From the melting pot into the mold

Dedication

To my friend , John P. Barrett, whose faith in me helped me to have faith in myself, this book is affectionately dedicated

V

Foreword

In order to keep the ages right, it was necessary to place the action of the book in the eighties, but the conditions shown were, mostly, the result of af¬ fairs in the seventies. cMany of the incidents, wa¬ ges and so forth, were not properly of a later date ,

Chapter I

The three windows of the front ground room of gloomy old 43 Fort Hill Square were lighted tonight, a circum¬ stance so unusual in the recollection of the venerable night watch that with each recurring round of his monoton¬ ous pacing of his district in the sleeping city he paused in mute cogitation, pondering as he mopped his sweaty brow and scratched his grizzled head under the uniform cap. He had not seen them thus in years. Time was— when he ran a callow youth through the place on his way to the wharves—when that staring fresh brick was not gloomy and every window shone with the radiance of a myriad of candles while the whole Square echoed with the mirth and revelry emanating therefrom.

For years now—maybe five or six, he thought—the front of the house with its aristocratic bow windows had frowned in dingy, repellant glances, whoever tenanted it reserving both its work and play for the rear, gained by a dimly lighted area way. As the watchman stood and mused he saw the heavy, antique window draperies belly out as a door opened in the interior and swish back hissingly as it closed, responsive to the draught of a mellow, heavy spring zephyr capering at last in the wake of bitter winter. It swept up from harbor and marsh in caracoling, caressing gusts, kissing into languid life the enervated city dweller and softly apologizing for its long and untoward absence. Occasionally the shadow of a woman’s form walking in uncouth haste swept over a pane in silhouetted distinctness; he crept warily up to the massive iron railing and leaned in over it toward the nearest open window—then hurried on with a mingled muttered cluck of dismay and pity as long, quivering tones (once heard, never forgotten) of mortal agony wrenched themselves from between the clinched lips of some suffering woman. He was glad to pursue his ghostly way again amid groups of soldiers, country boys wandering aimlessly about the big city, and night prowlers, down past the gaunt, staring warehouses and to the water’s edge where he could forget his agitation in gossip with one of his fellows or some sailor seeking his boat after a night’s revelry ashore.

One room fronting the Square still bore faded traces of its stately characters in the years that this was a fashionable niche for the wealthy Puritan, contained one constant occupant, a lad of probably four or five years who, despite the rustle of steps and rattle of doors slept the sleep of babyhood, huddled in one corner of an im¬ mense couch. Mingled with the slumber dew on his rosy cheeks were traces of tears shed while falling un¬ conscious while his tiny frame was still shaking with piteous sobs.

He was a child of more than ordinary beauty despite his obvious distress; the thick black tresses curled crisply over a singularly high, snowy forehead, his cheeks were full and round and caressed by long, curling lashes. The nose was of a feminine delicacy with sensitive, quiver¬ ing nostrils, the mouth as if carved by an artist in a moment of inspiration, and beneath, a perfectly molded chin still twitching in its unconscious grief. Unnoticed, uncared for, apparently abandoned, he slept through the tumult of talk, hastening feet and rattling doors.

One of these now swung back to admit a woman who in attire and bearing plainly denoted the incongruity of her presence in this erstwhile abode of the elite, who crept to a big chair into which she dropped wearily and with an illy suppressed burst of grief threw her apron over her head and rocking back and forth in a distinctive¬ ly Irish attitude of woe gave way to piteous, smothered lamentations. Just a neighbor woman summoned to help in that crisis that borne so bravely by the victim herself is only witnessed in another with a degree of fortitude unknown to the male. Again the door swung heavily open and two men, evidently doctors, stepped into the room, ignoring in professional brutality the betrayal of weakness in the female attendant while they put their heads together in private, hissing consultation.

The younger, the perplexed one with the knitted brow, sleeves rolled to the arm pits in business-like form, was Doctor Calhone, summoned in haste by the neighbors at the last moment but who, finding a complication rather beyond his interneship practice, had sent in frantic haste for an older and more aristocratic practictioner. Doctor Haselot had come in cold sympathy and languid interest on learning the occasion; he rendered an offhand opin¬ ion the moment he stepped into the chamber of the suf¬ ferer that she or the unborn child was to die—maybe both, with a brutal shrug and gesture. But Calhone the beginner, agonized at the prospect of an initial failure in a neighborhood where he had decided to locate, fought strongly and manfully for another decision; now, at a trifle past midnight, with the sweat of useless toil on his handsome face, tears of baffled rage in his eyes, even he was forced to agree with the elder that she was beyond human aid.

Another woman, no longer crying but still showing traces in her reddened eyes of previous tears, now joined the baffled group and essayed an attempt at opening the mouth of the medical sphinx.

“There is no hope thin, Docthor?” in forced calmness as she ground her hands in her apron, to Calhone; he shook his head with a bitter sigh.

“None whatever my dear woman” while the senior sly¬ ly grinned at the baptism of the youth, “Better summon her husband.” At which command her eyes flamed with a wicked light and her thin lips tightened as a mute in¬ dication of what would happen her liege lord did he have to be summoned at a moment every human consid¬ eration commanded his willing presence.

“I’ll sind f’r ’m” she said so masterfully as to draw on her the admiring looks even of the medical men, “An’ th’ priest” at which the elder grimaced sarcastically, coughed blandly, snapped open the lid of his jeweled snuff box, tendered it to his crushed colleague (who im¬ patiently rejected it), took a hearty pinch himself, re¬ gained his massive beaver, threw his long cloak about his gigantic form, clasped his immense, gold headed cane, bowed gravely to the bewildered Calhone and wishing him a curt “good night” stalked from the presence of death as imperturbably as from the library of a friend. “Do you go t’ th’ kitchen an’ rouse Larry, aveelish ” pursued the speaker at length turning on the still weep¬ ing woman in the chair who dropped her apron and bestirred herself to do the bidding of the capable one.

She was back in a moment followed by a young fel¬ low of about twenty, bravely trying to pull himself to¬ gether after his rude awakening on the wash bench where he had cast himself earlier in the evening and where he had been permitted to slumber during the excitement until the time he might be of service. It was the “green¬ horn,” Larry Coleman, even in his distress grinning the innocent, propitiatory grin that speedily won him favor anywhere, ready and willing for any venture that offer¬ ed the opening to show his worth in the land of his adop¬ tion. He was clear eyed, smooth faced, ruddy cheeked.

“All right Mar’gret” with a gigantic yawn that fairly racked his body, “What is it?” The young doctor had turned to his charge on hearing a long distressed moan.

“Where do’ye think ye’ll find himseT at this hour?” she demanded with the acidity that left no doubt as to whom Himself might be and roused the lad effectually; Larry balanced himself judicially, one hand on his hip and the other currying his wilderness of frouzed hair while he cogitated.

“It’s too late f’r th’ Museum I’m thinkin’ ” he mur¬ mured in his soft, caressing tones, “An’ he’s had his supper be this, hasn’t he?” in a semi query she saw fit to ig¬ nore, “An’ so I’m thinkin’ ”—deferentially that he might not be guilty of thinking when she did not— “so he might be buckin’ th’ tiger, savin’ y’r prisince.”

“Thin hunt ’m avick ” she coaxed, “Not that he’s anny binifit here God knows but f’r th’ sake of appearances. An’ do you ’ turning again on the sniffing woman, “R-run down t’ Saint James’ f’r th’ priest.”

Now this latter was a command to quibble over under ordinary circumstances for the long trip in that section of the city at any hour of the night by a “decent” woman was one fraught not only with the tangible possibilities of insult from roistering soldiers but the intangible nothings that based on cold hints and innuendoes cling for¬ ever; but this was no ordinary occasion and merely returning a soft “all right” equal in valor to the much lauded “Aye, aye sir” of the man facing death, she turn¬ ed to run from the room merely pausing long enough to pick up her Cashmere shawl and wrap it securely over her head.

Out High Street to Essex she ran with the salt breezes wafted gratefully to nostrils saturated with the sick room odors, dropping into a walk only when her breath be¬ gan to come in sobs, thence to Harrison Avenue just be¬ ginning to assume that shape of cosmopolitanism that later merged into a show town of transplanted China and so in a southerly way past Beach Street and across Kneeland, ignoring the calls of the few prowlers now visible, until she gained the parsonage of the venerable Saint James’ Church. Her vehement and persistent pulls on the bell cord alternated with resounding swings of the knocker, were rewarded finally by the thrusting out an up stairs window of the head of the pastor, Father DeRoule.

“What is it?” he demanded in sleepy hoarse tones.

“Mrs. Coggeshall’s dyin’—given up be two docthors— 43 Fort Hill, Father” she gasped breathlessly.

“Aye?” he said as if trying to recall the woman.

“Nancy Coggeshall sir—’twas you marrit thim sor” she explained. He returned an exclamation of under¬ standing.

“I know, I know” and as he pulled his head inside, “You need not wait my good woman, I’ll have to go into the church.” Satisfied with this, from a man who had not only popularized himself amidst his big flock by constant samples of just such devotion to the cause of his Master, but who had done much to disarm suspicion and elevate the cause of his religion in a locality where bigotry and prejudice still held sway.

She went back at a much slower jog than that char¬ acterizing her going out as, not being molded along those lines that speak for endurance and speed combined, she was now beginning to feel the effects of her marathon; scarcely had she set foot on the lower step of 43 than she heard the rapid steps of the good man himself coming at a pretty good gait for one of his advanced age. To¬ gether they entered the once grand room tenanted by the frankly grieving woman and the harried young doc¬ tor who, mentally and physically exhausted by his all night vigil and the woe of a losing fight, drooped bleakly in a chair, his cheeks haggard, his hair rumpled and his bare arms twitching in impotent neurotic affection.

The gray haired Priest exchanged a few words with him while the women put the finishing touches to prepara¬ tions for the administering of the Sacraments and then followed them into the now silent chamber, no longer echoing to the strains of the curse of Eve, ghastly in its import; Doctor Calhone, now satisfied as to the futility ' of his ministrations, rolled down his sleeves and soberly donned his outer garments, the prey of bitter emotions. He paused a moment to gaze with unfeigned pity at the still slumbering child totally oblivious to the impending catastrophe—then with a sorrowful shake of his fine head, silently quitted the house.

Meanwhile Larry was doing his part; making his way rapidly to Tremont Street he proceeded to Bowdoin Square whence he turned sharply to his left to swing into Howard Street. Previous experiences with the re¬ calcitrant Coggeshall prompted a shrewd reasoning run¬ ning about as follows:—

Earlier in the evening he was pretty sure to be at the Museum watching the latest dancer; then there would be a Bohemian supper given by him or one of his brother roues; succeeding these—that is between midnight and dawn—he could be found in a gambling den recouping his expenditures of the earlier hours, for Nehemiah Cogge¬ shall, tutored in the salons and stews of the Continent, was a notorious card sharper. If Larry failed to locate him among the few places he suspected on Howard Street he could go to Green Street; after that—he shrugged to himself—she would have to die deprived of his presence.

He made three fruitless stops at places where it took all the allurement of his blarneyed tongue to prove his innocent avocation to the wary lookouts, unreservedly confiding to them that far from being a reformer, spy or detective lie was in search of a man well known in those haunts, that he merely craved permission to acquaint a great swell with the disconcerting news that the woman he had sworn to love and cherish was passing out of his reach; with alien hands closing the weary eyes and strange voices praying for a safe homecoming of one whose home on earth he had so long desecrated.

In a little blind alley off Green Street to which he was directed by a victim of his “sootherin’ tongue” he was successful; again he rehearsed the plaintive details of the sordid family affair until his earnest manner and seductive pleading convinced the case hardened scoundrel guarding the portals of an earthly hell that he was sin¬ cere; he permitted him to enter. He pointed the way down a magnificently tapestried hall where the astounded greenhorn was for the first time permitted a view of those traces of magnificent luxury and debauchery allied to criminal wealth.

The place fairly reeked of a highly scented atmosphere, hot liquor odors, nauseous perfumes mingling with ex¬ halations of tobacco and human frames, while the room rang with the blasphemous cries and profane ejacula¬ tions of the sodden inmates of the den; taking his arm the guide led him to a door at the head of the stairs which opening at his signal permitted Larry to enter as he turned back to his post. For a moment the lad paused in comical dismay at the scene, trying to accustom him¬ self to the hazy bodies long enough to pick out his quarry; at length he believed he was successful and then with a comical assumption of care he tip-toed across the heavily carpeted room striving to render his entrance inconspicu¬ ous, little knowing that nothing less than a fire or ex¬ plosion could take their attention off the game over which they hung in wild eyed feverishness.

Coggeshall was winning—as usual—and showed it plainly by reason of his drink; with him success with cards was a stern necessity for it constituted the only means by which a “gentleman” could honorably derive an income and thus acquire those luxuries his asthetic soul craved, nay demanded. He turned in savage im¬ patience in response to Larry’s persistent and forcible tug at his arm.

“Well?” he growled with a coarse oath, that bad enough in anyone seems to become more sinister emana¬ ting from the mouth of the educated and one not sup¬ posed to be exposed to it in early environment, “What the deuce do you want, fellow?” Oblivious to the impatient, amused and curious glances his presence now aroused, Larry bent over him.

“Mrs. Coggeshall’s been confined sor” he whispered hoarsely, “An’ th’ docthors sez she’ll die—” at which with another oath, Coggeshall dashed his hand of cards on the table and the flush of liquor on his face gave way to a dazed, sickly hue.

“What say?” he demanded thickly at last as, half turning in his chair, he looked up and around at the blushing Larry—aware that the glances of the entire table were now upon them; he didn’t seem to grasp the portent of the stunning communication. Again Larry said it and comprehending now he slowly arose, almost sobered by the shock.

“Make my account Austin” curtly to the house dealer with an incisive coolness one could scarcely expect in view of his recent approach to inebriation. “Sickness at home—I—I will have to beg leave to retire” with the charming observation of the punctilio of a scoundrel. “I’ll give you your revenge at the first opportunity, Colonel Trask,” with a courtly bow to that polished blackguard who, rising with the same formal pretense of gentility and a rake’s proprieties to prove himself as polite a rascal as the clever Coggeshall, returned the bow, reseated him¬ self gravely and in the same breath that he asked a new deal murmured polite hopes for the sick member of the family—then set out to retrieve the night’s losses at the expense of someone as helpless in his hands as he was in Coggeshall’s.

Totally oblivious to the presence of the messenger and scorning to demean himself by an enquiry that might give an excuse to trespass on the affairs of a gentleman, Coggeshall threw his clock about his half military clad form, stalked from the room without a word to anyone, dropped down the stairs out past the guard into the balmy, spring night, a trifle cooler now with a breeze from the harbor, followed with soldier-like preciseness at a few paces by the good Larry, sleepy and tired, but immensely pleased with the success of his errand. The ozone laden breeze from the bay aroused the gambler like a plunge in the water and shivering as if with cold he drew his cloak more closely about him and with a string of muttered curses on his ill fortune, strode rapidly along.

What if she were to die—what if she were to die? Over and over this stunning solution of his nasty domestic relations hummed through his obscene brain, with all the more tumult and delirium by reason of the fact that in all his bitter chafing at the galling chains of matrimony, long since grown irksome, there had never loomed the shadow of a hope for such a blessed consummation. She was so young and vigorous, so imbued with the wine of health and the strength of a good conscience, so sturdy in the face of his brutal abuse, that he had come to under¬ estimate the power of his villainy and overlooked the fact that her immortal soul was in a mortal frame; never had it dawned on him that as the door of the tomb swung open for her it swung outward for him, to cherished freedom.

Divorce was not to be thought of—not that it violated a moral canon, but simply because it dragged aristocracy into the same course publicity as the front door step and back yard. “What if she were to die?” he asked him¬ self in dreamy whispers and the tensity of his feelings at that easy escape was made manifest in the torrent of heated, brutal oaths that soared up from the very depths of his sodden soul.

Not a solitary pulse beat of pity for the untimely fate, not a gleam of sorrow for the passing of the being whom he had wooed on his knees and in a passion of fervid tears—not one. She had long since ceased to amuse with her innocent, graceful gaiety, he willed that she might be torn from him that he might plunge back into the pool of filthy, unfettered, unchided sin—her very virtue tormented him! So, with echoing footsteps through some of the deserted streets, some filled with soldiers idling along, he passed on distracted, bewildered, stifled in the weight of the newly aroused hopes.

His brain was a Vesuvius: long before he quitted Tremont Street he was roaming in imagination from this bleak existence to that of the time the mother of his babes was unknown to him and he still basked in the criminally tender rays of his doting parents’ love. Even when he had been elected Captain of the company of Harvard graduates she had come between him and his bliss, for with the possibility of redemption in the eyes of his as¬ sociates she held him back by her ordinary presence. His heart began to pound fiercely at the thought of the ine¬ vitable reconciliation with the proud old mother eating her selfish heart out in bleak grandeur in the old home, totally irreconcilable while he rested at anchor with the vulgar plebeian he had married in defiance of her wishes. Oh the joy of telling her that he was free!

Chapter II

Winthrop Coggeshall, the sire, had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth; nor had he gone aboard the craft he commanded later through the cabin window, but shipping as cook’s assistant had worked his way aft with many hard knocks and disheartening experiences. Be¬ fore he could attach A.B. to his signature he had doubled the Horn, rounded the Cape and traded on tropical isles, gathering loot and trinkets in China and the far India. Then when he trod the quarter deck of the Oliver Crom¬ well it was as part owner.

His education finished on the deep seas and his curios¬ ity gratified as to visions of the world’s ends he settled down to the management of the vast shipping firm with which he had gone out as cabin boy; he took the inevit¬ able dip into politics to keep his hand in on the running of the governmental machine, and after filling the posi¬ tion of Collector of the Port under Fillmore decided that he had earned a much needed rest and proceeded to en¬ joy it. Of course he could not handle so much wealth and scale such political heights without being thrown more or less in the company of the select social frigidities that even in that day made the “Hub'’ famous, eventually ac¬ knowledging his submission in leading the belle of her set, Patience Erskine, to the altar with a commendably New England union of caste and cash. Of this union one son, Nehemiah, resulted.

In the stupendous palace, which it was considered in those days, in Ashburton Place, they set about the rearing and polishing of this gem of their wedlock; the lad in¬ herited from his mother a swift intellect and keen in¬ telligence and from his father a will as strong and rugged as his body. Out of his own consciousness he created an irreligious tendency and a decidedly unmoral squint at life. In quick succession he passed from a maiden lady’s primary to a public grammar school, next to a prepara¬ tory institution and thence to Harvard which he entered at an abnormally early age and from which, despite his dissipations, he eventually earned his degree with high honors.

Not yet at his majority it was decided to send him abroad for the “Grand Tour” to put those finishing touches of subtle debauchery to the democratic soul that is engend¬ ered only in the presence of royalty. For Nehemiah (fairly dripping wealth), it was a prolongation of the riotous Harvard existence touched and gilded—if the terms may he employed—with the rococo tints of Parisian, German and English decadency, the very essence of which he im¬ bibed and assimilated for the future delectation of the golden youth of the staid old shrine of Puritanism.

His frank and nonchalant atheism combined with a disdain of worship in the family pew of old King’s Chapel was complacently regarded by his adoring parents as the necessary accompaniment emblematic of the popular in¬ dustry of “sowing his wild oats” of which they express¬ ed their approbation by paying the debts he piled up, cheerfully; catering to every crazy whim in a fond dream of the day his vice husbandry would prove irksome and he would signalize his distaste for it by leading to the altar a virtuous bride to perpetuate the proud name of Coggeshall.

But Master Nehemiah’s bucolic industry occupied an unconscionably long time—even the doting parents be¬ gan to manifest an uneasy wonder as to the nature and extent of the crop to be garnered. He could not be justly charged with “irregularity” in his habits for they were of a painfully monotonous character; consisting of bed all morning, a lounge in the Parks and the Mall in the after¬ noon, a swell supper at Parker’s or a bit at Parks’—famous for musty ale and broiled live lobster—in the evening, followed by the theatre, the Museum preferably,—later another dinner with a stage favorite at midnight with the gambling den to fill the hiatus of his ennui ere he drew the curtains of his room to slumber away the morning.

The evenings that his doting and worried parents thought he should be passing in the company of worthy young social favorites or the elite of the intellectual world, just then beginning to break through its rough crusts to dazzle a continent, he spent hanging out of a stage box ogling the actresses. And here he met his fate.

The piece itself was commonplace enough but an in¬ terpolation in the regular comedy brought on for a moment a dancer whose first lithe movement proclaimed her an artist in her line. She was obviously a simple Irish lassie, showing a quaint Irish reel, but the freedom and abandon with which she flung herself into it and the lithesome grace of her modest interpretation of the folk steps threw the blase audience into an uproar. Coggeshall was the first of the crowd to demand her name of the manager who gave it grudgingly enough, due to the fact that association with the bloods inevitalDly resulted in the disappearance of his talent.

Her name was Nancy Lonergan, just across from the old sod, turning her knowledge of the native dances to good account in eking out the scanty income derived from the sprigging of fine linens; her appearance on the boards was intermittent as she had no intention—unluckily for the greedy manager—of making it a sole means of live¬ lihood; but the town buck must have a closer look at her and the bold one he took at the stage door as she walked out chatting with the other girls threw him into a frenzy of passion.

He swore he was hit at last and falling into poetic gloom regaled his confreres in idleness with sombre Byronic lines to which he added some original ones—and not so awful bad, either. He vowed he would know her, he took an oath he would make her acquaintance—with which end in view he followed her home one night; just as she turned into the dark stairway running up the for¬ bidding tenement block fronting on Atlantic Avenue he accosted her. Even with the precarious aid of the dim oil light he was enabled to trace the wondrous beauty of rosy cheeks, rippling auburn hair, eyes that dazzled with their sparkle, below which swept long, curling lashes, the whole lit by a generous Irish mouth with a curve that bespoke hours of sunny smiles and the radiance of the innocent soul that flowed with her every word.

Outside a slight shock at his unlooked for appearance she thought no more of him until a week later when he insisted on accompanying her from the theatre under the plea of protection from rowdies—whom she had never encountered; on this occasion he practically forced his way to the two rooms where she and her old mother dragged out their bleak existence and where he remained until after the watch’s cry of midnight—regaling them with accounts of his travels in Ireland and lively flashes of town gossip, much of which missed their simple wits and all of which was unrelished by their pure minds. He would not leave until he had almost dragged from them permission to repeat the visit—poor, bewildered little Nancy said her Rosary in a tumult that night. He did call again and again to the wonder and consternation of his neglected cronies as well as the alluring dancer; some inkling of the affair was eventually borne to the ears of his devoted mother by a baffled satellite, hut choosing to regard it merely as another chain of incident in his disordered life she chose to ignore the sordid fact. But when the destruction of their pride finally descended upon the parents it was too late to fend the catastrophe; Nehemiah Coggeshall spurned every trace of his elaborate education and training and running clear out of form bolted the velvety course in headlong flight.

Now, to give the devil his due, let it be recorded that his disciple Nehemiah had set out with the deliberate in¬ tention of ruining the body and soul of the beautiful Irish dancer; he merely played along and idled his time patiently that he might revel longer in the delights of anticipation the better to enjoy the certain realization— but alas, alas for the sophistry of those good and wise souls who maintain that innocent ignorance is sheer criminalty and doomed to destruction—the irresistible rake found his pathway barred at the first vile step he essayed. His well selected and delicately put double meanings and vile inuendoes were shed from her pure mind as easily as the dew drops roll from the chaste petals of the rose —she simply refused to understand or be entertained by those subtle pleadings which had for him always been eminently successful in his nefarious business with the unfortunate females who had fallen foul of his dirty pathway. As to physical demonstration—the apparently negligent touch of his obscene hand on her body was repelled as if it were covered with slime—it was simply impossible. Even on those occasions that he plied him¬ self with liquor to summon courage enough for a break that precluded withdrawal, the pure lights shining through the windows of her virginal soul tangled his muddy thoughts and forced him to quit the field in the chagrined confusion of a man who has sustained a sound beating.