CHAPTER XVI

It was well for Sunny that her new friend was endowed with a generous and belligerent nature. Having secured for Sunny a position at the Bamberger Emporium, Katy's loyalty to her friend was not dampened when on the third day Sunny was summarily discharged. Hands on hips, Katy flew furiously to her brother's defence, and for the benefit of her brother and sister workers she relieved herself loudly of all her pent-up rage of the months. In true Union style, Katy marched out with Sunny. The excuse for discharging Sunny was that she did not write well enough to fill out the sales slips properly. Nasty as the true reason was, there is no occasion to set forth the details here.

Suffice it to say that the two girls, both rosy from excitement and wrath, arm and arm marched independently forth from the Emporium, Katy loudly asserting that she would sue for her half week's pay, and Sunny anxiously drawing her along, her breath coming and going with the fright she had had.

"Gee!" snorted Katy, as they turned into the street on which was the dingy house in which they lived, "it did my soul good to dump its garbage on that pie-faced, soapy-eyed monk. You don't know what I been through since I worked for them people. You done me a good turn this mornin' when you let out that scream. I'd been expecting something like that ever since he dirtied you with his eyes. That's why I was hangin' around the office, in spite of the ribbon sales, when you went in. Well, here we are!"

Here they were indeed, back in the small ugly room of that fourth floor, sitting, the one on the ricketty chair, and the other on the side of the hard bed. But the eyes of youth are veiled in sun and rose. They see nor feel not the filth of the world. Sunny and Katy, out of a job, with scarcely enough money between them to keep body and soul together, were yet able to laugh at each other and exchange jokes over the position in which they found themselves.

After they had "chewed the rag," as Katy expressively termed it, for awhile, that brisk young person removed her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and declared she would do the "family wash."

"It's too late now," said Katy, "to job hunt this morning. So I'll do the wash, and you waltz over across the street and do the marketin'. Here's ten cents, and get a wiggle on you, because it's 10.30 now, and I got a plan for us two. I'll tell you what it is. There ain't no hurry. Just wait a bit, dearie. First we'll have a bite to eat, though I'm not hungry myself. I always say, though, you can land a job better on a full than a empty stomach. Well, lunch packed away in us, little you and me trots downtown--not to no 125th Street, mind you, but downtown, to Fifth Avenoo, where the swell shops are, do you get me? I'd a done this long ago, for they say it's as easy to land on Fifth Avenoo as it is on Third. It's like goods, Sunny. The real silk is cheaper than the fake stuff, because it lasts longer and is wider, but if one ain't got the capital to invest in it in the first place, why you just have to make the best of the imitation cheese. If I could of dolled myself up like them girls that hold down the jobs on Fifth Avenoo, say, you can take it from me, I'd a made some of them henna-haired ladies look like thirty cents. Now _you_ got the looks, and you got the clothes too. That suit you're wearin' don't look like no million dollars, but it's got a kick to it just the same. The goods is real. I been lookin' at it. Where'd you get it?"

"I get that suit ad Japan, Katy."

"Japan! What are you givin' us? You can't tell me no Chink ever made a suit like that."

Sunny nodded vigorously.

"Yes, Katy, Japanese tailor gentleman make thad suit. He copy it from American suit just same on lady at hotel, and he tell me that he are just like twin suits."

"I take off my hat to that Chink, though I always have heard they was great on copying. However, it's unmaterial who made it, and it don't detract from its looks, and no one will be the wiser that a Chink tailor made it. You can trust me not to open my mouth. The main thing is that that suit and your face--and everything about you is going to make a hit on Fifth Avenoo. You see how Bamberger fell for you at the drop, and you could be there still and have the best goin' if you was like some ladies I know, though I'm not mentionin' no names. I'm not that kind, Sunny. Now, here's my scheme, and see if you can beat it. Your face and suit'll land the jobs for us. My brains'll hold 'em for us. Do you get me? You'll accept a position--you don't say job down there--only on condition that they take your friend--that's me--too. Then together we prove the truth of 'Unity being strength.' We'll hang together. Said Lincoln" (Katy raised her head with true solemnity): '"Together we rise, divided we fall!' Shake on that, Sunny." Shake they did. "Now you skedaddle off for that meat. Ask for dog. It goes farther and is fillin'. Give the butcher the soft look, and he'll give you your money's worth--maybe throw in an extra dog for luck."

At the butcher shop, Sunny, when her turn came, favoured the plump gentleman behind the counter to such an engaging smile that he hurriedly glanced about him to see if the female part of his establishment were around. The coast clear, he returned the smile with interest. Leaning gracefully upon the long bloody butcher knife in one hand, the other toying with a juicy sirloin, he solicited the patronage of the smiling Sunny. She put her ten cents down, and continuing the smile, said:

"Please you give me plenty dog meat for those money."

"Surest thing," said the flattered butcher. "I got a pile just waitin' for a customer like you."

He disappeared into a hole in the floor, and returned up the ladder shortly, bearing an extremely large package, which he handed across to the surprised and overjoyed Sunny, who cried:

"Ho! I are thang you. How you are kind. I thang you very moach. Good-aday!"

It so happened that when Sunny had come out of the house upon that momentous marketing trip a pimply-faced youth was lolling against the railing of the house next door. His dress and general appearance made him conspicuous in that street of mean and poverty-stricken houses, for he wore the latest thing in short pinch-back coats, tight trousers raised well above silk-clad ankles, pointed and polished tan shoes, a green tweed hat and a cane and cigarette loosely hung in a loose mouth. A harmless enough looking specimen of the male family at first sight, yet one at which the sophisticated members of the same sex would give a keen glance and then turn away with a scowl of aversion and rage. Society has classified this type of parasite inadequately as "Cadet," but the neighbourhood in which he thrives designates him with one ugly and expressive term.

As Sunny came out of the house and ran lightly across the street, the youth wagged his cigarette from the corner of one side of his mouth to the other, squinted appraisingly at the hurrying girl, and then followed her across the street. Through the opened door of the kosher butcher shop, he heard the transaction, and noted the joy of Sunny as the great package was transferred to her arms. As she came out of the shop, hurrying to bear the good news to Katy, she was stopped at the curb by the man, his hat gracefully raised, and a most ingratiating smile twisting his evil face into a semblance of what might have appeared attractive to an ignorant and weak minded girl.

"I beg your pardon, Miss--er--Levine. I believe I met you at a friend's house."

"You are mistake," said Sunny. "My name are not those. Good-a-day!"

He continued to walk by her side, murmuring an apology for the mistake, and presently as if just discovering the package she carried, he affected concern.

"Allow me to carry that for you. It's entirely too heavy for such pretty little arms as yours."

"Thang you. I lig' better carry him myself," said Sunny, holding tightly to her precious package.

Still the pimpled faced young man persisted at her side, and as they reached the curb, his hand at her elbow, he assisted her to the sidewalk. Standing at the foot of the front steps, he practically barred her way.

"You live here?"

"Yes, I do so."

"I believe I know Mrs. Munson, the lady that keeps this house. Relative of yours?"

"No, I are got no relative."

"All alone here?"

"No, I got frien' live wiz me. Aexcuse me. I are in hoarry eat my dinner."

"I wonder if I know your friend. What is his name?"

"His name are Katy."

"Ah, don't hurry. I believe, now I think of it, I know Katy. What's the matter with your comin' along and havin' dinner with me."

"Thang you. My frien' are expect me eat those dinner with her."

"That's all right. I have a friend too. Bring Katy along, and we'll all go off for a blowout. What do you say? A sweet little girl like you don't need to be eatin' dog meat. I know a swell place where we can get the best kind of eats, a bit of booze to wash it down and music and dancing enough to make you dizzy. What do you say?"

He smiled at Sunny in what he thought was an irresistible and killing way. It revealed three decayed teeth in front, and brought his shifty eyes into full focus upon the shrinking girl.

"I go ask my frien'," she said hurriedly. "Aexcuse me now. You are stand ad my way."

He moved unwillingly to let her pass.

"Surest thing. More the merrier. Let's go up and get Katy. What floor you on?"

"I bring Katy down," said Sunny breathlessly, and running by the pasty faced youth, she opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her, shooting the lock closed. She ran up the stairs, as if pursued, and burst breathlessly into the little room where Katy was singing a ditty composed to another of her name, and pasting her lately washed handkerchiefs upon the window pane and mirror.

Beautiful K-Katy--luvully Katy! You're the only one that ever I adore, Wh-en the moon shines, on the cow shed, I'll be w-waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door!"

sang the light-hearted and valiant Katy Clarry.

"Oh, Katy," cried Sunny breathlessly. "Here are those dog." She laid the huge package before the amazed and incredulous Katy.

"For the love of Mike! Did Schmidt sell you a whole cow?"

Katy tore the wrappings aside, and revealed the contents of the package. An assortment of bones of all sizes, large and small, a few pieces of malodorous meat, livers, lights and guts, and the insides of sundry chickens. Katy sat down hard, exclaiming:

"Good night! What did you ask for?"

"I ask him for dog meat," excitedly and indignantly declared Sunny.

"You got it! You poor simp. Heaven help you. Never mind, there's no need now of crying over spilled beans. It's too late now to change, so here's where we kiss our lunch a long and last farewell, and do some hustling downtown."

"Oh, Katy, I am thad sorry!" cried Sunny tragically.

"It's all right, dearie. Don't you worry. You can't help being ignorant. I ain't hungry myself anyway, and you're welcome to the cracker there. That'll do till we get back, and then, why, I believe we can boil some of them bones and get a good soup. I always say soup is just as fillin' as anything else, especially if you put a onion in it, and have a bit of bread to sop it up with, and I got the onion all right. So cheer up, we'll soon be dead and the worst is yet to come."

"Katy, there are a gentleman down on those street, who are want give us nize dinner to eat, with music and some danze. Me? I am not care for those music, but I lig' eat those dinner, and I lig' also thad you eat him."

"Gentleman, huh?" Katy's head cocked alertly.

"Yes, he speak at me on the street, and he say he take me and my frien' out to nize dinner. He are wait in those street now."

Katy went to the window, leaned far out, saw the man on the street, and drew swiftly in, her face turning first white, then red.

"Sunny, ain't you got any better sense than speak to a man on the street?"

"Ho, Katy, I din nod speag ad those man," declared Sunny indignantly. "He speag ad me, and I do nod lig' hees eye. I do nod lig' hees mout', nor none of hees face, but I speag perlite bi-cause he are ask me eat those dinner."

"Well, you poor little simp, let me tell you who _that_ is. He's the dirtiest swine in Harlem. You're muddied if he looks at you. He's--he's--I can't tell you what he is, because you're so ignorunt you wouldn't understand. You and me go out with the likes of him! Sa-ay, I'd rather duck into a sewer. I'd come out cleaner, believe me. Now watch how little K-k-k-katy treats that kind of dirt."

She transferred the more decayed of the meat and bones from the package to the pail of water which had recently served for her "family wash." This she elevated to the window, put her head out, and as if sweetly to signal the waiting one below, she called:

"Hi-yi-yi-yi--i-i!" and as the man below looked up expectantly, she gave him the full benefit of the pail's contents in his upturned face.

The sight of the drenched, spluttering and foully swearing rat on the street below struck the funny side of the two young girls. Clinging together, they burst into laughter, holding their sides, and with their young heads tossed back; but their laughter had an element of hysteria to it, and when at last they stopped, and the stream of profanity from below continued to pour into the room, Katy soberly closed the window. For a while they stared at each other in a scared silence. Then Katy, squaring her shoulders, belligerently said:

"Well, we should worry over that one."

Sunny was standing now by the bureau. A very thoughtful expression had come to Sunny's face, and she opened the top drawer and drew out her little package.

"Katy," she said softly, "here are some little thing ad these package, which mebbe it goin' to help us."

"Say, I been wonderin' what you got in that parcel ever since you been here. I'd a asked you, but as you didn't volunteer no inflamation, I was too much of a lady to press it, and I'm telling the world, I'd not open no package the first time myself, without knowin' what was in it, especially as that one looks kind of mysteriees and foreign looking. I heard about a lady named Pandora something and when she come to open a box she hadn't no right to open, it turned into smoke and she couldn't get it back to where she wanted it to go. What you got there, dearie, if it ain't being too personal to ask? I'll bet you got gold and diamonds hidden away somewhere."

Sunny was picking at the red silk cord. Lovingly she unwrapped the Japanese paper. The touch of her fingers on her mother's things was a caress and had all the reverence that the Japanese child pays in tribute to a departed parent.

"These honourable things belong my mother," said Sunny gently. "She have give them to me when she know she got die. See, Katy, this are kakemona. It very old, mebbe one tousan' year ole. It belong at grade Prince of Satsuma. Thas my mother ancestor. This kakemona, it are so ole as those ancestor," said Sunny reverently.

"Old! Gee, I should say it is. Looks as if it belonged in a tomb. You couldn't hock nothing like that, dearie, meanin' no offence. What else you got?"

"The poor simp!" said Katy to herself, as Sunny drew forth her mother's veil. In the gardens of the House of a Thousand Joys the face of the dancer behind the shimmering veil had aroused the enthusiasm of her admirers. Now Katy bit off the words that were about to explain to Sunny that in her opinion a better veil could be had at Dacy's for ninety-eight cents. All she said, however, was:

"You better keep the veil, Sunny. I know how one feels about a mother's old duds. I got a pair of shoes of my mother's that nothing could buy from me, though they ain't much to look at; but I know how you feel about them things, dearie."

"This," said Sunny, with shining eyes, "are my mother's fan. See, Katy, Takamushi, a grade poet ad Japan, are ride two poem on thad fan and present him to my mother. Thad is grade treasure. I do nod lig' to sell those fan."

"I wouldn't. You just keep it, dearie. We ain't so stone broke that you have to sell your mother's fan."

"These are flower that my mother wear ad her hair when she danze, Katy."

The big artificial poppies that once had flashed up on either side of the dancer's lovely face, Sunny now pressed against her cheek.

"Ain't they pretty?" said Katy, pretending an enthusiasm she did not feel. "You could trim a hat with them if flowers was in fashion this year, but they ain't, dearie. The latest thing is naked hats, sailors, like you got, or treecornes, with nothing on them except the lines. What's that you got there, Sunny?"

"That are a letter, Katy. My mother gave me those letter. She say that some day mebbe I are need some frien'. Then I must put those letter at post office box, or I must take those letter in my hand to thad man it are write to. He are frien' to me, my mother have said."

Katy grabbed the letter, disbelieving her eyes when she read the name inscribed in the thin Japanese hand. It was addressed both in English and Japanese, and the name was, Stephen Holt Wainwright, 27 Broadway, New York City.

"Someone hold me up," cried Katy. "I'm about to faint dead away."

"Oh, Katy, do not be dead away! Oh, Katy, do not do those faint. Here are those cracker. I am not so hungry as you."

"My Lord! You poor ignorunt little simp, don't you reckernise when a fellow is fainting with pure unadulterated joy? How long have you had that letter?"

"Four year now," said Sunny sadly, thinking of the day when her mother had placed it in her hand, and of the look on the face of that mother.

"Why did you never mail it?"

"I was await, Katy. I are not need help. I have four and five good frien' to me then, and I do not need nuther one; but now I are beggar again. I nod got those frien's no more. I need those other one."

"Were you ever a _beggar_, Sunny?"

"Oh, yes, Katy, some time my mother and I we beg for something eat at Japan. Thad is no disgrace. The gods love those beggar jos' same rich man, and when he go on long journey to those Meido, mebbe rich man go behind those beggar. I are hear thad at Japan."

"Do you know who this letter is addressed to, dearie?"

"No, Katy, I cannot read so big a name. My mother say he will be frien' to me always."

"Sunny, I pity you for your ignorunce, but I don't hold it against you. You was born that way. Why, a child could read that name. Goodness knows I never got beyond the Third Grade, yet I _hope_ I'm able to read that. It says as plain as the nose on your face, Sunny: Stephen Holt Wainwright. Now that's the name of one of the biggest guns in the country. He's a U. S. senator, or was and is, and he's so rich that he has to hire twenty or fifty cashiers to count his income that rolls in upon him from his vast estates. If you weren't so ignorunt, Sunny, you'd a read about him in the _Journal_. Gee! his picture's in nearly every day, and pictures of his luxurious home and yacht and horses and wife, who's one of the big nobs in this suffrage scare. They call him 'The Man of Steel,' because he owns most of the steel in the world, and because he's got a mug--a face--on him like a steel trap. That's what I've heard and read, though I've never met the gentleman. I expect to, however, very soon, seeing he's a friend of yours. And now, lovey, don't waste no more tears over that other bunch of ginks, because this Senator Wainwright has got them all beat in the Marathon."

"Katy, this letter are written by my mother ad the Japanese language. Mebbe those Sen--a--tor kinnod read them. What I shall do?"

"What you shall do, baby mine? Did you think I was goin' to let precious freight like that go into any post box. Perish the idea, lovey. You and me are going to waltz downtown to 27 Broadway, and we ain't going to do no walking what's more. The Subway for little us. I'm gambling on Mr. Senator passing along a job to friends of his friends. Get your hat on now, and don't answer back neither."

On the way downstairs she gave a final stern order to Sunny.

"Hold your hat pin in your hand as we come out. If his nibs so much as opens his face to you, jab him in the eye. I'll take care of the rest of him."

Thus bravely armed, the two small warriors issued forth, the general marshalling her army of one, with an elevated chin and nose and an eye that scorched from head to foot the craven looking object waiting for them on the street.

"Come along, dearie. Be careful you don't get soiled as we pass."

Laughing merrily, the two girls, with music in their souls, danced up the street, their empty stomachs and their lost jobs forgotten. When they reached the Subway, Katy seized Sunny's hand, and they raced down the steps just as the South Ferry train pulled in.