took a stool and sat down facing the old man, putting his own
foot, encased in a very dilapidated shoe, almost in the old man’s
face, at the same time leering at the old man very unpleasantly, who
said:
“Oie, oie! Vot a face. You looks like a pull-dog. Vat you vant. A patch
for de plack eye--eh?”
“Never mind me mug,” said Dopey, insolently, “nor me lamp. What’ll it
cost me to get me skates fixed?--dey’s in a bad way.”
“Vell, you pring me a pair of soles, unt I’ll put some uppers on dem.”
“Muriel,” said John, “stay here as long as you like. I am going out
to get a bite to eat, and, when you are through, come up to Lyons’
restaurant or go home. I don’t care which.”
“All right, darling. I suppose I shall be able to survive your absence.”
“Come on, Dopey. I suppose you want your dollar,” said Pierson, who had
his idea in wishing to get Dopey outside.
“I’m ready. I’se dead hungry for a bullet,” said Dopey, a gleam of
anticipation in his glassy eyes.
Morris Goldberg said to himself, “He must be one of dem suiciders. Vat
for kind of talk is dot apout a bullet?”
John and Dopey left the place, and as soon as they were outside, John
said to Dopey, nodding his head toward Dora:
“She is all you said, and more. Help me to land her, and you’ll never
know what it means to go hungry for opium again.”
They then walked along out of sight of the humble shoemaker’s shop.