Nibsys Christmas | Page 7

he
disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar-steps. Down there,
where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were
bending over a table playing fan-tan. Their very souls were in the game,
every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. The one
blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a
corner. One end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over
a little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. Something spluttered
in the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. The smoker took a long
draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in
senseless content.
Upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to
the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the
tenements of The Bend and the East Side live in slavery worse, if not
more galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain--the slavery of
the pipe. Four, eight, sixteen--twenty odd such "homes" in this
tenement, disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage

and troth are not in the bargain.
In one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam
works its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all.
They are very young, "under age," though each and every one would
glibly swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen,
and therefore free to make her own bad choice. Of these, one was
brought up among the rugged hills of Maine; the other two are from the
tenement crowds, hardly missed there. But their companion? She is
twirling the sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl
of her pipe with it. As she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed,
kisses the red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long
has known, though to her it is hidden yet--that the pipe has claimed its
victim and soon will pass it on to the Potter's Field.
"Nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred
within her by the flash--"Nell, did you hear from the old farm to home
since you come here?"
Nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly look
on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips.
"To hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth
inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her pillow
in drunken stupor.
That is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in Mott Street.
It had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and
vainly seeking entry to others; had gilt with equal impartiality the
spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand
tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and
cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming
crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers
striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to be
fed.
The brief December day was far spent. Now its rays fell across the

North River and lighted up the windows of the tenements in Hell's
Kitchen and Poverty Gap. In the Gap especially they made a brave
show; the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that
set back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. But
the glory did not cross the threshold. Within it was dark and dreary and
cold. The room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. The
last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. The
sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it could
have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor.
Upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through
every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break.
She hugged an old doll to her breast. The paint was gone from its face;
the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. But she only
hugged it closer. It was her doll. They had been friends so long, shared
hunger and hardship together, and now----.
Her tears fell faster. One drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll.
The last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless
jewel. Its glory grew and filled the room. Gone were the black walls,
the darkness and the cold. There was warmth and light and joy. Merry
voices and