Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Chapter XII
In a hall of irregular shape sat Pete and Maggie drinking beer. A
submissive orchestra dictated to by a spectacled man with frowsy hair
and a dress suit, industriously followed the bobs of his head and the
waves of his baton. A ballad singer, in a dress of flaming scarlet,
sang in the inevitable voice of brass. When she vanished, men seated
at the tables near the front applauded loudly, pounding the polished
wood with their beer glasses. She returned attired in less gown, and
sang again. She received another enthusiastic encore. She reappeared
in still less gown and danced. The deafening rumble of glasses and
clapping of hands that followed her exit indicated an overwhelming
desire to have her come on for the fourth time, but the curiosity of
the audience was not gratified.
Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look of
self-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion.
She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure. She seemed to
beseech tenderness of him.
Pete's air of distinguished valor had grown upon him until it
threatened stupendous dimensions. He was infinitely gracious to the
girl. It was apparent to her that his condescension was a marvel.
He could appear to strut even while sitting still and he showed that he
was a lion of lordly characteristics by the air with which he spat.
With Maggie gazing at him wonderingly, he took pride in commanding the
waiters who were, however, indifferent or deaf.
"Hi, you, git a russle on yehs! What deh hell yehs lookin' at? Two
more beehs, d'yeh hear?"
He leaned back and critically regarded the person of a girl with a
straw-colored wig who upon the stage was flinging her heels in somewhat
awkward imitation of a well-known danseuse.
At times Maggie told Pete long confidential tales of her former home
life, dwelling upon the escapades of the other members of the family
and the difficulties she had to combat in order to obtain a degree of
comfort. He responded in tones of philanthropy. He pressed her arm
with an air of reassuring proprietorship.
"Dey was damn jays," he said, denouncing the mother and brother.
The sound of the music which, by the efforts of the frowsy-headed
leader, drifted to her ears through the smoke-filled atmosphere, made
the girl dream. She thought of her former Rum Alley environment and
turned to regard Pete's strong protecting fists. She thought of the
collar and cuff manufactory and the eternal moan of the proprietor:
"What een hell do you sink I pie fife dolla a week for? Play? No, py
damn." She contemplated Pete's man-subduing eyes and noted that wealth
and prosperity was indicated by his clothes. She imagined a future,
rose-tinted, because of its distance from all that she previously had
experienced.
As to the present she perceived only vague reasons to be miserable.
Her life was Pete's and she considered him worthy of the charge. She
would be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete
adored her as he now said he did. She did not feel like a bad woman.
To her knowledge she had never seen any better.
At times men at other tables regarded the girl furtively. Pete, aware
of it, nodded at her and grinned. He felt proud.
"Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker," he remarked, studying her face
through the haze. The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete's
words as it became apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye.
Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared at
her through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of
stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads,
tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered
she was not what they thought her. She confined her glances to Pete
and the stage.
The orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded,
whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise.
Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids,
made her tremble. She thought them all to be worse men than Pete.
"Come, let's go," she said.
As they went out Maggie perceived two women seated at a table with some
men. They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness. As
she passed them the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back her
skirts.
Chapter XIII
Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight with
Pete in the saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution.
He found his mother raving. Maggie had not returned home. The parent
continually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass. She
had never considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alley
from Heaven, but she could not conceive how it was possible for her
daughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her family. She was
terrific in denunciation of the girl's wickedness.
The fact that the neighbors talked of it, maddened her. When women
came in, and in the course of their conversation casually asked,
"Where's Maggie dese days?" the mother shook her fuzzy head at them and
appalled them with curses. Cunning hints inviting confidence she
rebuffed with violence.
"An' wid all deh bringin' up she had, how could she?" moaningly she
asked of her son. "Wid all deh talkin' wid her I did an' deh t'ings I
tol' her to remember? When a girl is bringed up deh way I bringed up
Maggie, how kin she go teh deh devil?"
Jimmie was transfixed by these questions. He could not conceive how
under the circumstances his mother's daughter and his sister could have
been so wicked.
His mother took a drink from a squdgy bottle that sat on the table.
She continued her lament.
"She had a bad heart, dat girl did, Jimmie. She was wicked teh deh
heart an' we never knowed it."
Jimmie nodded, admitting the fact.
"We lived in deh same house wid her an' I brought her up an' we never
knowed how bad she was."
Jimmie nodded again.
"Wid a home like dis an' a mudder like me, she went teh deh bad," cried
the mother, raising her eyes.
One day, Jimmie came home, sat down in a chair and began to wriggle
about with a new and strange nervousness. At last he spoke
shamefacedly.
"Well, look-a-here, dis t'ing queers us! See? We're queered! An'
maybe it 'ud be better if I--well, I t'ink I kin look 'er up an'--maybe
it 'ud be better if I fetched her home an'--"
The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of
passionate anger.
"What! Let 'er come an' sleep under deh same roof wid her mudder agin!
Oh, yes, I will, won't I? Sure? Shame on yehs, Jimmie Johnson, for
sayin' such a t'ing teh yer own mudder--teh yer own mudder! Little did
I t'ink when yehs was a babby playin' about me feet dat ye'd grow up
teh say sech a t'ing teh yer mudder--yer own mudder. I never taut--"
Sobs choked her and interrupted her reproaches.
"Dere ain't nottin' teh raise sech hell about," said Jimmie. "I on'y
says it 'ud be better if we keep dis t'ing dark, see? It queers us!
See?"
His mother laughed a laugh that seemed to ring through the city and be
echoed and re-echoed by countless other laughs. "Oh, yes, I will,
won't I! Sure!"
"Well, yeh must take me fer a damn fool," said Jimmie, indignant at his
mother for mocking him. "I didn't say we'd make 'er inteh a little tin
angel, ner nottin', but deh way it is now she can queer us! Don' che
see?"
"Aye, she'll git tired of deh life atter a while an' den she'll wanna
be a-comin' home, won' she, deh beast! I'll let 'er in den, won' I?"
"Well, I didn' mean none of dis prod'gal bus'ness anyway," explained
Jimmie.
"It wasn't no prod'gal dauter, yeh damn fool," said the mother. "It
was prod'gal son, anyhow."
"I know dat," said Jimmie.
For a time they sat in silence. The mother's eyes gloated on a scene
her imagination could call before her. Her lips were set in a
vindictive smile.
"Aye, she'll cry, won' she, an' carry on, an' tell how Pete, or some
odder feller, beats 'er an' she'll say she's sorry an' all dat an' she
ain't happy, she ain't, an' she wants to come home agin, she does."
With grim humor, the mother imitated the possible wailing notes of the
daughter's voice.
"Den I'll take 'er in, won't I, deh beast. She kin cry 'er two eyes
out on deh stones of deh street before I'll dirty deh place wid her.
She abused an' ill-treated her own mudder--her own mudder what loved
her an' she'll never git anodder chance dis side of hell."
Jimmie thought he had a great idea of women's frailty, but he could not
understand why any of his kin should be victims.
"Damn her," he fervidly said.
Again he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance had
brothers. Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse
himself with those brothers nor his sister with theirs. After the
mother had, with great difficulty, suppressed the neighbors, she went
among them and proclaimed her grief. "May Gawd forgive dat girl," was
her continual cry. To attentive ears she recited the whole length and
breadth of her woes.
"I bringed 'er up deh way a dauter oughta be bringed up an' dis is how
she served me! She went teh deh devil deh first chance she got! May
Gawd forgive her."
When arrested for drunkenness she used the story of her daughter's
downfall with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally one of
them said to her, peering down over his spectacles: "Mary, the records
of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two
daughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled in the annals
of this court, and this court thinks--"
The mother went through life shedding large tears of sorrow. Her red
face was a picture of agony.
Of course Jimmie publicly damned his sister that he might appear on a
higher social plane. But, arguing with himself, stumbling about in
ways that he knew not, he, once, almost came to a conclusion that his
sister would have been more firmly good had she better known why.
However, he felt that he could not hold such a view. He threw it
hastily aside.
Chapter XIV
In a hilarious hall there were twenty-eight tables and twenty-eight
women and a crowd of smoking men. Valiant noise was made on a stage at
the end of the hall by an orchestra composed of men who looked as if
they had just happened in. Soiled waiters ran to and fro, swooping
down like hawks on the unwary in the throng; clattering along the
aisles with trays covered with glasses; stumbling over women's skirts
and charging two prices for everything but beer, all with a swiftness
that blurred the view of the cocoanut palms and dusty monstrosities
painted upon the walls of the room. A bouncer, with an immense load of
business upon his hands, plunged about in the crowd, dragging bashful
strangers to prominent chairs, ordering waiters here and there and
quarreling furiously with men who wanted to sing with the orchestra.
The usual smoke cloud was present, but so dense that heads and arms
seemed entangled in it. The rumble of conversation was replaced by a
roar. Plenteous oaths heaved through the air. The room rang with the
shrill voices of women bubbling o'er with drink-laughter. The chief
element in the music of the orchestra was speed. The musicians played
in intent fury. A woman was singing and smiling upon the stage, but no
one took notice of her. The rate at which the piano, cornet and
violins were going, seemed to impart wildness to the half-drunken
crowd. Beer glasses were emptied at a gulp and conversation became a
rapid chatter. The smoke eddied and swirled like a shadowy river
hurrying toward some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie entered the hall
and took chairs at a table near the door. The woman who was seated