Sandburrs and Others

“What’s the trouble?” I asked.

“We’ve been havin ‘d’ run in’ of our lives,” replied Chucky, as he called to the barkeeper for his usual bracer, “an’ our tenement is just standin’ on its nut right now, an’ that’s for straight!”

“Tell me about it,” I urged.

“D’ racket this time over to d’ joint,” said Chucky, “is about a Swede skirt named Petersen who croaks herself be d’ gas play last night. D’ place is full of cops an’ hobos an’ all sorts of blokes, pipin’ off d’ play, while a corner mug is holdin’ an inkwest over d’ stiff, see! What you smells is d’ coal oil on me mits. I soaks me hooks in it to take d’ boin away. Me Rag gives me d’ tip; an’ say! it’s a winner at that. D’ boins ain’t half so bad as dey was.”

“But I don’t understand,” I replied. “How did you come to burn your hands? If the gas was burning, I don’t see how the woman could have committed suicide.”

“Youse is gettin’ away on d’ wrong hoof,” said Chucky. “I don’t boin me fins over d’ Petersen moll croakin’ herself. I cremates ‘em puttin’ out d’ flames when d’ Petersen kid takes fire d’ day before. This inkwest which d’ cor’oner guy is holdin’ to-day, is d’ secont one. He holds d’ foist yesterday over d’ kid.

“On d’ level! I don’t catch on to d’ need of inkwests anyhow. If a mark’s dead, he’s dead. It don’t need no sawbones an’ a mob of snoozers to be ‘panelled for a jury, see! to put youse on. It looks to me like a dead case of shakin’ down d’ public for d’ fees; these inkwests do, Cor’ners, I s’spose, has to have some excuse for livin’, so when some poor duck croaks, dey comes chasin’ ‘round wit’ a inkwest to see if he’s surely done up, an’ to put a bit of dough in their kecks. Well! I figgers it’s law all right, all right, an’ mebby it’s d’ proper caper. Anyhow, I passes it up.

“What about this Petersen push? Well, if ever a household strikes it hard, I’m here to say it’s d’ Petersens. When it comes to d’ boss hard luck story, I’ll place me bets wit’ that outfit every time.

“It’s two spaces back when this Petersen gang comes ashore at Ellis Island. There’s t’ree of ‘em; husband, wife, an’ kid, see! Dey comes in as steerage, an’ naturally, d’ Ellis Island gezebos collars ‘em an’ t’rows ‘em into hock d’ moment dey hits d’ pier. Nit; dey ain’t arrested. But youse is on, how dey puts d’ clamps to emigrants. Dey ‘detains’ ‘em, as it’s called.

“Every mug who comes steerage has to spring his plant when he lands, an’ if he ain’t as strong as $30, dey – d’ offishuls – don’t do a t’ing but chase him back on d’ nex’ boat. He’s a pauper, see! an’ he gets d’ razzle dazzle an ‘d’ gran’ rinky dink. Back he goes where he hails from, like a bundle of old clothes. Paupers is barred at Ellis Island; dey don’t go wit’ these United States, not on your overshoes!

“So d’ Petersens is stood up, like I tells youse, at Ellis Island to see be dey tramps. It toins out, nit. Dey ain’t paupers. Petersen has more’n enough money to get be d’ gate, see! Petersen has a hundred an’ fifty plunks, an’ bein’ there’s only t’ree, it’s plenty to go ‘round an’ show $30 for each.

“Still them Ellis Island snoozers detains d’ Petersens a week just d’ same. D’ place where dey stays is worse’n any holdover or station house I’m ever in; an’, bein’ d’ weather’s winter, an’ this ‘detention’ pen is wet an’ cold, Petersen himself cops off d’ pneumonia an’ out goes his light before ever he leaves Ellis Island at all. Dey plants him in d’ graveyard dey has for emigrants, an ‘d’ wife an’ kid comes over to d’ city alone.

“That’s d’ foist I knows of d’ Petersens. D’ mother an’ kid takes a back-room in our tenement; an’ after dey gets ‘quainted, she tells me Rag about her man dyin’. She ain’t so old, this Petersen woman, an’ only she’s all broke up about her man croakin’, she ain’t a bad looker, see! wit’ blue eyes an’ a mop of gold hair. D’ kid’s name is Hilda, an,’ except she’s only seven years an’ no bigger’n a drink of whiskey, she’s a ringer for her mother.

“Well! like I says, d’ Petersens – what’s left of ‘em after d’ man quits livin’ – organised in d’ back room on our floor. An’ because folks who wants to chew must woik, d’ Petersen woman gets a curve on an’ goes to doin’ stunts wit’ a tub. She chases ‘round doin’ washin’, see!

“It’s when d’ old goil is away slingin’ suds that I gets nex’ wit ‘d’ kid. She’s dropped her ragbaby down be a gratin’ one day an’ her heart is broke. She t’inks it’s a cinch case of all over wit’ d’ poor ragbaby, an’ she’s cryin’ to beat d’ band.

“But she gets it ag’in. Me an’ a big fat cop who comes waddlin’ along, tears up d’ gratin’ an’ fishes out Hilda’s doll, an’ after that me an’ her gets to be dead chummy; what youse might call * pals.’

“Hilda’s shy at foist, an’ a bit leary of me – I ain’t no bute at me best – but she gets used to seein’ me about, an’ as I stakes her to or’nges onct or twict, at last she gets stuck on me.

“D’ Petersens, an’ me, an’ me Rag is neighbours on d’ same floor for near two years. An’ days when I comes home early, an’ me breat’ ain’t smellin’ of booze – for d’ kid welches every time she sniffs d’ lush on me, see! – I used to go in an’ kiss Hilda same as she’s me own. An’ between youse an’ me,” and here a drop gathered in Chucky’s cold eye, “I ain’t above tippin’ it off on d’ quiet, I t’inks a heap of this young-one, an’ feels better every time I gets me lamps on her.

“D’ finish comes t’ree days ago. D’ old goil Petersen is away woikin’, an’ Hilda, for all it’s so cold, is playin’ in d’ passage-way. There’s one of them plumber hold-ups fixin ‘d’ water pipe where it’s sprung a leak, an’ he’s got one of them dinky little fire pots which plumbers lug ‘round wit’ em.

“While this plumber stiff is busy wit’ his graft, poor little Hilda t’inks she’ll warm her dolly’s mits be d’ blaze. She’s holdin’ her ragbaby’s hooks over d’ plumber’s fire as I comes up d’ stairs; an’ as she hears me foot, an’ toins smilin’ to make sure it’s me, her frock catches, an’ when she chases screechin’ into me arms, she’s a bundle of live flame. Say! I’d sooner ten to one it was me, an’ that’s no bluff!

“I wraps me coat over her, an’ gives d’ fire d’ quick smother, see! An’ I boins me dukes until it comes to bein’ mighty near a case of stumps wit’ Chucky d’ balance of his joiney to d’ tomb.

“But what th’ ‘ell! It all don’t do no good. D’ poor kid has swallered d’ fire, an’ she’s d’ deadest ever before even I takes her out of me coat.

“We lays Hilda out, me Rag an’ me, on d’ Petersens’ bed; an’ d’ cor’ner sucker, as I says at d’ be-ginnin’, comes sprintin’ over an’ goes to holdin’ his inkwests.

“Bimeby, d’ mother gets home from her tubs, an’ that’s where d’ hard play comes in. Me Rag tells her as easy as she can; but youse could see it was a centre shot all d’ same. It soaked her where she lived.

“‘Foist d’ man, an’ then d’ baby!’ says d’ Petersen woman, as she sets on d’ floor an’ mourns; ‘now I’ll soon go hunt for ‘em.’

“Me Rag tries to get her to come in wit’ us, but she won’t stan’ for it. All t’rough d’ night we hears her mournin’ an’ groanin’ on d’ floor be d’ side of little Hilda’s coffin.

“D’ kid’s fun’ral was yesterday, an’ a pulpit sharp from one of d’ Missions gets in on d’ play, an’ offishiates. Sure! it’s a case of Potter’s Field – for d’ mother ain’t got d’ dough to make good for a grave – but me an’ me Rag gets a car, an’ takes d’ mother out to see little Hilda planted. No, she don’t cry much at that; but me Rag toins in an’ don’t do a t’ing but break d’ record for tears. If Hilda was her own kid, she couldn’t have made more of a row. When it comes to what youse might call ‘d’ outward evidences of grief,’ me Rag simply lose d’ Petersen mother.

“D’ mother was feelin’ it all d’ same. She keeps whisperin’ to herself: ‘Soon I’ll go find ‘em!’ like that; an’ that’s d’ limit of what youse could get out of her.

“It’s last night, after little Hilda’s put away, – it’s mebby, say, t’ree this mornin’, when wit’out a woid of warnin’ me Rag sets up straight in bed an’ gives a sniff.

“‘Be d’ mother of d’ Holy Mary! it’s gas!’ she says, an’ nex’ she makes a straight wake for d’ Petersen door.

“An’ me Rag guesses right d’ very foist time, like d’ kid in d’ song. Gas it was; d’ poor Petersen mother toins it on full blast. She’s croaked an’ cold as a wedge, hours before we tumbles to her game.

“That’s d’ finish. As I states d’ foist dash out of d’ box, it’s d’ dandy hard luck story of d’ year. D’ whole Petersen push is wiped out, same as that bar-keep would swab off his bar. On d’ dead! it’s all too many for me! What’s d’ use of folks bein’ born at all, if dey’s goin’ to get yanked in like that – t’ree at a clatter, an’ all young!

“Do dey have re-latiffs? Some in d’ old country, I takes it. There’s a note d’ Petersen woman leaves for me Rag, astin’ her to write d’ hist’ry of d’ last round an’ wind-up to d’ folks at home, an’ givin’ d’ address. But me ownliest own says ‘nit!’ an* chucks d’ note in d’ stove.

“‘Dey’s better off not knowin’,’ says me Rag.”

BOWLDER’S BURGLAR

Bowlder’s wife and offspring were away at the time; and the time was a night last summer. Mrs. B. was in Long Branch, and Bowlder, left lonely and forlorn, to look after the house and earn money, was having a sad, bad time, indeed.

Not that Bowlder really lacked anything; but he missed his wife and little ones. Where before the merry prattle of his children made the racket of a boiler shop, all was solemn peace and hush. The Bowlder mansion was like a graveyard.

Naturally Bowlder felt lonesome; and to avoid, as much as might be, having his loneliness thrust upon him by the empty desolation of the house, he made it a rule during his wife’s absence not to go home until 3 o’clock A. M.

He was “dead on his legs” by that time, as he expressed it, and went at once to sleep, before the absence of Mrs. B. began to prey upon him.

On the night, or more properly morning, in question, Bowlder wended homeward at sharp 3. He had been missing Mrs. B. painfully all the evening, and, to uphold himself, subscribed to divers drinks. These last Bowlder put safely away within his belt, and they cherished him and taught him resignation, and he didn’t miss his wife as much as he had.

The hoary truth is that as Bowlder drew near his home, he had so far conquered his sense of abandonment that he wasn’t even thinking of his wife. He was plodding along in the middle of the street for fear of footpads, whom he fancied might be sauntering in the shadows on either side, and was really in quite a happy, fortunate frame of mind. As Bowlder turned in toward his door he was softly repeating the lines:

“‘Tis sweet to hear the watch dog’s honest bark,Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home,‘Tis sweet to know there is an eye will markOur coming, and grow brighter when we come.”

Not that Bowlder had a watch dog, honest or otherwise, to bay him deep-mouthed welcome. And inasmuch as they had discharged the exile from Erin, who aforetime did service as the Bowlder maid-of-all-work, when Mrs. B. took flight for the summer, there was slight hope of an eye on the premises to grow brighter when he came.

No; it was not that Bowlder was really looking for deep-mouthed bays or brightening eyes; he was naturally musical and poetical, and the drinks he had corralled had unlocked his nature in that behalf. Bowlder was reciting the lines quoted for the pleasure he drew from their beauty; not from the prophecy they put forth of any meeting to which he looked forward. A remark which escaped Bowlder as he climbed his steps and dexterously fitted his night key to the day keyhole showed this.

“I ought to have stayed at a hotel,” said Bowlder. “There’s nobody here to rake me over the coals for it, and I’m going to have a great head on me when I wake up.”

Bowlder at last by mistake got his latchkey into the keyhole to which it related, and the door swung inward. This was a distinct success and Bowlder heaved a breath of relief. This door, which had grown singularly obdurate since Mrs. B.‘s departure, had been known to hold Bowlder at bay for twenty minutes.

Bowlder had just cast his hat on the hall floor – he intended to hang it up in the morning when he would have more time – and got as far on a journey to the second story as one step, when a noise in the basement dining-room enlisted Bowlder’s attention. His curiosity rather than his fears was aroused; another happy effect of his libations.

Without one thought of burglars, Bowlder deferred his journey upstairs, and repaired instead to the dining-room below. Bowlder would investigate the untoward noises which, while soft and light, were still of such volume as might tell upon the ear.

“Wonder ‘f the houshe is haunted?” observed Bowlder as he went deviously below.

It has already been noted that Bowlder not once bethought him of burglars. In truth he had often scoffed at burglars while conversing with Mrs. B. on this subject so interesting to ladies. Bowlder had said that no burglar could make day wages robbing the house.

It had all the thrill of perfect surprise then when, as Bowlder turned into his dining-room, he beheld a bull’s-eye lantern shedding a malevolent stream of light in his face, and caught the shadowy outlines of a tall man behind it who seemed engaged in pointing a pistol at him.

“Hold up your hands!” said the tall man, “and don’t come a step further, or out goes your light!”

“Well! I like thish!” squeaked Bowlder, in a tone of querulous complaint, at the same time, however, clasping his hands above his head; “I like thish! What’s the row here?”

The tall man made no reply, but came across and deftly ran his hands over Bowlder for possible arms. Bowlder had no gun. The tall man seemed satisfied, and stepping back, told Bowlder he might sit down on a chair and rest his hands in his lap. Bowlder took advantage of the permission.

“Any ‘bjections to me lighting a shegar?” queried Bowlder.

“Not at all,” said the tall man.

Bowlder was soon puffing away. Being friendly, not to say polite by nature, Bowlder bestowed one on his visitor.

“Is it a mild cigar?” asked the burglar.

“Colorado claro,” said Bowlder.

“That’s all right!” assented the other. “I don’t like a strong smoke; it makes my head ache.”

As the visitor lighted the cigar, Bowlder noticed that he wore a black mask across his eyes, and that the latter shone through the apertures cut for their convenience like beads. The mask gave Bowlder a chill which the pistol had not evoked. Indeed, it came very near destroying the whole force of the drinks he had accumulated.

When the stranger had lighted his cigar, Bowlder and he puffed at each other a moment without a word.

“What are you doing in my houshe?” at last demanded Bowlder.

The stranger smiled and puffed on. Then he kicked a large sack with his foot. Bowlder had not observed this sack before. As the stranger touched it with his foot, it gave out a metallic clinking.

Bowlder’s eyes roamed instinctively to the sideboard. There wasn’t much light; enough, however, to show Bowlder that the sideboard’s burden of silverware was gone. With such a start, Bowlder was able to infer a great deal.

“Made a clean shweep, eh?” remarked Bowlder.

The masked stranger nodded.

“If you’ve got all there is loose and little in the houshe,” said Bowlder – he was talking plainer every moment now – “you’ve got $1,500 worth. Been up-shtairs yet?”

Again the man of the mask nodded. Also he exhibited symptoms of being about to depart.

“Don’t go yet!” remonstrated Bowlder. “Want to talk to you. Did you get the old lady’s jewellery upstairs?”

Again the burglar nodded. He seemed disinclined to use his voice unless it was necessary.

“Thash’s bad!” remarked Bowlder reflectively; referring to the conquest of his wife’s jewellery. “The old lady won’t do a thing but make me buy her some more. And the worst of it is, she’ll put up the figures on what jimcracks you’ve got, and insisht they’re worth four times their true value. I’m lucky if she don’t put it higher than $1,000. And they ain’t worth $200; you’ll be lucky if you get that on ‘em.”

The burglar looked hopeful as well as he could with a mask, but retorted nothing to Bowlder. The latter mused sorrowfully over his wife’s jewels.

“You see it putsh me in the hole!” said Bowlder. “I get it going and coming. You come along and rob me; and then Mrs. B. comes home and robs me again. Don’t you think that’s a little rough?”

The stranger said it was rough. He didn’t nod this time, but used his voice. Encouraged by the agreement with his views, Bowlder urged the return of his wife’s jewellery.

“Just gimme back what’s hers,” said Bowlder, “and you can keep the rest. That’ll let me out with her, and I don’t care for the balance.”

But the man of midnight stoutly objected. It would be a dead loss of $200, he said, and worse yet, it would be unprofessional.

Bowlder thought deeply a moment. Then he took a new tack.

“Any ‘bjections to taking a drink with me?” he asked.

“None in the world!” said the burglar.

Bowlder explored his coat pocket for a bottle he’d brought home to restore him after his sleep. He proffered the bottle to the burglar.

“After you is manners!” said that person.

Bowlder drank and then the burglar did the same.

“You a Republican?” demanded Bowlder suddenly. “I s’pose even burglars have their politics!”

“Administration Republican!” said the burglar; “that’s what I am. I believe in Imperialism and a sound currency.”

“I’m an Administration Republican, too,” remarked Bowlder. “I knew we’d find common ground at last. Now, as a member of the same party as yourself, I want to ask a favour of you. You’ve got about $1,500 worth of plunder there; and yet, you see yourself, there’s a good deal of furniture you’re leaving behind; piano upstairs and all that. I’ll play you one game of ten-point seven-up to see whether you take all or nothing. Come, now, as a favour!”

The burglar hesitated. He feared there was a trap in it. Bowlder gave him his word as a goldbug that he made the proffer in all honesty.

“If you win,” said Bowlder, “you can cart the furniture away to-morrow. I’ll order you a waggon as I go down, and you can sleep in the house and see that I don’t carry off anything or hold out on you.”

“But it ain’t worth as much as what I’ve got,” demurred the burglar.

“Well, see here!” said Bowlder – sober he was now – “to avoid spoiling sport I’ll throw in my watch and $30. That’s square!”

The burglar admitted that the proposal was fair, but stuck for seven points.

“I like straight seven-up,” he said. “Make it a seven-point game and I’ll go you.”

Bowlder produced a deck of cards from the sewing-machine drawer. At the burglar’s own suggestion they lighted one gas jet.

“Cut for deal!” said Bowlder.

The burglar cut a ten-spot, Bowlder a deuce. The burglar had the deal.

The king of diamonds was turned as trump.

“Beg!” said Bowlder.

“Take it!” remarked the burglar.

The hands were played. Bowlder had the queen and six-spot of diamonds; the marauder had the ten, nine, and seven of diamonds. Bowlder took high, low and the burglar counted game.

“No jack out!” remarked Bowlder.

“No,” said the other. And then in an abused tone; “Say! you don’t beg nor nuthin’, do you? The idee of a gent’s beggin’ in a two-hand game, a-holdin’ of the queen and six.”

They played three hands; Jack had been out once. Bowlder was keeping score. It stood:

“Bowl, I I I I I I.”

“Burg, I I I I.”

It was Bowlder’s deal. He riffled the cards with the deftness of one who plays often and well.

“Bound to settle it this time!” said the burglar. “The score stands 6 to 4. You bet your life! I’ll stand on the bare jack if I get it.”

Bowlder threw the cards around and turned trump with a snap. It was the jack of clubs.

The burglar looked at it wistfully, even sadly.

“That’s square, is it?” he said to Bowlder in a tone of half reproach. “You ain’t the party to go and turn a jack on a poor crook from the bottom of the deck, and you only one to go?”

Bowlder assured him the transaction was perfectly honest.

“Yes, I guess it was,” said the burglar, rising. “I was watching you, and I guess it was straight. It’s just my luck, that’s all. Well! I must go; it’s getting along towards 4: 30 o’clock.”

“Have a drink!” said Bowlder, “and take another cigar!”

The cracksman took a drink. Then he selected a cigar from Bowlder’s proffered case.

“If it’s all the same to youse,” said the burglar, “I’ll smoke this later on – after breakfast.” And he put the cigar in his pocket.

“Here; let me show you out this way,” said Bowlder, leading the way to the front basement door.

“I hates to ask it of a stranger,” said the burglar, as he hesitated just outside the door, “but the Eight’ Avenoo cars’ll be runnin’ in a little while now, and would you mind lendin’ me a nickel? I lives down be the Desbrosses Ferry.”

Of course Bowlder would lend him car-fare. This somewhat raised the burglar’s spirits, made sad by seven-up. As he closed the door behind him, the burglar looked back at Bowlder.

“Do you know, pard,” he said, “if it wasn’t for my weakness for gamblin’, I’d been a rich man a dozen times.”

ANGELINA McLAURIN

(By the Office Boy)

Angelina McLaurin’s was a rare face; a beautiful face. It had but one defect: Angelina’s nose was curved like the wing of a gull. This gave her an air of resolution and command that affected the onlooker like a sign which says: “Look out for the engine.”

Still, Angelina McLaurin was bewitchingly lovely, a result much aided in its coming about by a form so admirably upholstered that to look upon her would have made Diana tired.

It was a soft, sensuous September afternoon. Angelina McLaurin was impatiently holding down a richly cushioned chair in the library of the noble McLaurin mansion – one of those stately piles which are the pride of Washington Heights. She was awaiting the coming of her affianced husband, George Maurice St. John.

“Why does he prove so dilatory?” she murmured. “Methinks true love would not own such leaden feet!”

As Angelina McLaurin arose to gaze from the window she rocked on the tail of the ample Angora cat.

The cat made it a point to hang out in the library every afternoon. On this occasion, while Angelina McLaurin was dreaming of her lover, the cat had taken advantage of her abstraction to deftly bestow his tail beneath the rocker of her chair. When Angelina arose, as stated, the cat got the worst of it.

As the rocker came down on the cat’s tail, the cat exploded into observations in Angorese that are unfit for these pages. Angelina was not only startled out of herself, but almost out of her frock. Angelina and the cat arose hastily, and stood there panting.

As the shrieks of the wronged exile from Angora were uplifted into space, the door of the library burst violently open.

“What is the matter, dearest? Are you injured? Why do you cry for help?”

It was George Maurice St. John who asked the question. As he did so, he caught Angelina McLaurin in his powerful arms, while the Angora cat, his worst fears now realised, chased himself down the hall with tail excited to lamp-cleaner size.

“What is it, love?” asked George Maurice St. John, as he tenderly unloaded his delicious burden onto a sofa, “Speak! it is the voice of your George who bids you. Has any one dared to insult the coming bride of a St. John?”

“Bear with me, George!” she whispered. “Believe me, I will be better anon!”

After a few moments she recovered, and was able to smile through her tears at the alarm of her dear one. Then she told George all: how the cat had been ass enough to leave his tail lying around loose while asleep; how, in the intensity of her waiting, she had put a crimp in it with the fell rocker of the chair; and how the cat had been drawn into statements, by sheer dint of agony, which it was impolitic as well as useless to repeat.

“So I was just in time, Angelina, to relieve both you and the cat of what was doubtless an awkward situation.” And George Maurice St. John laughed gaily.

Then he kissed her with a fervour that left nothing to be wished for, and Angelina took a brace and sat erect on the sofa.

“I feel better now!” she remarked.

George tried to get in another kiss, but she stood him off.

“Don’t crowd your luck, dear!” she said, with a sweet softness. “I am yours for ever, and there is not the slightest need for any excess of osculatory zeal. You are to have me with you always, so set a brake or two and take the grades easy.”