VIII
When I was eight or nine, my father was employed by a New York firm, so we moved north for the winter, and I joined the tribe of city nomads, a product of the new age, whose formula runs: “Cheaper to move than to pay rent.” I remember a dingy lodginghouse on Irving Place, a derelict hotel on East Twelfth Street, housekeeping lodgings over on Second Avenue, a small “flat” on West 65th Street, one on West 92nd Street, one on West 126th Street. Each place in turn was home, each neighborhood full of wonder and excitement. Second Avenue was especially thrilling, because the “gangs” came out from Avenue A and Avenue B like Sioux or Pawnees in war paint, and well-dressed little boys had to fly for their lives.
Our longest stay—several winters, broken by moves to Baltimore—was at a “family hotel” called the Weisiger House, on West 19th Street. The hotel had been made by connecting four brownstone dwellings. The parlor of one was the office. The name sounds like Jerusalem; but it was really Virginia, pronounced Wizziger. Colonel Weisiger was a Civil War veteran and had half the broken-down aristocracy of the Old South as his guests; he must have had a sore time collecting his weekly dues.
I learned much about human nature at the Weisiger House, observing comedies and tragedies, jealousies and greeds and spites. There was the lean Colonel Paul of South Carolina, and the short Colonel Cardoza of Virginia, and the stout Major Waterman of Kentucky. Generals I do not remember, but we had Count Mickiewicz from Poland, a large, expansive gentleman with red beard and booming voice. What has become of little Ralph Mickiewicz, whom I chased up and down the four flights of stairs of each of those four buildings—sixteen flights in all, quite a hunting ground! We killed flies on the bald heads of the colonels and majors, we wheedled teacakes in the kitchen, we pulled the pigtails of the little girls playing dolls in the parlor. One of these little girls, with whom I quarreled most of the time, was destined to grow up and become my first wife; and our married life resembled our childhood.
Colonel Weisiger was large and ample, with a red nose, like Santa Claus; he was the judge and ultimate authority in all disputes. His son was six feet two, quiet and reserved. Mrs. Weisiger was placid and kindly, and had a sister, Miss Tee, who made the teacakes—this pun is of God’s making, not of mine. Completing the family was Taylor Tibbs, a large black man, who went to the saloon around the corner twice every day to fetch the Colonel’s pail of beer. In New York parlance this was known as “rushing the growler,” and you will find Taylor Tibbs and his activities all duly recorded in my novel The Wet Parade. Later in life I would go over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to see him in the “talkie” they were making of the novel.
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.