Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color Part 26

"This isn't a bad hotel of ours, this isn't," she returned; "it's well ventilated, for one thing. Of course you can go to the station-house if you want. I don't. I've tried it, and I'd sooner sleep in the snow than in the station-house, with the creatures you meet there. This hotel of ours here keeps open all night; and it's on the European plan, I'm thinking--leastwise you can have anything you can pay for. When the owl-wagon is here, you can get a late supper--if you have the price of it. I haven't."

"Neither have I," he answered.

"Then there's two of us ready for an invite to breakfast," she responded, cheerily. "If any one asks us, it's no previous engagement will make us decline, I'm thinking."

He made no answer, for his heart sank as he looked into the future.

"Are you hungry now?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, simply.

"So am I," she replied, "and I can't get used to it. Hunger is like pain, isn't it? It don't let go of you; it don't get tired and let up on you. It's a stayer, that's what it is, and it keeps right on attending strictly to business. Sometimes, when I'm very hungry, I feel like committing suicide, don't you?"

"No," he responded--"at least, not yet; I haven't had enough of life to be tired of it so soon."

"Neither have I," was her answer. "Sometimes I'm ready to quit, but somehow I don't do it. But it would be so easy; you throw yourself in front of one of those cable-cars coming down Broadway now--and you'll get rapid transit to kingdom come. But they don't sell excursion tickets. Besides, being crunched by a cable-car is a dreadful mussy way of dying, don't you think? And to-day's Friday, too--and I don't believe I'd ever have any luck in the next world if I was to commit suicide on a Friday."

"This isn't Friday any longer," he suggested; "it's Sat.u.r.day morning."

"So it is now," she rejoined; "then we'd better be getting our beauty-sleep as soon as we can, for the flower-market here will wake us up soon enough, seeing it's Sat.u.r.day. And so, good-night to you!"

"Good-night!" he responded.

"And may you dream you've found a million dollars in gold, and then wake up and find it true!" she continued.

"Thank you," he replied, wondering what manner of woman his neighbor might be.

She said nothing more, but settled herself again and closed her eyes.

She was dressed in rusty black, and she had a thin black shawl over her head. She had been a very handsome woman--so she impressed the young man by her side--and he was wholly at a loss to guess how she came to be here, in the street, at night, without money and alone. She seemed out of place there; for her manner, though independent, was not defiant.

There was no rasping harshness in her tones; indeed, her talk was dashed with joviality. Her speech even puzzled him, although he thought that showed her to be Irish.

Turning these things over in his mind, he fell asleep. He dreamed the same dream again and again--a dream of a barbaric banquet, where huge outlandish dishes were placed on the table before him. The savor of them was strange to his nostrils, but it brought the water to his mouth.

Then, when he made as though to help himself and stay his appet.i.te, the whole feast slid away beyond his reach, and finally faded into nothing.

The dream differed in detail every time he dreamed it; and the last time the only dish on the board before him was a gigantic pasty, which he succeeded in cutting open, only to behold four-and-twenty blackbirds fly forth. The birds circled about his head, and then returned to the empty sh.e.l.l of the pasty, and perched there, and sang derisively.

So loudly did they sing that McDowell Sutro awoke, and he heard in the trees above him and behind him the chirping and twittering of countless sparrows.

He recalled what the old woman had said--that the birds would wake them up. Probably they had aroused her first, for the place on the bench next to him was empty.

He rose to his feet and looked about him. It was almost daybreak, and already there were rosy streaks in the eastern sky. A squirrel was running up and down a large tree in the middle of the gra.s.s-plot behind the bench on which he had been sleeping. In the open s.p.a.ce at the northern end of the square there were a dozen or more gardeners' wagons, thick with growing flowers in pots, and men were arranging these plants in rows upon the pavement. Another heavy wagon, loaded with roses only, rolled across the car track and disturbed a flock of pigeons that swirled aloft for a moment and then settled down again. A moist breeze blew up from the bay, and brought a warning of rain to come later in the day.

The sleepers on the other benches here and there throughout the square were waking, one by one. McDowell Sutro saw one of them go to the drinking-fountain and wash his hands and face. He followed this example as best he could. When he had made an end of this his eye fell on Tiffany's clock, which told the hour of half-past four. A few minutes later the first rays of the sun began to gild the cornices of the tall buildings which towered above the Lincoln statue.

Within the next hour and a half the cable-cars began to pa.s.s down-town more frequently, and the cross-town cars from the ferries also came closer together. The gardeners' wagons and the plants taken from them filled the broad s.p.a.ce at the upper end of the square. Milk-carts rattled across the car tracks that bounded the square on all four sides.

The signs of the coming day multiplied, and McDowell Sutro noted them all, one after another, with unfailing interest, despite the gnawing pain in his stomach. It was the first time he had ever seen the awakening of a great city.

He walked away from Union Square as far as Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, and again as far as Third Avenue and Fourteenth Street; but he found himself always returning to the flower-market. At last a hope sprang up within him. Among the purchasers were ladies not strong enough to carry home the heavy pots, and perhaps he might pick up a job. This was not the way he wanted to earn his daily bread, but never before had he felt the want of the daily bread so keenly.

When he came back to the line of gardeners' wagons he found other men out of work also hanging about in the hope of making an honest penny; and more than once he saw one or another of these others sent away, burdened with tall plants.

At last he took his courage in his hand, and went up to a little old lady whom he had seen going from row to row. She had bright eyes and a gentle manner and a kindly smile. He asked her, if she bought anything, to let him carry it home for her. She looked at the handsome young fellow, and her glance was as shrewd as it seemed to him sympathetic.

"Yes," she answered, "I think I can trust you."

A minute or two later she bargained with a Scotch gardener for two azaleas in full bloom. Then she turned to McDowell Sutro:

"Will you take those to the Post-Graduate Hospital, corner of Second Avenue and Twentieth Street, for half a dollar?"

"Yes," he answered, eagerly.

"Very well," she responded. "They are for the Babies' Wards. Say that they are from Miss Van Dyne. The Babies' Wards, you understand? And here is your money. I've got to trust you; but you have an honest face, and I don't believe that you would rob sick children of the sight and smell of the flowers they love."

"No," said McDowell Sutro, "I wouldn't." He picked up the heavy pots, and held one in the hollow of each arm. "The Babies' Wards of the Post-Graduate Hospital, from Miss Van Dyne? Is that it?"

"That's it," she answered, with her illuminating smile.

He walked off with the plants. Having the money in his pocket to break his fast, it seemed as though he could not get to the hospital swiftly enough. But when he had handed in the flowers, and was on his way back again to the square, he remembered suddenly the woman who had sat by him on the bench, and who had been hungry also. He had fifty cents in his pocket now, and in the window of an eating-house on Fourth Avenue he saw the sign, "Regular Breakfast, 25 cts." He had money enough to buy two regular breakfasts, one for himself and one for her.

He made the circle of the little park three times, besides traversing it in every direction, and then he had to confess that she was beyond his reach.

So he went to the restaurant alone, and had a regular breakfast all to himself.

When he came forth he felt refreshed, and the people who were now hurrying along the streets struck him as happier than those he had seen in the gray dawn. The long sunbeams were lighting the side streets. The workmen with their dinner-pails were giving place to the shop-girls with their luncheons tied up in paper.

The roar of the great city arose once more as the mighty tide of humanity again swept through its thoroughfares.

He went back to the gardeners' wagons, believing that he might earn another half-dollar. But when he saw other men waiting there hungrily, he turned away, thinking it only fair to give them a chance too.

He found a seat in the sun, and looked on while the flower-market was stripped by later purchasers. He wondered where the plants were all going, and then he remembered that the same flowers serve for the funeral and for the wedding. For the first time it struck him as strange that the plant which dresses a dinner-table to-day may gladden a sick-room to-morrow, and be bedded on a grave the day after.

At last he thought the hour had come when the post-office would be open again, and he set off for Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street.

When he reached the station he checked his walk. He did not dare go in, although the doors were open, and he could see other men and women asking questions at the little square windows. What if his questions should meet with the same answer as yesterday? What if he should have to spend another night in Union Square?

He nerved himself at last and entered. As he approached the window the clerk looked at him with a glance of recognition.

"McDowell Sutro, isn't it? Yes--there is a letter for you. Overweight, too--there's four cents extra postage to pay."

The young man's hand trembled as he put down the quarter left after paying for his regular breakfast. He seized the envelope swiftly, and almost forgot to pick up his change, till the clerk reminded him of it.

He tore the letter open. It was from Tom Pixley; it contained a post-office order for fifty dollars; and it began:

"MY DEAR MAC,--Go and see Sam Sargent, 78 Broadway, and he will get you a place on the surveyor's staff for the new line of the Barataria Central. I'm writing to him by this mail, and--"

But for a minute McDowell Sutro could read no further. His eyes had filled with tears.

(1895.)