The Promised Land Part 21

Mrs. Hutch seldom succeeded in collecting the full amount of the rents from her tenants. I suppose that made the bookkeeping complicated, which must have been wearing on her nerves; and hence her temper. We lived, on Dover Street, in fear of her temper. Sat.u.r.day had a distinct quality about it, derived from the imminence of Mrs. Hutch's visit. Of course I awoke on Sat.u.r.day morning with the no-school feeling; but the grim thing that leaped to its feet and glowered down on me, while the rest of my consciousness was still yawning on its back, was the Mrs.-Hutch-is-coming-and-there's-no-rent feeling.

It is hard, if you are a young girl, full of life and inclined to be glad, to go to sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter, when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an improper bedfellow for a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and spiritual malformations in the babies she nurses.

It did require strength to lift the burden of life, in the gray morning, on Dover Street; especially on Sat.u.r.day morning. Perhaps my mother's pack was the heaviest to lift. To the man of the house, poverty is a bulky dragon with gripping talons and a poisonous breath; but he bellows in the open, and it is possible to give him knightly battle, with the full swing of the angry arm that cuts to the enemy's vitals. To the housewife, want is an insidious myriapod creature that crawls in the dark, mates with its own offspring, breeds all the year round, persists like leprosy. The woman has an endless, inglorious struggle with the pest; her triumphs are too petty for applause, her failures too mean for notice. Care, to the man, is a hound to be kept in leash and mastered. To the woman, care is a secret parasite that infects the blood.

Mrs. Hutch, of course, was only one symptom of the disease of poverty, but there were times when she seemed to me the sharpest tooth of the gnawing canker. Surely as sorrow trails behind sin, Sat.u.r.day evening brought Mrs. Hutch. The landlady did not trail. Her movements were anything but impa.s.sive. She climbed the stairs with determination and landed at the top with emphasis. Her knock on the door was clear sharp, unfaltering; it was impossible to pretend not to hear it. Her "Good-evening" announced business; her manner of taking a chair suggested the throwing-down of the gauntlet. Invariably she asked for my father, calling him Mr. Anton, and refusing to be corrected; almost invariably he was not at home--was out looking for work. Had he left her the rent? My mother's gentle "No, ma'am" was the signal for the storm. I do not want to repeat what Mrs. Hutch said. It would be hard on her, and hard on me. She grew red in the face; her voice grew shriller with every word. My poor mother hung her head where she stood; the children stared from their corners; the frightened baby cried. The angry landlady rehea.r.s.ed our sins like a prophet foretelling doom. We owed so many weeks' rent; we were too lazy to work; we never intended to pay; we lived on others; we deserved to be put out without warning. She reproached my mother for having too many children; she blamed us all for coming to America. She enumerated her losses through nonpayment of her rents; told us that she did not collect the amount of her taxes; showed us how our irregularities were driving a poor widow to ruin.

My mother did not attempt to excuse herself, but when Mrs. Hutch began to rail against my absent father, she tried to put in a word in his defence. The landlady grew all the shriller at that, and silenced my mother impatiently. Sometimes she addressed herself to me. I always stood by, if I was at home, to give my mother the moral support of my dumb sympathy. I understood that Mrs. Hutch had a special grudge against me, because I did not go to work as a cash girl and earn three dollars a week. I wanted to explain to her how I was preparing myself for a great career, and I was ready to promise her the payment of the arrears as soon as I began to get rich. But the landlady would not let me put in a word. And I was sorry for her, because she seemed to be having such a bad time.

At last Mrs. Hutch got up to leave, marching out as determinedly as she had marched in. At the door she turned, in undiminished wrath, to shoot her parting dart:--

"And if Mr. Anton does not bring me the rent on Monday, I will serve notice of eviction on Tuesday, without fail."

We breathed when she was gone. My mother wiped away a few tears, and went to the baby, crying in the windowless, air-tight room.

I was the first to speak.

"Isn't she queer, mamma!" I said. "She never remembers how to say our name. She insists on saying _Anton--Anton_. Celia, say _Anton_." And I made the baby laugh by imitating the landlady, who had made her cry.

But when I went to my little room I did not mock Mrs. Hutch. I thought about her, thought long and hard, and to a purpose. I decided that she must hear me out once. She must understand about my plans, my future, my good intentions. It was too irrational to go on like this, we living in fear of her, she in distrust of us. If Mrs. Hutch would only trust me, and the tax collectors would trust her, we could all live happily forever.

I was the more certain that my argument would prevail with the landlady, if only I could make her listen, because I understood her point of view. I even sympathized with her. What she said about the babies, for instance, was not all unreasonable to me. There was this last baby, my mother's sixth, born on Mrs. Hutch's premises--yes, in the windowless, air-tight bedroom. Was there any need of this baby?

When May was born, two years earlier, on Wheeler Street, I had accepted her; after a while I even welcomed her. She was born an American, and it was something to me to have one genuine American relative. I had to sit up with her the whole of her first night on earth, and I questioned her about the place she came from, and so we got acquainted. As my mother was so ill that my sister Frieda, who was nurse, and the doctor from the dispensary had all they could do to take care of her, the baby remained in my charge a good deal, and so I got used to her. But when Celia came I was two years older, and my outlook was broader; I could see around a baby's charms, and discern the disadvantages of possessing the baby. I was supplied with all kinds of relatives now--I had a brother-in-law, and an American-born nephew, who might become a President. Moreover, I knew there was not enough to eat before the baby's advent, and she did not bring any supplies with her that I could see. The baby was one too many. There was no need of her. I resented her existence. I recorded my resentment in my journal.

I was pleased with my broad-mindedness, that enabled me to see all sides of the baby question. I could regard even the rent question disinterestedly, like a philosopher reviewing natural phenomena. It seemed not unreasonable that Mrs. Hutch should have a craving for the rent as such. A school-girl dotes on her books, a baby cries for its rattle, and a landlady yearns for her rents. I could easily believe that it was doing Mrs. Hutch spiritual violence to withhold the rent from her; and hence the vehemence with which she pursued the arrears.

Yes, I could a.n.a.lyze the landlady very nicely. I was certainly qualified to act as peacemaker between her and my family. But I must go to her own house, and _not_ on a rent day. Sat.u.r.day evening, when she was embittered by many disappointments, was no time to approach her with diplomatic negotiations. I must go to her house on a day of good omen.

And I went, as soon as my father could give me a week's rent to take along. I found Mrs. Hutch in the gloom of a long, faded parlor.

Divested of the ample black coat and widow's bonnet in which I had always seen her, her presence would have been less formidable had I not been conscious that I was a mere rumpled sparrow fallen into the lion's den. When I had delivered the money, I should have begun my speech; but I did not know what came first of all there was to say.

While I hesitated, Mrs. Hutch observed me. She noticed my books, and asked about them. I thought this was my opening, and I showed her eagerly my Latin grammar, my geometry, my Virgil. I began to tell her how I was to go to college, to fit myself to write poetry, and get rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea; and the tidy on the back of the sofa was sliding down.

I was so bewildered by the suddenness of the onslaught, I felt so helpless to defend myself, that I could only stand and stare at Mrs.

Hutch. She kept on railing without stopping for breath, repeating herself over and over. At last I ceased to hear what she said; I became hypnotized by the rapid motions of her mouth. Then the moving tidy caught my eye and the spell was broken. I went over to the sofa with a decided step and carefully replaced the tidy.

It was now the landlady's turn to stare, and I stared back, surprised at my own action. The old lady also stared, her teacup suspended under her nose. The whole thing was so ridiculous! I had come on such a grand mission, ready to dictate the terms of a n.o.ble peace. I was met with anger and contumely; the dignity of the amba.s.sador of peace rubbed off at a touch, like the golden dust from the b.u.t.terfly's wing.

I took my scolding like a meek child; and then, when she was in the middle of a trenchant phrase, her eye fixed daggerlike on mine, I calmly went to put the enemy's house in order! It was ridiculous, and I laughed.

Immediately I was sorry. I wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now.

Did I come there to insult her?--she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose to rile her with my talk about college--_college!_ these beggars!--and laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent you? Why do you stand there staring? Say something! _College!_ these beggars! And do you think I'll keep you till you go to college? _You_, learning geometry! Did you ever figure out how much rent your father owes me?

You are all too lazy--Don't say a word! Don't speak to me! Coming here to laugh in my face! I don't believe you can say one sensible word.

_Latin_--and _French_! Oh, these beggars! You ought to go to work, if you know enough to do one sensible thing. _College!_ Go home and tell your father never to send you again. Laughing in my face--and staring!

Why don't you say something? How old are you?"

Mrs. Hutch actually stopped, and I jumped into the pause.

"I'm seventeen," I said quickly, "and I feel like seventy."

This was too much, even for me who had spoken. I had not meant to say the last. It broke out, like my wicked laugh. I was afraid, if I stayed any longer, Mrs. Hutch would have the apoplexy; and I felt that I was going to cry. I moved towards the door, but the landlady got in another speech before I had escaped.

"Seventeen--seventy! And looks like twelve! The child is silly. Can't even tell her own age. No wonder, with her Latin, and French, and--"

I did cry when I got outside, and I didn't care if I was noticed. What was the use of anything? Everything I did was wrong. Everything I tried to do for Mrs. Hutch turned out bad. I tried to sell papers, for the sake of the rent, and n.o.body wanted the "Searchlight," and I was told it was not a nice business. I wanted to take her into my confidence, and she wouldn't hear a word, but scolded and called me names. She was an unreasonable, ungrateful landlady. I wished she _would_ put us out, then we should be rid of her.--But wasn't it funny about that tidy? What made me do that? I never meant to. Curious, the way we sometimes do things we don't want to at all.--The old lady must be deaf; she didn't say anything all that time.--Oh, I have a whole book of the "aeneid" to review, and it's getting late. I must hurry home.

It was impossible to remain despondent long. The landlady came only once a week, I reflected, as I walked, and the rest of the time I was surrounded by friends. Everybody was good to me, at home, of course, and at school; and there was Miss Dillingham, and her friend who took me out in the country to see the autumn leaves, and her friend's friend who lent me books, and Mr. Hurd, who put my poems in the "Transcript," and gave me books almost every time I came, and a dozen others who did something good for me all the time, besides the several dozen who wrote me such nice letters. Friends? If I named one for every block I pa.s.sed I should not get through before I reached home.

There was Mr. Strong, too, and he wanted me to meet his wife and little girl. And Mr. Pastor! I had almost forgotten Mr. Pastor. I arrived at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, on my way home, and looked into Mr. Pastor's showy drug store as I pa.s.sed, and that reminded me of the history of my latest friendship.

My cough had been pretty bad--kept me awake nights. My voice gave out frequently. The teachers had spoken to me several times, suggesting that I ought to see a doctor. Of course the teachers did not know that I could not afford a doctor, but I could go to the free dispensary, and I did. They told me to come again, and again, and I lost precious hours sitting in the waiting-room, watching for my turn. I was examined, thumped, studied, and sent out with prescriptions and innumerable directions. All that was said about food, fresh air, sunny rooms, etc., was, of course, impossible; but I would try the medicine.

A bottle of medicine was a definite thing with a fixed price. You either could or could not afford it, on a given day. Once you began with milk and eggs and such things, there was no end of it. You were always going around the corner for more, till the grocer said he could give no more credit. No; the medicine bottle was the only safe thing.

I had taken several bottles, and was told that I was looking better, when I went, one day, to have my prescription renewed. It was just after a hard rain, and the pools on the broken pavements were full of blue sky. I was delighted with the beautiful reflections; there were even the white clouds moving across the blue, there, at my feet, on the pavement! I walked with my head down all the way to the drug store, which was all right; but I should not have done it going back, with the new bottle of medicine in my hand.

In front of a cigar store, halfway between Washington Street and Harrison Avenue, stood a wooden Indian with a package of wooden cigars in his hand. My eyes on the shining rain pools, I walked plump into the Indian, and the bottle was knocked out of my hand and broke with a crash.

I was horrified at the catastrophe. The medicine cost fifty cents. My mother had given me the last money in the house. I must not be without my medicine; the dispensary doctor was very emphatic about that. It would be dreadful to get sick and have to stay out of school. What was to be done?

I made up my mind in less than five minutes. I went back to the drug store and asked for Mr. Pastor himself. He knew me; he often sold me postage stamps, and joked about my large correspondence, and heard a good deal about my friends. He came out, on this occasion, from his little office in the back of the store; and I told him of my accident, and that there was no more money at home, and asked him to give me another bottle, to be paid for as soon as possible. My father had a job as night watchman in a store. I should be able to pay very soon.

"Certainly, my dear, certainly," said Mr. Pastor; "very glad to oblige you. It's doing you good, isn't it?--That's right. You're such a studious young lady, with all those books, and so many letters to write--you need something to build you up. There you are.--Oh, don't mention it! Any time at all. And lookout for wild Indians!"

Of course we were great friends after that, and this is the way my troubles often ended on Dover Street. To b.u.mp into a wooden Indian was to b.u.mp into good luck, a hundred times a week. No wonder I was happy most of the time.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BURNING BUSH

Just when Mrs. Hutch was most worried about the error of my ways, I entered on a new chapter of adventures, even more remote from the cash girl's career than Latin and geometry. But I ought not to name such harsh things as landladies at the opening of the fairy story of my girlhood. I have reached what was the second transformation of my life, as truly as my coming to America was the first great transformation.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his delightful essays, credits the lover with a feeling of remorse and shame at the contemplation of that part of his life which he lived without his beloved, content with his barren existence. It is with just such a feeling of remorse that I look back to my bookworm days, before I began the study of natural history outdoors; and with a feeling of shame akin to the lover's I confess how late in my life nature took the first place in my affections.

The subject of nature study is better developed in the public schools to-day than it was in my time. I remember my teacher in the Chelsea grammar school who encouraged us to look for different kinds of gra.s.ses in the empty lots near home, and to bring to school samples of the cereals we found in our mothers' pantries. I brought the gra.s.ses and cereals, as I did everything the teacher ordered, but I was content when nature study was over and the arithmetic lesson began. I was not interested, and the teacher did not make it interesting.

In the boys' books I was fond of reading I came across all sorts of heroes, and I sympathized with them all. The boy who ran away to sea; the boy who delighted in the society of ranchmen and cowboys; the stage-struck boy, whose ambition was to drive a pasteboard chariot in a circus; the boy who gave up his holidays in order to earn money for books; the bad boy who played tricks on people; the clever boy who invented amusing toys for his blind little sister--all these boys I admired. I could put myself in the place of any one of these heroes, and delight in their delights. But there was one sort of hero I never could understand, and that was the boy whose favorite reading was natural history, who kept an aquarium, collected beetles, and knew all about a man by the name of Aga.s.siz. This style of boy always had a seafaring uncle, or a missionary aunt, who sent him all sorts of queer things from China and the South Sea Islands; and the conversation between this boy and the seafaring uncle home on a visit, I was perfectly willing to skip. The impossible hero usually kept snakes in a box in the barn, where his little sister was fond of playing with her little friends. The snakes escaped at least once before the end of the story; and the things the boy said to the frightened little girls, about the harmless and fascinating qualities of snakes, was something I had no patience to read.

No, I did not care for natural history. I would read about travels, about deserts, and nameless islands, and strange peoples; but snakes and birds and minerals and b.u.t.terflies did not interest me in the least. I visited the Natural History Museum once or twice, because it was my way to enter every open door, so as to miss nothing that was free to the public; but the curious monsters that filled the gla.s.s cases and adorned the walls and ceilings failed to stir my imagination, and the slimy things that floated in gla.s.s vessels were too horrid for a second glance.

Of all the horrid things that ever pa.s.sed under my eyes when I lifted my nose from my book, spiders were the worst. Mice were bad enough, and so were flies and worms and June bugs; but spiders were absolutely the most loathsome creatures I knew. And yet it was the spider that opened my eyes to the wonders of nature, and touched my girlish happiness with the hues of the infinite.

And it happened at Hale House.

It was not Dr. Hale, though it might have been, who showed me the way to the settlement house on Garland Street which bears his name. Hale House is situated in the midst of the labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys that const.i.tutes the slum of which Harrison Avenue is the backbone, and of which Dover Street is a member.

Bearing in mind the fact that there are almost no playgrounds in all this congested district, you will understand that Hale House has plenty of work on its hands to carry a little sunshine into the grimy tenement homes. The beautiful story of how that is done cannot be told here, but what Hale House did for me I may not omit to mention.

It was my brother Joseph who discovered Hale House. He started a debating club, and invited his chums to help him settle the problems of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the numerous babies belonging to our establishment broke up the meeting, leaving the Administration in suspense as to its future course.