Children of the TenementsRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
General
Children of the Tenements
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Tenement houses -- Fiction
He was an every-day tough, bull-necked, square-jawed, red of face, and
with his hair cropped short in the fashion that rules at Sing Sing and
is admired of Battle Row. Any one could have told it at a glance. The
bruised and wrathful face of the policeman who brought him to Mulberry
Street, to be "stood up" before the detectives in the hope that there
might be something against him to aggravate the offence of beating an
officer with his own club, bore witness to it. It told a familiar
story. The prisoner's gang had started a fight in the street, probably
with a scheme of ultimate robbery in view, and the police had come
upon it unexpectedly. The rest had got away with an assortment of
promiscuous bruises. The "Kid" stood his ground, and went down with
two "cops" on top of him after a valiant battle, in which he had
performed the feat that entitled him to honorable mention henceforth
in the felonious annals of the gang. There was no surrender in his
sullen look as he stood before the desk, his hard face disfigured
further by a streak of half-dried blood, reminiscent of the night's
encounter. The fight had gone against him--that was all right. There
was a time for getting square. Till then he was man enough to take his
medicine, let them do their worst.
It was there, plain as could be, in his set jaws and dogged bearing as
he came out, numbered now and indexed in the rogues' gallery, and
started for the police court between two officers. It chanced that I
was going the same way, and joined company. Besides, I have certain
theories concerning toughs which my friend the sergeant says are rot,
and I was not averse to testing them on the Kid.
But the Kid was a bad subject. He replied to my friendly advances with
a muttered curse, or not at all, and upset all my notions in the most
reckless way. Conversation had ceased before we were halfway across to
Broadway. He "wanted no guff," and I left him to his meditations
respecting his defenceless state. At Broadway there was a jam of
trucks, and we stopped at the corner to wait for an opening.
It all happened so quickly that only a confused picture of it is in my
mind till this day. A sudden start, a leap, and a warning cry, and the
Kid had wrenched himself loose. He was free. I was dimly conscious of
a rush of blue and brass; and then I saw--the whole street saw--a
child, a toddling baby, in the middle of the railroad track, right in
front of the coming car. It reached out its tiny hand toward the madly
clanging bell and crowed. A scream rose wild and piercing above the
tumult; men struggled with a frantic woman on the curb, and turned
their heads away--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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