Chapter 9

"I went to see your Jarvis to-night, as I promised to do, but he made it exceedingly plain to me that he desired neither my visit nor my acquaintance. I thought he looked very tired and a trifle hectic. No doubt the heat has worn on him. I don't mean to alarm you. I am only searching for some excuse for my own comfort for his reception of me.

"I shall look for the next chapters with eagerness. None of your many readers knows my proprietary delight in that tale of yours.

"My cordial regards to your father, and to yourself my thanks and my best wishes. Faithfully,

"RICHARD STRONG."

Jarvis was not so politic. He permitted himself some rancor.

"DEAR BAMBINA: I did not get your letter announcing Strong's visit, and his approaching descent upon me, until this evening. He followed close upon its heels. I have no doubt you intended it kindly sending him here to look me up, but the truth is I am in no mood for callers, and I fear I made that rather plain to your friend. I may as well say, frankly, I disliked him exceedingly on the occasion of his visit to you. It would be useless for me to try to disguise the fact. I would never dream of asking him for work on his magazine, which I consider of a very low grade.

"By some misunderstanding the Parkes sailed sooner than they expected, and failed to see my play. I have offered it to Charles Frohman. I should prefer him to any other New York manager.

"The weather here is extremely hot, and I have been working rather hard, so I am a little knocked out. Will you send me the manuscript of my two unfinished plays you will find on the table in my study? With regards to the Professor and yourself. Hastily,

"JARVIS."

Having got this off his mind and into the mailbox, Jarvis went for his nightly prowl. His steps turned toward the crowded East Side district, where a new interest was beginning to attract him. Until now "men" were his only concern. These hot nights, as he tramped along, discouraged with his own futility, he was beginning to discover "Man."

It seemed to him that all the children in the world were playing in these crowded streets. He had never turned his attention to children before. And he began to look at the shrewd, old faces, even to talk to a group here and there. They made him think of monkeys, clever, nervous little beasts.

He skirted several mothers' meetings conducted on the sidewalk. He even went into a saloon to have a look at the men, but the odour of stale beer and hot bodies was insufferable and drove him out. As he sauntered along, he passed an unlighted business building. Out of the shadow a girl stole, and fell in step beside him.

"Hello, kid!" she began, her hand tucked under his arm. Before she could complete her sentence, a policeman was upon them. He laid hold of the girl roughly.

"Now I got you! I told you to keep off'n this block," he growled.

"What's the matter with you? What do you want?" Jarvis demanded.

"I want her to come along with me. That's what I want."

"She hasn't done anything."

"You bet she hasn't. I didn't give her time."

"Let go of her! What charge are you taking her on?"

"Don't get fresh, young guy. The charge is s'licitin'."

"That's a lie! She's a friend of mine, and she merely said, 'Good evening.'"

The copper laughed derisively, and the girl turned a cynical young-old face to Jarvis.

"Much obliged, kid, but it ain't no use. He's got me spotted."

"If you arrest her, you must arrest me."

"I got nottin' on you."

"Yes, you have. I said 'Good evening' to her, just what she said to me."

"Get the hell out of here, and don't give me none of your lip, or I'll run you in. Come along!" the policeman ordered, and he and the girl started on toward Jefferson Market. Jarvis marched beside them. When they turned in at the door where prisoners are entered, the policeman again ordered Jarvis off.

"Go round in front if you're crazy to be in on this," he said.

Jarvis hurried round to the front door and went in. The courtroom was packed. He had trouble in finding a seat, but he finally got into the front row, just behind the rail that divides the dock from the spectators. One half of the room was full of swine--fat, blowse-necked Jewish men, lawyers, cadets, owners of houses--all the low breeds who fatten off the degradation of women. Their business was to pay the fines or go bail.

The other half of the room, to Jarvis's horror, was full of young boys and girls, some almost children, there out of curiosity. A goodly number of street walkers sat at the back. It was their habit to come into court to see what judge was sitting. If it was one who levied strict fines, or was prone to send girls up to Bedford, they spent the evening there, instead of on the streets.

The first case called, after Jarvis's entrance, was that of the keeper of a disorderly house. She was horrible. He felt she ought to be branded in some way, so that she and her vile trade would be known wherever she went. A man went her bail, and she flounced out in a cloud of patchouli.

Two coloured girls were brought in, and sent up for thirty days. Then several old women, the kind of human travesties Jarvis had seen sleeping on the benches, were marched before the judge, who called them all by name.

"Well, Annie," he said to one of them, "you haven't been here for some weeks. How did it happen this time?"

"I've been a-walkin' all day, your honour. I guess I fell asleep in the doorway."

"You've been pretty good lately. I'll let you off easy. Fine, one dollar."

"Oh, thanks, your honour." She was led off, and Jarvis sickened at the sight.

A series of young girls followed, cheaply modish, with their willow plumes and their vanity bags. Some cheerful, some cynical, some defiant. One slip of a thing heard her sentence, looked up in the judge's face, and laughed. Jarvis knew that never, while he lived, would he forget that girl's laugh. It was into the face of our whole hideous Society that she hurled that bitter laugh.

Then his girl was brought in. He saw her clearly for the first time. A thin, wizened little face, framed in curly red hair, with bright, birdlike eyes. Her thin, flat child's figure was outlined in a tight, black satin dress, with a red collar and sash. Her quick glance darted to him, and she smiled. The policeman made his charge. The judge glanced at her.

"Anything to say for yourself?"

She shook her head wearily. Jarvis was out of his seat before he thought.

"I have something to say for her. I am the man she was supposed to have approached."

"Silence in the courtroom," said the judge, sternly.

"She didn't say one word to me, except 'Good evening,'" shouted Jarvis.

"Is that the man?" the judge asked the officer.

"Yes. He's made a lot of trouble, too, trying to make me arrest him."

"If you have any evidence to give in this case, come to the front and be sworn in."

Jarvis jumped the railing and stood before him. The oath was administered.

"Now, tell me, briefly, what the girl said to you."

"She said, 'Hello, kid!'"

A titter went over the courtroom. The clerk rapped for order.

"Then what happened?"

"This officer arrested her. I told him what had passed between us, and insisted on being arrested, too. We said the same thing, the girl and I."

"The girl has been here before. She has a record."

"Where are the men she made the record with?" demanded Jarvis.

"We do not deal with that feature of it," replied the judge, turning to the officer.

"And why not?" demanded Jarvis. "It takes a solicitor and the solicited to make a crime. What kind of laws are these which hound women into the trade and hound them for following it?"

"It is neither the time nor the place to discuss that. The case is dismissed. This court has no time to waste, Flynn, in cases where there's no evidence," he added, sternly, to the detective.

The girl nodded to Jarvis and beckoned him, but instead of following her he went back to his seat. He would follow this ghastly puppet show to its end.

At a word from the judge a tall, handsome, gray-haired woman approached the bench. She wore no hat, and Jarvis marked her broad brow and pleasant smile and the wise, philosophic eyes. Her face looked cheerful and normal in this place of abnormalities.

"Who is that woman?" Jarvis asked his neighbour.

"Probation officer," came the answer.

Jarvis watched her with passionate interest. He noted her low-voiced answers to the judge's questions about the girl in hand. The curiosity seekers in the audience could not hear, no matter how they craned their necks. He watched her calm smile as she turned to take the girl off into her own office. He made up his mind to talk with her before the night was over.

Case followed case as the night wore on. It seemed to Jarvis that this bedraggled line had neither beginning nor end. He saw it winding through this place night after night, year after year, the old-timers and the new recruits. Uptown reputable citizens slept peacefully in their beds; this was no concern of theirs. He was no better than the rest, with his precious preaching about the brotherhood of man. What the body politic needed was a surgeon to cut away this abscess, eating its youth and strength.

The screams of a girl who had just been given a sentence to Bedford startled him out of his thoughts. She pleaded and cried, she tried to throw herself at the judge's feet, but the policeman dragged her out, the crowd craning forward with avid interest. She was the last case before the court adjourned. Jarvis leaned across the rail and asked the probation officer if he might speak to her.

"Perhaps you will walk along with me toward my home?" she suggested. He gladly assented. In a few moments she came out, hatted and ready for the street. She looked keenly at this tall, serious youth who had so unexpectedly arraigned the court.

"My name is Jarvis Jocelyn," he began. "There are so many things I want to ask you about."

"I shall be glad to tell you what I can," she said quietly.

"Have you been in this work long?"

"Eleven years."

"Good God! how can you be so calm? How can you look so hopeful?"

"Because I am hopeful. In all the thousands of cases I have known I have never once lost hope. When I do, my work is over."

"You're wonderful!" he exclaimed.

"No, I am reasonable. I don't expect the impossible. I am glad of every inch of ground gained. I don't demand an acre. If one girl is rescued out of twenty----"

"But why does it need to be at all?" Jarvis interrupted her.

"Why does disease need to be? Why does unhappiness need to be, or war, or the money-lust that will one day wreck us? We only know that these things are. Our business is to set about doing what we can."

"One girl out of twenty," he repeated. "What becomes of the other nineteen?"

"I said I was glad of one girl in twenty. Sometimes several of the nineteen come out all right. Bedford helps a great many. They marry, they keep straight, or--they die very soon."

"Tell me about Bedford."

She outlined the work done in that farm home, which is such a credit to New York. She told him of the honour system, and all the modern methods employed there.

"Can you get opportunities for girls who want the chance?"

"Plenty of them. I have only to ask. When I need money, it comes. Lots of my girls are employed in uptown shops, leading good, hard-working lives."

"Where does this money come from?"

"Private donations. That is one of my hope signs--the widespread interest in rescue work."

"The old ones--those aged women?"

She sighed. "Yes, I know, they are terrible! There is a mighty army of them in New York. We grind them in and out of our courts, month after month. The institutions are all full. There is so much grafting that the poor-farm has been delayed, year after year, so there is no place to send them."

"Where do they go?"

"Into East River, most of them, in the end."

"Do you mean to say that we pay the machinery of the law to put these cases through the courts, over and over again, and then provide no place to harbour the derelicts?"

"That's about the case," she replied.

"How can we live and endure such things?" Jarvis demanded passionately.

"I used to feel that way about it. I used to be sick through and through with it, but I have grown to see that there is improvement, that there is a new social sense growing among us. Uptown women of leisure come to our night courts, take part in our working-girls' strikes, and women, mind you, are always slowest to feel and react to new forces. Don't be discouraged," she smiled at him, stopping at the door.

"May I come and see you, some time? Are you ever free, or would that be asking too much?"

"No. Come! Come in Sunday afternoon if you like."

She held out her hand, and he grasped it warmly.

"You're great," he said boyishly, at which she laughed.

"We need you young enthusiasts," she said.

As he walked uptown to his lodgings Jarvis faced the fact that up to this present moment he had been on the wrong track. He had tried to pull from the top. That was all right, if only he also tried to push from the bottom. The world needed idealists, but not the old brand, blind to the actual, teaching out of a great ignorance. This probation officer woman, she was the modern idealist, as modern as Jesus Christ, who worked in the same spirit.

He would finish his vision-plays, as he called them, because he believed in them. But, in the meantime, he would learn something of the real issues of men and women as they live in great cities, so that he could write a play which would be so true, so vital, that it would be like watching the beating of the hot heart of life. That night was the beginning of a new era for Jarvis.

XVII

Bambina Parkhurst was a young woman not much given to wrath, but as she read the two letters from New York she grew thoroughly enraged at Jarvis. Evidently, he had been exceedingly rude to Mr. Strong, and evidently Mr. Strong had been exceedingly annoyed. She was so furious at him that when she sat down to her desk to write her daily chapters no ideas came. Her mind just went over and over the situation of kind Mr. Strong putting himself out to be polite for her sake--Jarvis, stiff and ill-mannered, repulsing him. She determined to omit the daily letter to the offender until she cooled off. She gave up work for the morning and descended upon Ardelia.

"Ardelia, I am so mad I can't think of anything to do but put up fruit."

"Law, Miss Bambi, you ain't mad wif me, is you?"

"No. I'm mad with man."

"Man! Wat's the Perfessor bin doin'? Has he don' forgot somfin'?"

"It isn't the Professor. It's the sex."

"Well, don' you go meddlin' round wid fruit and gettin' yo' hands stained up, jus' caus' yo's mad wid de sex."

"I have got to do something violent, Ardelia. I am going to jerk the stems off of berries, chop the pits out of cherries, and skin peaches."

"Laws a-massy, you suttinly is fierce this mohnin'. All right, go ahead, but der ain't no need of it. I mos' generally always has put up the fruit for the fam'ly wifout no help."

"I know you don't need me, Ardelia, but I need you."

"Well, chile, heah's de fust few bushels ob cherries."

"Bushels? Mercy on us! Are you going to do all those?"

"Yassum. And den some more. Dat's the Perfessor's favourite fruit."

Bambi was promptly enveloped in a huge apron and settled on the back piazza, surrounded with pans and baskets. Ardelia stood by, and handed her things, until she got started.

"Hurry up, and come out, Ardelia. I want you to talk to me and take my mind off of things."

"I'll be 'long, by and by."

Bambi held up a bright-red cherry, named it Jarvis, pulled out its stem, cut out its heart, and finally plumped it into her mouth and chewed it viciously. Then she felt better. There was a cool morning breeze lifting the leaves of the big elms, and nodding the hollyhocks' heads. The sound of late summer buzzing and humming, and bird songs, made the back porch a pleasant, placid spot--no place in which to keep rage hot.

Ardelia lumbered out, after a while, to sit near by, her slow movements and her beaming smile far from conducive to a state of excitement.

"Mighty purty out here, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"I reckon Massa Jarvis be mighty glad to be home, a-sittin' here a-seedin' cherries 'longside ob you?"

"Jarvis never did anything so useful. As for being alongside of me, that doesn't interest him at all."

"Yo're suttinly the onlovingest bride and groom I've eber seen. You ain't neber lovin' nor kissin' nor nottin', when I come aroun'."

"Mercy no, Ardelia!"

"I 'low if I was married to such a han'som' man, like Massa Jarvis, I'd be a lovin' ob him all the time."

"Suppose he wouldn't let you?"

"Can't tell me der's a man libin' who wouldn't be crazy fur yo' to lub him, Miss Bambi. Look at dat Mister Strong keeps a-comin' here."

"What about him?" asked Bambi in surprise.

"I see him lookin' at you. I see him."

"Nonsense! He has to look at me to talk with me."

"He don' need to do no talkin', wid his eyes a-workin' like dat."

"You old romancer!"

"Look a-heah, chile, dose cherries fo' to preserve. Dey ain't fo' eatin'. You're eatin' two and puttin' one in de pan."

Bambi made a face at her.

"What is your opinion of men, Ardelia?"

"I tink dey's all right in dey place."

"Where's their place?"

"Out in the kennel wid the dawg!" said Ardelia, shaking with laughter. "All 'cepin' the Perfessor and Massa Jarvis," she added.

"You think they are a lower order, do you?"

"Yassum. I sho' do. Mos' of dem just clutterin' up the earth."

"That's the reason you don't take that Johnson man on for good, is it?"

"Sho'! I ain't a-goin' to cook and wash fo' no nigger dat ain't got no appreciashun, when I can cook and wash fo' the Perfessor dat know a lady when he sees her."

"But he so infrequently sees her," giggled Bambi, _sotto voce_.

"No, ma'am, I's eatin' my white bread right here, and I knows it. I ain't goin' to experimentify wid no marryin', nor givin' in marriage."

"In your case, I believe you're right. In my own, however, I know that, mad as I am this morning, 'experimentification' is the breath of life to me."

They spent the morning in such peaceful converse. While Bambi may not have added greatly to the cherry-pitting, she rose rested and with a collected mind.

"Ardelia, I thank you for a dose of calm," she said, laying her hand affectionately on the black woman's broad shoulder.

"Law, honey, I done enjoyed your sassiety," she said, laughing and patting her hand.

Within the course of a few days Bambi had an appeal from Jarvis:

"Are you ill? Is anything the matter? Are you merely tired of me that you do not write? Your letters are the only event of my days."

This gave her the chance she wanted.

"You seem to be unaware, my dear Jarvis, that in offering a rude rebuff to Mr. Strong you offended me, since he is my good friend and came to see you at my request. I think you made as poor an impression on him as he did upon you, at the time of your meeting, and it was as a politeness to me that he came to look you up. I think an apology to both of us is rather necessary."

A week elapsed, with no reply. Then came a characteristic answer:

"DEAR BAMBI: Please find enclosed copy of apology sent Strong to-day. I don't like him, but I have apologized. I also apologize to you. Please don't omit letters any more. They mean a great deal these days."

She pondered this for some time. That Jarvis was going through new and trying experiences she realized. But this human appeal for her letters was so unlike the old Jarvis that she had to read it many times to believe it was actually there.

She wrote him at once, accepting his apology gracefully.

"Can't you come out for a few days' rest here, and go back in time to hear Frohman's verdict? We'd love to have you, especially the Professor and Ardelia."

He answered that it was impossible to get away now. Later, possibly, he might come. He was grateful for the invitation. He never mentioned how he lived, and she did not ask him. The Professor's check he returned, with a note of thanks, saying he did not need it. The summer went by and fall came to town. Still there was no word of his return.

"My, this is a fat letter from Jarvis! Frohman must have accepted the play!" exclaimed Bambi one morning in September. She opened out the thick, folded paper.

"It's poetry," she added. "'Songs of the Street,' If he's gone back to poetry, I'm afraid he's lost."

She began to glance through them.

"My dear, I've asked you for coffee twice."

"These are powerful and ugly. Think of Jarvis seeing these things."

"Coffee," reiterated the Professor.

"Yes, yes. You must read these. They're upsetting. I wonder what is happening to Jarvis."

"Is he in trouble?"

"No, he doesn't say so. But there's a new note in these."

"Coffee," repeated the Professor, patiently.

"For goodness' sake, father, stop shouting coffee. You are the epitome of the irritating this morning."

"I always am until I have my coffee."

All day long Bambi thought about Jarvis's "Street Songs." It was not the things themselves. They were crude enough, in spots, but it was the new sense in Jarvis that made him see and understand human suffering. She felt an irresistible impulse to take the next train and go to him. Would he be glad to see her? For the first time she wanted him, eagerly. But the impulse passed, and weeks stretched into months. She worked steadily at the book, which grew apace. She loved every word of it. Sometimes she wondered what would become of her without that work, during this waiting time, while Jarvis was making his career. For, in her mind, she always thought of herself and her writing as a side issue of no moment. Jarvis's work was the big, important thing in her life.

He wrote freely about his work on the other plays, asking her judgment and advice, as he had on "Success." She gave her best thought and closest attention to the problems he put to her, and he showed the same respect for her decisions.

The six weeks grew into two months, and no answer from the Frohman offices. He wrote her that he went in there every other day, but could get no satisfaction. They always said his play was in the hands of the readers. It had to take its turn.

He finished "The Vision" and offered it to Winthrop Ames, of the Little Theatre. "I am hopeful of this man. I have never seen him, but the theatre is well bred, and, to my surprise, a capable, intelligent secretary received me courteously in the office and promised a quick reading. This augurs well for the man at the head of it, I think."

In reply to her insistence that he must come for Thanksgiving, he told her that he had made a vow that he would never come back to her until he had absolutely succeeded or hopelessly failed. "If you knew how hard it is to keep that resolve you would be kind, and not ask me again," he added.

A little piqued, and yet proud, Bambi reported his decision to the Professor, and began to turn over in her busy mind a plan to carry the mountain to Mohammed, if Christmas found the wanderer still obdurate.

XVIII

Jarvis certainly had matriculated in the school of experience, and he entered in the freshman class. He first wrote a series of articles dealing with the historical development of the drama. He took them to the Munsey offices and offered them to Mr. Davis.

"Did you intend these for _Munsey's_ Magazine?"

"Yes. I thought possibly----"

"Ever read a copy of the _Magazine_?"

"No. I think not."

"Well, if you intend to make a business of selling stuff to magazines, young man, it would pay you to study the market. What you are trying to do is to unload coal on a sugar merchant. This stuff belongs in the _Atlantic Monthly_, or some literary magazine."

"Isn't your magazine literary?"