The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 5

"Thank you," I replied, taking the book.

"I do so want to help you to start right and become a good man," she said timidly. "Won't you try to show your friends that they were mistaken in you?"

She turned her eyes up at me appealingly as if she were asking it as a favor to her. I felt foolish and began to laugh, but stopped, for she looked hurt.

"I guess, miss, it don't work quite that way. Of course, I mean to start fresh--but I shan't do it even for your sake. All the same, when you see me next it won't be in a police station."

"That's right!" she exclaimed, beaming at me with her round blue eyes.

"I should like to feel that I hadn't hurt you--made you worse."

"Oh, you needn't worry about that, miss. I guess I'm not much worse off for a night in the police station."

She held out her hand and I took it.

"Sarah! Sarah!" the old gentleman called as we were shaking hands. He seemed rather shocked, but the judge looked up at us and smiled quizzically.

Outside it was a warm, pleasant day; the wind was blowing merrily through the dirty street toward the blue lake. For the moment I did not worry over what was to come next. The first thing I did was to get a good meal.

After that refreshment I sauntered forth in the direction of the lake front--the most homelike place I could think of. The roar of the city ran through my head like the clatter of a mill. I seemed to be just a feeble atom of waste in the great stream of life flowing around me.

When I reached the desolate strip of weeds and sand between the avenue and the railroad, the first relay of b.u.ms was beginning to round up for the night. The sight of their tough faces filled me with a new disgust; I turned back to the busy avenue, where men and women were driving to and fro with plenty to do and think, and then and there I turned on myself and gave myself a good cussing. Here I was more than twenty, and just a plain fool, and had been ever since I could remember. When I had rid myself of several layers of conceit it began to dawn on me that this was a world where one had to step lively if he wasn't to join the ranks of the b.u.ms back there in the sand. That was the most valuable lot of thinking I ever did in my life. It took the sorehead feeling of wronged genius out of me for good and all. Pretty soon I straightened my back and started for the city to find somewhere a bite of food and a roof to cover my head.

And afterward there would be time to think of conquering the world!

CHAPTER IV

THE PIERSONS

_A familiar face--A hospitable roof--The Pierson family, and others--The Enterprise Market, and ten dollars a week--Miss Hillary c.o.x--c.r.a.pe--From the sidewalk--The company of successful adventurers--The great Strauss_

"h.e.l.lo! Here you be! Ain't I glad I found yer this soon," and Ed's brown eyes were looking into mine. His seemed to me just then about the best face in the world. "Seems though I was bound to be chasin' some one in this city!" he shouted, grabbing me by the arm. "But I've found all of 'em now."

He had missed me at the police station by a few minutes, and I had left no address. After looking up and down a few streets near by, Ed had thought of lying in wait for me on the lake front, feeling that unless some extraordinary good luck had happened to me I should bring up at that popular resort. He had not seen the little incident when the detective grabbed me in the great store, for just at that moment his attention had been attracted to a girl at one of the counters, who had called him by name. The girl, who was selling perfumes and tooth-washes, turned out to be his cousin Lou, his Aunt Pierson's younger daughter.

After the surprise of their meeting Ed had looked for me, and the floor-walker told them of my misfortune. Then the cousin had made Ed go home with her. Mrs. Pierson, it seems, took in boarders in her three-story-and-bas.e.m.e.nt house on West Van Buren Street. She and the two girls had given Ed a warm welcome, and for the first time in many days he had had the luxury of a bed, which had caused him to oversleep, and miss me at the station.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Ma Pierson's._"]

All this I learned as we walked westward toward Ed's new home. At first I was a little shy about putting another burden on the boy's relations.

But my friend would not hear of letting me go. When Ed tucked his arm under mine and hauled me along with country heartiness, saying I could share his bed and he had a job in view for us both, I felt as though the sun had begun to s.h.i.+ne all over again that day. Through all the accidents of many years I have never forgotten that kindness, and my heart warms afresh when I stop to think how Ed grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him off those city streets....

So it happened at dinner-time that night I found myself in the bas.e.m.e.nt dining room and made my first bow to some people who were to be near me for a number of years--one or two of them for life. I can remember just how they all looked sitting about the table, which was covered with a mussed red table-cloth, and lit by a big, smelly oil lamp. Pa Pierson sat at the head of the table, an untidy, gray-haired old man, who gave away his story in every line of his body. He had made some money in his country store back in Michigan; but the ambition to try his luck in the city had ruined him. He had gone broke on crockery. He was supposed to be looking for work, but he spent most of his time in this bas.e.m.e.nt dining room, warming himself at the stove and reading the boarders'

papers.

The girls and the boy, d.i.c.k, paid him even less respect than they did their mother. They were all the kind of children that don't tolerate much incompetence in their parents. d.i.c.k was a putty-faced, black-haired cub, who scrubbed blackboards and chewed gum in a Board of Trade man's office. Neither he nor his two sisters, who were also working downtown, contributed much to the house, and except that now and then Grace, the older one, would help clean up the dishes in a shamefaced way, or bring the food on the table when the meal was extra late or she wanted to get out for the evening, not one of the three ever raised a finger to help with the work. The whole place, from kitchen to garret, fell on poor old Ma Pierson, and the boarders were kinder to her than her own children.

Lank and stooping, short-sighted, with a faded, tired smile, she came and went between the kitchen and the dining room, cooking the food and serving it, was.h.i.+ng the dishes, scrubbing the floors, and making the beds--I never saw her sit down to the table with us except one Christmas Day, when she was too sick to cook. She took her fate like an Indian, and died on the steps of her treadmill.

There were two other regular boarders besides myself and Ed--a man and a woman. The latter, Miss Hillary c.o.x, was cas.h.i.+er in the New Enterprise Market, not far from the house. She was rather short and stout, with thick ropes of brown hair that she piled on her head in a solid ma.s.s to make her look tall. She had bright little eyes, and her rosy face showed that she had not been long in the city.

The man was a long, lean, thin-faced chap, somewhat older than I was.

His name was Jaffrey Sloc.u.m; he was studying law and doing stenographic work in a law office in the city. When I first looked at him I thought that he would push his way over most of the rocks in the road--and he did. Sloc.u.m was a mighty silent man, but little pa.s.sed before his eyes without his knowing what it meant. I learned later that he came from a good Maine family, and had been to college in the East. And he had it much on his mind to do several things with his life--the first of which was to buy back the old home in Portland, and put his folks there where they belonged. Old Sloco, we called him! For all his slow, draggy ways he had pounds of pressure on the gauge. He and I have fought through some big fights since then, and there's no man I had as soon have beside me in a sc.r.a.p as that thin-faced, scrawny-necked old chip of Maine granite.

When Ed introduced me at the table, Grace made a place beside her, and her sister Lou hospitably shoved over a plate of stew. Then Lou smiled at me and opened fire:--

"We read all about you in the papers this morning, Mr. Harrington!"

"Heh, heh!" Pa Pierson cackled.

"Say, Lou, I don't call that polite," Grace protested in an affected tone.

"Don't mind me," I called out. "I guess I'm a public character, anyway."

"What did the lady say when she found she was wrong?" Lou went on. "I should think she'd want to die, doing a mean thing like that."

"Did she give you any little souvenir of the occasion?" d.i.c.k inquired.

"If they are real nice folks, I should think they'd try to make it up some way," Grace added.

"But what we want to know first," Sloc.u.m drawled gravely, "is, did you take the purse, and, if so, where did you put it?"

"Why, Mr. Sloc.u.m!" Miss c.o.x sputtered, not catching the joke. "What a thing to insinuate! I am sure Mr. Harrington doesn't look like that--any one could see he wouldn't _steal_."

In this way they pa.s.sed me back and forth, up and down the table, until the last sc.r.a.p of meat was gnawed from the bone. Then they sniffed at Jasonville. Where was it? What did I do there? Why did I come to the city? Miss c.o.x was the sharpest one at the questions. She wanted to know all about my father's store. She had already got Ed a place as delivery clerk in the Enterprise Market, and there might be an opening in the same store for me. I could see that there would be a place all right if I met the approval of the smart little cas.h.i.+er. It has never been one of my faults to be backward with women,--all except May,--and as Miss Hillary c.o.x was far from unprepossessing, I fixed my attention on her for the rest of the evening.

The Pierson girls tired of me quickly enough, as they had already tired of Ed. Lou soon ceased to smile at me and open her eyes in her silly stare when I made a remark. After dinner she went out on the steps to wait for a beau, who was to take her to a dance. Grace sat awhile to chaff with the lawyer's clerk. He seemed to make fun of her, but I could see that he liked her pretty well. (It must be a stupid sort of woman, indeed, who can't get hold of a man when he has nothing to do after his work except walk the streets or read a book!) There was nothing bad in either of the girls: they were just soft, purring things, shut up all day long, one in a big shop and the other in a dentist's office. Of course, when they got home, they were frantic for amus.e.m.e.nt, dress, the theatre--anything bright and happy; anything that would make a change.

They had a knack of stylish dressing, and on the street looked for all the world like a rich man's daughters. Nothing bad in either one, then--only that kind gets its eyes opened too late!...

The next morning I stepped around to the Enterprise Market, and Miss c.o.x introduced me to the proprietors. They were two brothers, sharp-looking young men, up-to-date in their ideas, the cas.h.i.+er had told me, and bound to make the Enterprise the largest market on the West Side. Miss c.o.x had evidently said a good word for me, and that afternoon I found myself tying up parcels and taking orders at ten dollars a week.

Not a very brilliant start on fortune's road, but I was glad enough to get it. The capable cas.h.i.+er kept a friendly eye on me, and saved me from getting into trouble. Before long I had my pay raised, and then raised again. Ed had taken hold well, too, and was given more pay. He was more content with his job than I was. The work suited him--the driving about the city streets, the rush at the market mornings, the big crates of country stuff that came smelling fresh from the fields. The city was all that he had hoped to find it. Not so to me--I looked beyond; but I worked hard and took my cues from the pretty cas.h.i.+er, who grew more friendly every day. We used to go to places in the evenings,--lectures and concerts mostly,--for Miss c.o.x thought the theatre was wicked. She was a regular church attendant, and made me go with her Sundays. She was thrifty, too, and taught me to be stingy with my quarters and halves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Enterprise Market._]

The first day I could take off I went to the police station and paid my loan from the judge. I had to wait an hour before I could speak to him, while he ground out a string of drunks and a.s.saults, shooting out his sentences like a rapid-fire battery. When I finally got his attention, he turned one eye on me:--

"Well, Edward, so you haven't gone home yet!" And that was all he said as he dropped the coin into his pocket. (I hope that my paying back that money made him merciful to the next young tramp that was cast up there before him!)

After I had paid the judge I strolled down to the South Side, into the new residence district, with some idea of seeing where the young lady lived who had first had me arrested and then wanted to reform me. When I came to the number she had written in the memorandum-book, there was a piece of c.r.a.pe on the door. It gave me a shock. I hung around for a while, not caring to disturb the people inside, and yet hoping to find out that it was not the young lady who had died. Finally I came away, having made up my mind, somehow, that it was the young lady, and feeling sorry that she was gone. That night I opened the memorandum-book she had given me, and began a sort of diary in a cramped, abbreviated hand. The first items read as follows:--

_September 30._ Giv. this book by young la. who tho't I stole her purse.

She hopes I may take the right road.