Martha By-the-Day.

by Julie M. Lippmann.

CHAPTER I

If you are one of the favored few, privileged to ride in chaises, you may find the combination of Broadway during the evening rush-hour, in a late November storm, stimulating--you may, that is, provided you have a reliable driver. If, contrariwise, you happen to be of the cla.s.s whose fate it is to travel in public conveyances (and lucky if you have the price!) and the car, say, won't stop for you--why--

Claire Lang had been standing in the drenching wet at the street-crossing for fully ten minutes. The badgering crowd had been shouldering her one way, pushing her the other, until, being a stranger and not very big, she had become so bewildered that she lost her head completely, and, with the blind impulse of a hen with paresis, darted straight out, in amidst the crush of traffic, with all the chances strong in favor of her being instantly trampled under foot, or ground under wheel, and never a one to know how it had happened.

An instant, and she was back again in her old place upon the curbstone.

Something like the firm iron grip of a steam-derrick had fastened on her person, hoisted her neatly up, and set her as precisely down, exactly where she had started from.

It took her a full second to realize what had happened. Then, quick as a flash, anger flamed up in her pale cheeks, blazed in her tired eyes.

For, of course, this was an instance of "insult" described by "the family at home" as common to the experience of unprotected girls in New York City. She groped about in her mind for the formula to be applied in such cases, as recommended by Aunt Amelia. "Sir, you are no gentleman!

If you were a gentleman, you would not offer an affront to a young, defenseless girl who--" The rest eluded her; she could not recall it, try as she would. In desperate resolve to do her duty anyway, she tilted back her umbrella, whereat a fine stream of water poured from the tip directly over her upturned face, and trickled cheerily down the bridge of her short nose.

"Sir--" she shouted resolutely, and then she stopped, for, plainly, her oration was, in the premises, a misfit--the person beside her--the one of the mortal effrontery and immortal grip, being a--woman. A woman of masculine proportions, towering, deep-chested, large-limbed, but with a face which belied all these, for in it her s.e.x shone forth in a motherliness unmistakable, as if the world at large were her family, and it was her business to see that it was generously provided for, along the pleasantest possible lines for all concerned.

"What car?" the woman trumpeted, gazing down serenely into Claire's little wet, anxious, upturned face at her elbow.

"Columbus Avenue."

The stranger nodded, peering down the glistening, wet way, as if she were a skipper sighting a ship.

"My car, too! First's Lexin'ton--next Broadway--then--here's ours!"

Again that derrick-grip, and they stood in the heart of the maelstrom, but apparently perfectly safe, una.s.sailable.

"They won't stop," Claire wailed plaintively. "I've been waiting for ages. The car'll go by! You see if it won't!"

It did, indeed, seem on the point of sliding past, as all the rest had done, but of a sudden the motorman vehemently shut off his power, and put on his brake. By some hidden, mysterious force that was in her, or the mere commanding dimensions of her frame, Claire's companion had brought him to a halt.

She lifted her charge gently up on to the step, pausing herself, before she should mount the platform, to close the girl's umbrella.

"Step lively! Step lively!" the conductor urged insistently, reaching for his signal-strap.

The retort came calmly, deliberately, but with perfect good nature. "Not on your life, young man. I been steppin' lively all day, an' for so long's it's goin' to take this car to get to One-hundred-an'-sixteenth Street, my time ain't worth no more'n a settin' hen's."

The conductor grinned in spite of himself. "Well, mine _is_," he declared, while with an authoritative finger he indicated the box into which Claire was to drop her fare.

"So all the other roosters think," the woman let fall with a tolerant smile, while she diligently searched in her shabby purse for five cents.

Claire, in the doorway, lingered.

"Step right along in, my dear! Don't wait for me," her friend advised, closing her teeth on a dime, as she still pursued an elusive nickel.

"Step right along in, and sit down anywheres, an' if there ain't nowheres to sit, why, just take a waltz-step or two in the direction o'

some of them elegant gen'lemen's feet, occupyin' the places meant for ladies, an' if they don't get up for love of _you_, they'll get up for love of their shins."

Still the girl did not pa.s.s on.

"Fare, please!" There was a decided touch of asperity in the conductor's tone. He glared at Claire almost menacingly.

Her lip trembled, the quick tears sprang to her eyes. She hesitated, swallowed hard, and then brought it out with a piteous gulp.

"I _had_ my fare--'twas in my glove. It must have slipped out. It's gone--lost--and--"

A tug at the signal-strap was the conductor's only comment. He was stopping the car to put her off, but before he could carry out his purpose the woman had dropped her dime into the box with a sounding click.

"Fare for two!" she said, "an' if I had time, an' a place to sit, I'd turn you over acrost my knee, an' give you two, for fair, young man, for the sake of your mother who didn't learn you better manners when you was a boy!" With which she laid a kind hand upon Claire's heaving shoulder, and impelled her gently into the body of the car, already full to overflowing.

For a few moments the girl had a hard struggle to control her rising sobs, but happily no one saw her working face and twitching lips, for her companion had planted herself like a great bulwark between her and the world, shutting her off, walling her 'round. Then, suddenly, she found herself placed in a hurriedly vacated seat, from which she could look up into the benevolent face inclined toward her, and say, without too much danger of breaking down in the effort:

"I really _did_ have it--the money, you know. Truly, I'm not a--"

"O, pooh! Don't you worry your head over a little thing like that. Such accidents is liable to occur in the best-reggerlated fam'lies. They do in mine, shoor!"

"But, you see," quavered the uncertain voice, "I haven't any more.

That's all I had, so I can't pay you back, and--"

It was curious, but just here another pa.s.senger hastily rose, vacating the seat next Claire's, and leaving it free, whereat her companion compressed her bulky frame into it with a sigh, as of well-earned rest, and remarked comfortably, "_Now_ we can talk. You was sayin'--what was it? About that change, you know. It was all you had. You mean _by_ you, of course."

Claire's pale, pinched face flushed hotly. "No, I don't," she confessed, without lifting her downcast eyes.

Her companion appeared to ponder this for a moment, then quite abruptly she let it drop.

"My name's Slawson," she observed. "Martha Slawson. I go out by the day.

Laundry-work, housecleaning, general ch.o.r.es. I got a husband an' four children, to say nothing of a mother-in-law who lives with us, an' keeps an eye on things while me an' Sammy (that's Mr. Slawson) is out workin', an' lucky if it's an eye itself, for it's not a hand, I can tell you that. What's your name, if I may make so bold?"

"Claire Lang. My people live in Grand Rapids--where the furniture and carpet-sweepers come from," with a wistful, faint little attempt at a smile. "My father was judge of the Supreme Court, but he had losses, and then he died, and there wasn't much of anything left, and so--"

"You come to New York to make your everlastin' fortune, an' you--"

Claire Lang shook her head, completing the unfinished sentence. "No, I haven't made it, that is, not yet. But I'm not discouraged. I don't mean to give up. Things look pretty dark just now, but I'm not going to let that discourage me--No, indeed! I'm going to be brave and courageous, and never say die, even if--even if--"

"Turn 'round, an' pertend you're lookin' out of the winder," suggested Mrs. Slawson confidentially. "The way folks stare, you'd think the world was full of nothin' but laughin' hyeenyas. Dontcher care, my dear! Well for some of 'em, if they could shed an honest tear or two themselves, oncet in a while, instead of bein' that brazen; 'twouldn't be water at all, but Putzes Pomady it'd take to make an impression on 'em, an'

don't you forget it. There! That's right! Now, no one can observe what's occurrin' in your face, an' I can talk straight into your ear, see? What I was goin' to say _is_, that bein' a mother myself an' havin' children of my own to look out for, I couldn't recommend any lady, let alone one so young an' pretty as you, to take up with strangers, here in New York City, be they male or be they female. No, certaintly not! But in this case, you can take it from me, I'm O.K. I can give the highest references. I worked for the best fam'lies in this town, ever since I was a child. You needn't be a mite afraid. I'm just a plain mother of a fam'ly an', believe _me_, you can trust me as you would trust one of your own relations, though I do say it as shouldn't, knowin' how queer _own relations_ can be and _is_, when put to it at times. So, if you happen to be in a hole, my dear, without friends or such things in the city, you feel free to turn to, or if you seem to stand in need of a word of advice, or--anything else, why, dontcher hesitate a minute. It'd be a pretty deep hole Martha Slawson couldn't see over the edge of, be sure of that, even if she did have to stand on her toes to do it. Holes is my specialty, havin' been in an' out, as you might say, all my life--particularly _in_."

Judicious or not, Claire told her story. It was not a long one. Just the everyday experience of a young girl coming to a strange city, without influence, friends, or money, expecting to make her way, and finding that way beset with difficulties, blocked by obstacles.

"I've done everything I could think of, honestly I have," she concluded apologetically. "I began by trying for big things; art-work in editorial offices (everybody liked my art-work in Grand Rapids!). But 'twas no use. Then I took up commercial drawing. I got what looked like a good job, but the man gave me one week's pay, and that's all I could ever collect, though I worked for him over a month. Then I tried real estate.

One firm told me about a woman selling for them who cleared, oh, I don't know how-much-a-week, in commissions. Something queer must be the matter with me, I guess, for I never got rid of a single lot, though I walked my feet off. I've tried writing ads., and I've directed envelopes. I've read the Wants columns, till it seems as if everybody in the world was looking for a _job_. But I can't get anything to do. I guess G.o.d doesn't mean me to die of starvation, for you wouldn't believe how little I've had to eat all summer and fall, and yet I'm almost as strong and hearty as ever. But lately I haven't been able to make any money at all, not five cents, so I couldn't pay my board, and they--they told me at the house where I live, that I'd have to square up to-night, or I couldn't keep my room any longer. They took my trunk a week ago. I haven't had anything to wear except these clothes I have on, since, and they're pretty wet now--and--and--I've nowhere to go, and it _is_ pouring so hard, and I should have been put off the car if you hadn't--"

Mrs. Slawson checked the labored flow with a hand upon the girl's knee.

"Where did you say your boardin'-house is?" she inquired abruptly.

"Ninety-fifth Street--West--Two-hundred-and-eighty-five-and-a-half."

"Good gracious! An' we're only three blocks off there now!"