Sandburrs and Others

“At d’ finish, however, d’ little goil lands one of d’ push – he’s a cloik in d’ office, I figgers – an’ he hears her yarn between weeps, an’ ups an’ makes a pass or two, an’ she gets d’ writin’. It says to toin Billy loose every afternoon till d’ boat pulls out.

“Say! him an ‘d’ little goil, when she gets back, was as happy as a couple of kids; dey has more fun than a box of monkeys. On d’ level! I was proud of me Rag for floor managin’ d’ play. She wasn’t solid wit’ Billy an ‘d’ little goil! Oh, no!

“That’s how me an’ me loidy was in on this weddin’ to-day wit’ bot’ trilbys. Me Rag’s ‘It’ wit’ d’ little goil; youse can gamble on that!

“Of course d’ war’s over now, an’ two weeks ago d’ little goil’s Billy comes home. An’ what wit’ pay, an’ what wit’ prize money, he hits d’ Bend wit’ a bundle of d’ long green big enough to make youse t’row a fit, an’ he ain’t done a t’ing but boin money ever since.

“Nit; it ain’t much of a story, but d’ whole racket pleases me out o’ sight, see! Considerin’ d’ hand me Rag plays, when I’m at that weddin’ to-day I feels like a daddy to Billy an ‘d’ little goil. On d’ level! I feels that chesty about it, that when d’ priest is goin’ to bat an says, ‘Is there any duck here to give d’ bride away?’ I cuts in on d’ game wit ‘d’ remark, ‘I donates d’ bride meself.’ I s’pose I was struck dopey, or nutty, or somethin’.

“But me Rag fetches me to all c’rrect. She clinches her mit an’ whispers:

“Let me catch youse makin’ another funny break like that an’ I’ll cop a sneak on your neck.’ An’ then she stands there chewin’ d’ quiet rag an’ pipin’ me off wit’ an eye of fire. ‘Such an old bum as youse,’ she says, ‘is a disgrace to d’ Bend.’”

POINSETTE’S CAPTIVITY

This is a tale of last August. Poinsette was to be left alone for four weeks. Mrs. Poinsette had settled on Cape May as a good thing for the hot spell. She would hie her thither and leave Poinsette to do his worst without her.

Poinsette did not care. He bravely told Mrs. P. she needed an outing. The ozone and the salty, ocean breeze would do her good. So he encouraged Cape May, and bid Mrs. P. go there by all means.

It was decided by the Poinsettes discussing Cape May to have Poinsette room up town while Mrs. P. was thus Cape Maying. The Poinsette house in the suburbs might better be locked up during Mrs. P.‘s absence from the city. It would be more economical; indeed, it was not esteemed safe to leave the Poinsette lares and penates to the unwatched ministrations of the Congo who performed in the Poinsette kitchen. It would be wiser to dismiss the servant, bolt and bar the house, obtain Poinsette apartments, and let him browse for food among the bounteous restaurants of the city.

Poinsette found a room to suit in a house on West 87th Street. It was one of a long row of houses. Poinsette reported his victory in room-hunting to Mrs. P. Poinsette was now all right, and ready for what might come. Mrs. P. might bend her course to Cape May without further hesitation.

Mrs. P. was glad to learn of Poinsette’s apartment success. She went out and looked at his find to make sure that Poinsette would be comfortable. Incidentally, Mrs. P. kept her eye about her, to note whether the boarding-house books carried any pretty girls. Mrs. P. did not care to have Poinsette too comfortable.

There were no pretty girls. Mrs. P. approved the selection. The very next day she kissed Poinsette good-bye and rumbled and ferried to the station, from which arena of smoke and noise a train leaped forth like a greyhound and bore her away to Cape May.

Poinsette did not accompany his spouse to the station. Ten years before he would have done this, but experience had taught him that Mrs. P. could care for herself. Therefore he remained behind to fasten up the house. Soberly he went about locking doors, and fastening windows, and thinking rather sadly, – as all husbands so deserted do, – of the long, lonely months before him. At last all was secure, and Poinsette turned the key in the big front door and came away.

Poinsette did not feel like work that afternoon, or the trifling fragment of it that was left after Mrs. P. had wended and he had locked up the house. He bought a few good books and several of the more solid periodicals. They would serve during the weary nights while Mrs. P. was away at the Cape. These Poinsette sent to his rooms, and, as it was growing six o’clock now, he turned into Sherry’s for his dinner.

Just where Poinsette went that evening following Sherry’s, and what he saw and did, and who assisted at such enterprises as he embarked in, would be nothing to the present point and may be skipped. They are the private affairs of Poinsette, and not properly the subjects of a morbid curiosity. However, lest Mrs. P. see this and argue aught herefrom to feed distrust, it should be said that Poinsette saw nobody, did nothing, went no place unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

It was four o’clock in the morning when Poinsette, the sole passenger aboard a foaming night-liner, toiled through the Park and bore away for his new abode. Poinsette stopped the faithful night-liner two blocks from the door and went forward on foot. Poinsette did not care to clatter ostentatiously to his rooms at four in the morning the first day he inhabited them.

Poinsette found the house without trouble, and stepped lightly to the door. He put the pass-key his landlady had bestowed upon him in the lock, but it would not turn. The bolt would not yield to his wooing. Do all he might, and work he never so wisely, there had sprung up a misunderstanding between key and lock which would not be reconciled. Poinsette could not get “action;” the sullen door still barred him from his bed.

At last Poinsette gave up in despair. He might ring the bell and arouse the house; but he hesitated. It was his first day; the hour needed apology. Poinsette thought it would be better to walk gently to a hotel and abide for the remainder of the night. He would solve this incompatibility of key and lock the next afternoon.

Poinsette turned away and started softly for the street. As he did so a policeman stepped from behind a tree and stopped him. The policeman had been watching Poinsette for five minutes.

“Wot was you a-doin’ at the door?” he asked.

Poinsette, in a low, hurried voice, explained. He didn’t care to awaken his landlady by a tumult of talk, and have that excellent woman discover him in the hands of the law.

“If your key don’t work,” said the policeman, “why don’t you ring the bell?”

Poinsette cleared up that mystery. The officer was not satisfied.

“To be free with you, my man,” he said, seizing Poinsette’s collar, “I think you’re a burglar. If that’s your boarding-house you’re goin’ in. If it isn’t, you’re goin’ to the station.”

Then the policeman, with one hand wound about in Poinsette’s neckwear, made trial of the key with the other hand. The effort was futile. The lock was obdurate; the key was stranger to it. Then the blue guardian of the city’s slumbers stepped back a pace and took a mighty pull at the door-bell. It was a yank which brought forth a wealth of jingle and ring.

Poinsette was glad of it. He had grown desperate and wanted the thing to end. Bad as it was, it would be better to face his landlady than be locked up in a burglar’s cell. Poinsette was resigned, therefore, when a second-story window lifted and a night-capped head was made to overhang the sill and blot its silhouette against the star-lit sky.

“Be you the landlady?” asked the policeman.

“Yes, I am!” quoth the night-cap in a snappy, snarly way. “What do you want?” This with added sourness.

“This party says his name is Poinsette and that he rooms here,” replied the officer.

“No such thing!” retorted the night-cap. “No such man rooms here. Don’t even know the name!”

Then the window came down with a grievous bang. It was as if it descended on Poinsette’s heart.

“You’re a crook!” said the policeman, “and now you come with me.”

Poinsette essayed to explain that the night-cap was not his landlady; that he had made a mistake in the house. The policeman laughed in hoarse scorn at this.

“D’ye think I’m goin’ all along the row, yankin’ door-bells out by the roots on such a stiff as you’re givin’ me?”

That was the reply of the policeman to Poinsette’s pleadings to try next door.

Poinsette was led sadly off, with the grip of the law on his collar. At the station he was searched and booked and bolted in. On the hard plank, which made the sole furnishings of his narrow cell, Poinsette threw himself down; not to sleep, but to give himself to bitter consideration of his fate.

As Poinsette sat there waiting for the sun to rise and friends to come to his rescue, the station clock struck five. It rang dismally in the cell of Poinsette.

At Cape May, clocks of correct habits were also telling the hour of five. Mrs. P. was not yet asleep. The vigorous aroma of the ocean swept the room. The half-morning was beautiful; Mrs. P., loosely garbed, sat in an easy-chair at the window and enjoyed it.

“I wonder what Poinsette’s been doing,” said Mrs. P. to herself; and there was a colour of jealousy in the tone. Then Mrs. P. snorted as in contempt. “I’ll warrant he’s been having a good time,” she continued. “This idea that married men when their wives are away for the summer have a dull time, never imposed on me.”

TIP FROM THE TOMB

CHAPTER I

T. Jefferson Bender was a doctor; that is, he was not a real, legal doctor as yet, but he was a hard student, and looked hopefully toward a day when, in accordance with the statutes in such cases made and provided, he would be cantered through the examination chute, and entitled to write “M. D.” following his name, with all that it implied.

Each morning T. Jefferson Bender arose with the lark, and, seizing his dissecting knife, plunged into whatever subject was spread before him. In the afternoon he attended lectures, bending a hungry ear and watching with eager eye, while the lecturer, in illustration of his remarks, tortured poor people, free of charge. At night, when the day’s carvings, and listenings, and lookings were over, T. Jefferson Bender sat in his easy chair and peered down the long aisle of coming time.

The world was bright to the glance of T. Jefferson Bender; the future full of promise. In his musings he saw himself striding towards surgical fame and riches over a pathway strewn with the amputational harvest of his skill. He filled the hereafter with himself routing disease; cutting down deadly maladies as a farmer might the mullein-stalk; driving before him bacteria and bacilli in herds, droves, schools and shoals. T. Jefferson Bender was a happy man, and his forehead was already, in his imaginings, kissed by the rays of a dawning professional prosperity.

CHAPTER II

T. Jefferson Bender allowed himself but one relaxation. He was from Lexington, and had a true Kentuckian’s love for horseflesh. Thus it was that he patronised the races, and was often seen at Morris Park, where he prevailed from a seat in the grand-stand. Here, casting off professional dignity as he might a garment, T. Jefferson Bender whooped and howled and hurled his hat on high, as race following race swept in.

At intervals T. Jefferson Bender was carried to such heights of madness as “playing the horses.” And then it was he suffered those vicissitudes which are chronicled colloquially under the phrase of “getting it in the neck.”

CHAPTER III

It was the day of the great race. The Morris Park grand-stand was reeling full. The quarter stretch was crowded with Democrats and Republicans and Mugwumps, who, laying aside political hatreds for a day, had come to see the races. The horses were backing and plunging in the grasp of rubbers and stable minions, while the gay jockeys, with their mites of saddles on their left arms, were being weighed in.

Suddenly, a cry of terror rent the air. Otero, a headstrong beauty, had leaped upon the neck of Paddy the Pig, a horse rubber, and borne him to the earth. Paddy the Pig’s neck was severely wrenched, so the crowd said. As the accident occurred, the victim fainted.

“Is there a doctor present?” shouted one of the race judges, appealing to the grand-stand.

T. Jefferson Bender arose from where he sat, walked over seventeen men and women, and leaped upon the stretch.

“I am here,” observed T. Jefferson Bender, while his eye lighted and his nostrils expanded with the ardour of a great resolve.

T. Jefferson Bender bent above Paddy the Pig and felt his pulse.

“He lives!” muttered T. Jefferson Bender.

Then he called for whiskey.

At the magical words, Paddy the Pig languidly opened his eyes, while a flush dimly painted his cheek.

“Doc, you have saved my life!” said Paddy the Pig.

“I have,” said T. Jefferson Bender, willing to be impressive. “I have saved your life.”

“Doc,” said Paddy the Pig in a weak, fluttering voice, “I am only a horse rubber, but I will make you rich. Play Skylight to win, Doc; Skylight! It’s a tip from the tomb!”

“It’s a tip from the tomb!” said T. Jefferson Bender reverently, “what are the odds?”

“It’s a 20-to-1 shot, Doc. Play it. You will thus be paid for what you’ve done for me.”

CHAPTER IV

That night T. Jefferson Bender stood in a pawnshop. The flickering gaslight shone on mandolins, pistols, watches, and clothing, which had suffered the ordeal of the spout. T. Jefferson Bender was dusty and footsore. He had walked from Morris Park, and was now about to pawn his watch for food.

CHAPTER V

T. Jefferson Bender had played Skylight

(Annals of The Bend)

Why, yes,” responded Chucky readily enough, “there’s choiches of all sorts, same as there’s folks, see! Some does good an’ then ag’in there’s others that ain’t so warm.”

It was rude, cold weather. Because of the bluster and the freezing air without, Chucky had abandoned his customary ale for hot Scotches. These and the barroom’s pleasant heat, in contrast with the chill and gusts of the street, served to unfold Chucky’s conversational powers. He even waxed philosophical.

“For that matter,” continued Chucky, critically, “there’s lots of good lyin’ ‘round loose. Sometimes it’s dead hard to find, but it’s there all d’ same, if youse is fly enough to pipe it off. An’ it ain’t all in d’ choiches neither. As I states, I’m d’ last mug to go knockin’ d’ choiches, but dey ain’t got no corner on d’ good of this woild. There is others. D’ choices ain’t d’ only apple on d’ tree. Nor yet d’ onliest gas jet on ‘d chandelier.

“Say!” Chucky went on, after a further taste of the hot Scotch, “on d’ level! I’m onto achoich what’s got nex’ to a bakery, an’ what do youse t’ink? Each night d’ bakery don’t do a t’ing but give every poor hobo who fronts up to d’ window a loaf of bread. That’s for fair! an ‘d’ gezebo who runs d’ bakery is a Dutch Sheeny at that. Would youse get bread if you was to go chasin’ nex’ door to d’ choich? Nit; t’ree times nit! If you was to go slammin’ ‘round d! choich makin’ a talk for a hand-out, all youse would get would be d’ collar, see!

“Onct a week that sanchewary would fill youse to d’ chin on chimes; oh, yes! but no buns; not on your life! Chimes is d’ limit wit’ that choich. An’ say! it’s got money to boin! Bread at d’ bakery! chimes at d’ choich! that’s how dey line t’ings up at that corner. An’ I’m here to say as between d’ brace of ‘em, when it gets down to d’ cold proposition, ‘W’ich does d’ most good?’ d’ bakery can lose that temple of worship in a walk. I strings me money on d’ bakery. An’ don’t youse forget it!”

Chucky was quite exhausted after this outburst. He revived, however, with the hot Scotch, which restored him mightily.

“Onct,” resumed Chucky, “about ten years ago, this is, I was where a w’ite choker was takin’ up a c’llection. An’ what do youse figure he wants it for? I’m a black Republican if he didn’t break it off on us that he was out to make up a wad so his congregation could cel’brate d’ fortieth birt’-day of gold in Californy. Don’t that knock youse silly? D’ w’ite choker says as how he comes from Californy an’ him an’ his push is goin’ to toin themselfs loose, see! an whoop it up because dey found gold forty spaces back. It made me tired, honest!

“‘Why!’ I says to this pulpit t’umper, just like that, ‘Why! don’t youse preach that gold is d’ roots of evil? An’ now youse is framin’ up a blow-out over findin’ it! It looks like a dead gauzy bluff to me.’

“What does d’ w’ite choker mark do? Just gives me d’ dead face an’ ignores me.

“Youse permits yourself to be amazed at me pickin’ this guy up about gold bein’ d’ seeds of evil,” observed Chucky, with a touch of severity. This was in response to some syllable of admiration I’d let fall. “Youse needn’t mind. I’ll give youse a tip that in me yout’ I was d’ star peeple of d’ Sunday school dey opens long ago at d’ Five Points. That’s straight goods, see! I was d’ soonest kid at me lessons that ever comes down d’ pike, an ‘d’ swiftest ever. I has all d’ other kids on d’ blink. I win a test’ment onct from d’ outstretched mits of d’ entire push, bar d’ Bible class, for loinin’ more verses be heart than anybody. I downs every kid in d’ bunch. I made ‘em look like a lot of suckers!” and Chucky paused in approving meditation over the victories of boyhood days.

“Still d’ choiches does dead lots o’ good,” asserted Chucky, coming back to the subject. “There’s d’ case of Bridgy McGuire. She makes two or t’ree trips to d’ Cat’lic joint over on Mott Street, an’ all she loins, so it sticks in her frizzes, is: ‘Honour dy father an’ dy mother,’ see! An’ Bridgy says herself it’s that what brings her back after she’s been run away from home for six years. Bridgy shows up just in time to straighten out d’ game for d’ McGuires at that. D’ fam’ly was on d’ hog for fair when Bridgy gets there.

“Nixie, d’ yarn ain’t so long, nor yet so scarce; for that matter, there’s lots more like ‘em. In d’ foist place, this mark, McGuire, Bridgy’s dad, ain’t so bad. Mac’s a bricklayer; but d’ loose screw wit’ him was that he ain’t woikin’ in d’ winter; an’ as durin’ d’ summer he gen’rally lushes more whiskey than he lays bricks, an’ is more apt to hit d’ bottle than a job, d’ McGuire household’s more or less on d’ bum, see!

“I remembers Bridgy when she’s so little a yard makes a frock for her. She was a long, slim, bony kid, wit’ legs on her like she’s built to pick hops; an’ if Bridgy shows anyt’ing in her breed when young, it’s a strong streak of step-ladder.

“In her kid days I wasn’t noticin’ Bridgy much; d’ fact was, then as now, I’m havin’ troubles, of me own. Her mommer, who was pretty near an even break wit’ Mac himself when it comes to hittin’ up d’ booze, every now an’ then t’run back to d’ religious days of her own yout’, an’ it’s durin’ one of these Bible fits of d’ old woman that she saws Bridgy off on d’ choich, where I speaks of her gettin ‘d’ hunch from d’ priest, or somebody, that it’s d’ fly caper if youse is out to finish wit’ d’ heavenly squeeze, to honour your father an’ mother.

“As I relates, I ain’t dead clear about Bridgy when she’s young an’ little, except it does come chasin’ back to me that she’s dead gone on dancin’ an’ knock-about woik. Onct when me an’ d’ McGuires is livin’ on d’ same floor, I hears a racket in d’ hall like some sucker is tryin’ to come downstairs wit’ a tool chest. Naturally, I shoves me nut outside me door to tell him to go chase himself. But it’s only Bridgy – mebby she’s twelve at d’ time – practyesing. I keeps me lamps onto her awhile, an’ she never tumbles I’m there; for I don’t say nothin’, but lays dead. Bridgy is doin’ han’-stan’s, cartwheels, backbends, fallin’ splits an’ all sorts of funny stunts.

“‘Is this an accident, or does you mean it?’ I asts at last, as Bridgy winds up a cartwheel wit’ a split that looks like it’s goin’ to leave her on bot’ sides of d’ passage way.

“‘I’m doin’ a spread,’ says Bridgy, ‘same as d’ Boneless Wonder at Miner’s, see!’ An’ here she lays her little cocoa down on her knee to show she’s comfortable, an’ dead easy in her mind.

“Wit’out keepin’ exact tabs on Bridgy, I’m able to state that as soon as she’s big enough she goes to woik; an’ at one time an’ another she sells poipers, does a toin in a vest factory, or some other sweat shop; an’ at last, when she’s about seventeen, she’s model in a cloak joint. She gets along all right, all right for a space or so, when one day d’ old grey guy who owns d’ woiks takes it into his nut he’ll float into Bridgy’s ‘fections.

“‘Love youse!’ says Bridgy, to this aged stiff; ‘old gent, you’re dopey! If youse give way to a few more dreams like that, your folks ‘ll put you in d’ booby house. Yous’ll be in Bloomin’dale cuttin’ poiper dolls d’ foist news you know.’

“At this d’ wicked old geezer makes a strong talk – makes d’ speech of his life. But Bridgy won’t stand for him, nor his game.

“‘Come off your perch!’ she says at last. ‘Either you corks up or I quits. You don’t make no hit wit’ me at all.’

“But d’ old mucker don’t let up none, an’ keeps on givin’ Bridgy a song an’ dance about his love for her; so at last she makes her bluff good an’ walks out of d’ joint an’ goes home.

“McGuire was hot in d’ collar at Bridgy t’runnin’ down her job; but d’ old woman, she says Bridgy does dead right; an’ for a finish Mac an ‘d’ old woman goes on a drunk an’ has a fight over it; after which d’ subject’s dropped, see! an’ that’s d’ end of it. I only sees Bridgy onct after that, before she screws her cocoa. That’s at d’ Tugman’s Ball; where she’s d’ Queen spieler of d’ bunch, an’ shows on d’ floor as light an’ graceful as so much cigar smoke. It’s right on d’ heels of this that Bridgy fades from d’ Bend for fair, an’ no one has d’ least line on her or knows where she’s at.

“It runs on for t’ree or four spaces, an ‘d’ McGuires keeps gettin’ drunker an’ harder up. More’n onct d’ neighbors has to bring in d’ grub, or dey wouldn’t have done a t’ing but starve. Dey’s jumpin’ sideways for food to chew, I’ll tell youse that right now, as much as half d’ time. Durin’ all this no one hears a woid about Bridgy.

“Of course, no one’s makin’ much of a roar. There’s a good deal doin’ about d’ Bend, see! An’ d’ comin’ or d’ goin’ of a skirt more or less don’t cut much ice.

“It’s in d’ winter, an ‘d’ McGuires has been carryin’ on bad. No woik, no money, no grub! On d’ dead! it’s a forty-to-one shot dey bot’ finishes at d’ morgue, or d’ Island before d’ spring comes ‘round. For d’ winter is bad in d’ Bend, an’ while everybody is on, that d’ McGuires is strikin’ it hard, d’ most of us is havin’ all we can do runnin’ down t’ree feeds a day, so d’ McGuires ain’t what*d’ poipers calls ‘much in d’ public eye,’ after all. One evenin’, however, Mac comes sprintin’ to me, an’ he’s fair sober for him.

“‘Nit!’ he says, when I asts him, ‘nit; none of d’ ellegunt for me!’

“Then I tumbles there’s a cochin on. McGuire’s t’runnin’ off on a drink was a new one on d’ Bend.

“‘Come wit’ me,’ he says, ‘to Roster & Bial’s.’

“‘Come wit’ youse to Koster’s!’ I retort. ‘That’s a dandy idee; youse ought to sew buttons on it! Come to Koster & Bial’s! Who’s got d’ price?’

“‘Here’s d’ pasteboards,’ says Mac.

“An’ I’m a liar’ if he ain’t got ‘em. So we goes, see!

“D’ fift’ toin on d’ programme is a ‘Mamselle Fleury from Paris.’ She’s down on d’ bills as a singer, dancer an’ high kicker. I’m leanin’ back in me seat feelin’ sore on meself for not makin’ Mac hock d’ tickets for beer, when all at onct Mac gives me a jolt in d’ slats wit’ his elbow, an’ pointin’ one of his main hooks at this French tart, where she’s singin’ on d’ stoige – an’ say! she’s a boid an’ a Kokobola – an’ says:

“‘Be youse on?’

“I focuses me peeps on this Fleury, all pink tights an’ silks an’ feathers, where she’s doin’ her toin. I’m a lobster if she ain’t Bridgy McGuire!

“‘What th’ ‘ell! what th’ bloomin’ ‘ell!’ is all I can say; an’ on d’ square! Mac has to drag me out an’ lay an oyster on me before I’m meself ag’in. It comes mighty near stoppin’ me in d’ foist round.

“You sees d’ finish. Bridgy’s took to d’ stoige. She’s been over in London an’ Paris; an’ say! she’s got d’ game down fine as silk. She’d come back an’ was beatin ‘d’ box for t’ree hundred plunks a week.

“Sure! Bridgy had been up to find her folks. Foist she said she t’ought she’d pass ‘em up. Dey had given her d’ woist of it when she’s a kid; why should she bother! But she tells us herself, talkin’ it over, how when she struck d’ old town ag’in, an’ old sights begins to toin up old mem’ries, it starts to run in her wig about d’ Bend an ‘d’ old days. An’ what stan’s out clearest is d’ little old Cat’lic choich, an ‘d’ guff dey gives her d’ onct or twict she shows up there, about honourin’ her father an’ mother. I s’pose what youse would call Bridgy’s conscience gets a run for its money. Anyhow, somet’ing inside of her took to chewin’ d’ rag, an’ showin’ Bridgy’s she’s wrong, an’ at d’ last, she can’t stand for it no longer, an’ so she sends a tracer out for her mother an’ dad, an’ lands ‘em.