Part 12

“It’s very wrong of you, Tommy!”

Wrong? Shocking! Heartless! Wicked, shocking, heartless Tommy! Of course he was, and he admitted every word of it; but would Mrs. McGibney take care of the tintypes until he could send from “Maddy-gascar” for them?

Tommy left the tintypes on the mantelpiece, hoping he was disturbing nothing by so doing; imploring Mrs. McGibney not to bother with them if she thought they would take up too much room, begging her to throw them in the ashes or burn them, or jump on them if they should be the slightest annoyance to her; then he went away.

Back in five minutes. Well, after all, “Maddy-gascar” was pretty far away and he had heard stories about the Esquimaux there, so he would take the tintypes back with him; Clara might wonder where they were. Five minutes later. Back again. Perhaps Mrs. McGibney had better not say anything to anyone about the tintype matter. Bowing, bobbing, scraping.

Oh, not a word would Mrs. McGibney say! Rest assured of that! Indeed, she had quite enough to do in attending to her own affairs. Mrs. McGibney promised to say nothing, and like a busy little housewife with too much to do to waste time gossiping, breathed not a word of it till McGibney came in.

“It’s all Tommy’s fault!” said McGibney.

“I’m afraid Clara is a good deal to blame,” said Mrs. McGibney.

“Oh, yes, always stand up for the man, of course!”

“Oh, yes, take the woman’s part every time, won’t you?”

The next time the McGibneys saw Clara, there was no persuading her to go home. She had no home.

“Because,” said Clara, “when we found there wasn’t no use in our trying to get along together, we just broke up and gave away everything in the rooms and went down the stairs and down the stoop together. We didn’t so much as say good-bye nor nothing; he went up the street and I went down.”

“That’s right!” declared McGibney, “when two people can’t get along together, it’s best for them to part, I say!”

“You say!” cried indignant Mrs. McGibney. And scornful Mrs. McGibney!

“Well, I’m entitled to speak, ain’t I?” grumbled McGibney.

“No!” firmly. “Leastwise, not when you talk like that.” She looked her scorn and continued:

“No, Clara, there’s nobody dearer to any woman than her own husband.” Looked at McGibney as if he were a pile of wash just toppled over into the ash-pan. “Your husband will be with you when others are far away.” Looked at him as if he were two piles of wash toppled over into three ash-pans. “There ain’t any luck in any such advice as he’s giving you. I know how I love my own dear husband, and you know you’re the same, and you’ll find what the world is when you’re alone in it.” Glared her indignation, scorn, contempt for McGibney, who mumbled, with an air of sagacity, astonishing to himself:

“Ain’t wimmen the queer things, though!”

“I’ve flew the coop on him forever!” said Clara, with her broad, amiable, unintelligent smile. “I got a little hall room for myself, and—me go back to him? Oh, my! is that a step on the stairs? I wouldn’t wish it, not for the world, for him to find me here! I never want to see the face of him again!” Clara looked around for a place to hide; ran to the door of the front room, and, with her hand on the knob, stood listening.

“’Tain’t him! It’s someone going upstairs,” she said, smiling her relief. “I’ll never go back to him.”

A week later. Clara again. And Clara was out of breath.

“Oh, Mrs. McGibney, has the man come yet? I thought I saw him over on Ninth Avenue, and I run clear around the block for fear he’d be after me and track me here. I was just buying a bit of furniture and going to start rooms for myself, when I get a few bits together. And is it too much to ask you to store them for me till I get rooms, Mrs. McGibney?”

“We’re only too glad—” began Mrs. McGibney.

“Oh, on your life, don’t stir! It’s him! He mustn’t know where I am, or he might try to get me back! I don’t never want to see him again!” whispered Clara. “On your life, not giving no orders, don’t stir, or he’ll know you’re in and see me here.”

There was a rap on the door.

“Oh, my! Look out—would he hear us?”

Out in the hall:

“McGibney! Anyone know where McGibney lives?”

“Oh!” breathed Clara, “that’s all right. It’s the furniture men.”

And two men from a Ninth Avenue furniture store came in with a bureau. At least they set it in the hall, and turned to hasten down the stairs; paused to do little better than that, and rolled the bureau half way into the room; turned to run back to the store, but, in turning, thrust back with their heels, and pushed the bureau quite into the room, which was conscientious enough delivering of goods to suit anybody.

“I bought that!” said Clara, proudly. The bureau was rolled into the front room, and she helped, her hands caressing more than pushing. There was no back to the bureau. The varnish was worn off. Some one had broken open the top drawer, splintering the wood on each side of the keyhole.

“It’s mine!” said Clara rapturously. “It took three days of hard scrubbing on hands and knees, for me to buy that. It’ll be every bit as good as new, with a few boards nailed on the back, and a little oil rubbed over it.”

The bureau was rolled to a corner of the front room, but Clara could not leave it, hovering over it, stooping and pulling out drawers, one by one, gazing delightedly at the disgraceful old wreck.

“Yes!” said Clara. “The other day when I was scrubbing the restaurant floor, there was customers looking at me, and they says, ‘Look at that poor woman! Ain’t some got hard lots in life!’ They needn’t of pitied me! I was earning that! Just a few boards and a little oil is all it needs, and I’ll get as fine a home together as anybody’s got—what’s that?”

Clara ran to the kitchen to listen.

“I’m so afraid he’ll find me that I do be hearing sounds all the time!” she said. “Ain’t that bureau something elegant? I’ll have my own bit of a home and never see him again.” Then, as McGibney came out to the kitchen, shutting the front-room door behind him, she asked;

“Ain’t that sounds of excitement in the street? Maybe there’s a fire!” Clara ran to the front room and pretended to look out the window. She had heard nothing; it was only a pretext to get back to the disgraceful old wreck. On her own hands and knees she had earned it.

“Ain’t it nice!” said Clara, ecstatically. “I got my eye on a gilt-framed mirror I’ll buy next week. It’s nice, ain’t it?”

Clara went away. Back in five minutes.

“I guess maybe I left my rolled-up apron in the front room.” Whether she had or not, she stood looking at the bureau; turned to go; looked again; moved it to get a better light on it; stepped toward the door; paused and looked back.

“I bought that!”

And she went away, leaving McGibney standing in the front room. With an expression of deep melancholy he stood looking at the clumsy, broken bureau. He looked at his best furniture surrounding it—fragile, gilded chairs, on a big rug better than any other rug in the neighborhood—a sideboard with French plate glass in it; the very fine curtains. He was a log-shaped man, and not remarkably æsthetic, but his eye was sorely offended.

“Oh, well,” said the melancholy, log-shaped man, “if us poor folks don’t help each other, who will?” And the eye of Mrs. McGibney was equally offended; but Mrs. McGibney was not melancholy, for here was an opportunity for her to bustle. Out with the sofa and around in front of the bureau! The standing lamp placed where it would help to conceal the bureau. To hide the bureau was quite a problem, but Mrs. McGibney rejoiced in it. She bustled.

The next Saturday night Clara bought a wicker rocking-chair. Fearful-looking old rocking-chair! Interstices of it filled with white paint; all paint worn off wherever arms, legs, and backs had rested on it.

“It’s nice, ain’t it?” said Clara, dreamily, fondly.

McGibney sat straight, as if he had just dug through the oil-cloth and feared reprimanding. Then he fell back limply.

“Yes, ve-ry,” he said, without enthusiasm.

“It’ll fill out your front room nice, while I’m waiting for it, won’t it?”

“Oh, ye-es; it’ll be ve-ry nice.”

“And so comfortable!” said Clara. She sat in the chair and clumsily rocked it. “Try it, Mrs. McGibney! You ain’t got no idea how comfortable it is. You sit in it, Mr. McGibney. Just lie back and push with your feet and see what a comfort it is. My! I can just see myself in it, me with my shoes off and resting after the day. Such comfort in it! I don’t guess I ever made such a bargain before. But what do you think? That mirror I was so set on was bought! That’s mean, ain’t it? I was awful provoked when I heard it. Just the same, I got my eye on a stove that’s fine and well worth the four dollars they ask for it. It’s all nickel in front, and only one of the bricks broken, and can be fixed with five cents’ worth of fire-clay. It’ll look nice in your front room, won’t it?”

“Ve-ry nice!” answered distressed McGibney.

Clara got up to go. Had to sink back and take another rock in the chair, so comfortable after the day’s work, and one’s shoes off. It was indeed worth scrubbing for! Up to go. Well, just one more rock—away back and slowly down again, you know. And you, too, look again at it! My! but what a bargain! And Clara bought it! On her own hands and knees she had earned it. Before going away, Clara lingered at the door. Perhaps they would laugh at her if she should take another rock, but she might look at the chair for another moment.

“Ain’t this pretty oil-cloth you got!” Looking only at the chair.

“I must get a kitchen table like yours.” Looking only at her own rocking-chair. She left McGibney staring gloomily, but saying, sturdily:

“Us poor folks must help each other!”

Mrs. McGibney bustled.

It was a different Clara when seen again. Her face was flushed; the unintelligent but soft eyes were like eyes that could not see outward things, as if they were engaged in the unusual occupation of looking within at her own mind. Convince Clara that she had a grievance, and thick, obstinate brooding replaced uncomplaining stolidity.

By force of habit, Clara’s slow, amiable smile flickered, but her eyes were as if turned upon brooding within.

“Someone’s did that a-purpose!” said Clara, slowly, deliberately, staring, seeming to see neither McGibney nor Mrs. McGibney. “Me that thought I didn’t have a enemy in the world! Where would I get a enemy, me always kind to everybody? I had my heart set on that stove that only needed a little fire-clay. Someone’s bought it, just to annoy me. When the mirror went, I didn’t think nothing of it, but the stove too, is to annoy me. They won’t make nothing by that, and bad luck will come upon them for it.”

“Why, Clara, it only happened that way,” reasoned Mrs. McGibney. “Nobody would go and be as mean as that to you, specially as they’d have to spend money.”

“It’s tricks done me!” declared sullen, dogged Clara. “Oh, there’s somebody at the door. Maybe it’s him after me. Say I’m not here, Mrs. McGibney! On your life, don’t let him find me! I got to work for my living, anyway, and I’ll work for myself and not divide with no man. Never—oh, I guess it’s the kitchen table!”

“A kitchen table, Clara?” demanded McGibney. “Did you say a kitchen table?”

“Yes!” said Clara, brightening. “It’s nice! You can put it in the centre of your front room and maybe have ornaments onto it. It’s a very nice kitchen table.”

Door opened; a table thrust into the room; heels flying down the stairs.

“Don’t you think it’s nice?” Clara asked eagerly.

“Nice?” repeated honest McGibney. “Oh, is that the table?”

Scratched legs to it; two plain boards forming the top of it; heads of nails sunk in the boards, and once filled with putty; putty fallen out.

Clara shook it to show that the legs were firm. She would varnish it and cover it with a beautiful table cover she had seen in the five-and-ten-cent store, though there was one just as good in the three-and-nine-cent store.

“Next week,” said brightened Clara, “it’s going to be portcheers. They’re chenille and grand for a doorway. No room ain’t complete without portcheers.” She again shook the table to show how firm the legs were and then went away.

McGibney and Mrs. McGibney stood out on the front stoop of the rust-stained frame house, looking at the tailor, who was putting up a new sign: “Pants pressed, ten cents. Full-dress suits cleaned and pressed, one dollar.” McGibney thought of “full-dress” suits and looked down the street, at rags and dirt and ashes. It was Saturday night and they were going over to Ninth Avenue, to Paddy’s Market. Along came Clara, reaching the stoop, starting up the stoop, half up the stoop before she saw the McGibneys.

“Oh, is it you?” said Clara, with only the beginning of the slow, amiable smile.

“The portcheers is gone!” she said, without excitement. “My heart was set on them—the portcheers has gone. Would you say to me, now, that it only happens that way, Mrs. McGibney? Is there somebody playing mean, low tricks on me, or ain’t there? Does three times in succession just happen? The portcheers was bought last Monday. Was that only accident? Oh, but I came around to see would you lend me fifty cents? There’s a hat-rack I want. It’s meant for a front hall, but the mirror in it is nice and there’s a bit of marble to it, and it’ll look nice in my rooms, where, to my longest day, no man’ll ever hang his hat on it, unless you, Mr. McGibney, when you and Mrs. McGibney come and see me. I don’t like to ask you for fifty cents, Mrs. McGibney, and you just going to do your bit of marketing.”

“There’s fifty dollars in the bank that you can have any time you say so, Clara!” exclaimed McGibney.

“We’d rather have you owing it than have it in the bank, Clara,” said Mrs. McGibney, “because the bank might bust.”

Clara looked embarrassed. “Don’t you want to come look at the hat-rack?” she asked. “It’ll set your front room off fine!” The McGibneys pinched each other’s arms, as if saying, “Oh, Lord, preserve us!” All three went down the street toward Ninth Avenue, Clara preferring one side of the street; then, thinking the other side was darker, choosing the darker side so that if they should meet “him” he might not recognize them.

Torches on wagons, wagonloads of oranges, twenty for twenty-five cents; pairs of rabbits slung on headless barrels, plump rabbits hanging outside, furry rags, shot to pieces, inside the barrels; piles of soup greens and mounds of cabbages; cries of “Everything cheap! Only a few more left!” Paddy’s Market! Then the second-hand furniture store, with bed springs and pillows outside it; stoves with covers and legs in the ovens; rolls of matting; everything second-hand, even crockery and tea-kettles. Clara went into the store, Mrs. McGibney having paused to dig a thumb-nail into potatoes to see whether they were frozen, McGibney lingering with her, because he would have to carry the potatoes.

Clara came back to the sidewalk. Again her eyes were unseeing. “The hat-rack,” said Clara, staring at nothing visible, “is sold. I ain’t been gone from here ten minutes. It’s sold. Everything I got my heart on is sold. I don’t know who’s doing it, but they’ll never have a day’s luck for it.”

“But what could I do, lady?” The furniture man came cringing out to her. “You know you didn’t leave no deposit. Would you like to look at some mats for your front hall? You didn’t leave no deposit, so what could I do? I got a very heavy, rich and elegant mat here for your front hall; though the number of a house is onto it.”

“Look here, Jack,” said McGibney. “Who’s buying up all the things this lady looks at? Is it any particular party?”

“Come to think of it, it is,” answered the furniture man. “He’s the gent took the unfurnished rooms upstairs. ‘What’s he look like?’ Well, he bows most polite every time my wife waits on him and I see his head was some bald——”

“Wait for me!” said Clara. “Up on the next floor, you say? Just only wait one minute for me, Mrs. McGibney, and I’ll only go to tell him what I think of this latest meanness he’s playing me. Then I’ll be through with him forever. This is the last trick he’ll play me!” And she went to the stairs leading to the rooms over the store.

“It must be Tommy,” said McGibney.

“And I always took him for such a perfect little gentleman,” was Mrs. McGibney’s comment.

“Just wait a minute!” Clara had said; but, after several minutes, McGibney became uneasy.

“I’ll go up and see,” he said. “It maybe ain’t Tommy, and Clara may start mixing it with some stranger that’s got as much right to the furniture as her.”

But it was Tommy, for, as the McGibneys went up the stairs, Clara’s words, plainly audible, told them so.

“Never!” they heard—“Was it my dying day, I’d never forgive you. It was too cruel and I’ll never forget it.”

“Ain’t she the stubborn thing!” snapped Mrs. McGibney.

“Did I live to be as old as Mickthusalem, I’d not forgive you for it! Oh, Tommy, how could you go up the street when I went down? To treat me so! Don’t never mind nothing else; play me tricks and scold me and don’t do right nor anywheres near right, but how could you do that? Oh, Tommy, how could you go up the street when I went down? Me expecting your feet after me every second, me looking back at the corner. You going up, and me going down! Rob me of them portcheers I see you got there, and play me tricks with that mirror, and do like you want to about all the hall-racks in the world, but you never come to find me when I was hiding away! Have the red portcheers and welcome to everything my heart was set on, but you never come to me when I was hiding, and how could I tell you where I was hiding away? Oh, I been so unhappy without you, Tommy; there’s nobody got any sympathy for a deserted wife, but just a jeer at her and say, ‘No wonder he left, if you take one look at her big platter face’—but my eyes is nice and my hair is lovely, I was always told. Take away the red portcheers my heart was set on, Tommy, and I know you don’t love me, but we belong to each other, just the same, but don’t—oh, if you ain’t looking to break my heart—don’t never again go up a street when I’m going down!”

The McGibneys saw them standing in the centre of the room, arms about each other, hands patting each other’s shoulder-blades.

Tommy began to whimper. Arms mothered him. Steady tapping away on his shoulder-blades. Then Tommy blubbered outright:

“Oh, Clara, I been missable! I been missable something fierce, living alone! I ain’t ate nor slept, but been working straight along and got a good job and doing pretty good, and so much as a day’s work you’ll never have to do. No! not if it’s your longest day!” A bow and a bob and a scrape, for he had discovered the McGibneys standing irresolute in the hall. He continued to blubber and he continued to tap away at shoulder-blades.

“But why didn’t you come to find me, Tommy, when I was hiding away? I told the Finnigans and everybody, so you must of known where I was hiding away!”

Clara would not have seen a hundred McGibneys. Clara was tapping most mightily with both hands upon shoulder-blades.

“On account of the brass lamp!” blubbered Tommy. A bob and a bow and a scrape! “I done fierce bad spending our savings that was for the brass lamp, and I couldn’t go find you where you was hid till I had that here, in this new home, for you to see, and be complete, and then you’d know I was sorry and it would prove I was going to do right. But it wasn’t tricks, Clara! Honest, it wasn’t tricks! Me standing on the other side of the street, and looking in the store window at you, and no overcoat, because I needed every cent to show I was going to do right. And you look at the mirror. I say, ‘Clara likes that mirror. Then Clara must have that!’ Me standing with my toes all pinched up, as my shoes is bad, and you looking at them red portcheers. Then Clara must have red portcheers! Me jumping up and down, like I’m froze, but standing there every Saturday night to see what Clara likes and Clara’s going to have that!” Bobbing, bowing, and scraping toward the hall, from Tommy; from Clara, rather a look of resentment toward the hall.

A final tap on shoulder blades and: “Why, come in and see where we’re going to start up again!”

“Ain’t it strange!” said calm, stolid Clara. “He found me, after all!”

And from all four of them, and all four meaning every word:

“In all the world, there ain’t nobody like your own! If it ain’t but big enough to hold a trunk, there’s no place like your own!”

“And,” said supremely happy Tommy and Clara, “now we’ll celebrate!”

_The Money Power_

“All things come to him that waits.” Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when the Farmers’ Alliance was flourishing throughout the West and South, it was a matter of common occurrence to hear some old horny-handed farmer, on a Saturday at the county seat, disputing with his neighbor about existing conditions. Almost invariably the Alliance man blamed the “money power” for causing things to go criss-cross. Occasionally the country merchant or small banker would butt into the discussion. “The money power,” he would say, with infinite scorn, “Humph! Why, you poor fool, there ain’t any such thing as ‘the money power.’ Might as well talk of the agricultural power, or the mercantile power. There are rich bankers and rich farmers and rich merchants—but that don’t make them a ‘power’ in the sense you use that term.”

For a number of years the “money power” has been given a much needed rest in the West and South. Most of the pioneers there have substituted the term “plutocracy.” But in the East reformers are just now beginning to sit up and take notice. One hears the term frequently. “Roosevelt,” said Jacob Riis, in a recent interview in the _New York Herald_, “is fighting the greatest tyrant of them all. Slavery affected only the South, but the Money Power means the enslavement of all human beings and all homes.” Many an old, long-whiskered farmer said the same thing just as well fifteen years ago—and the _Herald_ called him an anarchist.

“The Senate,” says Ernest Crosby in the March _Cosmopolitan_, “is now the agent of the Money Power—the representative of Wall Street.” Absolutely true; and no one can doubt the sincerity of either Mr. Crosby or the _Cosmopolitan_; but when the farmers of the West and South said the same thing fifteen years ago, they were greeted with hoots and jeers from the East. I don’t say that Messrs. Riis and Crosby joined in the hooting and jeering; I am quite sure they did not; but they are accorded a respectful hearing in making statements for the making of which thousands of respectable men fifteen years ago were branded as anarchists, wild-eyed fanatics, lunatics, and so forth.

The world _do move_.

L. H. B.

_The Russian Apostle of Populism_

BY THOMAS C. HUTTON

Fifty years ago a grayheaded prisoner, neglected, gaunt, unbefriended, died in the dungeons of Schlüsselburg, and today a thousand Russian cities are ringing with the name of Mikal Bakunin, the apostle of Populism, one of the many reformers who were stoned by a contemporary public and sainted by its descendants.

Russia spurned the impassioned orator; Germany exiled him, after a few months of toleration, and now his projects are discussed by millions who seem determined to give them a fair trial.

“A pack of knout-serving flunkeys,” Bakunin called the German officials who enforced the frontier-laws in the interest of the Czar, and soon after a messenger in uniform served him with a copy of the Prussian press-laws, and a hint at the expedience of making himself invisible.