THE VIGIL OF McDOWELL SUTRO

OR the third time that afternoon the young man stood before the window of the post-office to ask the same question and to receive the same answer:

"Has any letter come for McDowell Sutro?"

"No."

This time he persisted, for he could not take no for an answer at that late hour of the day.

"Are you sure?" he asked, urgently.

"Certain sure," was the answer that came through the window.

"Will there be another mail from California to-night?" he inquired, clutching a last hope.

"Not to-night," responded the clerk.

The young man stood there for a second, staring unconsciously into the window, and not seeing anybody or anything. Then he turned slowly to go.

The clerk knew that look on the face of men who asked for letters, and he had a movement of kindness.

"Say, young feller!" he called, brusquely.

McDowell Sutro faced about instantly, with a swift flash of hope.

"If you're expecting money in that letter, maybe it's registered," suggested the clerk. "Ask over there in the corner."

"Thank you," the young man answered, gratefully; and he walked to the window in the corner with expectation again lighting his face.

But there was no registered letter for McDowell Sutro, and there could none arrive before the next morning. And as the handsome young Californian left the post-office he knew that he had hardly a right even to hope that the letter he was asking for should ever arrive.

He stepped out on Fifth Avenue; and though a warm June wind blew balmily up from Washington Square, his heart was chill within him. He shivered as he wondered what he was to do now. He knew no one in New York, and he had not a cent in his pocket.

In his youth he had expected to inherit a fortune, and so he learned no trade and studied no profession. He had taught himself how to be idle elegantly; he had never planned how to earn his own living. Perhaps this was the reason why he had failed to find any work to do during the two gliding weeks since he had suddenly been brought face to face with his final ten-dollar bill.

He had no more resources than he had friends. His trunk, with the little clothing he owned, was still at the boarding-house he had left ten days before; it was held by the landlady till he paid her what he owed. His modest jewelry had been pawned, bit by bit.

It was now about seven in the evening, and he had had no food since the coffee and cakes taken perhaps twelve hours earlier, and bought with the last dime left him after he had paid for his night's lodging. Having walked all day, he was weary and hungry, and he had no idea how he could get a roof over his head once again or fill his stomach once more. He had heard of men and women starving to death in the streets of New York, and he found himself inquiring if that were to be his fate.

Not guiding his steps consciously, he went up Fifth Avenue to the corner of Fourteenth Street, and then turned towards Broadway. The long June day was drawing to an end. Behind his back the red sun was settling down slowly. The street was crowded with cars and with carts; and people hurried along, eager to be with their families, and giving no attention to the homeless young man they brushed against.

When he came to Broadway it seemed to him as though the rush and the tumult redoubled, and as though the men and the women who passed him were being tossed to and fro by invisible breakers. The roar of the city rose all about him; it smote on his tired ears like the deafening crash of the surf after a northeaster. He likened himself to a spent swimmer about to have the life beaten out of him by the pounding of the waves, and certain sooner or later to be cast up on the beach, a stripped and bruised corpse.

So vividly did he picture this that involuntarily he straightened himself and drew a long breath. He was a good-looking young fellow, with a graceful brown mustache curling over his weak mouth. As he stood there, erect as though ready to fight for his life, more than one woman passing briskly along the street let his figure fill her eye with pleasure.

The cable-cars whisked around the curves before him, and beyond them he beheld the green fairness of Union Square. The freshness of its foliage as he saw it through the darksome twilight attracted him. He crossed cautiously, keeping a sharp lookout for the cars, and smiling as he noted how careful he was of his life, now he did not know how he was to sustain it.

As he stood at last in the verdant oasis in the centre of the square, suddenly the electric light whitewashed the pavement, and his unexpected shadow lay black and sprawling under his feet. He looked up, startled, and he saw the infinite arch of the sky curving over him—clear, cloudless, and illimitable. The faint sickle of the new moon hung low on the horizon. A towering building thrust its thin height into the air, and the yellow lights in its upper windows seemed like square panels inlaid in the deep blue of the sky. The beauty of the moment lifted him out of his present misery, and he was glad to be alive. The plash of the fountain fell on his ears and charmed them. The broad leaves of the aquatic plants swayed languidly as a gentle breeze blew across the surface of the water.

With a sigh of relief, McDowell Sutro dropped upon one of the park benches. Until he sat down he did not know how tired he was. His feet ached, and his stomach cried for food. And yet he was stout of heart. "If I've got to spend a night à la belle étoile," he said to himself, "I could have no better luck. There are beautiful stars a-plenty this evening. It's like that night in Venice when Tom Pixley and I took the two Morton girls out in our gondolas, and their aunt couldn't find us. I remember we had had a good dinner at Florian's, with an immense dish of risotto milanese—so big we had to leave some. I wish I had the chance again. I could finish it now if it was twice as much."

Over on Fourth Avenue, behind the equestrian statue of George Washington, there was a Hungarian restaurant, and from his bench at the edge of the grass McDowell Sutro could see the table right in the window at which an old man and a young woman were having dinner. He could follow every movement of their hands; he could count every mouthful they ate. At last he could bear it no longer, and he changed his seat to a bench nearer Broadway. Here he found himself facing another eating-room, in the broad windows of which many kinds of food were alluringly displayed. Men came out and lingered in the door-way long enough to light a cigarette.

When McDowell Sutro noted this, the craving for tobacco seized him. A smoke would not stay his stomach, but it would be a solace none the less. He rose to his feet and felt in all his pockets, in the vain hope that his fingers might touch some overlooked fragment of a cigar. There was something at the bottom of one of the pockets of his coat, but it mocked him by revealing itself as a match. He sank down on the bench and turned his eyes away from the restaurant, for he could not bear to gaze on the cakes and pies piled up behind the plate-glass, or to observe the smoke curling up from the lips of men who had eaten and drunk abundantly.

There was a bar-room under the hotel on the corner of Broadway, and every now and then two or three men pushed inside the swinging doors, to reappear five or ten minutes later. Farther down Broadway stood a theatre, and there was now a throng about its broad door-way. Another theatre faced the square, gay with prismatic signs and besprinkled with electric lights. McDowell Sutro watched men and women step up to the box-office of this place of amusement and buy their tickets and disappear within. He wondered why these men and women should have money to spare on a show, when he had not enough to pay for a meal and a night's lodging.

Perhaps it was the fatigue of his useless day, and perhaps it was the hypnotic influence of the revolving lights before the variety theatre, which caused the lonely young man to fall asleep. How long he slept he did not know, nor what waked him at last. But he had a doubtful memory of a human touch upon his body, and three of his pockets were turned inside out. When he discovered this, he laughed outright. The attempt to rob him then struck him as the funniest thing that had ever happened.

He must have slept for two or three hours at least, for the appearance of the square had changed. It was no longer evening; it was now night. While he looked about him he saw the doors of the theatre in Broadway pushed open, and the audience began to pour forth. A few moments later little knots of the play-goers passed him, still laughing with remembrance of the farce they had been witnessing. In another quarter of an hour the people began to come out of the other theatre, the variety show on the square, and the lights that flared above the door-way went out, all at once.

It was nearly midnight when two men sat down on the bench of which McDowell Sutro had been the sole occupant hitherto. They were tall and thin, both of them; they were clean-shaven; their clothes were shabby; and yet they carried themselves with an indescribable air, as though they were accustomed to brave the gaze of the world.

"No," said the elder of the two, continuing their conversation, "she's no good. She has a figure like a flat-iron and a voice like a fog-horn, hasn't she? Well, there's no draft in that, is there? She's a Jonah, that's what she is, and she'd hoo-doo any show. Why, the last time I was on the road she tried to queer my act. I called her down right there and then, and when the star backed her up, I was going to give my two weeks' notice; and I'd have done it, too, but I was playing cases then, and I didn't want to come back here walking on my uppers. But if I had quit, they'd have closed in a month, I tell you! They didn't know who was drawing the money to their old show; but I did! You ought to have been in the one-night towns on the oil circuit and heard me do Shamus O'Brien. That used to fetch 'em every night—I tell you it did! And it used to make her tired!"

"Did you ever see me play Laertes?" asked the younger. "I did it first in 'Frisco in '72, when Larry Barrett came out there. Well, while I was on the stage with him, Hamlet didn't get a hand. I've got a notice here now that said I was the Greatest Living Laertes."

"I played Iago once with Larry Barrett," said the first speaker, "and I gave them such a realistic impersonation they used to hiss me off the stage almost."

"Have a cigarette?" asked the other, holding out a package.

"Don't care if I do," was the answer. "I've got a match."

"That's lucky, for I haven't," said the owner of the cigarettes.

"Well, I haven't, after all," the elder actor had to confess, after a vain search in his pockets.

"Let me provide the match," broke in McDowell Sutro. "I've only one, but it's at your service."

"Thank you," was the response. "Can I not offer you a cigarette?"

"I don't care if I do," the young man answered, involuntarily repeating the phrase he had just heard, as he thrust out his hand eagerly.

The first whiff of the smoke was like meat and drink to him; and in the sensuous enjoyment of the luxury he almost neglected to respond to the remark addressed to him. But in a minute he found himself chatting with the two actors pleasantly. Although they had been to California more than once, they knew none of his friends; but it cheered merely to hear again the names of familiar landmarks. There was more than a suggestion of haughtiness in the way they both condescended to him; but he did not resent this, even if he remarked it. Human companionship was sweet to him; and to drop into a chat with casual strangers on a bench in Union Square at midnight, even this diminished the desolation of his loneliness.

The talk lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then the two other men rose to go. McDowell Sutro stood up also, as though he were at home and they were his guests.

"Come over and have a drink," said the elder of the two.

And again the young man answered, "I don't care if I do."

He would rather have had food than drink, but he could not tell two strangers that he was hungry.

As they passed before the statue of Lafayette and crossed the car tracks, he wondered whether the saloon where they were going to was one of those which set out a free lunch.

When they entered the bar-room his eyes swept it wolfishly, and then fixed themselves at the end of the counter, where there were broad dishes with cheese and crackers and sandwiches. He could hardly control himself; he wanted to rush there and snatch the food and devour it. But shame kept him standing near the door with the two actors, though his gaze was fastened on the dishes only a few feet from him.

The barkeeper set the bottle before them, and they poured out the liquor. Then they looked at each other and said, "How!"

The elder actor half finished his drink at a single gulp. As he set down his glass he caught McDowell Sutro staring at the free lunch.

"That's not a bad idea," he said, moving along the bar—"not half bad. I'll take a sandwich myself. I feel a bit hollow to-night. I got three encores after I gave them the 'Pride of Battery B,' and I need something to build me up. Have a sandwich?"

"I don't care if I do," responded the hungry man, as his fingers closed on the bread. Yet when he took the first mouthful it almost choked him.

Five minutes later he had said good-night to his two chance acquaintances and he was again back in the square. The scant food he had been able to take lay hard in his stomach, and the liquor he had drunk, little as that was also, was yet enough to make his head whirl. He did not walk unsteadily, although he was conscious that it took an effort for him to carry himself without swerving.

The bench on which he had been sitting was now occupied by four very young men in evening dress, who were gravely smoking pipes, as though they were trying to acquire a taste for this novel pastime. So he went to the centre of the square, where he stood for a while looking at the aquatic plants and listening to the spurtle of the fountain.

All the seats around the fountain were occupied by men and women, most of whom seemed to have settled themselves for the night, as though they were used to sleeping there. McDowell Sutro found himself speculating whether he, too, would soon be accustomed to spending his nights in the open air, without a roof over him.

One solid German had fallen into a slumber so heavy that his snore became a loud snort. Then a gray-coated policeman waked the sleeper by smiting the soles of his feet with the club.

"This park ain't no bedroom," said the policeman, "and I ain't goin' to have you fellows goin' to sleep here either! See?"

After walking three or four times around on the outer circle of the little park, the young man found a vacant seat on a bench near the corner of Broadway and Seventeenth Street. The brilliantly lighted cable-cars still glided swiftly up and down Broadway with their insistent gongs, but they were now fewer and fewer; and the cross-town horse-cars passed only two or three an hour. The long day of the city was nearly over at last, and for the two or three hours before dawn there would be peace and a cessation of the struggle.

As he sat back on the bench, sick with weariness, the occupant of the seat next to him aroused herself. She was an elderly woman, with grizzled hair.

"I beg your pardon—if I waked you up?" said the young man.

"You did wake me up," she answered, "but I forgive you. It's only cat-naps I get anyway nowadays. I haven't stretched my legs out between the sheets and had my fill of sleep for a month of Sundays. And I'm a glutton for sleeping if I've the chance. But I'm getting used to sitting up late," and she laughed without bitterness. "What time is it now?" she asked.

McDowell Sutro involuntarily lifted his hand to the pocket of his waistcoat, and then he dropped it quickly. Blushing, he answered, "I don't know—I—"

"Time's up, isn't it?" she returned, with a laugh of understanding. "I haven't got my watch with me either; I left it in my other clothes at my uncle's. But Mr. Tiffany is a kind-hearted man, and he keeps a clock all lighted up for us to see. Your eyes are younger than mine—what time is it now?"

McDowell Sutro looked intently for half a minute before he could make out the hour. At last he answered, "It's almost half-past one, I think."

"Then I've a couple of hours for another nap before the sparrows wake us all up," she returned. "Is it the first night you have come to this hotel of ours?"

"Yes," he replied.

"I thought so," she continued, "by your feeling for your watch. You'll get out of the way of doing that soon."

His face blanched with fear that she might be predicting the truth. Would the time ever come when he should be used to sleeping in the open air?

The old woman turned a little, so that she could look at him.

"It's a handsome young fellow you are," she went on; "there's more than one house in town where they'd take you in on your looks—and tuck you up in bed, too, and keep you warm."

"Perhaps I'm better off here," he remarked, feeling that he was expected to say something.

"This isn't a bad hotel of ours, this isn't," she returned; "it's well ventilated, for one thing. Of course you can go to the station-house if you want. I don't. I've tried it, and I'd sooner sleep in the snow than in the station-house, with the creatures you meet there. This hotel of ours here keeps open all night; and it's on the European plan, I'm thinking—leastwise you can have anything you can pay for. When the owl-wagon is here, you can get a late supper—if you have the price of it. I haven't."

"Neither have I," he answered.

"Then there's two of us ready for an invite to breakfast," she responded, cheerily. "If any one asks us, it's no previous engagement will make us decline, I'm thinking."

He made no answer, for his heart sank as he looked into the future.

"Are you hungry now?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, simply.

"So am I," she replied, "and I can't get used to it. Hunger is like pain, isn't it? It don't let go of you; it don't get tired and let up on you. It's a stayer, that's what it is, and it keeps right on attending strictly to business. Sometimes, when I'm very hungry, I feel like committing suicide, don't you?"

"No," he responded—"at least, not yet; I haven't had enough of life to be tired of it so soon."

"Neither have I," was her answer. "Sometimes I'm ready to quit, but somehow I don't do it. But it would be so easy; you throw yourself in front of one of those cable-cars coming down Broadway now—and you'll get rapid transit to kingdom come. But they don't sell excursion tickets. Besides, being crunched by a cable-car is a dreadful mussy way of dying, don't you think? And to-day's Friday, too—and I don't believe I'd ever have any luck in the next world if I was to commit suicide on a Friday."

"This isn't Friday any longer," he suggested; "it's Saturday morning."

"So it is now," she rejoined; "then we'd better be getting our beauty-sleep as soon as we can, for the flower-market here will wake us up soon enough, seeing it's Saturday. And so, good-night to you!"

"Good-night!" he responded.

"And may you dream you've found a million dollars in gold, and then wake up and find it true!" she continued.

"Thank you," he replied, wondering what manner of woman his neighbor might be.

She said nothing more, but settled herself again and closed her eyes. She was dressed in rusty black, and she had a thin black shawl over her head. She had been a very handsome woman—so she impressed the young man by her side—and he was wholly at a loss to guess how she came to be here, in the street, at night, without money and alone. She seemed out of place there; for her manner, though independent, was not defiant. There was no rasping harshness in her tones; indeed, her talk was dashed with joviality. Her speech even puzzled him, although he thought that showed her to be Irish.

Turning these things over in his mind, he fell asleep. He dreamed the same dream again and again—a dream of a barbaric banquet, where huge outlandish dishes were placed on the table before him. The savor of them was strange to his nostrils, but it brought the water to his mouth. Then, when he made as though to help himself and stay his appetite, the whole feast slid away beyond his reach, and finally faded into nothing. The dream differed in detail every time he dreamed it; and the last time the only dish on the board before him was a gigantic pasty, which he succeeded in cutting open, only to behold four-and-twenty blackbirds fly forth. The birds circled about his head, and then returned to the empty shell of the pasty, and perched there, and sang derisively.

So loudly did they sing that McDowell Sutro awoke, and he heard in the trees above him and behind him the chirping and twittering of countless sparrows.

He recalled what the old woman had said—that the birds would wake them up. Probably they had aroused her first, for the place on the bench next to him was empty.

He rose to his feet and looked about him. It was almost daybreak, and already there were rosy streaks in the eastern sky. A squirrel was running up and down a large tree in the middle of the grass-plot behind the bench on which he had been sleeping. In the open space at the northern end of the square there were a dozen or more gardeners' wagons, thick with growing flowers in pots, and men were arranging these plants in rows upon the pavement. Another heavy wagon, loaded with roses only, rolled across the car track and disturbed a flock of pigeons that swirled aloft for a moment and then settled down again. A moist breeze blew up from the bay, and brought a warning of rain to come later in the day.

The sleepers on the other benches here and there throughout the square were waking, one by one. McDowell Sutro saw one of them go to the drinking-fountain and wash his hands and face. He followed this example as best he could. When he had made an end of this his eye fell on Tiffany's clock, which told the hour of half-past four. A few minutes later the first rays of the sun began to gild the cornices of the tall buildings which towered above the Lincoln statue.

Within the next hour and a half the cable-cars began to pass down-town more frequently, and the cross-town cars from the ferries also came closer together. The gardeners' wagons and the plants taken from them filled the broad space at the upper end of the square. Milk-carts rattled across the car tracks that bounded the square on all four sides. The signs of the coming day multiplied, and McDowell Sutro noted them all, one after another, with unfailing interest, despite the gnawing pain in his stomach. It was the first time he had ever seen the awakening of a great city.

He walked away from Union Square as far as Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, and again as far as Third Avenue and Fourteenth Street; but he found himself always returning to the flower-market. At last a hope sprang up within him. Among the purchasers were ladies not strong enough to carry home the heavy pots, and perhaps he might pick up a job. This was not the way he wanted to earn his daily bread, but never before had he felt the want of the daily bread so keenly.

When he came back to the line of gardeners' wagons he found other men out of work also hanging about in the hope of making an honest penny; and more than once he saw one or another of these others sent away, burdened with tall plants.

At last he took his courage in his hand, and went up to a little old lady whom he had seen going from row to row. She had bright eyes and a gentle manner and a kindly smile. He asked her, if she bought anything, to let him carry it home for her. She looked at the handsome young fellow, and her glance was as shrewd as it seemed to him sympathetic.

"Yes," she answered, "I think I can trust you."

A minute or two later she bargained with a Scotch gardener for two azaleas in full bloom. Then she turned to McDowell Sutro:

"Will you take those to the Post-Graduate Hospital, corner of Second Avenue and Twentieth Street, for half a dollar?"

"Yes," he answered, eagerly.

"Very well," she responded. "They are for the Babies' Wards. Say that they are from Miss Van Dyne. The Babies' Wards, you understand? And here is your money. I've got to trust you; but you have an honest face, and I don't believe that you would rob sick children of the sight and smell of the flowers they love."

"No," said McDowell Sutro, "I wouldn't." He picked up the heavy pots, and held one in the hollow of each arm. "The Babies' Wards of the Post-Graduate Hospital, from Miss Van Dyne? Is that it?"

"That's it," she answered, with her illuminating smile.

He walked off with the plants. Having the money in his pocket to break his fast, it seemed as though he could not get to the hospital swiftly enough. But when he had handed in the flowers, and was on his way back again to the square, he remembered suddenly the woman who had sat by him on the bench, and who had been hungry also. He had fifty cents in his pocket now, and in the window of an eating-house on Fourth Avenue he saw the sign, "Regular Breakfast, 25 cts." He had money enough to buy two regular breakfasts, one for himself and one for her.

He made the circle of the little park three times, besides traversing it in every direction, and then he had to confess that she was beyond his reach.

So he went to the restaurant alone, and had a regular breakfast all to himself.

When he came forth he felt refreshed, and the people who were now hurrying along the streets struck him as happier than those he had seen in the gray dawn. The long sunbeams were lighting the side streets. The workmen with their dinner-pails were giving place to the shop-girls with their luncheons tied up in paper.

The roar of the great city arose once more as the mighty tide of humanity again swept through its thoroughfares.

He went back to the gardeners' wagons, believing that he might earn another half-dollar. But when he saw other men waiting there hungrily, he turned away, thinking it only fair to give them a chance too.

He found a seat in the sun, and looked on while the flower-market was stripped by later purchasers. He wondered where the plants were all going, and then he remembered that the same flowers serve for the funeral and for the wedding. For the first time it struck him as strange that the plant which dresses a dinner-table to-day may gladden a sick-room to-morrow, and be bedded on a grave the day after.

At last he thought the hour had come when the post-office would be open again, and he set off for Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street.

When he reached the station he checked his walk. He did not dare go in, although the doors were open, and he could see other men and women asking questions at the little square windows. What if his questions should meet with the same answer as yesterday? What if he should have to spend another night in Union Square?

He nerved himself at last and entered. As he approached the window the clerk looked at him with a glance of recognition.

"McDowell Sutro, isn't it? Yes—there is a letter for you. Overweight, too—there's four cents extra postage to pay."

The young man's hand trembled as he put down the quarter left after paying for his regular breakfast. He seized the envelope swiftly, and almost forgot to pick up his change, till the clerk reminded him of it.

He tore the letter open. It was from Tom Pixley; it contained a post-office order for fifty dollars; and it began:

"MY DEAR MAC,—Go and see Sam Sargent, 78 Broadway, and he will get you a place on the surveyor's staff for the new line of the Barataria Central. I'm writing to him by this mail, and—"

But for a minute McDowell Sutro could read no further. His eyes had filled with tears.

(1895.)