In Miggles’ Alley.

BY HERMAN BROWNSON.

His real name was Tim O’Hagan, but in Miggles’ Alley he was familiarly known as Shingles. This was because, while a bootblack by profession, he spent a large share of his life on the roof of a five-story tenement house, tending his baby brother. On this particular occasion, however, he rose above his callings of bootblack and nursemaid, and became a hero.

The region about Miggles’ Alley is not precisely a hotbed of heroism. Indeed, there is probably not a corner of America in which the poverty-stricken and depraved of all nations meet in such strength as here, where the social sewers from the four corners of the earth seem to empty themselves. But Shingles, looking down upon the streets from the high plane of the tenement housetop, saw more of the color, and whirl, and bigness of the streets than of their mud and meanness. He saw the circus parade as it swept gleaming by. He saw the crowd pouring through the neighboring streets,—a black river of humanity.

Best of all, he looked almost daily on the wonderful maneuvers of the fire company, whose engine house, opposite one entrance of the tenement house, was Shingles’ favorite resort. On those rare occasions when he was free to ply his trade, Shingles earned several dimes and nickels, and incidentally many golden opinions, from the good-natured fire laddies, who recognized a kindred spirit in this mite of ten. And when chained by duty to his post on the roof, Shingles could, if he liked, exchange occasional salutes with the objects of his worship as they lounged in the street below. As for those moments when the alarm gong rang, and his friends at the engine house jumped into their places on the hose carriage or the hook-and-ladder trucks, and were whirled off to scenes of adventure, those were periods of combined pride and pain to Shingles. The pride was for his comrades; the pain that he, by reason of his ten years and absorbing occupation, was cut off from any share in these deeds of daring. Only in make-believe could he climb ladders and rescue people from burning buildings; and, while it was easy to play circus parade with the baby and pussy cat in a soap-box on rollers for the band chariot, the heroism of the fire laddie called for a greater exercise of talent.

On this June morning Shingles’ mother, who was to-day engaged in scrubbing at one of the big insurance buildings on Broadway, left the youngster with his charge on the roof, screaming back strict injunctions to the boy to keep the baby amused. To this task Shingles addressed himself with an ardor born of the beautiful day and the necessity for some occupation for the long hours that stretched between now and supper-time. What could he do to amuse the baby and incidentally himself? Why, “play fire,” of course. His engine house experience, joined to his observations from the roof, had given him a familiarity with the fire laddies’ modes of operation that resulted in the most stirring realism. The baby seemed pleased, and listened with open-mouthed wonder, while big brother imitated the clatter and clangor of the engine gong or the hoarse shouts of the firemen, and gazed with special delight at Tim’s astonishing climb up an imaginary ladder as foreman of the Rescue Corps. Indeed, he was so much amused by this new game that he did not wince while Shingles tied one end of the clothes-line around the tiny figure, puffing and blowing laboriously for imaginary smoke the while. Baby even thought it great fun, until brother bore him over to the edge of the roof and began to let him down, down,—a tiny morsel of humanity dangling five stories above the pavements of Miggles’ Alley. Then fun changed to fright, and baby set up a lusty howl. It was this scream that aroused Shingles from his realistic play to the grim earnestness of the situation. There was no ladder waiting below; there were no brave comrades,—only himself, a mite of ten, clutching in his small hand the very end of the rope from which dangled the helpless figure of his tiny brother. Real fear gripped at the little fellow’s heart. Slowly, painfully, he began to pull in that endless length of line. Inch by inch he brought that tiny, swaying figure nearer to the housetop. Then suddenly a knot in the rope caught in the iron railing. Cold perspiration rolled down the little fellow’s cheeks. Already his strength was failing him. To slacken a single foot meant to loosen his hold altogether. He tried to call for help, but the shrill little voice attracted no more attention than had the baby’s feebler wail. In the neighborhood of Wiggles’ Alley children lift up their voices in lamentation so often that nothing short of an alarm of fire or murder excites special notice. Suddenly, in this moment of agonizing terror, the boy was seized by an inspiration. On his left rose a large chimney. Around this the little fellow drew the taut rope, making it fast to the clothes-hook in the masonry. Then he rushed to the edge of the roof, and shouted, “Fire, fire, in Miggles’ Alley!”

At this sound the firemen lounging in the street below leaped to their feet. Looking up, they recognized the figure on the roof’s edge as that of their little comrade, and, convinced that this was no false alarm, rushed into the engine house. A moment later the street below resounded with the rumble of trucks, the whang of gongs, and the rush of the surging crowd. In this focal point of cosmopolitan New York, where a quarter of a million people are located within a stone’s throw of a common center, the elements of a stirring scene are always at hand. At the sound of the alarm, Chinamen crept from their basement bunks in Mott Street,—reeking with opium, and dazed by the noise; long-haired Hebrews tumbled into the alley from their sweat shops; swarthy Italians came pell-mell from their hovels; and the Arab lost his fez, which, in the surging crowds, was trampled under foot. By the time that the engines and hook-and-ladder company reached the alley they found it jammed with a mass of excited humanity, whose eyes were focused upon a tiny white bundle that swayed in mid-air, seventy feet above the pavement. At once the firemen realized that they had been duped; but the necessity for effort did not escape them. Up shot the great ladders, one above another, and then an agile rescuer began the swift ascent. The crowd cheered in a babel of tongues; but as the climber reached the last few rounds, and began creeping out over the slender threads towards the precious prize, a hush fell upon the multitude. Now he was almost there—now he stood directly under the dangling mite—now he put forth his hand with extremest caution. The crowd stood on tiptoe. Not a soul breathed. Then, just as the strong hand touched the hem of the little frock, the child began struggling once more, this time so violently that, in the very moment of apparent safety, it slipped from the noose and fell.

In that moment even the hardened faces of the multitude below, accustomed to sights of all degrees of danger and wickedness, blanched with terror; eyes bleared by drink or opium were shudderingly averted from the awful scene that seemed inevitable. Meantime the tiny bundle of humanity, in its wild plunge downward, struck a rope stretched across the alley, hanging full of wet clothes. The strand broke with the strain, and the child was lost in the flying mass of white. A few stray rags fluttered down—but the baby—? It had disappeared like a wraith. Strong arms outstretched to make a desperate effort to catch the flying waif fell helpless at many a side. The vast crowd stood speechless, dumfounded.

An instant later a deaf old Irish woman in the second story tenement looked up from her work and gave a shrill cry of surprise as she saw crawling through the window that led from the fire-escape where she had just laid her feather-bed to air, an almost naked child with scarlet bars around its little body. “By all the saints together!” she cried, dropping on her knees, “if thot kid didn’t rain down from heaven oi’ll niver say another pather noster as long as I live!”

And it took the combined eloquence of Shingles and his distracted mother to convince the old lady of the child’s earthly origin.