IX
In those days at the Weisiger House I was one of Nature’s miracles, such as she produces by the millions in tenement streets—romping, shouting, and triumphant, entirely unaware that their lot is a miserable one. I was a perpetual explosion of energy, and I cannot see how anybody in the place tolerated me; yet they all liked me, all but one or two who were “mean.” I have a photograph of myself, dressed in kilts; and my mother tells me a story. Some young man, teasing me, said: “You wear dresses; you are a girl.” Said I: “No, I am a boy.” “But how do you know you are a boy?” “Because my mother says so.”
My young mother would go to the theater, leaving me snugly tucked in bed, in care of some old ladies. I would lie still until I heard a whistle, and then forth I would bound. Clad in a pair of snow-white canton-flannel nighties, I would slide down the banisters into the arms of the young men of the house. What romps I would have, racing on bare feet, or borne aloft on sturdy shoulders! We never got tired of pranks; they would set me up in the office and tell me jokes and conundrums, teach me songs—it was the year of McGinty, hero of hilarity:
Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea;
He must be very wet,
For they haven’t found him yet,
Dressed in his best suit of clothes.
These young men would take me to see the circus parade, which went up Broadway on the evening prior to the opening of Barnum and Bailey’s. Young Mr. Lee would hold me on his shoulder a whole evening for the sake of hearing my whoops of delight at the elephants and the gorgeous ladies in spangles and tights. I remember a trick they played on one of these parade evenings. Just after dinner they offered me a quarter if I would keep still for five minutes by the watch, and they sat me on the big table in the office for all the world to witness the test. A couple of minutes passed, and I was still as any mouse; until one of the young men came running in at the front door, crying, “The parade is passing!” I leaped up with a wail of despair.
As a foil to this, let me narrate the most humiliating experience of my entire life. Grown-up people do not realize how intensely children feel, and what enduring impressions are made upon their tender minds. The story I am about to tell is as real to me as if it had happened last night.
My parents had a guest at dinner, and I was moved to another table, being placed with old Major Waterman and two young ladies. The venerable warrior started telling of an incident that had taken place that day. “I was walking along the street and I met Jones. ‘Come in and have a drink,’ said he, and I replied, ‘No, thank you’—”
What was to be the end of that story I shall never know in this world. “Oh, Major Waterman!” I burst out, and there followed an appalled silence. Terror gripped my soul as the old gentleman turned his bleary eyes upon me. “What do you mean, sir? Tell me what you mean.”
Now, if this had been a world in which men and women spoke the truth to one another, I could have told exactly what I meant. I would have said, “I mean that your cheeks are inflamed and your nose has purple veins in it, and it is difficult to believe that you ever declined anyone’s invitation to drink.” But it was not a world in which one could say such words; all I could do was to sit like a hypnotized rabbit, while the old gentleman bored me through. “I wish to have an answer, sir! What did you mean by that remark?” I still have, as one of my weaknesses, the tendency to speak first and think afterwards; but the memory of Major Waterman has helped me on the way to reform.