Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance

  XI

  I could not make out whether Mr. Makely approved of his wife's philosophyor not; I do not believe he thought much about it. The money probablycame easily with him, and he let it go easily, as an American likes todo. There is nothing penurious or sordid about this curious people, sofierce in the pursuit of riches. When these are once gained, they seem tohave no value to the man who has won them, and he has generally no objectin life but to see his womankind spend them.

  This is the season of the famous Thanksgiving, which has now become thenational holiday, but has no longer any savor in it of the grimPuritanism it sprang from. It is now appointed by the president and thegovernors of the several states, in proclamations enjoining a piousgratitude upon the people for their continued prosperity as a nation, anda public acknowledgment of the divine blessings. The blessings aresupposed to be of the material sort, grouped in the popular imaginationas good times, and it is hard to see what they are when hordes of men andwomen of every occupation are feeling the pinch of poverty in theirdifferent degrees. It is not merely those who have always the wolf attheir doors who are now suffering, but those whom the wolf neverthreatened before; those who amuse as well as those who serve the richare alike anxious and fearful, where they are not already in actual want;thousands of poor players, as well as hundreds of thousands of poorlaborers, are out of employment, and the winter threatens to be one ofdire misery. Yet you would not imagine from the smiling face of things,as you would see it in the better parts of this great city, that therewas a heavy heart or an empty stomach anywhere below it. In fact, peoplehere are so used to seeing other people in want that it no longer affectsthem as reality; it is merely dramatic, or hardly so lifelike as that--itis merely histrionic. It is rendered still more spectacular to theimaginations of the fortunate by the melodrama of charity they areinvited to take part in by endless appeals, and their fancy is flatteredby the notion that they are curing the distress they are only slightlyrelieving by a gift from their superfluity. The charity, of course, isbetter than nothing, but it is a fleeting mockery of the trouble, at thebest. If it were proposed that the city should subsidize a theatre awhich the idle players could get employment in producing good plays at amoderate cost to the people, the notion would not be considered moreridiculous than that of founding municipal works for the different sortsof idle workers; and it would not be thought half so nefarious, for theproposition to give work by the collectivity is supposed to be incontravention of the sacred principle of monopolistic competition sodear to the American economist, and it would be denounced as anapproximation to the surrender of the city to anarchism and destructionby dynamite.

  But as I have so often said, the American life is in no wise logical, andyou will not be surprised, though you may be shocked or amused, to learnthat the festival of Thanksgiving is now so generally devoted towitnessing a game of football between the elevens of two greatuniversities that the services at the churches are very scantilyattended. The Americans are practical, if they are not logical, and thispreference of football to prayer and praise on Thanksgiving-day has goneso far that now a principal church in the city holds its services onThanksgiving-eve, so that the worshippers may not be tempted to keep awayfrom their favorite game.

  There is always a heavy dinner at home after the game, to console thefriends of those who have lost and to heighten the joy of the winningside, among the comfortable people. The poor recognize the day largelyas a sort of carnival. They go about in masquerade on the easternavenues, and the children of the foreign races who populate that quarterpenetrate the better streets, blowing horns and begging of the passers.They have probably no more sense of its difference from the old carnivalof Catholic Europe than from the still older Saturnalia of pagan times.Perhaps you will say that a masquerade is no more pagan than a footballgame; and I confess that I have a pleasure in that innocentmisapprehension of the holiday on the East Side. I am not more censoriousof it than I am of the displays of festival cheer at the provision-storesor green-groceries throughout the city at this time. They are almost asnumerous on the avenues as the drinking-saloons, and, thanks to them, thetasteful housekeeping is at least convenient in a high degree. The wasteis inevitable with the system of separate kitchens, and it is not inprovisions alone, but in labor and in time, a hundred cooks doing thework of one; but the Americans have no conception of our co-operativehousekeeping, and so the folly goes on.

  Meantime the provision-stores add much to their effect of crazy gayety onthe avenues. The variety and harmony of colors is very great, and thismorning I stood so long admiring the arrangement in one of them that I amafraid I rendered myself a little suspicious to the policeman guardingthe liquor-store on the nearest corner; there seems always to be apoliceman assigned to this duty. The display was on either side of theprovisioner's door, and began, on one hand, with a basal line of pumpkinswell out on the sidewalk. Then it was built up with the soft white andcool green of cauliflowers and open boxes of red and white grapes, to thewindow that flourished in banks of celery and rosy apples. On the otherside, gray-green squashes formed the foundation, and the wall was slopedupward with the delicious salads you can find here, the dark red ofbeets, the yellow of carrots, and the blue of cabbages. The associationof colors was very artistic, and even the line of mutton carcassesoverhead, with each a brace of grouse or half a dozen quail in itsembrace, and flanked with long sides of beef at the four ends of theline, was picturesque, though the sight of the carnage at theprovision-stores here would always be dreadful to an Altrurian; in thegreat markets it is intolerable. This sort of business is mostly in thehands of the Germans, who have a good eye for such effects as may bestudied in it; but the fruiterers are nearly all Italians, and theirstalls are charming. I always like, too, the cheeriness of the chestnutand peanut ovens of the Italians; the pleasant smell and friendly smokethat rise from them suggest a simple and homelike life which there are soany things in this great, weary, heedless city to make one forget.