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Full text of "Maggie, a girl of the streets"

BY 



STEPHEN CRANE 




,1 




WfrMs' 

University of California Berkeley 




LOCKVVOOn 
MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
OF THE VNIVERSITY 

OF BVFKALO, PRE 
SEN UY GEORGE 

? 'HAN NEWMAN OF 
BVFFALO NEW YORK 



MAGGIE 
A GIRL OF THE STREETS 



Red Badge of Courage. 



An Episode of the American Civil War. By STE 
PHEN CRANE. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

" Never before have we had the seamy side of glorious war so 
well depicted." Chicago Evening Post. 

" Of such interest that no one having begun it will lay it aside 
until the end is reached." Philadelphia Ledger. 

" We have had many stories of the war ; this stands abso 
lutely alone." Boston Transcript, 

" Has no parallel, unless it be Tolstoy's ' Sebastopol.' " San 
Francisco Chronicle. 

"A strong book, and it is a true book; true to life." The 
Critic. 

" Has been surpassed by few writers dealing with war." New 
York Mail and Express. 

" So vivid is the picture of actual conflict that the reader comes 
face to face with war." Atlantic Monthly. 

" Original, striking, astonishing, powerful ; holding the atten 
tion with the force of genius." Louisville Post. 

" The best novel which the war has yet produced." Kansas 
City Journal. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



MAGGIE 

A GIRL OF THE STREETS 



BY 

STEPHEN CRANE 

AUTHOR OF 

THE RED 
BADGE OF 
COURAGE 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1896 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



Copyright, 1893, by Stephen Crane. 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 



THE interest which has been shown in The 
Red Badge of Courage has been most gratify 
ing, but it has also involved a few inaccu 
racies of statement in regard to the history 
of Mr. Crane's literary work. The Red 
Badge of Courage was offered to and ac 
cepted by the publishers in December, 1894, 
and it was published in October, 1895. As 
it happened, the actual publication in Eng 
land came some two months later. By that 
time the American press had appreciated the 
quality of the book so cordially and unani 
mously as to dispose of the lingering tradi 
tion that only a well-known author, or an 
author with the hall mark of foreign approval, 
is recognised by our reviewers. 

As to the book which succeeds The Red 



v i PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 

Badge of Courage, it should be said that 
Maggie has never been published before, 
even in serial form. The story was put into 
type and copyrighted by Mr. Crane three 
years ago, but this real and strenuous tale 
of New York life is now given to the public 
for the first time. 



MAGGIE. 



CHAPTER I. 

A VERY little boy stood upon a heap of 
gravel for the honour of Rum Alley. He 
was throwing stones at howling urchins from 
Devil's Row, who were circling madly about 
the heap and pelting him. 

His infantile countenance was livid with 
the fury of battle. His small body was writh 
ing in the delivery of oaths. 

" Run, Jimmie, run ! Dey'll git yehs ! " 
screamed a retreating Rum Alley child. 

" Naw," responded Jimmie with a valiant 
roar, " dese mugs can't make me run." 

Howls of renewed wrath went up from 
Devil's Row throats. Tattered gamins on 
the right made a furious assault on the 



2 MAGGIE. 

gravel heap. On their small convulsed faces 
shone the grins of true assassins. As they 
charged, they threw stones and cursed in 
shrill chorus. 

The little champion of Rum Alley stum 
bled precipitately down the other side. His 
coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle and 
his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty 
parts of his body, and blood was dripping 
from a cut in his head. His wan features 
looked like those of a tiny insane demon. 

On the ground, children from Devil's Row 
closed in on their antagonist. He crooked 
his left arm defensively about his head and 
fought with madness. The little boys ran to 
and fro, dodging, hurling stones, and swearing 
in barbaric trebles. 

From a window of an apartment house 
that uprose from amid squat ignorant stables 
there leaned a curious woman. Some la 
bourers, unloading a scow at a dock at the 
river, paused for a moment and regarded the 
fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat 



MAGGIE. 3 

hung lazily over a railing and watched. Over 
on the island a worm of yellow convicts 
came from the shadow of a gray ominous 
building and crawled slowly along the river's 
bank. 

A stone had smashed in Jimmie's mouth. 
Blood was bubbling over his chin and down 
upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows 
on his dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had 
begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his 
small body to reel. His roaring curses of the 
first part of the fight had changed to a blas 
phemous chatter. 

In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's 
Row children there were notes of joy like 
songs of triumphant savagery. The little 
boys seemed to leer gloatingly at the blood 
upon the other child's face. 

Down the avenue came boastfully saun 
tering a lad of sixteen years, although the 
chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already 
sat upon his lips. His hat was tipped over 
his eye with an air of challenge. Between 



4 MAGGIE. 

his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the 
angle of defiance. He walked with a certain 
swing of the shoulders which appalled the 
timid. He glanced over into the vacant lot 
in which the little raving boys from Devil's 
Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful 
child from Rum Alley. 

" Gee ! " he murmured with interest, " a 
scrap. Gee ! " 

He strode over to the cursing circle, 
swinging his shoulders in a manner which 
denoted that he held victory in his fists. 
He approached at the back of one of the 
most deeply engaged of the Devil's Row 
children. 

"Ah, what d' h 11," he said, and smote 
the deeply engaged one on the back of the 
head. The little boy fell to the ground and 
gave a tremendous howl. He scrambled to 
his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size 
of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting 
alarms. The entire Devil's Row party fol 
lowed him. They came to a stand a short 



MAGGIE. 5 

distance away and yelled taunting oaths at 
the boy with the chronic sneer. The latter, 
momentarily, paid no attention to them. 

"What's wrong wi'che, Jimmie?" he 
asked of the small champion. 

Jimmie wiped his blood-wet features with 
his sleeve. 

" Well, it was dis way, Pete, see ! I was 
goin' teh lick dat Riley kid and dey all 
pitched on me." 

Some Rum Alley children now came for 
ward. The party stood for a moment ex 
changing vainglorious remarks with Devil's 
Row. A few stones were thrown at long dis 
tances, and words of challenge passed be 
tween small warriors. Then the Rum Alley 
contingent turned slowly in the direction of 
their home street. They began to give, each 
to each, distorted versions of the fight. 
Causes of retreat in particular cases were 
magnified. Blows dealt in the fight were 
enlarged to catapultian power, and stones 
thrown were alleged to have hurtled with 



6 MAGGIE. 

infinite accuracy. Valour grew strong again, 
and the little boys began to brag with great 
spirit. 

" Ah, we blokies kin lick d' hull d n 
Row," said a child, swaggering. 

Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the 
flow of blood from his cut lips. Scowling, he 
turned upon the speaker. 

" Ah, where was yehs when I was doin' all 
deh fightin'?" he demanded. " Youse kids 
makes me tired." 

"Ah, go ahn ! " replied the other argu- 
mentatively. 

Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. 
"Ah, youse can't fight, Blue Billie ! I kin 
lick yeh wid one han'." 

" Ah, go ahn ! " replied Billie again. 

" Ah ! " said Jimmie threateningly. 

" Ah ! " said the other in the same 
tone. 

They struck at each other, clinched, and 
rolled over on the cobblestones. 

" Smash 'im, Jimmie, kick d' face off 



MAGGIE. 7 

'im ! " yelled Pete, the lad with the chronic 
sneer, in tones of delight. 

The small combatants pounded and 
kicked, scratched and tore. They began to 
weep and their curses struggled in their 
throats with sobs. The other little boys 
clasped their hands and wriggled their legs 
in excitement. They formed a bobbing cir 
cle about the pair. 

A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated. 

" Cheese it, Jimmy, cheese it ! Here 
comes yer fader," he yelled. 

The circle of little boys instantly parted. 
They drew away and waited in ecstatic awe 
for that which was about to happen. The 
two little boys, fighting in the modes of 
four thousand years ago, did not hear the 
warning. 

Up the avenue there plodded slowly a 
man with sullen eyes. He was carrying a 
dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood 
pipe. 

As he neared the spot where the little 



8 MAGGIE. 

boys strove, he regarded them listlessly. But 
suddenly he roared an oath and advanced 
upon the rolling fighters. 

" Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt 
yer life out, yeh disorderly brat." 

He began to kick into the chaotic mass 
on the ground. The boy Billie felt a heavy 
boot strike his head. He made a furious 
effort and disentangled himself from Jimmie. 
He tottered away. 

Jimmie arose painfully from the ground 
and confronting his father, began to curse 
him. His parent kicked him. " Come home, 
now," he cried, "an' stop yer jawin', er I'll 
lam the everlasting head off yehs." 

They departed. The man paced placidly 
along with the apple-wood emblem of serenity 
between his teeth. The boy followed a dozen 
feet in the rear. He swore luridly, for he felt 
that it was degradation for one who aimed to 
be some vague kind of a soldier, or a man of 
blood with a sort of sublime license, to be 
taken home by a father. 



CHAPTER II. 

EVENTUALLY they entered a dark region 
where, from a careening building, a dozen 
gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies 
to the street and the gutter. A wind of early 
autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and 
swirled it against a hundred windows. Long 
streamers of garments fluttered from fire- 
escapes. In all unhandy places there were 
buckets, brooms, rags, and bottles. In the 
street infants played or fought with other 
infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. 
Formidable women, with uncombed hair and 
disordered dress, gossipped while leaning on 
railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. 
Withered persons, in curious postures of 
submission to something, sat smoking pipes 

in obscure corners. A thousand odours of 

9 



10 MAGGIE. 

cooking food came forth to the street. The 
building quivered and creaked from the 
weight of humanity stamping about in its 
bowels. 

A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawl 
ing infant along the crowded ways. He was 
hanging back, babylike, bracing his wrinkled, 
bare legs. 

The little girl cried out: "Ah, Tommie, 
come ahn. Dere's Jimmie and fader. Don't 
be a-pullin' me back." 

She jerked the baby's arm impatiently. 
He fell on his face, roaring. With a second 
jerk she pulled him to his feet, and they 
went on. With the obstinacy of his order, 
he protested against being dragged in a 
chosen direction. He made heroic endeav 
ours to keep on his legs, denounced his sister, 
and consumed a bit of orange peeling which 
he chewed between the times of his infantile 
orations. 

As the sullen-eyed man, followed by the 
blood-covered boy, drew near, the little girl 



MAGGIE. 1 1 

burst into reproachful cries. "Ah, Jimmie, 
youse bin fightin' agin." 

The urchin swelled disdainfully. 

"Ah, what d' h 1, Mag. See?" 

The little girl upbraided him. " Youse 
allus fightin', Jimmie, an* yeh knows it puts 
mudder out when yehs come home half dead, 
an' it's like we'll all get a poundin'." 

She began to weep. The babe threw back 
his head and roared at his prospects. 

"Ah," cried Jimmie, "shut up er I'll smack 
yer mout'. See?" 

As his sister continued her lamentations, 
he suddenly struck her. The little girl reeled 
and, recovering herself, burst into tears and 
quaveringly cursed him. As she slowly re 
treated, her brother advanced dealing her 
'cuffs. The father heard and turned about. 

"Stop that, Jim, d'yeh hear? Leave yer 
sister alone on the street. It's like I can 
never beat any sense into yer wooden head." 

The urchin raised his voice in defiance to 
his parent and continued his attacks. The 



12 MAGGIE. 



babe bawled tremendously, protesting with 
great violence. During his sister's hasty 
manoeuvres he was dragged by the arm. 

Finally the procession plunged into one of 
the gruesome doorways. They crawled up 
dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls. 
At last the father pushed open a door and 
they entered a lighted room in which a large 
woman was rampant. 

She stopped in a career from a seething 
stove to a pan-covered table. As the father 
and children filed in she peered at them. 

"Eh, what? Been fightin' agin!" She 
threw herself upon Jimmie. The urchin tried 
to dart behind the others, and in the scuffle 
the babe, Tommie, was knocked down. He 
protested with his usual vehemence, because 
they had bruised his tender shins against a 
table leg. 

The mother's massive shoulders heaved 
with anger. Grasping the urchin by the neck 
and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. 
She dragged him to an unholy sink, and, 



MAGGIE. I3 

soaking a rag in water, began to scrub his 
lacerated face with it. Jimmie screamed in 
pain and tried to twist his shoulders out of 
the clasp of the huge arms. 

The babe sat on the floor watching the 
scene, his face in contortions like that of a 
woman at a tragedy. The father, with a 
newly ladened pipe in his mouth, sat in a 
backless chair near the stove. Jimmie's cries 
annoyed him. He turned about and bellowed 
at his wife : 

" Let the kid alone for a minute, will yeh, 
Mary? Yer allus poundin' 'im. When I 
come nights I can't git no rest 'cause yer 
allus poundin' a kid. Let up, d'yeh hear? 
Don't be allus poundin' a kid." 

The woman's operations on the urchin in 
stantly increased in violence. At last she 
tossed him to a corner where he limply lay 
weeping. 

The wife put her immense hands on her 
hips, and with a chieftainlike stride ap 
proached her husband. 



I 4 MAGGIE. 

" Ho! " she said, with a great grunt of con 
tempt. " An' what in the devil are you stick- 
in* your nose for ? " 

The babe crawled under the table and, 
turning, peered out cautiously. The ragged 
girl retreated, and the urchin in the corner 
drew his legs carefully beneath him. 

The man puffed his pipe calmly and put 
his great muddied boots on the back part of 
the stove. 

" Go t' h 1," he said tranquilly. 

The woman screamed and shook her fists 
before her husband's eyes. The rough yel 
low of her face and neck flared suddenly 
crimson. She began to howl. 

He puffed imperturbably at his pipe for a 
time, but finally arose and went to look out 
of the window into the darkening chaos of 
back yards. 

" You've been drinkin', Mary," he said. 
" You'd better let up on the bot', ol' woman, 
or you'll git done." 

" You're a liar. I ain't had a drop," she 



MAGGIE. !5 

roared in reply. They had a lurid alterca 
tion. 

The babe was staring out from under the 
table, his small face working in his excite 
ment. The ragged girl went stealthily over 
to the corner where the urchin lay. 

" Are yehs hurted much, Jimmie ? " she 
whispered timidly. 

"Not a little bit. See?" growled the 
little boy. 

"Will I wash d f blood?" 

" Naw ! " 

" Will I " 

" When I catch dat Riley kid I'll break 'is 
face! Dat's right! See?" 

He turned his face to the wall as if re 
solved grimly to bide his time. 

In the quarrel between husband and wife 
the woman was victor. The man seized his 
hat and rushed from the room, apparently de 
termined upon a vengeful drunk. She fol 
lowed to the door and thundered at him as 
he made his way downstairs. 



l6 MAGGIE. 

She returned and stirred up the room 
until her children were bobbing about like 
bubbles. 

" Git outa d' way/' she bawled persist 
ently, waving feet with their dishevelled 
shoes near the heads of her children. She 
shrouded herself, puffing and snorting, in a 
cloud of steam at the stove, and eventually 
extracted a frying pan full of potatoes that 
hissed. 

She flourished it. " Come t' yer suppers, 
now," she cried with sudden exasperation. 
" Hurry up, now, er I'll help yeh ! " 

The children scrambled hastily. With 
prodigious clatter they arranged themselves 
at table. The babe sat with his feet dan 
gling high from a precarious infant's chair 
and gorged his small stomach. Jimmie 
forced, with feverish rapidity, the grease- 
enveloped pieces between his wounded 
lips. Maggie, with side glances of fear of 
interruption, ate like a small pursued ti 
gress. 



MAGGIE. ij 

The mother sat blinking at them. She de 
livered reproaches, swallowed potatoes, and 
drank from a yellow-brown bottle. After a 
time her mood changed and she wept as she 
carried little Tommie into another room and 
laid him to sleep, with his fists doubled, in an 
old quilt of faded red and green grandeur. 
Then she came and moaned by the stove. 
She rocked to and fro upon a chair, shedding 
tears and crooning miserably to the two chil 
dren about their "poor mother" and "yer 
fader, d n 'is soul." 

The little girl plodded between the table 
and the chair with a dish pan on it. She 
tottered on her small legs beneath burdens of 
dishes. 

Jimmie sat nursing his various wounds. 
He cast furtive glances at his mother. His 
practised eye perceived her gradually emerge 
from a mist of muddled sentiment until her 
brain burned in drunken heat. He sat breath 
less. 

Maggie broke a plate. 



!8 MAGGIE. 

The mother started to her feet as if pro 
pelled. 

" Good Gawd ! " she howled. Her glitter- 
ing eyes fastened on her child with sudden 
hatred. The fervent red of her face turned 
almost to purple. The little boy ran to the 
halls, shrieking like a monk in an earth 
quake. 

He floundered about in darkness until he 
found the stairs. He stumbled, panic-strick 
en, to the next floor. An old woman opened 
a door. A light behind her threw a flare on 
the urchin's face. 

" Eh, child, what is it dis time ? Is yer 
fader beatin' yer mudder, or yer mudder 
beatin' yer fader ? " 



CHAPTER III. 

JIMMIE and the old woman listened long 
in the hall. Above the muffled roar of con 
versation, the dismal wailings of babies at 
night, the thumping of feet in unseen corri 
dors and rooms, and the sound of varied 
hoarse shoutings in the street and the rat 
tling of wheels over cobbles, they heard the 
screams of the child and the roars of the 
mother die away to a feeble moaning and a 
subdued bass muttering. 

The old woman was a gnarled and leath 
ery personage who could don, at will, an ex 
pression of great virtue. She possessed a 
small music box capable of one tune, and a 
collection of " God bless yehs " pitched in as 
sorted keys of fervency. Each day she took 

a position upon the stones of Fifth Avenue, 
19 



20 MAGGIE. 

where she crooked her legs under her and 
crouched, immovable and hideous, like an idol. 
She received daily a small sum in pennies. 
It was contributed, for the most part, by per 
sons who did not make their homes in that 
vicinity. 

Once, when a lady had dropped her purse 
on the sidewalk, the gnarled woman had 
grabbed it and smuggled it with great dexter 
ity beneath her cloak. When she was ar 
rested she had cursed the lady into a partial 
swoon, and with her aged limbs, twisted 
from rheumatism, had kicked the breath out 
of a huge policeman whose conduct upon that 
occasion she referred to when she said, " The 
police, d n 'em ! " 

" Eh, Jimmie, it's a shame," she said. 
" Go, now, like a dear an' buy me a can, an' 
if yer mudder raises 'ell all night yehs can 
sleep here." 

Jimmie took a tendered tin pail and seven 
pennies and departed. He passed into the 
side door of a saloon and went to the bar. 



MAGGIE. 2 1 

Straining up on his toes he raised the pail 
and pennies as high as his arms would let 

him. He saw two hands thrust down to 

I 

take them. Directly the same hands let 
down the filled pail and he left. 

In front of the gruesome doorway he met 
a lurching figure. It was his father, swaying 
about on uncertain legs. 

" Give me deh can. See ? " said the 
man. 

"Ah, come off! I got dis can fer dat ol' 
woman an' it 'ud be dirt teh swipe it. See ? " 
cried Jirnmie. 

The father wrenched the pail from the 
urchin. He grasped it in both hands and 
lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to 
the under edge and tilted his head. His 
throat swelled until it seemed to grow near 
his chin. There was a tremendous gulping 
movement and the beer was gone. 

The man caught his breath and laughed. 
He hit his son on the head with the empty 
pail. As it rolled clanging into the street, 



22 MAGGIE. 

Jimmie began to scream, and kicked repeat 
edly at his father's shins. 

" Look at deh dirt what yeh done me," he 
yelled. " Deh ol' woman 'ill be trowin' fits." 

He retreated to the middle of the street, 
but the man did not pursue. He staggered 
toward the door. 

" I'll paste yeh when I ketch yeh ! " he 
shouted, and disappeared. 

During the evening he had been standing 
against a bar drinking whiskies and declaring 
to all comers, confidentially : " My home 
reg'lar livin' h 1! Why do I come an' drin' 
whisk' here thish way ? 'Cause home reg'lar 
livin' h 1 ! " 

Jimmie waited a long time in the street 
and then crept warily up through the build 
ing. He passed with great caution the door 
of the gnarled woman, and finally stopped 
outside his home and listened. 

He could hear his mother moving heavily 
about among the furniture of the room. She 
was chanting in a mournful voice, occasion- 



MAGGIE. 23 

f 

ally interjecting bursts of volcanic wrath at 
the father, who, Jimmie judged, had sunk 
down on the floor or in a corner. 

" Why deh blazes don' chere try teh keep 
Jim from fightin'? I'll break yer jaw ! " she 
suddenly bellowed. 

The man mumbled with drunken indiffer 
ence. " Ah, Wats bitin' yeh? Wa's odds? 
Wha' makes kick?" 

" Because he tears 'is clothes, yeh fool ! " 
cried the woman in supreme wrath. 

The husband seemed to become aroused. 
"Go chase yerself!" he thundered fiercely 
in reply. There was a crash against the 
door and something broke into clattering 
fragments. Jimmie partially suppressed a 
yell and darted down the stairway. Below 
he paused and listened. He heard howls 
and curses, groans and shrieks a confused 
chorus as if a battle were raging. With it 
all there was the crash of splintering furni 
ture. The eyes of the urchin glared in his 
fear that one of them would discover him. 



24 MAGGIE. 

Curious faces appeared in doorways, and 
whispered comments passed to and fro. " Ol' 
Johnson's playin'^horse agin." 

Jimmie stood until the noises ceased and 
the other inhabitants of the tenement had all 
yawned and shut their doors. Then he 
crawled upstairs with the caution of an in 
vader of a panther's den. Sounds of laboured 
breathing- came through the broken door 
panels. He pushed the door open and en 
tered, quaking. 

A glow from the fire threw red hues over 
the bare floor, the cracked and soiled plaster 
ing, and the overturned and broken furni 
ture. 

In the middle of the floor lay his mother 
asleep. In one corner of the room his 
father's limp body hung across the seat of 
a chair. 

The urchin stole forward. He began to 
shiver in dread of awakening his parents. 
His mother's great chest was heaving pain 
fully. Jimmie paused and looked down at 



MAGGIE. 25 

her. Her face was inflamed and swollen from 
drinking. Her yellow brows shaded eyelids 
that had grown blue. Her tangled hair 
tossed in waves over her forehead. Her 
mouth was set in the same lines of vindictive 
hatred that it had, perhaps, borne during the 
fight. Her bare, red arms were thrown out 
above her head in an attitude of exhaustion, 
something, mayhap, like that of a sated 
villain. 

The urchin bent over his mother. He 
was fearful lest she should open her eyes, 
and the dread within him was so strong 
that he could not forbear to stare, but hung 
as if fascinated over the woman's grim face. 

Suddenly her eyes opened. The urchin 
found himself looking straight into an ex 
pression, which, it would seem, had the power 
to change his blood to salt. He howled 
piercingly and fell backward. 

The woman floundered for a moment, 
tossed her arms about her head as if in com 
bat, and again began to snore. 



26 MAGGIE. 

Jimmie crawled back into the shadows 
and waited. A noise in the next room had 
followed his cry at the discovery that his 
mother was awake. He grovelled in the 
gloom, his eyes riveted upon the intervening 
door. 

He heard it creak, and then the sound of 
a small voice came to him. " Jimmie ! Jim 
mie ! Are yehs dere?" it whispered. The 
urchin started. The thin, white face of his 
sister looked at him from the doorway of the 
other room. She crept to him across the 
floor. 

The father had not moved, but lay in the 
same deathlike sleep. The mother writhed 
in an uneasy slumber, her chest wheezing as if 
she were in the agonies of strangulation. Out 
at the window a florid moon was peering over 
dark roofs, and in the distance the waters of a 
river glimmered pallidly. 

The small frame of the ragged girl was 
quivering. Her features were haggard from 
weeping, and her eyes gleamed with fear. 



MAGGIE. 27 

She grasped the urchin's arm in her little 
trembling hands and they huddled in a cor 
ner. The eyes of both were drawn, by some 
force, to stare at the woman's face, for they 
thought she need only to awake and all the 
fiends would come from below. 

They crouched until the ghost mists of 
dawn appeared at the window, drawing close 
to the panes, and looking in at the prostrate, 
heaving body of the mother. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE babe, Tommie, died. He went away 
in an insignificant coffin, his small waxen hand 
clutching a flower that the girl, Maggie, had 
stolen from an Italian. 

She and Jimmie lived. 

The inexperienced fibres of the boy's eyes 
were hardened at an early age. He became a 
young man of leather. He lived some red 
years without labouring. During that time 
his sneer became chronic. He studied human 
nature in the gutter, and found it no worse 
than he thought he had reason to believe it. 
He never conceived a respect for the world, 
because he had begun with no idols that it 
had smashed. 

He clad his soul in armour by means of 

happening hilariously in at a mission church 

28 



MAGGIE. 29 

where a man composed his sermons of 
" yous." Once a philosopher asked this man 
why he did not say " we " instead of " you." 
The man replied, "What?" 

While they got warm at the stove he told 
his hearers just where he calculated they stood 
with the Lord. Many of the sinners were im 
patient over the pictured depths of their deg 
radation. They were waiting for soup tickets. 

A reader of the words of wind demons 
might have been able to see the portions of 
a dialogue pass to and fro between the ex- 
horter and his hearers. 

"You are damned," said the preacher. 
And the reader of sounds might have seen 
the reply go forth from the ragged people : 
" Where's our soup ? " 

Jimmie and a companion sat in a rear seat 
and commented upon the things that didn't 
concern them, with all the freedom of Eng 
lish tourists. When they grew thirsty and * 
went out, their minds confused the speaker 
with Christ. 



30 MAGGIE. 

Momentarily, Jimmie was sullen with 
thoughts of a hopeless altitude where grew 
fruit. His companion said that if he should 
ever go to heaven he would ask for a million 
dollars and a bottle of beer. 

Jimmie's occupation for a long time was 
to stand on street corners and watch the 
world go by, dreaming blood-red dreams at 
the passing of pretty women. He menaced 
mankind at the intersections of streets. 

On the corners he was in life and of life. 
The world was going on and he was there 
to perceive it. 

He maintained a belligerent attitude to 
ward all well-dressed men. To him fine 
raiment was allied to weakness, and all good 
coats covered faint hearts. He and his order 
were kings, to a certain extent, over the men 
of untarnished clothes, because these latter 
dreaded, perhaps, to be either killed or 
laughed at. 

Above all things he despised obvious 
Christians and ciphers with the chrysanthe- 



MAGGIE. 3! 

mums of aristocracy in their buttonholes. 
He considered himself above both of these 
classes. He was afraid of nothing. 

When he had a dollar in his pocket his 
satisfaction with existence was the greatest 
thing in the world. So, eventually, he felt 
obliged to work. His father died and his 
mother's years were divided up into periods 
of thirty days. 

He became a truck driver. There was 
given to him the charge of a painstaking pair 
of horses and a large rattling truck. He in 
vaded the turmoil and tumble of the down 
town streets, and learned to breathe maledic 
tory defiance at the police, who occasionally 
used to climb up, drag him from his perch, 
and punch him. 

In the lower part of the city he daily in 
volved himself in hideous tangles. If he and 
his team chanced to be in the rear he pre 
served a demeanour of serenity, crossing his 
legs and bursting forth into yells when foot 
passengers took dangerous dives beneath the 



32 MAGGIE. 

noses of his champing horses. He smoked 
his pipe calmly, for he knew that his pay was 
marching on. 

If his charge was in the front and if it be 
came the key-truck of chaos, he entered 
terrifically into the quarrel that was raging 
to and fro among the drivers on their high 
seats, and sometimes roared oaths and vio 
lently got himself arrested. 

After a time his sneer grew so that it 
turned its glare upon all things. He became 
so sharp that he believed in nothing. To him 
the police were always actuated by malignant 
impulses, and the rest of the world was com 
posed, for the most part, of despicable crea 
tures who were all trying to take advantage 
of him, and with whom, in defence, he was 
obliged to quarrel on all possible occasions. 
He himself occupied a down-trodden position, 
which had a private but distinct element of 
grandeur in its isolation. 

The greatest cases of aggravated idiocy 
were, to his mind, rampant upon the front 



MAGGIE. 33 

platforms of all of the street cars. At first 
his tongue strove with these beings, but 
he eventually became superior. In him 
grew a majestic contempt for those strings 
of street cars that followed him like intent 
bugs. 

He fell into the habit, when starting on a 
long journey, of fixing his eye on a high and 
distant object, commanding his horses to start 
and then going into a trance of observation. 
Multitudes of drivers might howl in his rear, 
and passengers might load him with oppro 
brium, but he would not awaken until some 
blue policeman turned red and began fren- 
ziedly to seize bridles and beat the soft noses 
of the responsible horses. 

When he paused to contemplate the atti 
tude of the police toward himself and his 
fellows, he believed that they were the only 
men in the city who had no rights. When 
driving about, he felt that he was held liable 
by the police for anything that might occur 
in the streets, and that he was the common 



34 MAGGIE. 

prey of all energetic officials. In revenge, he 
resolved never to move out of the way of 
anything, until formidable circumstances or 
a much larger man than himself forced him 
to it. 

Foot passengers were mere pestering flies 
with an insane disregard for their legs and 
his convenience. He could not comprehend 
their desire to cross the streets. Their 
madness smote him with eternal amazement. 
He was continually storming at them from 
his throne. He sat aloft and denounced 
their frantic leaps, plunges, dives, and strad 
dles. 

When they would thrust at, or parry, the 
noses of his champing horses, making them 
swing their heads and move their feet, and 
thus disturbing a stolid, dreamy repose, he 
swore at the men as fools, for he himself 
could perceive that Providence had caused 
it clearly to be written that he and his team 
had the unalienable right to stand in the 
proper path of the sun chariot, and if they 



MAGGIE. 35 

so minded, to obstruct its mission or take a 
wheel off. 

And if the god driver had had a desire to 
step down, put up his flame-coloured fists, 
and manfully dispute the right of way, he * 
would have probably been immediately op 
posed by a scowling mortal with two sets of 
hard knuckles. 

It is possible, perhaps, that this young 
man would have derided, in an axle-wide 
alley, the approach of a flying ferry boat. 
Yet he achieved a respect for a fire engine. 
As one charged toward his truck, he would 
drive fearfully upon a sidewalk, threatening 
untold people with annihilation. When an 
engine struck a mass of blocked trucks, split 
ting it into fragments, as a blow annihilates 
a cake of ice, Jimmie's team could usually be 
observed high and safe, with whole wheels, 
on the sidewalk. The fearful coming of the 
engine could break up the most intricate 
muddle of heavy vehicles at which the police 
had been storming for half an hour. 



36 MAGGIE. 

A fire engine was enshrined in his heart 
as an appalling thing that he loved with a 
distant, doglike devotion. It had been known 
to overturn a street car. Those leaping 
horses, striking sparks from the cobbles in 
their forward lunge, were creatures to be 
ineffably admired. The clang of the gong 
pierced his breast like a noise of remem 
bered war. 

When Jimmie was a little boy, he began to 
be arrested. Before he reached a great age, 
he had a fair record. 

He developed too great a tendency to 
climb down from his truck and fight with 
other drivers. He had been in quite a num 
ber of miscellaneous fights, and in some 
general barroom rows that had become 
known to the police. Once he had been 
arrested for assaulting a Chinaman. Two 
women in different parts of the city, and 
entirely unknown to each other, caused him 
considerable annoyance by breaking forth, 
simultaneously, at fateful intervals, into wail- 



MAGGIE. 37 

ings about marriage and support and in 
fants. 

Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star 
lit evening, said wonderingly and quite 
reverently : " Deh moon looks like h 1, 
don't it?" 



CHAPTER V. 

THE girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud 
puddle. She grew to be a most rare and 
wonderful production of a tenement district, a 
pretty girl. 

None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to 
be in her veins. The philosophers, upstairs, 
downstairs, and on the same floor, puzzled 
over it. 

When a child, playing and fighting with 
gamins in the street, dirt disguised her. At 
tired in tatters and grime, she went unseen. 

There came a time, however, when the 
young men of the vicinity said, " Dat John 
son goil is a puty good looker." About this 
period her brother remarked to her : " Mag, 
I'll tell yeh dis! See? Yeh've edder got t' 

go on d f toif er go t' work ! " Whereupon 
38 



MAGGIE. 39 

she went to work, having the feminine aver 
sion to the alternative. 

By a chance, she got a position in an estab 
lishment where they made collars and cuffs. 
She received a stool and a machine in a room 
where sat twenty girls of various shades of 
yellow discontent. She perched on the stool 
and treadled at her machine all day, turning 
out collars with a name which might have 
been noted for its irrelevancy to anything 
connected with collars. At night she re 
turned home to her mother. 

Jimmie grew large enough to take the 
vague position of head of the family. As in 
cumbent of that office, he stumbled upstairs 
late at night, as his father had done before 
him. He reeled about the room, swearing at 
his relations, or went to sleep on the floor. 

The mother had gradually arisen to such a 
degree of fame that she could bandy words 
with her acquaintances among the police jus 
tices. Court officials called her by her first 
name. When she appeared they pursued a 



40 MAGGIE. 

course which had been theirs for months. 
They invariably grinned, and cried out, 
" Hello, Mary, you here again ? " Her gray 
head wagged in many courts. She always be 
sieged the bench with voluble excuses, ex 
planations, apologies, and prayers. Her flam 
ing face and rolling eyes were a familiar sight 
on the island. She measured time by means 
of sprees, and was eternally swollen and di 
shevelled. 

One day the young man Pete, who as a 
lad had smitten the Devil's Row urchin in the 
back of the head and put to flight the antag 
onists of his friend Jimmie, strutted upon the 
scene. He met Jimmie one day on the street, 
promised to take him to a boxing match in 
Williamsburg, and called for him in the 
evening. 

Maggie observed Pete. 

He sat on a table in the Johnson home, and 
dangled his checked legs with an enticing 
nonchalance. His hair was curled down over 
his forehead in an oiled bang. His pugged 



MAGGIE. 4I 

nose seemed to revolt from contact with a 
bristling mustache of short, wirelike hairs. 
His blue double-breasted coat, edged with 
black braid, was buttoned close to a red puff 
tie, and his patent leather shoes looked like 
weapons. 

His mannerisms stamped him as a man 
who had a correct sense of his personal supe 
riority. There was valour and contempt for 
circumstances in the glance of his eye. He 
waved his hands like a man of the world who 
dismisses religion and philosophy, and says 
" Rats ! " He had certainly seen everything, 
and with each curl of his lip he declared that 
it amounted to nothing. Maggie thought he 
must be a very " elegant " bartender. 

He was telling tales to Jimmie. 

Maggie watched him furtively, with half- 
closed eyes, lit with a vague interest. 

" Hully gee ! Dey makes me tired," he 
said. " Mos' e'ry day some farmer comes in 
an' tries t' run d' shop. See? But d' gits 
t'rowed right out. I jolt dem right out in 



42 MAGGIE. 

d' street before dey knows where dey is. 
See?" 

" Sure," said Jimmie. 

" Dere was a mug come in d' place d' 
odder day wid an idear he wus goin' t' own 
d' place. Hully gee ! he wus goin' t' own d' 
place. I see he had a still on, an' I didn' 
wanna giv 'im no stuff, so I says, ' Git outa 
here an' don' make no trouble,' I says like 
dat. See? ' Git outa here an' don' make no 
trouble ; ' like dat. ' Git outa here,' I says. 
See?" 

Jimmie nodded understandingly. Over 
his features played an eager desire to state the 
amount of his valour in a similar crisis, but 
the narrator proceeded. 

"Well, deh blokie he says: ' T' blazes 
wid it ! I ain' lookin' for no scrap,' he says 
see ? ' but,' he says, ' I'm 'spectable cit'zen an' 
I wanna drink, an' quick, too.' See? ' Aw, 
goahn!' I says, like dat. 'Aw, goahn,' I 
says. See ? * Don' make no trouble,' I says, 
like dat. 'Don' make no trouble.' See? 



MAGGIE. 



43 



Den d' mug he squared off an* said he was 
fine as silk wid his dukes see ? an' he wanned 
a drink quick. Dat's what he said. See ? " 

" Sure," repeated Jimmie. 

Pete continued. "Say, I jes' jumped d' 
bar, an' d' way I plunked dat blokie was outa 
sight. See? Dat's right! In d' jaw ! See? 
Hully gee ! he t'rowed a spittoon true d' front 
windee. Say, I taut I'd drop dead. But d' 
boss, he comes in after, an' he says : * Pete, 
yens done jes' right ! Yeh've gota keep order, 
an' it's all right.' See ? < It's all right,' he 
says. Dat's what he said." 

The two held a technical discussion. 

" Dat bloke was a dandy," said Pete, in 
conclusion, " but he hadn' oughta made no 
trouble. Dat's what I says t' dem : ' Don' 
come in here an* make no trouble,' I says, like 
dat. 'Don' make no trouble.' See?" 

As Jimmie and his friend exchanged tales 
descriptive of their prowess, Maggie leaned 
back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonder- 
ingly and rather wistfully upon Pete's face. 

4 



44 MAGGIE. 

The broken furniture, grimy walls, and gen 
eral disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden 
appeared before her and began to take a po 
tential aspect. Pete's aristocratic person 
looked as if it might soil. She looked keenly 
at him, occasionally wondering if he was 
feeling contempt. But Pete seemed to be 
enveloped in reminiscence. 

" Hully gee ! " said he, " dose mugs can't 
phase me. Dey knows I kin wipe up d' street 
wid any tree of dem." 

When he said, "Ah, what d' h 1 ! " his 
voice was burdened with disdain for the inevi 
table and contempt for anything that fate 
might compel him to endure. 

Maggie perceived that here was the ideal 
man. Her dim thoughts were often searching 
for far away lands where the little hills sing 
together in the morning. Under the trees of 
her dream-gardens there had always walked a 
lover. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PETE took note of Maggie. 

"Say, Mag, I'm stuck on yer shape. It's 
outa sight," he said, parenthetically, with an 
affable grin. 

As he became aware that she was listen 
ing closely, he grew still more eloquent in 
his descriptions of various happenings in his 
career. It appeared that he was invincible in 
fights. 

" Why," he said, referring to a man with 
whom he had had a misunderstanding, " dat 
mug scrapped like a dago. Dat's right. He 
was dead easy. See? He tau't he was a 
scrapper. But he foun' out diff ent. Hully 
gee!" 

He walked to and fro in the small room, 

which seemed then to grow even smaller 
45 



46 MAGGIE, 

and unfit to hold his dignity, the attribute 
of a supreme warrior. That swing of the 
shoulders which had frozen the timid when he 
was but a lad had increased with his growth 
and education in the ratio of ten to one. It, 
combihed with the sneer upon his mouth, told 
mankind that there was nothing in space 
which could appall him. Maggie marvelled 
at him and surrounded him with greatness. 
She vaguely tried to calculate the altitude 
of the pinnacle from which he must have 
looked down upon her. 

" I met a chump deh odder day way up in 
deh city," he said. " I was goin' teh see a 
frien' of mine. When I was a-crossin' deh 
street deh chump runned plump inteh me, 
an* den he turns aroun' an' says, ' Yer insolen* 
ruffin ! ' he says, like dat. ' Oh, gee ! ' I says, 
' oh, gee ! git off d' eart' ! ' I says, like dat. 
See ? ' Git off d' eart' ! ' like dat. Den deh 
blokie he got wild. He says I was a con- 
tempt'ble scoun'el, er somethin' like dat, an' 
he says I was doom' teh everlastin' pe'dition, 



MAGGIE. 47 

er somethin' like dat. ' Gee ! ' I says, ' gee ! 
Yer joshin' me,' I says. ' Yer joshin' me.' An* 
den I slugged 'im. See?" 

With Jimmie in his company, Pete de 
parted in a sort of a blaze of glory from the 
Johnson home. Maggie, leaning from the 
window, watched him as iie walked down the 
street. 

Here was a formidable man who disdained 
the strength of a world full of fists. Here 
was one who had contempt for brass-clothed 
power; one whose knuckles could ring de 
fiantly against the granite of law. He was a 
knight. 

The two men went from under the glim 
mering street lamp and passed into shadows. 

Turning, Maggie contemplated the dark, 
dust-stained walls, and the scant and crude 
furniture of her home. A clock, in a splin 
tered and battered oblong box of varnished 
wood, she suddenly regarded as an abomina 
tion. She noted that it ticked raspingly. 
The almost vanished flowers in the carpet 



48 MAGGIE. 

pattern, she conceived to be newly hideous. 
Some faint attempts which she had made with 
blue ribbon to freshen the appearance of a 
dingy curtain, she now saw to be piteous. 

She wondered what Pete dined on. 

She reflected upon the collar-and-cuff fac 
tory. It began to appear to her mind as a 
dreary place of endless grinding. Pete's ele 
gant occupation brought him, no doubt, into 
contact with people who had money and man 
ners. It was probable that he had a large 
acquaintance with pretty girls. He must 
have great sums of money to spend. 

To her the earth was composed of hard 
ships and insults. She felt instant admiration 
for a man who openly defied it. She thought 
that if the grim angel of death should clutch 
his heart, Pete would shrug his shoulders and 
say, " Oh, ev'ryt'ing goes." 

She anticipated that he would come again 
shortly. She spent some of her week's pay 
in the purchase of flowered cretonne for a 
lambrequin. She made it with infinite care, 



MAGGIE. 



49 



and hung it to the slightly careening mantel 
over the stove in the kitchen. She studied it 
with painful anxiety from different points in 
the room. She wanted it to look well on 
Sunday night when, perhaps, Jimmie's friend 
would come. On Sunday night, however, 
Pete did not appear. 

Afterward the girl looked at it with a 
sense of humiliation. She was now con 
vinced that Pete was superior to admiration 
for lambrequins. 

A few evenings later Pete entered with 
fascinating innovations in his apparel. As she 
had seen him twice and he wore a different 
suit each time, Maggie had a dim impression 
that his wardrobe was prodigious. 

" Say, Mag," he said, " put on yer bes' 
duds Friday night an' I'll take yehs t' d* 
show. See?" 

He spent a few moments in flourishing his 
clothes, and then vanished without having 
glanced at the lambrequin. 

Over the eternal collars and cuffs in the 



5Q MAGGIE. 

factory Maggie spent the most of three days 
in making imaginary sketches of Pete and his 
daily environment. She imagined some half 
dozen women in love with him, and thought 
he must lean dangerously toward an indefi 
nite one, whom she pictured as endowed 
with great charms of person, but with an alto 
gether contemptible disposition. 

She thought he must live in a blare of 
pleasure. He had friends and people who 
were afraid of him. 

She saw the golden glitter of the place 
where Pete was to take her. It would be 
an entertainment of many hues and many 
melodies, where she was afraid she might ap 
pear small and mouse coloured. 

Her mother drank whisky all Friday 
morning. With lurid face and tossing hair 
she cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday 
afternoon. When Maggie came home at half- 
past six her mother lay asleep amid the 
wreck of chairs and a table. Fragments of 
various household utensils were scattered 



MAGGIE. 5 1 

about the floor. She had vented some phase 
of drunken fury upon the lambrequin. It lay 
in a bedraggled heap in the corner. 

*' Hah ! " she snorted, sitting up suddenly, 
"where yeh been? Why don' yeh come 
home earlier? Been loafin' 'round d' streets. 
Yer gettin' t' be a reg'lar devil." 

When Pete arrived Maggie, in a worn 
black dress, was waiting for him in the midst 
of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain 
at the window had been pulled by a heavy 
hand and hung by one tack, dangling to and 
fro in the draught through the cracks at the 
sash. The knots of blue ribbons appeared 
like violated flowers. The fire in the stove 
had gone out. The displaced lids and open 
doors showed heaps of sullen gray ashes. 
The remnants of a meal, ghastly, lay in a cor 
ner. Maggie's mother, stretched on the floor, 
blasphemed and gave her daughter a bad 
name. 



CHAPTER VII. 

AN orchestra of yellow silk women and 
bald-headed men, on an elevated stage near 
the centre of a great green-hued hall, played 
a popular waltz. The place was crowded 
with people grouped about little tables. A 
battalion of waiters slid among the throng, 
carrying trays of beer glasses and making 
change from the inexhaustible vaults of their 
trousers pockets. Little boys, in the cos 
tumes of French chefs, paraded up and down 
the irregular aisles vending fancy cakes. 
There was a low rumble of conversation and 
a subdued clinking of glasses. Clouds of to 
bacco smoke rolled and wavered high in air 
about the dull gilt of the chandeliers. 

The vast crowd had an air throughout of 
having just quitted labour. Men with cal- 
52 



MAGGIE. 



53 



loused hands, and attired in garments that 
showed the wear of an endless drudging for 
a living, smoked their pipes contentedly and 
spent five, ten, or perhaps fifteen cents for 
beer. There was a mere sprinkling of men 
who smoked cigars purchased elsewhere. 
The great body of the crowd was composed 
of people who showed that all day they strove 
with their hands. Quiet Germans, with may 
be their wives and two or three children, sat 
listening to the music, with the expressions 
of happy cows. An occasional party of sail 
ors from a war ship, their faces pictures of 
sturdy health, spent the earlier hours of the 
evening at the small round tables. Very in 
frequent tipsy men, swollen with the value 
of their opinions, engaged their companions in 
earnest and confidential conversation. In the 
balcony, and here and there below, shone the 
impassive faces of women. The nationalities 
of the Bowery beamed upon the stage from 
all directions. 

Pete walked aggressively up a side aisle 



54 MAGGIE. 

and took seats with Maggie at a table be 
neath the balcony. 

" Two beehs ! " 

Leaning back, he regarded with eyes of 
superiority the scene before them. This atti 
tude affected Maggie strongly. A man who 
- could regard such a sight with indifference 
must be accustomed to very great things. 

It was obvious that Pete had visited this 
place many times before, and was very fami 
liar with it. -A knowledge of this fact made 
Maggie feel little and new. 

He was extremely gracious and attentive. 
He displayed the consideration of a cultured 
gentleman who knew what was due. 

" Say, what's eatin' yeh ? Bring d' lady 
a big glass ! What use is dat pony ? " 

" Don't be fresh, now," said the waiter, 
with some warmth, as he departed. 

" Ah, git off d' eart' ! " said Pete, after the 
other's retreating form, 

Maggie perceived that Pete brought forth 
all his elegance and all his knowledge of 



MAGGIE. 55 

high-class customs for her benefit. Her heart 
warmed as she reflected upon his condescen 
sion. 

The orchestra of yellow silk women and 
bald-headed men gave vent to a few bars of 
anticipatory music, and a girl, in a pink dress 
with short skirts, galloped upon the stage. 
She smiled upon the throng as if in acknowl 
edgment of a warm welcome, and began to 
walk to and fro, making profuse gesticulations, 
and singing, in brazen soprano tones, a song 
the words of which were inaudible. When 
she broke into the swift rattling measures of 
a chorus some half-tipsy men near the stage 
joined in the rollicking refrain, and glasses 
were pounded rhythmically upon the tables. 
People leaned forward to watch her and to 
try to catch the words of the song. When 
she vanished there were long rollings of ap 
plause. 

Obedient to more anticipatory bars, she 
reappeared amid the half-suppressed cheer 
ing of the tipsy men. The orchestra plunged 



56 MAGGIE. 

into dance music, and the laces of the dancer 
fluttered and flew in the glare of gas jets. 
She divulged the fact that she was attired in 
some half dozen skirts. It was patent that 
any one of them would have proved ade 
quate for the purpose for which skirts are in 
tended. An occasional man bent forward, in 
tent upon the pink stockings. Maggie won 
dered at the splendour of the costume and lost 
herself in calculations of the cost of the silks 
and laces. 

The dancer's smile of enthusiasm was 
turned for ten minutes upon the faces of her 
audience. In the finale she fell into some of 
those grotesque attitudes which were at the 
time popular among the dancers in the the 
atres uptown, giving to the Bowery public 
the diversions of the aristocratic theatre-going 
public at reduced rates. 

" Say, Pete," said Maggie, leaning forward, 
" dis is great." 

"Sure!" said Pete, with proper compla 
cence. 



MAGGIE. 57 

A ventriloquist followed the dancer. He 
held two fantastic dolls on his knees. He 
made them sing mournful ditties and say 
funny things about geography and Ireland. 

" Do dose little men talk ? " asked Mag 
gie. 

" Naw," said Pete, " it's some big jolly. 
See?" 

Two girls, set down on the bills as sisters, 
came forth and sang a duet which is heard 
occasionally at concerts given under church 
auspices. They supplemented it with a dance, 
which, of course, can never be seen at con 
certs given under church auspices. 

After they had retired, a woman of debata 
ble age sang a negro melody. The chorus 
necessitated some grotesque waddlings sup 
posed to be an imitation of a plantation 
darky, under the influence, probably, of music 
and the moon. The audience was just enthu 
siastic enough over it to have her return and 
sing a sorrowful lay, whose lines told of a 
mother's love, and a sweetheart who waited, 



58 MAGGIE. 

and a young man who was lost at sea under 
harrowing circumstances. From the faces of 
a score or so in the crowd the self-contained 
look faded. Many heads were bent forward 
with eagerness and sympathy. As the last 
distressing sentiment of the piece was brought 
forth, it was greeted by the kind of applause 
which rings as sincere. 

As a final effort, the singer rendered some 
verses which described a vision of Britain an 
nihilated by America, and Ireland bursting 
her bonds. A carefully prepared climax was 
reached in the last line of the last verse, when 
the singer threw out her arms and cried, 
" The star-spangled banner." Instantly a 
great cheer swelled from the throats of this 
assemblage of the masses, most of them of 
foreign birth. There was a heavy rumble 
of booted feet thumping the floor. Eyes 
gleamed with sudden fire, and calloused 
hands waved frantically in the air. 

After a few moments' rest, the orchestra 
played noisily, and a small fat man burst out 



MAGGIE. 



59 



upon the stage. He began to roar a song and 
to stamp back and forth before the footlights, 
wildly waving a silk hat and throwing leers 
broadcast. He made his face into fantastic 
grimaces until he looked like a devil on a Jap 
anese kite. The crowd laughed gleefully. 
His short, fat legs were never still a moment. 
He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock 
of red wig until the audience broke out in ex 
cited applause. 

Pete did not pay much attention to the 
progress of events upon the stage. He was 
drinking beer and watching Maggie. 

Her cheeks were blushing with excitement 
and her eyes were glistening. She drew deep 
breaths of pleasure. No thoughts of the at 
mosphere of the collar-and-cuff factory came 
to her. 

With the final crash of the orchestra they 
jostled their way to the sidewalk in the 
crowd. Pete took Maggie's arm and pushed 
a way for her, offering to fight with a man or 
two. They reached Maggie's home at a late 



60 MAGGIE. 

hour and stood for a moment in front of the 
gruesome doorway. 

" Say, Mag," said Pete, " give us a kiss for 
takin* yeh t' d' show, will yer ? " 

Maggie laughed, as if startled, and drew 
away from him. 

" Naw, Pete," she said, "dat wasn't in it." 

" Ah, why wasn't it ? " urged Pete. 

The girl retreated nervously. 

" Ah, go ahn ! " repeated he. 

Maggie darted into the hall, and up the 
stairs. She turned and smiled at him, then 
disappeared. 

Pete walked slowly down the street. He 
had something of an astonished expression 
upon his features. He paused under a lamp 
post and breathed a low breath of surprise. 

" Gee ! " he said, " I wonner if I've been 
played fer a duffer." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

As thoughts of Pete came to Maggie's 
mind, she began to have an intense dislike for 
all of her dresses. 

" What ails yeh ? What makes ye be allus 
fixin' and fussin'?" her mother would fre 
quently roar at her. 

She began to note with more interest the 
well-dressed women she met on the avenues. 
She envied elegance and soft palms. She 
craved those adornments of person which she 
saw every day on the street, conceiving them 
to be allies of vast importance to women. 

Studying faces, she thought many of the 
women and girls she chanced to meet smiled 
with serenity as though forever cherished and 
watched over by those they loved. 

The air in the collar-and-cuff establishment 

61 



62 MAGGIE. 

strangled her. She knew she was gradually 
and surely shrivelling in the hot, stuffy room. 
The begrimed windows rattled incessantly 
from the passing of elevated trains. The 
place was filled with a whirl of noises and 
odours. 

She became lost in thought as she looked 
at some of the grizzled women in the room, 
mere mechanical contrivances sewing seams 
and grinding out, with heads bent over their 
work, tales of imagined or real girlhood hap 
piness, or of past drunks, or the baby at home, 
and unpaid wages. She wondered how long 
her youth would endure. She began to see 
the bloom upon her cheeks as something of 
value. 

She imagined herself, in an exasperating 
future, as a scrawny woman with an eternal 
grievance. She thought Pete to be a very 
fastidious person concerning the appearance 
of women. 

She felt that she should love to see some 
body entangle their fingers in the oily beard 



MAGGIE. 63 

of the fat foreigner who owned the establish 
ment. He was a detestable creature. He 
wore white socks with low shoes. He sat all 
day delivering orations in the depths of a 
cushioned chair. His pocketbook deprived 
them of the power of retort. 

" What do you sink I pie fife dolla a week 
for? Play? No, py tamn ! " 

Maggie was anxious for a friend to whom 
she could talk about Pete. She would have 
liked to discuss his admirable mannerisms with 
a reliable mutual friend. At home, she found 
her mother often drunk and always raving. 
It seemed that the world had treated this 
woman very badly, and she took a deep re 
venge upon such portions of it as came within 
her reach. She broke furniture as if she were 
at last getting her rights. She swelled with 
virtuous indignation as she carried the lighter 
articles of household use, one by one, under 
the shadows of the three gilt balls, where 
Hebrews chained them with chains of in 
terest. 



64 MAGGIE. 

Jimmie came when he was obliged to by 
circumstances over which he had no control. 
His well-trained legs brought him stagger 
ing home and put him to bed some nights 
when he would rather have gone elsewhere. 

Swaggering Pete loomed like a golden 
sun to Maggie. He took her to a dime 
museum where rows of meek freaks aston 
ished her. She contemplated their deform 
ities with awe and thought them a sort of 
chosen tribe. 

Pete, racking his brains for amusement, 
discovered the Central Park Menagerie and 
the Museum of Arts. Sunday afternoons 
would sometimes find them at these places. 
Pete did not appear to be particularly in 
terested in what he saw. He stood around 
looking heavy, while Maggie giggled in 
glee. 

Once at the menagerie he went into a 
trance of admiration before the spectacle of 
a very small monkey threatening to thrash a 
cageful because one of them had pulled his 



MAGGIE. 65 

tail and he had not wheeled about quickly 
enough to discover who did it. Ever after 
Pete knew that monkey by sight and winked 
at him, trying to induce him to fight with 
other and larger monkeys. 

At the museum, Maggie said, " Dis is outa 
sight ! " 

"Aw, rats!" said Pete; "wait till next 
summer an' I'll take yehs to a picnic." 

While the girl wandered in the vaulted 
rooms, Pete occupied himself in returning 
stony stare for stony stare, the appalling 
scrutiny of the watchdogs of the treasures. 
Occasionally he would remark in loud tones, 
" Dat jay has got glass eyes," and sentences of 
the sort. When he tired of this amusement 
he would go to the mummies and moralize 
over them. 

Usually he submitted with silent dignity 
to all that he had to go through, but at times 
he was goaded into comment. 

"Aw!" he demanded once. "Look at all 
dese little jugs ! Hundred jugs in a row ! 



66 MAGGIE. 

Ten rows in a case, an' 'bout a t'ousand 
cases ! What d' blazes use is dem ? " 

In the evenings of week days he often 
took her to see plays in which the dazzling 
heroine was rescued from the palatial home 
of her treacherous guardian by the hero with 
the beautiful sentiments. The latter spent 
most of his time out at soak in pale-green 
snow storms, busy with a nickel-plated re 
volver rescuing aged strangers from vil 
lains. 

Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the 
wanderers swooning in snow storms beneath 
happy-hued church windows, while a choir 
within sang " Joy to the World." To Maggie 
and the rest of the audience this was tran 
scendental realism. Joy always within, and 
they, like the actor, inevitably without. 
Viewing it, they hugged themselves in 
ecstatic pity of their imagined or real con 
dition. 

The girl thought the arrogance and gran- 
ite-heartedness of the magnate of the play 



MAGGIE. 67 

were very accurately drawn. She echoed 
the maledictions that the occupants of the 
gallery showered on this individual when his 
lines compelled him to expose his extreme 
selfishness. 

Shady persons in the audience revolted 
from the pictured villainy of the drama. 
With untiring zeal they hissed vice and ap 
plauded virtue. Unmistakably bad men 
evinced an apparently sincere admiration 
for virtue. The loud gallery was over 
whelmingly with the unfortunate and the op 
pressed. They encouraged the struggling 
hero with cries, and jeered the villain, hoot 
ing and calling attention to his whiskers. 
When anybody died in the pale-green snow 
storms, the gallery mourned. They sought 
out the painted misery and hugged it as 
akin. 

In the hero's erratic march from poverty 
in the first act, to wealth and triumph in the 
final one, in which he forgives all the enemies 
that he has left, he was assisted by the gallery, 



68 MAGGIE. 

which applauded his generous and noble senti 
ments and confounded the speeches of his op 
ponents by making irrelevant but very sharp 
remarks. Those actors who were cursed 
with the parts of villains were confronted at 
every turn by the gallery. If one of them 
rendered lines containing the most subtile 
distinctions between right and wrong, the gal 
lery was immediately aware that the actor 
meant wickedness, and denounced him ac 
cordingly. 

The last act was a triumph for the hero, 
poor and of the masses, the representative of 
the audience, over the villain and the rich 
man, his pockets stuffed with bonds, his heart 
packed with tyrannical purposes, imperturb 
able amid suffering. 

Maggie always departed with raised spirits 
from these melodramas. She rejoiced at the 
way in which the poor and virtuous eventu 
ally overcame the wealthy and wicked. The 
theatre made her think. She wondered if the 
culture and refinement she had seen imitated, 



MAGGIE. 69 

perhaps grotesquely, by the heroine on the 
stage, could be acquired by a girl who lived 
in a tenement house and worked in a shirt 
factory. 



CHAPTER IX. 

A GROUP of urchins were intent upon the 
side door of a saloon. Expectancy gleamed 
from their eyes. They were twisting their 
fingers in excitement. 

" Here she comes ! " yelled one of them 
suddenly. 

The group of urchins burst instantly asun 
der and its individual fragments were spread 
in a wide, respectable half circle about the 
point of interest. The saloon door opened 
with a crash, and the figure of a woman ap 
peared upon the threshold. Her gray hair 
fell in knotted masses about her shoulders. 
Her face was crimsoned and wet with per 
spiration. Her eyes had a rolling glare. 

'* Not a cent more of me money will yehs 

ever get not a red ! I spent me money here 
70 



MAGGIE. ji 

fer free years, an' now yehs tells me yeh'll sell 
me no more stuff ! Go fall on yerself, John 
nie Murckre ! ' Disturbance ? ' Disturbance 
be blowed ! Go fall on yerself, John- 
nie ' 

The door received a kick of exasperation 
from within, and the woman lurched heavily 
out on the sidewalk. 

The gamins in the half circle became vio 
lently agitated. They began to dance about 
and hoot and yell and jeer. A wide dirty 
grin spread over each face. 

The woman made a furious dash at a par 
ticularly outrageous cluster of little boys. 
They laughed delightedly, and scampered off 
a short distance, calling out to her over their 
shoulders. She stood tottering on the curb 
stone and thundered at them. 

<f Yeh devil's kids!" she howled, shaking 
her fists. The little boys whooped in glee. 
As she started up the street they fell in be 
hind and marched uproariously. Occasion 
ally she wheeled about and made charges on 



72 MAGGIE. 

them. They ran nimbly out of reach and 
taunted her. 

In the frame of a gruesome doorway she 
stood for a moment cursing them. Her hair 
straggled, giving her red features a look of in 
sanity. Her great fists quivered as she shook 
them madly in the air. 

The urchins made terrific noises until she 
turned and disappeared. Then they filed off 
quietly in the way they had come. 

The woman floundered about in the lower 
hall of the tenement house, and finally stum 
bled up the stairs. On an upper hall a door 
was opened and a collection of heads peered 
curiously out, watching her. With a wrath 
ful snort the woman confronted the door, but 
it was slammed hastily in her face and the key 
was turned. 

She stood for a few minutes, delivering a 
frenzied challenge at the panels. 

" Come out in deh hall, Mary Murphy, if 
yehs want a scrap ! Come ahn ! yeh over 
grown terrier, come ahn ! " 



MAGGIE. j2 

She began to kick the door. She shrilly 
defied the universe to appear and do battle. 
Her cursing trebles brought heads from all 
doors save the one she threatened. Her eyes 
glared in every direction. The air was full of 
her tossing fists. 

" Come ahn ! deh hull gang of yehs, come 
ahn ! " she roared at the spectators. An oath 
or two, catcalls, jeers, and bits of facetious ad 
vice were given in reply. Missiles clattered 
about her feet. 

" What's wrong wi' che ? " said a voice in 
the gathered gloom, and Jimmie came for 
ward. He carried a tin dinner pail in his 
hand and under his arm a truckman's brown 
apron done in a bundle. " What's wrong ? " 
he demanded. 

" Come out ! all of yehs, come out," his 
mother was howling. " Come ahn an' I'll 
stamp yer faces tru d' floor." 

" Shet yer face, an' come home, yeh old 
fool ! " roared Jimmie at her. She strode up 
to him and twirled her fingers in his face. 



74 MAGGIE. 

Her eyes were darting flames of unreasoning 
rage and her frame trembled with eagerness 
for a fight. 

" An' who are youse? I ain't givin' a 
snap of me fingers fer youse ! " she bawled at 
him. She turned her huge back in tremen 
dous disdain and climbed the stairs to the 
next floor. 

Jimmie followed, and at the top of the 
flight he seized his mother's arm and started 
to drag her toward the door of their room. 

" Come home ! " he gritted between his 
teeth. 

" Take yer hands off me ! Take yer hands 
off me ! " shrieked his mother. 

She raised her arm and whirled her great 
fist at her son's face. Jimmie dodged his head 
and the blow struck him in the back of the 
neck. " Come home ! " he gritted again. He 
threw out his left hand and writhed his 
fingers about her middle arm. The mother 
and the son began to sway and struggle like 
gladiators. 



MAGGIE. 



75 



" Whoop ! " said the Rum Alley tenement 
house. The hall filled with interested spec 
tators. 

" Hi, ol* lady, dat was a dandy ! " 

" Tree t' one on d' red ! " 

" Ah, quit yer scrappin' ! " 

The door of the Johnson home opened and 
Maggie looked out. Jimmie made a supreme 
cursing effort and hurled his mother into the 
room. He quickly followed and closed the 
door. The Rum Alley tenement swore disap 
pointedly and retired. 

The mother slowly gathered herself up 
from the floor. Her eyes glittered menac 
ingly upon her children. 

" Here now," said Jimmie, " we've had 
enough of dis. Sit down, an* don' make no 
trouble." 

He grasped her arm, and twisting it, 
forced her into a creaking chair. 

" Keep yer hands off me ! " roared his 
mother again. 

" Say, yeh ol' bat ! Quit dat ! " yelled Jim- 

6 



76 MAGGIE. 

mie, madly. Maggie shrieked and ran into 
the other room. To her there came the sound 
of a storm of crashes and curses. There was 
a great final thump and Jimmie's voice cried : 
" Dere, now ! Stay still." Maggie opened 
the door now, and went warily out. 4< Oh, 
Jimmie ! " 

He was leaning against the wall and 
swearing. Blood stood upon bruises on his 
knotty forearms where they had scraped 
against the floor or the walls in the scuffle. 
The mother lay screeching on the floor, the 
tears running down her furrowed face. 

Maggie, standing in the middle of the 
room, gazed about her. The usual upheaval 
of the tables and chairs had taken place. 
Crockery was strewn broadcast in fragments. 
The stove had been disturbed on its legs, and 
now leaned idiotically to one side. A pail had 
been upset and water spread in all directions. 

The door opened and Pete appeared. He 
shrugged his shoulders. " Oh, gee ! " he ob 
served. 



MAGGIE. 



77 



He walked over to Maggie and whispered 
in her ear : " Ah, what d' h 1, Mag? Come 
ahn and we'll have a out-a-sight time." 

The mother in the corner upreared her 
head and shook her tangled locks. 

" Aw, yer bote no good, needer of yehs," 
she said, glowering at her daughter in the 
gloom. Her eyes seemed to burn balefully. 
u Yeh've gone t' d' devil, Mag Johnson, yehs 
knows yehs have gone t' d' devil. Yer a dis 
grace t' yer people. An' now, git out an' go 
ahn wid dat doe-faced jude of yours. Go wid 
him, curse yeh, an' a good riddance. Go, an' 
see how yeh likes it." 

Maggie gazed long at her mother. 

" Go now, an' see how yeh likes it. Git 
out. I won't have sech as youse in me house ! 
Git out, d'yeh hear! D n yeh, git out!" 

The girl began to tremble. 

At this instant Pete came forward. " Oh, 
what d' h 1, Mag, see," whispered he softly 
in her ear. " Dis all blows over. See ? D' 
oF woman 'ill be all right in d' mornin'. 



78 MAGGIE. 

Come ahn out wid me ! We'll have a out-a- 
sight time." 

The woman on the floor cursed. Jimmie 
was intent upon his bruised forearms. The 
girl cast a glance about the room filled with 
a chaotic mass of debris, and at the writhing 
body of her mother. 

" Git th f devil outa here." 

Maggie went. 



CHAPTER X. 

JIMMIE had an idea it wasn't common cour 
tesy for a friend to come to one's home and 
ruin one's sister. But he was not sure how 
much Pete knew about the rules of polite 
ness. 

The following night he returned home 
from work at a rather late hour in the even 
ing. In passing through the halls he came 
upon the gnarled and leathery old woman 
who possessed the music box. She was grin 
ning in the dim light that drifted through 
dust-stained panes. She beckoned to him 
with a smudged forefinger. 

" Ah, Jimmie, what do yehs t'ink I tumbled 
to, las' night? It was deh funnies' t'ing I ever 
saw," she cried, coming close to him and leer 
ing. She was trembling with eagerness to tell 
.79 



80 MAGGIE. 

her tale. ' I was by me door las' night when 
yer sister and her jude feller came in late, oh, 
very late. An* she, the dear, she was a-cryin' 
as if her heart would break, she was. It was 
deh funnies' t'ing I ever saw. An' right out 
here by me door she asked him did he love 
her, did he. An* she was a-cryin' as if her 
heart would break, poor t'ing. An' him, I 
could see be deh way what he said it 
dat she had been askin' orften, he says, 
' Oh, gee, yes/ he says, says he, ' Oh, gee, 
yes.' " 

Storm clouds swept over Jimmie's face, 
but he turned from the leathery old woman 
and plodded on upstairs. 

" Oh, gee, yes," she called after him. She 
laughed a laugh that was like a prophetic 
croak. 

There was no one in at home. The rooms 
showed that attempts had been made at tidy 
ing them. Parts of the wreckage of the day 
before had been repaired by an unskillful 
hand. A chair or two and the table stood 



MAGGIE. 8 1 

uncertainly upon legs. The floor had been 
newly swept. The blue ribbons had been re 
stored to the curtains, and the lambrequin, 
with its immense sheaves of yellow wheat and 
red roses of equal size, had been returned, in 
a worn and sorry state, to its place at the 
mantel. Maggie's jacket and hat were gone 
from the nail behind the door. 

Jimmie walked to the window and began 
to look through the blurred glass. It oc 
curred to him to wonder vaguely, for an in 
stant, if some of the women of his acquaint 
ance had brothers. 

Suddenly, however, he began to swear. 

" But he was me frien' ! I brought 'im 
here ! Dat's d' devil of it ! " 

He fumed about the room, his anger grad 
ually rising to the furious pitch. 

" I'll kill deh jay ! Dat's what I'll do ! I'll 
kill deh jay ! " 

He clutched his hat and sprang toward the 
door. But it opened and his mother's great 
form blocked the passage. 



82 MAGGIE. 

" What's d' matter wid yeh ? " exclaimed 
she, coming into the rooms. 

Jimmie gave vent to a sardonic curse and 
then laughed heavily. 

" Well, Maggie's gone teh d' devil ! Dat's 
what! See?" 

" Eh ? " said his mother. 

" Maggie's gone teh d' devil ! Are yehs 
deaf?" roared Jimmie, impatiently. 

" Aw, git out ! " murmured the mother, as 
tounded. 

Jimmie grunted, and then began to stare 
out of the window. His mother sat down 
in a chair, but a moment later sprang erect 
and delivered a maddened whirl of oaths. 
Her son turned to look at her as she 
reeled and swayed in the middle of the 
room, her fierce face convulsed with pas 
sion, her blotched arms raised high in im 
precation. 

" May she be cursed forever ! " she shrieked. 
" May she eat nothin' but stones and deh dirt 
in deh street. May she sleep in deh gutter 



MAGGIE. 83 

an' never see deh sun shine again. D' bloom- 



in- 



" Here, now," said her son. " Go fall on 
yerself, an* quit dat." 

The mother raised lamenting eyes to the 
ceiling. 

" She's d' devil's own chil', Jimmie," she 
whispered. " Ah, who would tink such a 
bad girl could grow up in our fambly, Jim 
mie, me son. Many d' hour I've spent in 
talk wid dat girl an' tol' her if she ever 

went on d' streets I'd see her d d. An' 

after all her bringin' up an' what I tol' her 
and talked wid her, she goes teh d' bad, like 
a duck teh water." 

The tears rolled down her furrowed face. 
Her hands trembled. 

" An' den when dat Sadie MacMallister 
next door to us was sent teh d' devil by dat 
feller what worked in d' soap factory, didn't 
I tell our Mag dat if she " 

" Ah, dat's anudder story," interrupted 
the brother. " Of course, dat Sadie was 



84 MAGGIE. 

nice an' all dat but see it ain't dessame 
as if well, Maggie was diffent see she 
was diff'ent." 

He was trying to formulate a theory that 
he had always unconsciously held, that all 
sisters, excepting his own, could, advisedly, 
be ruined. 

He suddenly broke out again. " I'll go 
t'ump d' mug what done her d' harm. I'll 
kill 'im ! He tinks he kin scrap, but when 
he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where 
he's wrong, d' big stuff! I'll wipe up d' street 
wid 'im." 

In a fury he plunged out of the doorway. 
As he vanished the mother raised her head 
and lifted both hands, entreating. 

" May she be cursed forever ! " she 
cried. 

In the darkness of the hallway Jimmie dis 
cerned a knot of women talking volubly. 
When he strode by they paid no attention to 
him. 

" She allus was a bold thing," he heard one 



MAGGIE. 85 

of them cry in an eager voice. " Dere wasn't 
a feller come teh deh house but she'd try teh 
mash 'im. My Annie says deh shameless t'ing 
tried teh ketch her feller, her own feller, what 
we useter know his fader." 

" I could a' tol' yehs dis two years ago," 
said a woman, in a key of triumph. " Yes sir, 
it was over two years ago dat I says teh my 
ol' man, I says, ' Dat Johnson girl ain't 
straight/ I says. ' Oh, rats ! ' he says. ' Oh, 
h 1 ! ' ' Dat's all right/ I says, ' but I know 
what I knows/ I says, 'an' it'ill come out 
later. You wait an' see/ I says, ' you see.' " 

" Anybody what had eyes could see dat 
dere was somethin' wrong wid dat girl. I 
didn't like her actions." 

On the street Jimmie met a friend. 
" What's wrong ? " asked the latter. 

Jimmie explained. " An' I'll tump 'im till 
he can't stand." 

" Oh, go ahn ! " said the friend. " What's 
deh use ! Yeh'll git pulled in ! Everybody 
'ill be onto it ! An' ten plunks ! Gee ! " 



86 MAGGIE. 

Jimmie was determined. " He t'inks he 
kin scrap, but he'll fin' out diffent." 

" Gee ! " remonstrated the friend, " what's 
d' use?" 



CHAPTER XL 

ON a corner a glass-fronted building shed 
a yellow glare upon the pavements. The 
open mouth of a saloon called seductively 
to passengers to enter and annihilate sor 
row or create rage. 

The interior of the place was papered in 
olive and bronze tints of imitation leather. 
A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness ex 
tended down the side of the room. Behind 
it a great mahogany-imitation sideboard 
reached the ceiling. Upon its shelves 
rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that 
were never disturbed. Mirrors set in the 
face of the sideboard multiplied them. 
Lemons, oranges, and paper napkins, ar 
ranged with mathematical precision, sat 

among the glasses. Many-hued decanters 
87 



88 MAGGIE. 

of liquor perched at regular intervals on 
the lower shelves. A nickel-plated cash 
register occupied a place in the exact 
centre of the general effect. The elemen 
tary senses of it all seemed to be opulence 
and geometrical accuracy. 

Across from the bar a smaller counter held 
a collection of plates upon which swarmed 
frayed fragments of crackers, slices of 
boiled ham, dishevelled bits of cheese, and 
pickles swimming in vinegar. An odour of 
grasping, begrimed hands and munching 
mouths pervaded all. 

Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the 
bar bending expectantly toward a quiet 
stranger. " A beeh," said the man. Pete 
drew a foam-topped glassful and set it 
dripping upon the bar. 

At this moment the light bamboo doors 
at the entrance swung open and crashed 
against the wall. Jimmie and a compan 
ion entered. They swaggered unsteadily 
but belligerently toward the bar and 



MAGGIE. 



8 9 



looked at Pete with bleared and blinking 
eyes. 

" Gin," said Jimmie. 

" Gin," said the companion. 

Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along 
the bar. He bent his head sideways as he 
assiduously polished away with a napkin at 
the gleaming wood. He wore a look of 
watchfulness. 

Jimmie and his companion kept their 
eyes upon the bartender and conversed 
loudly in tones of contempt. 

" He's a dandy masher, ain't he ? " laughed 
Jimmie. 

" Well, ain't he ! " said the companion, 
sneering. " He's great, he is. Git onto deh 
mug on deh blokie. Dat's enough to make 
a feller turn handsprings in 'is sleep." 

The quiet stranger moved himself and 
his glass a trifle farther away and main 
tained an attitude of obliviousness. 

" Gee ! ain't he hot stuff ! " 

" Git onto his shape ! " 



pO MAGGIE. 

"Hey!" cried Jimmie, in tones of com 
mand. Pete came along slowly, with a 
sullen dropping of the under lip. 

"Well," he growled, "what's eatin* 
yens?" 

" Gin," said Jimmie. 

" Gin," said the companion. 

As Pete confronted them with the bottle 
and the glasses they laughed in his face. 
Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome 
with merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger 
in Pete's direction, 

"Say, Jimmie," demanded he, "what's 
dat behind d' bar?" 

" Look's like some chump," replied Jim 
mie. They laughed loudly. Pete put down 
a bottle with a bang and turned a formi 
dable face toward them. He disclosed his 
teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly. 

" You fellers can't guy me," he said. 
" Drink yer stuff an' git out an' don' make 
no trouble." 

Instantly the laughter faded from the 



MAGGIE. gi 

faces of the two men and expressions of 
offended dignity immediately came. 

" Aw, who has said anyt'ing t' you ? " 
cried they in the same breath. 

The quiet stranger looked at the door 
calculatingly. 

"Ah, come off," said Pete to the two 
men. " Don't pick me up for no jay. 
Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make 
no trouble." 

"Aw, go ahn!" airily cried Jimmie. 

" Aw, go ahn ! " airily repeated his com 
panion. 

"We goes when we git ready! See?" 
continued Jimmie. 

" Well," said Pete in a threatening voice, 
" don' make no trouble." 

Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his 
head on one side. He snarled like a wild 
animal. 

"Well, what if we does? See?" said he. 

Hot blood flushed into Pete's face, and 
he shot a lurid glance at Jimmie. 

7 



92 MAGGIE. 

" Well, den we'll see who's d' bes' man, 
you or me," he said. 

The quiet stranger moved modestly to 
ward the door. 

Jimmie began to swell with valour. 

" Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot. 
When yeh tackles me yeh tackles one of 
d' bes' men in d' city. See ? I'm a scrap 
per, I am. Ain't dat right, Billie ? " 

" Sure, Mike," responded his companion 
in tones of conviction. 

" Aw ! " said Pete, easily. " Go fall on 
yerself." 

The two men again began to laugh. 

" What is dat talking ? " cried the com 
panion. 

" Don' ast me," replied Jimmie with ex 
aggerated contempt. 

Pete made a furious gesture. " Git outa 
here now, an* don' make no trouble. See ? 
Youse fellers er lookin' fer a scrap an' it's 
like yeh'll fin' one if yeh keeps on shootin' 
off yer mout's. I know yehs ! See ? I kin 



MAGGIE. 93 

lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer 
lifes. Dat's right ! See ? Don' pick me 
up fer no stuff er yeh might be jolted 
out in d' street before yeh knows where 
yeh is. When I comes from behind dis 
bar, I t'rows yehs boat inteh d' street. 
See ? " 

" Aw, go ahn ! " cried the two men in 
chorus. 

The glare of a panther came into Pete's 
eyes. " Dat's what I said ! Unnerstan' ? " 

He came through a passage at the end 
of the bar and swelled down upon the two 
men. They stepped promptly forward and 
crowded close to him. 

They bristled like three roosters. They 
moved their heads pugnaciously and kept 
their shoulders braced. The nervous mus 
cles about each mouth twitched with a 
forced smile of mockery. 

"Well, what yer goin' t' do?" gritted 
Jimmie. 

Pete stepped warily back, waving his 



94 



MAGGIE. 



hands before him to keep the men from 
coming too near. 

" Well, what yer goin' t' do ? " repeated 
Jimmie's ally. They kept close to him, 
taunting and leering. They strove to make 
him attempt the initial blow. 

" Keep back now ! Don' crowd me," 
said Pete ominously. 

Again they chorused in contempt. " Aw, 
go ahn ! " 

In a small, tossing group, the three men 
edged for positions like frigates contemplat 
ing battle. 

" Well, why don* yeh try t' t'row us 
out ? " cried Jimmy and his ally with copi 
ous sneers. 

The bravery of bulldogs sat upon the 
faces of the men. Their clinched fists 
moved like eager weapons. 

The allied two jostled the bartender's 
elbows, glaring at him with feverish eyes 
and forcing him toward the wall. 

Suddenly Pete swore furiously. The 



MAGGIE. 95 

flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He 
threw back his arm and aimed a tremen 
dous, lightning-like blow at Jimmie's face. 
His foot swung a step forward and the 
weight of his body was behind his fist. 
Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, with 
the quickness of a cat. The fierce, answer 
ing blows of Jimmie and his ally crushed 
on Pete's bowed head. 

The quiet stranger vanished. 

The arms of the combatants whirled in 
the air like flails. The faces of the men, at 
first flushed to flame-coloured anger, now 
began to fade to the pallor of warriors in 
the blood and heat of a battle. Their lips 
curled back and stretched tightly over the 
gums in ghoul-like grins. Through their 
white, gripped teeth struggled hoarse whis 
perings of oaths. Their eyes glittered with 
murderous fire. 

Each head was huddled between its 
owner's shoulders, and arms were swinging 
with marvellous rapidity. Feet scraped to 



96 MAGGIE. 

and fro with a loud scratching sound upon 
the sanded floor. Blows left crimson 
blotches upon the pale skin. The curses 
of the first quarter minute of the fight 
died away. The breaths of the fighters 
came wheezingly from their lips and the 
three chests were straining and heaving. 
Pete at intervals gave vent to low, laboured 
hisses, that sounded like a desire to kill. 
Jimmie's ally gibbered at times like a 
wounded maniac. Jimmie was silent, fight 
ing with the face of a sacrificial priest. 
The rage of fear shone in all their eyes 
and their blood-coloured fists whirled. 

At a critical moment a blow from Pete's 
hand struck the ally and he crashed to the 
floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet, 
and grasping the quiet stranger's beer glass 
from the bar, hurled it at Pete's head. 

High on the wall it burst like a bomb, 
shivering fragments flying in all directions. 
Then missiles came to every man's hand. 
The place had heretofore appeared free of 



MAGGIE. Q7 

things to throw, but suddenly glasses and 
bottles went singing through the air. 
They were thrown point-blank at bobbing 
heads. The pyramid of shimmering glasses, 
that had never been disturbed, changed to 
cascades as heavy bottles were flung into 
them. Mirrors splintered to nothing. 

The three frothing creatures on the floor 
buried themselves in a frenzy for blood. 
There followed in the wake of missiles and 
fists some unknown prayers, perhaps for 
death. 

The quiet stranger had sprawled very 
pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A 
laugh ran up and down the avenue for the 
half of a block. 

" Dey've trowed a bloke inteh deh 
street." 

People heard the sound of breaking glass 
and shuffling feet within the saloon and 
came running. A small group, bending 
down to look under the bamboo doors, and 
watching the fall of glass and three pairs 






9 8 



MAGGIE. 



of violent legs, changed in a moment to a 
crowd. 

A policeman came charging down the 
sidewalk and bounced through the doors 
into the saloon. The crowd bent and 
surged in absorbing anxiety to see. 

Jimmie caught the first sight of the on 
coming interruption. On his feet he had 
the same regard for a policeman that, 
when on his truck, he had for a fire en 
gine. He howled and ran for the side 
door. 

The officer made a terrific advance, club 
in hand. One comprehensive sweep of the 
long night stick threw the ally to the floor 
and forced Pete to a corner. With his 
disengaged hand he made a furious effort 
at Jimmie's coat tails. Then he regained his 
balance and paused. 

" Well, well, you are a pair of pictures. 
What have yell been up to ? " 

Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, 
escaped up a side street, pursued a short 



MAGGIE. 99 

distance by some of the more law-loving-, 
or excited individuals of the crowd. 

Later, from a safe dark corner, he saw 
the policeman, the ally, and the bartender 
emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the 
doors and then followed up the avenue in 
the rear of the crowd-encompassed police 
man and his charge. 

At first Jimmie, with his heart throbbing 
at battle heat, started to go desperately to 
the rescue of his friend, but he halted. 

" Ah, what's d' use?" he demanded of 
himself. 



CHAPTER XII. 
t 

IN a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and 

Maggie drinking beer. A submissive orches 
tra dictated to by a spectacled man with 
frowsy hair and in soiled evening dress, indus 
triously followed the bobs of his head and the 
waves of his baton. A ballad singer, in a 
gown of flaming scarlet, sang in the inevitable 
voice of brass. When she vanished, men 
seated at the tables near the front applauded 
loudly, pounding the polished wood with 
their beer glasses. She returned attired in 
less gown, and sang again. She received an 
other enthusiastic encore. She reappeared in 
still less gown and danced. The deafening 
rumble of glasses and clapping of hands that 
followed her exit indicated an overwhelming 
desire to have her come on for the fourth 

100 



MAGGIE. 



101 



time, but the curiosity of the audience was 
not gratified. 

Maggie was pale. From her eyes had 
been plucked all look of self-reliance. She 
leaned with a dependent air toward her com 
panion. She was timid, as if fearing his anger 
or displeasure. She seemed to beseech ten 
derness of him. 

Pete's air of distinguished valour had 
grown upon him until it threatened to reach 
stupendous dimensions. He was infinitely 
gracious to the girl. It was apparent to her 
that his condescension was a marvel. 

He could appear to strut even while sit 
ting still, and he showed that he was a lion of 
lordly characteristics by the air with which he 
spat. 

With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, 
he took pride in commanding the waiters, who 
were, however, indifferent or deaf. 

" Hi, you, git a russle on yehs ! What 
yehs lookin' at? Two more beehs, d'yeh 
hear?" 



102 MAGGIE. 

He leaned back and critically regarded the 
person of a girl with a straw-coloured wig 
who was flinging her heels about upon the 
stage in somewhat awkward imitation of a 
well-known danseuse. 

At times Maggie told Pete long confiden 
tial tales ol her former home life, dwelling 
upon the escapades of the other members of 
the family and the difficulties she had had to 
combat in order to obtain a degree of comfort. 
He responded in the accents of philanthropy. 
He pressed her arm with an air of reassuring 
proprietorship. 

" Dey was cursed jays," he said, denounc 
ing the mother and brother. 

The sound of the music which, through 
the efforts of the frowsy-headed leader, drifted 
to her ears in the smoked-filled atmosphere, 
made the girl dream. She thought of her 
former Rum Alley environment and turned to 
regard Pete's strong protecting fists. She 
thought of a collar-and-cuff manufactory and 
the eternal moan of the proprietor : " What 



MAGGIE. I0 3 

een hale do you sink I pie fife dolla a week 
for? Play? No, py tamn ! " She contem 
plated Pete's man-subduing eyes and noted 
that wealth and prosperity were indicated by 
his clothes. She imagined a future, rose- 
tinted, because of its distance from all that she 
had experienced before. 

As to the present she perceived only 
vague reasons to be miserable. Her life was 
Pete's and she considered him worthy of the 
charge. She would be disturbed by no par 
ticular apprehensions, so long as Pete adored 
her as he now said he did. She did not feel 
like a bad woman. To her knowledge she 
had never seen any better. 

At times men at other tables regarded the 
girl furtively. Pete, aware of it, nodded at 
her and grinned. He felt proud. 

" Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker," he re 
marked, studying her face through the haze. 
The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed 
at Pete's words as it became apparent to her 
that she was the apple of his eye. 



104 



MAGGIE. 



Gray-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in 
their dissipation, stared at her through clouds. 
Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with 
faces of stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so 
pathetic as the gray heads, tried to find the 
girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie 
considered she was not what they thought her. 
She confined her glances to Pete and the stage. 

The orchestra played negro melodies and 
a versatile drummer pounded, whacked, clat 
tered, and scratched on a dozen machines to 
make noise. 

Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie 
from under half-closed lids, made her tremble. 
She thought them all to be worse men than 
Pete. 

" Come, let's go," she said. 

As they went out Maggie perceived two 
women seated at a table with some men. 
They were painted and their cheeks had lost 
their roundness. As she passed them the girl, 
with a shrinking movement, drew back her 
skirts. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

JIMMIE did not return home for a number 
of days after the fight with Pete in the saloon. 
When he did, he approached with extreme 
caution. 

He found his mother raving. Maggie had 
not returned home. The parent continually 
wondered how her daughter could come to 
such a pass. She had never considered Mag 
gie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum 
Alley from Heaven, but she could not con 
ceive how it was possible for her daughter to 
fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her fam 
ily. She was terrific in denunciation of the 
girl's wickedness. 

The fact that the neighbours talked of it 
maddened her. When women came in, and 

in the course of their conversation casually 
105 



106 MAGGIE. 

asked, " Where's Maggie dese days ? '* the 
mother shook her fuzzy head at them and 
appalled them with curses. Cunning hints 
inviting confidence she rebuffed with vio 
lence. 

" An' wid all d' bringin' up she had, how 
could she ? " moaningly she asked of her son. 
" Wid all d' talkin' wid her I did an' d' t'ings 
I tol' her to remember? When a girl is 
bringed up d' way I bringed up Maggie, how 
kin she go teh d' devil?" 

Jimmie was tranfixed by these questions. 
He could not conceive how under the circum 
stances his mother's daughter and his sister 
could have been so wicked. 

His mother took a drink from a bottle 
that sat on the table. She continued her la 
ment. 

" She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jim 
mie. She was wicked t' d' heart an' we never 
knowed it." 

Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact. 

" We lived in d' same house wid her an' I 



MAGGIE. JO/ 

brought her up an' we never knowed how bad 
she was." 

Jimmie nodded again. 

" Wid a home like dis an' a mudder like 
me, she went teh d' bad," cried the mother, 
raising her eyes. 

One day Jimmie came home, sat down in 
a chair, and began to wriggle about with a 
new and strange nervousness. At last he 
spoke shamefacedly. 

" Well, look-a-here, dis t'ing queers us ! 
See ? We're queered ! An' maybe it 'ud be 
better if I well, I t'ink I kin look 'er up an' 
maybe it 'ud be better if I fetched her home 
an " 

-The mother started from her chair and 
broke forth into a storm of passionate anger. 

" What ! Let 'er come an' sleep under deh 
same roof wid her mudder agin ! Oh, yes, I 
will, won't I ? Sure ? Shame on yehs, Jim 
mie Johnson, fer sayin' such a t'ing teh yer 
own mudder teh yer own mudder ! Little 
did I tink when yehs was a babby playin' 

8 



108 MAGGIE. 

about me feet dat ye'd grow up teh say sech a 
t'ing teh yer mudder yer own mudder. I 
never taut- 
Sobs choked her and interrupted her re 
proaches. 

" Dere ain't nottin' teh make sech trouble 
about," said Jimmie. " I on'y says it 'ud be 
better if we keep dis t'ing dark, see? It 
queers us! See? " 

His mother laughed a laugh that seemed 
to ring through the city and be echoed and re 
echoed by countless other laughs. " Oh, yes, 
I will, won't I ! Sure ! " 

" Well, yeh must take me fer a d n fool," 
said Jimmie, indignant at his mother for 
mocking him. " I didn't say we'd make 'er 
inteh a little tin angel, ner nottin', but deh 
way it is now she can queer us ! Don' che 
see?" 

" Aye, she'll git tired of deh life atter a 
while an' den she'll wanna be a-comin' home, 
won' she, deh beast ! I'll let 'er in den, 
won' I?" 



MAGGIE. 

" Well, I didn't mean none of dis prod'gal 
business anyway," explained Jimmie. 

" It wa'n't no prod'gal dauter, yeh fool," 
said the mother. " It was prod'gal son, any 
how." 

" I know dat," said Jimmie. 

For a time they sat in silence. The moth 
er's eyes gloated on the scene which her im 
agination called before her. Her lips were 
set in a vindictive smile. 

" Aye, she'll cry, won* she, an' carry on, 
an* tell how Pete, or some odder feller, beats 
'er an' she'll say she's sorry an' all dat an' she 
ain't happy, she ain't, and she wants to come 
home agin, she does." 

With grim humour the mother imitated the 
possible wailing notes of the daughter's voice. 

" Den I'll take 'er in, won't I ? She kin 
cry 'er two eyes out on deh stones of deh 
street before I'll dirty d' place wid her. She 
abused an' ill-treated her own mudder her 
own mudder what loved her, an' she'll never 
git anodder chance." 



HO MAGGIE. 

Jimmie thought he had a great idea of 
women's frailty, but he could not understand 
why any of his kin should be victims. 

" Curse her ! " he said fervidly. 

Again he wondered vaguely if some of the 
women of his acquaintance had brothers. 
Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant 
confuse himself with those brothers nor his 
sister with theirs. After the mother had, with 
great difficulty, suppressed the neighbours, 
she went among them and proclaimed her 
grief. " May Heaven forgive dat girl," was 
her continual cry. To attentive ears she re 
cited the whole, length and breadth of her 
woes. 

" I bringed/er up deh way a dauter oughta 
be bringed up, an' dis is how she served me ! 
She went teh deh devil deh first chance she 
got! May Heaven forgive her." 

When arrested for drunkenn'ess she used 
the story of her daughter's downfall with tell 
ing effect upon the police justices. Finally 
one of them said to her, peering down over 



MAGGIE. 1 1 1 

his spectacles : " Mary, the records of this and 
other courts show that you are the mother of 
forty-two daughters who have been ruined. 
The case is unparalleled in the annals of this 
court, and this court thinks '' 

The mother went through life shedding 
large tears of sorrow. Her red face was a 
picture of agony. 

Of course Jimmie publicly damned his 
sister that he might appear on a higher 
social plane. But, arguing with himself, 
stumbling about in ways that he knew not, 
he, once, almost came to a conclusion that 
his sister would have been more firmly 
good had she better known why. How 
ever, he felt that he could not hold such 
a view. He threw it hastily aside. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IN a hilarious hall there were twenty- 
eight tables and twenty-eight women and a 
crowd of smoking men. Valiant noise was 
made on a stage at the end of the hall by 
an orchestra composed of men who looked 
as if they had just happened in. Soiled 
waiters ran to and fro, swooping down like 
hawks on the -unwary in the throng ; clat 
tering along the aisles with trays covered 
with glasses ; stumbling over women's skirts 
and charging two prices for everything but 
beer, all with a swiftness that blurred the 
view of the cocoanut palms and dusty 
monstrosities painted upon the walls of the 
room. A " bouncer," with an immense load 
of business upon his hands, plunged about 
in the crowd, dragging bashful strangers to 



112 



MAGGIE. 

prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and 
there, and quarrelling furiously with men 
who wanted to sing with the orchestra. 

The usual smoke cloud was present, but 
so dense that heads and arms seemed en 
tangled in it. The rumble of conversation 
was replaced by a roar. Plenteous oaths 
heaved through the air. The room rang 
with the shrill voices of women bubbling 
over with drink laughter. The chief element 
in the music of the orchestra was speed. 
The musicians played in intent fury. A 
woman was singing and smiling upon the 
stage, but no one took notice of her. The 
rate at which the piano, cornet, and violins 
were going, seemed to impart wildness to 
the half-drunken crowd. Beer glasses were 
emptied at a gulp and conversation became 
a rapid chatter. The' smoke eddied and 
swirled like a shadowy river hurrying to 
ward some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie 
entered the hall and took chairs at a table 
near the door. The woman who was 



I!4 MAGGIE. 

seated there made an attempt to occupy 
Pete's attention and, failing, went away. 

Three weeks had passed since the girl 
had left home. The air of spaniel-like de 
pendence had been magnified and showed 
its direct effect in the peculiar off-handed- 
ness and ease of Pete's ways toward her. 

She followed Pete's eyes with hers, an 
ticipating with smiles gracious looks from 
him. 

A woman of brilliance and audacity, ac 
companied by a mere boy, came into the 
place and took a seat near them. 

At once Pete sprang to his feet, his face 
beaming with glad surprise. 

" Hully gee, dere's Nellie ! " he cried. 

He went over to the table and held out 
an eager hand to the woman. 

" Why, hello, Pdte, me boy, how are 
you ? " said she, giving him her fingers. 

Maggie took instant note of the woman. 
She perceived that her black dress fitted 
her to perfection. Her linen collar and 



MAGGIE. 1 1 5 

cuffs were spotless. Tan gloves were 
stretched over her well-shaped hands. A 
hat of a prevailing fashion perched jauntily 
upon her dark hair. She wore no jewellery 
and was painted with no apparent paint. 
She looked clear eyed through the stares of 
the men. 

" Sit down; and call your lady friend 
over," she said to Pete. At his beckoning 
Maggie came and sat between Pete and 
the mere boy. 

" I thought yeh were gone away fer 
good," began Pete, at once. " When did 
yeh git back ? How did dat Buff'lo bus'- 
ness turn out? " 

- The woman shrugged her shoulders. 
11 Well, he didn't have as many stamps as 
he tried to make out, so I shook him, 
that's all." 

" Well, I'm glad teh see yehs back in 
deh city," said Pete, with gallantry. 

He and the woman entered into a long 
conversation, exchanging reminiscences of 



Il6 MAGGIE. 

days together. Maggie sat still, unable to 
formulate an intelligent sentence as her ad 
dition to the conversation and painfully aware 
of it. 

She saw Pete's eyes sparkle as he gazed 
upon the handsome stranger. He listened 
smilingly to all she said. The woman was 
familiar with all his affairs, asked him 
about mutual friends, and knew the amount 
of his salary. 

She paid no attention to Maggie, looking 
toward her once or twice and apparently see 
ing the wall beyond. 

The mere boy was sulky. In the begin 
ning he had welcomed the additions with ac 
clamations. 

"Let's all have a drink! What'll you 
take, Nell ? And you, Miss What's-your-name. 
Have a drink, Mr. - , you, I mean." 

He had shown a sprightly desire to do the 
talking for the company and tell all about his 
family. In a loud voice he declaimed on vari 
ous topics. He assumed a patronizing air to- 



MAGGIE. ii 7 

ward Pete. As Maggie was silent, he paid no 
attention to her. He made a great show of 
lavishing wealth upon the woman of brilliance 
and audacity. 

" Do keep still, Freddie ! You talk like a 
clock," said the woman to him. She turned 
away and devoted her attention to Pete. 

" We'll have many a good time together 
again, eh ? " 

" Sure, Mike," said Pete, enthusiastic at 
once. 

"Say," whispered she, leaning forward, 
"let's go over to Billie's and have a time." 

" Well, it's dis way ! See ? " said Pete. " I 
got dis lady frien' here." 

" Oh, g ' way with her," argued the 
woman. 

Pete appeared disturbed. 

"All right," said she, nodding her head 
at him. " All right for you ! We'll see the 
next time you ask me to go anywheres with 
you." 

Pete squirmed. 



H8 MAGGIE. 

"Say," he said, beseechingly, "come wid 
me a minit an' I'll tell yer why." 

The woman waved her hand. 

" Oh, that's all right, you needn't explain, 
you know. You wouldn't come merely be 
cause you wouldn't come, that's all." 

To Pete's visible distress she turned to the 
mere boy, bringing him speedily out of a ter 
rific rage. He had been debating whether it 
would be the part of a man to pick a quarrel 
with Pete, or would he be justified in striking 
him savagely with his beer glass without 
warning. But he recovered himself when the 
woman turned v to renew her smilings. He 
beamed upon her with an expression that was 
somewhat tipsy and inexpressibly tender. 

" Say, shake that Bowery jay," requested 
he, in a loud whisper. 

" Freddie, you are so funny," she replied. 

Pete reached forward and touched the 
woman on the arm. 

" Come out a minit while I tells yeh why I 
can't go wid yer. Yer doin' me dirt, Nell ! 



MAGGIE. ng 

I never taut ye'd do me dirt, Nell. Come 
on, will yer?" He spoke in tones of injury. 

" Why, I don't see why I should be inter 
ested in your explanations," said the woman, 
with a coldness that seemed to reduce Pete to 
a pulp. 

His eyes pleaded with her. " Come out a 
minit while I tells yeh. On d' level, now." 

The woman nodded slightly at Maggie 
and the mere boy, saying, " Scuse me." 

The mere boy interrupted his loving smile 
and turned a shrivelling glare upon Pete. His 
boyish countenance flushed and he spoke in a 
whine to the woman : 

" Oh, I say, Nellie, this ain't a square deal, 
you know. You aren't goin' to leave me and 
go off with that duffer, are you ? I should 
think " 

" Why, you dear boy, of course I'm not," 
cried the woman, affectionately. She bent 
over and whispered in his ear. He smiled 
again and settled in his chair as if resolved to 
wait patiently. 



120 MAGGIE. 

As the woman walked down between the 
rows of tables, Pete was at her shoulder talk 
ing earnestly, apparently in explanation. The 
woman waved her hands with studied airs of 
indifference. The doors swung behind them, 
leaving Maggie and the mere boy seated at 
the table. 

Maggie was dazed. She could dimly per 
ceive that something stupendous had hap 
pened. She wondered why Pete saw fit to 
remonstrate with the woman, pleading for for 
giveness with his eyes. She thought she 
noted an. air of submission about her leonine 
Pete. She was astounded. 

The mere boy occupied himself with cock 
tails and a cigar. He was tranquilly silent for 
half an hour. Then he bestirred himself and 
spoke. 

" Well," he said, sighing, " I knew this was 
the way it would be. They got cold feet." 
There was another stillness. The mere boy 
seemed to be musing. 

" She was pulling m'leg. That's the whole 



MAGGIE. 121 

amount of it," he said, suddenly. " It's 
a bloomin' shame the way that girl does. 
Why, I've spent over two dollars in drinks 
to-night. And she goes off with that plug- 
ugly who looks as if he had been hit in 
the face with a coin die. I call it rocky 
treatment for a fellah like me. Here, 
waiter, bring me a cocktail, and make it 
strong. ' 

Maggie made no reply. She was watching 
the doors. " It's a mean piece of business," 
complained the mere boy. He explained to 
her how amazing it was that anybody should 
treat him in such a manner. " But I'll get 
square with her, you bet. She won't get far 
ahead of yours truly, you know," he added, 
winking. " I'll tell her plainly that it was 
bloomin' mean business. And she won't come 
it over me with any of her ' now-Freddie- 
dears.' She thinks my name is Freddie, you 
know, but of course it ain't. I always tell 
these people some name like that, because if 
they got onto your right name they might use 



122 MAGGIE. 

it sometime. Understand ? Oh, they don't 
fool me much." 

Maggie was paying no attention, being 
intent upon the doors. The mere boy re 
lapsed into a period of gloom, during 
which he exterminated a number of cock 
tails with a determined air, as if replying 
defiantly to fate. He occasionally broke 
forth into sentences composed of invectives 
joined together in a long chain. 

The girl was still staring at the doors. 
After a time the mere boy began to see 
cobwebs just in front of his nose. He 
spurred himself into being agreeable and 
insisted upon her having a charlotte russe 
and a glass of beer. 

" They's gone," he remarked, " they's 
gone." He looked at her through the 
smoke wreaths. " Shay, Hi' girl, we might- 
ish well make bes' of it. You ain't such 
bad-lookin' girl, y'know. Not half bad. 
Can't come up to Nell, though. No, can't 
do it! Well, I should shay not! Nell fine- 



MAGGIE. 



123 



lookin' girl ! F i n inc. You look bad 
longsider her, but by y'self ain't so bad. 
Have to do anyhow. Nell gone. O'ny you 
left. Not half bad, though." 

Maggie stood up. 

" I'm going home," she said. 

The mere boy started. 

" Eh ? What ? Home," he cried, struck 
with amazement. " I beg pardon, did hear 
say home ? " 

"I'm going home," she repeated. 

" Great heavens ! what hav'a struck ? " de 
manded the mere boy of himself, stupefied. 

In a semicomatose state he conducted 
her on board an up-town car, ostentatiously 
paid her fare, leered kindly at her through 
the rear window, and fell off the steps. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A FORLORN woman went along a lighted 
avenue. The street was filled with people 
desperately bound on missions. An endless 
crowd darted at the elevated station stairs, 
and the horse cars were thronged with 
owners of bundles. 

The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. 
She was apparently searching for some one. 
She loitered near the doors of saloons and 
watched men emerge from them. She 
furtively scanned the faces in the rushing 
stream of pedestrians. Hurrying men, bent 
on catching some boat or train, jostled her 
elbows, failing to notice her, their thoughts 
fixed on distant dinners. 

The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. 

Her smile was no smile. But when in re- 
124 



MAGGIE. 125 

pose her features had a shadowy look that 
was like a sardonic grin, as if some one had 
sketched with cruel forefinger indelible lines 
about her mouth. 

Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. 
The woman encountered him with an 
aggrieved air. 

" Oh, Jimmie, I've been lookin' all over 
fer yehs "she began. 

Jimmie made an impatient gesture and 
quickened his pace. 

" Ah, don't bodder me ! " he said, with 
the savageness of a man whose life is pes 
tered. 

The woman followed him along the side 
walk in somewhat the manner of a sup 
pliant. 

"But, Jimmie," she said, "yehs told me 
ye'd " 

Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if re 
solved to make a last stand for comfort 
and peace. 

" Say, Hattie, don' foller me from one 



126 MAGGIE. 

end of deh city teh deh odder. Let up, 
will yehs ! Give me a minute's res', can't 
yehs ? Yehs makes me tired, allus taggin* 
me. See ? Am' yehs got no sense ? Do 
yehs want people teh get onto me ? Go 
chase yerself." 

The woman stepped closer and laid her 
fingers on his arm. " But, look-a here 

Jimmie snarled. " Oh, go teh blazes." 

He darted into the front door of a con 
venient saloon and a moment later came 
out into the shadows that surrounded the 
side door. On the brilliantly lighted avenue 
he perceived the forlorn woman dodging 
about like a scout. Jimmie laughed with 
an air of relief and went away. 

When he arrived home he found his 
mother clamouring. Maggie had returned. 
She stood shivering beneath the torrent of 
her mother's wrath. 

" Well, I'm d d ! " said Jimmie in greeting. 

His mother, tottering about the room, 
pointed a quivering forefinger. 



MAGGIE. 127 

" Lookut her, Jimmie, lookut her. Dere's 
yer sister, boy. Dere's yer sister. Lookut 
her ! Lookut her ! " 

She screamed at Maggie with scoffing 
laughter. 

The girl stood in the middle of the room. 
She edged about as if unable to find a place 
on the floor to put her feet. 

" Ha, ha, ha ! " bellowed the mother. 
" Dere she stands ! Ain' she purty ? Look 
ut her ! Ain' she sweet, deh beast ? Look 
ut her! Ha, ha! lookut her!" 

She lurched forward and put her red 
and seamed hands upon her daughter's face. 
She bent down and peered keenly up into 
the eyes of the girl. 

" Oh, she's jes' dessame as she ever was, 
ain' she ? She's her mudder's putty darlin' 
yit, ain' she ? Lookut her, Jimmie ! Come 
here and lookut her." 

The loud, tremendous railing of the 
mother brought the denizens of the Rum 
Alley tenement to their doors. Women 



128 MAGGIE. 

came in the hallways. Children scurried to 
and fro. 

" What's up ? Dat Johnson party on anud- 
der tear?" 

" Naw ! Young Mag's come home ! " 

" Git out ! " 

Through the open doors curious eyes 
stared in at Maggie. Children ventured into 
the room and ogled her, as if they formed the 
front row at a theatre. Women, without, 
bent toward each other and whispered, nod 
ding their heads with airs of profound phi 
losophy. 

A baby, overcome with curiosity concern 
ing this object at which all were looking, 
sidled forward and touched her dress, cau 
tiously, as if investigating a red - hot stove. 
Its mother's voice rang out like a warning 
trumpet. She rushed forward and grabbed 
' her child, casting a terrible look of indigna 
tion at the girl. 

Maggie's mother paced to and fro, ad 
dressing the doorful of eyes, expounding like 



MAGGIE. 



I2 9 



a glib showman. Her voice rang through the 
building. 

" Dere she stands," she cried, wheeling 
suddenly and pointing with dramatic finger. 
" Dere she stands ! Lookut her ! Ain' she a 
dindy? An' she was so good as to come 
home teh her mudder, she was ! Ain' she a 
beaut' ? Ain' she a dindy ? " 

The jeering cries ended in another burst of 
shrill laughter. 

The girl seemed to awaken. " Jim- 
mie " 

He drew hastily back from her. 

"Well, now, yer a t'ing, ain' yeh?" he 
said, his lips curling in scorn. Radiant virtue 
sat upon his brow and his repelling hands ex 
pressed horror of contamination. 

Maggie turned and went. 

The crowd at the door fell back precipitate 
ly. A baby falling down in front of the door 
wrenched a scream like that of a wounded 
animal from its mother. Another woman 
sprang forward and picked it up with a 



130 MAGGIE. 

chivalrous air, as if rescuing a human being 
from an oncoming express train.. 

As the girl passed down through the hall, 
she went before open doors framing more 
eyes strangely microscopic, and sending broad * 
beams of inquisitive light into the darkness of 
her path. On the second floor she met the 
gnarled old woman who possessed the music 
box. 

" So," she cried, " 'ere yehs are back again, 
are yehs? An' dey've kicked yehs out? 
Well, come in an' stay wid me t'-night. I 
ain' got no moral standin'." 

From above came an unceasing babble of 
tongues, over all of which rang the mother's 
derisive laughter. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PETE did not consider that he had ruined 
Maggie. If he had thought that her soul 
could never smile again, he would have be 
lieved the mother and brother, who were py 
rotechnic over the affair, to be responsible 
for it. 

Besides, in his world, souls did not insist 
upon being able to smile. " What d' h 1 ? " 

He felt a trifle entangled. It distressed 
him. Revelations and scenes might bring 
upon him the wrath of the owner of the sa 
loon, who insisted upon respectability of an 
advanced type. 

" What do dey wanna* raise such a smoke 
about it fer?" demanded he of himself, dis 
gusted with the attitude of the family. He 

saw no necessity that people should lose 
131 



132 



MAGGIE. 



their equilibrium merely because their sister 
or their daughter had stayed away from 
home. 

Searching about in his mind for possible 
reasons for their conduct, he came upon the 
conclusion that Maggie's motives were cor 
rect, but that the two others wished to snare 
him. He felt pursued. 

The woman whom he had met in the hi 
larious hall showed a disposition to ridicule 
him. 

"A little pale thing with no spirit," she 
said. " Did you note the expression of her 
eyes? There was something in them about 
pumpkin pie and virtue. That is a peculiar 
way the left corner of her mouth has of 
twitching, isn't it ? Dear, dear, Pete, what are 
you coming to ? " 

Pete asserted at once that he never was 
very much interested in the girl. The woman 
interrupted him, laughing. 

" Oh, it's not of the slightest consequence 
to me, my dear young man. You needn't 



MAGGIE. !33 

draw maps for my benefit. Why should I be 
concerned about it?" 

But Pete continued with his explana 
tions. If he was laughed at for his 
tastes in women, he felt obliged to say 
that they were only temporary or indiffer 
ent ones. 

The morning after Maggie had departed 
from home, Pete stood behind the bar. He 
was immaculate in white jacket and apron 
and his hair was plastered over his brow 
with infinite correctness. No customers 
were in the place. Pete was twisting his 
napkined fist slowly in a beer glass, softly 
whistling to himself and occasionally hold 
ing the object of his attention between his 
eyes and a few weak beams of sunlight 
that found their way over the thick screens 
and into the shaded rooms. 

With lingering thoughts of the woman 
of brilliance and audacity, the bartender 
raised his head and stared through the 
varying cracks between the swaying bam- 



134 MAGGIE. 

boo doors. Suddenly the whistling- pucker 
faded from his lips. He saw Maggie walk 
ing slowly past. He gave a great start, 
fearing for the previously mentioned eminent 

i 

respectability of the place. 

He threw a swift, nervous glance about 
him, all at once feeling guilty. No one 
was in the room. , 

He went hastily over to the side door. 
Opening it and looking out, he perceived 
Maggie standing, as if undecided, on the 
corner. She was searching the place with 
her eyes. 

As she turned her face toward him Pete 
beckoned to her hurriedly, intent upon re 
turning with speed to a position behind 
the bar and to the atmosphere of re 
spectability upon which the proprietor in 
sisted. 

Maggie came to him, the anxious look 
disappearing from her face and a smile 
wreathing her lips. 

" Oh, Pete ," she began brightly. 



MAGGIE. 



135 



The bartender made a violent gesture of 
impatience. 

" Oh, say ! " cried he, vehemently. 
" What d' yeh wanna hang aroun' here 
fer? Do yer wanna git me inteh trouble?" 
he demanded with an air of injury. 

Astonishment swept over the girl's fea 
tures. " Why, Pete ! yehs tol' me 

Pete's glance expressed profound irrita 
tion. His countenance reddened with the 
anger of a man whose respectability is be 
ing threatened. 

" Say, yehs makes me tired ! See? What 
d' yeh wanna tag aroun' atter me fer? 
Yeh'll do me dirt wid d' ol' man an' dey'll 
be trouble ! If he sees a woman roun' here 
he'll go crazy an' I'll lose me job ! See ? 
Ain' yehs got no sense ? Don' be allus bod- 
derin' me. See ? Yer bijudder come in here 
an* made trouble an' d' ol' man hada put up 
fer it! An' now I'm done ! See? I'm done." 

The girl's eyes stared into his face. 
" Pete, don't yeh remem " 



136 MAGGIE. 

" Oh, go ahn ! " interrupted Pete, antici 
pating. 

The girl seemed to have a struggle with 
herself. She was apparently bewildered and 
could not find speech. Finally she asked 
in a low voice, " But where kin I go ? " 

The question exasperated Pete beyond 
the powers of endurance. It was a direct 
attempt to give him some responsibility in 
a matter that did not concern him. In 
his indignation he volunteered informa 
tion. 

" Oh, go t' h 11 ! " cried he. He slammed 
the door furiously and returned, with an 
air of relief, to his respectability. 

Maggie went away. 

She wandered aimlessly for several 
blocks. She stopped once and asked aloud 
a question of herself : " Who ? " 

A man who was passing near her shoul 
der, humorously took the questioning word 
as intended for him. 

"Eh? What? Who? Nobody! I didn't 



MAGGIE. 137 

say anything," he laughingly said, and con 
tinued his way. 

Soon the girl discovered that if she 
walked with such apparent aimlessness, 
some men looked at her with calculating 
eyes. She quickened her step, frightened. 
As a protection, she adopted a demeanour 
of intentness as if going somewhere. 

After a time she left rattling avenues and 
passed between rows of houses with stern 
ness and stolidity stamped upon their fea 
tures. She hung her head, for she felt their 
eyes grimly upon her. 

Suddenly she came upon a stout gentle 
man in a silk hat and a chaste black coat, 
whose decorous row of buttons reached 
from his chin to his knees. The girl had 
heard of the grace of God and she de 
cided to approach this man. 

His beaming, chubby face was a picture 
of benevolence and kind-heartedness. His 
eyes shone good will. 

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he 



MAGGIE. 

made a convulsive movement and saved 
his respectability by a vigorous side step. 
He did not risk it to save a soul. For 
how was he to know that there was a soul 
before him that needed saving? 



CHAPTER XVII. 

UPON a wet evening, several months after 
the last chapter, two interminable rows of 
cars, pulled by slipping horses, jangled along 
a prominent side street. A dozen cabs, with 
coat-enshrouded drivers, clattered to and fro. 
Electric lights, whirring softly, shed a blurred 
radiance. A flower dealer, his feet tapping 
impatiently, his nose and his wares glisten 
ing with raindrops, stood behind an array of 
roses and chrysanthemums. Two or three 
theatres emptied a crowd upon the storm- 
swept pavements. Men pulled their hats 
over their eyebrows and raised their collars 
to their ears. Women shrugged impatient 
shoulders in their warm cloaks and stopped 
to arrange their skirts for a walk through the 

storm. People who had been constrained to 
10 139 



I 4 MAGGIE. 

comparative silence for two hours burst into 
a roar of conversation, their hearts still kind 
ling from the glowings of the stage. 

The pavements became tossing seas of um 
brellas. Men stepped forth to hail cabs or 
cars, raising their fingers in varied forms of 
polite request or imperative demand. An 
endless procession wended toward elevated 
stations. An atmosphere of pleasure and 
prosperity seemed to hang over the throng, 
born, perhaps, of good clothes and of two 
hours in a place of forgetftilness. 

In the mingled light and gloom of an ad 
jacent park, a handful of wet wanderers, in 
attitudes of chronic dejection, were scattered 
among the benches. 

A girl of the painted cohorts of the city 
went along the street. She threw changing 
glances at men who passed her, giving smil 
ing invitations to those of rural or untaught 
pattern and usually seeming sedately uncon 
scious of the men with a metropolitan seal 
upon their faces. 



MAGGIE. 



141 



Crossing glittering avenues, she went into 
the throng emerging from the places of for- 
getfulness. She hurried forward through the 
crowd as if intent upon reaching a distant 
home, bending forward in her handsome 
cloak, daintily lifting her skirts, and picking 
for her well-shod feet the dryer spots upon the 
pavements. 

The restless doors of saloons, clashing to 
and fro, disclosed animated rows of men be 
fore bars and hurrying barkeepers. 

A concert hall gave to the street faint 
sounds of swift, machine-like music, as if a 
group of phantom musicians were hastening. 

A tall young man, smoking a cigarette 
with a sublime air, strolled near the girl. He 
had on evening dress, a mustache, a chrysan 
themum, and a look of ennui, all of which he 
kept carefully under his eye. Seeing the girl 
walk on as if such a young man as he was not 
in existence, he looked back transfixed with 
interest. He stared glassily for a moment, 
but gave a slight convulsive start when he dis- 



142 MAGGIE. 

ccrned that she was neither new, Parisian, nor 
theatrical. He wheeled about hastily and 
turned his stare into the air, like a sailor with 
a search light. 

A stout gentleman, with pompous and 
philanthropic whiskers, went stolidly by, the 
broad of his back sneering at the girl. 

A belated man in business clothes, and in 
haste to catch a car, bounced against her 
shoulder. " Hi, there, Mary, I beg your par 
don ! Brace up, old girl." He grasped her 
arm to steady her, and then was away run 
ning down the middle of the street. 

The girl walked on out of the realm of 
restaurants and saloons. She passed more 
glittering avenues and went into darker 
blocks than those where the crowd travelled. 

A young man in light overcoat and derby 
hat received a glance shot keenly from the 
eyes of the girl. He stopped and looked at 
her, thrusting his hands in his pockets and 
making a mocking smile curl his lips. 
" Come, now, old lady," he said, 4< you don't 



MAGGIE. 



143 



mean to tell me that you sized me up for a 
farmer?" 

A labouring man marched along with bun 
dles under his arms. To her remarks, he re 
plied, " It's a fine evenin', ain't it?" 

She smiled squarely into the face of a boy 
who was hurrying by with his hands buried in 
his overcoat pockets, his blonde locks bobbing 
on his youthful temples, and a cheery smile of 
unconcern upon his lips. He turned his head 
and smiled back at her, waving his hands. 

" Not this eve some other eve ! " 

A drunken man, reeling in her pathway, 
began to roar at her. " I ain' ga no money ! " 
he shouted, in a dismal voice. He lurched on 
up the street, wailing to himself : " I ain' ga no 
money. Ba' luck. Ain' ga no more money." 

The girl went into gloomy districts near 
the river, where the tall black factories shut 
in the street and only occasional broad beams 
of light fell across the pavements from sa 
loons. In front of one of these places, whence 
came the sound of a violin vigorously scraped, 



144 MAGGIE. 

the patter of feet on boards and the ring of 
loud laughter, there stood a man with blotched 
features. 

Further on in the darkness she met a 
ragged being with shifting, bloodshot eyes 
and grimy hands. 

She went into the blackness of the final 
block. The shutters of the tall buildings were 
closed like grim lips. The structures seemed 
to have eyes that looked over them, beyond 
them, at other things. Afar off the lights of 
the avenues glittered as if from an impossible 
distance. Street-car bells jingled with a sound 
of merriment. 

At the feet of the tall buildings appeared 
the deathly black hue of the river. Some 
hidden factory sent up a yellow glare, that 
lit for a moment the waters lapping oilily 
against timbers. The varied sounds of life, 
made joyous by distance and seeming unap- 
proachabfeness, came faintly and died away to 
a silence. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

IN a partitioned-off section of a saloon 
sat a man with a half dozen women, glee 
fully laughing, hovering about him. The 
man had arrived at that stage of drunken 
ness where affection is felt for the universe. 

" I'm good fler, girls," he said, convinc 
ingly. " I'm good fler. An'body treats me 
right, I allus trea's zem right ! See ? " 

The women nodded their heads approv 
ingly. "To be sure," they cried in hearty 
chorus. " You're the kind of a man we 
like, Pete. You're outa sight ! What yeh 
goin' to buy this time, dear ? " 

" An't'ing yehs wants ! " said the man in 
an abandonment of good will. His counte 
nance shone with the true spirit of benevo 
lence. He . was in the proper mood of 
145 



146 MAGGIE. 

missionaries. He would have fraternized 
with obscure Hottentots. And above all, 
he was overwhelmed in tenderness for his 
friends, who were all illustrious. 

" An't'ing yehs wants ! " repeated he, 
waving his hands with beneficent reckless 
ness. " I'm good f'ler, girls, an' if an'body 
treats me right I here," called he through 
an open door to a waiter, " bring girls 
drinks. What 'ill yehs have, girls? An'- 
t'ing yehs want." 

The waiter glanced in with the disgusted 
look of the man who serves intoxicants for 
the man who takes too much of them. 
H nodded his head shortly at the order 
from each individual, and went. 

" Wre havin* great time," said the man. 
" I like you girls ! Yer right sort ! See ? " 

He spoke at length and with feeling con 
cerning the excellencies of his assembled 
friends. 

" Don* try pull man's leg, but have a 
good time ! Das right ! Das way ten do ! 



MAGGIE. 147 

Now, if I sawght yehs tryin' work me fer 
drinks, wouldn' buy not'ing ! But yer right 
sort ! Yehs know how ter treat a f'ler, an* 
I stays by yehs 'til spen' las' cent ! Das 
right ! I'm good f'ler an' I knows when 
an' body treats me right ! " 

Between the times of the arrival and de 
parture of the waiter, the man discoursed 
to the women on the tender regard he 
felt for all living things. He laid stress 
upon the purity of his motives in all deal 
ings with men in the world and spoke of 
the fervour of his friendship for those who 
were amiable. Tears welled slowly from 
his eyes. His voice quavered when he 
spoke to his companions. 

Once when the waiter was about to de 
part with an empty tray, the man drew a 
coin from his pocket and held it forth. 

" Here," said he, quite magnificently, 
"here's quar'." 

The waiter kept his hands on his tray. 

" I don't want yer money," he said. 



148 MAGGIE. 

The other put forth the coin with tearful 
insistence. 

"Here's quar' ! " cried he, " tak't ! Yer 
goo' f ' ler an' I wan' yehs tak't ! " 

" Come, come, now," said the waiter, with 
the sullen air of a man who is forced into 
giving advice. " Put yer mon in yer 
pocket ! Yer loaded an' yehs on'y makes 
a fool of yerself." 

As the latter passed out of the door the 
man turned pathetically to the women. 

" He don' know I'm goo' f'ler," cried he, 
dismally. 

" Never you mind, Pete, dear," said the 
woman of brilliance and audacity, laying 
her hand with great affection upon his arm. 
" Never you mind, old boy ! We'll stay by 
you, dear ! " 

" Das ri' ! " cried the man, his face light 
ing up at the soothing tones of the 
woman's voice. " Das ri' ; I'm goo' f'ler an' 
w'en any one trea's me ri', I trea's zem ri' ! 
Shee?" 



MAGGIE. 

"Sure!" cried the women. "And we're 
not goin' back on you, old man." 

The man turned appealing eyes to the 
woman. He felt that if he could be con 
victed of a contemptible action he would die. 

" Shay, Nell, I allus trea's yehs shquare, 
didn' I? I allus been goo' Her wi' yehs, 
ain't I, Nell?" 

"Sure you have, Pete," assented the 
woman. She delivered an oration to her 
companions. " Yessir, that's a fact. Pete's 
a square fellah, he is. He never goes back 
on a friend. He's the right kind an' we 
stay by him, don't we, girls ? " 

" Sure ! " they exclaimed. Looking lov 
ingly at him they raised their glasses and 
drank his health. 

" Girlsh," said the man, beseechingly, " I 
allus trea's yehs ri', didn' I? I'm goo' fler, 
ain' I, girlsh ? " 

" Sure ! " again they chorused. 

"Well," said he finally, "le's have nozzer 
drink, zen." 



150 



MAGGIE. 



"That's right," hailed a woman, "that's 
right. Yer no bloomin' jay ! Yer spends 
yer money like a man. Dat's right." 

The man pounded the table with his 
quivering fists. 

" Yessir," he cried, with deep earnestness, 
as if someone disputed him. " I'm goo' f'ler, 
an' w'en any one trea's me ri', I allus trea's 
le's have nozzer drink." 

He began to beat the wood with his 
glass. 

" Shay ! " howled he, growing suddenly 
impatient. As the waiter did not then 
come, the man swelled with wrath. 

" Shay!" 'howled he again. 

The waiter appeared at the door. 

" Bringsh drinksh," said the man. 

The waiter disappeared with the orders. 

" Zat f'ler fool ! " cried the man. " He 
insul* me ! I'm ge'man ! Can* stan' be in- 
sul' ! I'm goin' lickim when comes ! " 

" No, no ! " cried the women, crowding 
about and trying to subdue him. " He's 



MAGGIE. !$! 

all right ! He didn't mean anything ! Let 
it go ! He's a good fellah ! " 

" Din' he insul' me ? " asked the man 
earnestly. 

" No," said they. " Of course he didn't ! 
He's all right ! " 

" Sure he didn' insul' me ? " demanded the 
man, with deep anxiety in his voice. 

" No, no ! We know him ! He's a good 
fellah. He didn't mean anything." 

" Well, zen," said the man, resolutely, 
" I'm go' 'pol'gize ! " 

When the waiter came, the man struggled 
to the middle of the floor. 

" Girlsh shed you insul' me ! I shay 

lie! I 'pol'gize!" 

"All right," said the waiter. 

The man sat down. He felt a sleepy but 
strong desire to straighten things out and 
have a perfect understanding with everybody. 

" Nell, I allus trea's yeh shquare, din* I ? 
Yeh likes me, don' yehs, Nell ? I'm goo' 
Her?" 



152 MAGGIE. 

" Sure ! " said the woman. 

"Yeh knows I'm stuck on yehs, don* 
yehs, Nell?" 

" Sure ! " she repeated, carelessly. 

Overwhelmed by a spasm of drunken 
adoration, he drew two or three bills from 
his pocket, and with the trembling fingers 
of an offering priest, laid them on the table 
before the woman. 

" Yehs knows yehs kin have all I got, 
'cause I'm stuck on yehs, Nell, I I'm 
stuck on yehs, Nell buy drinksh we're 
havin* great time w'en any one trea's 
me ri' I Nell we're havin' heluva 
time." 

Presently he went to sleep with his 
swollen face fallen forward on his chest. 

The women drank and laughed, not heed 
ing the slumbering man in the corner. 
Finally he lurched forward and fell groan 
ing to the floor. 

The women screamed in disgust and drew 
back their skirts. 



MAGGIE. 

" Come ahn ! " cried one, starting up an 
grily, " let's get out of here/' 

The woman of brilliance and audacity 
stayed behind, taking up the bills and stuffing 
them into a deep, irregularly shaped pocket. 
A guttural snore from the recumbent man 
caused her to turn and look down at him. 

She laughed. "What a fool!" she said, 
and went. 

The smoke from the lamps settled heavily 
down in the little compartment, obscuring the 
way out. The smell of oil, stifling in its inten 
sity, pervaded the air. The wine from an 
overturned glass dripped softly down upon 
the blotches on the man's neck. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

IN a room a woman sat at a table eating 
like a fat monk in a picture. 

A soiled, unshaven man pushed open the 
door and entered. 

" Well," said he, " Mag's dead." 

" What?" said the woman, her mouth filled 
with bread. 

" Mag's dead," repeated the man. 

"Deh blazes she is!" said the woman. She 
continued her meal. When she finished her 
coffee she began to weep. 

" I kin remember when her two feet was 
no bigger dan yer tumb, and she weared 
worsted boots," moaned she. 

"Well, whata dat?" said the man. 

" I kin remember when she weared 
worsted boots," she cried. 



MAGGIE. 



155 



The neighbours began to gather in the 
hall, staring in at the weeping woman as if 
watching the contortions of a dying dog. A 
dozen women entered and lamented with her. 
Under their busy hands the rooms took on 
that appalling appearance of neatness and or 
der with which death is greeted. 

Suddenly the door opened and a woman in 
a black gown rushed in with outstretched 
arms. " Ah, poor Mary ! " she cried, and ten 
derly embraced the moaning one. 

" Ah, what ter'ble affliction is dis ! " con 
tinued she. Her vocabulary was derived 
from mission churches. " Me poor Mary, 
how I feel fer yehs ! Ah, what a ter'ble afflic 
tion is a disobed'ent chile." 

Her good, motherly face was wet with 
tears. She trembled in eagerness to express 
her sympathy. The mourner sat with bowed 
head, rocking her body heavily to and fro, 
and crying out in a high, strained voice that 
sounded like a dirge on some forlorn pipe. 

" I kin remember when she weared 



ii 



156 



MAGGIE. 



worsted boots an' her two feets was no bigger 
dan yer tumb an' she weared worsted boots, 
Miss Smith," she cried, raising her streaming 
eyes. 

" Ah, me poor Mary !" sobbed the woman 
in black. With low, coddling cries, she sank 
on her knees by the mourner's chair, and put 
her arms about her. The other women began 
to groan in different keys. 

" Yer poor misguided chil' is gone now, 
Mary, an' let us hope its fer deh bes'. Yeh'll 
fergive her now, Mary, won't yehs, dear, all 
her disobed'ence ? All her t'ankless behaviour 
to her mudder an' all her badness ? She's 
gone where her ter'ble sins will be judged." 

The woman in black raised her face and 
paused. The inevitable sunlight came stream 
ing in at the windows and shed a ghastly 
cheerfulness upon the faded hues of the 
room. Two or three of the spectators were 
sniffling, and one was weeping loudly. The 
mourner arose and staggered into the other 
room. In a moment she emerged with a 



MAGGIE. 157 

pair of faded baby shoes held in the hollow 
of her hand. 

" I kin remember when she used to wear 
dem ! " cried she. The women burst anew into 
cries as if they had all been stabbed. The 
mourner turned to the soiled and unshaven 
man. 

" Jimmie, boy, go git yer sister ! Go git 
yer sister an' we'll put deh boots on her 
feets ! " 

" Dey won't fit her now, yeh fool," said 
the man. 

" Go git yer sister, Jimmie ! " shrieked the 
woman, confronting him fiercely. 

The man swore sullenly. He went over to 
a corner and slowly began to put on his coat. 
He took his hat and went 'out, with a drag 
ging, reluctant step. 

The woman in black came forward and 
again besought the mourner. 

" Yeh'll fergive her, Mary ! Yeh'll fergive 
yer bad, bad chil' ! Her life was a curse an' 
her days were black an' yeh'll fergive yer 



1 58 MAGGIE. 

bad girl ? She's gone where her sins will be 
judged." 

" She's gone where her sins will be 
judged ! " cried the other women, like a choir 
at a funeral. 

" Deh Lord gives and deh Lord takes 
away," said the woman in black, raising her 
eyes to the sunbeams. 

" Deh Lord gives and deh Lord takes 
away," responded the others. 

" Yeh'll fergive her, Mary ? " pleaded the 
woman in black. The mourner essayed to 
speak but her voice gave way. She shook her 
great shoulders frantically, in an agony of 
grief. The tears seemed to scald her face. 
Finally her voice came and arose in a scream 
of pain. 

"Oh, yes, I'll fergive her! I'll fergive 
her!" 

THE END. 



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ance and have many a good laugh." New York Herald. 



There is but one ' Uncle Remus,' and he will never grow old. ... It was a 
appy thought that of marrin the work of Harris and Fr 
and Kxpress. 



, 
happy thought, that of marrying the work of Harris and Frost." JVew York Mail 



" Nobody could possibly have done this work better than Mr. Frost, whose appre 
ciation of negro life fitted him especially to be the interpreter of Uncle Remus,' and 
whose sense of the humor in animal life makes these drawings really illustrations in the 
fullest sense. Mr. Harris's well-known work has become in a sense a classic, and this 
may be accepted as the standard edition. " Philadelphia Times. 

"A book which became a classic almost as soon as it was published. . . . Mr. Frost 
has never done anything better in the way of illustration, if indeed he has done any 
thing as good." Boston Advertiser. 

" We pity the reader who has not yet made the acquaintance of ' Uncle Remus ' 
and his charming story. . . . Mr. Harris has made a real addition to literature purely 
and strikingly American, and Mr. Frost has aided in fixing the work indelibly on the 
consciousness of the American reader." 7 he Churchman. 

" The old fancies of the old negro, dear as they may have been to us these many 
years, seem to gain new life when they nppear through the medium of Mr. Frost's 
imagination." New York Home Journal. 

" In his own peculiar field 'Uncle Remus' has no rival. The book has become a 
c'assic, but the latest edition is the choice one. It is rarely riven to an^ author to see 
his work accompanied by pictures so closely in sympathy with his text." San Fran 
cisco A ? gonaut. 

" We say it with the utmost faith that there is not an artist who works in illustra 
tion that can catch the attitude and expression, the slyness, the innate depravity, the 
eye of surprise, obstinacy, the hang of the head or the kick of the heels of the mute and 
the brute creation as Mr. Frost has shown to us here." Baltimore Sun. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



T 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HE THREE MUSKETEERS. By ALEXANDRE 
DUMAS. With a Letter from Alexandre Dumas, Jils, and 250 
Illustrations by Maurice Leloir. New popular edition in two 
volumes. 8vo. Cloth, $4.00. 

"This is undoubtedly the most superb edition of Dumas's masterpiece that has ever 
been printed. A book to delight the senses as well as the mind. Both without and 
within it is all that a book can possibly be." Chicago Tintes-Herald. 

" He who has read ' The Three Musketeers ' as a boy will be almost as grateful to 
Maurice Leloir for renewing his pleasure, as to Dumas for conferring it in the first in 
stance. ... It may be said that, until he was illustrated by Leloir, no one not a French 
antiquarian could have understood him thoroughly." The Critic. 

" We can not have too many editions of Dumas, and this particular one of his ro 
mances is so brilliant, so interesting, so lovable, that in this new dress it taker, at once 
a more favored place than ever in the affections of his followers." New York '1 rilnn:e. 

"The present of such a book to almost any one is to insure grateful remembrance 
for many years." New York World. 

" Leloir has caught the spirit of the times and has made the personages seem real." 
New York Times. 

" There is no edition equal to this in the quality of the illustrations or in the care 
which has been bestowed upon the translation." Philadelphia Press. 

"The edition now given to the public is most elegant in all its appointments. The 
illustrations by Maurice Leloir are magnificent, and are spirited enough to be in accord 
with their subject." Chicago Evening Post. 

" In this new and really magnificent dress the wonderfully dramatic and picturesque 
effects of the tale are admirably emphasized, for Maurice Leloir is an artist who por 
trays something more than surfaces. ... It would be difficult to praise too highly the 
varied vigor and charm which he has provided to accompany the chronicle of ' The 
Three Musketeers.' " Boston Beacon. 

" This standard romance has never been issued in more attractive and servirenble 
form. The young who have never become acquainted with the three knights, and the 
old who desire to renew their impressions, will alike find this edition a most agreeable 
medium." St. Paul Pioneer Press. 

"There can be no edition equal to this in the quality of the text, or in the care 
which has been bestowed upon the translation, and it is safe to say that the final and 
standard English edition of 'The Three Musketeers ' is now presented to the public." 
Elmira Telegram. 

" Maurice Leloir has studied the characters of Dumas's work until he has caught 
their spirit, and it is a real d'Artagnan who walks through the pages. Kis Athos, 
Porthos, and Aramis are alive; his duel scenes are pictures of real men, and not lay 
figures." Brooklyn Eagle. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.