I
You over there, young man with the guide-book, red-bound, covered flexibly with red linen,
Come here, I want to talk with you; I, Walt, the Manhattanese, citizen of these States, call you.
Yes, and the courier, too, smirking, smug-mouthed, with oil'd hair; a garlicky look about him generally; him, too, I take in, just as I would a coyote or a king, or a toad-stool, or a ham-sandwich, or anything, or anybody else in the world.
Where are you going?
You want to see Paris, to eat truffles, to have a good time; in Vienna, London, Florence, Monaco, to have a good time; you want to see Venice.
Come with me. I will give you a good time; I will give you all the Venice you want, and most of the Paris.
I, Walt, I call to you. I am all on deck! Come and loafe with me! Let me tote you around by your elbow and show you things.
You listen to my ophicleide!
Home!
Home, I celebrate. I elevate my fog-whistle, inspir'd by the thought of home.
Come in!—take a front seat; the jostle of the crowd not minding; there is room enough for all of you.
This is my exhibition—it is the greatest show on earth—there is no charge for admission.
All you have to pay me is to take in my romanza.
II
1. The brown-stone house; the father coming home worried
from a bad day's business; the wife meets him in the
marble pav'd vestibule; she throws her arms about
him; she presses him close to her; she looks him full
in the face with affectionate eyes; the frown from his
brow disappearing.
Darling, she says, Johnny has fallen down and cut his
head; the cook is going away, and the boiler leaks.
2. The mechanic's dark little third-story room, seen in a
flash from the Elevated Railway train; the sewing-machine
in a corner; the small cook-stove; the whole
family eating cabbage around a kerosene lamp; of the
clatter and roar and groaning wail of the Elevated
train unconscious; of the smell of the cabbage unconscious.
Me, passant, in the train, of the cabbage not quite so
unconscious.
3. The French Flat; the small rooms, all right-angles, un-individual;
the narrow halls; the gaudy, cheap decorations
everywhere.
The janitor and the cook exchanging compliments up and
down the elevator-shaft; the refusal to send up more
coal, the solid splash of the water upon his head, the
language he sends up the shaft, the triumphant laughter
of the cook, to her kitchen retiring.
4. The widow's small house in the suburbs of the city; the
widow's boy coming home from his first day down
town; he is flushed with happiness and pride; he is no
longer a school-boy, he is earning money; he takes
on the airs of a man and talks learnedly of business.
5. The room in the third-class boarding-house; the mean
little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl
making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture,
the private provender hid away in the closet, the
dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the
glass, with her mouth full of hairpins, doing up her
hair to go downstairs and flirt with the young fellows
in the parlor.
6. The kitchen of the old farm-house; the young convict just
returned from prison—it was his first offense, and the
judges were lenient on him.
He is taking his first meal out of prison; he has been received
back, kiss'd, encourag'd to start again; his
lungs, his nostrils expand with the big breaths of free
air; with shame, with wonderment, with a trembling
joy, his heart too, expanding.
The old mother busies herself about the table; she has ready
for him the dishes he us'd to like; the father sits with
his back to them, reading the newspaper, the newspaper
shaking and rustling much; the children hang
wondering around the prodigal—they have been caution'd:
Do not ask where our Jim has been; only say
you are glad to see him.
The elder daughter is there, palefac'd, quiet; her young man
went back on her four years ago; his folks would not
let him marry a convict's sister. She sits by the
window, sewing on the children's clothes, the clothes
not only patching up; her hunger for children of her
own invisibly patching up.
The brother looks up; he catches her eye, he fearful, apologetic;
she smiles back at him, not reproachfully smiling,
with loving pretence of hope smiling—it is too
much for him; he buries his face in the folds of the
mother's black gown.
7. The best room of the house, on the Sabbath only open'd;
the smell of horse-hair furniture and mahogany varnish;
the ornaments on the what-not in the corner; the
wax fruit, dusty, sunken, sagged in, consumptive-looking,
under a glass globe, the sealing-wax imitation
of coral; the cigar boxes with shells plastered over, the
perforated card-board motto.
The kitchen; the housewife sprinkling the clothes for the
fine ironing to-morrow—it is the Third-day night, and
the plain things are ready iron'd, now in cupboards,
in drawers stowed away.
The wife waiting for the husband—he is at the tavern, jovial,
carousing; she, alone in the kitchen sprinkling clothes—the
little red wood clock with peaked top, with pendulum
wagging behind a pane of gayly painted glass,
strikes twelve.
The sound of the husband's voice on the still night air—he is
singing: "We won't go home until morning!"—the
wife arising, toward the wood-shed hastily going,
stealthily entering, the voice all the time coming
nearer, inebriate, chantant.
The husband passing the door of the wood-shed; the club
over his head, now with his head in contact; the
sudden cessation of the song; the benediction of peace
over the domestic foyer temporarily resting.
I sing the soothing influences of home.
You, young man, thoughtlessly wandering, with courier, with guide-book wandering,
You hearken to the melody of my steam-calliope
Yawp!
H. C. Bunner.
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