A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 27

But from the top of the pile to the bottom--through 360 letters written on 360 different kinds of paper--there runs only one tip. And in the 360 different kinds of handwriting there runs only one story.

"There is a man I see almost every day on my way home from work," writes one, "and I think he would make a good story. There is something queer about him. He keeps mumbling to himself all the time." This tip is on plain stationery.

"--and I see the old woman frequently," writes another. "n.o.body knows who she is or what she does. She is sure a woman of mystery. You ought to be able to get a good story out of her." This tip is on pink stationery.

"I think you can find him around midnight walking through the city hall.

He walks through the hall every midnight and whistles queer tunes. n.o.body has ever talked to him and they don't know what he does there. There is certainly a queer story in that man." This tip is written on a business letterhead.

"She lives in a back room and so far as anybody knows has no occupation.

There's something awfully queer about her and I've often wondered what the mystery about her really was. Won't you look her up and write it out? Her address is--" This tip is on monogrammed paper.

"I've been waiting for you to write about the queer old man who hangs out on the Dearborn Street bridge. I've pa.s.sed him frequently and he's always at the same place. I've wondered time and again what his history was and why he always stood in the same place." This tip is on a broker's stationery.

"He sells hot beans in the loop and he's an old-timer. He's always laughing and whenever I see him I think, 'There's a story in that old man.

There's sure something odd about him.'" This tip is on scratch paper.

"I saw her first several years ago. She was dressed all in black and was running. As it was past midnight I thought it strange. But I've seen her since and always late at night and she's always running. She must be about forty years old and from what I could see of her face a very curious kind of woman. In fact, we call her the woman of mystery in our neighborhood.

Come out to Oakley Avenue some night and see for yourself. There's a wonderful story in that running woman, I'm certain." This tip is signed "A Stenographer."

They continue--tips on strange, weird, curious, odd, old, chuckling, mysterious men and women. Solitaries. Enigmatic figures moving silently through the streets. Nameless ones; exiles from the free and easy conformity of the town.

If you should read these letters all through at one sitting you would get a very strange impression of the city. You would see a procession of mysterious figures flitting through the streets, an unending swarm of dim ones, queer ones. And then as you kept on reading this procession would gradually focus into a single figure. This is because all the letters are so nearly alike and because the mysterious ones offered as tips are described in almost identical terms.

So the dim ones, the queer ones, would become a composite, and you would have in your thought the image of a single one. A huge, nebulous caricature--hooded, its head lowered, its eyes peering furtively from under s.h.a.ggy brows, its thin fingers fumbling under a great black cloak, its feet moving in a soundless shuffle over the pavement.

Sometimes I have gone out and found the "woman of mystery" given in a letter. Usually an embittered creature living in the memory of wrongs that life has done her. Or a psychopathic case suffering from hallucinations or at war with its own impulses. And each of them has said, "I hate people. I don't like this neighborhood. And I keep to myself."

The letters all ask, "Who is this one?"

But that doesn't begin to answer the question the letters ask, "Who is it?"

The story of the odd ones is perhaps no more interesting than the story that might be written of the letters that "tip them off." A story here, of the harried, buried little figures that make up the swarm of the city and of the way they glimpse mystery out of the corners of their eyes. Of the way they pause for a moment on their treadmill to wonder about the silent, shuffling caricature with its hooded face and its thin fingers groping under its heavy black cloak.

In another drawer I have stored away letters of another kind. Letters that the caricature sends me. Queer, marvelous scrawls that remind one of spiders and bats swinging against white backgrounds. These letters are seldom signed. They are written almost invariably on cheap blue lined pad paper.

There are at least two hundred of them. And if you should read them all through at one sitting you would get a strange sense that this caricature of the hooded face was talking to you. That the Queer One who shuffles through the streets was sitting beside you and whispering marvelous things into your ear.

He writes of the stars, of inventions that will revolutionize man, of discoveries he has made, of new continents to be visited, of trips to the moon and of buried races that live beneath the rivers and mountains. He writes of amazing crimes he has committed, of weird longings that will not let him sleep. And, too, he writes of strange G.o.ds which man should wors.h.i.+p. He pours out his soul in a fantastic scrawl. He says: "One is all. G.o.d looked down and saw ants. The wheel of life turns seven times and you can see between. You will sometime understand this. But now you have curtains on your eyes."

Now that you have read all the letters the city becomes a picture. An office in which sits a well-dressed business man dictating to a pretty stenographer. They are hard at work, but as they work their eyes glance furtively out of a tall, thin window. Some one is pa.s.sing outside the window. A strange figure, hooded, head down, with his hands moving queerly under his great black cloak.

THE MOTHER

She sat on one of the benches in the Morals Court. The years had made a coa.r.s.e mask of her face. There was nothing to see in her eyes. Her hands were red and leathery, like a man's. They had done a man's work.

A year-old child slept in her arms. It was bundled up, although the courtroom itself was suffocating. She was waiting for Blanche's case to come up. Blanche had been arrested by a policeman for--well, for what?

Something about a man. So she would lose $2.00 by not being at work at the store today. Why did they arrest Blanche? She was in that room with the door closed. But the lawyer said not to worry. Yes, maybe it was a mistake. Blanche never did nothing. Blanche worked at the store all day.

At night Blanche went out. But she was a young girl. And she had lots of friends. Fine men. Sometimes they brought Blanche home late at night.

Blanche was her daughter.

The woman with the sleeping child in her arms looked around. The room was nice. A big room with a good ceiling. But the people looked bad. Maybe they had done something and had been arrested. There was one man with a bad face. She watched him. He came quickly to where she was sitting. What was he saying? A lawyer.

"No, I don't want no lawyer," the woman with the child mumbled. "No, no."

The man went back. He kept pretty busy, talking to lots of people in the room. So he was a lawyer. Blanche had a lawyer. She had paid him $10. A lot of money.

"Shh, Paula!" the woman whispered. Paula was the name of the sleeping child. It had stirred in the bundle.

"Shh! Mus'n't. Da-ah-ah-ah--"

She rocked sideways with the bundle and crooned over it. Her heavy coa.r.s.ened face seemed to grow surprised as she stared into the bundle. The child grew quiet.

The judge took his place. Business started. From where she sat the woman with the child couldn't hear anything. She watched little groups of men and women form in front of the judge. Then they went away and other groups came.

The lawyer had said not to worry. Just wait for Blanche's name and then come right up. Not to worry.

"Shh, Paula, shh! Da-ah-ah-ah--"

There was Blanche coming out of the door. She looked bad. Her face. Oh, yes, poor girl, she worked too hard. But what could she do? Only work. And now they arrested her. They arrested Blanche when the streets were full of b.u.ms and loafers, they arrested Blanche who worked hard.

Go up in front like the lawyer said. Sure. There was Blanche going now.

And the lawyer, too. He had a better face than the other one who came and asked.

"And is this the woman?"

The lawyer laughed because the judge asked this.

"Oh, no," he said; "no, your honor, that's her mother. Step up, Blanche."

What did the policeman say?

"Shh! Paula, shh! Da-ah--" She couldn't hear on account of Paula moving so much and crying. Paula was hungry. She'd have to stay hungry a little while. What man? That one!

But the policeman was talking about the man, not about Blanche.

"He said, your honor, that she'd been following him down Madison Street for a block, talking to him and finally he stopped and she asked him--"

"Shh! Paula, don't! Bad girl! Shh!"