If you are one of the favored few, privileged to ride in chaises, you
may find the combination of Broadway during the evening rush-hour, in a
late November storm, stimulating--you may, that is, provided you have a
reliable driver. If, contrariwise, you happen to be of the class whose
fate it is to travel in public conveyances (and lucky if you have the
price!) and the car, say, won't stop for you--why--
Claire Lang had been standing in the drenching wet at the
street-crossing for fully ten minutes. The badgering crowd had been
shouldering her one way, pushing her the other, until, being a stranger
and not very big, she had become so bewildered that she lost her head
completely, and, with the blind impulse of a hen with paresis, darted
straight out, in amidst the crush of traffic, with all the chances
strong in favor of her being instantly trampled under foot, or ground
under wheel, and never a one to know how it had happened.
An instant, and she was back again in her old place upon the curbstone.
Something like the firm iron grip of a steam-derrick had fastened on her
person, hoisted her neatly up, and set her as precisely down, exactly
where she had started from.
It took her a full second to realize what had happened. Then, quick as a
flash, anger flamed up in her pale cheeks, blazed in her tired eyes.
For, of course, this was an instance of "insult" described by "the
family at home" as common to the experience of unprotected girls in New
York City. She groped about in her mind for the formula to be applied in
such cases, as recommended by Aunt Amelia. "Sir, you are no gentleman!
If you were a gentleman, you would not offer an affront to a young,
defenseless girl who--" The rest eluded her; she could not recall it,
try as she would. In desperate resolve to do her duty anyway, she tilted
back her umbrella, whereat a fine stream of water poured from the tip
directly over her upturned face, and trickled cheerily down the bridge
of her short nose.
"Sir--" she shouted resolutely, and then she stopped, for, plainly, her
oration was, in the premises, a misfit--the person beside her--the one
of the mortal effrontery and immortal grip, being a--woman. A woman of
masculine proportions, towering, deep-chested, large-limbed, but with a
face which belied all these, for in it her sex shone forth in a
motherliness unmistakable, as if the world at large were her family, and
it was her business to see that it was generously provided for, along
the pleasantest possible lines for all concerned.
"What car?" the woman trumpeted, gazing down serenely into Claire's
little wet, anxious, upturned face at her elbow.
"Columbus Avenue."
The stranger nodded, peering down the glistening, wet way, as if she
were a skipper sighting a ship.
"My car, too! First's Lexin'ton--next Broadway--then--here's ours!"
Again that derrick-grip, and they stood in the heart of the maelstrom,
but apparently perfectly safe, unassailable.
"They won't stop," Claire wailed plaintively. "I've been waiting for
ages. The car'll go by! You see if it won't!"
It did, indeed, seem on the point of sliding past, as all the rest had
done, but of a sudden the motorman vehemently shut off his power, and
put on his brake. By some hidden, mysterious force that was in her, or
the mere commanding dimensions of her frame, Claire's companion had
brought him to a halt.
She lifted her charge gently up on to the step, pausing herself, before
she should mount the platform, to close the girl's umbrella.
"Step lively! Step lively!" the conductor urged insistently, reaching
for his signal-strap.
The retort came calmly, deliberately, but with perfect good nature. "Not
on your life, young man. I been steppin' lively all day, an' for so
long's it's goin' to take this car to get to One-hundred-an'-sixteenth
Street, my time ain't worth no more'n a settin' hen's."
The conductor grinned in spite of himself. "Well, mine _is_," he
declared, while with an authoritative finger he indicated the box into
which Claire was to drop her fare.
"So all the other roosters think," the woman let fall with a tolerant
smile, while she diligently searched in her shabby purse for five cents.
Claire, in the doorway, lingered.
"Step right along in, my dear! Don't wait for me," her friend advised,
closing her teeth on a dime, as she still pursued an elusive nickel.
"Step right along in, and sit down anywheres, an' if there ain't
nowheres to sit, why, just take a waltz-step or two in the direction o'
some of them elegant gen'lemen's feet, occupyin' the places meant for
ladies, an' if they don't get up for love of _you_, they'll get up for
love of their shins."
Still the girl did not pass on.
"Fare, please!" There was a decided touch of asperity in the
conductor's tone. He glared at Claire almost menacingly.
Her lip trembled, the quick tears sprang to her eyes. She hesitated,
swallowed hard, and then brought it out with a piteous gulp.
"I _had_ my fare--'twas in my glove. It must have slipped out. It's
gone--lost--and--"
A tug at the signal-strap was the conductor's only comment. He was
stopping the car to put her off, but before he could carry out his
purpose the woman had dropped her dime into the box with a sounding
click.
"Fare for two!" she said, "an' if I had time, an' a place to sit, I'd
turn you over acrost my knee, an' give you two, for fair, young man, for
the sake of your mother who didn't learn you better manners when you was
a boy!" With which she laid a kind hand upon Claire's heaving shoulder,
and impelled her gently into the body of the car, already full to
overflowing.
For a few moments the girl had a hard struggle to control her rising
sobs, but happily no one saw her working face and twitching lips, for
her companion had planted herself like a great bulwark between her and
the world, shutting her off, walling her 'round. Then, suddenly, she
found herself placed in a hurriedly vacated seat, from which she could
look up into the benevolent face inclined toward her, and say, without
too much danger of breaking down in the effort:
"I really _did_ have it--the money, you know. Truly, I'm not a--"
"O, pooh! Don't you worry your head over a little thing like that. Such
accidents is liable to occur in the best-reggerlated fam'lies. They do
in mine, shoor!"
"But, you see," quavered the uncertain voice, "I haven't any more.
That's all I had, so I can't pay you back, and--"
It was curious, but just here another passenger hastily rose, vacating
the seat next Claire's, and leaving it free, whereat her companion
compressed her bulky frame into it with a sigh, as of well-earned rest,
and remarked comfortably, "_Now_ we can talk. You was sayin'--what was
it? About that change, you know. It was all you had. You mean _by_ you,
of course."
Claire's pale, pinched face flushed hotly. "No, I don't," she confessed,
without lifting her downcast eyes.
Her companion appeared to ponder this for a moment, then quite abruptly
she let it drop.
"My name's Slawson," she observed. "Martha Slawson. I go out by the day.
Laundry-work, housecleaning, general chores. I got a husband an' four
children, to say nothing of a mother-in-law who lives with us, an' keeps
an eye on things while me an' Sammy (that's Mr. Slawson) is out
workin', an' lucky if it's an eye itself, for it's not a hand, I can
tell you that. What's your name, if I may make so bold?"
"Claire Lang. My people live in Grand Rapids--where the furniture and
carpet-sweepers come from," with a wistful, faint little attempt at a
smile. "My father was judge of the Supreme Court, but he had losses, and
then he died, and there wasn't much of anything left, and so--"
"You come to New York to make your everlastin' fortune, an' you--"
Claire Lang shook her head, completing the unfinished sentence. "No, I
haven't made it, that is, not yet. But I'm not discouraged. I don't mean
to give up. Things look pretty dark just now, but I'm not going to let
that discourage me--No, indeed! I'm going to be brave and courageous,
and never say die, even if--even if--"
"Turn 'round, an' pertend you're lookin' out of the winder," suggested
Mrs. Slawson confidentially. "The way folks stare, you'd think the world
was full of nothin' but laughin' hyeenyas. Dontcher care, my dear! Well
for some of 'em, if they could shed an honest tear or two themselves,
oncet in a while, instead of bein' that brazen; 'twouldn't be water at
all, but Putzes Pomady it'd take to make an impression on 'em, an'
don't you forget it. There! That's right! Now, no one can observe what's
occurrin' in your face, an' I can talk straight into your ear, see? What
I was goin' to say _is_, that bein' a mother myself an' havin' children
of my own to look out for, I couldn't recommend any lady, let alone one
so young an' pretty as you, to take up with strangers, here in New York
City, be they male or be they female. No, certaintly not! But in this
case, you can take it from me, I'm O.K. I can give the highest
references. I worked for the best fam'lies in this town, ever since I
was a child. You needn't be a mite afraid. I'm just a plain mother of a
fam'ly an', believe _me_, you can trust me as you would trust one of
your own relations, though I do say it as shouldn't, knowin' how queer
_own relations_ can be and _is_, when put to it at times. So, if you
happen to be in a hole, my dear, without friends or such things in the
city, you feel free to turn to, or if you seem to stand in need of a
word of advice, or--anything else, why, dontcher hesitate a minute. It'd
be a pretty deep hole Martha Slawson couldn't see over the edge of, be
sure of that, even if she did have to stand on her toes to do it. Holes
is my specialty, havin' been in an' out, as you might say, all my
life--particularly _in_."
Judicious or not, Claire told her story. It was not a long one. Just
the everyday experience of a young girl coming to a strange city,
without influence, friends, or money, expecting to make her way, and
finding that way beset with difficulties, blocked by obstacles.
"I've done everything I could think of, honestly I have," she concluded
apologetically. "I began by trying for big things; art-work in editorial
offices (everybody liked my art-work in Grand Rapids!). But 'twas no
use. Then I took up commercial drawing. I got what looked like a good
job, but the man gave me one week's pay, and that's all I could ever
collect, though I worked for him over a month. Then I tried real estate.
One firm told me about a woman selling for them who cleared, oh, I don't
know how-much-a-week, in commissions. Something queer must be the matter
with me, I guess, for I never got rid of a single lot, though I walked
my feet off. I've tried writing ads., and I've directed envelopes. I've
read the Wants columns, till it seems as if everybody in the world was
looking for a _job_. But I can't get anything to do. I guess God doesn't
mean me to die of starvation, for you wouldn't believe how little I've
had to eat all summer and fall, and yet I'm almost as strong and hearty
as ever. But lately I haven't been able to make any money at all, not
five cents, so I couldn't pay my board, and they--they told me at the
house where I live, that I'd have to square up to-night, or I couldn't
keep my room any longer. They took my trunk a week ago. I haven't had
anything to wear except these clothes I have on, since, and they're
pretty wet now--and--and--I've nowhere to go, and it _is_ pouring so
hard, and I should have been put off the car if you hadn't--"
Mrs. Slawson checked the labored flow with a hand upon the girl's knee.
"Where did you say your boardin'-house is?" she inquired abruptly.
"Ninety-fifth Street--West--Two-hundred-and-eighty-five-and-a-half."
"Good gracious! An' we're only three blocks off there now!"
"But you said," expostulated Claire helplessly, feeling herself
propelled as by the hand of fate through the crowd toward the door. "You
said you live on One-hundred-and-sixteenth Street."
"So I do, my dear, so I do! But I've got some business
to transack with a lady livin' in Ninety-fifth
Street--West--Two-hunderd-an'-eighty-five-an'-a-half. Come along.
'Step lively,' as my friend, _this nice young man out here on the
rear platform_, says."