University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
They are in the Seventh Day; and where the City finds his Children.

When, at morning, Big Abel and the Little Manhattan set forth
from their lodging-house, there was a great turmoil of waggons
about the Ferry; a long, lazy man taking money at the gate,
at his leisure, with incidental pulls at a bell; an array of horses,
with their heads in the street, and their carts against the market—a
piebald range of heads: they were, in a word, entering
the wild and wonderful region of East Bowery; of which
Catherine-street makes the southern boundary, and the Great
Bowery the western line. People who live in the West and
the South have strange notions, I am told, of all this vicinage:
and have more than once made it over in fee to the Little Manhattan
as a land of Savages. Dark rumors prevail as to the
diet, dress, and habitation of its denizens: children are seen
there—not sparely, too—and grown men and women. This is
the report: and when, from time to time, some wild, adventurous
Broadway gentleman takes cab, and allows himself to be carried
by a most desperate driver, thither: he comes back, it is said,
with hair on end, and talks in such a way of plain, simple-witted,
honest Republican folks, that listeners lift their hands on high,
and coming down, take toddies all around, and lifting them again,
find comfort in their horror. A perilous day was this, then, on
which Little Lankey and Big Abel now were bound: the last:
and when they looked along the street, the very air they saw
was red, and blue, and yellow, with long stripes shot from
housetop to walk, from windows to awning-posts, up out of cellars,

and across the way: so that you would have said a devil's
darning-needle must have lost his wings in any attempt to fly
through. And yet through all there was a steady rush of butchers'
carts, lively and frisky as young lambs: and market-wagons,
driven up and down by strange old women, who were
tossed about, with their faded black bonnets tumbling about their
ears, in a manner you would suppose no old woman would ever
submit to: a constant scamper of people to the Ferry: shoppers,
cheapening from shop to shop: and altogether a street as full as
it could hold, and wonderfully gloomy and dispirited in his look,
'spite of all the good company he kept, and all the business he
was doing. Nevertheless, Lankey Fogle and Big Abel made
their way to a part towards the head, where they heard a tradition
of a great kite that had been once sent up, swinging a man at
his tail, over the roofs: also of an Indian squaw, who had
sojourned thereabout, to a marvellous old age: and then they
were at Division-street, setting due eastward.

Here was a cheerful street for men to walk!

The dainty milliners! What tidy caps, enticing little hats
and bonnets (of no kin to those the market-women wore, I warrant
you!) perched on sticks. Inside, the gentle milliners themselves—their
clerks in little rooms beyond—and keeping up
through all the neighborhood a pleasant sound of ribbons drawn
through the hand and clicking scissors; keeping time with the
dainty minutes as they hopped over the garden fence, just at the
back-door, you see!—at the invitation of the young gentlemen in
the study-windows—they all have studies, there—of East Broadway.
Brim-full of little shops! Everybody taking breakfast
one step up in the world: with a glass door by way of provocation
to strange gentlemen passing by—without privilege of stopping
to say good morning. Well: this was Big Abel's, if you
could believe the story that he told of just such a dainty body
as one of these sent up into the Island from the Captain's ship—
two hundred years before—and settling hereabout, had fixed

the fashions, downward from that time. But then no one
claimed certain tall, spare, grizzled, useless old gentlemen,
who are always seen lounging about these shops; making believe
keep the accounts; and going forth from day to day, and
coming back too, with baskets on their arms. These are said
to be husbands to the dainty milliners; but don't believe a word
of it; they're evil spirits appointed, for some wicked deeds in
youth, to pass their grey old days in tending on these milliners:
in sight of Beauty ever, no nearer, though they linger there as
long as old Methusalem! When they had got beyond this
pleasant pass; and reached the little square where Hester
street, I think it is, shakes hands with him (a trick the sideways
all about here play)—the Little Manhattan, being put
in countenance by a fierce and gloomy little Indian, in autumnal
costume—every color in the rainbow and some not in that pattern—who
watches that neighborhood from his pedestal; came to
a dead pause and set up peremptorily, quite peremptorily for
Lankey, a claim to all East Bowery without reservation.

Big Abel came to a halt, too: and demanded proofs. It was
then that Lankey Fogle, with an emphasis of manner unknown
in all their past rambles, called Big Abel's attention, distinctly
and pointedly, to what was going on around them. All over
the neighborhood, up street, down street, on the long walk of
the square, in doorways, windows—there was but one business
forward: every man of them pulling away, with a face of intense
employment, at a little dark roll he carried in his mouth:
men passing in carts, in waggons, on horseback, all smoking for
life.

The Little Manhattan thought there was evidence for him:
they both knew whose Weed it was they wore. Big Abel, to
tell the simple truth, was staggered at the sight: but recovering
as soon as ever he could, he moved forward a pace or two,
to where, at the very heart of the Square, there springs a tall
and stately Pole; bearing high upon his top a golden cap.

“This came over with the old Navigator, I think!”

Big Abel's manner was quite oppressive in saying this.

“That was the very cap it wore, on ship-board!”

Could Lankey deny that? A Pole of Liberty: a brave big
Pole: that looked about the neighborhood high over house-tops
and church-steeples too: while Lankey's little Indian (Red-Legs,
so he called him) cowered upon the ground. Big Abel
pointed to the East. Another Pole. West. Another. They
sprung so thick and looked so proud—no tree of his old faith
had such a life as these!—he hung his head; and claimed no
more that day.

Crossing a great street now—where, far as the eye can reach,
an everlasting show of Goods: piled, spread, hung about: and
great-eyed windows staring, out between. The Town is all
one shop! And if Big Abel threw his net for Trade—he has it
clear as day. Wild with trade; inflamed to scarlet, yellow,
every direful hue, with feverous trade. So it looked: yet in
the midst of all this show there was one humble man, at least,
who did his work; and murmured not; though profit never came
to him. A coffee-grinder in a corner-window hard by there:
a negro, to be sure, check-trowsered and close-bodied in red-flannel,
hard at his crank. How must he have sweated on that
hot summer's day, if he had been made of anything but English
pasteboard of the best!

And now, silently, they came upon a region where there were
a great number of little sooty shops; plump poultry, hopping
about on sheds, half-asleep in grocers' waggons—under cover
from the sun—or loitering near little rickety feed-stores, waiting
the chances of business. But chiefly infested by idle dogs
(genuine idle dogs) standing in slaughter-house doorways, looking
off at nothing, basking on stoops, or sauntering through entries;
with nothing in the world to do. A region where, intending,
with the truest heart, to enter one store alone, you find yourself
(there's something marvellous in the doors that open thereabout)

in two; going up stairs to a family of your own chosen
friends, as you suppose, you are visiting, in the spirit of a wide
philanthropy, a neighborhood; all ear to any alms you have to
give in way of talk or gossipry.

Through all these parts, traversing the streets to East and
West, to North and South; there went a constant voice whose cry
was “Ung-yins!” (oh, why will he not—that painful man—
take time and breath to make it On-i-ons, like an honest Christian
soul!) accompanied always with a bunch of scaly red,
borne in hand, beside a shaking cart.

A little farther on; a chapel; a neat little house! no brave
he to overawe the way with iron gates and massy steps and
towers of stone; a little wooden church; and going in at this
the busiest hour of day—they had some heart for Heaven, even
then!—many plain, poor people meek as he. And two of these,
Lankey Fogle and Big Abel saw, radiant among all the
rest; no better clad, perhaps; no greater fortune in their purse
or anywhere; but gold, pure gold, in every look, and step and
motion that they made. Arm-in-arm these two drew near;
looking, sometimes, on the ground—ah, how they blessed the
earth by such looks as these they gave him! Then deep into
each other's eyes, so deep they seemed, in spirit, to pass each one
into the other in its long intensity. Then up to where the warm,
blue sky, was melting with a look as calm, as deep, as full of
love as theirs! Ah, thankful hearts they bore that day, Poor
William—poor no longer in his humble gauge of wealth—and
his mistress, Mary. That little child of all their yet unwedded
hopes, the Book, was walking through the world, as suited his
Estate: That Book, whose birth was watched with so much
hope, with so much fear, was now gone forth (thank God!) to
bless the world! Among the poor and sad to scatter fancies
dear as gold: to bear a promise of his Native Land to every
clime: to make this Home of his (for that it meant) grow bright
and shine anew, to all mankind! It was unto this young Book's

march about the world, they measured now their grateful steps.
Abel: Lankey: lingered—how could they fail to? And presently
there rose from out the bosom of that little house: a
song: a simple, sacred song. Hearts in it, too. But over all,
the old, the young: whatever voices strive to plead thanksgivingly:
the two went up, with tears, it seemed almost in every
thrill. Poor little Roof, you could not stay these praises from
the place they sought. Heaven had them ere they were a minnute-old!

Hurrying along, they caught some pickled garlics in their
hands (popular and prevailing everywhere in East Bowery, I
am told): and with a rusk or two, made meal as on they sped.

And now they were fairly in East Bowery; at its very heart;
and there Big Abel, making with the Little Manhattan great
speed to accomplish their work by night-fall, were hailed from a
distance.

“Hallo, my worthy!”

And there came down the street two broad-shouldered, broad-chested,
flushed men carrying pinkeys—each in his little finger
the little finger of the other—a custom believed to be endemical
in East Bowery; each man being, by a figure of speech, the
Pinkey of the other. They were both in light-colored coats,
with great, round, staring white metal buttons, pantaloons intensely
striped, round, flat-rimmed hats, and oily locks dashed in little
patches on either side of the head. One was at least a head
higher than the other in person, and in bearing and deportment
several heads. This one it was that cried out: and as he
drew nearer, he renewed the cry,

“Well, old boy—how goes that 'ere suit?”

Big Abel took him warmly by the hand as a friend of his,
and made known the terms he had come to with the Little Manhattan.

“What do you say to that?” he asked, turning to the lesser
gentleman at his side.

“That's the feature!” he made answer.

Big Abel mentioned the entertainment and hoped to see him
there: nobody but friends to be on hand.

Be there, to be sure, and he'd bring somebody with him to
shove it along; to wit the interesting gentleman at his side—
who again remarked that, that was the Feature.

A sweltering day was this; and the two Pinkeys, who never
uncover to anything, having taken off their hats to the sun—
quite civilly to the sun—to stand aside in the shade and hold this
talk with Big Abel; clapped them back again, with a knock on
the top, and moved off.

Now, down again towards the East River, they came to a
cemetery; and along its walls of brick a choice company of
boys were met, some at play, throwing somersets against its
side; some at marbles; some hop-scotching: among them all
was one who, standing near the iron gate, wrought out with
chalk, a name, letter by letter, slowly. Big Abel and Lankey
fell back and watched him as he worked. He stood close up
against the wall and holding in one hand with which he partly
scratched his head, by the leather front, a cap that fell down
behind, worked with the other, in a slow and troubled way. He
wrote it down, then rubbed it out again—then down and out
again: and down and out again, and every time 'twas Pompey
Smith, or Pomp'.

This was little Neddy Mellish, no doubt.

“Why, what's the matter, little Neddy?” said Big Abel, as
he paused and looked about upon the other boys.

“It's all up, sir, I'm afraid!” answered Neddy, whose face, to
tell the truth, was very white.

“What, with him?” pointing to the name upon the wall.

“He'll not hold out till morning, they say!” and little Neddy
took Big Abel's hand and wrung it hard, as though some comfort
was to be got that way.

“Dear heart!” Neddy spoke up again, “I wish the doctors
would let him stay, and send me off.”

The doctors! they knew little Neddy Mellish well; for now,
for many days, while this pale trouble followed Pomp'—he had
followed them to the sick boy's door, and from the door, questioning
their calm faces for a hope—aye, even leaping to the
stirrups of their gigs as on they sped, to get a word from them,
for Pompey's sake. Believe it whether you will or no, white
Neddy Mellish watched, for many days, and nights too, come to
that, nor would be driven off—beside black Pompey's bed!

But now he was not there. He hung his head and looked up
with a fear to Big Abel's face.

“I couldn't stay to see him die!” said little Neddy, with bitter
self-reproach. “Oh, what a cruel wretch I am—I couldn't
though. To see him writhing in his bed, when they told me that
he fought for life, was hard enough. Play-fellow! I've seen you
work at many games.” Pompey was before him in spirit even
then. “But this was one, where all your skill and mirth and
speedy foot would go for nothing, once for all! Pomp', Pomp',
by this time poor Pomp' is dead!”

What could Big Abel say? What Lankey?—To that little
wounded, heart-sore child? Not a word. They looked through
the grated gate, upon the grave-yard within. Clearly there was
no property of theirs. The dead had it to themselves. A few
white stones; a little grassy green; a few mouldering bodies.
Nothing more. Nothing to claim—and Big Abel and Lankey
Fogle walked in silence many streets (little Neddy Mellish was
fading at a swift pace, like a ghost, far, far away), until they came
to the river himself; and there they found a little old ferry;
faded as to his house; with a broken bell; a gate-keeper gone
to seed long, long ago; and, altogether, keeping the breath in his
body by being very humble, and obsequious and obliging to a
number of old, Long-Island market-women, for the sake of the
baskets they had to carry. But now, what magic sweetened all

the air to Big Abel, who grew in bulk, his bright, blue eye,
brighter, his foot more firm upon the ground. A sound of
hammers, all in chorus! a cheery shout! and, how they heave
in sight and cut great hollows in the air—ships on stocks! And
busy under them, as moles, what brisk and sturdy men! A
whole company of ships on stocks; but one had the heart, that
afternoon, of all about. By some wonder in him drew the eye
of men and boys who, gathered in a swarm near by, looked on
with curious eyes. Some sought to know him better, mounted
to his back, and rode him as a gentle beast astride; but how
they toiled, the brisk and sturdy men, to knock away his pins,
and let him take the water as he should.

In the very glow and zenith of their work, Big Abel stood
there; tall and stout you know he was; and when they caught
a sight of him, they came and put within his hand the launching-sledge
(she now was near her time); with a stroke he
brushed away the lingering prop, and with a leap she took the
stream. A shout!

And back through all the streets the city took it up! A
shout that had the city's heart and soul in it! A shout that always
goes with that stout ship through every sea, to every land!
Lives in her timbers, fills her sails, and keeps her keel aright!

Big Abel shook his ears as though he too had taken water;
and crowed in spirit at the sight. All Henry Hudson in him
stirred to life; and with a voice he claimed those mighty yards,
and who gainsayed him?

Fine ships, no doubt (this was what came into the Little Manhattan's
head); clear in the hull; oak-ribbed; arrows for speed.
But when he cast back an eye, although the liberty-pole was
still like a great splinter in his head; and though he claimed no
more that day; how his look brightened, too, on all around—at
sight of tumbling houses, tumbling fast; poor broken ways; and
in some pier heads, falling off, he even saw or thought he saw,

the old Island pushing out his sandy strength, as when no house
was on him, to keep him down.

Then out upon an open square, they got, bestrown with oyster-shells,
or piled on every hand in little stacks, and, standing
all about, sea-faded men; men gone to seed; a toping fry, who
always wear a rusty tarpaulin, and roundabout of knotty blue,
with beards uncut. Through all this region linger too upon the
walls stray posters, idly babbling there until some pelting shower
shall roll them down—of concerts long since sung; lectures
spoken and silent, long ago; and plays whose names are out of
mind to all beside. Then sauntering home, with little greasy,
empty boxes, strapped across the breast, a drove of match-boys,
weary in the leg, without a single cry in all their throats. The
day was hot indeed, and melted every gambol, every scampering
whim or thought of speed, out of the soul and body of these
sauntering boys; at best, to tell the truth, an idle, slow and
dreamy race beside the news-boys of the other side. A fair and
gentle girl; yet pale—how pale, and poorly clad!—accosted Big
Abel, a sempstress and a city girl returning home from work.
She bore a pile of garments on her arm a horse (at charge of
that gilt-lettered, gorgeous firm she worked for) had better have
been there to carry.

And yet she spoke to Big Abel cheerfully.

He had a heart; Lankey, silent as night, looked on and
had a heart too; and told her there was, in his belief, in the
breast-pocket of a great white coat (she had to touch again—
some error in a thread or so) he pointed to: a wonder that would
take her breath away: (He had shrewdly sunk a little mine of
silver there): and when she got it back again, to take that little
dainty hat of hers, the cheerful creature of dark over-hours
of work, and that light snowy frock, of the same lineage with
the hat; and make good speed up to the old Banking House, as
for a ball or feast, or something of that kind. Her burthen
grew as light as air. A minute—she was out of sight; and in

that minute the old Banking House became a piece of fairy-land,
and Big Abel took the part of first fairy at a bound.

Why, what a spot is this they've come upon? Far as the
eye can reach on every side, the stoops, the walks, the area-steps,
are pattered thick with children, as though they had been
sprinkled there, in some strange freak, out of a boundless watering
pot; a little shower on every side. When the old city looks
for children, he comes here I know. Out at windows idle women
lean, and talk to neighbors near at hand, or hail across the way.
Men, heavy in their walk and fat of look, plunge down;
ducking beneath blue signs; and in the beer shops, everywhere,
quench and put out the glowing day. The sturdy foundries by
the river, too, are tired at last, and make it known to all the
world by ringing out a peal upon their bells. Through all that
world of Eastern Bowery, work is done; and everything, till
daylight come again, is sport, in name, whatever it may be. And
moving on, there approached Big Abel and Lankey, what seemed
a small swarm of glowing fire-flies, burning their way through
the dusk with an even wing, which always kept them at a certain
height above the earth. But, drawing nearer, these lights
helped them to see behind them the sallow faces of a body of
fire-boys, smoking their path through the street. Presently a
watchman's rattle was sprung; the constellation knew it at
once; broke up chaotically, and went round the neighboring
corners in several pieces. Shortly after this, an overwhelming
shout in a neighboring street; and in less than a minute there
came tumbling back, a square box on wheels (a fire-engine, no
doubt); and tore away, in the very teeth of the sturdy watch,
and made merry, in its rough way, for miles.

And now, in Tompkins' Square; the trees sickly, and thin;
the benches rude; the walks, ill-tended—but what a sight, off
toward the East! The river, with its smoothest bay, and all it had
of gentleness and calm, in that fair summer hour, seemed
floating to the eye on towards this silent Square, and blessing it.

Serene! The children stopped, in all their frolics stopped, to
look at it, as on a picture in a pleasant book; old men thought
over all their lives gone by, however dark and rough, with
something of a holy calm; and women drew into their
gentle hearts the spell of all it showed, to nurse their gentleness
yet more. That Square, abuse him as you may, and treat
him to as poor a culture as you will, can never grow a base, or
low, or worthless square, while he may look out on the River,
as now he looks. The Prison, too, upon the Island (Lankey and
Big Abel knew him well), no more a Prison, but softened to a
palace and an ark of rest, lingering there some fairy changes of
the tide, to glide away; or silently go off in silver mist, up
into the sky! They cannot loiter now—for company is forward
at the old Banking-House, and Big Abel, with Lankey,
make new speed out at a gate on the west; and crossing a nimble
thoroughfare, they come upon a street that makes them pause
again.

The heart of little Neddy Mellish guessed aright. Poor
Pomp' was dead! Who else could be so calmly borne away:
this was his procession passing now!—No hearse, no horse, no
coach; a little coffin borne by men; and after it a line of poor
black women in kerchiefs crossed upon the breast. How silently
they moved!—was death nearer in the thought of these poor
women, now that little Pomp' was borne away with quiet tread,
than when there is a tramp of hoofs, and rolling wheels, and
talkers scaring him? One white mourner only. Gliding on—oh
what a peace there is about that little coffin borne by friendly
hands; as like to life as death may be in all the gentle, tender
bearing of it up. One white mourner! The street is still—
there is a hope of human hearts as yet—and children hang
about its path; and wonder with their little simple eyes what
gentle show this is that moves so deftly on. But little Neddy
Mellish. He is in the line, as calm, as orderly as any. Behind
them all—alone! Although they speak to him—the poor black

women—with their looks, and tell him softly to bear up. Away
from that—he must be nearer to his old, dear, little friend!
Nearer? He ought to lie, now, by his very side. Close to the
coffin, helping in his feeble way to hold it up; although he weeps,
there's comfort in the burthen that he bears. Who thought that
he should ever carry Pompey so! And once or twice the fancy
came into his little foolish head to knock upon the coffin lid as
though poor Pomp', so summoned, might arise and come again
to play with little Neddy. Not to the churchyard where little
Neddy Mellish wrought his name (no, not there—for there white
people lie alone in all their ashen splendor!) but toward a
country-field they're moving with poor Pomp': good-bye—thou
little negro-boy; perhaps there is a Heaven for thee after all—
who knows? And at the suburb, Lankey and Big Abel (who
had kept it company all along) part with it, and take their way
—how pale they saw that little Neddy was!