Out of Mulberry Street: Stories of Tenement life in New York CityRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
General
Out of Mulberry Street: Stories of Tenement life in New York City
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Poor -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; 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 offense 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 half-way across to
Broadway. He "wanted no guff," and I left him to his meditations
respecting his defenseless 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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