Crusoe In New York

Crusoe In New York

PART I

I was born in the year 1842, in the city of New York,
of a good family, though not of that country, my father
being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first in
England. He got a good estate by merchandise, and
afterward lived at New York. But first he had married
my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very
good family in her country--and from them I was named.

My father died before I can remember--at least, I
believe so. For, although I sometimes figure to myself
a grave, elderly man, thickset and wearing a broad-
brimmed hat, holding me between his knees and advising me
seriously, I cannot say really whether this were my
father or no; or, rather, whether this is really some one
I remember or no. For my mother, with whom I have lived
alone much of my life, as the reader will see, has talked
to me of my father so much, and has described him to me
so faithfully, that I cannot tell but it is her
description of him that I recollect so easily. And
so, as I say, I cannot tell whether I remember him or no.

He never lost his German notions, and perhaps they
gained in England some new force as to the way in which
boys should be bred. At least, for myself, I know that
he left to my mother strict charge that I should be bound
'prentice to a carpenter as soon as I was turned of
fourteen. I have often heard her say that this was the
last thing he spoke to her of when he was dying; and with
the tears in her eyes, she promised him it should be so.
And though it cost her a world of trouble--so changed
were times and customs--to find an old-fashioned master
who would take me for an apprentice, she was as good as
her word.

I should like to tell the story of my apprenticeship,
if I supposed the reader cared as much about it as I do;
but I must rather come to that part of my life which is
remarkable, than hold to that which is more like the life
of many other boys. My father's property was lost or was
wasted, I know not how, so that my poor mother had but a
hard time of it; and when I was just turned of twenty-one
and was free of my apprenticeship, she had but little to
live upon but what I could bring home, and what she could
earn by her needle. This was no grief to me, for I was
fond of my trade, and I had learned it well. My old
master was fond of me, and would trust me with work of a
good deal of responsibility. I neither drank nor
smoked, nor was I over-fond of the amusements which took
up a good deal of the time of my fellow-workmen. I was
most pleased when, on pay-day, I could carry home to my
mother ten, fifteen, or even twenty dollars--could throw
it into her lap, and kiss her and make her kiss me.

"Here is the oil for the lamp, my darling," I would
say; or, "Here is the grease for the wheels"; or, "Now
you must give me white sugar twice a day." She was a
good manager, and she made both ends meet very well.

I had no thought of leaving my master when my
apprenticeship was over, nor had he any thought of
letting me go. We understood each other well, he liked
me and I liked him. He knew that he had in me one man
who was not afraid of work, as he would say, and who
would not shirk it. And so, indeed, he would often put
me in charge of parties of workmen who were much older
than I was.

So it was that it happened, perhaps some months after
I had become a journeyman, that he told me to take a gang
of men, whom he named, and to go quite up-town in the
city, to put a close wooden fence around a vacant lot of
land there. One of his regular employers had come to
him, to say that this lot of land was to be enclosed, and
the work was to be done by him. He had sent round the
lumber, and he told me that I would find it on the
ground. He gave me, in writing, the general
directions by which the fence was ordered, and told me to
use my best judgment in carrying them out. "Only take
care," said he, "that you do it as well as if I was there
myself. Do not be in a hurry, and be sure your work
stands."

I was well pleased to be left thus to my own
judgment. I had no fear of failing to do the job well,
or of displeasing my old master or his employer. If I
had any doubts, they were about the men who were to work
under my lead, whom I did not rate at all equally; and,
if I could have had my pick, I should have thrown out
some of the more sulky and lazy of them, and should have
chosen from the other hands. But youngsters must not be
choosers when they are on their first commissions.

I had my party well at work, with some laborers whom
we had hired to dig our post-holes, when a white-haired
old man, with gold spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat,
alighted from a cab upon the sidewalk, watched the men
for a minute at their work, and then accosted me. I knew
him perfectly, though of course he did not remember me.
He was, in fact, my employer in this very job, for he was
old Mark Henry, a Quaker gentleman of Philadelphia, who
was guardian of the infant heirs who owned this block of
land which we were enclosing. My master did all the
carpenter's work in the New York houses which Mark Henry
or any of his wards owned, and I had often seen him
at the shop in consultation. I turned to him and
explained to him the plans for the work. We had already
some of the joists cut, which were to make the posts to
our fence. The old man measured them with his cane, and
said he thought they would not be long enough.

I explained to him that the fence was to be eight
feet high, and that these were quite long enough for
that.

"I know," he said, "I know, my young friend, that my
order was for a fence eight feet high, but I do not think
that will do."

With some surprise I showed him, by a "ten-foot
pole," how high the fence would come.

"Yes, my young friend, I see, I see. But I tell
thee, every beggar's brat in the ward will be over thy
fence before it has been built a week, and there will be
I know not what devices of Satan carried on in the
inside. All the junk from the North River will be hidden
there, and I shall be in luck if some stolen trunk, nay,
some dead man's body, is not stowed away there. Ah, my
young friend, if thee is ever unhappy enough to own a
vacant lot in the city, thee will know much that thee
does not know now of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Thee will know of trials of the spirit and of the temper
that thee has never yet experienced."

I said I thought this was probable, but I thought
inwardly that I would gladly be tried that way. The old
man went on:--

"I said eight feet to friend Silas, but thee may say
to him that I have thought better of it, and that I have
ordered thee to make the fence ten feet high. Thee may
say that I am now going to Philadelphia, but that I will
write to him my order when I arrive. Meanwhile thee will
go on with the fence as I bid thee."

And so the old man entered his cab again and rode
away.

I amused myself at his notion, for I knew very well
that the street-boys and other loafers would storm his
ten-foot wall as readily as they would have stormed the
Malakoff or the Redan, had they supposed there was
anything to gain by doing it. I had, of course, to
condemn some of my posts, which were already cut, or to
work them in to other parts of the fence. My order for
spruce boards was to be enlarged by twenty per cent by
the old man's direction, and this, as it happened, led to
a new arrangement of my piles of lumber on my vacant
land.

And all this it was which set me to thinking that
night, as I looked on the work, that I might attempt
another enterprise, which, as it proved, lasted me for
years, and which I am now going to describe.

I had worked diligently with the men to set up some
fifty feet of the fence where it parted us from an alley-
way, for I wanted a chance to dry some of the boards,
which had just been hauled from a raft in the North
River. The truckmen had delivered them helter-
skelter, and they lay, still soaking, above each other on
our vacant lot.

We turned all our force on this first piece of fence,
and had so much of it done that, by calling off the men
just before sundown, I was able to set up all the wet
boards, each with one end resting on the fence and the
other on the ground, so that they took the air on both
sides, and would dry more quickly. Of course this left
a long, dark tunnel underneath.

As the other hands gathered up their tools and made
ready to go, a fellow named McLoughlin, who had gone out
with one of the three months' regiments not long before,
said:--

"I would not be sorry to sleep there. I have slept
in many a worse place than that in Dixie"; and on that he
went away, leaving me to make some measurements which I
needed the next day. But what he said rested in my mind,
and, as it happened, directed the next twelve years of my
life.

Why should not I live here? How often my mother had
said that if she had only a house of her own she should
be perfectly happy! Why should not we have a house of
our own here, just as comfortable as if we had gone a
thousand miles out on the prairie to build it, and a
great deal nearer to the book-stores, to the good music,
to her old friends, and to my good wages? We had talked
a thousand times of moving together to Kansas, where I
was to build a little hut for her, and we were to be
very happy together. But why not do as the minister had
bidden us only the last Sunday--seize on to-day, and take
what Providence offered now?

I must acknowledge that the thought of paying any
ground rent to old Mr. Henry did not occur to me then--
no, nor for years afterward. On the other hand, all that
I thought of was this,--that here was as good a chance as
there was in Kansas to live without rent, and that rent
had been, was still, and was likely to be my bugbear,
unless I hit on some such scheme as this for abating it.

The plan, to be short, filled my mind. There was
nothing in the way of house-building which I shrank from
now, for, in learning my trade, I had won my Aladdin's
lamp, and I could build my mother a palace, if she had
needed one. Pleased with my fancy, before it was dark I
had explored my principality from every corner, and
learned all its capabilities.

The lot was an oblong, nearly three times as long as
it was wide. On the west side, which was one of the
short sides, it faced what I will call the Ninety-ninth
Avenue, and on the south side, what I will call Fernando
Street, though really it was one of the cross-streets
with numbers. Running to the east it came to a narrow
passage-way which had been reserved for the accommodation
of the rear of a church which fronted on the street just
north of us. Our back line was also the back line of the
yards of the houses on the same street, but on our
northeast corner the church ran back as far as the back
line of both houses and yards, and its high brick wall--
nearly fifty feet high--took the place there of the ten-
foot brick wall, surmounted by bottle-glass, which made
their rear defence.

The moment my mind was turned to the matter, I saw
that in the rear of the church there was a corner which
lay warmly and pleasantly to the southern and western
sun, which was still out of eye-shot from the street,
pleasantly removed from the avenue passing, and only
liable to inspection, indeed, from the dwelling-houses on
the opposite side of our street,--houses which, at this
moment, were not quite finished, though they would be
occupied soon.

If, therefore, I could hit on some way of screening
my mother's castle from them--for a castle I called it
from the first moment, though it was to be much more like
a cottage--I need fear no observation from other
quarters; for the avenue was broad, and on the other side
from us there was a range of low, rambling buildings--an
engine-house and a long liquor-saloon were two--which had
but one story. Most of them bad been built, I suppose,
only to earn something for the land while it was growing
valuable. The church had no windows in the rear, and
that protected my castle--which was, indeed, still in the
air--from all observation on that side.

I told my mother nothing of all this when I went
home. But I did tell her that I had some calculations to
make for my work, and that was enough. She went on,
sweet soul! without speaking a word, with her knitting
and her sewing at her end of the table, only getting up
to throw a cloth over her parrot's cage when he was
noisy; and I sat at my end of the table, at work over my
figures, as silent as if I had been on a desert island.

Before bedtime I had quite satisfied myself with the
plan of a very pretty little house which would come quite
within our space, our means, and our shelter. There was
a little passage which ran quite across from east to
west. On the church side of this there was my mother's
kitchen, which was to be what I fondly marked the
"common-room." This was quite long from east to west,
and not more than half as long the other way. But on the
east side, where I could have no windows, I cut off, on
its whole width, a deep closet; and this proved a very
fortunate thing afterward, as you shall see. On the west
side I made one large square window, and there was, of
course, a door into the passage.

On the south side of the passage I made three rooms,
each narrow and long. The two outside rooms I meant to
light from the top. Whether I would put any skylight
into the room between them, I was not quite so certain;
I did not expect visitors in my new house, so I did not
mark it a "guest-room " in the plan. But I thought
of it as a store-room, and as such, indeed, for many
years we used it; though at last I found it more
convenient to cut a sky-light in the roof there also.
But I am getting before my story.

Before I had gone to bed that night I had made a
careful estimate as to how much lumber I should need, of
different kinds, for my little house; for I had, of
course, no right to use my master's lumber nor Mr.
Henry's; nor had I any thought of doing so. I made out
an estimate that would be quite full, for shingles, for
clapboards, white pine for my floors and finish,--for I
meant to make a good job of it if I made any,--and for
laths for the inside work. I made another list of the
locks, hinges, window furniture and other hardware I
should need; but for this I cared less, as I need not
order them so soon. I could scarcely refrain from
showing my plan to my mother, so snug and comfortable did
it look already; but I had already determined that the
"city house" should be a present to her on her next
birthday, and that till then I would keep it a secret
from her, as from all the world; so I refrained.

The next morning I told my master what the old Quaker
had directed about the fence, and I took his order for
the new lumber we should need to raise the height as was
proposed. At the same time I told him that we were all
annoyed at the need of carrying our tools back and forth,
and because we could only take the nails for one
day's use; and that, if he were willing, I had a mind to
risk an old chest I had with the nails in it and a few
tools, which I thought I could so hide that the wharf-
rats and other loafers should not discover it. He told
me to do as I pleased, that he would risk the nails if I
would risk my tools; and so, by borrowing what we call a
hand-cart for a few days, I was able to take up my own
little things to the lot without his asking any other
questions, or without exciting the curiosity of
McLoughlin or any other of the men. Of course, he would
have sent up in the shop-wagon anything we needed; but it
was far out of the way, and nobody wanted to drive the
team back at night if we could do without. And so, as
night came on, I left the men at their work, and having
loaded my hand-cart with a small chest I had, I took that
into the alley-way of which I told you before, carried my
box of tools into the corner between the church and our
fence, under the boards which we had set up that day, and
covered it heavily, with McLoughlin's help, with joists
and boards, so that no light work would remove them, if,
indeed, any wanderer of the night suspected that the box
was there. I took the hand-cart out into the alley-way
and chained it, first by the wheel and then by the
handle, in two staples which I drove there. I had
another purpose in this, as you shall see; but most of
all, I wanted to test both the police and the
knavishness of the neighborhood by seeing if the
hand-cart were there in the morning.

To my great joy it was, and to my greater joy it
remained there unmolested all the rest of the week in
which we worked there. For my master, who never came
near us himself, increased our force for us on the third
day, so that at the end of the week, or Saturday night,
the job was nearly done, and well done, too.

On the third day I had taken the precaution to throw
out in the inside of our enclosure a sort of open fence,
on which I could put the wet boards to dry, which at
first I had placed on our side fence. I told McLoughlin,
what was true enough, that the south sun was better for
them than the sun from the west. So I ran out what I may
call a screen thirty-five feet from the church, and
parallel with it, on which I set up these boards to dry,
and to my great joy I saw that they would wholly protect
the roof of my little house from any observation from the
houses the other side of the way while the workmen were
at work, or even after they were inhabited.

There was not one of the workmen with me who had
forethought enough or care for our master's interest to
ask whose boards those were which we left there, or why
we left them there. Indeed, they knew the next Monday
that I went up with the Swede, to bring back such lumber
was we did not use, and none of them knew or cared how
much we left there.

For me, I was only eager to get to work, and that day
seemed very long to me. But that Monday afternoon I
asked my master if I might have the team again for my own
use for an hour or so, to move some stuff of mine and my
mother's, and he gave it to me readily.

I had then only to drive up-town to a friendly
lumberman's, where my own stuff was already lying waiting
for me to load up, with the assistance of the workmen
there, and to drive as quickly as I could into the church
alley. Here I looked around, and seeing a German who
looked as if he were only a day from Bremen, I made signs
to him that if he would help me I would give him a piece
of scrip which I showed him. The man had been long
enough in the country to know that the scrip was good for
lager. He took hold manfully with me, and carried my
timbers and boards into the enclosure through a gap I
made in the fence for the purpose. I gave him his money
and he went away. As he went to Minnesota the next day,
he never mentioned to anybody the business he had been
engaged in.

Meanwhile, I had bought my hand-cart of the man who
owned it. I left a little pile of heavy cedar logs on
the outside, spiking them to each other indeed, that they
should not be easily moved. And to them and to my posts
I padlocked the hand-cart; nor was it ever disturbed
during my reign in those regions. So I had easy method
enough when I wanted a bundle or two of laths, or a
bunch of shingles, or anything else for my castle, to
bring them up in the cool of the evening, and to
discharge my load without special observation. My pile
of logs, indeed, grew eventually into a blind or screen,
which quite protected that corner of the church alley
from the view of any passer-by in Fernando Street.

Of that whole summer, happy and bright as it all was,
I look back most often on the first morning when I got
fairly to work on my new home. I told my mother that for
some weeks I should have to start early, and that she
must not think of getting up for my breakfast. I told
her that there was extra work on a job up-town, and that
I had promised to be there at five every day while the
summer lasted. She left for me a pot of coffee, which I
promised her I would warm when the time for breakfast and
dinner came; and for the rest, she always had my dinner
ready in my tin dinner-pail. Little did she know then,
sweet saint! that I was often at Fernando Street by half-
past three in the first sweet gray of those summer days.

On that particular day, it was really scarcely light
enough for me to find the nail I drew from the plank
which I left for my entrance. When I was fairly within
and the plank was replaced, I felt that I was indeed
"monarch of all I surveyed." What did I survey? The
church wall on the north; on the south, my own screen of
spruce boards, now well dry; on the east and west, the
ten-foot fences which I had built myself; and over
that on the west, God's deep, transparent sky, in which
I could still see a planet whose name I did not know. It
was a heaven, indeed, which He had said was as much mine
as his!

The first thing, of course, was to get out my frame.
This was a work of weeks. The next thing was to raise
it. And here the first step was the only hard one, nor
was this so hard as it would seem. The highest wall of
my house was no higher than the ten-foot fence we had
already built on the church alley. The western wall, if,
indeed, a frame house has any walls, was only eight feet
high. For foundations and sills, I dug deep post-holes,
in which I set substantial cedar posts which I knew would
outlast my day, and I framed my sills into these. I made
the frame of the western wall lie out upon the ground in
one piece; and I only needed a purchase high enough, and
a block with repeating pulleys strong enough, to be able
to haul up the whole frame by my own strength,
unassisted. The high purchase I got readily enough by
making what we called a "three-leg," near twenty feet
high, just where my castle was to stand. I had no
difficulty in hauling this into its place by a solid
staple and ring, which for this purpose I drove high in
the church wall. My multiplying pulley did the rest; and
after it was done, I took out the staple and mended the
hole it had made, so the wall was as good as ever.

You see it was nobody's business what shanty or what
tower old Mark Henry or the Fordyce heirs might or might
not put on the vacant corner lot. The Fordyce heirs were
all in nurseries and kindergartens in Geneva, and indeed
would have known nothing of corner lots had they been
living in their palace in Fourteenth Street. As for Mark
Henry, that one great achievement by which he rode up to
Fernando Street was one of the rare victories of his
life, of which ninety-nine hundredths were spent in
counting-houses. Indeed, if he had gone there, all he
would have seen was his ten-foot fence, and he would have
taken pride to himself that he had it built so high.

When the day of the first raising came, and the frame
slipped into the mortises so nicely, as I had
foreordained that it should do, I was so happy that I
could scarcely keep my secret from my mother. Indeed,
that day I did run back to dinner. And when she asked me
what pleased me so, I longed to let her know; but I only
smoothed her cheeks with my hands and kissed her on both
of them, and told her it was because she was so handsome
that I was so pleased. She said she knew I had a secret
from her, and I owned that I had, but she said she would
not try to guess, but would wait for the time for me to
tell her.

And so the summer sped by. Of course I saw my
sweetheart, as I then called my mother, less and
less. For I worked till it was pitch-dark at the castle;
and after it was closed in, so I could work inside, I
often worked till ten o'clock by candlelight. I do not
know how I lived with so little sleep; I am afraid I
slept pretty late on Sundays. But the castle grew and
grew, and the common-room, which I was most eager to
finish wholly before cold weather, was in complete order
three full weeks before my mother's birthday came.

Then came the joy of furnishing it. To this I had
looked forward all the summer, and I had measured with my
eye many a bit of furniture, and priced, in an unaffected
way, many an impossible second-hand finery, so that I
knew just what I could do and what I could not do.

My mother had always wanted a Banner stove. I knew
this, and it was a great grief to me that she had none,
though she would never say anything about it.

To my great joy, I found a second-hand Banner stove,
No. 2, at a sort of old junk-shop, which was, in fact, an
old curiosity shop not three blocks away from Ninety-
ninth Avenue. Some one had sold this to them while it
was really as good as new, and yet the keeper offered it
to me at half-price.

I hung round the place a good deal, and when the man
found I really had money and meant something, he took me
into all sorts of alleys and hiding-places, where he
stored his old things away. I made fabulous
bargains there, for either the old Jew liked me
particularly, or I liked things that nobody else wanted.
In the days when his principal customers were wharf-rats,
and his principal business the traffic in old cordage and
copper, he had hung out as a sign an old tavern-sign of
a ship that had come to him. His place still went by the
name of "The Ship," though it was really, as I say, a
mere wreck, a rambling, third-rate old furniture shop of
the old-curiosity kind.

But after I had safely carried the Banner to my new
house, and was sure the funnel drew well, and that the
escape of smoke and sparks was carefully guarded, many a
visit did I make to The Ship at early morning or late in
the evening, to bring away one or another treasure which
I had discovered there.
Under the pretence of new-varnishing some of my
mother's most precious tables and her bureau, I got them
away from her also. I knocked up, with my own hatchet
and saw, a sitting-table which I meant to have permanent
in the middle of the room, which was much more convenient
than anything I could buy or carry.

And so, on the 12th of October, the eve of my
mother's birthday, the common-room was all ready for her.
In her own room I had a new carpet and a new set of
painted chamber furniture, which I had bought at the
maker's, and brought up piece by piece. It cost me
nineteen dollars and a half, for which I paid him in
cash, which indeed he wanted sadly.

So, on the morning of the 13th of October, I kissed
my mother forty times, because that day she was forty
years old. I told her that before midnight she should
know what the great surprise was, and I asked her if she
could hold out till then.

She let me poke as much fun at her as I chose,
because she said she was so glad to have me at breakfast;
and I stayed long after breakfast, for I had told my
mother that it was her birthday, and that I should be
late. And such a thing as my asking for an hour or two
was so rare that I took it quite of course when I did
ask. I came home early at night, too. Then I said,--

"Now, sweetheart, the surprise requires that you
spend the night away from home with me. Perhaps, if you
like the place, we will spend tomorrow there. So I will
take Poll in her cage, and you must put up your night-
things and take them in your hand."

She was surprised now, for such a thing as an outing
over night had never been spoken of before by either of
us.

"Why, Rob," she said, "you are taking too much pains
for your old sweetheart, and spending too much money for
her birthday. Now, don't you think that you should
really have as good a time, say, if we went visiting
together, and then came back here?"

For, you see, she never thought of herself at all; it
was only what I should like most.

"No, sweetheart dear," said I. "It is not for me,
this 13th of October, it is all for you. And to-night's
outing is not for me, it is for you; and I think you will
like it and I think Poll will like it, and I have leave
for to-morrow, and we will stay away all to-morrow."

As for Tom-puss, I said, we would leave some milk
where he could find it, and I would leave a bone or two
for him. But I whistled Rip, my dog, after me. I took
Poll's cage, my mother took her bag, and locked and left
her door, unconscious that she was never to enter it
again.

A Ninety-ninth Avenue car took us up to Fernando
Street. It was just the close of twilight when we came
there. I took my mother to Church Alley, muttered
something about some friends, which she did not
understand more than I did, and led her up the alley in
her confused surprise. Then I pushed aside my movable
board, and, while she was still surprised, led her in
after me and slid it back again.

"What is it, dear Rob? Tell me--tell me!"

"This way, sweetheart, this way!" This was all I
would say.

I drew her after me through the long passage, led her
into the common-room, which was just lighted up by the
late evening twilight coming in between the curtains of
the great square window. Then I fairly pushed her to the
great, roomy easy-chair which I had brought from The
Ship, and placed it where she could look out on the
evening glow, and I said,--

"Mother, dear, this is the surprise; this is your new
home; and, mother dear, your own boy has made it with his
own hands, all for you."

"But, Rob, I do not understand--I do not understand
at all. I am so stupid. I know I am awake. But it is
as sudden as a dream!"

So I had to begin and to explain it all,--how here
was a vacant lot that Mark Henry had the care of, and how
I had built this house for her upon it. And long before
I had explained it all, it was quite dark. And I lighted
up the pretty student's-lamp, and I made the fire in the
new Banner with my own hands.

And that night I would not let her lift a kettle, nor
so much as cut a loaf of bread. It was my feast, I said,
and I had everything ready, round to a loaf of birthday-
cake, which I had ordered at Taylor's, which I had myself
frosted and dressed, and decorated with the initials of
my mother's name.

And when the feast was over, I had the best surprise
of all. Unknown to my mother, I had begged from my Aunt
Betsy my own father's portrait, and I had hung that
opposite the window, and now I drew the curtain that hid
it, and told my sweetheart that this and the house were
her birthday presents for this year!
. . . . . . . .

And this was the beginning of a happy life, which
lasted nearly twelve years. I could make a long story of
it, for there was an adventure in everything,--in the way
we bought our milk, and the way we took in our coals.
But there is no room for me to tell all that, and it
might not interest other people as it does me. I am sure
my mother was never sorry for the bold step she took when
we moved there from our tenement. True, she saw little
or no society, but she had not seen much before. The
conditions of our life were such that she did not like to
be seen coming out of Church Alley, lest people should
ask how she got in, and excepting in the evening, I did
not care to have her go. In the evening I could go with
her. She did not make many calls, because she could not
ask people to return them. But she would go with me to
concerts, and to the church parlor meetings, and
sometimes to exhibitions; and at such places, and on
Sundays, she would meet, perhaps, one or another of the
few friends she had in New York. But we cared for them
less and less, I will own, and we cared more and more for
each other.

As soon as the first spring came, I made an immense
effort, and spaded over nearly half of the lot. It was
ninety feet wide and over two hundred and sixty long--more
than half an acre. So I knew we could have our own fresh
vegetables, even if we never went to market. My mother
was a good gardener, and she was not afraid even to
hoe the corn when I was out of the way. I dare say that
the people whom the summer left in the street above us
often saw her from their back windows, but they did not
know--as how should they?--who had the charge of this
lot, and there was no reason why they should be surprised
to see a cornfield there. We only raised green corn. I
am fond of Indian cake, but I did not care to grind my
own corn, and I could buy sweet meal without trouble. I
settled the milk question, after the first winter, by
keeping our own goats. I fenced in, with a wire fence,
the northwest corner of our little empire, and put there
a milch goat and her two kids. The kids were pretty
little things, and would come and feed from my mother's
hand. We soon weaned them, so that we could milk their
mother; and after that our flock grew and multiplied, and
we were never again troubled for such little milk as we
used.

Some old proprietor, in the old Dutch days, must have
had an orchard in these parts. There were still left two
venerable wrecks of ancient pear-trees; and although they
bore little fruit, and what they bore was good for
nothing, they still gave a compact and grateful shade.
I sodded the ground around them and made a seat beneath,
where my mother would sit with her knitting all the
afternoon. Indeed, after the sods grew firm, I planted
hoops there, and many a good game of croquet have she and
I had together there, playing so late that we longed
for the chance they have in Sybaris, where, in the
evening, they use balls of colored glass, with fireflies
shut up inside.

On the 11th of February, in the year 1867, my old
master died, to my great regret, and I truly believe to
that of his widow and her children. His death broke up
the establishment, and I, who was always more of a
cabinet-maker or joiner than carpenter or builder, opened
a little shop of my own, where I took orders for
cupboards, drawers, stairs, and other finishing work, and
where I employed two or three German journeymen, and was
thus much more master of my own time. In particular, I
had two faithful fellows, natives of my own father's town
of Bremen. While they were with me I could leave them a
whole afternoon at a time, while I took any little job
there might be, and worked at it at my own house at home.
Where my house was, except that it was far uptown, they
never asked, nor ever, so far as I know, cared. This
gave me the chance for many a pleasant afternoon with my
mother, such as we had dreamed of in the old days when we
talked of Kansas. I would work at the lathe or the bench
and she would read to me. Or we would put off the bench
till the evening, and we would both go out into the
cornfield together.

And so we lived year after year. I am afraid that we
worshipped each other too much. We were in the
heart of a crowded city, but there was that in our lives
which tended a little to habits of loneliness, and I
suppose a moralist would say that our dangers lay in that
direction.

On the other hand, I am almost ashamed to say that,
as I sat in a seat I had made for myself in old Van der
Tromp's pear-tree, I would look upon my corn and peas and
squashes and tomatoes with a satisfaction which I believe
many a nobleman in England does not enjoy.

Till the youngest of the Fordyce heirs was of age,
and that would not be till 1880, this was all my own. I
was, by right of possession and my own labors, lord of
all this region. How else did the writers on political
economy teach me that any property existed!

I surveyed it with a secret kind of pleasure. I had
not abundance of pears; what I had were poor and few.
But I had abundance of sweet corn, of tomatoes, of peas,
and of beans. The tomatoes were as wholesome as they
were plentiful, and as I sat I could see the long shelves
of them which my mother had spread in the sun to ripen,
that we might have enough of them canned when winter
should close in upon us. I knew I should have potatoes
enough of my own raising also to begin the winter with.
I should have been glad of more. But as by any good
day's work I could buy two barrels of potatoes, I did not
fret myself that my stock was but small.

Meanwhile my stock in bank grew fast. Neither my
mother nor I had much occasion to buy new clothes. We
were at no charge for house-rent, insurance, or taxes.
I remember that a Spanish gentleman, who was fond of me,
for whom I had made a cabinet with secret drawers, paid
me in moidores and pieces-of-eight, which in those times
of paper were a sight to behold.

I carried home the little bag and told my mother that
this was a birthday present for her; indeed, that she was
to put it all in her bed that night, that she might say
she had rolled in gold and silver. She played with the
pieces, and we used them to count with as we played our
game of cribbage.

"But really, Robin, boy," said she, "it is as the
dirt under our feet. I would give it all for three or
four pairs of shoes and stockings, such as we used to buy
in York, but such as these Lynn-built shoes and steam-
knit stockings have driven out of the market."

Indeed, we wanted very little in our desert home.

And so for many years we led a happy life, and we
found more in life than would have been possible had we
been all tangled up with the cords of artificial society.
I say "we," for I am sure I did, and I think my dear
mother did.

But it was in the seventh year of our residence in
the hut that of a sudden I had a terrible shock or
fright, and this I must now describe to you. It
comes in about the middle of this history, and it may end
this chapter.

It was one Sunday afternoon, when I had taken the
fancy, as I often did of Sundays, to inspect my empire.
Of course, in a certain way, I did this every time I
climbed old Van der Tromp's pear-tree, and sat in my
hawk's-nest there. But a tour of inspection was a
different thing. I walked close round the path which I
had made next the fence of the enclosure. I went in
among my goats,--even entered the goat-house and played
with my kids. I tried the boards of the fence and the
timber-stays, to be sure they all were sound. I had
paths enough between the rows of corn and potatoes to
make a journey of three miles and half a furlong, with
two rods more, if I went through the whole of them. So
at half-past four on this fatal afternoon I bade my
mother good-by, and kissed her. I told her I should not
be back for two hours, because I was going to inspect my
empire, and I set out happily.

But in less than an hour--I can see the face of the
clock now: it was twenty-two minutes after five--I flung
myself in my chair, panting for breath, and, as my mother
said, as pale as if I had seen a ghost. But I told her
it was worse than that.

I had come out from between two high rows of corn,
which wholly covered me, upon a little patch which lay
warm to the south and west, where I had some melons
a-ripening, and was just lifting one of the melons, to be
sure that the under surface did not rot, when close
behind it I saw the print of a man's foot, which was very
plain to be seen in the soft soil.

I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen
an apparition. I listened; I looked round me. I could
hear nothing but the roar of the omnibuses, nor could I
see anything. I went up and down the path, but it was
all one. I could see no other impression but that one.
I went to it again, to see if there were any more, and to
observe if it might not be my fancy. But there was no
room for that, for there was exactly the print of an
Englishman's hobnailed shoe,--the heavy heel, the prints
of the heads of the nails. There was even a piece of
patch which had been put on it, though it had never been
half-soled.

How it came there I knew not; neither could I in the
least imagine. But, as I say, like a man perfectly
confused and out of myself, I rushed home into my hut,
not feeling the ground I went upon. I fled into it like
one pursued, and, as my mother said, when I fell into my
chair, panting, I looked as if I had seen a ghost.

It was worse than that, as I said to her.

PART II

I cannot well tell you how much dismay this sight of a
footprint in the ground gave me, nor how many sleepless
nights it cost me. All the time I was trying to make
my mother think that there was no ground for anxiety,
and yet all the time I was showing her that I was very
anxious. The more I pretended that I was not troubled,
the more absent-minded, and so the more troubled, I
appeared to her. And yet, if I made no pretence, and
told her what I really feared, I should have driven her
almost wild by the story of my terrors. To have our
pretty home broken up, perhaps to be put in the
newspapers--which was a lot that, so far, we had always
escaped in our quiet and modest life--all this was more
than she or I could bear to think of.

In the midst of these cogitations, apprehensions, and
reflections, it came into my thoughts one day, as I was
working at my shop down-town with my men, that all this
might be a chimera of my own, and that the foot might be
the print of my own boot as I had left it in the soil
some days before when I was looking at my melons. This
cheered me up a little, too. I considered that I could
by no means tell for certain where I had trod and where
I had not, and that if at last this was the print of my
own boot, I had played the part of those fools who strive
to make stories of spectres, and then are themselves
frightened at them more than anybody else.

So I returned home that day in very good spirits. I
carried to my mother a copy of Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper, which had in it some pictures that I knew
would please her, and I talked with her in as light-
hearted a way as I could, to try to make her think that
I had forgotten my alarm. And afterward we played two or
three games of Egyptian solitaire at the table, and I
went to bed unusually early. But, at the first break of
day, when I fancied or hoped that she was still asleep,
I rose quickly, and half-dressing myself, crept out to
the melon-patch to examine again the imprint of the foot
and to make sure that it was mine.

Alas! it was no more mine than it was Queen
Victoria's. If it had only been cloven, I could easily
have persuaded myself whose it was, so much grief and
trouble had it cost me. When I came to measure the mark
with my own boot, I found, just as I had seen before,
that mine was not nearly so large as this mark was.
Also, this was, as I have said, the mark of a heavy
brogan--such as I never wore--and there was the mark of
a strange patch near the toe, such as I had never seen,
nor, indeed, have seen since, from that hour to this
hour. All these things renewed my terrors. I went home
like a whipped dog, wholly certain now that some one had
found the secret of our home: we might be surprised in it
before I was aware; and what course to take for my
security I knew not.

As we breakfasted, I opened my whole heart to my
mother. If she said so, I would carry all our little
property, piece by piece, back to old Thunberg, the junk-
dealer, and with her parrot and my umbrella we would go
out to Kansas, as we used to propose. We would give up
the game. Or, if she thought best, we would stand on the
defensive. I would put bottle-glass on the upper edges
of the fences all the way round.

There were four or five odd revolvers at The Ship,
and I would buy them all, with powder and buck-shot
enough for a long siege. I would teach her how to load,
and while she loaded I would fire, till they had quite
enough of attacking us in our home. Now it has all gone
by, I should be ashamed to set down in writing the
frightful contrivances I hatched for destroying these
"creatures," as I called them, or, at least, frightening
them, so as to prevent their coming thither any more.

"Robin, my boy," said my mother to me, when I gave
her a chance at last, "if they came in here to-night--
whoever `they' may be--very little is the harm that they
could do us. But if Mr. Kennedy and twenty of his police
should come in here over the bodies of--five times five
are twenty-five, twenty-five times eleven are--two
hundred and seventy-five people whom you will have killed
by that time, if I load as fast as thee tells me I
can, why, Robin, my boy, it will go hard for thee and me
when the day of the assizes comes. They will put
handcuffs on thy poor old mother and on thee, and if they
do not send thee to Jack Ketch, they will send thee to
Bloomingdale."

I could not but see that there was sense in what she
said. Anyway, it cooled me down for the time, and I
kissed her and went to my work less eager, and, indeed,
less anxious, than I had been the night before. As I
went down-town in the car, I had a chance to ask myself
what right I had to take away the lives of these poor
savages of the neighborhood merely because they entered
on my possessions. Was it their fault that they had not
been apprenticed to carpenters? Could they help
themselves in the arrangements which had left them
savages? Had any one ever given them a chance to fence
in an up-town lot? Was it, in a word, I said to myself--
was it my merit or my good luck which made me as good as
a landed proprietor, while the Fordyce heirs had their
education? Such thoughts, before I came to my shop, had
quite tamed me down, and when I arrived there I was quite
off my design, and I concluded that I had taken a wrong
measure in my resolution to attack the savages, as I had
begun to call men who might be merely harmless loafers.

It was clearly not my business to meddle with them
unless they first attacked me. This it was my
business to prevent; if I were discovered and attacked,
then I knew my duty.

With these thoughts I went into my shop that day, and
with such thoughts as these, and with my mother's good
sense in keeping me employed in pleasanter things than
hunting for traces of savages, I got into a healthier way
of thinking.

The crop of melons came in well, and many a good
feast we had from them. Once and again I was able to
carry a nice fresh melon to an old lady my mother was
fond of, who now lay sick with a tertian ague.

Then we had the best sweet corn for dinner every day
that any man had in New York. For at Delmonico's itself,
the corn the grandees had had been picked the night
before, and had started at two o'clock in the morning on
its long journey to town. But my mother picked my corn
just at the minute when she knew I was leaving my shop.
She husked it and put it in the pot, and by the time I
had come home, had slipped up the board in the fence that
served me for a door, and had washed my face and hands in
my own room, she would have dished her dinner, would have
put her fresh corn upon the table, covered with a pretty
napkin; and so, as I say, I had a feast which no nabob in
New York had. No indeed, nor any king that I know of,
unless it were the King of the Sandwich Islands, and I
doubt if he were as well served as I.

So I became more calm and less careworn, though
I will not say but sometimes I did look carefully to see
if I could find the traces of a man's foot; but I never
saw another.

Unless we went out somewhere during the evening, we
went to bed early. We rose early as well, for I never
lost the habits of my apprenticeship. And so we were
both sound asleep in bed one night when a strange thing
happened, and a sudden fright came to us, of which I must
tell quite at length, for it made, indeed, a very sudden
change in the current of our lives.

I was sound asleep, as I said, and so, I found, was
my mother also. But I must have been partly waked by
some sudden noise in the street, for I knew I was sitting
up in my bed in the darkness when I heard a woman
scream,--a terrible cry,--and while I was yet startled,
I heard her scream again, as if she were in deadly fear.
My window was shaded by a heavy green curtain, but in an
instant I had pulled it up, and by the light of the moon
I seized my trousers and put them on.

I was well awake by this time, and when I flung open
the door of my house, so as to run into my garden, I
could hear many wild voices, some in English, some in
German, some in Irish, and some with terrible cries,
which I will not pretend I could understand.

There was no cry of a woman now, but only the howling
of angry or drunken men, when they are in a rage with
some one or with each other. What startled me was
that, whereas the woman's cry came from the street south
of me, which I have called Fernando Street, the whole
crowd of men, as they howled and swore, were passing
along that street rapidly, and then stopped for an
instant, as if they were coming up what I called Church
Alley. There must have been seven or eight of them.

Now, it was by Church Alley that my mother and I
always came into our house, and so into our garden. In
the eight years, or nearly so, that I had lived there, I
had by degrees accumulated more and more rubbish near the
furthest end of the alley as a screen, so to speak, that
when my mother or I came in or out, no one in the street
might notice us. I had even made a little wing-fence out
from my own, to which my hand-cart was chained. Next
this I had piled broken brickbats and paving-stones, and
other heavy things, that would not be stolen. There was
the stump and the root of an old pear-tree there, too
heavy to steal, and too crooked and hard to clean or saw.
There was a bit of curbstone from the street, and other
such trash, which quite masked the fence and the hand-
cart.

On the other side--that is, the church side, or the
side furthest from the street--was the sliding-board in
the fence, where my mother and I came in. So soon as it
was slid back, no man could see that the fence was not
solid.

At this moment in the night, however, when I
found that this riotous, drunken crew were pausing
at the entrance of Church Alley, as doubting if they
would not come down, I ran back through the passage,
knocking loudly for my mother as I passed, and coming to
my coal-bin, put my eye at the little hole through which
I always reconnoitred before I slid the door. I could
see nothing, nor at night ought I to have expected to do
so.

But I could hear, and I heard what I did not expect.
I could hear the heavy panting of one who had been
running, and as I listened I heard a gentle, low voice
sob out, "Ach, ach, mein Gott! Ach, mein Gott!" or words
that I thought were these, and I was conscious, when I
tried to move the door, that some one was resting close
upon it.

All the same, I put my shoulder stoutly to the cross-
bar, to which the boards of the door were nailed; I slid
it quickly in its grooves, and as it slid, a woman fell
into the passage.

She was wholly surprised by the motion, so that she
could not but fall. I seized her and dragged her in,
saying, "Hush, hush, hush!" as I did so. But not so
quick was I but that she screamed once more as I drew to
the sliding-door and thrust in the heavy bolt which held
it.

In an instant my mother was in the passage with a
light in her hand. In another instant I had seized the
light and put it out. But that instant was enough for
her and me to see that here was a lovely girl, with
no hat or bonnet on, with her hair floating wildly, both
her arms bleeding, and her clothes all stained with
blood. She could see my mother's face of amazement, and
she could see my finger on my mouth, as with the other I
dashed out the candle. We all thought quickly, and we
all knew that we must keep still.

But that unfortunate scream of hers was enough.
Though no one of us all uttered another sound, this was
like a "view-halloo," to bring all those dogs down upon
us. The passage was dark, and, to my delight, I heard
some of them breaking their shins over the curbstone and
old pear-tree of my defences. But they were not such
hounds as were easily thrown off the scent, and there
were enough to persevere while the leaders picked
themselves up again.

Then how they swore and cursed and asked questions!
And we three stood as still as so many frightened
rabbits. In an instant more one of them, who spoke in
English, said he would be hanged if he thought she had
gone into the church, that he believed she had got
through the fence; and then, with his fist, or something
harder, he began trying the boards on our side, and
others of them we could hear striking those on the other
side of the alley-way.

When it came to this, I whispered to my mother that
she must never fear, only keep perfectly still. She
dragged the frightened girl into our kitchen, which
was our sitting-room, and they both fell, I know not how,
into the great easy-chair.

For my part, I seized the light ladder, which always
hung ready at the door, and ran with it at my full speed
to the corner of Fernando Street and the alley. I
planted the ladder, and was on the top of the fence in an
instant

Then I sprang my watchman's rattle, which had hung by
the ladder, and I whirled it round well. It wholly
silenced the sound of the swearing fellows up the
passage, and their pounding. When I found they were
still, I cried out:--

"This way, 24! this way, 47! I have them all penned
up here! Signal the office, 42, and bid them send us a
sergeant. This way, fellows--up Church Alley!"

With this I was down my ladder again. But my gang of
savages needed no more. I could hear them rushing out of
the alley as fast as they might, not one of them waiting
for 24 or 47. This was lucky for me, for as it happened
I was ten minutes older before I heard two patrolmen on
the outside, wondering what frightened old cove had been
at the pains to spring a rattle.

The moonlight shone in at the western window of the
kitchen, so that as I came in I could just make out the
figure of my mother and of the girl, lying, rather than
sitting, in her lap and her arms. I was not afraid to
speak now, and I told my mother we were quite safe again,
and she told the poor girl so. I struck a match and
lighted the lamp as soon as I could. The poor,
frightened creature started as I did so, and then fell on
her knees at my mother's feet, took both her hands in her
own, and seemed like one who begs for mercy, or, indeed,
for life.

My poor, dear mother was all amazed, and her eyes
were running with tears at the sight of the poor thing's
terror. She kissed her again and again; she stroked her
beautiful golden hair with her soft hands; she said in
every word that she could think of that she was quite
safe now, and must not think of being frightened any
more.

But it was clear in a moment that the girl could not
understand any language that we could speak. My mother
tried her with a few words of German, and she smiled
then; but she shook her head prettily, as if to say that
she thanked her, but could not speak to her in that way
either. Then she spoke eagerly in some language that we
could not understand. But had it been the language of
Hottentots, we should have known that she was begging my
mother not to forsake her, so full of entreaty was every
word and every gesture.

My dear, sweet mother lifted her at last into the
easy-chair and made her lie there while she dipped some
hot water from her boiler and filled a large basin in her
sink. Then she led the pretty creature to it, and washed
from her arms, hands, and face the blood that had
hardened upon them, and looked carefully to find what her
wounds were. None of them were deep, though there
were ugly scratches on her beautiful arms; they were cut
by glass, as I guessed then, and as we learned from her
afterward. My mother was wholly prepared for all such
surgery as was needed here; she put on two bandages where
she thought they were needed, she plastered up the other
scratches with court-plaster, and then, as if the girl
understood her, she said to her, "And now, my dear child,
you must come to bed; there is no danger for you more."

The poor girl had grown somewhat reassured in the
comfortable little kitchen, but her terror seemed to come
back at any sign of removal; she started to her feet,
almost as if she were a wild creature. But I would defy
any one to be afraid of my dear mother, or indeed to
refuse to do what she bade, when she smiled so in her
inviting way and put out her hand; and so the girl went
with her, bowing to me, or dropping a sort of courtesy in
her foreign fashion, as she went out of the door, and I
was left to see what damage had been done to my castle by
the savages, as I called them.

I had sprung the rattle none too soon; for one of
these rascals, as it proved--I suppose it was the same
who swore that she had not gone into the church--with
some tool or other he had in his hand, had split out a
bit of the fence and had pried out a part of a plank. I
had done my work too well for any large piece to give
way. But the moment I looked into my coal-bin I saw that
something was amiss. I did not like very well to go
to the outside, but I must risk something; so I took out
a dark lantern which I always kept ready. Sure enough,
as I say, the fellow had struck so hard and so well that
he had split out a piece of board, and a little coal even
had fallen upon the passage-way. I was not much
displeased at this, for if he thought no nearer the truth
than that he had broken into a coal-bin of the church,
why, he was far enough from his mark for me. After
finding this, however, I was anxious enough, lest any of
them should return, not to go to bed again that night;
but all was still as death, and, to tell the truth, I
fell asleep in my chair. I doubt whether my mother
slept, or her frightened charge.

I was at work in the passage early the next morning
with some weather-stained boards I had, and before nine
o'clock I had doubled all that piece of fence, from my
wing where my hand-cart was to the church, and I had
spiked the new boards on, which looked like old boards,
as I said, with tenpenny nails; so that he would be a
stout burglar who would cut through them unless he had
tools for his purpose and daylight to work by. As I was
gathering up my tools to go in, a coarse, brutal-looking
Irishman came walking up the alley and looked round. My
work was so well done, and I had been so careful to leave
no chips, that even then he could not have guessed that
I had been building the fence anew, though I fancied
he looked at it. He seemed to want to excuse himself for
being there at all, and asked me, with an oath and in a
broad Irish brogue, if there were no other passage
through. I had the presence of mind to say in German,
"Wollen sie sprechen Deutsch?" and so made as if I
could not understand him; and then, kneeling on the
cellar-door of the church, pretended to put a key into
the lock, as if I were making sure that I had made it
firm.

And with that, he turned round with another oath, as
if he had come out of his way, and went out of the alley,
closely followed by me. I watched him as long as I
dared, but as he showed no sign of going back to the
alley, I at last walked round a square with my tools, and
so came back to my mother and the pretty stranger.

My mother had been trying to get at her story. She
made her understand a few words of German, but they
talked by signs and smiles and tears and kisses much more
than by words; and by this time they understood each
other so well that my mother had persuaded her not to go
away that day.

Nor did she go out for many days after; I will go
before my story far enough to say that. She had, indeed,
been horribly frightened that night, and she was as loath
to go out again into the streets of New York as I should
be to plunge from a safe shore into some terrible,
howling ocean; or, indeed, as one who found himself safe
at home would be to trust himself to the tender
mercies of a tribe of cannibals.

Two such loving women as they were were not long in
building up a language, especially as my mother had
learned from my father and his friends, in her early
life, some of the common words of German--what she called
a bread-and-butter German. For our new inmate was a
Swedish girl. Her story, in short, was this:--

She had been in New York but two days. On the voyage
over, they had had some terrible sickness on the vessel,
and the poor child's mother had died very suddenly and
had been buried in the sea. Her father had died long
before.

This was, as you may think, a terrible shock to her.
But she had hoped and hoped for the voyage to come to an
end, because there was a certain brother of hers in
America whom they were to meet at their landing, and
though she was very lonely on the packet-ship, in which
she and her mother and a certain family of the name of
Hantsen--of whom she had much to say--were the only
Swedes, still she expected to find the brother almost as
soon, as I may say, as they saw the land.

She felt badly enough that he did not come on board
with the quarantine officer. When the passengers were
brought to Castle Garden, and no brother came, she felt
worse. However, with the help of the clerks there, she
got off a letter to him, somewhere in Jersey, and
proposed to wait as long as they would let her, till he
should come.

The second day there came a man to the Garden, who
said he was a Dane, but he spoke Swedish well enough. He
said her brother was sick, and had sent him to find her.
She was to come with her trunks, and her mother's, and
all their affairs, to his house, and the same afternoon
they should go to where the brother was.

Without doubt or fear she went with this man, and
spent the day at a forlorn sort of hotel which she
described, but which I never could find again. Toward
night the man came again and bade her take a bag, with
her one change of dress, and come with him to her
brother.

After a long ride through the city, they got out at
a house which, thank God! was only one block from
Fernando Street. And there this simple, innocent
creature, as she went in, asked where her brother was, to
meet only a burst of laughter from one or two coarse-
looking men, and from half-a-dozen brazen-faced girls
whom she hated, she said, the minute she saw them.

Except that an old woman took off her shawl and cloak
and bonnet, and took away from her the travelling things
she had in her hand, nobody took any care of her but to
laugh at her, and mock her if she dared say anything.

She tried to go out to the door to find even the
Dane who had brought her there, but she was given to
understand that he was coming again for her, and that she
must wait till he came. As for her brother, there was no
brother there, nor had been any. The poor girl had been
trapped, and saw that she had been trapped; she had been
spirited away from everybody who ever heard of her
mother, and was in the clutches, as she said to my mother
afterward, of a crew of devils who knew nothing of love
or of mercy.

They did try to make her eat and drink,--tried to
make her drink champagne, or any other wine; but they had
no fool to deal with. The girl did not, I think, let her
captors know how desperate were her resolutions. But her
eyes were wide open, and she was not going to lose any
chance. She was all on the alert for her escape when, at
eleven o'clock, the Dane came at last whom she had been
expecting so anxiously.

The girl asked him for her brother, only to be put
off by one excuse or another, and then to hear from him
the most loathsome talk of his admiration, not to say his
passion, for her.

They were nearly alone by this time, and he led her
unresisting, as he thought, into another smaller room,
brilliantly lighted, and, as she saw in a glance, gaudily
furnished, with wine and fruit and cake on a side-
table,--a room where they would be quite alone.

She walked simply across and looked at herself in the
great mirror. Then she made some foolish little
speech about her hair, and how pale she looked. Then she
crossed to the sofa, and sat upon it with as tired an air
as he might have expected of one who had lived through
such a day. Then she looked up at him and even smiled
upon him, she said, and asked him if he would not ask
them for some cold water.

The fellow turned into the passage-way, well pleased
with her submission, and in the same instant the girl was
at the window as if she had flown across the room.

Fool! The window was made fast, not by any moving
bolt, either. It was nailed down, and it did not give a
hairs-breadth to her hand.

Little cared she for that. She sat on the window-
seat, which was broad enough to hold her; she braced her
feet against the foot of the bedstead, which stood just
near enough to her; she turned enough to bring her
shoulder against the window-sash, and then with her whole
force she heaved herself against the sash, and the entire
window, of course, gave way.

The girl caught herself upon the blind, which swung
open before her. She pulled herself free from the sill
and window-seat, and dropped fearless into the street.

The fall was not long. She lighted on her feet and
ran as only fear could teach her to run. Where to, she
knew not; but she thought she turned a corner before she
heard any voices from behind.

Still she ran. And it was when she came to the
corner of the next street that she heard for the first
time the screams of pursuers.

She turned again, like a poor hunted hare as she was.
But what was her running to theirs? She was passing our
long fence in Fernando Street, and then for the first
time she screamed for help.

It was that scream which waked me.

She saw the steeple of the church. She had a dim
feeling that a church would be an asylum. So was it that
she ran up our alley, to find that she was in a trap
there.

And then it was that she fell against my door, that
she cried twice, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" and that the
good God, who had heard her, sent me to draw her in.

We had to learn her language, in a fashion, and she
to learn ours, before we understood her story in this
way. But at the very first my mother made out that the
girl had fled from savages who meant worse than death for
her. So she understood why she was so frightened at
every sound, and why at first she was afraid to stay with
us, yet more afraid to go.

But this passed off in a day or two. She took to my
mother with a sort of eager way which showed how she must
have loved her own mother, and how much she lost when she
lost her. And that was one of the parts of her sad story
that we understood.

No one, I think, could help loving my mother; but
here was a poor, storm-tossed creature who, I might say,
had nothing else to love, seeing she had lost all trace
of this brother, and here was my mother, soothing her,
comforting her, dressing her wounds for her, trying to
make her feel that God's world was not all wickedness;
and the girl in return poured out her whole heart.

When my mother explained to her that she should not
let her go away till her brother was found, then for the
first time she seemed perfectly happy. She was indeed
the loveliest creature I ever put my eyes on.

She was then about nineteen years old, of a delicate
complexion naturally, which was now a little browned by
the sea-air. She was rather tall than otherwise, but her
figure was so graceful that I think you never thought her
tall. Her eyes were perhaps deep-set, and of that
strange gray which I have heard it said the goddesses in
the Greek poetry had. Still, when she was sad, one saw
the less of all this. It was not till she forgot her
grief for the instant in the certainty that she might
rest with my mother, so that her whole face blazed with
joy, that I first knew what the perfect beauty of a
perfect woman was.

Her name, it seemed, was Frida,--a name made from the
name of one of the old goddesses among the Northmen, the
same from whom our day Friday is named. She is the half-
sister of Thor, from whom Thursday is named, and the
daughter of Wodin, from whom Wednesday is named.

I knew little of all this then, but I did not wonder
when I read afterward that this northern goddess was the
Goddess of Love, the friend of song, the most beautiful
of all their divinities,--queen of spring and light and
everything lovely.

But surely never any one took fewer of the airs of a
goddess than our Frida did while she was with us. She
would watch my mother, as if afraid that she should put
her hand to a gridiron or a tin dipper. She gave her to
understand, in a thousand pretty ways, that she should be
her faithful, loving, and sincere. servant. If she would
only show her what to do, she would work for her as a
child that loved her. And so indeed she did. My dear
mother would laugh and say she was quite a fine lady now,
for Frida would not let her touch broom nor mop, skimmer
nor dusting-cloth.

The girl would do anything but go out upon an errand.
She could not bear to see the other side of the fence.
What she thought of it all I do not know. Whether she
thought it was the custom in America for young men to
live shut up with their mothers in enclosures of half an
acre square, or whether she thought we two made some
peculiar religious order, whose rules provided that one
woman and one man should live together in a convent or
monastery of their own, or whether she supposed half New
York was made up, as Marco Polo found Pekin, of
cottages or of gardens, I did not know, nor did I much
care. I could see that here was provided a companion for
my mother, who was else so lonely, and I very soon found
that she was as much a companion for me.

So soon as we could understand her at all, I took the
name of her brother and his address. When he wrote last
he was tending a saw-mill at a place about seven miles
away from Tuckahoe, in Jersey. But he said he was going
to leave there at once, so that they need not write
there. He sent the money for their passage, and
promised, as I said, to meet them at New York.

This was a poor clew at the best. But I put a good
face on it, and promised her I would find him if he could
be found. And I spared no pains. I wrote to the
postmaster at Tuckahoe, and to a minister I heard of
there. I inquired of the Swedish consuls in New York and
Philadelphia. Indeed, in the end, I went to Tuckahoe
myself, with her, to inquire. But this was long after.
However, I may say here, once for all, to use an old
phrase of my mother's, we never found "hide nor hair" of
him. And although this grieved Frida, of course, yet it
came on her gradually, and as she had never seen him to
remember him, it was not the same loss as if they had
grown up together.

Meanwhile that first winter was, I thought, the
pleasantest I had ever known in my life. I did not have
to work very hard now, for my business was rather
the laying out work for my men, and sometimes a nice job
which needed my hand on my lathe at home, or in some
other delicate affair that I could bring home with me.

We were teaching Frida English, my mother and I, and
she and I made a great frolic of her teaching me Swedish.
I would bring home Swedish newspapers and stories for
her, and we would puzzle them out together,--she as much
troubled to find the English word as I to find out the
Swedish. Then she sang like a bird when she was about
her household work, or when she sat sewing for my mother,
and she had not lived with us a fortnight before she
began to join us on Sunday evenings in the choruses of
the Methodist hymns which my mother and I sang together.
So then we made her sing Swedish hymns to us. And before
she knew it, the great tears would brim over her deep
eyes and would run down in pearls upon her cheek.
Nothing set her to thinking of her old home as those
Sunday evenings did. Of a Sunday evening we could make
her go out with us to church sometimes. Not but then she
would half cover her face with a veil, so afraid was she
that we might meet the Dane. But I told her that the
last place we should find him at would be at church on
Sunday evening.

I have come far in advance of my story, that I might
make any one who reads this life of mine to understand
how naturally and simply this poor lost bird nestled down
into our quiet life, and how the house that was
built for two proved big enough for three. For I made
some new purchases now, and fitted up the little middle
chamber for Frida's own use. We had called it the "spare
chamber" before, in joke. But now my mother fitted
pretty curtains to it, and other hangings, without
Frida's knowledge. I had a square of carpet made up at
the warehouse for the middle of the floor, and by making
her do one errand and another in the corner of the garden
one pleasant afternoon in November, we had it all
prettily fitted up for her room before she knew it. And
a great gala we made of it when she came in from
gathering the seeds of the calystegia, which she had been
sent for.

She looked like a northern Flora as she came in, with
her arms all festooned by the vines she had been pulling
down. And when my mother made her come out to the door
she had never seen opened before, and led her in, and
told her that this pretty chamber was all her own, the
pretty creature flushed crimson red at first, and then
her quick tears ran over, and she fell on my mother's
neck and kissed her as if she would never be done. And
then she timidly held her hand out to me, too, as I stood
in the doorway, and said, in her slow, careful English,--

"And you, too--and you, too. I must tank you both,
also, especially. You are so good--so good to de poor
lost girl!" That was a very happy evening.

But, as I say, I have gone ahead of my story. For
before we had these quiet evenings we were fated to have
many anxious ones and one stormy one.

The very first day that Frida was with us, I felt
sure that the savages would make another descent upon us.
They had heard her scream, that was certain. They knew
she had not passed them, that was certain. They knew
there was a coal-bin on the other side of our fence, that
was certain. They would have reason enough for being
afraid to have her at large, if, indeed, there were no
worse passion than fear driving some of them in pursuit
of her. I could not keep out of my mind the beastly look
of the Irishman who asked me, with such an ugly leer on
his face, if there were no passage through. Not that I
told either of the two women of my fears. But, all the
same, I did not undress myself for a week, and sat in the
great easy-chair in our kitchen through the whole of
every night, waiting for the least sound of alarm.

Next to the savages, I had always lived in fear of
being discovered in my retreat by the police, who would
certainly think it strange to find a man and his mother
living in a shed, without any practicable outside door,
in what they called a vacant lot.

But I have read of weak nations in history which were
fain to call upon one neighbor whom they did not like to
protect them against another whom they liked less.
I made up my mind, in like wise, to go round to the
police-station nearest me.

And so, having dressed myself in my black coat, and
put on a round hat and gloves, I bought me a Malacca
walking-stick, such as was then in fashion, and called
upon the captain in style. I told him I lived next the
church, and that on such and such a night there was a
regular row among roughs, and that several of them went
storming up the alley in a crowd. I said, "Although your
men were there as quick as they could come, these fellows
had all gone before they came." But then I explained
that I had seen a fellow hanging about the alley in the
daytime, who seemed to be there for no good; that there
was a hand-cart kept there by a workman, who seemed to be
an honest fellow, and, perhaps, all they wanted was to
steal that; that, if I could, I would warn him. But
meanwhile, I said, I had come round to the station to
give the warning of my suspicions, that if my rattle was
heard again, the patrolmen might know what was in the
wind.

The captain was a good deal impressed by my make-up
and by the ease of my manner. He affected to be
perfectly well acquainted with me, although we had never
happened to meet at the Century Club or at the Union
League. I confirmed the favorable impression I had made
by leaving my card, which I had had handsomely engraved:
"MR. ROBINSON CRUSOE." With my pencil I added my
down-town address, where, I said, a note or telegram
would find me.

I was not a day too soon with my visit to this
gentleman. That very night, after my mother and Frida
had gone to bed, as I sat in my easychair, there came
over me one of those strange intimations which I have
never found it safe to disregard. Sometimes it is of
good, and sometimes of bad. This time it made me certain
that all was not well. To relieve my fears I lifted my
ladder over the wall and dropped it in the alley. I
swung myself down and carried it to the very end of the
alley, to the place where I had dragged poor Frida in.
The moon fell on the fence opposite ours. My wing-fence
and hand-cart were all in shade. But everything was safe
there.

Again I chided myself for my fears, when, as I looked
up the alley to the street, I saw a group of four men
come in stealthily. They said not a word, but I could
make out their forms distinctly against the houses
opposite.

I was caught in my own trap!

Not quite! They had not seen me, for I was wholly in
shadow. I stepped quickly in at my own slide. I pushed
it back and bolted it securely, and with my heart in my
mouth, I waited at my hole of observation. In a minute
more they were close around me, though they did not
suspect I was so near.

They also had a dark-lantern, and, I thought,
more than one. They spoke in low tones; but as they
had no thought they had a hearer quite so near, I could
hear all they said.

"I tell you it was this side, and this is the side I
heard their deuced psalm-singing day before yesterday."

"What if he did hear psalm-singing? Are you going to
break into a man's garden because he sings psalms? I
came here to find out where the girl went to; and now you
talk of psalm-singing and coal-bins." This from another,
whose English was poor, and in whom I fancied I heard the
Dane. It was clear enough that be spoke sense, and a
sort of doubt fell on the whole crew; but speaker No. 1,
with a heavy crowbar he had, smashed into my pine wall,
as I have a right to call it now, with a force which made
the splinters fly.

"I should think we were all at Niblo's," said a man
of slighter build, "and that we were playing Humpty
Dumpty. Because a girl flew out of a window, you think
a fence opened to take her in. Why should she not go
through a door? and he kicked with his foot upon the
heavy sloping cellar-door of the church, which just rose
a little from the pavement. It was the doorway which
they used there when they took in their supply of coal.
The moon fell full on one side of it. To my surprise it
was loose and gave way.

"Here is where the girl flew to, and here is
where Bully Bigg, the donkey, let her slip out of
his fingers. I knew he was a fool, but I did not know he
was such a fool," said the Dane (if he were the Dane).

I will not pretend to write down the oaths and foul
words which came in between every two of the words I have
repeated.

"Fool yourself!" replied the Bully; "and what sort of
a fool is the man who comes up a blind alley looking
after a girl that will not kiss him when he bids her?"

"Anyway," put in another of the crew, who had just
now lifted the heavy cellar-door, "other people may find
it handy to hop down here when the `beaks' are too near
them. It's a handy place to know of in a dark night, if
the dear deacons do choose to keep it open for a poor
psalm-singing tramp, who has no chance at the station-
house. Here, Lopp, you are the tallest,--jump in and
tell us what is there;" and at this moment the Dane
caught sight of my unfortunate ladder, lying full in the
moonlight. I could see him seize it and run to the
doorway with it with a deep laugh and some phrase of his
own country talk, which I did not understand.

"The deacons are very good," said the savage who had
lifted the cellar-door. "They make everything handy for
us poor fellows."

And though he had not planted the ladder, he was the
first to run down, and called for the rest to follow.
The Dane was second, Lopp was third, and "The
Bully," as the big rascal seemed to be called by
distinction, was the fourth.

I saw him disappear from my view with a mixture of
wonder and terror which I will not describe. I seized my
light overcoat, which always hung in the passage. I
flung open my sliding-door and shut it again behind me.
I looked into the black of the cellar to see the
reflections from their distant lanterns, and without a
sound I drew up my ladder. Then I ran to the head of the
alley and sounded my rattle as I would have sounded the
trumpet for a charge in battle. The officers joined me
in one moment.

"I am the man who spoke to the captain about these
rowdies. Four of them are in the cellar of the church
yonder now."

"Do you know who?"

"One they called Lopp, and one they called Bully
Bigg," said I. "I do not know the others' names."

The officers were enraptured.

I led them, and two other patrolmen who joined us, to
the shelter of my wing-wall. In a few minutes the head
of the Dane appeared, as he was lifted from below. With
an effort and three or four oaths, he struggled out upon
the ground, to be seized and gagged the moment he stepped
back. With varying fortunes, Bigg and Lopp emerged, and
were seized and handcuffed in turn. The fourth
surrendered on being summoned.

What followed comes into the line of daily life and
the morning newspaper so regularly that I need not
describe it. Against the Dane it proved that endless
warrants could be brought immediately. His lair of
stolen baggage and other property was unearthed, and
countless sufferers claimed their own. I was able to
recover Frida's and her mother's possessions--the locks
on the trunks still unbroken. The Dane himself would
have been sent to the Island on I know not how many
charges, but that the Danish minister asked for him that
he might be hanged in Denmark, and he was sent and hanged
accordingly.

Lopp was sent to Sing-Sing for ten years, and has not
yet been pardoned.

Bigg and Cordon were sent to Blackwell's Island for
three years each. And so the land had peace for that
time.

That winter, as there came on one and another idle
alarm that Frida's brother might be heard from, my heart
sank with the lowest terror lest she should go away. And
in the spring I told her that if she went away I was sure
I should die. And the dear girl looked down, and looked
up, and said she thought--she thought she should, too.
And we told my mother that we had determined that Frida
should never go away while we stayed there. And she
approved.

So I wrote a note to the minister of the church which
had protected us so long, and one night we slid the
board carefully, and all three walked round, fearless of
the Dane, and Frida and I were married.

It was more than three years after, when I received
by one post three letters, which gave us great ground for
consultation. The first was from my old friend and
patron, the Spaniard. He wrote to me from Chicago, where
he, in his turn, had fallen in with a crew of savages,
who had stripped him of all he had, under the pretext of
a land-enterprise they engaged him in, and had left him
without a real, as he said. He wanted to know if I could
not find him some clerkship, or even some place as
janitor, in New York.

The second letter was from old Mr. Henry in
Philadelphia, who had always employed me after my old
master's death. He said that the fence around the lot in
Ninety-ninth Avenue might need some repairs, and he
wished I would look at it. He was growing old, he said,
and he did not care to come to New York. But the Fordyce
heirs would spend ten years in Europe.

The third letter was from Tom Grinnell.

I wrote to Mr. Henry that I thought he had better let
me knock up a little office, where a keeper might sleep,
if necessary; that there was some stuff with which I
could put up such an office, and that I had an old
friend, a Spaniard, who was an honest fellow, and if he
might have his bed in the office, would take
gratefully whatever his services to the estate proved
worth. He wrote me by the next day's mail that I might
engage the Spaniard and finish the office. So I wrote to
the Spaniard and got a letter from him, accepting the
post provided for him. Then I wrote to Tom Grinnell.

The last day we spent at our dear old home, I
occupied myself in finishing the office as Friend Henry
bade me. I made a "practicable door," which opened from
the passage on Church Alley. Then I loaded my hand-cart
with my own chest and took it myself, in my working
clothes, to the Vanderbilt Station, where I took a brass
check for it.

I could not wait for the Spaniard, but I left a
letter for him, giving him a description of the way I
managed the goats, and directions to milk and fatten
them, and to make both butter and cheese.

At half-past ten a "crystal," as those cabs were then
called, came to the corner of Fernando Street and Church
Alley, and so we drove to the station. I left the key of
the office, directed to the Spaniard, in the hands of the
baggage-master.

When I took leave of my castle, as I called it, I
carried with me for relics the great straw hat I had
made, my umbrella, and one of my parrots; also I forgot
not to take the money I formerly mentioned, which had
lain by me so long useless that it was grown rusty
and tarnished, and could scarcely pass for money till it
had been a little rubbed and handled. With these relics
and with my wife's and mother's baggage and my own chest,
we arrived at our new home.

-THE END-
Edward Everett Hale's short story: Crusoe In New York

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