Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings Read online

  Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender and conversed loudly in tones of contempt.

  “He’s a dindy masher, ain’t he, by Gawd?” laughed Jimmie.

  “Oh, hell, yes,” said the companion, sneering widely. “He’s great, he is. Git onto deh mug on deh blokie. Dat’s enough to make a feller turn hand-springs in ’is sleep.”

  The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion.

  “Gee! ain’t he hot stuff!”

  “Git onto his shape! Great Gawd!”

  “Hey,” cried Jimmie, in tones of command. Pete came along slowly, with a sullen dropping of the under lip.

  “Well,” he growled, “what’s eatin’ yehs?”

  “Gin,” said Jimmie.

  “Gin,” said the companion.

  As Pete confronted them with the bottle and the glasses, they laughed in his face. Jimmie’s companion, evidently overcome with merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete’s direction.

  “Say, Jimmie,” demanded he, “what deh hell is dat behind deh bar?”

  “Damned if I knows,” replied Jimmie. They laughed loudly. Pete put down a bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face toward them. He disclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly.

  “You fellers can’t guy me,” he said. “Drink yer stuff an’ git out an’ don’ make no trouble.”

  Instantly the laughter faded from the faces of the two men and expressions of offended dignity immediately came.

  “Who deh hell has said anyt’ing teh you,” cried they in the same breath.

  The quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly.

  “Ah, come off,” said Pete to the two men. “Don’t pick me up for no jay. Drink yer rum an’ git out an’ don’ make no trouble.”

  “Oh, deh hell,” airily cried Jimmie.

  “Oh, deh hell,” airily repeated his companion.

  “We goes when we git ready! See!” continued Jimmie.

  “Well,” said Pete in a threatening voice, “don’ make no trouble.”

  Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side. He snarled like a wild animal.

  “Well, what if we does? See?” said he.

  Dark blood flushed into Pete’s face, and he shot a lurid glance at Jimmie.

  “Well, den we’ll see whose deh bes’ man, you or me,” he said.

  The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door.

  Jimmie began to swell with valor.

  “Don’ pick me up fer no tenderfoot. When yeh tackles me yeh tackles one of deh bes’ men in deh city. See? I’m a scrapper, I am. Ain’t dat right, Billie?”

  “Sure, Mike,” responded his companion in tones of conviction.

  “Oh, hell,” said Pete, easily. “Go fall on yerself.”

  The two men again began to laugh.

  “What deh hell is dat talkin’?” cried the companion.

  “Damned if I knows,” replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt.

  Pete made a furious gesture. “Git outa here now, an’ don’ make no trouble. See? Youse fellers er lookin’ fer a scrap an’ it’s damn likely yeh’ll fin’ one if yeh keeps on shootin’ off yer mout’s. I know yehs! See? I kin lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer lifes. Dat’s right! See? Don’ pick me up fer no stuff er yeh might be jolted out in deh street before yeh knows where yeh is. When I comes from behind dis bar, I t’rows yehs boat inteh deh street. See?”

  “Oh, hell,” cried the two men in chorus.

  The glare of a panther came into Pete’s eyes. “Dat’s what I said! Unnerstan’?”

  He came through a passage at the end of the bar and swelled down upon the two men. They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him.

  They bristled like three roosters. They moved their heads pugnaciously and kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles about each mouth twitched with a forced smile of mockery.

  “Well, what deh hell yer goin’ teh do?” gritted Jimmie.

  Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep the men from coming too near.

  “Well, what deh hell yer goin’ teh do?” repeated Jimmie’s ally. They kept close to him, taunting and leering. They strove to make him attempt the initial blow.

  “Keep back, now! Don’ crowd me,” ominously said Pete.

  Again they chorused in contempt. “Oh, hell!”

  In a small, tossing group, the three men edged for positions like frigates contemplating battle.

  “Well, why deh hell don’ yeh try teh t’row us out?” cried Jimmie and his ally with copious sneers.

  The bravery of bull-dogs sat upon the faces of the men. Their clenched fists moved like eager weapons.

  The allied two jostled the bartender’s elbows, glaring at him with feverish eyes and forcing him toward the wall.

  Suddenly Pete swore redly. The flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He threw back his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning-like blow at Jimmie’s face. His foot swung a step forward and the weight of his body was behind his fist. Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, with the quickness of a cat. The fierce, answering blows of him and his ally crushed on Pete’s bowed head.

  The quiet stranger vanished.

  The arms of the combatants whirled in the air like flails. The faces of the men, at first flushed to flame-colored anger, now began to fade to the pallor of warriors in the blood and heat of a battle. Their lips curled back and stretched tightly over the gums in ghoul-like grins. Through their white, gripped teeth struggled hoarse whisperings of oaths. Their eyes glittered with murderous fire.

  Each head was huddled between its owner’s shoulders, and arms were swinging with marvelous rapidity. Feet scraped to and fro with a loud scratching sound upon the sanded floor. Blows left crimson blotches upon pale skin. The curses of the first quarter minute of the fight died away. The breaths of the fighters came wheezingly from their lips and the three chests were straining and heaving. Pete at intervals gave vent to low, labored hisses, that sounded like a desire to kill. Jimmie’s ally gibbered at times like a wounded maniac. Jimmie was silent, fighting with the face of a sacrificial priest. The rage of fear shone in all their eyes and their blood-colored fists swirled.

  At a tottering moment a blow from Pete’s hand struck the ally and he crashed to the floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet and grasping the quiet stranger’s beer glass from the bar, hurled it at Pete’s head.

  High on the wall it burst like a bomb, shivering fragments flying in all directions. Then missiles came to every man’s hand. The place had heretofore appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glass and bottles went singing through the air. They were thrown point blank at bobbing heads. The pyramid of shimmering glasses, that had never been disturbed, changed to cascades as heavy bottles were flung into them. Mirrors splintered to nothing.

  The three frothing creatures on the floor buried themselves in a frenzy for blood. There followed in the wake of missiles and fists some unknown prayers, perhaps for death.

  The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block.

  “Dey’ve trowed a bloke inteh deh street.”

  People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within the saloon and came running. A small group, bending down to look under the bamboo doors, watching the fall of glass, and three pairs of violent legs, changed in a moment to a crowd.

  A policeman came charging down the sidewalk and bounced through the doors into the saloon. The crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to see.

  Jimmie caught first sight of the on-coming interruption. On his feet he had the same regard for a policeman that, when on his truck, he had for a fire engine. He howled and ran for the side door.

  The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand. One comprehensive sweep of the long night stick threw the ally to the floor and forced Pete to a corner. With his disengaged hand
he made a furious effort at Jimmie’s coat-tails. Then he regained his balance and paused.

  “Well, well, you are a pair of pictures. What in hell yeh been up to?”

  Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street, pursued a short distance by some of the more law-loving, or excited individuals of the crowd.

  Later, from a corner safely dark, he saw the policeman, the ally and the bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the doors and then followed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd-encompassed policeman and his charge.

  On first thoughts Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat, started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted.

  “Ah, what deh hell?” he demanded of himself.

  XII

  In a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and Maggie drinking beer. A submissive orchestra dictated to by a spectacled man with frowsy hair and a dress suit, industriously followed the bobs of his head and the waves of his baton. A ballad singer, in a dress of flaming scarlet, sang in the inevitable voice of brass. When she vanished, men seated at the tables near the front applauded loudly, pounding the polished wood with their beer glasses. She returned attired in less gown, and sang again. She received another enthusiastic encore. She reappeared in still less gown and danced. The deafening rumble of glasses and clapping of hands that followed her exit indicated an overwhelming desire to have her come on for the fourth time, but the curiosity of the audience was not gratified.

  Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look of self-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion. She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure. She seemed to beseech tenderness of him.

  Pete’s air of distinguished valor had grown upon him until it threatened stupendous dimensions. He was infinitely gracious to the girl. It was apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel.

  He could appear to strut even while sitting still and he showed that he was a lion of lordly characteristics by the air with which he spat.

  With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, he took pride in commanding the waiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf.

  “Hi, you, git a russle on yehs! What deh hell yeh’s lookin’ at? Two more beehs, d’yeh hear?”

  He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl with a straw-colored wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels in somewhat awkward imitation of a well-known danseuse.

  At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her former home life, dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the family and the difficulties she had to combat in order to obtain a degree of comfort. He responded in tones of philanthropy. He pressed her arm with an air of reassuring proprietorship.

  “Dey was damn jays,” he said, denouncing the mother and brother.

  The sound of the music which, by the efforts of the frowsy-headed leader, drifted to her ears through the smoke-filled atmosphere, made the girl dream. She thought of her former Rum Alley environment and turned to regard Pete’s strong protecting fists. She thought of the collar and cuff manufactory and the eternal moan of the proprietor: “What een hell do you sink I pie fife dolla a week for? Play? No, py damn.” She contemplated Pete’s man-subduing eyes and noted that wealth and prosperity was indicated by his clothes. She imagined a future, rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had experienced.

  As to the present she perceived only vague reasons to be miserable. Her life was Pete’s and she considered him worthy of the charge. She would be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete adored her as he now said he did. She did not feel like a bad woman. To her knowledge she had never seen any better.

  At times men at other tables regarded the girl furtively. Pete, aware of it, nodded at her and grinned. He felt proud.

  “Mag, yer a bloomin’ good-looker,” he remarked, studying her face through the haze. The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete’s words as it became apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye.

  Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared at her through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads, tried to find the girl’s eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered she was not what they thought her. She confined her glances to Pete and the stage.

  The orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded, whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise.

  Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids, made her tremble. She thought them all to be worse men than Pete.

  “Come, let’s go,” she said.

  As they went out Maggie perceived two women seated at a table with some men. They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness. As she passed them the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back her skirts.

  XIII

  Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight with Pete in the saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution.

  He found his mother raving. Maggie had not returned home. The parent continually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass. She had never considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alley from Heaven, but she could not conceive how it was possible for her daughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her family. She was terrific in denunciation of the girl’s wickedness.

  The fact that the neighbors talked of it, maddened her. When women came in, and in the course of their conversation casually asked, “Where’s Maggie dese days?” the mother shook her fuzzy head at them and appalled them with curses. Cunning hints inviting confidence she rebuffed with violence.

  “An’ wid all deh bringin’ up she had, how could she?” moaningly she asked of her son. “Wid all deh talkin’ wid her I did an’ deh t’ings I tol’ her to remember? When a girl is bringed up deh way I bringed up Maggie, how kin she go teh deh devil?”

  Jimmie was transfixed by these questions. He could not conceive how under the circumstances his mother’s daughter and his sister could have been so wicked.

  His mother took a drink from a squdgy bottle that sat on the table. She continued her lament.

  “She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jimmie. She was wicked teh deh heart an’ we never knowed it.”

  Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact.

  “We lived in deh same house wid her an’ I brought her up an’ we never knowed how bad she was.”

  Jimmie nodded again.

  “Wid a home like dis an’ a mudder like me, she went teh deh bad,” cried the mother, raising her eyes.

  One day, Jimmie came home, sat down in a chair and began to wriggle about with a new and strange nervousness. At last he spoke shamefacedly.

  “Well, look-a-here, dis t’ing queers us! See? We’re queered! An’ maybe it ’ud be better if I—well, I t’ink I kin look ’er up an’—maybe it ’ud be better if I fetched her home an—”

  The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of passionate anger.

  “What! Let ’er come an’ sleep under deh same roof wid her mudder agin! Oh, yes, I will, won’t I? Sure? Shame on yehs, Jimmie Johnson, fer sayin’ such a t’ing teh yer own mudder—teh yer own mudder! Little did I tink when yehs was a babby playin’ about me feet dat ye’d grow up teh say sech a t’ing teh yer mudder—yer own mudder. I never taut—”

  Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches.

  “Dere ain’t nottin teh raise sech hell about,” said Jimmie. “I on’y says it ’ud be better if we keep dis t’ing dark, see? It queers us! See?”

  His mother laughed a laugh that seemed to ring through the city and be echoed and re-echoed by countless other laughs. “Oh, yes, I will, won’ I! Sure!”

  “Well, yeh must take me fer a damn fool,” said Jimmie, indignant at his mother for mocking him. “I didn’t say we’d make ’er inteh a little tin angel, ner nottin, but deh way it is now she can queer
us! Don’ che see?”

  “Aye, she’ll git tired of deh life atter a while an’ den she’ll wanna be a-comin’ home, won’ she, deh beast! I’ll let ’er in den, won’ I?”

  “Well, I didn’ mean none of dis prod’gal bus’ness anyway,” explained Jimmie.

  “It wasn’t no prod’gal dauter, yeh damn fool,” said the mother. “It was prod’gal son, anyhow.”

  “I know dat,” said Jimmie.

  For a time they sat in silence. The mother’s eyes gloated on a scene her imagination could call before her. Her lips were set in a vindictive smile.

  “Aye, she’ll cry, won’ she, an’ carry on, an’ tell how Pete, or some odder feller, beats ’er an’ she’ll say she’s sorry an’ all dat an’ she ain’t happy, she ain’t, an’ she wants to come home agin, she does.”

  With grim humor, the mother imitated the possible wailing notes of the daughter’s voice.

  “Den I’ll take ’er in, won’t I, deh beast. She kin cry ’er two eyes out on deh stones of deh street before I’ll dirty deh place wid her. She abused an’ ill-treated her own mudder—her own mudder what loved her an’ she’ll never git anodder chance dis side of hell.”

  Jimmie thought he had a great idea of women’s frailty, but he could not understand why any of his kin should be victims.

  “Damn her,” he fervidly said.

  Again he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers. Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse himself with those brothers nor his sister with theirs. After the mother had, with great difficulty, suppressed the neighbors, she went among them and proclaimed her grief. “May Gawd forgive dat girl,” was her continual cry. To attentive ears she recited the whole length and breadth of her woes.

  “I bringed ’er up deh way a dauter oughta be bringed up an’ dis is how she served me! She went teh deh devil deh first chance she got! May Gawd forgive her.”

  When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of her daughter’s downfall with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally one of them said to her, peering down over his spectacles: “Mary, the records of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in the annals of this court, and this court thinks—”