V
“The sight of so much sin and suffering . . .” said the lady with the sprained ankle. “Hum; there were fleas in that cab. . . . I don’t know; they don’t seem to realize! . . . Huh? And the most of it falls on the innocent!”
“If they was more like you we’d be a hull lot better off,” said Joe.
“Not like me, Joe, no! . . . That horse ought to have been reported to the S.P.C.A. Oh, dear! There are so many things one ought to . . . Joe, you should say: ‘If there were more’—if you don’t mind my telling you. . . . Huh? . . .”
“No’m. I’m crazy to learn. Ain’t had no chances. If there were more like you. . . .”
“No, Joe! . . . I’m sure it had some terrible disease . . . I’m but a poor weak vessel! One night a week . . . Huh? The air is so bad! . . . Yes; if I was made of sterner stuff I would give up everything I possess and . . . I don’t know. . . .”
“If you gave away ev’yt’ing, ’m, you wouldn’t have nottin’ to give to the poor.”
“Oh, I don’t believe in . . . Huh? You must practice your th’s. Like this: ‘Everything; nothing.’ Huh? . . . It is yourself that you must give. . . . They don’t seem to appreciate. . . .”
They were sitting in the parlor of the little house on West Eleventh street—only they called it drawing-room, Joe had learned. The little lady was seated on a sofa by the window, with her injured foot on a stool before her; a silk scarf thrown over her ankle. It was after five on Sunday afternoon, and the servant had just lighted a tall lamp which stood beside the old-fashioned piano at the back of the room. The lamp had a very large shade made of yellow crinkled paper, which spread an agreeable glow around. It was like a play.
Joe, his hair well slicked down, had the air of being established in the house, and he knew it. He kept his eyes lowered so as not to betray his satisfaction. Handling the old maid was as easy as eating pie. She could take any amount of soft sawder. On a stand beside the sofa was a vase containing three damaged pink roses, wired to their stems. Every now and then she glanced at them with a softened look. The other sister was in and out of the room. The one was called Miss May Gittings; the other, Mrs. Fanny Boardman.
Miss Gittings continued, her hazy grey eyes shining on something far away: “Sympathy; understanding; encouragement; that is the message I try to . . . Huh? And plain sewing . . . oh, dear! they seem to have no womanly feeling for the needle. . . . The worst of misfortune is, it breeds a callous spirit. . . . I don’t know. . . . When they jeer at me I tell myself it is but the anguish of their souls peeping out. Every Thursday I find it harder and harder to work myself up to . . . Ah, yes! . . . Poor dear girls. . . . Huh? . . .”
“If I was there, I’d learn them!” said Joe doubling his fist.
“Oh, Joe! you wouldn’t hit a girl . . . !”
“Of course I wouldn’t hit them,” he said quickly. “But I’d give ’em a good layin’ out.”
“No, you can’t do away with poverty!” said Miss Gittings. “There’s one or two of them would be the better for a good whipping. . . . Huh? . . . The great thing is to teach the poor to be more spiritual-minded. . . . They chew gum with their mouths open. They know it annoys me. . . . Huh? . . . So they can trample on the ills of the flesh. We are all equal sharers in the things of the spirit. . . . And I know some of them smoke cigarettes. . . . Huh?”
“You talk beautiful,” murmured Joe.
“I can talk to you. You’re the first poor person that ever understood me. . . . Huh? . . . You’re only a boy, but you’ve been through the fire. . . . You should say: ‘Talk beautifully’. . . . And your spirit is refined like. . . . Huh? . . . whatever shortcomings your exterior . . . but that’s not your fault. . . .”
Mrs. Boardman was a more practical-minded person than her sister—but not much more. She had an easy-going sensible look. She had been married only three months, and that twenty years ago, Joe had learned, but the experience, brief as it was, apparently enabled her to keep her feet on the ground, while the sister, who had never known a man, pursued her batlike flights through the air. But a funny thing was, as Joe was quick to see, the batty one was the leading spirit of the two. Apparently there was more force in her notions than in the other’s commonsense. Mrs. Boardman followed contentedly wherever Miss Gittings led. Therefore, if you made yourself solid with the old maid, you would be all right with the widow.
“Don’t you spend your Sunday afternoons with Everard, Joe?” asked Miss Gittings. “You might bring . . . Huh? . . . Is he a very destructive child?”
“No ’m. You mean Malcolm. I t’ought I hadn’t oughta keep him outa Sunday School, like.”
“You mustn’t run your words together. . . . Of course; quite right. . . . Say that sentence again, slowly.”
Joe obeyed very willingly. This was useful.
“Don’t you go to Sunday School, Joe?” asked Mrs. Boardman.
“I’ll tell you the troot . . . truth, ’m, I ain’t got the face. I’m so ignorant, they’d put me amongst the littlest kids.”
“But if Malcolm is only nine, you must have been at least six or seven when your mother died. Didn’t she give you any religious instruction?”
“Yes’m,” said Joe vaguely. “. . . She was a good woman.”
“Do you remember her clearly?”
“Yes’m, I kin see her now!”
Miss Gittings exchanged a look with her sister. “But Fanny, that is psychic!” she said, opening her eyes.
Joe had no idea what the funny-sounding word meant. Evidently it was a word which excited them. He waited with stretched ears for some clue to its meaning.
“Do you mean that merely in a manner of speaking,” asked Mrs. Boardman of Joe; “or do you mean you can actually see her as if she were a living person?”
Joe had no doubt of the answer required to this question. “I kin see her just as plain as I see you ’m.” He closed his eyes, and went on: “She was a tall woman and she gen’ally wore a grey dress, real full in the skirt. She had real black hair, parted in the middle, and brushed down flat, and she wore a little gold cross hangin’ round her neck, and a gold ring on her finger. We wasn’t so poor then.”
“An authentic spirit portrait. . . . Huh? . . .” murmured Miss Gittings to her sister. “Tell me,” she asked Joe in some excitement, “under what circumstances does she usually . . . Huh? . . . how? when? where?”
“Oh, she comes most any time,” said Joe, “but gen’ally at night. She shows brighter in the dark, seems like.”
“What a spirit touch!” murmured the sisters.
“She most allus comes when I’m feelin’ bad,” Joe went on. “When I ain’t had no supper; or when I gotta sleep on a park bench. Then I see her beside me, bendin’ over. She puts her hand on my wrist. . . .”
“Can you feel her hand?” demanded Miss Gittings breathlessly. “This is important. . . . Huh?”
“Surest thing you know ’m! Just like this!” Joe grasped his own wrist.
“How truly remarkable!”
“And she says: ‘Fight the good fight, Joe!’ Or: ‘Stick it out, son; your mutter is watchin’ you.’ Or somepin like that. Then I feel all right again.”
“A genuine psychic!” murmured Miss Gittings breathlessly. “. . . Huh? . . . This rude, uninstructed . . . The veriest sceptic must be . . . Oh, sister! . . . Tell us more,” she said to Joe, “my sister and I are extremely interested in such phenomena. We ourselves . . . go on! go on!”
By this time, of course, Joe had grasped the sense of the funny-sounding word. Spirits! Well, he could feed ’em as much as they’d take. “Wuncet,” he resumed solemnly, “things was real bad with me. Malcolm was sick, and had to have the doctor, and the folks he lives with was after me for the two dollars to pay him; and I didn’t have it; and I didn’t dast go to see how he was, wit’out it; and I was near crazy, you bet! And I happened to be goin’ troo Rivington street where the pushcart market is, and they was all kinds of things on the pushcarts that a feller could pick up; hats and fur-pieces and women’s jackets and all; and I made up my mind to snitch a baby’s jacket for Malcolm’s sake. . . .”
“But what could you have done with that?”
“Oh, there’s places you kin sell them things. There’s plenty bad fellers on the East Side makes a business of it, and they’re allus askin’ yeh to go in wit’ ’em. But I don’t have no truck wit’ ’em.”
“Go on!” said both sisters together.
“Well, while I was standin’ there waitin’ for the man to turn his back so’s I could prig the jacket, all of a sudden I seen me mutter beside me. She didn’t say nottin’ that time, but she looked real bad. She just took aholt of me and pulled me away from the pushcart. She pulled me around the corner into Ridge street, and down the hill to the church there, and inside the church. It was all dark awmost, except the candles on the altar. And she took holy water, and put it on me—honest, I could feel the very drops! and she made me kneel down beside her, and she prayed to God! to make me a good feller, and keep me from sin. And say, there was all a faint sort of light around her head, like there was a candle behind her head, only there wasn’t no candle. . . .”
Mrs. Boardman glanced at her sister a little dubiously, and Joe perceived that he was laying it on too thick. You fool! he said to himself, why can’t you leave a thing lay, when it’s doin’ well.
However, he had Miss Gittings locoed with the story. The big grey eyes were full of wonder like a child’s. “Go on!” she said. . . . “Huh?”
“Well, when I looked again, she was gone,” said Joe. “But I felt all light, like, inside. I come out of the church, and went right to see the doctor, and when I told him I hadn’t no money, he said sure, he’d go see the kid, as often as would be necessary, and I could pay him when I earned it.”
“Fanny,” said Miss Gittings impressively, “we must report this extraordinary case to the circle. . . . Huh? . . . Let scoff who will! . . . We can produce the boy. . . .”
“Yes, sister.”
The front door opened and closed, and a slender shadow fell in the hall. Joe was instantly all attention. Another member to this household! The whole problem was altered.
“Wilfred, come here,” said Miss Gittings.
No response.
“Wilfred!” she repeated, raising her voice a little.
A boy of Joe’s own age came into the room with rather a sullen air; on the defensive. Joe perceived that it was that same white-faced boy. . . . God! that kid! All the ground was cut from under his feet. For an instant he thought of flight.
But only for an instant. It steadied him to perceive that the kid was a lot worse upset by the meeting than he was. The kid’s eyes were fixed and crazy, like. He was looking at Joe as if he saw a headless ghost rising out of the grave. It almost made Joe laugh. What the hell! he said to himself; the kid wouldn’t dare to name anything to the women. And anyhow, he didn’t see nothing but what his own dirty mind imagined. . . . He’s no better than me himself. I can handle him, too.
“This is my nephew, Wilfred Pell,” said Miss Gittings, pleasantly.
“Please to meet yeh,” said Joe affably.
The frantic look in the kid’s eyes warned Joe not to put out his hand. He might explode.
Wilfred had been down to Staten Island. The Aunts approved of these Sunday excursions. For once they were of a mind with Wilfred about something. To-day he had discovered a lovely spot called Willow Brook, which in its wild beauty and solitude might have been a thousand miles from New York, instead of actually within the city limits. It had been a good day.
Upon entering the house, his heart sank, recognizing from the tones of his Aunt’s voice that there were strangers in the drawing-room. One could not get past the open door without being seen. And he did want to get to his own room to think. He debated sneaking out again, and entering by the basement, but his Aunt called him in her company voice. The second time she called, he was obliged to enter the room.
He was astonished to see a boy of his own age, sitting with his back to the windows. He examined him with eager curiosity. When the boy arose and came towards him, Wilfred’s heart failed him. That boy of the East Side!—cleaner now, and better dressed, but the same boy! Wilfred turned sick inside. This was a hallucination, of course; that wicked, bold, long-nosed face had haunted him, these past weeks. This was the Tempter; the destroyer of his peace! Well, it was all over then; this was the end; he was done for!
Then his Aunt May introduced them to each other in her silly-sounding voice, and Wilfred realized that Joe was no apparition. He looked at him in helpless confusion. By what trick of fate had he come to be sitting in the drawing-room of the prim Aunts as if he belonged there? The explanation when it came was natural enough:
“This is the boy who brought me home when I sprained my ankle on Thursday night.”
Wilfred’s heart sank lower still; for this looked like the direct interposition of Fate or whatever Power there was, on the side of the enemy. If this boy had actually gained a footing in his own home, how could he, Wilfred, hope to withstand him, and all that he represented? . . . He didn’t want to withstand him. He was lost. After the first glance, the black-haired boy avoided looking at Wilfred. He was as demure as a cat. He knew his own power. Wilfred glanced at the roses with a painful sneer. Faded ones, of course, because they were more pathetic.
An awkward constraint fell upon the quartette. Aunt May, having introduced the two boys with as much as to say: You two ought to be friends, had become silent and fidgety. It must be apparent now, even to her fuzzy wits, that we couldn’t be friends, thought Wilfred. There was some desultory conversation between Joe and Aunt Fanny. The black-haired boy was exercising a horrible fascination over Wilfred. Fairly well dressed now, Wilfred perceived how good-looking he was. A healthy, pink color showed in the bold, thin profile; the whole head expressed a power of cynical hardihood. This boy doesn’t care what he does! thought Wilfred. In body, too, Joe’s shoulders were wider than Wilfred’s, and under the shoddy pants the line of a trim thigh was revealed. Joe’s comeliness sickened Wilfred. He has every advantage of me! he thought despairingly.
As from a distance, Wilfred heard his Aunt May saying to him in the manner of a rebuke: “Joseph has been telling us about himself. He has had a hard life. . . . I don’t know. . . . It is very interesting to hear. . . . Huh?”
“Wilfred has been so sheltered!” put in Aunt Fanny.
Wilfred listened woodenly. A screech of laughter sounded through him. Oh my Lord! they are on the way to make a hero of Joe!
“Very interesting. . . .” Aunt May repeated vaguely. “. . . Huh?” The presence of Wilfred forced her to look at Joe anew, and to ask herself what was to come of his being in the house. An unfortunate boy, and not to be blamed in any way; still . . . a great boy like that . . . almost a man . . .
An uncomfortable situation. Joe was master of it. He stood up, saying easily:
“I gotta go now. Malcolm’ll be lookin’ for me.”
A feeling of relief pervaded the other three. Joe, with eyes modestly cast down, waited for the ladies to invite him to call again. They felt strongly the suggestion to do so, but with Wilfred standing there, resisted it; and were glad that they had resisted it as soon as Joe was out. But all three inmates of the house knew by instinct that they had not seen the last of Joe. The sisters looked at each other with eyes eloquent of relief. Nevertheless, Aunt May said:
“A deserving boy, sister. . . . Huh? . . . We must do something for him.”
And Aunt Fanny answered: “Yes; and gifted with a strange power, May.”
It fell to Wilfred’s part to show Joe out of the front door. When they got out in the hall Wilfred’s heart was pounding, and he had a difficulty in getting his breath. Not for anything would he have looked at Joe; he knew without looking, how Joe’s hard, bright, all-knowing eyes were fixed on his face; and Joe’s thin protuberant upper lip was flattened in a zestful grin. As Wilfred stood holding the door open, Joe came so close to him that he could feel the warmth of his body, and stood there, trying to make Wilfred look at him. But Wilfred would not.
“Goin’ to take a walk to-night?” Joe murmured.
Wilfred, nearly suffocated by the beating of his heart, silently shook his head.
“Well . . . any time you feel like it . . . come on down. You’ll find me somewheres around those corners. . . . I’ll show you ’round.”
Joe ran down the steps thinking: Funny look that kid’s got. But I got him going. Wonder why he takes it so hard? . . . Oh, to hell with them; the whole three of them is easy! I can get what I want out of them. . . .
Wilfred closed the door, and leaned his forehead against the ornamental glass pane. It had a sort of Gothic arch cut in the glass, from which depended a number of meaningless tails, each winding up in a curlicue. Wilfred, nauseated, was thinking:
“Any time . . . any time . . . that means I’ll have to fight it every night. . . . Wouldn’t it be better to give in at once, and save all that? . . . Disgust might cure me. . . .”
From the drawing-room Aunt May called him.