The skein of life

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Kit 102

A Close Shave 228

II

The city of Ironton is known all over the country for its iron- and steel-mills, its furnaces and glass-works, and for the heavy cloud of smoke which is shut in upon the city by the surrounding hills, and always hangs over it like a gloomy pall. “ A good thing to see, sir,” the citizen of Ironton says, warmly, to the stranger visitor, “that smoke means wealth and comfort ; thousands of men at work and good pay in their pockets, sir. No clear skies and poverty for us, sir and he looks up lovingly at where the sun hangs like a round, red ball, as if a dome of smoked glass had been built over the city in view of a perpetual eclipse supposed to be going on above, and pretty generally realized.

Of wealth and comfort there seemed none to spare on the South Side, however ; it lay opposite the main city, on the other side of the river, and stretching along the river bottom, between the bank and the hills behind, for three miles. The people living there were crowded into narrow, dirty streets and alleys, between mills and manufactories which were heaped together along the river front and back against the hills. It was here that the smoke, belched out from the iron chimneys of the mills, and oozing out, black and sluggish, from the stacks of the glass-houses, hung heaviest and darkest ; and it was on the bridge, leading over from Smithfield Street to the South Side, that the Rev. Erasmus was standing on the afternoon of the day following his introduction to the reader.

A boy of about twelve years was looking up at him; a five-cent chip hat was on his head; a blue cotton shirt was diversified by suspenders of common ticking which held up a pair of jean pantaloons above the boy’s coarse shoes ; bright brown eyes looked out from under 22 thick, brown hair, and there was a pleasant eagerness in the tone with which he spoke to the surprised clergyman, Where will I find my brother Bill ?”

The Rev. Erasmus stared at him in perplexity. Who is your brother Bill ?”

A look of disdain and almost of contempt came into the boy’s eyes. Don’t you know my brother Bill ?”

Erasmus glanced at him in meek apology for his ignorance of what must evidently be a well-known character, and replied, vaguely,

I, really ” and then, as a bright idea

struck him, “ What is your brother Bill’s last name ?”

“ Whitestone,” replied the boy, promptly, but with an additional touch of contempt for any one who could think a last name necessary.

Erasmus shook his head and turned his spectacles to the ice-cakes floating slowly in the sluggish, muddy stream and grinding against the piers of the bridge, as if light might possibly come from that direction or brother Bill be seen mysteriously among them. He turned again to the boy, who was still waiting, expectantly, “ What does your brother do, my lad ? Where does he work ?”

In a glass-works : he’s a glass-blower, Bill is. There ain’t no one like Bill,” he added, with a pride that fairly beamed in every word.

“ And how do you come to be here and not know where to find him ?”

“ Why, you see, mother and the girls and me have got a little bit of a farm in Washington County, ’bout eighteen miles from here. Hi is my name; short for Hiram. Father’s there, too; but then he don’t amount to much, and we don’t usually count him. And Bill, why he was a good deal older’n me, and taught me lots, and could do most everything: there ain’t no one anywheres like Bill. But he went and got married and come down here, and does first rate; only, you see, he’s got a wife and little children and can’t help much ; and so, as times were hard and our farm ain’t much more’n a garden-plot anyhow, I just says to mother, * Mother, I’m goin’ to the city, and work and get rich ; and Bill’ll show me how, and I’ll send you the money, and you won’t have to work so hard and look so thin and tired.’ And she cried, and said she did not want for me to do it ; but I knowed it was all right. And so she gave me this new shirt and them pants and suspenders, all bran new, and made’m for me all herself.” And the brown eyes looked down with pride on the cotton shirt and the sus- 24 penders of new ticking. “And so I got up bright and early and tramped it in. But I got kind o’ lost in such crowds of people and roads of houses, and I didn’t see Bill, and I was kind o’ feared to ask the folks that was rushin’ along everywhere in such a hurry; till I seen you, and then I says to myself, “ He’ll know. I guess he ain’t tearin’ along like the rest of ’em.

And so ” He stopped and looked again,

fearless and expectant.

Erasmus was still doubtful. “ Do you know the name of the firm your brother works for ?’’

“ I ain’t right sure. Seems to me it was Hussem or something. But it’s curious you don’t know my brother Bill.”

But Erasmus had his clue now, and feeling down in his pocket drew out a silver quarter. “ The place you want is at Thirty-third Street ; Thirty-third Street, remember. You take this car that is just coming towards us and tell the conductor to let you out at Thirty-third Street. This will pay your fare.” And he held out the quarter.

The boy took it in his hand and looked at it. “ My ! does it take all this to get there ?”

“ No ; not all of it. Never mind. Here’s the car now and you must get on. You must be cold and very tired.”

There was no time for reply, and the boy jumped on the platform as the car went by, and gave his new friend a bright, grateful look as he turned to go inside.

It was afternoon and there were only a few people in the car, and Hi climbed up on the seat and knelt, looking out of the window. Such rows of dingy brick houses and stores, with saloons scattered thickly among them ; short side streets, even dirtier and dingier than the narrow main avenue along which the car-track ran. Uneven brick pavements, worn into holes and left unmended, and vying with the cobble-stone streets in dirt and neglect, except where some spasmodic householder was squirting the loose dirt into looser mud with a hose, which jealously guarded the line of his particular premises and made his special spot look like the half-washed face of a dirty boy.

Great heavy wagons jolted from car-track to cobble-stones and back again, rattling the heavy iron bars with which they were loaded, and rattling every other noise deaf as they passed by. Lighter grocery-wagons coming and going, and men in working-clothes, and still the same long track ahead, as if Carson Street had no end.

Then an occasional vacant lot, which was seemingly used as a dump-place for cinders, 26 more visions of smoke-stacks and long irregular buildings begrimed with smoke and dust, and then the conductor shot the door back, — “ Thirty-third Street ! Here’s your place !”

Hi got down and crossed the street and looked about him. Some men in their shirtsleeves were going down a side street and he followed them. They turned through a gateway into a yard, and the boy saw with delight the name over the gateway, “ Hussem, How & Co., Limited.” He went forward, and looking around for a moment, ran with a cry towards a man who was dashing water from a tub over his face and arms. Bill ! it’s me. Bill !”

The man stopped and looked up in surprise, and then a look of wonderment came over him as he picked up a rough towel from the ground and hastily rubbed it over his face and hands.

“Hi Whitestone! How in the name of the blessed fiddlesticks did you come here ?” The boy leaped into his arms and kissed him.

“I walked. Bill, — walked all the way; and I’ve come to get rich and have you show me how and lots of things.” His eyes were dancing with delight. It was all right now, since Bill was here and he had found him.

“ Well, well, Hi, — we’ll see about that. But how did you find me out ?”

“ Well, I most give it up, when I met a queer sort of a chap on a bridge an’ he helped me. He didn’t seem to know much ; but he found out at last where you was, and he gave me a quarter and put me on a car, and I’ve more money left than I ever had before.”

What sort of a looking man ?”

Kind of tall, and had glasses, and bent overlike, and with a black coat up to his chin.”

Bill burst into a laugh. “ That’s Giglamps to a dot.”

Giglamps ? What does he do. Bill ?”

Well, Hi, he’s in the candle business, mostly, and in the millinery and Bill chuckled over his information as if he enjoyed it.

Candles, Bill ? and millinery ?”

“ Yes, in a church sort o’ w^ay, down yonder,” and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder ; “ but I guess he don’t harm anybody in particular.”

” Well, I don’t care what’s his business, he was kind to me and helped a feller when he didn’t have no friend nowhere.”

“That’s right. Hi; he’s no bad chap, if he does take to candles and them things. I don’t know much about them myself, not havin’ a likin’ that way ; but come on. I’m through for to-day, and we can go home now, and you can tell me all about the folks, and how you left ’em.”

He took down a coat from a post near by and led the way out the gate and towards the river, Hi walking proud and happy by his side.

A short walk brought them to a row of twostory brick houses, which had possibly looked fresh and new in their time, but had long ago given up the attempt and settled down into the dirty indifference of their neighbors. Three children were playing in a puddle of muddy water which stood in the gutter in front of the row, and Bill hailed them as he came near, ** Here, you kids ; here’s your Uncle Hi come to see you ; and a sweet-looking lot he finds you,” he added, as the children got up from the pavement and stared shyly at the new-comer.

‘‘ Kiss ’em. Hi, and never mind the dirt. Jane says it ain’t no use tryin’ to keep ’em clean, and I guess she’s mostly right about it.”

And Hi didn’t mind it ; he kissed the tousleheaded, dirty little faces ; he was ready to think anything beautiful that belonged to the big brother whom he had looked up to and believed in for so long, and, with the children pushing and shoving each other behind him, he followed Bill into the house.

A plain-featured woman, with the lines of hard work on her face, making her look older than 29 she really was, came forward to meet them, looking at her husband for explanation of the stranger.

“ This is my little brother, Jane ; Hi, you know ; the little chap Tve told you about. He’s come in from the country and will stay with us a bit. I guess you can find room for him somewhere.”

The woman looked at the boy rather coldly, and then, meeting the frank, open gaze of the brown eyes, she came nearer and put her hands on his shoulders, and her face softened.

And so you are the little Hi that Bill talks of?” Hi smiled and nodded, as if to say. That’s it. I’m Hi; I knew Bill’d talk about me,” and Jane kissed the broad, open forehead, and Hi was at home.

Ill

It was Sunday morning, and they were all at breakfast. Hi was resplendent in a new suit of fustian, which seemed to have been made originally for a boy twice his size, but which the clerk in the great clothing house of Kofferman & Co. had assured him was a perfect fit, Just as if made for him.” Good stout shoes were on his feet, and he felt this morning that his mother would hardly know him in his splendor. Bill 30 had found him work in picking up scraps and doing odd jobs about the glass-works of “ Hussem, How & Co., Limited,” at three dollars a week, and Hi felt that he was already in some way a member of the firm.

But it was the same boyish face, with bright eyes, which looked up at the head of the house as breakfast was concluded, and the same honest, eager voice which was speaking.

“ Where do you go to church, Bill ?”

“Well, Hi, I don’t exactly go anywheres; that is to say, Jane goes sometimes to the Methodist church down here, and the kids go somewheres to the mission school in the afternoon. But there ain’t nothing to prevent your goin’ if you’ve a mind to. I don’t interfere with no man’s religion.” Bill put his thumbs in his vest arm-holes, and said this with an off-hand air of great magnanimity, and Hi looked admiringly at him accordingly.

“ An’ where had I better go ?”

“ Oh, I don’t know ; there’s the Methodist and the Baptist and — and, oh, lots of churches of all kinds here, and — there! why don’t you go to see your friend, Giglamps, you know ?”

“ That’s so,” and Hi’s eyes brightened. “ How’ll I find it?”

“ Nothing easier : it’s down on Eighteenth

Street You just keep straight along Carson Street, and turn down to your right; I know a man that goes there.” And Bill again swelled out, as if knowing a man who went there was a religious experience quite above the common.

Hi put on his hat and went out, for the churchbells could be heard ringing in various quarters of the city. There was less smoke in the sky, and the sunlight came through in a weak, watery sort of way, as if it were not quite sure of itself, and had better be cautious how it entered into unusual places; but still it did shine, and the silence of the mills, and the absence of the heavy teams and wheels grinding over the cobble-stones and stunning the ears with the jangling of their loads, gave quite a Sunday air to the surroundings.

He was at Eighteenth Street almost before he knew it, and, turning down, came soon to a little wooden church standing back from the street, and with a wooden fence in front of it. It had once been painted brown, but was now in sad need of a fresh coat of the same material; its lancet windows were patched here and there without any regard to the original color, if ever there had been any, and there was an unkept look about the yard, where no grass had ever seemed to grow on the black-looking ground. 32

The door was open, and Hi lifted the gate-latch and went up the short cinder-covered walk. Hi looked in through the open door and hesitated, and then, seeing a few people already inside, took courage and slipped into the first seat next the door.

The church was very plain inside : a strip of cocoanut matting along the aisle served for a carpet ; there were no cushions on the seats, and the kneeling-benches were severely penitential in their uncovered sharp edges. The altar at the chancel end made a faint show of “the beauty of holiness” by way of a crimson hanging, and above it on a little ledge was a large brass cross, and on either side of it was a candle in a tall brass candlestick. “ There they are,” said Hi to himself ; “ them’s the candles.”

People kept dropping in by twos and threes until the church was two-thirds full. The little bell overhead ceased tolling, a young lady took her place at the cabinet organ, which stood on the right, just below the chancel steps, and the irregular chords of a voluntary soon changed into the air of a hymn which was taken up by boyish voices in the distance. A door at the side of the chancel opened, and a dozen choristers, vested in cotta and cassock, entered and filed to their places, while the congregation rose 33 and joined in the hymn. Hi got up, too ; his attention had been so taken with the boys and their vestments that he had at first no eyes for anything else, and he was craning his head from side to side to see between the people in front of him when the singing ceased and a remembered voice began the exhortation. The peculiar meek-toned voice, though changed a little now by a half sing-song intonation, could not be mistaken, and, though the white surplice had taken the place of the closely-buttoned black coat, there was no mistaking the bald head and straggling side hair and weak blue eyes behind the spectacles.

** That’s him,” said Hi, almost speaking aloud in his excitement; “that Giglamps what gave me the money and helped me to find Bill.’*

For the rest of the time his attention was equally divided between the rector and the choristers. He had never seen anything like this before, and had already made up his mind that there could be no position in life to be so envied as to be one of those boys and be dressed in white and sing with them in the choir.

At length it was over, and the congregation rose for the singing of the final hymn. The choristers, still singing, filed out slowly as they 34 had come in, and as the vestry door closed behind them the last tones of the recessional came faintly and sweetly again as if from far away. Hi had stood up with the rest, and now, as the congregation came down the aisle, greeting acquaintances and exchanging comments and passing out into the street, he still stood there, looking towards the chancel until the young lady organist, shutting down the organ, came towards him in the now silent church and stopped and smiled kindly at him.

He pointed towards the chancel and said, Aren’t they cornin’ out any more ?”

“ Who ? the boys ? No, not this morning ; there will be service again to-night.”

“ I’m cornin’ ; I ’ain’t seen nothin’ so nice for ever so long. My ! but they did sing nice ; it just give me the shivers.”

The young lady looked at him kindly. ‘‘ You must be fond of music? Do you sing yourself?”

Hi looked doubtful. I guess I ain’t much on singin’, — not that kind,” he said, nodding his head towards the chancel. I can sing ' Annie Laurie,’ and ' Massa’s in the cold, cold ground,’ — me an’ Bill can sing that just famous.”

His new friend laughed and moved towards the door. “ Well, I practise here with the boys 35 every Saturday evening, and if you would like to come, you can be here next Saturday and I will try what you can do. Good-by.” Hi stared after her, only dimly comprehending the prospect so suddenly opened, and then half ran all the way home.

The Whitestone family were at dinner when he arrived, and his brother greeted his breathless entrance with, —

“ You seem to be in a hurry to get away from your church-goin’, youngster; religion don’t seem to agree with you.”

“ Oh, Bill, I’ve just had the splendidest time, and the boys were dressed in white like angels, an’ Giglamps was there, an’ she spoke to me, an’ I can go on Saturday evening an’ mebbe she’ll let me sing.” His eyes danced, and he sat down in his excitement and upset a glass of water that was standing by his plate.

'‘Just throw a little of that water on your head. Hi, and cool off and get the tangle out of what you have to say. Who’s she ? and what are you goin’ to sing ?”

But Hi was too full of what he had heard and seen. “ I never was in that kind of a meetin’ before, Jane,” he said, turning to his more responsive sister-in-law ; “ they got up an’ down an’ did all kinds of things, — but Giglamps did 36 pray beautiful, and he thought o’ me an’ how I tramped all alone from Washington County, an’ said as how he wanted the Lord to take care of them that travelled by land an’ water. He just prayed for lots of things, and for them as is orphans an’ little children, — I tell you he just thought of everything. An’ Bill, there was the candles there, sure enough, but I didn’t see the millinery. I guess he keeps that in the box with the red cover, the thing the candles was on.”

“ But what about the singing and the lady, Hi ?” asked Jane.

“ Why, you see, I was waitin’ for ’em to come out again. I thought mebbe they lived there, or somethin’; an’ then the young lady, the one that plays the organ, she stops an’ speaks to me an’ asks me if I can sing. An’ she told me for to come next Saturday night, an’ she’ll try what I can do.”

Bill leaned back in his chair and laughed till he was in danger of apoplexy.

“ Well, you are agoin’ it. Hi. Giglamps and millinery and the whole outfit afore you’ve been here a week. Blest if I don’t think I see you already, with a bald head and a pair of specs, and a lightin’ of candles and snuffin’ ’em,” and Bill roared again.

Hi looked at him doubtfully for a moment and his eyes filled with tears. Let the child alone, Bill,” said Jane warmly, and she put an extra lump of sugar into the cup of tea she was making for him. If he likes the Tiscopal church, why shouldn’t he go there ? Wasn’t you sayin’ this mornin’ that you didn’t take a hand in no one’s religion ?”

Thus reminded of his liberal tendencies, Bill sobered at once, and, reaching over, patted Hi upon the shoulder.

All right, my lad. What I says I stick to : you shall go there just as often as you please; and if you wants to join ’em and like that sort of thing, why Bill Whitestone ain’t agoin’ to say you nay.”

And so it was settled.

IV

It was early morning at Mrs. Brown’s of Penn Street. A drizzling rain was falling through mixed smoke and fog, and the brick pavements were covered with black, slimy mud, which stuck to the feet like glue. A miserable, dark, November morning, with the air heavy and blanket-like upon the lungs, and making a man breathe out fog at every breath to add to the mist, which the wet streets, and even the 38 houses, seemed to send up wet and clammy from every pore.

The Reverend Erasmus had not been long in bed. He had spent the night in a wretched tenement in one of the alleys of the South Side, watching by a friendless, dying woman. Not that such a service was anything unusual in his simple-hearted way. “ The most exasperatinest man” Mrs. Brown had declared, ^Hhat I ever seen in all my born days.” And perhaps, if those who passed his odd figure on the street had seen him at such times, and had known how often his slender purse was opened to some uncared-for human need, they would not have wondered at his oddness. And could they have looked into his scantily-furnished room and have seen him measuring out his scanty store of sugar or of coal, they might have read his simple secret and have loved the lonely man who shyly passed them on some unknown mission of his own.

He had returned home while the gas-lights were still dull-yellow specks in the fog, without any apparent support to keep them in their places, and had undressed and thrown himself on his bed, and was soon fast asleep. He did not sleep very long, and was dreaming of being tied to a railroad track while an engine was thundering towards him, when he became con- 39 scious that some one was knocking violently on his door. He rose up in bed and answered, and the voice of Mrs. Brown replied, —

“ Why, I thought you must be dead and gone to kingdom come, Mr. Burton. I’ve been knocking for the last half hour. Here’s been a man to see you, and says it’s something special, and can’t wait.’*

'‘Very well, Mrs. Brown. Send him upstairs and tell him to come in.” He sat up in bed, “a queer-looking chap,” as Hi had once said of him, but queerer now when his bald head and straggling side-locks had only a night-shirt below and a background of bed-post and crumpled pillow; but he received his visitor with as much equanimity as if this mode of reception was indorsed by the “ best society.”

“Sit down, Michael,, and tell me what you have come for.”

The visitor — an old man, who had seen hard work in his time, but who had gotten a leg crushed in an iron-mill, and who now eked out a living by acting as sexton of St. Margaret’s — hobbled in with his wooden leg and sat down in the chair pointed out to him. He had a large, round face, with gray whiskers, which met under his chin, and small round eyes, which seemed preternatu rally open for lack of any eyebrows 40 above them. He put his hands on his knees and bent forward with the air of a man who brings tidings.

We bring you bad news, your reverence.” He always spoke of himself and his leg as “we,” as if they were two independent individuals who had agreed to go through life together.

“We found it out this morning, and we stumped down here to tell you.”

“ What news ? Found out what ?”

“Why, the robbery, your reverence. The church has been robbed !” And the old man’s eyes stuck out in his eagerness. “You know the safe, stuck in the wall in the vestry, with the iron door, what we kept the communion things in? Well, sir, it’s been robbed, bust open, and every blessed thing gone !”

Erasmus passed his hand over his head to make sure that this was not another dream. “ Gone ?”

“ Gone, your reverence, clean robbed, and every drawer and box in the room smashed to thunder.” Michael got up in his excitement and brought in the emphasis with his wooden leg pounding on the floor. “ There has never been the like heard of in a Christian land as this here attackin’ of the Lord’s anointed. We 41 have stood in Charing Cross, your reverence, where the blessed martyr, Charles the First, was murdered by them forsaken Puritans, and we’ve shook our fist at Whitehall prison ; but we never seen such sackerlege and despisin’ of religion as this here afore in all our life.”

“ This is very sad,” said Erasmus, wearily. “ We must set the officers on the track and try to discover the perpetrators. I will go right away and attend to it, Michael. You did well in coming to tell me.”

The sexton hobbled to the door. “ Traitors you may well call ’em, sir ; and we hope to see ’em drawn and quartered for this blazin’ business, savin’ your reverence’s presence ; and we’ll lay our head again a punkin if some of them pawnbrokers don’t know something about it afore night.”

The irate leg and its companion thumped their way down stairs, and the rector rose and dressed himself and went out after them.

He thought of going to the mayor’s office and lodging information, and as he turned towards Smithfield Street his eyes were arrested by the sign in the window which he had so often passed before, '^Smit, the Pawnbroker.” The old card was gone, and the new sign told that the actual occupant had taken possession. He 42 stopped outside the window and looked absently at the rows of watches and the gilt chains and the revolvers of all sizes which were temptingly displayed within. Had not Michael said something about pawnbrokers? and perhaps the thieves would try to dispose of their plunder in some such way. He hesitated for a minute, and then opened the door and went in. Once inside he was at a loss how to open the subject. He must not cast a suspicion on innocent people, nor wound the feelings of the good man who owned the shop. He was not at home now as he had been during the long watch of the night before, and his shyness and timidity had come back to him.