Part 19 (2/2)

”Watch out you don't lose the little one I gave you.”

”Ya.s.sah, I got hit all sewed up in my close.”

The old master saw that further argument would be useless. He rose wondering if his act of emanc.i.p.ation were not an act of cowardice--the s.h.i.+rking of responsibility for the boy's life. His mouth closed firmly.

That was just the point about the inst.i.tution of Slavery. No such responsibility should be placed on any man's shoulders.

Sam insisted on ministering to the wants of the family until he saw them safely on the boat for West Point. He waved each member a long goodbye.

And then hurried to his new chum at the boarding house on Water Street.

This dusky friend had won Sam's confidence by his genial ways on the first night of their acquaintance. He had learned that Sam had just been freed. That this was his first trip to New York though he spoke with careless ease of his knowledge of Was.h.i.+ngton.

But the most important fact revealed was that he had lately come into money through the generosity of his former master. The sable New Yorker evinced no curiosity about the amount.

After four days of joy he waked from a sickening stupor. He found himself lying in a filthy alley at dawn, bareheaded, his coat torn up the back, every dollar gone and his friend nowhere to be found.

Colonel Lee had given him the address of three clergymen and told him to call on them for help if he had any trouble. He looked everywhere for these cards. They couldn't be found. He had been so c.o.c.ksure of himself he had lost them. He couldn't make up his mind to stoop to blacking boots and cleaning spittoons. He had always lived with aristocrats. He felt himself one to his finger tips.

There was but one thing he could do that seemed to be needed up here.

He could handle tobacco. He could stem the leaf. He had learned that at Arlington in helping Ben superintend the curing of the weed for the servants' use.

He made the rounds of the factories only to find that the larger part of this work was done in tenement homes. He spent a day finding one of these workshops.

They offered to take him in as a boarder and give him sixty cents a day.

He could have a pallet beside the six children in the other room and a place to put his trunk. Sixty cents a day would pay his room rent and give him barely enough food to keep body and soul together.

He hurried back to his boarding house, threw the little trunk on his back and trudged to the tobacco tenement. When he arrived no one stopped work. The mother waved her hand to the rear. He placed his trunk in a dark corner, came out and settled to the task of stemming tobacco.

He did his work with a skill and ease that fascinated the children. He took time to show them how to grip the leaf to best advantage and rip the stem with a quick movement that left scarcely a trace of the weed clinging to it. He worked with a swinging movement of his body and began to sing in soft, low tones.

The wizened eyes brightened, and when he stopped one of them whispered:

”More, black man. Sing some more!”

He sang one more song and choked. His eye caught the look of mortal weariness in the tired face of the little girl of six and his voice wouldn't work.

”G.o.ddermighty!” he muttered, ”dese here babies ought not ter be wukkin lak dis!”

When lunch time came the six children begged Sam to live in the place and take his meals with them.

Their mother joined in the plea and offered to board him for thirty cents a day. This would leave him a few cents to spend outside. He couldn't yet figure on clothes. It didn't seem right to have to pay for such things. Anyhow he had enough to last him awhile.

He decided to accept the offer and live as a boarder with the family.

The lunch was discouraging. A piece of cold bread and a gla.s.s of water from the hydrant. Sam volunteered to bring the water.

The hydrant was the only water supply for the six hundred people whose houses touched the alley. It stood in the center. The only drainage was a sink in front of it. All the water used had to be carried up the stairs and the slops carried down. The tired people did little carrying downstairs. Pans and pails full of dishwater were emptied out the windows with no care for the pa.s.ser below. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed without a fight from this cause. A fight in the quarter was always a pleasure to the settlement.

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