Part 9

"Skinny" belonged to the class of meanest grafters. His graft consisted in walking miles and miles looking for trucks and wagons left temporarily without the driver's protection. To whip something from the vehicle and then to accelerate his steps, at the same time holding the stolen article before him, was only a moment's effort. Naturally, the proceeds of "Skinny's" expeditions were never very large, but he kept at it so constantly and spent his few dollars so quickly that he was a rather handy acquaintance for me.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon of June the second when "Skinny" returned to Callahan's and, pulling me aside, whispered that he had done better than usual. I praised him for his zeal and luck, encouraged him to greater efforts, and then suggested that our thirst should find an immediate end. Forthwith, at a signal from me, several other birds of our feather joined us and we celebrated "Skinny's" safe and welcome return in the customary way.

The only serious fault I had to find with "Skinny" McCarthy was that he could not stand very much drink. Just when the others would begin to feel the mellowing influences of the drink "Skinny" was always so intoxicated as to lose all control over his speech and actions. He was a bit of a hero-worshipper, and I--mind you, I--was his hero. As soon as the fumes of the stuff consumed would befuddle his brains he would declare with howling, roaring emphasis that he was a thief and proud of it, that he didn't care for what anybody thought of him as long as I was his friend, and that he was always willing to share with me, because he knew that I would stick to him if he should happen to get into "stir."

All this was very flattering to me and sounded sweet to my ears, yet, being of limitless capacity, I never found myself sufficiently drunk to enjoy this too public endorsement.

On this occasion--June the second--"Skinny," elated over his markedly successful expedition, bought drinks so fast that, in a little over an hour, he was near a state of coma. I, as leader of the gang, was more or less responsible for the individual safety of my fellows, and, not caring to see "Skinny" utterly helpless so early in the afternoon, ordered a cessation of drinking and proposed an adjournment to the kegs at the curb, hoping the air would partly revive my ailing follower.

My suggestion was accepted, and I led the way to the sidewalk, closely followed by "Skinny."

Just as I had reached the curb and was about to seat myself on my keg I heard a slight commotion, followed by a muffled scream, behind me. Leisurely turning I saw what I had expected to see.

It was one of our customary frolics. "Skinny" McCarthy had wilfully and fiercely collided with a frail young girl. Although I could not see her face, her figure and general appearance denoted youth. But what did youth, age, sex or size matter to us?

They all stood about her in a circle, grinning and leering at her. I, too, meant to join in the general enjoyment. But before my facial muscles had time to shapen themselves into a brutish laugh the girl wheeled around, looked at McCarthy, at me, at all of us and, quite distinctly could I read there the sentence: "And you are MEN!"

Possibly there was a psychic or physical reason for it, but whatever it was I could almost feel when her look fell on me the bodily sensation of something snapping or becoming released within me. It was as if a spring, holding back a certain force, had been suddenly freed from its catch and had, catapult-like, sent a new power into action.

I had neither the inclination or intelligence to explain it all to myself. Instead, I rushed into the crowd, tore through it, until I stood in front of McCarthy, who, without a word from me, received a blow from me under his ear, felling him to the ground.

This decisive and unexpected action on my part amazed the members of the gang so that they stood motionless for several seconds before paying any attention to McCarthy, who was lying motionless on the sidewalk. They did not know what to make of it. Was I more drunk than they had judged me to be? Was there a private grudge between McCarthy and myself?

That I had acted solely to save the young lady, from further insult would have been--had they surmised it--as inexplicable to them as it was to me.

I took no heed of their wondering attitude, but, in gruff tones, asked the young lady to come with me. She was completely bewildered and followed me mechanically.

Poor "Skinny" in his stunned condition was still on the ground, and this, as always, furnished an interesting spectacle to the many idle gapers, who had joined the rank of spectators. I, holding the girl by her arm, made my way through them without any trouble and then addressed my companion.

"Say, sis, I guess I better walk a block or two with you, because I think it's better. That push there won't do you nothing, but they're all drunk and might get fresh to you again."

Surely, it was not a very cavalierly speech, but, somehow, it was understood and remembered. Often in the future, we--she and I--had our laugh at this offer of my protectorate, which was word for word remembered by her.

The crowd through which I had roughly forced a passage for the girl and myself closed again behind us, and, with that, the doors of my old life creakingly began to move on their rusty hinges and slowly started to close themselves entirely. They did not close themselves with a bang and a slam--if they had done that I might have been aware of their maneuver and would, most likely, have offered resistance--and, even their slow move was not known to me then, but only recognized by me in the years to come. This happens to many of us. We are successful or unfortunate, rich or poor, and can in our acquired state clearly trace back the line to an event which was the parting of the ways.

*THE BEGINNING OF THE MIRACLE.*

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*THE BEGINNING OF THE MIRACLE.*

For the first time in my life I found myself playing the part of a chivalric knight, and, let me assure you, the poorest actor could not have played it worse. Part of my existence had been to watch others. Not to learn from them by observation, but to find their weaknesses. While engaged in the most potent part of my observations, I was never so concentrated in them that I entirely overlooked the minor details. So I had seen gentlemen help ladies to and from carriages, had seen them assist their women friends across gutters and crossings, and open doors for them. Walking beside the young lady I knew something was expected from me in the line of politeness, but I who had always been accustomed to go up "against the hardest games and unfavorable odds," felt most uncomfortable at not being sure what to do in a case like this. Perhaps this was the reason, why I, instead of seeing her along for a block or two, kept on walking beside her, because I did not know how to take leave without giving serious offense by my way of expressing my leavetaking. The truth of the matter was I was afraid.

This confession of mine will lead you to think that there was something about her inspiring awe or fear. But you are wrong, very wrong.

She was not tall, not statuesque. She was not a "queenly looking" girl judged by external appearance. Her queenliness was within, so potent, so convincing, that neither man nor beast could refrain from bowing to it. I was in the dilemma of wanting to be a gentleman, a courtier to my queen, and not knowing how to be one.

Somehow impelled, I kept on walking beside her. She was not wanting in expressions of gratitude, but I did no better than to acknowledge them with deep-toned grunts.

To explain matters, she told me she was a teacher in one of the near-by schools, and was compelled to pass our "hang-out" every day on her way to and from home. In exchange for her confidence I should have introduced myself, but, alas! this big, hulking oof knew naught of politeness.

But the bonny little lass was a marvel of tact and diplomacy. Not commenting on or pretending to notice my neglect of the customary introduction, she appointed herself inquisitor-in-chief. She put me on the witness stand and cross-examined me. Leading questions were fired at me with the rapidity of a trained lawyer. Ere I knew it, she knew all about me and I felt ashamed at having a little mite like her break down all the barriers of that reticence on which I prided myself.

We walked on, the street traveling beneath and unnoticed by us. She stopped me at Houston street and the Bowery and I looked about me as if descended from a dream. She wanted me to leave her there and wanted me to return to Chatham Square, or from wherever I had come. But the bulldog in me growled and persisted in seeing her to her door. We halted at a modest dwelling-house in Houston street, near Mott street. She thanked me with very much feeling and, expecting a modicum of manners from me, waited for a second for my response. There are things which we learn without being aware, and I knew and felt that I should say something, but my courage had fled, my knees weakened under me and the words which I meant to utter stuck in my throat, kept there by my fear of not being able to use the right expression.

At last I squeezed out a gruff "Good night," and then turned to leave. I was not permitted to go.

"Where are you going?" she asked. "I am afraid you are anxious to return to that place on Chatham Square. Don't go there."

"Where else can I go?"

"Where else?" she asked, with a mingling of pity and contempt. "Mr. Kildare, I have absolutely no right to interfere with your business, but I have the right to tell you the truth. You may not know it or would if you did know it, deny it, but you and most of the men of that gang are too good to be of it. We are strangers, and you may think me presumptuous, but a man, strong and able bodied as you, sins against his Maker if he wastes his days in an idleness which is hurtful to himself and others."

"Oh, I heard that before, young lady, but that sort of talk don't amount to anything."

"It doesn't amount to anything? From what you have told me about yourself and from what I have seen of the street life, I am afraid it is not absolutely impossible that, one of these days, you may find yourself in serious trouble. And, Mr. Kildare, you can rest assured that the prisons are full of men who are convinced when it is too late that this sort of talk does amount to something. You say you do not know where else to go? The evening is beautiful. There are parks, the river-front, the Brooklyn Bridge, where one can go and sit and think----"

"Think," I interrupted, "now, what would I be thinking about?"

She remained silent for some little while and then held out her hand to me.

"I am so sorry for you, so sorry. Do try and be a man, a man who has more than strength and muscle. And--and--do not be offended at my solicitude--pray, pray often." She had almost entered the hall, but stepped back again and whispered, "I will pray for you to-night."

Pray! I can imagine the sneer which surely settled on my face. The name of the Divinity had been used by me daily. But in what manner! Before I reached my teens I was past master of the art of profanity, and my skill in cursing increased as I grew older. And now she had counselled me to pray, to use in reverence the name which had no meaning to me and slipped glibly from my lips at the slightest provocation. Why, it was ridiculous--but was it so very ridiculous?

The two arch enemies began a fierce battle within me. Without any trouble can I remember my walk to Chatham Square that night. Sometimes I halted, leaned up against a lamp post and said: "By Heavens, I think there's a great deal of truth in what she said!" Buoyed up by this assurance I would start afresh, would walk half a block and then again halt to listen to the other voice, which whispered: "Fool, don't listen to women's talk. You are somebody. You are known and feared, and wouldn't be that if you were a goody-goody."

Many men are only feared, while they believe themselves to be respected. That is how it was with me, and that is why my "other" voice did not say "respected," but "feared."

The battle was waged within me until I was almost at Chatham Square. And then a strange thing came to pass. Mike Callahan's place was on the western side of the square. I had come down on that side, but, when on the corner of the square, I deliberately crossed over to the eastern sidewalk, and, from there, surveyed my camping ground.

I stood and looked at the flashily illuminated front of Mike Callahan's dive and wavered between the old-rooted and the new-come influences. It would have been laughable had it not been so pitiful.

Just think, a man, supposedly intelligent and mature, considering himself the martyr of martyrs if he had to forego the "pleasures" of Callahan's dive for one precious night.

The new-come influence was a potent one, yet it was so strange, so inexplicable to me that I could have refused to heed it and would have let my old inclinations persuade me, had I not thought of my good old Bill. The importance of my recent adventure had driven my partner temporarily from my mind. But now I thought of him, remembered that he had been subjected to a long fast by my carelessness and hurried to the attic to make up for my negligence. I found him as expectant and philosophical as ever, and watched him with languid interest while he was munching the scraps I had saved for him. Then it occurred to me that Bill had been deprived of his customary walk with me and had not had a breath of fresh air all day. It also rankled in my mind what she had said about the parks and the Brooklyn Bridge, and, lo and behold, Bill and I found ourselves in the street, bound for City Hall Park, like two eminently respectable citizens intent on getting a little air.

I consoled myself for this evident display of weakness by emphatically resolving to return to Callahan's as soon as Bill should have had his fill of fresh air.

We were comparative strangers to City Hall Park. Every foot of the park and the sidewalks about it had been traveled by my bare feet many years ago, but never had I looked on the leafed oasis in the light of a recreation ground.

We felt a trifle out of place, and, most likely on that account chose the most secluded and unobserved spot for our experimental siesta. The rear stoop of the City Hall, facing the County Court House, was in deep shadow, and there we seated ourselves to test how it felt to be there just to rest.

It gradually began to dawn on us that City Hall Park was almost as interesting as the sidewalk in front of Mike Callahan's dive on Chatham Square. A perpetual stream of people crossed our view on their way to and from the Brooklyn Bridge and to and from the Jersey ferries. Very few of them walked leisurely. Most of them seemed in a hurry and all seemed to have a definite purpose. Bill and I were the only two without a purpose.

Ah, no, it is wrong for me to say that. Let me speak only for myself. Bill had a purpose, and a noble one.

My thoughts ran oddly that night. I looked around and saw the people on the benches. Then, as now, the majority of the seats were occupied by homeless men, by "has-beens."

"Well, I am surely better than those tramps," I assured myself with self-satisfied smirk.

Was I better than those tramps? The newer voice gave me the answer. These tramps, useless now, had once been useful, had once worked and earned, but I, almost thirty years of age, couldn't call one day in my life well spent.

It was a wondrous night to us, this night in the shadow of City Hall Park. It was the first night I had given to thought, and found myself at my true estimate. Saints are not made in a day, and I was still hard and callous, but, after my introspection, a feeling took possession of me which very much resembled shame. Instead of returning the way we had come, via Chatham street--now called Park Row--we wandered home by the way of Centre street. We passed the Tombs, the sinister prison for the city's offenders, and Bill and I looked at it musingly. There were many in the cells who were known by me. Many in them could justly call me their accomplice, because I had willingly spent their money with them, knowing, or, at least, suspecting, how it had been gotten. And how long would it be before a cell in there would be but a way station for me before taking the long journey "up the river"?

The mere suggestion of it was shivery and I remarked to Bill that our attic, no matter how humble, was preferable to a sojourn at Sing-Sing.

Then an inspiration came to me, and, to this very day I am making myself believe it came from old Bill. Most likely I am a fool for doing it, but I want to have my old pal have his full share of credit in my reincarnation. The inspiration was: "Why not try and stay in my attic in preference to going to Sing-Sing?" To this came an augmentation: "If able to keep away from the road that leads to prison, it may not always be necessary to stay in an attic. There are more nicely furnished rooms in the city than your cubby-hole on the top floor, friend Kildare."

How can I now, at this long range, analyze my feelings of that critical night? I would have to perform a psychic wonder, and I am not that kind of a magician. But I did not go back to Callahan's, and have never been there since as a participant in the slimy festivities.

Up in our attic Bill and I gave ourselves up to much mutual scrutiny. Some outward change in me must have been noticeable, for Bill watched me most critically.

The one thing I remember best of all the little incidents which left their clear impressions on my mind was my first attempt at praying.

Bill laid in his usual place at the foot of my bed, and I was stretched on my back, gazing into the ceiling and overcoming my astonishment at being in bed at such an unearthly early hour by going over the events of the day. I lingered longest at the scene at her door and tried to laugh when my train brought me to her advice to pray. Somehow the laugh was not sincere, and, instead of being able to continue my mind's recital, I could not get away from her admonition.

That was not all. A soliloquy ensued and ended with the result of giving prayer a chance to prove itself. Why not? It did not cost anything, might do some good after all, and, besides, it would be interesting to note how it felt to pray.

I prayed, and you will not accuse me of irreverence when I make the statement that my prayer was certainly one of the funniest that ever rolled on to the Father's throne. It was hardly a prayer. The "thou" and "thee" and "thy" were sadly missing. I did not think or ask with faith. Quite the reverse. I frankly avowed my skepticism. The substance of it was that I had been told God could do much, everything. The one who had told me this possessed my greatest respect, yet was only a little girl and not as experienced as I, and, perhaps, fooled. So, if God wanted me to believe in Him, He would have to give me conclusive proof right away or else lose a follower. It was a heart-to-heart talk of the most informal kind and--are they not the best prayers?

I said quite coolly that I had been told I wasn't as much of a man as I had thought myself to be and that there was a much better life than the one I had led. Well, I was willing to try it, and, if I really liked the newer life better than the old one, I promised to stick as closely to God as I had stuck to all that was evil before.

One should not bargain with the Creator, but I am sure that on the Judgment Day my God will find extenuating circumstances. As for the bargain made that night, both parties have lived up to it.

*THE OLD DOORS CLOSED.*

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*THE OLD DOORS CLOSED.*

Sober to bed and sober out of it was an uncommon experience and I felt embarrassed by the unwonted sensation. Happily I found some money in my pocket and that deprived me of the excuse to my conscience that I must go to Callahan's so as to get my breakfast money. How we ate that morning, Bill and I, and how we relished our breakfast. Yes, I had a drink, a big drink of whiskey, but not because I had forgotten my resolve of the night before, but because I was yet ignorant. To be quite frank, I have always been a bit cynical about these sudden conversions of confirmed drunkards.

Not long ago I met a man at a rescue mission where I frequently attend, who, as we say on the Bowery, "eats whiskey" and almost subsists on it. He was homeless, or rather bedless, his home being forfeited long ago, and received his "bed ticket" from the missionary after his confession of salvation. I happened to meet him on the following day; and his breath was strong with the perfume of cloves. He told me he liked to chew them, which is rather an odd hobby.

Far be it from me to slander any one, yet the perfume of cloves can hide a multitude of aromas.

Sublime is the aim of the rescue missions, but how and whether they accomplish this aim is another story, which we might discuss at some future time.

Another habit, which also still clung to me, was my late rising. It was noon before Bill and I appeared on the street on our way to the restaurant. After breakfast we walked over to City Hall Park, looked gravely and wisely at the spot where we had sat the night before, and then we permitted ourselves the luxury of a day dream.

Dreams are funny fellows, always playing pranks. This dream kept me embraced until I found myself in the immediate neighborhood of the school where a certain little professor was engaged in leading the infantile mind through the labyrinth of the A, B, C's.

Soon they began to stumble out with noisy, natural, healthy laughter and hubbub, and the dingy street became one long, squirming stream of babbling children. I could not help looking back on my boyish years and tried to imagine how it would feel to have your slate and books under your arm. There were many youngsters before me and I kept staring at them to draw the picture in my mind's eye of how I would have looked coming from school, my school.

At last she came!

As I saw the little tots, her pupils, cling to her skirts from very love of her, I felt a light, an oriflamme, within my breast, and knew that I would have to fight a harder fight than ever before; that I would have to conquer myself before I would dare to touch the hem of her skirt as those children. And he who fights, fights best when in the sight of an inspiring emblem. So then I took my sailing flag and nailed it to the mast of purity. It has withstood all sorts of weather. Sometimes it droops, again it flies defiantly. But, whatever, it is still safely on the mast and will stay there until I strike my colors for the last dipping to my God above.

I crossed the street and put myself in her way so that she could not help seeing me.

"Oh, Mr. Kildare!"

She remembered my name.

It is impossible for me to recall how I acted at this meeting. However, I consider it very fortunate that no camera fiend took a snapshot at me. The human document which would have evolved from it would certainly be very embarrassing to me. Still, lout, churl as I was, it was the first time in my life that I spoke to a girl without even the shadow of an ulterior or impure motif, and some of my want of politeness may be forgiven on that account.