“I want to see them all,” coaxed Dorothy. She hesitated about entering the tenement to which the thin boy led her. It was tall and dirty and a series of odors, unknown to Dorothy’s well-brought-up nose, rushed to meet them as the hall door was pushed open. The fire escapes covering the front of the house were used for back yards—ash heaps and garbage, bedding and washes, all hung suspended, threatening to topple over on the heads of the passersby, and the long, dark hall they entered was also littered with garbage cans, and an accumulation of dirty rags and papers and children.
Such frowsy-headed, unkempt, ragged little babies! Dorothy’s heart went out to them all—she wanted to take each one and wash the little face, and smooth the suspicious, sullen brows. The advent of a well-dressed visitor into the main hall meant the opening of many doors and a wonderfully frank assortment of remarks as to whom the visitor might be. Little Tommy, the thin boy, glad of the opportunity to “show off” grandly led Dorothy up the stairs, making the most of the trip.
“The other day when I was skatin’ with you in Central Park,” flippantly fell from Tommy’s lips, loud enough for the words to enter bombastically through the open doors, “I come home and said to the family, I sez,—” but what Tommy had said to the family never was known, because the remainder of Tommy’s family having heard in advance of Tommy’s coming, rushed pell-mell to meet them, and with various smudgy fingers stuck into all sizes of mouths, they stared, some through the railings, some over the railing, more from the top step—the “mostest biggest family” exhibited no tendency to hang back.
“Come in out of that, you little ones,” said a soft, motherly voice, that sounded clear and sweet in the midst of the tumult of the tenement house, and Dorothy looked quickly in the direction from whence it came and beheld Tommy’s mother. She was small and dark, and in garments of fashion would have been dainty. She seemed little older than Tommy, who was nine, and life in the poorest section of the city, trying to bring up a large family in three rooms, had left no tragic marks on her smooth brow, and when she smiled, she dimpled. Dorothy smiled back instantly, the revelation of this mother was so unexpectedly different from anything Dorothy had imagined.
“They will run out in the hall,” the mother explained, apologetically, “and they’re only half-dressed, and it’s so cold that they’ll all be down with sore throats, if they don’t mind me. Now come inside, every one of you!” But not one of the children moved an inch until Dorothy reached the top landing, then they all backed into the room, which at a glance Dorothy was unable at first to name. There was a cot in one corner, a stove, a large table, and sink in another, and one grand easy chair near a window. Regular chairs there were none, but boxes aplenty, and opening from this kitchen-bedroom-living-room was an uncarpeted, evil-looking room, and in the doorway a giant of a man stood, looking in bleary-eyed bewilderment at Dorothy.
“You’ll get your rent when I get my pay,” he said, with an ill-natured leer. “So he’s sending you around now? Afraid to come himself after the scare I gave him the last time? D’ye remember the scare I gave him Nellie?” he turned to the little woman.
With a curious love and pride in this great, helpless giant, his wife straightened his necktie, that hung limply about the neck of his blue flannel shirt, and patting his hand said, caressingly:
“Now stop your foolin’, she’s not from the rent-man, she’s a friend of our Tommy’s,—the lady that went skatin’ with Tommy in the Park; don’t you know, James?”
James straightened himself against the panels of the door, and stared down at Dorothy, but his first idea that she was after his week’s pay was evident in his manner.
“You wouldn’t of got it if you did come for it,” he declared, proudly, “’cause it ain’t so far behind that you could make me pay it.”