that I had not two dollars. I was sure, however, that my overcoat and
the dress-suit I wore would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly
up some spout. I was sure that I should be at work within a day or two.
At all events, I was certain of the cyclopædia the next day. That
should go to old Gowan's,--in Fulton Street it was then,--"the moral
centre of the intellectual world," in the hour I got it. And at this
moment, for the first time, the thought crossed me, "If mine could only
be the name drawn, so that that foolish $5,000 should fall to me." In
that case I felt that Fausta might live in "a respectable
boarding-house" till she died. Of this, of course, I said nothing, only
that she was welcome to my poor dollar and a half, and that I should
receive the next day some more money that was due me.
"You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, as proudly as before,--"you
forget that I cannot borrow of you any more than of a
boarding-house-keeper. I never borrow. Please God, I never will. It
must be," she added, "that in a Christian city like this there is some
respectable and fit arrangement made for travellers who find themselves
where I am. What that provision is I do not know: but I will find out
what it is before this sun goes down."
I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been fascinated by this
lovely girl before, I now bowed in respect before her dignity and
resolution; and, with my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of
self-respect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as principles
of her life, two principles on which I had always myself tried to live.
The half-expressed habits of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for
me as axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but right and
truth.
I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I expressed my regret that
she would not let me help her,--joined with my certainty that she was
in the right in refusing,--and then, in the only stiff speech I ever
made to her, I said:--
"I am the 'Child of the Public.' If you ever hear my story, you will
say so too. At the least, I can claim this, that I have a right to help
you in your quest as to the way in which the public will help you. Thus
far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom he has intrusted you.
Are you ready, then, to go on shore?"
Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, as if it were the
last link holding her to her old safe world.
"Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain,
As what she ne'er might see again."
Then she looked right through me; and if there had been one mean
thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she
said sadly,--
"I have perfect confidence in you, though people would say we were
strangers. Let us go."
And we left the boat together. We declined the invitations of the noisy
hackmen, and walked slowly to Broadway.
We stopped at the station-house for that district, and to the attentive
chief Fausta herself described those contents of her trunk which she
thought would be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her
mother's Bible, at which the chief shook his head; Bibles, alas!
brought nothing at the shops; a soldier's medal, such as were given as
target prizes by the Montgomery regiment, and a little silver canteen,
marked with the device of the same regiment, seemed to him better
worthy of note. Her portfolio was wrought with a cipher, and she
explained to him that she was most eager that this should be recovered.
The pocket-book contained more than one hundred dollars, which she
described, but he shook his head here, and gave her but little hope of
that, if the trunk were once opened. His chief hope was for this
morning.
"And where shall we send to you then, madam?" said he.
I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the impression Fausta had
made upon the officer, in her quiet, simple, lady-like dress and
manner. For myself, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or
bearing, a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have ruined both of us
in our appeal. But, fortunately, I did not disgrace her, and the man
looked at her as if he expected her to say, "Fourteenth Street." What
would she say?
"That depends upon what the time will be. Mr. Carter will call at noon,
and will let you know."
We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more she begged my pardon,
almost with tears; but I told her that if she also had been a "Child of
the Public," she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her
father's officers. I begged her to use me as her protector, and not to
apologize again. Then we laid out the plans which we followed out that
day.
The officer's manner had reassured her, and I succeeded in persuading
her that it was certain we should have the trunk at noon. How much
better to wait, at least so far, before she entered on any of the
enterprises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering herself as a
nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoever would employ her, if only
she could thus secure an honest home till money or till aunt were
found. Once persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I told her
that we must go on, as we did on the canal, and first we must take our
constitutional walk for two hours.
"At least," she said, "our good papa, the Public, gives us wonderful
sights to see, and good walking to our feet, as a better Father has
given us this heavenly sky and this bracing air."
And with those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face
for that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring
a new city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in
print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as
residents always forget to do, and laying up, in short, with those
streets, nearly all the associations which to this day we have with
them.
Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course. I do not know what
she meant to do next; but at ten I said, "Time for French, Miss Jones."
"_Ah oui,_" said she, "_mais où?_" and I had calculated my distances,
and led her at once into Lafayette Place; and, in a moment, pushed open
the door of the Astor Library, led her up the main stairway, and said,
"This is what the Public provides for his children when they have to
study."
"This is the Astor," said she, delighted. "And we are all right, as you
say, here?" Then she saw that our entrance excited no surprise among
the few readers, men and women, who were beginning to assemble.
We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and began to revel in the
luxuries for which we had only to ask that we might enjoy. I had a
little memorandum of books which I had been waiting to see. She needed
none; but looked for one and another, and yet another, and between us
we kept the attendant well in motion. A pleasant thing to me to be
finding out her thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was happy
enough to interest her in some of my pet readings; and, of course, for
she was a woman, to get quick hints which had never dawned on me
before. A very short hour and a half we spent there before I went to
the station-house again. I went very quickly, I returned to her very
slowly.
The trunk was not found. But they were now quite sure they were on its
track. They felt certain it had been carried from pier to pier and
taken back up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The
particular rascal who was supposed to have it would certainly stop
either at Piermont or at Newburg. They had telegraphed to both places,
and were in time for both. "The day boat, sir, will bring your lady's
trunk, and will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, I hope," said the officer. But
at the same moment, as he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch
had yet been received from either of the places named. I did not feel
so certain as he did.
But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my news. "Thus far," said
she, "the Public serves me well. I will borrow no trouble by want of
faith." And I,--as Dante would say,--and I, to her, "Will you let me
remind you, then, that at one we dine; that Mrs. Grills is now placing
the salt-pork upon the cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing;
and, as this is the only day when I can have the honor of your company,
will you let me show you how a Child of the Public dines, when his
finances are low?"
Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than before, "I have
perfect confidence in you,"--little thinking how she started my blood
with the words; but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand
upon my arm, as we walked down the street together.
If we had been snobs, or even if I had been one, I should have taken
her to Taylor's, and have spent all the money I had on such a luncheon
as neither of us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am not a
snob of that sort. I show my colors. I led her into a little
cross-street which I had noticed in our erratic morning pilgrimage. We
stopped at a German baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble
table, and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which I offered her
in fun. We took water instead, and we had dined, and had paid two cents
for our meal, and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock
struck two.
"And now, Mr. Carter," said she, "I will steal no more of your day. You
did not come to New York to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or
to dinner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read French. I
insist on your going to your affairs, and leaving me to mine. If you
will meet me at the Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank
you; till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a merry laugh,
"adieu!"
I knew very well that no harm could happen to her in two hours of an
autumn afternoon. I was not sorry for her _congé_, for it gave me an
opportunity to follow my own plans. I stopped at one or two
cabinet-makers, and talked with the "jours" about work, that I might
tell her with truth that I had been in search of it; then I sedulously
began on calling upon every man I could reach named Mason. O, how often
I went through one phase or another of this colloquy:--
"Is Mr. Mason in?"
"That's my name, sir."
"Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who returned from Europe last
May?"
"Know no such person, sir."
The reader can imagine how many forms this dialogue could be repeated
in, before, as I wrought my way through a long line of dry-goods cases
to a distant counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No, madam, I
know no such person as you describe"; and from the recess Fausta
emerged and met me. Her plan for the afternoon had been the same with
mine. We laughed as we detected each other; then I told her she had had
quite enough of this, that it was time she should rest, and took her,
_nolens volens_, into the ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade
her wait there through the twilight, with my copy of Clementine, till I
should return from the police-station. If the reader has ever waited in
such a place for some one to come and attend to him, he will understand
that nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not asked for
attention.
Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which there the Public
had provided for her. Then I returned, sadly enough. No tidings of
Rowdy Rob, none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or anything.
Still was my district sergeant hopeful, and, as always, respectful. But
I was hopeless this time, and I knew that the next day Fausta would be
plunging into the war with intelligence-houses and advertisements. For
the night, I was determined that she should spend it in my ideal
"respectable boarding-house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one
or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself where I would take
her. Still I thought it wisest that we should go after tea; and another
cross-street baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the
Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told Fausta of the
respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say
no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there.
"There must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a
church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."
So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sexton by arriving an
hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that
Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat,
she at one end, I at the other; and, if the whole truth be told, each
of us fell asleep at once, and slept till the heavy organ tones taught
us that the service had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled
in then, and the preacher, good soul, he took for his text, "Doth not
God care for the ravens?" I cannot describe the ineffable feeling of
home that came over me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never
been in so large a church before. I had never heard so heavy an organ
before. Perhaps I had heard better preaching, but never any that came
to my occasions more. But it was none of these things which moved me.
It was the fact that we were just where we had a right to be. No
impudent waiter could ask us why we were sitting there, nor any
petulant policeman propose that we should push on. It was God's house,
and, because his, it was his children's.
All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it proved, upon Fausta
also. For when the service was ended, and I ventured to ask her whether
she also had this sense of home and rest, she assented so eagerly, that
I proposed, though with hesitation, a notion which had crossed me, that
I should leave her there.
"I cannot think," I said, "of any possible harm that could come to you
before morning."
"Do you know, I had thought of that very same thing, but I did not dare
tell you," she said.
Was not I glad that she had considered me her keeper! But I only said,
"At the 'respectable boarding-house' you might be annoyed by
questions."
"And no one will speak to me here. I know that from Goody Two-Shoes."
"I will be here," said I, "at sunrise in the morning." And so I bade
her good by, insisting on leaving in the pew my own great-coat. I knew
she might need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton closed the
door below on the last of the down-stairs worshippers. He passed along
the aisles below, with his long poker which screwed down the gas. I saw
at once that he had no intent of exploring the galleries. But I
loitered outside till I saw him lock the doors and depart; and then,
happy in the thought that Miss Jones was in the safest place in New
York,--as comfortable as she was the night before, and much more
comfortable than she had been any night upon the canal,--I went in
search of my own lodging.
"To the respectable boarding-house?"
Not a bit, reader. I had no shillings for respectable or disrespectable
boarding-houses. I asked the first policeman where his district station
was. I went into its office, and told the captain that I was green in
the city; had got no work and no money. In truth, I had left my purse
in Miss Jones's charge, and a five-cent piece, which I showed the
chief, was all I had. He said no word but to bid me go up two flights
and turn into the first bunk I found. I did so; and in five minutes was
asleep in a better bed than I had slept in for nine days.
That was what the Public did for me that night. I, too, was safe!
I am making this story too long. But with that night and its anxieties
the end has come. At sunrise I rose and made my easy toilet. I bought
and ate my roll,--varying the brand from yesterday's. I bought another,
with a lump of butter, and an orange, for Fausta. I left my portmanteau
at the station, while I rushed to the sexton's house, told his wife I
had left my gloves in church the night before,--as was the truth,--and
easily obtained from her the keys. In a moment I was in the
vestibule,--locked in,--was in the gallery, and there found Fausta,
just awake, as she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her
morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, that I should soon
appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, had visited her. I spread for her a
brown paper table-cloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her
breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her toilet. How is it
that women always make themselves appear as neat and finished as if
there were no conflict, dust, or wrinkle in the world?
[Here Fausta adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis, to say that she
folded her undersleeves neatly, and her collar, before she slept, and
put them between the cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning
they had been pressed--without a sad-iron.]
She finished her repast. I opened the church-door for five minutes. She
passed out when she had enough examined the monuments, and at a
respectable distance I followed her. We joined each other, and took our
accustomed morning walk; but then she resolutely said, "Good by," for
the day. She would find work before night,--work and a home. And I must
do the same. Only when I pressed her to let me know of her success, she
said she would meet me at the Astor Library just before it closed. No,
she would not take my money. Enough, that for twenty-four hours she had
been my guest. When she had found her aunt and told her the story, they
should insist on repaying this hospitality. Hospitality, dear reader,
which I had dispensed at the charge of six cents. Have you ever treated
Miranda for a day and found the charge so low? When I urged other
assistance she said resolutely, "No." In fact, she had already made an
appointment at two, she said, and she must not waste the day.
I also had an appointment at two; for it was at that hour that Burrham
was to distribute the cyclopædias at Castle Garden. The Emigrant
Commission had not yet seized it for their own. I spent the morning in
asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and for work in
cabinet-shops. I found neither, and so wrought my way to the appointed
place, where, instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to get
one so contemptible in my hand.
Those who remember Jenny Lind's first triumph night at Castle Garden
have some idea of the crowd as it filled gallery and floor of that
immense hall when I entered. I had given no thought to the machinery of
this folly. I only know that my ticket bade me be there at two P.M.
this day. But as I drew near, the throng, the bands of policemen, the
long queues of persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair of
ten thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham was not unwilling to
make it as showy, perhaps as noisy, an affair as was respectable, by
way of advertising future excursions and distributions. I was led to
seat No. 3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I came there I
found I was very much of a prisoner. I was late, or rather on the
stroke of two. Immediately, almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and
made a long speech about his liberality, and the public's liberality,
and everybody's liberality in general, and the method of the
distribution in particular. The mayor and four or five other well-known
and respectable gentlemen were kind enough to be present to guarantee
the fairness of the arrangements. At the suggestion of the mayor and
the police, the doors would now be closed, that no persons might
interrupt the ceremony till it was ended. And the distribution of the
cyclopædias would at once go forward, in the order in which the lots
were drawn,--earliest numbers securing the earliest impressions; which,
as Mr. Burrham almost regretted to say, were a little better than the
latest. After these had been distributed two figures would be
drawn,--one green and one red, to indicate the fortunate lady and
gentleman who would receive respectively the profits which had arisen
from this method of selling the cyclopædias, after the expenses of
printing and distribution had been covered, and after the magazines had
been ordered.
Great cheering followed this announcement from all but me. Here I had
shut myself up in this humbug hall, for Heaven knew how long, on the
most important day of my life. I would have given up willingly my
cyclopædia and my chance at the "profits," for the certainty of seeing
Fausta at five o'clock. If I did not see her then, what might befall
her, and when might I see her again? An hour before this certainty was
my own; now it was only mine by my liberating myself from this prison.
Still I was encouraged by seeing that everything was conducted like
clock-work. From literally a hundred stations they were distributing
the books. We formed ourselves into queues as we pleased, drew our
numbers, and then presented ourselves at the bureaux, ordered our
magazines, and took our cyclopædias. It would be done, at that rate, by
half past four. An omnibus might bring me to the Park, and a Bowery car
do the rest in time. After a vain discussion for the right of exit with
one or two of the attendants, I abandoned myself to this hope, and
began studying my cyclopædia.
It was sufficiently amusing to see ten thousand people resign
themselves to the same task, and affect to be unconcerned about the
green and red figures which were to divide the "profits." I tried to
make out who were as anxious to get out of that tawdry den as I was.
Four o'clock struck, and the distribution was not done. I began to be
very impatient. What if Fausta fell into trouble? I knew, or hoped I
knew, that she would struggle to the Astor Library, as to her only
place of rescue and refuge,--her asylum. What if I failed her there? I
who had pretended to be her protector! "Protector, indeed!" she would
say, if she knew I was at a theatre witnessing the greatest folly of
the age. And if I did not meet her to-day, when should I meet her? If
she found her aunt, how should I find her? If she did not find
her,--good God! that was worse,--where might she not be before twelve
hours were over? Then the fatal trunk! I had told the police agent he
might send it to the St. Nicholas, because I had to give him some
address. But Fausta did not know this, and the St. Nicholas people knew
nothing of us. I grew more and more excited, and when at last my next
neighbor told me that it was half past four, I rose and insisted on
leaving my seat. Two ushers with blue sashes almost held me down; they
showed me the whole assembly sinking into quiet. In fact, at that
moment Mr. Burrham was begging every one to be seated. I would not be
seated. I would go to the door. I would go out. "Go, if you please!"
said the usher next it, contemptuously. And I looked, and there was no
handle! Yet this was not a dream. It is the way they arrange the doors
in halls where they choose to keep people in their places. I could have
collared that grinning blue sash. I did tell him I would wring his
precious neck for him, if he did not let me out. I said I would sue him
for false imprisonment; I would have a writ of _habeas corpus_.
"_Habeas corpus_ be d----d!" said the officer, with an irreverent
disrespect to the palladium. "If you are not more civil, sir, I will
call the police, of whom we have plenty. You say you want to go out;
you are keeping everybody in."
And, in fact, at that moment the clear voice of the mayor was
announcing that they would not go on until there was perfect quiet; and
I felt that I was imprisoning all these people, not they me.
"Child of the Public," said my mourning genius, "are you better than
other men?" So I sneaked back to seat No. 3,671, amid the contemptuous
and reproachful looks and sneers of my more respectable neighbors, who
had sat where they were told to do. We must be through in a moment, and
perhaps Fausta would be late also. If only the Astor would keep open
after sunset! How often have I wished that since, and for less reasons!
Silence thus restored, Mr. A----, the mayor, led forward his little
daughter, blindfolded her, and bade her put her hand into a green box,
from which she drew out a green ticket. He took it from her, and read,
in his clear voice again, "No. 2,973!" By this time we all knew where
the "two thousands" sat. Then "nine hundreds" were not far from the
front, so that it was not far that that frightened girl, dressed all in
black, and heavily veiled, had to walk, who answered to this call. Mr.
A---- met her, helped her up the stair upon the stage, took from her
her ticket, and read, "Jerusha Stillingfleet, of Yellow Springs, who,
at her death, as it seems, transferred this right to the bearer."