Maggie

Maggie

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Title: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Author: Stephen Crane
Release Date: February, 1996 [EBook #447] [This edition was posted
on December 25, 2002] [Most recently updated: August 14, 2003]
Edition: 12

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MAGGIE:
A GIRL OF THE STREETS ***

This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska.
MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS BY STEPHEN CRANE
Chapter I
A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum
Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row
who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him.
His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was
writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths.
"Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll get yehs," screamed a retreating Rum Alley
child.
"Naw," responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, "dese micks can't make
me run."
Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tattered
gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their
small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they
charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus.
The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the
other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was
gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was
dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of a tiny,
insane demon.

On the ground, children from Devil's Row closed in on their antagonist.
He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and fought with
cursing fury. The little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stones and
swearing in barbaric trebles.
From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid
squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers,
unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and
regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a
railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts
came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the
river's bank.
A stone had smashed into Jimmie's mouth. Blood was bubbling over
his chin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on his
dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak,
causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of the first part of the
fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter.
In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's Row children there were
notes of joy like songs of triumphant savagery. The little boys seemed
to leer gloatingly at the blood upon the other child's face.
Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of sixteen years,
although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon his
lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye. Between
his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked
with a certain swing of the shoulders which appalled the timid. He
glanced over into the vacant lot in which the little raving boys from
Devil's Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful child from Rum
Alley.
"Gee!" he murmured with interest. "A scrap. Gee!"
He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his shoulders in a manner
which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He approached at the
back of one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil's Row children.

"Ah, what deh hell," he said, and smote the deeply-engaged one on the
back of the head. The little boy fell to the ground and gave a hoarse,
tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently,
the size of