Well up in the line, side by side, marched Miriam and Solly, the twain whose fortunes we are following. Possibly from stress of joyous anticipation they shivered constantly. However, it was a damp and cloudy day, and, for early June, very raw. Even Mr. Moe Blotch, muffled as he was in a light overcoat, shivered.
The route of march led past the downtown offices of the Evening Dispatch, where, in a front window, the proprietor, Mr. Jason Q. Welldover, waited to review the parade. [287] According to his instructions from a higher authority, Mr. Blotch now gave the signal for an outburst of appreciative cheering from the small marchers. Obeying the command, they lifted up their voices; but, doubtlessly through stage fright or lack of chorus drilling, the demonstration, considered for vocal volume, was not altogether a success. It was plaintive rather than enthusiastic. It resembled the pipings of despondent sandpipers upon a distant lea. Standing in the window, Mr. Welldover acknowledged the tribute by bowing, he then holding the pose until his staff photographers had caught him—once, twice, three times.
Half a mile more of trudging brought the little travellers to a dock above the Battery. Alongside the dock lay a steamboat so swathed in bunting and bannered inscriptions as to present the appearance of being surgically bandaged following a succession of major operations. The smokestack suggested a newly broken leg, enveloped in first-aid wrappings. The walking beam rose above a red-and-white-and-blue mass, like a sprained wrist escaping from its sling. The boiler deck was trussed from end to end; and everywhere recurred, in strikingly large letters, the names of Mr. Jason Q. Welldover and the Evening Dispatch.
Without loss of time, Mr. Blotch drove his excursionists aboard; and soon then, to the strains of martial music, the swaddled craft was moving gayly down the river. Or, anyhow, she [288] moved as gayly as was possible, seeing that the river was of a rumpled, grayish aspect, abounding in large waves, and each wave flounced with a ruffle of dirty-white foam; and seeing, further, that an exceedingly keen wind blew dead against her, searching out the remotest and most sheltered recesses of her decks. Mr. Blotch remained in the engine room throughout the journey.
But all pleasant things must have an end; and eventually, although to some aboard it seemed even longer than that, the steamer reached Coney. Somewhere on this globe there may be a more dispiriting, more dismal spot than Coney is on a wet and cloudy day in the early part of June. I have heard Antarctic explorers speak with feeling of the sense of desolation inspired by contemplation of the scenery closely adjacent to the South Pole; but, never having been at or near the South Pole, I am still pledged to Coney Island.
A hot dog merchant there, hearing the strains of music and beholding the approach of a multitude, lit his fires and laid specimens of his wares upon the grid to brown and sizzle. A closer view of the massed crowd, advancing toward him from the pier, disillusioned him. As a regular subscriber to the Evening Dispatch he knew that these oncoming hosts were not to be considered, even remotely, as prospective patrons. For had it not been written and repeatedly written that they were to be regaled, [289] ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT EXPENSE, at Stanchheimer’s Chowder Pavilion? Verily it had been so written. Uttering fluent maledictions in his sonorous native Greek, the hot dog man went inside his booth, pulled down the shades and turned off the gas.
On a wide and windswept shore, where pallid sands ran down to pallid sea, and sea in turn ran out and out to mingle, under shrouding fog banks, with lowering skies, the small Fresh-Air funders were turned loose and sternly ordered to enjoy themselves. Perversely, they persisted in huddling in close, tight clusters, as though drawn together by a gravitation of common discomfort. Their conductor was not to be thwarted. He had a duty to perform—a duty to them and to his employer—and scrupulously he meant to obey it if it cost forty lives. From group to group Mr. Moe Blotch ran, yanking its members out into the cheerless open.
“Play, consarn you! Play!” he blared at them. “Laugh and sing and dig in the sands! Breathe in the life-giving ozone or I’ll break every bone in your bodies!”
Little Miriam found herself alone and lonesome in the shadow of a depressingly pale-yellow dune. She thought of the warm and comfortable tenement hallway, crowded as it would be with gossiping little deputy mothers and crawling, babbling babies. She thought of the shifting panorama of Pike Street’s sidewalk life, spectacular and thrilling. She thought of her [290] own two special charges—Izzy and Izzy—deprived now of their customary guardianship and no doubt pining for it.
These poignant memories overcame her. She lifted her face to the unresponsive vault of heaven, and she wept. Once she was at it, there was no false restraint in her weeping; she bemoaned her lot shrilly, copiously and damply. Moisture streamed from her eyes, her mouth, her nose. In her rendition there was a certain aquatic wholeheartedness that would have interested and startled a student of natural hydraulics. Practically this child had riparian rights.