University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
Big Abel and the Little Manhattan busy as ever: the City in his Working
Jacket.

Up with the light; and forth before the two good sisters could
know it, they crossed the city; tarrying for breakfast by the
way; and entered a long, winding, narrow way (Pearl street,
I guess), choked with bald, high-headed stores—that kept
tumbling great square boxes out, as though they had a hundred
hands a-piece: or swallowing them with throats that gulped
them up, like giants. (Big Abel, as they went along, kept seizing
up stores, streets, squares, by the score.) Men hurrying up
and down: some reading signs to help them on their journey;
others dashing in and out as though they had the whole
street at their fingers' ends. Then, at about one o'clock
of the day, the street gave a great roar; this was the
Auction-Stores going off into a large sale, with a number of
deep-chested gentlemen to encourage them by shouting at the
top of their lungs; and how he packed 'em, close and hot and
plenty of 'em, up-town merchants, and country merchants, and
Brooklyn merchants, and Jersey City merchants; the sight of
a green vine at the back window was decidedly refreshing:
and if that breeze, that was idling his time away with a
church-vane, had only looked in, he'd have been received with
a cheer, I know. Then, from time to time, as noon was turning
down towards three; young gentlemen in shoals, coming abroad
with flying skirts, and rushing to and fro, with soiled leather-books
crushed in the hand; and then, again, a portly man, this
was the silent partner, no doubt, coming out from a very thrifty

shop, benignant in his look and quiet in his gait, as though he
had nothing to do with the concern, nothing whatever—though
he went in there at times to give the boys (he called the two
spare, middle-aged gentlemen inside, boys, by way of defining
his own position as a man in his prime) a little counsel in their
affairs. That was all. But further down they came to a Slip,
filled brim-full of dingy boats, chiefly of the order of sloops;
and girt with stores that were clearly, by their cast of countenance—being
battered a good deal in the windows, and tumble
down about the ground, and greatly out of color—near of kin to
the boats. The way in which the tall, smooth, shaven poles,
they called 'em masts—raised themselves on end out of the mud,
and kept toying and dallying with bits of bunting at their tops,
was enough to vex a patient man going there to look on. And
then the Old Slip himself: was there ever such an ugly monster;
old, decayed, in his long, slimy logs, that showed their moss
hideously when the tide went down; idle too; and making the
greatest ado in the world, with the boats that kept his company,
whenever he had occasion to go out to sea for a few hours or so.
A vile Old Slip, I must call him; and coming upon him in the
dark night wind you'd surely see some bloody-minded man stalking
about there, with a lantern in his hand: and presently, in spite
of yourself, hear a plashing in the water, and have in mind,
before you could break away, an ugly, white body, water-bleached,
swinging by a cord against the Old Slip's ribs. I see
comfort, though. There's an old fellow lodges near this: a
stout, hearty, free, boisterous fellow: a neighbor of the slip's, but
no way related: a manly, bold, gentlemanly fellow: prosperous
but free-handed, hospitable as the day.

And when they came out upon the water, there he stood,
South Street! Plenty of good warehouses, plenty of ships,
plenty of pierheads! And seeming to say all the time, “Here
am I, South Street: and here I mean to be for many a day to
come. Don't be afraid to come along, ship, brig, schooner,

sloop, perogue, long-boat, cock-boat, jolly-boat; English,
French, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Kamschatkan—I'm ready.
I've looked into the matter a little, and know the state of this
harbor pretty well. There's a great variety of tonnage, I can
tell you; and you may lay as deep as you please without going
to China. Come along!” And then he cocks his eye toward
the Narrows, on a sharp lookout for more sail: and how he
rattles his cordage and waves his streamers when a spanking
wind comes in! All the ships in harbor with their noisy canvass
talking at once; and he listening to every one; and understanding
them all. Now they 're still again! And the old
Street, as he measures himself in the river before him, takes
on a grave and earnest look, with such a weight of thought
about his head and ears, it makes one tremble almost to look at
him! Just then he lets out from one of his sumptuous houses,
a smooth man, of a wholesome and a hearty look, with a touch or
two of care about the eye when he looks on the water: altogether
a very pleasant and well-seeming gentleman; who comes
to where Big Abel (who has seized the shipping to half a ton,
with a boastful reference, I can tell you, to old Captain Hudson,
who first of all the many ships lay in this port, you know), and
Lankey stand: a South street merchant of the highest grade;
a tip-top merchant of South street; and better than that, an old
friend of Big Abel's.

“Well, Abel,” the South street merchant said: this was his
friendly way—“How goes the lawsuit?'!

Big Abel smiled; and looked majestically about upon the
ships, the stores, the wharves.

“We've taken the matter into our own hands,” that was Big
Abel's answer. “The Little Manhattan and I; you see him
here; and are now dividing the property.”

The merchant being an upright and well-intentioned man,
was evidently pleased that it had been got along with so easily.

“We shall be through by to-morrow night; and then we

wind up with a little celebration with our friends: You'll come,
will you not? At the Old Banking-House; you 'll come?”

The merchant knew the Old Banking-House well; he had
business there many a day gone by. He would come, certainly,
with great pleasure: and shaking Big Abel and Lankey warmly
by the hand, he went away to help in naming a bran-new ship,
just put in water. But Lankey Fogle and Big Able tarrying
still about the spot, espied, standing out upon a pier-head,
a figure; that drew their look upon him as though he had been
a beacon-light. Comely and young, and fair; but pale as
water at his greatest trouble: standing there, his hair in motion
by the wind—that grew now to a gale—as conscious more of
something far away and suffering, than of the cheerful vessels
safely harbored round him.

Sometimes he cast his eyes upon the ground: and when, in
some other motion of his spirit, he looked up again, his eye flew
off with eager fearful speed to the far, endless fading of the
Narrows, toward the sea.

He was not one who feared a ship would never come: who
lingered long upon the farthest sky to see her smoke or sail
ascending. No, no; this was the Poor Scholar, who trembled
lest too happy speed in her should bring some fatal ship to blight
his hope; bearing from far lands some other book to take the
place of his. She was not due; but he leaped in spirit, through
the waves before her prow: and saw her cut the sea like light,
in speed no ship had ever made, could ever make. Oh, blame
him not; that he in thought would cast a chain about her way,
and hold her back a day or so. Play other tunes than those
you pipe on now, good Wind, for that Poor Scholar's sake—two
days. A day is all he asks. Another day, and he will have
his little hope embarked; then come, as sharply as you will!
Good Wind—another day!

Going on, Big Abel and Lankey came to a street which oppressed
them; with mighty leaden hats; copper serpents coiling

about at the doors; cauldrons; bells; but chiefly stoves:
wherever the eye went, up or down, it was troubled with the
sight of cones, and squares, and columns, and pyramids, but all
with a trick in them, stoves. Patent too! To cook with, to
sleep with, to sit with, to travel with —you could do anything in
that street, in the way of stoves! And, if it should so come
about at night, when a few old fellows, rusty dogs, are left without
in the lonesome street, with no one to watch or check their
gambols (the young ones being all fast-locked in inside), what a
frolic and a tussle they must have among themselves—these
Patent Stoves! How they must, with all the wit that's in them,
fight and quarrel with each other for the upper hand! There's
high work, late at night, I'll warrant, in that street!

Now Big Abel, prompted by the striking of two o'clock at a
watchmaker's, recollected an Old House (a house of his:
having clearly the very heart and soul of the Old English
Captain in it) not far away. Trotting up a hilly street; out
upon Franklin-Square; and there he was. Old Walton House!
Not quite so grand as when he had his scores of waiters pouring
in and out; liveried footmen mounting and dismounting at the
door; fine gentlemen and fine ladies alighting or taking carriage;
and that Great Man, whom all men love and honor, now,
walking the long garden down to the very river's edge.

Not grandly: but soberly: and with a decent gravity as
conscious of what he was once. Not in so high a line of life
as then: for now he furnishes drinks at his bar; and sends out
stages (ignominious, this) to Oyster Bay, Cold Spring, and
Hempstead. And yet, through all, he carries the same old
front with his heavy eye-brows, iron-pitted doors, and a
knocker that speaks out in as high a key as ever. Here Big Abel
and Lankey sought to dine. There was no table spread in the
cellar, as is the usage in some houses: nor in the parlor: nor
the drawing-room: nor bed-room: nor garret: but going to the
great hall of the second floor, you found a goodly banquet

stretched out: disdaining the rooms all about: up stairs and
below. What a company the Old House has to meals! As
though his sturdy old heart, by some magic in it, could draw
them out wherever they lurked, all through the city: whoever
has a touch of his quaint humor in them. These were old
men and old women; faded bachelors; faded spinsters; not in
one costume by any means: but all with a whim in their bearing;
and a trick in the fashion of a cap, or neck-cloth, or shoe-buckle,
or wristband—that told plainly enough these were the
Old House's friends; and that they stood by him to the last.

They knew the Little Manhattan and Big Abel well: this
strange old company: and gave place to them; and entertained
them, to the end of the feast, with ancient courtesy. In the
midst of an antic, hobnobbing or philandering, or some such
whim, Big Abel and the Little Manhattan took their leave; carrying
their hats in hand till they reached the door.

Returning toward the river, they passed numbers of Bars or
lodging-houses: with green or yellow doors: with red curtains
sometimes in the windows, with tall pale bottles or small portly
glass decanters, crowned with lemons: sometimes a coil of
close tobacco in one corner: and, hanging at the door (this was
regular), a green parrot in a cage. The doors were all open;
and about them stood women, chiefly in plain bombazine, with
some ribbon or other about the waist, and men, duck-trowsered,
in low tarpaulin hats. Big Abel's heart leaped up to these.
They all seemed to know him there, too; and well they might,
for, in the very midst of all, there stood upon a board, Henry
Hudson, the brave old navigator himself: couldn't you catch a
trick of Big Abel in his look and bearing?

Then the signs that swung above these Bars. Oftenest, a
maiden lady, in a new white gown, smiling: always smiling:
and leaning on an anchor, as though it had been a divan. And
about the Bars, keeping as close to them as they could, great
swarms of red-shirts, and pea-jackets, and glazed hats, at corners;

spreading themselves about, and disporting in the air on
sticks and dangling strings: as though they were impatient to
get at the Bars, if the Bars didn't make haste to come to them.
And a Hat-store: where the hats were all gone out of ordinary
black wear into newspapers: in which they were corded up,
from one end of the year to the other, coming out only, one by
one, and on special demand.

It was at a Bar, the quietest little Bar they could find, that
Lankey Fogle and Big Abel went to lodge. But, to tell the
truth, Lankey Fogle and Big Abel got little sleep that night.
All through the neighborhood, there was perpetual tuning of
fiddles; scraping of sanded floors by shuffling feet; clattering
of glasses; uproarious draining of tankards and dashing down;
mingling of men's and women's voices in high and keen discourse;
with rattling to the door, at most extraordinary hours,
of hackney-coaches, and tumbling through entry-ways of bulky
unsteady bodies. Then off in a concerto, or performance of
their own, went all the creaking signs: the wind had been
mischievously disposed all that day; shaking some with a
quick clatter, and putting them to sleep, somehow or other;
keeping others busy with a slow, long, troubled, moaning sound.
The uproar grew; the sanded floors in high commotion; the
red curtains at the windows fiercer in their glow; the bottles wild
and pale with lack of drink (all drawn to keep the mirth at tip-top
pitch). How like to their own rugged sea these sailors
were! who brought with them, from far away, his rolling
motion, in their gait; his uproar, in their boisterous speech;
the hours he keeps, unlike the sober land, of night and
day to have his gambols in: and yet who bears the world in
all his climes, and tongues, of high degree or low, with a good
heart, and without partial stint, to where they will! A single
hour before the break of day, there came a lull, in which Old
Jollity took boat, or legs, or what you will, and made such port
as that rough region had to lend.