CHAPTER II
THE SAVING LEDGE
David, in a kind of trance, followed Mr. Rogers over the six-storyhouse, hardly hearing the agent's discourse upon his duties and thetenants. Twenty-four families and a considerable number of boarderslived in the tenement--in all, close to a hundred and a half souls. Theywere mostly Germans and Jews--tailors, furriers, jewellers,shop-keepers; people who were beginning to gain a fair footing in theiradopted country. David's work was to be much as the Mayor had outlined.The halls were to be daily swept and frequently scrubbed, minor repairsto be executed, the furnace to be attended to, and ashes, waste-paperand kitchen-refuse to be separated and prepared for the city's ash andgarbage wagons.
The tour of installation ended, David started for his old home to beginthe removal, armload at a time, of his few belongings. As he walkedamong the school-hurrying children, over snow grimed by ten thousandfeet, he felt dazed for fear that this world of hope he had enteredmight suddenly vanish. Failure had been his so constantly that thisbeginning of success seemed unreal. He dared allow himself to feel onlya tentative exultation.
At the entrance of his old tenement he met Kate Morgan coming out. Hehad not seen her since she had glided past him through Mr. Allen's hall,suit-case in hand. He stopped, at a loss what to do or say, wonderinghow she would receive him.
"Good afternoon," he said, heavily.
She paled, looked him squarely in the face and passed without a word.With a pang he watched her walk stiffly away. Her friendship, save forTom's, was the only friendship he had known since he had left prison.Now it was lost.
An hour later, as he was coming from his room with his last armload, hemet her again. She sneered in his face. "Coward!" she snapped out andbrushed him by. He called after her, but she marched on and into herdoor without looking back.
David had thought his "rent" would be a single room, but it had provedto be a five-room flat in the basement. In the front room of this,during the odd moments his afternoon's work allowed him, he arranged hisbelongings, to which Mr. Rogers had added a bed, a table and a couple ofchairs. When all was in order he found the room looked bare, beyond hisneeds. After all, his "rent" might as well have been but a single room.Little good to him were the four rooms behind, locked and vacant.
Darkness had fallen and he was sitting in his room wondering how hewould live through the month that must elapse before his salary would bedue, when Mr. Rogers came in.
"It has occurred to me that perhaps you could use a little ready money,"Mr. Rogers said in his low voice, and he laid several bills uponDavid's table. "There's one month's wages in advance." And before Davidhad recovered from his surprise, Mr. Rogers was out of the room.
While David was still staring at this money, there was another knock. Heopened the door upon the Mayor of Avenue A. The Mayor walked in andlowered himself into the one rocking-chair.
"Well, I see you've landed with Rogers," he called out, as though Davidwere a block away. "You'll find Rogers quiet, but the real thing. He'sgot a heart that really beats."
He looked about. "Just usin' this one room, I see. What're you doin'with the others?"
"Nothing."
"Why don't you rent 'em?"
"D'you think I can?"
"Can? You can't help it. Why, only yesterday a family was askin' me tohelp 'em find a cheap flat. Le's see how much them four rooms would beworth. I pay thirty a month up on the second floor; this might fetchsixteen or eighteen. You've got the best room; take that off andsay--well, say twelve a month. How'd that suit you?"
"If I could only get it!"
The Mayor drew out a fat wallet. "That fixes my family up, then. Here'syour twelve."
"You're in earnest?" David asked, slowly.
"Sure. The family'll be in to-morrow."
"But I can't take the money in advance--and from you."
"It ain't my money. It's theirs. And advance!--nothin'! Rent's always inadvance. And if I don't cinch the bargain now, somebody'll come alongand offer you thirteen, and then where'll I be? Here, stick this in yourpants and shut up!"
David took the money. "Mr. Hoffman, I don't know how I can ever thankyou for your favours--"
"Oh, this ain't no favour. This's business. But if you think it's afavour--well, some day I may be on my uppers. Remember it then." Apillowy hand drew forth his watch, lit up with diamonds. "Well, byGeorge, if I don't chase right over to my joint I won't even have anyuppers. My blamed waiters's always forgettin' to water the soup!"
When he was alone David sat with eyes looking at his fortune, which hehad heaped upon the table, and with mind looking at the situation inwhich he now found himself. Five years before he would have regardedthis janitor's position much as a man on a green, sun-lit bank of acliff-walled torrent would regard a little bare ledge below againstwhich the water frothed in anger--as something not worth even a casualthought. But he had been in that stream, which sweeps its prey onward todestruction; his hands had slipped from its smooth walls; and just as hehad been going down he had caught the little ledge and dragged himselfupon it--and now this bare rock to him was the world. He did not thinkof the green fields and the sun above, toward which he must try toclimb; he could only, as it were, lie gasping upon his back, and marvelat the miracle of his escape.
He was still sitting so when there was still another knock. He hadasked his landlady to send Tom over when the boy returned, and as hecrossed the room he hoped he would find Tom at the door. Sure enough,there stood the boy. He came in quietly, with hesitation, for during thepast week and more the two had hardly spoken--they had merely been awareof one another's existence.
"What's all dis mean?" he asked slowly, looking round in amazement.
In a rush of spirits David clapped his hands on Tom's shoulders. "Itmeans, my boy, that we're going to begin to live! See this room? Therent's paid for as long as we stay here. And look at the table!"
Tom looked instead at David's face. "Gee, pard, if you ain't got agrin!" he cried. Forthwith a grin appeared on his own face. He turned tothe table--and stared.
"Say, look at de bank!" he gasped.
"That's something to eat, Tom. And new clothes. There's twenty-fourdollars in that pile, and twenty-four coming in every month, with norent to pay."
"Don't say nuttin, pard. If dis is a dream, just let me sleep. Butwhat's de graft? How did you get next to all dis?"
David related his day's experience. When he had ended Tom did a fewsteps of a vaudeville dance, then seized David's hand.
"Well, ain't dis luck! It's like God woke up. But what you goin' to dowid all de coin?"
"Oh, buy railroads and such things!"
David held on to the hand the boy had given him and took the other."Tom," he said gravely, looking down into the boy's face, "I've got anidea neither of us is very proud of all the things he's done lately.D'you think so?"
The boy's eyes fell to the floor.
"I shouldn't care to tell you all I've done. Should you care to tellme?"
The tangled head shook.
"Well, from now on we're going to be straight--all on the level. Aren'twe?"
Tom looked up. "I guess we are, pard," he said in a low voice.
They looked steadily into each other's eyes for a moment. Then Davidgave Tom a quick push. "On with your hat, my boy! Let's see if thegrocery man won't take some of this money."
After their dinner had been bought, eaten, and the dishes cleared away,David began to tack up prints. Tom meditatively watched him for severalminutes, then suddenly announced:
"I seen her to-day."
David turned sharply. He knew the answer, but he asked, "Saw who?"
"You know. De lady what I fetched up. I seen her on de street."
David tried to appear unconcerned. "Did she say anything?"
"She asked how you was."
"What did you tell her?"
"I didn't know what to say. I was afraid o' queerin' somet'ing you might'a' told her. I just said you was better."
David tacked up another print, during which time Tom again watched himthoughtfully. Then Tom asked, abruptly:
"She's a friend o' yourn, ain't she?"
"No."
"I t'ought she was!" His voice was disappointed. "Why ain't she?"
"Well--I guess she don't like me."
"Don't like you!" cried Tom indignantly. "Den she's had a bum steer!" Hethought. "I wonder what's queered her agin' you?"
"Oh, several things," David answered vaguely. Then obeying an impulse,born of the universal craving for sympathy, he went on: "For one thing,she believes I put you up to stealing."
"She t'inks you knew anyt'ing about dat!" he cried, springing upexcitedly.
"She believes you were stealing regularly, and that it was all doneunder my direction."
"Is dat de way she sizes up de facts? Well, ain't dat just like a woman!Wouldn't it just freeze your eyeballs, de way goils do t'ings!
"But see here, pard. Swell friends can do a guy a lot o' good. Why don'tyou hang on to her? Why don't you put her wise?"
"She wouldn't believe me. My boy--" the tone tried to be light--"whenthe world is certain to regard your truth as a lie, it's just as well tokeep still."
David went on with his tacking, and a minute or more went by before Tomasked, quietly: "But wouldn't you like her to know de facts? Wouldn'tyou like her to be your friend?"
"Oh, yes--why not?" David responded in his voice of affected unconcern.
Tom gazed steadily at David's back, his thin face wrinkled with thought.At length his head nodded, and he said to himself in a whisper: "So shet'inks he put me up to it, does she?"