Edith and John Part 5

"We have the necessary amount."

"--Fifty thousand to get it--money first."

"When do you want the money?"

"Tomorrow at eleven o'clock."

The stranger arose, went out into the smoke and fog, and disappeared somewhere into the infolding channels of great business undertakings of this wonderfully prosperous city of steel and iron, where even the hearts of men are as the material that the great blast furnaces spew out, day and night, for seven days in the week, week in and week out.

CHAPTER IV.

IN h.e.l.l'S HALF ACRE.

The forlorn individual whom Peter Dieman saw through his spyhole, during his soul stirring conversation with the stranger, was Kate Barton, the wife of Billy Barton, the waterman, and the ragged but chunky young woman with her was her daughter, Star Barton.

They had come into Peter's place to redeem, if possible, or to take away as a gift of charity, if lucky, a few battered and broken kitchen utensils that Billy Barton had sold during one of his thirsty spells while staggering through a vaporless period of inebriacy.

Kate Barton's outlook on life was hopeless. She came into the world as poor as the proverbial church mouse, and seemed doomed to go out of it even poorer. She married Billy Barton, a shiftless young man, with an inherent predilection for hankering after the flowing bowl, and ere she had pa.s.sed a score of years of wedded life twelve innocent starvelings had opened their eyes to her as their mother to gravitate for themselves around the "old block."

The poor woman! She was a meek victim of the direst kind of circ.u.mstances that could possibly surround a human being. She was one of those submissive and inept mortals that blindly plod the road of domesticity without a spark of the beautiful to light up the narrow channel of unrequitted effort. When she married Billy Barton, she went about it with that fatality of purpose as is usual with her cla.s.s, and bore her burdens with the equanimity of a horse hitched to a loaded cart on the uphill pull, without a thought for anything beyond her daily tribulations, save that vague idea that the good Lord would take care of her in the after while. She had no ambition further than the difficult task of caring for her home with its limited accommodations and plethoric adornment of young life. The unworthy addition of an imbibing husband, on whom she looked as an inalienable part of her existence, did in no sense tend her thoughts to any less love for him than if he had been a more renowned character among men. Poor, helpless woman!

When Peter Dieman saw her that day through his place of outlook, he saw a woman as lean as a bean pole, as tall as a rail splitter, as cadaverous as a ghost, with a hook nose, deeply sunken gray eyes, a complexion that was a cross between yellow and black, brown stringy hair and toothless mouth. Her dress was of faded black alpaca, her shoes coa.r.s.e and well worn, with a dirty yellow shawl hooded over her head and hanging with frayed edges over her shoulders.

After the stranger had left him, Peter stood a few moments, blinkingly observing her. He then stepped out of his office into the less dingy shop. He lumbered up to where she stood having an altercation with Eli Jerey.

"Well, Mrs. Barton," he said, rubbing his hands as if very cold, and grinning like a cheshire cat; "can't you and Eli come to terms? What is the trouble?"

"Eli Jerey says I cannot redeem my goods without I pay a profit for your trouble," she answered.

"Can't have what?" he quizzed.

"Them things that Bill sold you to get drink money with," she replied.

"What things?" asked Peter.

"Them dishes of mine--them tin pans--them knives--them forks--them spoons--he carried off," she whimperingly returned.

"I paid him the cash for them--the cold cash, Mrs. Barton," said Peter, with a stony smile.

"You did, no doubt, or else he wouldn't've been drunk last night," she replied.

"I never ask any questions where the things I buy come from--I give all anything is worth; no more, no less, and never ask where the money goes when it leaves my hands--I expect to sell them for a profit, or else what am I in business for?" thus screeched the junkman.

"Oh, Mr. Dieman!" wailed the poor creature. "I have nothing left to cook with or eat on. He's taken the last dish in the house. My children have been eating off the bare boards--and eating their vituals raw."

"That's not my outlook, Mrs. Barton," retorted Peter, rubbing his hands now more vigorously than ever, as if he had a fresh chill, or had just come in out of a cold blast of weather.

"I thought you might return them to me," said Mrs. Barton, appealingly.

"Thought nothing," he answered, with a croak. "Give me my price and you can take them."

"I have only fifty cents," said the forlorn woman, "and I need that to buy something to eat."

"I have nothing to give you, Mrs. Barton," he snorted, turning his back to her, and rubbing his hands as if in meditation, and batting his small eyes, as if he were winking at his little G.o.d--Mammom.

Feeling that it was hopeless to plead with him for the articles, and wanting to save her fifty cents, Mrs. Barton turned slowly, pulled the yellow shawl closer over her head and shoulders, and started to leave the junk shop. Eli stood by agape, without a sign of sympathy for her, or an emotion of any kind, any more than if he had been a fence post.

Mrs. Barton bowed her head as she walked away, and her daughter, Star, after casting a disdainful look at Eli, followed. Eli stood still looking after them. Peter stood still rubbing his hands and batting his eyes, as if he were preparing to offer up devotion to his deity. Then of a sudden he turned, and roared:

"Come back, Mrs. Barton!"

Mrs. Barton stopped as suddenly as Peter had cried out, faced about, and looked blankly at the object who gave the command.

"Come back!" roared Peter again.

The poor woman, having no reason to be independent about the matter, went hesitatingly toward him. When she came up to the blinking idol of greed, she stood waiting for him to speak further.

"Take your old things, and tell Bill the next time he comes into my place of business I'll tear him to pieces," he cried. "I've had enough of him already. He's nothing but an old sot, unworthy of a woman like you," now with commiseration in his sordid heart for her, and only condemnation for her weak husband. "Take them, and go, and tell him that I'll get even with him sometime."

"Thank you; thank you," said Mrs. Barton, with a gleam of merciful grat.i.tude in her eyes for this philanthropic pig.

"Eli," said Peter, without returning a "welcome" to Mrs. Barton, as he turned to that dutiful menial, "give the woman her trumphery and let her begone."

Then rubbing his hands more furiously, and squinting his eyes more swiftly and gritting his teeth more viciously at the turn this action of benefaction gave his conscience, he waddled to his black office, where he resumed his smoking, and took to calculating to a certainty as to how he could recover from some one else the small pittance he was out by this disreputable transaction, as he termed it, on the part of Billy Barton, the waterman.

Eli Jerey at once proceeded to obey his superior, for that was his only aim at that period in his life. Into a gunny sack he piled the chipped and broken dishes, the battered pans, the rusty iron forks and knives, and tin spoons, composing the entire culinary outfit of Kate Barton.

With the sack thus loaded, Mrs. Barton swung it once in front of her, and with a quick jerk whirled it over her right shoulder, bent under it as if it were of great weight, said good bye to Eli, and strode out, with Star following. They crossed the street and went down the glacis of the cobblestoned wharf. Following the water's edge, they pa.s.sed among the miscellaneous collection of freight piled high on every hand. Over taut ropes, holding boats, barges and rivermen's houses, they stepped, catching their toes now and then, and almost falling; proceeding ever on, through all kinds of heaps and piles of freightage; ever on, among the men moving about performing their duties silently. Ever on, Kate Barton led the way, a tireless, fearless, forbidding being, who created no more comment among the habitues of this district than if she were nowhere to be seen; till, at last, she, like one with the joy of success bound up in a spiritless heart, arrived where a dog-boat lay tethered to a ring-bolt in the stone abutment of the Point bridge.

Into the boat she tumbled her bundle, with no thought as to the result such an act might have upon the dishes, ordered Star to climb in and take a seat in the rear, untied the rope, and jumped in herself as she gave the boat a shove into the stream. Taking up the oars she bent to them with the energy of a man, and pulled through the puffing, snorting, wheezing, churning craft for the farther sh.o.r.e--where house boats lay moored; where shanties hugged dangerously close to the water line; where decrepit buildings stood in all stages of deformity; where every inch of ground on the narrow s.p.a.ce between the margin of the river and the verticle cliff behind was utilized to its utmost with everything imaginable, from the detritus of the hill to a pretentious manufacturing plant of equivocal worth in its baleful aspect. The hill above was straight up and down, almost, rock ribbed and bleak, a barrier to the pleasant places above and beyond; and at its base a railway system held indisputable sway; while betwixt it and the river were the straggling homes of men, with a few stunted and wheezy domesticated animals and fowls roaming about them.

Once upon a time this place bore the evil name of h.e.l.l's Half Acre.

To a low-browed, unpainted, unadorned, uninviting three-roomed shack Mrs. Barton took her way, with the bundle of precious household articles on her back, with Star following. They pa.s.sed along narrow, winding alleys, with frightful looking fences bulging out, or leaning in; past foul mud holes; past filthy doorsteps, where brawling children, like her own, screamed at her, or taunted her, or spoke friendly to her; through sticky mire, over rickety board walks, over stepping stones at watery places, and on, over everything and through everything that had a squalid and sickly hue she went--with Star following--and with one unswerving gait, or changed expression of her leathery face, to the door of her own abode.

The door squeaked with the pain of la.s.situde as she shoved it open. She entered the kitchen--Star following. Dropping the sack on a dilapidated chair, she began lifting the contents therefrom, as the children gathered around, in all stages of filthiness, to see the operation. A toddling three-year-old grasped a spoon, as soon as he saw it come forth, and resorted to the ashes in the grate as material by which to test its usefulness. Another child took up a knife and began hacking at a table leg; another took up a cup and ran out to procure some water; while another took up a small battered tin pail to fetch in a little coal to replenish the dying fire.

The children ranged in age from one to nineteen, the eldest--Michael--being away earning money for his own keep, so that she had a short dozen mouths to fill for the nonce.

After completing the task of unburdening the sack, Mrs. Barton delivered the youngest child unto Star to tend while she set about to cook a meal.

Her bill of fare was meager and simple, withal. It consisted wholly of fried potatoes, dough-bread hurryingly mixed, and coffee. After the fare was spread upon the table, ten greedy youngsters and their mother sat down to dine, while Star stood off, waiting to take potluck with the leavings. Unselfish child, as she was, she deferred always first to the appeas.e.m.e.nt of the hunger of the others. The savory provender lay heaped in a l.u.s.terless dish in the center of the table, and the coffee stood hot in a tin pot on a corner of the stove, while the bread was broken into fragments, as per age of child and capacity, and laid by each place. As plates and cups and saucers, knives and forks, were not sufficient to go around, the younger children fought and scratched and pulled as to whose turn should come "next" in being served. Some being ferociously hungry, and impatient over delays, dipped into the platter with their hands, clapping the contents to their mouths, like monkeys, and ate their bread with such an eager determination to get filled up that they almost choked. Some drank the coffee out of the pot, and spluttered and cried and s...o...b..red with such wild frenzy that they were called she-wolves by their mother sitting by eating sparingly but as contentedly and as heartily as if her young hopefuls were angels instead of brats.

"Where's your pap?" asked the mother, directing her question to any, or all, of them, so indifferently was the question p.r.o.nounced.

"Went to the city," answered the eldest.