Crimes of Charity

by Konrad Bercovici

My work brought me into daily contact with the children. "The nutty scribbler," they called me, the Italian boys pronouncing my title with their peculiar accent; the Russian with theirs and the Jewish boys translating it altogether into their idiom. Poor, underfed and oversmart children; ready-witted and half-witted. Child and old man. Buying sour pickles instead of bread when they get a penny, ready to do anything for a puff from a cigarette. Their ideal is not to become a workingman. They know too well where that leads. Kid Herman, Kid Twist and Red Larry are their heroes, and in childish contradiction, the policeman is their idol. How they swarm around a newspaper when there is "anything" in it. An interesting murder case, a robbery, a street shooting, these are the sensations of their lives. When the father comes home drunk they envy him and will soon imitate him. They help the burglars hide, and chase the pickpocket over the roofs, together with the detectives, giving advice in turn to the hunted how to escape and to the policeman how to catch him; rejoicing when the bad one has escaped and booing him along the street when he is handcuffed. And every year their domain extends a little further until it approaches the rich. A block from Riverside drive and two from Fifth Avenue—extending continually, like a cankerous wound.

One evening I visited a family that was pensioned by the charities. The father had just been discharged from the consumptive hospital as cured and I was instructed to see whether he was well enough to work. A plan was on foot to open a soda water stand for him, to keep him outdoors, lest he again become sick.

They had five children. The oldest, a girl, was twelve years old. It was ten o'clock and I expressed wonder that the children were not in the house. The mother's answer was not straight.

"They are playing, they are visiting neighbours, I sent them away," were her answers to my questions. I sensed a mystery and decided to wait until they came home. I talked with the man and asked him his prospects for the future, to which he hopefully answered that he was sure to get his old place in the clothing factory as presser. I questioned him about his life in the hospital and sought every way to prolong my visit. The mother was very anxious to get rid of me, but I stuck to the job. About half past ten the children came in, all pale and worn-out, hardly saying good-night, but going straight to bed.

"From where do you all come so late?" I asked.

"From the street," the mother answered and pushed them into the other room. I felt that it was useless to insist, so I retired. The street was deserted. No child's play was going on and the children of the applicant did not appear to be the sort who would stay until the last. I walked up and down the block without meeting a child. At the corner, near the gas house, on Fourteenth Street, I met a policeman and talked the matter over with him.

"The street has turned good these last few weeks. Don't know what's the matter," was his remark.

I did not agree with him and walked up and down the street until past midnight, when I decided to continue my investigation the next morning.

A postcard advised the office that I would be busy the following morning and could not report. At eight o'clock I was near the house of the consumptive family. The children all went to school. Not to compromise my work I stayed away until noon. The children came for lunch and returned to school. It was early in the spring and a glorious day. I could not help thinking of the beauty of the field and forest on such days, when the green is shooting out from the soil in the gardens, when the plough is carving out slices from mother earth and the birds are singing in the trees. I could not help thinking how life has taken these poor people out of their homes in the little villages of Russia, Poland, Italy and Roumania and has crowded them, nay, herded them together in what is called a tenement row, to sleep there and to work in a sweatshop in the day. How do they feel when they think of their homes, when they see a green leaf, when they hear the song of a bird? When one has colour in his face they say that he still has the "home colour." When they mention a feat of strength or endurance they add: "It was my first year here you know."