Chapter V: Part 5

A gruesome labor. A gruesome picture. We have been flattering ourselves these many centuries that our civilization had somehow got away from this old-time law of life living on death, but here amid all the gauds and refinements of our metropolitan life we find ourselves confronted by it, and here stands our salaried red man who murders our victims for us, while we look on indifferently, or stranger yet, remain blissfully unconscious that the bloody labor is in existence.

We live in cities such as this; crowd ourselves in ornamented chambers as much as possible; walk paths from which all painful indications of death have been eliminated, and think ourselves clean and kind and free of the old struggle, and yet behold our salaried agent ever at work; and ever the cry of the destroyed is rising to what heaven we know not, nor to what gods. We dream dreams of universal brotherhood and prate of the era of coming peace, but this slaughter is a stumbling-block over which we may not readily vault. It augurs something besides peace and love in this world. It forms a great commentary on the arrangement of the universe.

And yet this revolting picture is not without its relieving feature, though alas! the little softness visible points no way by which the victims may be spared. The very butcher is a human being, a father with little children. One day, after a discouraging hour of this terrible panorama, I walked out into the afternoon sunlight only to brood over the tragedy and terror of it all. This man struck me as a demon, a chill, phlegmatic, animal creature whose horrible eyes would contain no light save that of non-understanding and indifference. Moved by some curious impulse, I made my way to his home--to the sty where I expected to find him groveling--and found instead a little cottage, set about with grass and flowers, and under a large tree a bench. Here was my murderer sitting, here taking his evening’s rest.

The sun was going down, the shadows beginning to fall. In the cool of the evening he was taking his ease, a rough, horny-handed man, large and uncouth, but on his knee a child. And such a child--young, not over two years, soft and delicate, with the bloom of babyhood on its cheek and the light of innocence in its eye; and here was this great murderer stroking it gently, the red man touching it softly with his hand.

I stood and looked at this picture, the thought of the blood-red pit coming back to me, the gouts of blood, the knife, the cries of his victims, the death throes; and then at this green grass and this tree and the father and his child.

Heaven forefend against the mysteries of life and its dangers. We know in part, we believe in part, but these things surpass the understanding of man and make our humble consciousness reel with the inexplicable riddle of existence. To live, to die, to be generous, to be brutal! How in the scheme of things are the conditions and feelings inextricably jumbled, and how we grope and stumble through our days to our graves!

WHENCE THE SONG

Along Broadway in the height of the theatrical season, but more particularly in that laggard time from June to September, when the great city is given over to those who may not travel, and to actors seeking engagements, there is ever to be seen a certain representative figure, now one individual and now another, of a world so singular that it might well engage the pen of a Balzac or that of a Cervantes. I have in mind an individual whose high hat and smooth Prince Albert coat are still a delicious presence. In his coat lapel is a ruddy boutonnière, in his hand a novel walking-stick. His vest is of a gorgeous and affluent pattern, his shoes shiny-new and topped with pearl-gray spats. With dignity he carries his body and his chin. He is the cynosure of many eyes, the envy of all men, and he knows it. He is the successful author of the latest popular song.

Along Broadway, from Union to Greeley Squares, any fair day during the period of his artistic elevation, he is to be seen. Past the rich shops and splendid theaters he betakes himself with leisurely grace. In Thirtieth Street he may turn for a few moments, but it is only to say good-morning to his publishers. In Twenty-eighth Street, where range the host of those who rival his successful house, he stops to talk with lounging actors and ballad singers. Well-known variety stars nod to him familiarly. Women whose sole claim to distinction lies in their knack of singing a song, smile in greeting as he passes. Occasionally there comes a figure of a needy ballad-monger, trudging from publisher to publisher with an unavailable manuscript, who turns upon him, in passing, the glint of an envious glance. To these he is an important figure, satisfied as much with their envy as with their praise, for is not this also his due, the reward of all who have triumphed?

I have in mind another figure, equally singular: a rouged and powdered little maiden, rich in feathers and ornaments of the latest vogue; gloved in blue and shod in yellow; pretty, self-assured, daring, and even bold. There has gone here all the traditional maidenly reserve you would expect to find in one so young and pleasing, and yet she is not evil. The daughter of a Chicago butcher, you knew her when she first came to the city--a shabby, wondering little thing, clerk to a music publisher transferring his business east, and all eyes for the marvels of city life.

Gradually the scenes and superlatives of elegance, those showy men and women coming daily to secure or sell songs, have aroused her longings and ambitions. Why may not she sing, why not she be a theatrical celebrity? She will. The world shall not keep her down. That elusive and almost imaginary company known as _they_, whose hands are ever against the young, shall not hold her back.

Behold, for a time, then, she has gone; and now, elegant, jingling with silver ornaments, hale and merry from good living, she has returned. To-day she is playing at one of the foremost vaudeville houses. To-morrow she leaves for Pittsburgh. Her one object is still a salary of five hundred or a thousand a week and a three-sheet litho of herself in every window and upon every billboard.

“I’m all right now,” she will tell you gleefully. “I’m way ahead of the knockers. They can’t keep me down. You ought to have seen the reception I got in Pittsburgh. Say, it was the biggest yet.”

Blessed be Pittsburgh, which has honored one who has struggled so hard, and you say so.

“Are you here for long?”

“Only this week. Come up and see my turn. Hey, cabbie!”

A passing cabman turns in close to the walk with considerable alacrity.

“Take me to Keith’s. So long. Come up and see my turn to-night.”

This is the woman singer, the complement of the male of the same art, the couple who make for the acceptance and spread of the popular song as well as the fame of its author. They sing them in every part of the country, and here in New York, returned from a long season on the road, they form a very important portion of this song-writing, song-singing world. They and the authors and the successful publishers--but we may simplify by yet another picture.

In Twenty-seventh or Twenty-eighth Street, or anywhere along Broadway from Madison to Greeley Squares, are the parlors of a score of publishers, gentlemen who coördinate this divided world for song publishing purposes. There is an office and a reception-room; a music-chamber, where songs are tried, and a stock room. Perhaps, in the case of the larger publishers, the music-rooms are two or three, but the air of each is much the same. Rugs, divans, imitation palms make this publishing house more bower than office. Three or four pianos give to each chamber a parlor-like appearance. The walls are hung with the photos of celebrities, neatly framed, celebrities of the kind described. In the private music-rooms, rocking-chairs. A boy or two waits to bring _professional copies_ at a word. A salaried pianist or two wait to run over pieces which the singer may desire to hear. Arrangers wait to make orchestrations or take down newly schemed out melodies which the popular composer himself cannot play. He has evolved the melody by a process of whistling and must have its fleeting beauty registered before it escapes him forever. Hence the salaried arranger.

Into these parlors then, come the mixed company of this distinctive world: authors who have or have not succeeded, variety artists who have some word from touring fellows or know the firm, masters of small bands throughout the city or the country, of which the name is legion, orchestra-leaders of Bowery theaters and uptown variety halls, and singers.

“You haven’t got a song that will do for a tenor, have you?”

The inquirer is a little, stout, ruddy-faced Irish boy from the gas-house district. His common clothes are not out of the ordinary here, but they mark him as possibly a non-professional seeking free copies.

“Sure, let me see. For what do you want it?”

“Well, I’m from the Arcadia Pleasure Club. We’re going to give a little entertainment next Wednesday and we want some songs.”

“I think I’ve got just the thing you want. Wait till I call the boy. Harry! Bring me some professional copies of ballads.”

The youth is probably a representative of one of the many Tammany pleasure organizations, the members of which are known for their propensity to gather about east and west side corners at night and sing. One or two famous songs are known to have secured their start by the airing given them in this fashion on the street corners of the great city.

Upon his heels treads a lady whose ruffled sedateness marks her as one unfamiliar with this half-musical, half-theatrical atmosphere.

“I have a song I would like to have you try over, if you care to.”

The attending publisher hesitates before even extending a form of reception.

“What sort of a song is it?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know. I guess you’d call it a sentimental ballad. If you’d hear it I think you might----”

“We are so over-stocked with songs now, Madam, that I don’t believe there’s much use in our hearing it. Could you come in next Friday? We’ll have more leisure then and can give you more attention.”

The lady looks the failure she has scored, but retreats, leaving the ground clear for the chance arrival of the real author, the individual whose position is attested by one hit or mayhap many. His due is that deference which all publishers, if not the public, feel called upon to render, even if at the time he may have no reigning success.

“Hello, Frank, how are you? What’s new?”

The author, cane in hand, may know of nothing in particular.

“Sit down. How are things with you, anyhow?”

“Oh, so-so.”

“That new song of yours will be out Friday. We have a rush order on it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and I’ve got good news for you. Windom is going to sing it next year with the minstrels. He was in here the other day and thought it was great.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“That song’s going to go, all right. You haven’t got any others, have you?”

“No, but I’ve got a tune. Would you mind having one of the boys take it down for me?”

“Surest thing you know. Here, Harry! Call Hatcher.”

Now comes the pianist and arranger, and a hearing and jotting down of the new melody in a private room. The favored author may have piano and pianist for an indefinite period any time. Lunch with the publishers awaits him if he remains until noon. His song, when ready, is heard with attention. The details which make for its publication are rushed. His royalties are paid with that rare smile which accompanies the payment of anything to one who earns money for another. He is to be petted, conciliated, handled with gloves.

At his heels, perhaps, another author, equally successful, maybe, but almost intolerable because of certain marked eccentricities of life and clothing. He is a negro, small, slangy, strong in his cups, but able to write a good song, occasionally a truly pathetic ballad.

“Say, where’s that gem o’ mine?”

“What?”

“That effusion.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That audience-killer--that there thing that’s goin’ to sweep the country like wildfire--that there song.”

Much laughter and apology.

“It will be here Friday, Gussie.”

“Thought it was to be here last Monday?”

“So it was, but the printers didn’t get it done. You know how those things are, Gussie.”

“I know. Gimme twenty-five dollars.”

“Sure. But what are you going to do with it?”

“Never you mind. Gimme twenty-five bones. To-morrow’s rent day up my way.”

Twenty-five is given as if it were all a splendid joke. Gussie is a bad negro, one day radiant in bombastic clothing, the next wretched from dissipation and neglect. He has no royalty coming to him, really. That is, he never accepts royalty. All his songs are sold outright. But these have earned the house so much that if he were to demand royalties the sum to be paid would beggar anything he has ever troubled to ask for.

“I wouldn’t take no royalty,” he announces at one time, with a bombastic and yet mellow negro emphasis, which is always amusing. “Doan want it. Too much trouble. All I want is money when I needs it and wants it.”

Seeing that nearly every song that he writes is successful, this is a most equitable arrangement. He could have several thousand instead of a few hundred, but being shiftless he does not care. Ready money is the thing with him, twenty-five or fifty when he needs it.

And then those “peerless singers of popular ballads,” as their programs announce them, men and women whose pictures you will see upon every song-sheet, their physiognomy underscored with their own “Yours Sincerely” in their own handwriting. Every day they are here, arriving and departing, carrying the latest songs to all parts of the land. These are the individuals who in their own estimation “make” the songs the successes they are. In all justice, they have some claim to the distinction. One such, raising his or her voice nightly in a melodic interpretation of a new ballad, may, if the music be sufficiently catchy, bring it so thoroughly to the public ear as to cause it to begin to sell. These individuals are not unaware of their services in the matter, nor slow to voice their claims. In flocks and droves they come, whenever good fortune brings “the company” to New York or the end of the season causes them to return, to tell of their success and pick new songs for the ensuing season. Also to collect certain pre-arranged bonuses. Also to gather news and dispense it. Then, indeed, is the day of the publisher’s volubility and grace. These gentlemen and ladies must be attended to with that deference which is the right of the successful. The ladies must be praised and cajoled.

“Did you hear about the hit I made with ‘Sweet Kitty Leary’ in Kansas City? I knocked ’em cold. Say, it was the biggest thing on the bill.”

The publisher may not have heard of it. The song, for all the uproarious success depicted, may not have sold an extra copy, and yet this is not for him to say. Has the lady a good voice? Is she with a good company? He may so ingratiate himself that she will yet sing one of his newer and as yet unheard of compositions into popularity.

“Was it? Well, I’m glad to hear it. You have the voice for that sort of a song, you know, Marie. I’ve got something new, though, that will just suit you--oh, a dandy. It’s by Harry Welch.”

For all this flood of geniality the singer may only smile indifferently. Secretly her hand is against all publishers. They are out for themselves. Successful singers must mind their P’s and Q’s. Payment is the word, some arrangement by which she shall receive a stated sum per week for singing a song. The honeyed phrases are well enough for beginners, but we who have succeeded need something more.

“Let me show you something new. I’ve got a song here that is fine. Come right into the music-room. Charlie, get a copy of ‘She May Have Seen Better Days.’ I want you to play it over for Miss Yaeger.”

The boy departs and returns. In the exclusive music-room sits the singer, critically listening while the song is played.

“Isn’t that a pretty chorus?”

“Well, yes, I rather like that.”

“That will suit your voice exactly. Don’t ever doubt it. I think that’s one of the best songs we have published in years.”

“Have you the orchestration?”

“Sure; I’ll get you that.”

Somehow, however, the effect has not been satisfactory. The singer has not enthused. He must try other songs and give her the orchestrations of many. Perhaps, out of all, she will sing one. That is the chance of the work.

As for her point of view, she may object to the quality of anything except for that which she is paid. It is for the publisher to see whether she is worth subsidizing or not. If not, perhaps another house will see her merits in a different light. Yet she takes the songs and orchestrations along. And the publisher turning, as she goes, announces, “Gee, there’s a cold proposition for you. Get her to sing anything for you for nothing?--Nix. Not her. Cash or no song.” And he thumbs his fingers after the fashion of one who pays out money.

Your male singer is often a bird of the same fine feather. If you wish to see the ideal of dressiness as exemplified by the gentlemen of the road, see these individuals arrive at the offices of the publishers. The radiance of half-hose and neckties is not outdone by the sprightliness of the suit pattern or the glint of the stone in the shirt-front. Fresh from Chicago or Buffalo they arrive, rich in self-opinion fostered by rural praise, perhaps possessed of a new droll story, always loaded with the details of the hit they made.

“Well, well! You should have seen how that song went in Baltimore. I never saw anything like it. Why, it’s the hit of the season!”

New songs are forthcoming, a new batch delivered for his service next year.

Is he absolutely sure of the estimation in which the house holds his services? You will hear a sequel to this, not this day perhaps but a week or a month later, during his idle summer in New York.

“You haven’t twenty-five handy you could let me have, have you, Pat? I’m a little short to-day.”

Into the publisher’s eye steals the light of wisdom and decision. Is this individual worth it? Will he do the songs of the house twenty-five dollars’ worth of good next season? Blessed be fate if there is a partner to consult. He will have time to reflect.

“Well, George, I haven’t it right here in the drawer, but I can get it for you. I always like to consult my partner about these things, you know. Can you wait until this afternoon?”

Of course the applicant can wait, and between whiles are conferences and decisions. All things considered, it may be advisable to do it.

“We will get twenty-five out of him, any way. He’s got a fine tenor voice. You never can tell what he might do.”

So a pleasant smile and the money may be waiting when he returns. Or, he may be put off, with excuses and apologies. It all depends.

There are cases, however, where not even so much delay can be risked, where a hearty “sure” _must_ be given. This is to that lord of the stage whose fame as a singer is announced by every minstrel billboard as “the renowned baritone, Mr. Calvin Johnson,” or some such. For him the glad hand and the ready check, and he is to be petted, flattered, taken to lunch, dinner, a box theater party--anything--everything, really. And then, there is that less important one who has over-measured his importance. For him the solemn countenance and the suave excuse, at an hour when his need is greatest. Lastly, there is the sub-strata applicant in tawdry, make-believe clothes, whose want peeps out of every seam and pocket. His day has never been as yet, or mayhap was, and is over. He has a pinched face, a livid hunger, a forlorn appearance. Shall he be given anything? Never. He is not worth it. He is a “dead one.” Is it not enough if the publisher looks after those of whose ability he is absolutely sure. Certainly. Therefore this one must slop the streets in old shoes and thin clothing, waiting. And he may never obtain a dime from any publisher.

Out of such grim situations, however, occasionally springs a success. These “down and out” individuals do not always understand why fate should be against them, why they should be down, and are not willing to cease trying.

“I’ll write a song yet, you bet,” is the dogged, grim decision. “I’ll get up, you bet.”

Once in a while the threat is made good, some mood allowing. Strolling along the by-streets, ignored and self-commiserating, the mood seizes them. Words bubble up and a melody, some crude commentary on the contrasts, the losses or the hopes of life, rhyming, swinging as they come, straight from the heart. Now it is for pencil and paper, quick. Any old scrap will do--the edge of a newspaper, the back of an envelope, the edge of a cuff. Written so, the words are safe and the melody can be whistled until some one will take it down. And so, occasionally, is born--has been often--the great success, the land-sweeping melody, selling by the hundreds of thousands and netting the author a thousand a month for a year or more.

Then, for him, the glory of the one who is at last successful. Was he commonplace, hungry, envious, wretchedly clothed before? Well, now, see! And do not talk to him of other authors who once struck it, had their little day and went down again, never to rise. He is not of them--not like them. For him, now, the sunlight and the bright places. No clothing too showy or too expensive, no jewelry too rare. Broadway is the place for him, the fine cafés and rich hotel lobbies. What about those other people who looked down on him once? Ha! they scorned him, did they? They sneered, eh? Would not give him a cent, eh? Let them come and look now! Let them stare in envy. Let them make way. He is a great man at last and the whole world knows it. The whole country is making acclaim over that which he has done.

For the time being, then, this little center of song-writing and publishing is for him the all-inclusive of life’s importance. From the street organs at every corner is being ground the _one_ melody, so expressive of his personality, into the ears of all men. In the vaudeville houses and cheaper concert halls men and women are singing it nightly to uproarious applause. Parodies are made and catch-phrases coined, all speaking of his work. Newsboys whistle and older men pipe its peculiar notes. Out of open windows falls the distinguished melody, accompanied by voices both new and strange. All men seem to recognize that which he has done, and for the time being compliment his presence and his personality.

Then the wane.

Of all the tragedies, this is perhaps the bitterest, because of the long-drawn memory of the thing. Organs continue to play it, but the sale ceases. Quarter after quarter, the royalties are less, until at last a few dollars per month will measure them completely. Meanwhile his publishers ask for other songs. One he writes, and then another, and yet another, vainly endeavoring to duplicate that original note which made for his splendid success the year before. But it will not come. And, in the meanwhile, other song-writers displace him for the time being in the public eye. His publishers have a new hit, but it is not his. A new author is being bowed to and taken out to dinner. But he is not that author. A new tile-crowned celebrity is strolling up his favorite Broadway path. At last, after a dozen attempts and failures, there is no hurry to publish his songs. If the period of failure is too long extended he may even be neglected. More and more, celebrities crowd in between him and that delightful period when he was greatest. At last, chagrined by the contrast of things, he changes his publishers, changes his haunts and, bitterest of all, his style of living. Soon it is the old grind again, and then, if thoughtless spending has been his failing, shabby clothing and want. You may see the doubles of these in any publisher’s sanctum at any time, the sarcastically referred-to _has been_.

Here, also, the disengaged ballad singer, “peerless tenor” of some last year’s company, suffering a period of misfortune. He is down on his luck in everything but appearances, last year’s gorgeousness still surviving in a modified and sedate form. He is a singer of songs, now, for the publishers, by toleration. His one lounging-place in all New York where he is welcome and not looked at askance is the chair they may allow him. Once a day he makes the rounds of the theatrical agencies; once, or if fortune favors, twice a day he visits some cheap eating-house. At night, after a lone stroll through that fairyland of theaters and gaudy palaces to which, as he sees it, he properly belongs--Broadway, he returns to his bed, the carpeted floor of a room in some tolerant publisher’s office, where he sleeps by permission, perhaps, and not even there, too often.

Oh, the glory of success in this little world in his eye at this time--how now, in want, it looms large and essential! Outside, as he stretches himself, may even now be heard the murmur of that shiny, joyous rout of which he was so recently a part. The lights, the laughter; the songs, the mirth--all are for others. Only he, only he must linger in shadows, alone.

To-morrow it will come out in words, if you talk with him. It is in the publisher’s office, perhaps, where gaudy ladies are trying songs, or on the street, where others, passing, notice him not but go their way in elegance.

“I had it once, all right,” he will tell you. “I had my handful. You bet I’ll get it next year.”

Is it of money he is thinking?

An automobile swings past and some fine lady, looking out, wakes to bitterness his sense of need.

“New York’s tough without the coin, isn’t it? You never get a glance when you’re out of the game. I spend too easy, that’s what’s the matter with me. But I’ll get back, you bet. Next time I’ll know enough to save. I’ll get up again, and next time I’ll stay up, see?”

Next year his hopes may be realized again, his dreams come true. If so, be present and witness the glories of radiance after shadow.

“Ah, me boy, back again, you see!”

“So I see. Quite a change since last season.”

“Well, I should smile. I was down on my luck then. That won’t happen any more. They won’t catch me. I’ve learned a lesson. Say, we had a great season.”

Rings and pins attest it. A cravat of marvelous radiance speaks for itself in no uncertain tones. Striped clothes, yellow shoes, a new hat and cane. Ah, the glory, the glory! He is not to be caught any more, “you bet,” and yet here is half of his subsistence blooming upon his merry body.

_They_ will catch him, though, him and all in the length of time. One by one they come, old, angular misfortune grabbing them all by the coat-tails. The rich, the proud, the great among them sinking, sinking, staggering backward until they are where he was and deeper, far deeper. I wish I could quote those little notices so common in all our metropolitan dailies, those little perfunctory records which appear from time to time in theatrical and sporting and “song” papers, telling volumes in a line. One day one such singer’s voice is failing; another day he has been snatched by disease; one day one radiant author arrives at that white beneficence which is the hospital bed and stretches himself to a final period of suffering; one day a black boat steaming northward along the East River to a barren island and a field of weeds carries the last of all that was so gay, so unthinking, so, after all, childlike of him who was greatest in his world. Weeds and a headboard, salt winds and the cry of seagulls, lone blowings and moanings, and all that light and mirth is buried here.

Here and there in the world are those who are still singing melodies created by those who have gone this unfortunate way, singers of “Two Little Girls in Blue” and “White Wings,” “Little Annie Rooney” and “The Picture and the Ring,” the authors of “In the Baggage Coach Ahead” and “Trinity Chimes,” of “Sweet Marie” and “Eileen”--all are here. There might be recited the successes of a score of years, quaint, pleasing melodies which were sung the land over, which even to-day find an occasional voice and a responsive chord, but of the authors not one but could be found in some field for the outcasts, forgotten. Somehow the world forgets, the peculiar world in which they moved, and the larger one which knew them only by their songs.

It seems strange, really, that so many of them should have come to this. And yet it is true--authors, singers, publishers, even--and yet not more strange is it than that their little feeling, worked into a melody and a set of words, should reach far out over land and water, touching the hearts of the nation. In mansion and hovel, by some blazing furnace of a steel mill, or through the open window of a farmland cottage, is trolled the simple story, written in halting phraseology, tuned as only a popular melody is tuned. All have seen the theater uproarious with those noisy recalls which bring back the sunny singer, harping his one indifferent lay. All have heard the street bands and the organs, the street boys and the street loungers, all expressing a brief melody, snatched from the unknown by some process of the heart. Yes, here it is, wandering the land over like a sweet breath of summer, making for matings and partings, for happiness and pain. That it may not endure is also meet, going back into the soil, as it does, with those who hear it and those who create.

Yet only those who venture here in merry Broadway shall witness the contrast, however. Only they who meet these radiant presences in the flesh will ever know the marvel of the common song.

CHARACTERS

The glory of the city is its variety. The drama of it lies in its extremes. I have been thinking to-day of all the interesting characters that have passed before me in times past on the streets of this city: generals, statesmen, artists, politicians, a most interesting company, and then of another company by no means so distinguished or so comfortable--the creatures at the other end of the ladder who, far from having brains, or executive ability, or wealth, or fame, have nothing save a weird astonishing individuality which would serve to give pause to almost the dullest. Many times I have been compelled by sheer astonishment to stop in the midst of duties that hurried me to contemplate some weird creature, drawn up from heaven knows what depths of this very strange and intricate city into the clear, brilliant daylight of a great, clean thoroughfare, and to wonder how, in all conscience, life had come to produce such a thing. The eyes of them! The bodies! The hats, the coats, the shoes, the motions! How often have I followed amazedly for blocks, for miles even, attempting to pigeonhole in my own mind the astonishing characteristics of a figure before me, attempting to say to myself what I really thought of it all, what misfortune or accident or condition of birth or of mind had worked out the sad or grim spectacle of a human being so distorted, a veritable caricature of womanhood or manhood. On the streets of New York I have seen slipping here and there truly marvelous creatures, and have realized instantly that I was looking at something most different, peculiar, that here again life had accomplished an actual _chef d’œuvre_ of the bizarre or the grotesque or the mad, had made something as strange and unaccountable as a great genius or a great master of men. Only it had worked at the other extreme from public efficiency or smug, conventional public interest, and had produced a singular variation, inefficient, unsocial, eccentric or evil, as you choose, qualities which worked to exclude the subject of the variation from any participation in what we are pleased to call a normal life.

I am thinking, for instance, of a long, lean faced, unkempt and bedraggled woman, not exceptionally old, but roughened and hardened by what circumstances I know not into a kind of horse, whom once of an early winter’s morning I encountered at Broadway and Fourteenth Street pushing a great rattletrap of a cart in which was piled old rags, sacks, a chair, a box and what else I know not, and all this with long, lean strides and a kind of determined titan energy toward the North River. Her body was clad in a mere semblance of clothing, rags which hung limp and dirty and close to her form and seemingly wholly insufficient for the bitter weather prevailing at the time. Her hair was coarse and iron-gray, done in a shapeless knot and surmounted by something in the shape of a small hat which might have been rescued from an ashheap. Her eyes were fixed, glassy almost, and seemingly unseeing. Here she came, vigorous, stern, pushing this tatterdemalion cart, and going God knows where. I followed to see and saw her enter, finally, a wretched, degraded west side slum, in a rear yard of which, in a wretched tumble-down tenement, which occupied a part of it, she appeared to have a room or floor. But what days and years of chaffering, think you, were back of this eventual result, what years of shabby dodging amid the giant legs of circumstances? To grow out of childhood--once really soft, innocent childhood--into a thing like this, an alley-scraping horse--good God!

And then the men. What a curious company they are, just those few who stand out in my memory, whom, from a mere passing opportunity to look upon, I have never been able to forget.

Thus, when I first came to New York and was on _The World_ there came into the reportorial room one cold winter’s night a messenger-boy, looking for a certain reporter, for whom he had a message, a youth who positively was the most awkward and misshapen vehicle for the task in hand that I have ever seen. I should say here that whatever the rate of pay now, there are many who will recall how little they were paid and how poorly they were equipped--a tall youth, for instance, with a uniform and cap for one two-thirds his size; a short one with trousers six inches too long and gathered in plenteous folds above his shoes, and a cap that wobbled loosely over his ears; or a fat boy with a tight suit, or a lean boy with a loose one. Parsimony and indifference were the outstanding characteristics of the two most plethoric organizations serving the public in that field.

But this one. He was eighteen or nineteen (as contrasted with others of this same craft who were in the room at this very time, and who were not more than twelve or thirteen; that was before the child-labor laws), and his face was too large, and misshapen, a grotesquerie of the worst invention, a natural joke. His ears were too big and red, his mouth too large and twisted, his nose too humped and protruding, and his square jaw stood out too far, and yet by no means forcefully or aggressively. In addition, his hair needed cutting and stuck out from underneath his small, ill-fitting cap, which sat far up on the crown of his head. At the same time, his pants and coat being small, revealed extra lengths of naked red wrist and hands and made his feet seem even larger than they were.

In those days, as at present, it was almost a universal practice to kid the messenger-boy, large or small, whoever and wherever he was--unless, as at times he proved to be, too old or weary or down on his luck; and even then he was not always spared. In this instance it chanced that the reporter for whom this youth was looking was seated at a desk with myself and some others. We were chatting and laughing, when suddenly this apparition appeared.

“Why, hello Johnnie!” called the one addressed, turning and taking the message yet finding time to turn on the moss-covered line of messenger-boy humor. “Just in from the snow, are you? The best thing is never to get a hair-cut in winter. Positively, the neck should be protected from these inclement breezes.”

“A little short on the pants there, James,” chipped in a second, “but I presume the company figures that the less the baggage or equipment the greater the speed, eh?”

“In the matter of these suits,” went on a third, “style and fit are necessarily secondary to sterling spiritual worth.”

“Aw, cut it!” retorted the youth defiantly.

Being new to New York and rather hard-pressed myself, I was throughout this scene studying this amazing figure and wondering how any corporation could be so parsimonious as to dress a starveling employee in so shabby a way, and from what wretched circumstances such a youth, who would endure such treatment and such work, must spring. Suddenly, seeing me looking at him and wondering, and just as the recipient of the message was handing him back his book signed, his face became painfully and, as it seemed to me, involuntarily contorted with such a grimace of misery and inward spiritual dissatisfaction as I had not seen anywhere before. It was a miserable and moving grimace, followed by a struggle not to show what he felt. But suddenly he turned and drawing a big red cold wrist and hand across his face and eyes and starting for the door, he blurted out: “I never did have no home, God damn it! I never did have no father or mother, like you people, nor no chance either. I was raised in an orphan asylum--” and he was gone.

“Sometimes,” observed the youth who had started this line of jesting, getting up and looking apologetically at the rest of us, “this dam’ persiflage can be sprung in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I apologize. I’m ashamed of myself, and sorry too.”

“I’m sorry too,” said another, a gentlemanly Southerner, whom later I came to know better and to like.

But that boy!

* * * * *

For years, when I was a youth and was reading daily at the old Astor Library, there used to appear on the streets of New York an old man, the spindling counterpart, so far as height, weight and form were concerned, of William Cullen Bryant, who for shabbiness of attire, sameness of appearance, persistence of industry and yet futility in so far as any worth while work was concerned could hardly have been outclassed. A lodger at the Mills Hotel, in Bleecker Street, that hopeless wayplace of the unfortunate, he was also a frequenter of the Astor Library, where, as I came to know through watching him over months and years even, he would burrow by the hour among musty volumes from which he made copious notes jotted on paper with a pencil, both borrowed from the library authorities. Year after year for a period of ten years I encountered him from time to time wearing the same short, gray wool coat, the same thin black baggy trousers, the same cheap brownish-black Fedora hat, and the same long uncut hair and beard, the former curly and hanging about his shoulders. His body, even in the bitterest weather, never supported an overcoat. His hands were always bare and the wrists more or less exposed. He came invariably with a quick, energetic step toward the library or the Mills Hotel and turned a clear, blue, birdlike eye upon whomsoever surveyed him. But of ability--nothing, in so far as any one ever knew. The library authorities knew nothing of anything he had ever achieved. Those who managed the hotel of course knew nothing at all; they were not even interested, though he had lived there for years. In short, he lived and moved and had his being in want and thinness, and finally died--leaving what? His effects, as I was informed afterwards by the attendants of the “hotel” which had housed him for years, consisted of a small parcel of clothes, worthless to any save himself, and a box of scribbled notes, relating to what no one ever knew. They were disjointed and meaningless scraps of information, I was told, and dumped out with the ashes after his demise. What, think you, could have been his import to the world, his message?

* * * * *

And then Samuel Clampitt--or so a hand-lettered scrawl over his gate read--who maintained a junk-yard near the Harlem River and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street. He was a little man, very dark, very hunched at the shoulders, with iron-gray hair, heavy, bushy, black eyebrows, a very dark and seamy skin, and hands that were quite like claws. He bought and sold--or pretended to--old bottles, tin, iron, rags, and the like. His place was a small yard or space of ground lying next to a coal-yard and adjoining the river, and about this he had built, or had found there, a high board fence. And within, whenever the gates were opened and one was permitted to look in, were collections of junk about as above tabulated, with, in addition, some bits of iron fencing, old window-frames, part of stair railings, gasoliers and the like. He himself was rarely to be seen; I saw him no more than four or five times during a period of three years in which I passed his yard daily. But, having occasion once to dispose of a collection of waste rags and clothing, I eventually sought him out and found him, after trying his gate on an average of once every two days during a period of two weeks and more. The thing that interested me from the first was that my tentative knockings at his gate, which was always closed and very high, were greeted by savage roars from several Great Danes that were far within and that pawed the high gate whenever I touched it or knocked. Yet eventually I did find him, the gate being open and the dogs chained and he inside. He was sitting in a dark corner of his little hut inside the yard, no window or door giving onto the street, and eating from a discolored tin pan on his lap which held a little bread, a tomato and some sausage. The thing that interested me most (apart from the fact that he appeared to me more of a gnome than a man) was these same dogs, now chained to a post a score of feet from me and most savagely snarling and charging as I talked. They were so savage and showed such great, white, glistening teeth that I was eager to retreat without waiting to complete my errand. However, I managed to explain my purpose--but to no result. He was not interested in my collection of junk, saying that he only bought material that was brought to him.

But the voice, so cracked and wheezy. And the eyes, shining like sparks of light under his heavy brows. And the thin, parchment-like, claw-like hands. He rasped irritatingly with his throat whenever he talked, before and after each word or sentence--“eck--eck--eck--I don’t go out to buy stuff--eck--eck--eck. I only buy what’s brought here--eck--eck--eck. I don’t want any old rags--eck--eck--eck--I have more than I can sell now--eck--eck--eck.” Then he fell to munching again.

“Those look like savage dogs,” I ventured, hoping to lure him into a conversation.

It was not to be.

“Eck--eck--eck--they need to be--eck--eck--eck.” That was all. He fell silent and would say no more.

I went out, curious as to what sort of a business this was, anyhow, and leaving him to himself.

But one morning, months later, turning a corner near there, a region of empty lots and some old sealed and untenanted storehouses, I found a crowd of boys following and stoning an old man who, on my coming near and then running to his rescue, I found to be this old dealer. He was attempting to hide behind a signboard which adjoined one of the storehouses. His face and hands were already cut by stones and bleeding. He was breathless and very much exhausted and frightened, but still angry and savage. “They stoned me, the little devils--eck--eck--eck. They hit me with rocks--eck--eck--eck. I’ll have the law on ’em, I will--eck--eck--eck. I’ll get the police after ’em--eck--eck--eck. They’re always trying to break into my place and I won’t let ’em--eck--eck--eck.”

I wondered who could break into that place with those dogs loose, who would attempt it.

But that, as I found out later in conversation with boys of the vicinity, was just the trouble. At various times they had sought to enter to recover a tossed ball, possibly to steal something, and he had set the dogs (which were always unchained in his absence) on them; or, they had been attacked by the dogs and in turn had attempted to work him and them some injury.

Yet for a period of three years after this, to my knowledge, he continued to live there in that solitary place, harassed no doubt in this way. If he ever did any business I did not see it. The gates were nearly always closed, himself rarely to be seen.

Then one day a really terrible thing happened. Some children--not these same wicked boys but others less familiar with the neighborhood, I believe--were playing ball in an open space adjoining, and a fly being struck, the ball fell into the junk-yard. Three of the more courageous ones, as the papers stated afterwards, mounted the fence to see if they could get the ball, and one of them, more courageous than the others, actually leaped into the yard and was literally torn to bits by these same dogs, all but eaten alive. And there was no one to save him before he was dead. Old Clampitt was not there.

The horror was of course immediately reported to the police, who came and killed the dogs and then arrested Clampitt. A newspaper and police investigation of his life revealed nothing save that he was assumed to be an old junk-dealer who was eccentric, a solitary, without relatives or friends. He claimed to have kept the dogs for protection, also that he had been set upon by youths of the vicinity and stoned, which was true. Even so, he was held for weeks in jail pending this investigation of his connections. No past crimes being found, apparently he was released. But so terrified was he then by the furore his savage dogs had aroused that he disappeared from this region and was heard of no more. His old rag yard was abandoned. But I often wondered about him afterwards, the years he spent there alone.

* * * * *

And then _Old Ragpicker_, whom I have described in _Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural_, and who was as described.

And Hurstwood.

* * * * *

As interesting a type as I ever knew was an old hunchback who, as I understood, had had a small music business in the Bowery, years and years ago when that street was still a vaudeville center, a sort of theatrical Broadway. Through experience he had come by a little knowledge of popular songs and songbooks and had engaged in the manufacture and sale of these things. But times changed and public taste varied and he was not able to keep up with it all. From little business to no business was an easy step, and then he failed and took lodgings in one of the side streets off the Bowery, below Fourth Street, eking out a precarious existence, heaven only knows how. Age had hounded him even more than ill success. His naturally dark skin darkened still further and his black eyes retreated into gloomy sockets. I used to see him at odd times, at a period when I lived in a vicinity near the Bowery, wending a lonely way through the crowded streets there, but never until he accosted me one night in the dark did I realize that he had become a beggar. A mumbled apology about hunger, a deprecating, shamefaced cough, and he was off again, the richer for a dime. In this case, time, to say nothing of life, had worked one of those disturbing grotesqueries which arrest one. He was so very somber, furtive, misshapen and lean, a veritable masque of a man whose very glance indicated inconsolable disappointment and whose presence, to many, would most certainly have come as an omen of failure. A hall-bedroom, a lodging-house cot, an occasional meal, some hidden corner in which to be at peace, in which to brood, and then a few years later he was found dead, alone, seated before a small table, his head leaning upon his arms in the shabby little room in which he dwelt. I know this to be true, for from time to time I made effort to hear of him. What, think you, would he have to say to his Creator if he might?

* * * * *

And yet another character. One day I was walking in Brooklyn in a very conservative neighborhood, when I saw what I fancied I never should see, in America, a woman furtively picking a piece of bread out of a garbage can. I had read of such things in Balzac, Hugo, Dickens--but where else? And she was not absolutely wretchedly dressed, though her appearance was far from satisfactory, and she had a tense expression about her face which betokened stress of some kind. My astonishment was such that I walked deliberately up to her and asked: “What is the matter with you--are you hungry?”

She had hidden the bread under her shawl as I approached and may have dropped it as we walked, for I did not see it again though her hands appeared. Yet she refused to indulge in any conversation which would explain.

“I’m all right,” she replied.

“But I saw you taking a piece of bread out of that can?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want any money?”

“No.”

She appeared to be confused and walked away from me, edging toward the lines of fences to avoid contact. I put my hand in my pocket to offer a coin, but she hurried on. There was nothing to do but let her go her way--a thing which seemed intensely cruel, though there was apparently nothing else to do. I have often thought of this one, dark, tense, dreary, and half wondered whether it was all a dream or whether I really saw it.

* * * * *

But the city for me, in my time, has been flecked with these shadows of disaster in the guise of decayed mortals who stared at me out of hollow eyes in the midst of the utmost gayety. You turn a corner laughing amid scenes of enthusiasm and activity, perhaps, and here comes despair along, hooded and hollow-eyed, accusing you of undue levity. You dine at your table, serene in your moderate prosperity, and in looks want, thin-lipped, and pale, asking how can you eat when she is as she is. You feel the health and vigor of your body, warmly clad, and lo, here comes illness or weakness, thin and pining, and with cough or sigh or halting step, cries: “See how I suffer--and you--you have health!” Weakness confronts strength, poverty wealth, health sickness, courage cowardice, fortune the very depths of misfortune, and they know each other not--or defy each other. Of a truth, they either despise or fear, the one the other.

THE BEAUTY OF LIFE