Vistas of New York Part 19

He went into the bakery and got a man to help the driver carry up the stretcher. Women came out of the shops on both sides of the street, and leaned out of their windows with babies in their arms, and stepped out on the fire-escapes. There were banana peelings and crumpled newspapers and rubbish of one sort or another scattered in the street, and the savor of it all was unpleasant even to a man who was no stranger to the casual ward of a hospital.

The man in overalls went up-stairs with the doctor, warning him where a step was broken or where a bit of the hand-rail was missing. They groped their way along the pa.s.sage on the first floor and knocked.

The door opened suddenly, and they saw an ill-furnished room, glaring with the sun reflected from its white walls. Two women stood just within the door. One was tall and spare, with gray streaks in her coal-black hair, and with piercing black eyes; the other was a comfortable body with a cheerful smile.

"That's Mrs. O'Donough," said the doctor's guide--"the tall one. See the eyes of her now! The other's a neighbor woman, who's with her a good deal, she's that excitable."

The doctor stepped into the room, and began once more to break the news.

"This is Mrs. O'Donough, is it not?" he said. "I'm a doctor, and I am sorry to have to say there has been an accident, and Mr. O'Donough is--is under treatment."

Here the driver and the man from the bakery brought in the stretcher.

When the tall woman saw this she gripped the arm of the other and hissed out, "Is it _it_?" Then she turned her back on the body and sank her head on her friend's shoulder.

The other woman made signs to the doctor to say little or nothing.

The driver and the baker took a thin counterpane off the bed, which stood against the wall. Then they lifted the body from the stretcher to the bed, and covered it with the counterpane.

The doctor did not know what to say in the face of the signals he was receiving from the widow's friend.

"In case I can be of any a.s.sistance at any time," he suggested--and then Mrs. O'Donough lifted her head and looked at him with her burning eyes--"if I can be of service, do not hesitate to call on me. Here is my card."

As he felt his way down-stairs again he heard a hand-organ break out suddenly into a strident waltz.

When he came out into the street a few little children were dancing in couples, although most of them stood around the ambulance, gazing with morbid curiosity at the driver as he replaced the stretcher. At the door of the baker's shop stood a knot of women talking it over; but in the Chinese laundry the irons went back and forth steadily, with no interest in what might happen in the street outside.

As the doctor took his seat in the vehicle a shriek came from the room he had just left--a shuddering, heartrending wail--then another--and then there was silence.

The ambulance started forward, the bell clanged to clear the way, the horse broke into a trot, and in a minute or two they turned into the broad avenue.

Then the driver looked at the doctor. "The widdy's takin' it harrd, I'm thinkin', but she'll get over it before the wake," he said. "An' it's good lungs she has, ennyhow."

(1898)

[Ill.u.s.tration: In a Bob-tail Car]

It was about noon of a dark day late in September, and a long-threatened drizzle of hail chilled the air, as Harry Brackett came out of the Apollo House and stood on the corner of Fourth Avenue, waiting for a cross-town car. He was going down-town to the office of the _Gotham Gazette_ to write up an interview he had just had with the latest British invader of these United States, Lady Smith-Smith, the fair auth.o.r.ess of the very popular novel _Smile and be a Villain Still_, five rival editions of which were then for sale everywhere in New York. Harry Brackett intended to ride past Union Square to Sixth Avenue in the cross-town car, and then to go to the _Gotham Gazette_ by the elevated railway, so he transferred ten cents for the fare of the latter and five cents for the fare of the former from his waistcoat pocket to a little pocket in his overcoat. Then he b.u.t.toned the overcoat tightly about him, as the raw wind blew harshly across the city from river to river. He looked down the street for the car; it was afar off, on the other side of Third Avenue, and he was standing on the corner of Fourth Avenue.

"A bob-tail car," said Harry Brackett to himself, "is like a policeman: it is never here just when it is wanted. And yet it is a necessary evil--like the policeman again. Perhaps there is here a philosophical thought that might be worked up as a comic editorial article for the fifth column. 'The Bob-tail Car'--why, the very name is humorous. And there are lots of things to be said about it. For instance, I can get something out of the suggestion that the heart of a coquette is like a bob-tail car, there is always room for one more; but I suppose I must not venture on any pun about 'ringing the belle.' Then I can say that the bob-tail car is a one-horse concern, and is therefore a victim of the healthy American hatred of one-horse concerns. It has no past; no gentleman of the road ever robbed its pa.s.sengers; no road-agent nowadays would think of 'holding it up.' Perhaps that's why there is no poetry about a bob-tail car, as there is about a stage-coach. Even Rudolph Vernon, the most modern of professional poets, wouldn't dream of writing verses on 'Riding in a Bob-tail Car.' Wasn't it Heine who said that the monks of the Middle Ages thought that Greek was a personal invention of the devil, and that he agreed with them? That's what the bob-tail car is--a personal invention of the devil. The stove-pipe hat, the frying-pan, the tenement-house, and the bob-tail car--these are the choicest and the chief of the devil's gifts to New York. Why doesn't that car come? confound it! Although it cannot swear itself, it is the cause of much swearing!"

Just then the car came lumbering along and b.u.mping with a repeated jar as its track crossed the tracks on Fourth Avenue. Harry Brackett jumped on it as it pa.s.sed the corner where he stood. His example was followed by a stranger, who took the seat opposite to him.

As the car sped along toward Broadway, Harry Brackett mechanically read, as he had read a dozen times before, the printed request to place the exact fare in the box. "Suppose I don't put it in?" he mused; "what will happen? The driver will ask for it--if he has time and happens to think of it. This is very tempting to a man who wants to try the Virginian plan of readjusting his debts. Here is just the opportunity for any one addicted to petty larceny. I think I shall call that article 'The Bob-tail Car as a Demoralizer.' It is most demoralizing for a man to feel that he can probably evade the payment of his fare, since there is no conductor to ask for it. However, I suppose the main reliance of the company is on the honesty of the individual citizen who would rather pay his debts than not. I doubt if there is any need to dun the average American for five cents."

Harry Brackett lowered his eyes from the printed notice at which he had been staring unconsciously for a minute, and they fell on the man sitting opposite to him--the man who had entered the car as he did.

"I wonder if he is the average American?" thought Brackett. "He hasn't paid his fare yet. I wonder if he will? It isn't my business to dun him for it, and yet I'd like to know whether his intentions are honorable or not."

The car turned sharply into Broadway, and then came to a halt to allow two young ladies to enter. A third young lady escorted them to the car, and kissed them affectionately, and said:

"Good-by! You will be _sure_ to come again! I have enjoyed your visit so much."

Then the two young ladies kissed her, and they said, both speaking at once, and very rapidly:

"Oh yes. We've had _such_ a good time! We'll write you! And you _must_ come out to Orange and see us soon! Good-by! Good-by! Remember us to your mother! _Good-by!_"

At last the sweet sorrow of this parting was over; the third young lady withdrew to the sidewalk; the two young ladies came inside the car; the other pa.s.sengers breathed more freely; the man opposite to Harry Brackett winked at him slyly, and the car went on again.

There was a vacant seat on the side of the car opposite to Harry Brackett--or, at least, there would have been one if the ladies on that side had not, with characteristic coolness, spread out their skirts so as to occupy the whole s.p.a.ce. The two young ladies stood for a moment after they had entered the car; they looked for a seat, but no one of the other ladies made a sign of moving to make room for them. The man opposite to Harry Brackett rose and proffered his seat. They did not thank him, or even so much as look at him.

"_You_ take it, Nelly," said one.

"I sha'n't do anything of the sort. I'm not a bit tired!" returned the other. "I _insist_ on your sitting down!"

"But I'm not tired _now_."

"Louise Valeria Munson," her friend declared, with humorous emphasis, "if you don't sit right down, I'll call a _policeman!_"

"Well, I guess there's room for us both," said Louise Valeria Munson; "I'm sure there ought to be."

By this time some of the other ladies on the seat had discovered that they were perhaps taking up a little more than their fair share of s.p.a.ce, and there was a readjustment of frontier. The vacancy was slightly broadened, and both young ladies sat down.

The man who had got in just after Harry Brackett and who had given up his seat stood in the center of the car with his hand through a strap.

But he made no effort to pay his fare. The driver rang his bell, the pa.s.sengers looked at each other inquiringly, and one of the two young ladies who had just seated themselves produced a dime, which was pa.s.sed along and dropped into the fare-box in accordance with the printed instructions of the company.

Three ladies left the car just before it turned into Fourteenth Street; and after it had rounded the curve two elderly gentlemen entered and sat down by the side of Harry Brackett. The man who had not paid his fare kindly volunteered to drop their money into the box, but did not put in any of his own. Harry Brackett was certain of this, for he had watched him closely.

The two elderly gentlemen continued a conversation began before they entered the car. "I'll tell you," said one of them, so loudly that Harry Brackett could not help overhearing, "the most remarkable thing that man Skinner ever did. One day he got caught in one of his amusing little swindles; by some slip-up of his ingenuity he did not allow himself quite rope enough, and so he was brought up with a round turn in the Tombs. He got two years in Sing Sing, but he never went up at all--he served his time by subst.i.tute!"

"What?" cried his companion, in surprise.

"He did!" answered the first speaker. "That's just what he did! He had a subst.i.tute to go to State's Prison for him, while he went up to Albany to work for his own pardon!"

"How did he manage that?" asked the other, in involuntary admiration before so splendid an audacity.

"You've no idea how fertile Skinner was in devices of all kinds,"

replied the gentleman who was telling the story. "He got out on bail, and he arranged for a light sentence if he pleaded guilty. Then one day, suddenly, a man came into court, giving himself up as Skinner, pleading guilty, and asking for immediate sentence. Of course, n.o.body inquired too curiously into the ident.i.ty of a self-surrendered prisoner who wanted to go to Sing Sing. Well--"

The car stopped at the corner of Fifth Avenue, several pa.s.sengers alighted, and a party of three ladies came in. There were two vacant seats by the side of Harry Brackett, and as he thought these three ladies wished to sit together, he gave up his place and took another farther down the car. Here he found himself again opposite the man who had entered the car almost simultaneously with him, and who had not yet paid his fare. Harry Brackett wondered whether this attempt to steal a ride was intentional or whether it was merely inadvertent. His consideration of this metaphysical problem was interrupted by another conversation. His right-hand neighbor, who was apparently a physician, was telling the friend next to him of the strange desires of convalescents.

"I think," said he, "that the queerest request I ever heard was down in Connecticut. There was a man there, a day-laborer, but a fine young fellow, who had a crowbar driven clean through his head by a forgotten blast. Well, I happened to be the first doctor on the spot, and it was nip-and-tuck whether anything could be done for him; it was a most interesting case. But he was in glorious condition physically. I found out afterward that he was the champion sprint-runner of the place. I got him into the nearest hotel, and in time I managed to patch him up as best I could. At last we pulled him through, and the day came when I was able to tell him that I thought he would recover, and that he was quite out of danger, and that all he had to do was to get his strength back again as fast as he could, and he would be all right again soon. He was lying in bed, emaciated and speechless, when I said this, and when I added that he could have anything to eat he might fancy, his eyes brightened and his lips moved. 'Is there anything in particular you would prefer?' I asked him, and his lips moved again as though he had a wish to express. You see, he hadn't spoken once since the accident, but he seemed to be trying to find his tongue; so I bent over the bed and put my head over his mouth, and finally I heard a faint voice saying, 'Quail on toast!' and as I drew back in surprise, he gave me a wink.

Feeble as his tones were, there was infinite gusto in the way he said the words. I suppose he had never had quail on toast in all his life; probably he had dreamed of it as an unattainable luxury."

"Did he get it?" asked the doctor's friend.