University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
“STARVE THEN!”

Dennis now followed the natural impulse to go to
some distant part of the city, entirely away from the region
that had become so hateful to him. Putting the
trunk on the front of a street-car, he rode on till in the
heart of the south side district, the great business centre.
He took his trunk into a wide, roomy hardware store, and
asked if he might leave it there awhile. Receiving a good-natured
permission, he next started off in search of a
quiet, cheap boarding place. His heart was heavy, and
yet he felt thankful to have escaped as he had, for the
thought of what might have been his experience if Barney
had tried to fulfil his threat, sickened him. The rough
was as strong as he, and scenes of violence were his delight
and daily experience. He rather gloried in a black
eye, for he always gave two in exchange, and his own
bruised, swollen member paved the way gracefully for the
telling of his exploits, as it awakened inquiry from the lesser
lights among whom Barney shone. But what would
Dennis have done among the merchants with “a head on
him,” as the barkeeper understood the phrase? He would
have to return home, and that he felt was worse than
death. In fact, he came nearer to a desperate struggle
than he knew, for Barney rarely resisted so inviting an
opportunity to indulge his pugilistic turn, and had he not
seen the policeman going by just at that time, there would
have been no idle threats in the case.

Dennis set his teeth with dogged resolution, determined
to persevere in his search till he dropped in the street
if necessary. But as he remembered that he had less
than five dollars left, and no prospect of earning another,
his heart grew like lead.

He spent several weary hours in the vain search for a
boarding house. He had little to guide him save short
answers from policemen. The places were either too expensive,
or else they were so coarse and low that he could
not bring himself to endure them. In some cases he detected
that they were accompanied by worse evils than
gambling. Almost in despair, tired, and very hungry (for
severe indeed must be the troubles that will affect the appetite
of healthful youth on a cold winter day), he stopped
at a small German restaurant and hotel in a side street
near where he had left his trunk. A round-faced, jolly
Teuton served him with a large plate of cheap viands, which
he cleared so quickly and asked for more, that the man
stared at him for a moment, and then stolidly obeyed.

“What do you ask for a small room and bed for a
night?” said Dennis.

“Zwei shillen,” said the waiter with a grin; “zat is if
you don't vant as big bed as dinner. Ve haf zwei shillen
for bed, and zwei shillen for every meal—von dollar a day—
sheap!”

The place was comparatively clean. A geranium or
two bloomed in the window, and lager instead of fiery whisky
seemed the principal beverage vended. Dennis went
out and made inquiries, and every one in the neighborhood
spoke of it as a quiet, respectable place, though frequented
only by laboring people. “That is nothing against
it,” thought Dennis. “I will venture to stay there for a
night or two, for I must lose no more time in looking for
a situation.”

He took his trunk there, and then spent the rest of the

day in unavailing search. He found nothing that gave any
promise at all. In the evening he went to a large hotel
and looked over the files of papers. He found a few advertising
for clerks and experts of various kinds, but more
seeking places. But he noted down everything hopeful,
and resolved that he would examine the morning papers
by daylight for anything new in that line, and be the first
on hand. His new quarters, though plain and meagre,
were at least clean. Too weary to think or even to feel
more than a dull ache in his heart, he went through the
form of devotion, and slept heavily till the dawn of the
following day. Poor fellow! it seemed to him that he had
lived years in those two days.

He was up by daylight, and found a few more advertisements
that looked as if they might lead to something.
As early as it was possible to see the parties, he was on
the ground, but others were there as soon as himself.
They had the advantage of some knowledge and experience
in the duties required, and this decided the question.
Some spoke kindly, and suggested that he was better fitted
for teaching than business.

“But where am I to find a position at this season of
the year, when every place is filled?” explained Dennis.
“It might be weeks before I could get anything to do, and
I must have employment at once.”

They were sorry—hoped he would do well—turned
away and went on doing well for themselves. But the
majority merely satisfied themselves that he would not answer
their purpose, and bade him a brief, business-like
good-morning. And yet the fine young face, so troubled
and anxious, haunted a good many of those who summarily
dismissed him. But “business is business.”

The day passed in fruitless inquiry. Now and then he
seemed on the point of succeeding, but only disappointment
resulted. There were at that season of the year few

situations offering where a living salary was paid, and for
these skilled laborers were required. Dennis possessed
no training for any one calling, save perhaps that of
teacher. He had merely the fragment of a good general
education, tending toward one of the learned professions.
He had fine abilities, and undoubtedly would have stood
high as a lawyer, in time. But now that he was suddenly
called upon to provide bread for himself and those he
loved, there was not a single thing of which he could say—

“I understand this, sir, and can give you satisfaction.”

He knew that if he could get a chance at almost anything,
he could soon learn enough to make himself more
useful than the majority employed, for few had his will and
motive to work. But the point was to find some one who
would pay sufficient for his own and mother's support
while he learned.

It is just under such circumstances that so many men,
and especially women, make shipwreck. Thrown suddenly
upon their own resources, they bring to the great
labor-market of the world general intelligence, and also
general ignorance. With a smattering of almost every
thing, they do not know practically how to do one thing
well. Skilled hands, though backed by neither heart nor
brains, push them aside. Take the young men or the
young women of any well-to-do town or village, and make
them suddenly dependent upon their own efforts, and how
many would compete in any one thing with those already
engaged in supplying the market? And yet just such
helpless young creatures are every day compelled to shift
for themselves. If to these unfortunates the paths of
honest industry seem hedged and thorny, not so those of
sin. They are easy enough at first, if any little difficulty
with conscience can be gotten over; and the devil and
fallen humanity doing his work, stand ready to push the
wavering into them.

At the close of the next day, spent in weary search,
Dennis met a temptation to which many would have yielded.
As a last resort he had been going around among the
hotels, willing to take even the situation of porter, if nothing
better offered. The day was fast closing, when, worn
out and dejected, he entered a first-class house, and made
his usual inquiry. The proprietor looked at him for a
moment, slapped him on the back and said,

“Yes, you are the man I want, I reckon. Do you
drink? no! might have known that from your face. Do
not want a man that drinks for this place. Come along
with me, then. Will give you two and a half a day if you
suit, and pay you every night. I pay my help promptly;
they aint near so apt to steal from you then.”

And the man hurried away, followed by Dennis with
beating heart and flushed, wondering face. Descending a
flight of stairs, they entered a brilliantly lighted basement,
which was nothing less than a large, elegantly-arranged
bar-room, with card and lunch tables, and easy chairs
for the guests to smoke and tipple in at their leisure. All
along one side of this room, resplendent with cut glass
and polished silver, ran the bar. The light fell warm and
mellow on the various kinds of liquors, that were arranged
as temptingly as possible to the thirsting souls frequenting
the place.

Stepping up to the bulky man behind the bar the landlord
said—

“There, Mr. Swig, is a young man who will fill capitally
the place of the chap we dismissed to-day for getting
tight. You may bet your life from his face that he don't
drink. You can break him in in a few days, and you won't
want a better assistant.”

For a moment a desperate wish passed through Dennis's
mind, “O that wrong were right.” Then, indignant with
himself, he spoke up firmly,

“I think I have a word to say in this matter.”

“Well, say on, then; what's the trouble?”

“I cannot do this kind of work.”

“You will find plenty harder.”

“None harder for one believing as I do. The Bible
says `Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink.' I
will starve before I will do this work.”

The man stared at him for a moment, and then coolly
replied,

“Starve then!” and turned on his heel and walked
away.

Dennis also rushed from the place, followed by the
coarse jeering laugh of those who witnessed the scene. In
his morbid, suffering state their voices seemed those of
mocking demons.

The night had now fallen. He was too tired and discouraged
to look any further. Wearily he plodded up the
street, facing the bitter blast filled with snow that had commenced
falling.

This then was the verdict of the world—“Starve!” This
was the only prospect it offered—that same brave world
that had so smilingly beckoned him on to great achievements,
and unbounded success, but a few days ago—
“Starve!” Every blast that swept around the corners
howled in his ears “Starve!” Every warmly clad passenger
hurrying unheedingly by seemed to say by their indifference,

“Starve! who cares? there is no place for you, nothing
for you to do.”

The hard, stern resolution of the past few days, not to
yield an inch, to persist to hew his way through every
difficulty, began to flag. His very soul seemed crushed
within him. Even upon the threshold of his life, in his
strong, joyous youth, the world had become to him what it

literally was that night, a cold, wintry, stormy place, with
a black, lowering sky and hard frozen earth.

His father's old temptation recurred to him with sudden
and great power. “Perhaps father was right,” he
mused. “God was against him, and is also against me,
his son. Does He not visit the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation?
Not but that He will save us at last, if we ask Him, but
there seems some great wrong that must be severely punished
here. Or else if God does not care much about
our present life, thinking only of the hereafter, there must
be some blind fate or luck that crushes some and lifts up
others.”

Thus Dennis, too sad and morbid to take a just view
of anything, plodded on till he reached his boarding place,
and stealing in as if he had no business to be there, or
anywhere else, sat down in a dusky corner behind the
stove, and was soon lost to surrounding life, in his own
miserable thoughts.