Calvary Alley | Page 5

complete embalming outfit and a feeble little Yager who inherited
her father's tendency to spells.
Thus encumbered with two small girls, a less sanguine person would
have retired from the matrimonial market. But Mrs. Yager was not
easily discouraged; she was of a marrying nature, and evidently
resolved that neither man nor Providence should stand in her way.
Again casting a speculative eye over the field, she discerned a new
shop in the alley, the sign of which announced that the owner dealt in

"Bungs and Fawcetts." On the evening of the same day the chronic
ailment from which the kitchen sink had suffered for two years was
declared to be acute, and Mr. Snawdor was called in for consultation.
He was a timid, dejected person with a small pointed chin that trembled
when he spoke. Despite the easy conventions of the alley, he kept his
clothes neatly brushed and his shoes polished, and wore a collar on
week days. These signs of prosperity were his undoing. Before he had
time to realize what was happening to him, he had been skilfully jolted
out of his rut by the widow's experienced hand, and bumped over a
hurried courtship into a sudden marriage. He returned to consciousness
to find himself possessed of a wife and two stepchildren and moved
from his small neat room over his shop to the indescribable disorder of
Number One.
The subsequent years had brought many little Snawdors in their wake,
and Mr. Snawdor, being thus held up by the highwayman Life,
ignominiously surrendered. He did not like being married; he did not
enjoy being a father; his one melancholy satisfaction lay in being a
martyr.
Mrs. Snawdor, who despite her preference for the married state derived
little joy from domestic duties, was quite content to sally forth as a
wage-earner. By night she scrubbed office buildings and by day she
slept and between times she sought diversion in the affairs of her
neighbors.
Thus it was that the household burdens fell largely upon Nance
Molloy's small shoulders, and if she wiped the dishes without washing
them, and "shook up the beds" without airing them, and fed the babies
dill pickles, it was no more than older housekeepers were doing all
around her.
Late in the afternoon of the day of the fight, when the sun, despairing
of making things any hotter than they were, dropped behind the
warehouse, Nance, carrying a box of crackers, a chunk of cheese, and a
bucket of beer, dodged in and out among the push-carts and the barrels
of the alley on her way home from Slap Jack's saloon. There was a

strong temptation on her part to linger, for a hurdy-gurdy up at the
corner was playing a favorite tune, and echoes of the fight were still
heard from animated groups in various doorways. But Nance's ears still
tingled from a recent boxing, and she resolutely kept on her way until
she reached the worn steps of Number One and scurried through its
open doorway.
The nice distinction between a flat and a tenement is that the front door
of one is always kept closed, and the other open. In this particular
instance the matter admitted of no discussion, for there was no front
door. The one that originally hung under the fan-shaped Colonial arch
had long since been kicked in during some nocturnal raid, and had
never been replaced.
When the gas neglected to get itself lighted before dark at Number One,
you had to feel your way along the hall in complete darkness, until your
foot struck something; then you knew you had reached the stairs and
you began to climb. It was just as well to feel along the damp wall as
you went, for somebody was always leaving things on the steps for
people to stumble over.
Nance groped her way cautiously, resting her bucket every few steps
and taking a lively interest in the sounds and smells that came from
behind the various closed doors she passed. She knew from the angry
voices on the first floor that Mr. Smelts had come home "as usual"; she
knew who was having sauerkraut for supper, and whose bread was
burning.
The odor of cooking food reminded her of something. The hall was
dark and the beer can full, so she sat down at the top of the first flight
and, putting her lips to the foaming bucket was about to drink, when
the door behind her opened and a keen-faced young Jew peered out.
"Say, Nance," he whispered curiously, "have they swore out the
warrant on you yet?"
Nance put down the bucket and looked up at him with a fine air of
unconcern.

"Don't know and don't keer!" she said. "Where was you hidin' at, when
the fight was