JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.COM
RILEY'S REMINDER OF THE MISERY OF POVERTY
It is so easy to forget that many people used to live lives of great misery. James Whitcomb Riley's story "Jamesy" brings this point home. Riley is not known for his prose, but when he started out as a writer, he wrote prose as well as poetry. The second book of his which was published was entitled, "The Boss Girl," published in 1886 by Bowen-Merrill Publishing Company as it was known before it became Bobbs-Merrill.
Jamesy is a boot black, carrying his box of polishes and accosting likely candidates for his services. He is nine years old, the sole support of a drunken father and an ill sister, whom he adores and refers to as "The Boss Girl." The child, shrewd beyond his years, has been saving his money and has a large roll of bills hidden in his rags.
The teller of the story depicts himself as employed in the counting house of a large metropolitan newspaper. He smokes cigars, the sign of a prosperous man one hundred fifty years ago.
Intending to be charitable, the writer visits the squalid tenement of Jamesy on Christmas day and helps the boy struggle upstairs with a large, heavy flour sack. It turns out that the sack contains a complete, beautiful outfit Jamesy has somehow bought for his sister. His father sprawls on the floor in a drunken stupor. The lovely emaciated young girl lies in bed with scarcely anything to cover her. She had been trying to direct their living processes, though gravely ill because she had had no shoes, the father having sold them to buy whiskey. The cold she had taken had become increasingly worse. Her feelings, however, are only of love and compassion and are beautifully told. The boy is in joyful ecstasy because he thinks he has managed for his sister an outfit to make her well.
She gives the hat in the outfit to a neighbor who is loudly sobbing and dies quietly. We know that the clothes will be a shroud and that the struggling boy will never forget his "Boss Girl"
Riley's eloquent prose makes this Dickensonian story, which could be told in four or five pages, into a book. In 1891 the title of the story was changed from "The Boss Girl" to "Jamesy."
Why was the title changed? Perhaps because Jamesy is on every page of the book and his sister does not appear until almost the end of the story. Perhaps the title was ahead of its time, the term "boss" being offensive.
Riley's first book "The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems' came out in 1883. "The Boss Girl" was Riley's next book in 1886. Would he write poetry or prose. Poetry won out and the out-dated story I have told is forgotten now. "Jamesy" today would be in school. The drunken father would be in jail. Perhaps "the Boss Girl" would be working in an office while she and little brother lived in an adoptive family. Society tries, and stories such as this one show how far we have come since the Nineteenth Century.
Below is the famous Riley epic of the heroic character of a child of poverty. (from the Collier "Memorial Ed." of Riley's Complete Works.)
JAMESY
ONE week ago this Christmas day, in the little back office that adjoins the counting-room of the "Daily Journal," I sat in genial conversation with two friends. I do not now recall the theme of our discussion, but the general trend of it—suggested, doubtless, by the busy scene upon the streets —I remember most distinctly savored of the mellowing influences of the coming holidays, with perhaps an acrid tang of irony as we dwelt upon the great needs of the poor at such a time, and the chariness with which the hand of opulence was wont to dole out alms. But for all that we were merry, and as from time to time our glances fell upon the ever-shifting scene outside, our hearts grew warmer, and within the eyes the old dreams glimmered into fuller dawn. It was during a lull of conversation, and while the philanthropic mind, perchance, was wandering amid the outer throng, and doubtless quoting to itself
"Whene'er I take my walks abroad,"
that our privacy was abruptly broken into by
the grimy apparition of a boy of ten ;
a ragged
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little fellow—not the stereotyped edition of the street waif, but a cross between the bootblack and the infantine Italian with the violin. Where he had entered, and how, would have puzzled us to answer ; but there he stood before us, as it were, in a majesty of insignificance. I have never had the features of a boy impress me as did his, and as I stole a covert glance at my companions I was pleased to find the evidence of more than ordinary interest in their faces. They gazed in attentive silence on the little fellow, as, with uncovered, frowzy head, he stepped forward boldly, yet with an air of deference as unlooked for as becoming.
"I don't want to bother you gentlemens," he began, in a frank but hesitating tone that rippled hurriedly along as he marked a general nod of indulgence for the interruption. "I don't want to bother nobody, but if I can raise fifty cents—and I've got a nickel—and if I can raise the rest—and it ain't much, you know—on'y forty-five—and if I can raise the rest—I tell you, gentlemens," he broke off abruptly, and speaking with italicized sincerity, "I want jist fifty cents, 'cause I can git a blackin'- box fer that, and brush and ever'thing, and you can bet if I had that I wouldn't haf to ast nobody fer nothin' I And I ain't got no father ner mother, ner brother ner—ner—no sisters, neether ; but that don't make no difference, 'cause I'll work—at anything—yes, sir—when I can git anything to do—and I sleep jist any place—and I ain't had no breakfast—and, honest, gentlemens, I'm a good boy—I don't
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swear ner smoke ner chew—but that's all righton'y if you'll—jist make up forty-five between you —and that's on'y fifteen cents apiece—I'll thank you, I will, and I'll jist do anything—and it's coming Christmas, and I'll roll in the nickels, don't you fergit—if I on'y got a box—'cause I throw up a 'bad' shine I—and I can git the box fer fifty cents if you gentlemens'll on'y make up forty-five between you." At the conclusion of this long and rambling appeal, the little fellow stood waiting with an eager face for a response.
A look of stoical deliberation played about the features of the oldest member of the group, as with an air of seriousness, which, I think, even the boy recognized as affected, he asked :
"And you couldn't get a box like that for—say forty cents? Fifty cents looks like a lot of money to lay out in the purchase of a blacking-box."
The boy smiled wisely as he answered :
"Yes, it might look big to a feller that ain't up on prices, but I think it's cheap, 'cause it's a secondhand box, and a new one would cost seventy-five cents anyhow—'thout no brushes ner nothin' I"
In the meantime I had dropped into the little fellow's palm the only coin I had in my possession, and we all laughed as he closed his thanks with: "Oh, come, Cap, go the other nickel, er I won't git out o' here with half enough!" and at that he turned to the former speaker.
"Well, really," said that gentleman, fumbling in
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his pockets, "I don't believe I've got a dime with me."
"A dime," said the little fellow, with a look of feigned compassion. "Ain't got a dime? Maybe I'd loan you this one!" And we all laughed again.
"Tell you what do now," said the boy, taking advantage of the moment, and looking coaxingly into the smiling eyes of the gentleman still fumbling vainly in his pockets.—"Tell you what do: you borry twenty cents of the man that stays behind the counter there, and then we'll go the other fifteen, and that'll make it, and I'll skip out o' here a little the flyest boy you ever see! What do ye soy ?" And the little fellow struck a Pat Rooney attitude that would have driven the original inventor mad with envy.
"Give him a quarter !" laughed the gentleman appealed to.
"And here's the other dime," and as the little fellow clutched the money eagerly, he turned ; and in a tone of curious gravity,pe said :
"Now, honest, gentlemens, ain't a-givin' you no game about the box—'cause a new one costs seventy-five cents, and the one I've got—I mean the one I'm a-goin' to git—is jist as good as a new one, on'y it's second-hand; and I'm much oblige, gentlemens—honest, I am—and if ever I give you a shine you can jist bet it don't cost you nothin' I"
And with this expression of his gratitude, the little fellow vanished as mysteriously as he had at first appeared.
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"That boy hasn't a bad face," said the first speaker—"wide between the eyes—full forehead—good mouth, denoting firmness—altogether, a good, square face."
"And a noble one," said I, perhaps inspired to that rather lofty assertion by the rehearsal of the good points noted by my more observant companion.
"Yes, and an honest, straightforward way of talking, I would say," continued that gentleman. "I only noted one thing to shake my faith in that particular, and that was in his latest reference to the box. You'll remember his saying he was 'giving us no game' about it, whereas he had not been accused of such a thing."
"Oh, he meant about the price, don't you remember ?" said I.
"No," said the gentleman at the counter, "you're both wrong. He only threw in that remark because he thought I suspected him, for he recognized me just the instant before that speech, and it confused him, and with some reason, as you will see :—On my way to supper only last night, I overtook that same little fellow in charge of an old man who was in a deplorable state of drunkenness; and you know how slippery the streets were. I think if that old man fell a single time he fell a dozen, and once so violently that I ran to his assistance and helped him to his feet. I thought him badly hurt at first, for he gashed his forehead as he fell, and I helped the little fellow to take him into a drug-store, where the
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wound, upon examination, proved to be nothing more serious than to require a strip of plaster. I got a good look at the boy, there, however, and questioned him a little; and he said the man was his father, and he was taking him home ; and I gathered further from his talk that the man was a confirmed inebriate. Now you'll remember the boy told us here a while ago he had no father, and when he recognized me a moment since and found himself caught in one 'yarn,' at least, he very naturally supposed I would think his entire story a fabrication, hence the suspicious nature of his last remarks, and the sudden transition of his manner from that of real delight to gravity, which change, in my opinion, rather denotes lying to be a new thing to him. I can't be mistaken in the boy, for I noticed, as he turned to go, a bald place on the back of his head, the left side, a 'trade-mark,' first discovered last evening, as he bent over the prostrate form of his father."
"I noticed a thin spot in his hair," said I, "and wondered at the time what caused it."
"And don't you know ?"
I shook my head.
"Coal-bins and entry floors.—That little fellow hasn't slept within a bed for years, perhaps."
"But he told you, as you say, last night, he was taking the old man home?"
"Yes, home I I can imagine that boy's home. There are myriads like it in the city here—a cellar or a
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shed—a box-car or a loft in some old shop, with a father to chase him from it in his sober interludes, and to hold him from it in unconscious shame when helplessly drunk. `Home, Sweet Home!' That boy has heard it on the hand-organ, perhaps, but never in his heart—you couldn't grind it out of there with a thousand cranks."
The remainder of that day eluded me somehow ; I don't know how or where it passed. I suppose it just dropped into a comatose condition, and so slipped away "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
But one clear memory survives—an experience so vividly imprinted on my mind that I now recall its every detail : Entering the Union Depot that evening to meet the train that was to carry me away at six o'clock, muffled closely in my overcoat, yet more closely muffled in my gloomy thoughts, I was rather abruptly stopped by a small boy with a cry of : "Here, you man with the cigar ; don't you want them boots blacked? Shine 'em fer ten cents! Shine 'em fer a nickel—on'y you mustn't give me away on that," he added, dropping on his knees near the entrance, and motioning me to set my foot upon the box.
It was then too dark for me to see his fate clearly, but I had recognized the voice the instant he had spoken, and had paused and looked around.
"Oh, you'll have plenty o' time," he urged, guessing at the cause of my apparent hesitation. "None o' the trains on time to-night—on'y the Panhandle, and she's jist a-backin' in—won't start fer thirty
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minutes," and he again beckoned, and rattled a seductive tattoo on the side of his box.
"Well," said I, with a compromising air, "come inside, then, out of the cold."
"'G'inst the rules—cops won't have it. They jist fired me out o' there not ten minutes ago. Oh, come, Cap ; step out here; it won't take two minutes," and the little fellow spat professionally upon his brush, with a covert glance of pleasure as he noted the apparent success of the maneuver. "You don't live here, I'll bet," said the boy, setting the first boot on the box, and pausing to blow his hands.
"How do you know that? Did you never see me here before?"
"No, I never see you here before, but that ain't no reason. I can tell you don't live here by them shoes—'cause they've been put up in some little pennyroyal shop,—that's how. When you want a fly shoe you want to git her put up som'er's where they know somepin' about style. They's good enough metal in that shoe, on'y she's about two years off in style."
"You're posted, then, in shoes," said I, with a laugh.
"I ort to be," he went on, pantingly, a brush in either hand gyrating with a velocity that jostled his hat over his eyes, leaving most plainly exposed to my investigative eye the trade-mark before alluded to; "I ort to be posted in shoes, 'cause I ain't done nothin' but black 'em fer five years."
"You're an old hand, then, at the business," said
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I. "I didn't know but maybe you were just starting out. What's an outfit like that worth?"
"Thinkin' o startin' up?" he asked, facetiously.
"Oh, no," said I, good-humoredly. "I just asked out of idle curiosity. That's a new box, ain't it?"
"Newt' he repeated with a laugh. "Put up that other hoof. Newt W'y, if that box had ever had eyes like a human it would 'a' been a-wearin' specs by this time ; that's a old, bald-headed box, with one foot in the grave."
"And what did the old fellow cost you ?" I asked, highly amused at the quaint expressions of the boy.
"Cost ? Cost nothin'—on'y about a' hour's work. I made that box myse'f, 'bout four year ago."
"Ah I" said L
"Yes," he went on, "they don't cost nothin' ; the boys makes 'em out o' other boxes, you know. Some of 'em gits 'em made, but they ain't no good—ain't no better'n thin kind."
"So that didn't cost you anything?" said I, "though I suspect you wouldn't like to part with it for less than—well, I don't know how much money to say—seventy-five cents maybe—would anything less than seventy-five cents buy it?" I craftily interrogated.
"Seventy-five cents! W'y, what's the matter with you, man ? I could git a cart-load of 'em fer seventy-five cents. I'll take yer measure fer one like it fer fifteen, too quick!" and the little fellow leaned back from his work and laughed up in my face with absolute derision.
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I pulled my hat more closely down for fear of recognition, but was reassured a moment later as he went on :
"Wisht you lived here ; you'd be old fruit fer us fellows. I can see you now a-takin' wind—and we'd give it to you mighty slick now, don't you fergit I" and as the boy renewed his work, I think his little, ragged body shook less with industry than mirth.
"Wisht I'd struck you 'bout ten o'clock this morning!" and, as he spoke, he paused again and looked up in my face with real regret. "Oh, you'd 'a' been the loveliest sucker of 'em all! W'y, you'd 'a' went the whole pot yerse'f I"
"How do you mean?" said I, dropping the cigar I held.
"How do I mean? Oh, you don't want to smoke this thing again after its a-rollin' round in the dirt!"
"Why, you don't smoke," said I, reaching for the cigar he held behind him.
"Met Oh, what you givin' me?"
"Come, let me have it," I said, sharply, drawing a case from my pocket and taking out another cigar.
"Oh, you want a light," he said, handing me the stub and watching me wistfully. "Couldn't give us a fresh cigar, could you, Cap?"
"I don't know," said I, as though deliberating on the matter. "What was that you were going to tell me just now? You started to tell me what a 'lovely sucker' I'd have been had you met me this morning. How did you mean r
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"Give me a cigar and I'll tell you. Oh, come, now, Cap ; give me a smoker and I'll give you the whole game. I will, now, honest I"
I held out the open case.
"Nothin' mean about you, is they?" he said, eagerly taking a fresh cigar in one hand and the stub in the other. "A ten-center, too—oh, I guess not!' But, to my surprise, he took the stub between his lips, and began opening his coat. "Guess I'll jist fat this daisy, and save 'er up for Christmas. No, I won't either," he broke in suddenly, with a bright, keen flash of second thought. "Tell you what I'll do," holding up the cigar and gazing at it admiringly; "she's a ten-center all right, ain't she?"
I nodded.
"And worth every cent of it, too, ain't she?" "Every cent of it," I repeated.
"Then give me a nickel, and she's yourn—'cause if you can afford to give this to me fer nothin', looks like I oft to let you have it fer half-price"; and as I laughingly dropped the nickel in his hand he concluded, "And they's nothin' mean about me, neither l" •
"Now, go on with your story," said I. "How about that 'game' you were 'giving,' this morning?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Cap. Us fellers has got to lay fer ever' nickel, 'cause none of us is bondholders; and they's days and days together when we don't make enough to even starve on.—What I mean is, we on'y make enough to pay fer aggervatin' our ap‑
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petites with jist about enough chuck to keep us storyin'-hungry. So, you see, when a feller ain't got nothin' else to do, and his appetite won't sleep in the same bunk with him, he's bound to git on to somepin' crooked and git up all sorts o' dodges to git along. Some gives 'em one thing, and some another, but you bet they got to be mighty slick now, 'cause people won't have 'orphans,' and 'fits,' and cripples,' and 'drunk fathers,' and 'mothers that eats morphine,' and 'white-swellin',' and 'consumption,' and all that sort o' taffy! Got to git 'er down finer'n that! But I been a-gittin' in my work all the same, don't you fergit! You won't ever blow, now ?"
"How could I 'blow,' and what if I did ?—I don't live here," I replied.
"Well, you better never blow, anyhow ; 'cause if ever us duffers would git on to it you'd be a sp'iled oyster I"
"Go on," said I, with an assuring tone.
"The lay I'm on jist now," he continued, dropping his voice and looking cautiously around, "is a-hidin' my box and a-rushin' in, suddent-like, where they's a crowd o' nobs a-talkin' politics er somepin', and a-jist startin' in, and 'fore they know what's a-comin' I'm a-flashin' up a nickel er a dime, and a-tellin"em if I on'y had enough more to make fifty cents I could buy a blackin'-box, and wouldn't have to ast no boot o' my grandmother! And two minutes chinnin' does it, don't you see, cause they don't know nothin' 'bout blackin'-boxes; they're jist
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as soft as you air. They got an idy, maybe, that blackin'-boxes comes all the way from Chiny, with cokeynut whiskers packed 'round 'em ; and I make it solid by a-sayin' I'm on'y goin' to git a secondhand box—see? But that ain't the p'int—it's the Mr. Nickel I' already got. Oh! it'll paralyze 'em ever' time! Sometimes fellers'll make up seventy-five cents er a dollar, and tell me to 'git a new box, and go into the business right.' That's a thing that always rattles me. Now, if they'd on'y growl a little and look like they was jist a-puttin' up 'cause the first one did, I can stand it ; but when they go to pattin' me on the head, and a-tellin' me 'that's right,' and 'not to be afeard o' work,' and I'll 'come out all right,' and a-tellin' me to `git a good substantial box while I'm a-gittins,' and a-ponyin' up handsome, there's where I weaken—I do, honest!" And never so plainly as at that moment did I see within his face and in his eyes the light of true nobility.
"You see," he went on, in a tone of voice half courage, half apology, "I' got a family on my hands, and I' jist got to git along somehow I I could git along on the square deal as long as mother was alive—'cause she'd work—but ever sence she died —and that was winter 'fore last—I've kind o' had to double on the old thing all sorts o' ways. But Sis don't know it. Sis, she thinks I'm the squarest muldoon in the business," and even side by side with the homely utterance a great sigh faltered from his lips.
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"And who is Sis?" I inquired with new interest.
"Sis ?" he repeated, knocking my foot from the box, and leaning back, still in the old position, his hat now lying on the ground beside him, and his frowzy hair tossed backward from the full, broad brow—"Who's Sis ?" he repeated with an upward smile that almost dazzled me—"W'y, Sis is—is-- w'y, Sis is the boss girl—and don't you fergit it I"
No need had he to tell me more than this. I knew who "Sis" was by the light of pride in the uplifted eyes; I knew who "Sis" was by the exultation in the broken voice, and the half-defiant tossing of the frowzy head; I knew who "Sis" was by the little, naked hands thrown upward openly; I knew who "Sis" was by the tear that dared to trickle through the dirt upon her ragged brother's face. And don't you forget it
0 that boy down there upon his knees I—there in the cinders and the dirt—so far, far down beneath us that we trample on his breast and grind our heels into his very heart; 0 that boy there, with his lifted eyes, and God's own glory shining in his face, has taught me, with an eloquence beyond the trick of mellow-sounding words and metaphor, that love may find a purer home beneath the rags of poverty and vice than in all the great warm heart of Charity.
I hardly knew what impulse prompted me, but as the boy rose to his feet and held his hand out for the compensation for his work, I caught the little dingy palm close, close within my own, and
ix -13
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wrung it as I would have wrung the hand of some great conqueror.
The little fellow stared at me in wonderment, and although his lips were silent, I can but believe that had they parted with the utterance within his heart my feelings had received no higher recognition than the old contemptuous phrase, "Oh, what you givin' me?"
"And so you've got a family on your hands?" I inquired, recovering an air of simple curiosity, and toying in my pocket with some bits of change. "How much of a family?"
"On'y three of us now."
"Only three of you, eh? Yourself, and Sis, and —and—"
"The old man," said the boy, uneasily ; and after a pause, in which he seemed to swallow an utterance more bitter, he added, "And he ain't no good on earth I"
"Can't work ?" I queried.
"Won't work," said the boy, bitterly. "He won't work—he won't do nothin'—on'y budge! And I haf to steer him in ever' night, 'cause the cops won't pull him any more—they won't let him in the station-house more'n they'd let him in a parler, 'cause he's a plum' goner now, and liable to croak any minute."
"Liable to what ?" said I.
"Liable to jist keel over—wink out, you know—'cause he has fits—kind o' jimjams, I guess. Had a fearful old matinee with him last night! You
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see he comes all sorts o' games on me, and I haf to put up fer him—'cause he's got to have whisky, and if we can on'y keep him about so full he's a regular lamb; but he don't stand no monkeyin' when he wants whisky, now you bet ! Sis can handle him better'n me, but she's been a-losin' her grip on him lately—you see Sis ain't stout any more, and been kind o' sick-like so long she humors him, you know, more'n she'd ort. And he couldn't git on his pins at all yisterday morning, and Sis sent fer me, and I took him down a pint, and that set him a-runnin' so that when I left he made Sis give up a quarter he saw me slip her; and it jist happened I run into him that evening and got him in, or he'd 'a' froze to death. I guess he must 'a' kind o' had 'em last night, 'cause he was the wildest man you ever see—saw grasshoppers with paper-collars on, and old sows with feather-duster tails—the durndest program you ever heard of! And he got so bad onc't he was a-goin' to belt Sis, and did try it: and—and I had to chug him one or he'd 'a' done it. And then he cried, and Sis cried, and 1 cri—, I— Dern him! you can bet yer life / didn't cry!" And as the boy spoke, the lips quivered into stern compression, the little hands gripped closer at his side, but for all that the flashing eye grew blurred and the lids dropped downward.
"That's a boss shine on them shoes."
I was mechanically telling over in my hand the three small coins I had drawn from my pocket. "That is a nice job!" said I, gazing with an un‑
2428 JAMESY
usual show of admiration at the work ; "and I thought," continued I, with real regret, "that I had two dimes and a nickel here, and was thinking that, as these were Christmas times, I'd just give you a quarter for your work."
"Honest, Cap?'
"Honest!" I repeated, "but the fact is the two dimes, as I thought they were, are only two three-cent pieces, so I have only eleven cents in change, after all."
"Spect they'd change a bill fer you 'crost there at the lunch-counter," he suggested, with charming artlessness.
"Won't have time—there's my train just coupling.—But take this—I'll see you again sometime, perhaps."
"How big a bill is it you want changed?" asked the little fellow, with a most acquisitive expression, and a swift glance at our then lonely surroundings.
"I only have one bill with me," said I, nervously, "and that's a five."
"Well, here then," said the boy, hurriedly, with another and more scrutinizing glance about him—"guess I can 'commodate you." And as I turned in wonder, he drew from some mysterious recess in the lining of his coat a roll of bills, from which he hastily detached four in number, then returned the roll; and before I had recovered from my surprise, he had whisked the note from my fingers and left in my hand instead the proper change.
"This is on the dead, now, Cap. Don't you ever
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cheep about me havin' wealth, you know ; 'cause it ain't mine—that is, it is mine, but I'm a— There goes yer train. Ta-ta I"
"The day before Christmas," said I, snatching his hand, and speaking hurriedly—"the day before Christmas I'm coming back, and if you'll be here when the five-thirty train rolls in you'll find a man that wants his boots blacked—maybe to get married in, or something—anyway he'll want a shine like this, and he'll come prepared to pay the highest market price—do you understand?"
"You jist tell that feller fer me," said the boy, eclipsing the twinkle of one eye, and dropping his voice to an inflection of strictest confidence—"you jist tell that feller fer me that I'm his oyster l"
"And you'll meet him, sure?" said I.
"I will," said the boy. And he kept his word.
My ride home was an incoherent fluttering of the wings of time, in which travail one fretful hour was born, to gasp its first few minutes helplessly ; then moan, roll over and kick out its legs and sprawl about; then crawl a little—stagger to its feet and totter on; then tumble down a time or two and knock its empty head against the floor and howl ; then loom up awkwardly on gangling legs, too much in their own way to comprehend that they were in the way of everybody else; then limp a little as it worried on—drop down exhausted—moan again—toss up its hands—shriek out, and die in violent convulsions.
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We have all had that experience of the carwheels—had them enter into conversation with us as we gaily embarked upon some pleasant trip, perhaps; had them rattle off in scraps of song, or lightly twit us with some dear one's name, or even go so far as to laugh at us and mock us for some real or fancied dereliction of car-etiquette. I shall ever have good reason to remember how once upon a time a boy of fourteen, though greatly undersized, told the conductor he was only ten, and although the unsuspecting official accepted the statement as a truth, with the proper reduction in the fare, the car-wheels called that boy a "liar" for twenty miles—and twenty miles as long and tedious as he has ever compassed in his journey through this vale of tears.
The car-wheels on this bitter winter evening were not at all communicative. They were sullen and morose. They didn't feel like singing, and they wouldn't laugh. They had no jokes, and if there was one peculiar quality of tone they possessed in any marked degree it was that of sneering. They had a harsh, discordant snarl, as it seemed, and were spiteful and insinuating.
The topic they had chosen for that night's consideration was evidently of a very complex and mysterious nature, and they gnawed and mumbled at it with such fierceness, and, withal, such selfishness, I could only catch a flying fragment of it now and then, and that, I noticed, was of the coarsest fiber of intelligence, and of slangy flavor. Listen‑
JAMESY 2431
ing with the most painful interest, I at last made out the fact that the inflection seemed to be in the interrogative, and, with anxiety the most intense, I slowly came to comprehend that they were desirous of ascertaining the exact distance between two given points, but the proposition seemed determined not to round into fuller significance than to query mockingly, "How fur is it? How fur is it? How fur, how fur, how fur is it?" and so on to a most exasperating limit. As this senseless phrase was repeated and reiterated in its growing harshness and unchanging intonation, the relentless pertinacity of the query grew simply agonizing, and when at times the car door opened to admit a brakeman, or the train-boy, who had everything to sell but what I wanted, the emphasized refrain would lift me from my seat and drag me up and down the aisle. When the phrase did eventually writhe round into form and shade more tangible, my relief was such that I sat down, and in my fancy framed a grim, unlovely tune that suited it, and hummed with it, in an undertone of dismal satisfaction:
"How fur—how fur
Is it from here
From here to Happiness?"
When I returned, that same refrain rode back into the city with me I All the gay metropolis was robing for the banquet and the ball. All the windows of the crowded thoroughfares were kindling
2432 JAMES?
into splendor. Along the streets rode lordly carriages, so weighted down with costly silks, and furs, and twinkling gems, and unknown treasures in unnumbered packages, that one lone ounce of needed charity would have snapped their axles, and a feather's weight of pure benevolence would have splintered every spoke.
And the old refrain rode with me through it alias stoical, relentless and unchangeable as fate—and in the same depraved and slangy tone in which it seemed to find an especial pride, it sang, and sang again:
"How fur—how fur
Is it from here
From here to Happiness!"
The train, that for five minutes had been lessening in speed, toiled painfully along, and as I arose impatiently and reached behind me for my overcoat, a cheery voice cried, "Hello, Cap ! Want a lift ? I'll he'p you with that benjamin"; and as I looked around I saw the grimy features of my little hero of the brush and box.
"Hello !" said I, as much delighted as surprised. "Where did you drop from?"
"Oh, I collared this old hearse a mile er so back yonder," said the little fellow, gaily, standing on the seat behind me and holding up the coat. "Been a-doin' circus-business on the steps out there fer half an hour. You bet I had my eye on you, all the same, though!"
JAMES? 2433
"You had, eh?" I exclaimed, gladly, although I instinctively surmised his highest interest in me was centered in my pocketbook. "You had, eh ?" I repeated with more earnestness—"Well, I'm glad of that, Charlie—or, what is your name ?"
"Squatty," said the boy. Then noticing the look of surprise upon my face, he added soberly: "That ain't my sure-enough name, you know ; that's what the boys calls me. Sis calls me Jamesy."
"Well, Jamesy," I continued, buttoning my collar and drawing on my gloves, "I'm mighty glad to see you, and if you don't believe it, just go down in that right-hand overcoat-pocket and you'll find out."
The little fellow needed no second invitation, and as he drew forth a closely folded package the look of curiosity upon his face deepened to one of blank bewilderment.
"Open it," said I, smiling at the puzzled little face; "open it—it's for you."
"Oh, here, Cap," said the boy, dropping the package on the seat, and holding up a rigid finger, "you're a-givin' me this, ain't you?"
"I'm giving you the package, certainly," said I, somewhat bewildered. "Open it—it's a Christmas present for you—open it!"
"What's your idy o' layin' fer me ?" asked the boy, with a troubled and uneasy air. "I've been a-givin' you square business right along, ain't I ?"
"Why, Jamesy," said I, as I vaguely comprehended the real drift of his thought, "the package is for you, and if you won't open it, I will," and as I
2434 JAMESY
spoke I began unfolding it. "Here," said I, "is a pair of gloves a little girl about your size told me to give to you, because I was telling her about you, over where I live, and it's 'a clear case,' " and I laughed lightly to myself as I noticed a slow flush creeping to his face. "And here," said I, "is a bang-up pair of good old-fashioned socks, and, if they'll fit you, there's an old woman that wears specs and a mole on her nose, told me to tell you, for her, that she knit them for your Christmas present, and if you don't wear them she'll never forgive you. And here;' I continued, "is a cap, as fuzzy as a woolly-worm, and as warm a cap, I reckon, as you ever stood on your head in ; it's a cheap cap, but I bought it with my own money, and money that I worked mighty hard to get, because I ain't rich ; now, if I was rich, I'd buy you a plug; but I've got an idea that this little, old, woolly cap, with earbobs to it, and a snapper to go under your chin, don't you see, won't be a bad cap to knock around in, such weather as this. What do you say now! Try her on once," and as I spoke I turned to place it on his head.
"Oomh-ooh I" he negatively murmured, putting out his hand, his closed lips quivering—the little frowzy head drooping forward, and the ragged shoes shuffling on the floor.
"Come," said I, my own voice growing curiously changed ; "won't you take these presents? They are yours ; you must accept them, Jamesy, not because they're worth so very much, or because they're very
JAMESY 2435
fine," I continued, bending down and folding up the parcel, "but because, you know, I want you to, and—and—you must take them ; you must!" and as I concluded, I thrust the tightly folded parcel beneath his arm, and pressed the little tattered elbow firmly over it.
"There you are," said I.—"Freeze on to it, and we'll skip off here at the avenue. Come."
I hardly dared to look behind me till I found myself upon the street, but as I threw an eager glance over my shoulder I saw the little fellow following, not bounding joyfully, but with a solemn step, the little parcel hugged closely to his side, and his eyes bent soberly upon the frozen ground.
"And how's Sis by this time?" I asked cheerily, flinging the question backward, and walking on more briskly.
"'Bout the same," said the boy, brightening a little, and skipping into a livelier pace.
"About the same, eh? and how's that?" I asked.
"Oh, she can't git around much like she used to, you know ; but she's a-gittin' better all the time. She set up mighty nigh all day yisterday"; and as the boy spoke the eyes lifted with the old flash, and the little frowzy head tossed with the old defiance.
"Why, she's not down sick?" said I, a sudden ache of sorrow smiting me.
"Yes," replied the boy, "she's been bad a long lime. You see," he broke in by way of explanation, "she didn't have no shoes ner nothin' when winter
2436 JAMESY
come, and kind o' took cold, you know, and that give her the whoopin'-cough so's she couldn't git around much. You jist ort to see her now l- Oh, she's a-gittin' all right now, you can bet! and she said yisterday she'd be plum well Christmas, and that's on'y to-morry.--Guess not(" and as the little fellow concluded this exultant speech, he circled round me, and then shot forward like a rocket.
"Hi! Jamesyl" I called after him, pausing at a stairway and stepping in the door.
The little fellow joined me in an instant. "Want that shine now ?" he inquired with panting eagerness.
"Not now, Janiesy," said I, "for I'm going to be quite busy for a while. This is my stopping-place here—the second door on the right, up-stairs, remember—and I work there when I'm in the city, and I sometimes sleep there, when I work late. And now I want to ask a very special favor of you," I continued, taking a little sealed packet from my pocket : "here's a little box that you're to take to Sis, with my compliments—the compliments of the season, you understand,—and tell her I sent it, with particular directions that she shouldn't break it open till Christmas morning—not till Christmas morning, understand! Then you tell her that I would like very much to come and see her, and if she says all right,—and you must give me a good `send-off,' and she'll say all right if `Jamesy' says all right,—then come back here, say two hours from now, or three
JAMESY 2437
hours, or to-night, anyway, and we'll go down and see Sis together—what do you say?"
The boy nodded dubiously. "Honest—must I do all that, sure enough?"
"Will you?" said I; "that's what I want to know"; and I pushed back the dusky little face and looked into the bewildered eyes.
"Solid?' he queried, gravely.
"Solid," I repeated, handing him the box. "Will you come?"
"W'y, 'course I will, on'y I was jist a-thinkin'—"
"Just thinking what ?" said I, as the little fellow paused abruptly and shook the box suspiciously at his ear. "Just thinking what?" I repeated; "for I must go now ; good-by.—Just thinking what ?"
"Oh, nothin'7 said the boy, backing off and staring at me in a phase of wonder akin to awe.— "Nothin', on'y I was jist a-thinkin' that you was a little the curiousest rooster I ever see."
Three hours later, as I sat alone, he came in upon me timidly to say he had not been home yet, having "run acrost the old man jist a-bilin', and had to git him corralled 'fore he dropped down som'er's in the snow ; but I'm a-gittin 'long bully with him now," he added with a deep sigh of relief, "'cause he's so full he'll haf to let go purty soon. Say you'll be here?"
I nodded silently, and he was gone.
The merry peals of laughter rang up from the streets like mockery. The jingling of bells, the clat•
2438 JAMES?
ter and confusion of the swarming thoroughfares, flung up to me not one glad murmur of delight ; the faint and far-off blaring of a dreamy waltz, blown breeze-like over the drowsy ear of night, had sounded sweeter to me had I stood amidst the band, with every bellowing horn about my ears, and the drums and clashing cymbals howling mad.
I couldn't work, I couldn't read, .I couldn't rest; I could only pace about. I heard the clock strike ten, and strike it hard ; I heard it strike eleven, viciously; and twelve it held out at arm's length, and struck it full between the eyes, and let it drop—. stone dead. 0 I saw the blood ooze from its ears, and saw the white foam freeze upon its lips! I was alone—alone I
It was three o'clock before the boy returned.
"Been a long while," he began, "but I had a fearful time with the old man, and he went on so when I did git him in I was 'most afeard to leave him; but he kind o' went to sleep at last, and Molly she come over to see how Sis was a-gittin' ; and Sis said she'd like to see you if you'd come now, you know, while they ain't no racket goin' on."
"Come, then," said I, buttoning my coat closely at the throat, "I am ready"; and a moment later we had stepped into the frosty night. We moved along in silence, the little fellow half running, half sliding along the frozen pavement in the lead; and I noted, with a pleasurable thrill, that he had donned the little fuzzy cap and mittens, and from time to
JAMESY 2439
time was flinging, as he ran, admiring glances at his shadow on the snow.
Our way veered but a little from the very center of the city, but led mainly along through narrow streets and alley-ways, where the rear ends of massive business blocks had dwindled down to insignificant proportions to leer grimly at us as we passed little grated windows and low, scowling doors. Occasionally we passed a clump of empty boxes, barrels, and such debris and merchandise as had been crowded pell-mell from some inner storage by their newer and more dignified companions ; and now and then we passed an empty bus, bulging up in the darkness like a behemoth of the olden times ; or, jutting from still narrower passages, the sloping ends of drays and carts innumerable. And along even as forbidding a defile as this we groped until we came upon a low, square brick building that might have served at one time as a wash-house, or, less probably, perhaps, a dairy. There was but one window in the front, and that but little larger than an ordinary pane of glass. In the sides, however, and higher up, was a row of gratings, evidently designed more to serve as ventilation than as openings for light. There was but one opening, an upright doorway, half above ground, half below, with little narrow side-steps leading down to it. A light shone dimly from the little window, and as the boy motioned me to pause and listen, a sound of female voices talking in undertones was audible,
2440 JAMES?
mingled with a sound like that of some one snoring heavily.
"Hear the old man a-gittin' in his work ?" whispered the boy.
I nodded. "He's asleep?"
"You bet he's asleep!" said the boy, still in a whisper; "and he'll jist about stay with it thataway fer five hours, anyhow. What time you got now, Cap?"
"A quarter now till four," I replied, peering at my watch.
"W'y, it's Christmas, then!" he cried in muffled rapture of delight ; but abruptly checking his emotion, he beckoned me a little farther from the door, and spoke in a confidential whisper.
"Cap, look here, now ; 'fore we go in I want you to promise me one thing—'cause you can fix it and she'll never drop! Now, here, I want to put up a job on Sis, you understand!"
"What!" I exclaimed, starting back and staring at the boy in amazement. "Put up a job on Sis?"
"Oh, look here, now, Cap; you ain't a-goin' back on a feller like that I" broke in the little fellow, in a mingled tone of pleading and reproof ; "and if you don't help a feller I'll haf to wait till broad daylight, 'cause we ain't got no clock."
"No clock!" I repeated with increased bewilderment
"Oh, come, Cap, what do you say? It ain't no lie, you know ; all you got to dot be to jist tell Sis it's Christmas—as though you didn't want me to
rem,—."7”...77717'
JAMESY 244!
hear, you know ; and then she'll git my 'Christmas gift!' first, you know ;—and, oh, lordy ! won't she think she's played it fine!" And as I slowly comprehended the meaning of the little fellow's plot I nodded my willingness to assist in "putting up the job."
"Now, hold on a second!" continued the little fellow, in the wildest glee, darting through an opening in a high board fence a dozen steps away, and in an instant reappearing with a bulky parcel, which, as he neared me, I discovered was a paper flour-sack half filled, the other half lapped down and fastened with a large twine string. "Now this stuff," he went on excitedly, "you must juggle in without Sis seein' it—here, shove it under your 'ben,' here—therethat's business! Now when you go in, you're to set down with the other side to'rds the bed, you see, and when Sis hollers 'Christmas gift,' you know, you jist kind o' let it slide down to the floor like, and I'll nail it slick enough—though I'll p'tend, you know, it ain't Christmas yet, and look sold out, and say it wasn't fair fer you to tell her, and all that ; and then I'll open up suddent-like, and if you don't see old Sis bug out them eyes of hero I don't want a cent !" And as the gleeful boy concluded this speech, he put his hands over his mouth and dragged me down the little, narrow steps.
"Here's that feller come to see you, Sis!" he announced abruptly, opening the door and peering in. "Come on," he said, turning to me. I followed,
a-14
2442 JAMESY
closing the door, and looking curiously around. A squabby, red-faced woman, sitting on the edge of a low bed, leered upon me, but with no salutation. An old cook-stove, propped up with bricks, stood back against the wall directly opposite, and through the warped and broken doors in front sent out a dismal suggestion of the fire that burned within. At the side of this, prone upon the floor, lay the wretched figure of a man, evidently in the deepest stage of drunkenness, and thrown loosely over him was an old tattered piece of carpet and a little checkered shawl.
There was no furniture to speak of ; one chair—and that was serving as a stand—stood near the bed, a high hump-shouldered bottle sitting on it, a fruit-can full of water, and a little dim and smoky lamp that glared sulkily.
"Jamesy, can't you git the man a cheer er somepin'?" queried a thin voice from the bed ; at which the red-faced woman rose reluctantly with the rather sullen words: "I-le can sit here, I reckon," while the boy looked at me significantly and took up a position near the "stand."
"So this is Sis?" I said, with reverence.
The little haggard face I bent above was beautiful. The eyes were dark and tender—very tender, and though deeply sunken were most childish in expression and star-pure and luminous. She reached a wasted little hand out to me, saying simply: "It was mighty good in you to give them things to Jamesy, and send me that mo—that—that little box,
JAIIIESY 2443
you know—on'y I guess I—I won't need it." As she spoke a smile of perfect sweetness rested on the face, and the hand within my own nestled in dovelike peace.
The boy bent over the white face from behind and whispered something in her ear, trailing the little laughing lips acro