Part 20 (2/2)
The Other Man (with an intense expression of interest): ”No, you're foolin' me!”
The One Man (solemnly): ”Ef I was to appear before my Maker to-morrow, yes! she was the widder of Barker.”
The Other Man: ”Well, I swow.”
The One Man: ”Well, this Widder Widdecombe, she put up a big funeral for the deceased. She hed Wilkins, and thet ondertaker just laid hisself out. Just spread hisself. Onfort'natly,--perhaps fort'natly in the ways of Providence,--one of Widdecombe's old friends, a doctor up thar in Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He goes up with the friends to look at the deceased, smilin' a peaceful sort o' heavinly smile, and everybody sayin' he's gone to meet his reward, and this yer friend turns round, short and sudden on the widder settin' in her pew, and kinder enjoyin, as wimen will, all the compliments paid the corpse, and he says, says he:--
”'What did you say your husband died of, marm?'
”'Consumption,' she says, wiping her eyes, poor critter.
'Consumption--gallopin' consumption.'
”'Consumption be d--d,' sez he, bein' a profane kind of Chicago doctor, and not bein' ever under conviction. 'Thet man died of strychnine.
Look at thet face. Look at thet contortion of them fashal muscles.
Thet's strychnine. Thet's risers Sardonikus' (thet's what he said; he was always sorter profane).
”'Why, doctor,' says the widder, 'thet--thet is his last smile. It's a Christian's resignation.'
”'Thet be blowed; don't tell me,' sez he. 'h.e.l.l is full of thet kind of resignation. It's pizon. And I'll--' Why, dern my skin, yes we are; yes, it's Joliet. Wall, now, who'd hey thought we'd been nigh onto an hour.”
Two or three anxious pa.s.sengers from their berths: ”Say; look yer, stranger! Old man! What became of--”
But the One Man and the Other Man had vanished.
MORNING ON THE AVENUE
NOTES BY AN EARLY RISER.
I have always been an early riser. The popular legend that ”Early to bed and early to rise,” invariably and rhythmically resulted in healthfulness, opulence, and wisdom, I beg here to solemnly protest against. As an ”unhealthy” man, as an ”unwealthy” man, and doubtless by virtue of this protest an ”unwise” man, I am, I think, a glaring example of the untruth of the proposition.
For instance, it is my misfortune, as an early riser, to live upon a certain fas.h.i.+onable avenue, where the practice of early rising is confined exclusively to domestics. Consequently, when I issue forth on this broad, beautiful thoroughfare at six A. M., I cannot help thinking that I am, to a certain extent, desecrating its traditional customs.
I have more than once detected the milkman winking at the maid with a diabolical suggestion that I was returning from a carouse, and Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed me a block or two with the evident impression that I was a burglar returning from a successful evening out. Nevertheless, these various indiscretions have brought me into contact with a kind of character and phenomena whose existence I might otherwise have doubted.
First, let me speak of a large cla.s.s of working-people whose presence is, I think, unknown to many of those gentlemen who are in the habit of legislating or writing about them. A majority of these early risers in the neighborhood of which I may call my ”beat” carry with them unmistakable evidences of the American type. I have seen so little of that foreign element that is popularly supposed to be the real working cla.s.s of the great metropolis, that I have often been inclined to doubt statistics. The ground that my morning rambles cover extends from Twenty-third Street to Was.h.i.+ngton Park, and laterally from Sixth Avenue to Broadway. The early rising artisans that I meet here, crossing three avenues,--the milkmen, the truck-drivers, the workman, even the occasional tramp,--wherever they may come from or go to, or what their real habitat may be,--are invariably Americans. I give it as an honest record, whatever its significance or insignificance may be, that during the last year, between the hours of six and eight A. M., in and about the locality I have mentioned, I have met with but two unmistakable foreigners, an Irishman and a German. Perhaps it may be necessary to add to this statement that the people I have met at those early hours I have never seen at any other time in the same locality.
As to their quality, the artisans were always cleanly dressed, intelligent, and respectful. I remember, however, one morning, when the ice storm of the preceding night had made the sidewalks glistening, smiling and impa.s.sable, to have journeyed down the middle of Twelfth Street with a mechanic so sooty as to absolutely leave a legible track in the snowy pathway. He was the fireman attending the engine in a noted manufactory, and in our brief conversation he told me many facts regarding his profession which I fear interested me more than the after-dinner speeches of some distinguished gentlemen I had heard the preceding night. I remember that he spoke of his engine as ”she,” and related certain circ.u.mstances regarding her inconsistency, her aberrations, her pettishnesses, that seemed to justify the feminine gender. I have a grateful recollection of him as being one who introduced me to a restaurant where chicory, thinly disguised as coffee, was served with bread at five cents a cup, and that he honorably insisted on being the host, and paid his ten cents for our mutual entertainment with the grace of a Barmecide. I remember, in a more genial season,--I think early summer,--to have found upon the benches of Was.h.i.+ngton Park a gentleman who informed me that his profession was that of a ”pigeon catcher”; that he contracted with certain parties in this city to furnish these birds for what he called their ”pigeon-shoots”; and that in fulfilling this contract he often was obliged to go as far west as Minnesota. The details he gave--his methods of entrapping the birds, his study of their habits, his evident belief that the city pigeon, however well provided for by parties who fondly believed the bird to be their own, was really ferae naturae, and consequently ”game” for the pigeon-catcher--were all so interesting that I listened to him with undisguised delight. When he had finished, however, he said, ”And now, sir, being a poor man, with a large family, and work bein' rather slack this year, if ye could oblige me with the loan of a dollar and your address, until remittances what I'm expecting come in from Chicago, you'll be doin' me a great service,” etc., etc.
He got the dollar, of course (his information was worth twice the money), but I imagine he lost my address. Yet it is only fair to say that some days after, relating his experience to a prominent sporting man, he corroborated all its details, and satisfied me that my pigeon-catching friend, although unfortunate, was not an impostor.
And this leads me to speak of the birds. Of all early risers, my most importunate, aggressive, and obtrusive companions are the English sparrows. Between six and seven A. M. they seem to possess the avenue, and resent my intrusion. I remember, one chilly morning, when I came upon a flurry of them, chattering, quarreling, skimming, and alighting just before me. I stopped at last, fearful of stepping on the nearest.
To my great surprise, instead of flying away, he contested the ground inch by inch before my advancing foot, with his wings outspread and open bill outstretched, very much like that ridiculous burlesque of the American eagle which the common canary-bird a.s.sumes when teased. ”Did you ever see 'em wash in the fountain in the square?” said Roundsman 9999, early one summer morning. I had not. ”I guess they're there yet. Come and see 'em,” he said, and complacently accompanied me two blocks. I don't know which was the finer sight,--the thirty or forty winged sprites, das.h.i.+ng in and out of the basin, each the very impersonation of a light-hearted, mischievous puck, or this grave policeman, with badge and club and s.h.i.+eld, looking on with delight.
Perhaps my visible amus.e.m.e.nt, or the spectacle of a brother policeman just then going past with a couple of ”drunk and disorderlies,”
recalled his official responsibilities and duties. ”They say them foreign sparrows drive all the other birds away,” he added, severely; and then walked off with a certain reserved manner, as if it were not impossible for him to be called upon some morning to take the entire feathered a.s.sembly into custody, and if so called upon he should do it.
Next, I think, in procession among the early risers, and surely next in fresh and innocent exterior, were the work-women or shop-girls. I have seen this fine avenue on gala afternoons bright with the beauty and elegance of an opulent city, but I have see no more beautiful faces than I have seen among these humbler sisters. As the mere habits of dress in America, except to a very acute critic, give no suggestion of the rank of the wearer, I can imagine an inexperienced foreigner utterly mystified and confounded by these girls, who perhaps work a sewing-machine or walk the long floors of a fas.h.i.+onable dry-goods shop.
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