THE GREAT NEW WORLD!
Chapter V.
A stolen kiss and fleeting caress as we met on the deck at night were all I had of Jessie for the rest of the voyage. One evening landlights flickering in the distance drew crowds to the deck; the ship began to slow down. The cabin passengers went below as usual, but hundreds of immigrants sat up as I did and watched the stars slide down the sky till at length dawn came with silver lights and startling revelations.
I can still recall the thrills that overcame me when I realized the great waterways of that land-locked harbor and saw Long Island Sound stretching away on one hand like a sea and the magnificent Hudson River with its palisades on the other, while before me was the East River, nearly a mile in width. What an entrance to a new world! A magnificent and safe ocean port which is also the meeting place of great water paths into the continent.
No finer site could be imagined for a world capital; I was entranced with the spacious grandeur, the manifest destiny of this Queen City of the Waters.
The Old Battery was pointed out to me and Governor’s Island and the prison and where the bridge was being built to Brooklyn: suddenly Jessie passed on her father’s arm and shot me one radiant, lingering glance of love and promise.
I remember nothing more till we landed and the old banker came up to tell me he had had my little box taken from the “H’s” where it belonged and put with his luggage among the “S’s.”
“We are going”, he added, “to the Fifth Avenue Hotel away up town in Madison Square: we’ll be comfortable there”, and he smiled self-complacently. I smiled too, and thanked him; but I had no intention of going in his company. I went back to the ship and thanked Dr. Keogh with all my heart for his great goodness to me; he gave me his address in New York and incidentally I learned from him that if I kept the key of my trunk, no one could open it or take it away; it would be left in charge of the Customs till I called for it.