Children of the Tenements | Page 3

healthy baby. Since then it had sickened with the rest. But
now, if the worst came to the worst, what was to become of the child?
The pedler was not given long to debate this new question. Even as he
sat staring dumbly at nothing in his perplexity, little Abe crawled out of
the yard with the news that "mamma was most deaded;" and though it
was not so bad as that, it was made clear to her husband when he found
her in one of her bad fainting spells, that things had come to a pass

where something had to be done. There followed a last ineffectual
interview with the landlord, a tearful leave-taking, and as the
ambulance rolled away with Hansche to the hospital, where she would
be a hundred times better off than in Hester Street, the pedler took little
Abe by the hand, and, carrying the child, set out to deliver it over to its
rightful owners. If he were rid of it, he and Abe might make a shift to
get along. It was a case, emphatically; in which two were company and
three a crowd.
He spied the father in Stanton Street where he was working, but when
he saw Adam he tried to run away. Desperation gave the pedler both
strength and speed, however, and he overhauled him despite his
handicaps, and thrust the baby upon him. But the father would have
none of it.
"Aber, mein Gott," pleaded the pedler, "vat I do mit him? He vas your
baby."
"I don't care what you do with her," said the hard-hearted father. "Give
her away--anything. I can't keep her."
And this time he really escaped. Left alone with his charge, the pedler
bethought himself of a friend in Pitt Street who had little children.
Where so many fed, there would be easily room for another. To Pitt
Street he betook himself, only to meet with another setback. They
didn't want any babies there; had enough of their own. So he went to a
widow in East Broadway who had none, to be driven forth with hard
words. What did a widow want with a baby? Did he want to disgrace
her? Adam Grunschlag visited in turn every countryman he knew of on
the East Side, and proposed to each of them to take the baby off his
hands, without finding a single customer for it. Either because it was
hurt by such treatment, or because it thought it time for Hansche's
attentions, the child at length set up a great cry. Little Abe, who had
trotted along bravely upon his four-years-old legs, wrapped in a big
plaid shawl, lost his grip at that and joined in, howling dolefully that he
was hungry.
Adam Grunschlag gave up at last and sat down on the curb, helpless

and hopeless. Hungry! Yes, and so was he. Since morning he had not
eaten a morsel, and been on his feet incessantly. Two hungry mouths to
fill beside his own and not a cent with which to buy bread. For the first
time he felt a pang of bitterness as he saw the shoppers hurry by with
filled baskets to homes where there was cheer and plenty. From the
window of a tenement across the way shone the lights of a Christmas
tree, lighted as in old-country fashion on the Holy Eve. Christmas!
What had it ever meant to him and his but hatred and persecution?
There was a shout from across the street and voices raised in laughter
and song. The children could be seen dancing about the tree, little room
though there was. Ah, yes! Let them make merry upon their holiday
while two little ones were starving in the street. A colder blast than
ordinary came up from the river and little Abe crept close to him,
wailing disconsolate within his shawl.
"Hey, what's this?" said a rough, but not unkindly voice at his elbow.
"Campin' out, shepherd fashion, Moses? Bad for the kids; these ain't the
hills of Judea."
It was the policeman on the beat stirring the trio gently with his club.
The pedler got up without a word, to move away, but little Abe, from
fright or hunger, set up such a howl that the policeman made him stop
to explain. While he did so, telling as briefly as he could about the
basement and Hansche and the baby that was not his, a silver quarter
found its way mysteriously into little Abe's fist, to the utter upsetting of
all that "kid's" notions of policemen and their functions. When the
pedler had done, the officer directed him to Police Headquarters where
they would take the baby, he need have no fear of that.
"Better leave this one there, too," was his parting counsel. Little