Bowery

“ Encased front and back, like a turtle in its shell, between broad boards which bore advertisements for a dairy lunch, he marched the Bowery all day long for wages barely sufficient to keep body and soul together.
One day, as he plodded his weary route, he saw a shining coin lying upon the sidewalk. Instantly he set his foot upon it, and then, stooping with difficulty because of his wooden waistcoat, he clutched it in his eager fingers and raised it to his eyes. His heart inside of him gave a great throb. It was a twenty-dollar gold piece. He was wealthy beyond his wildest ambitions. ”

“ Yet the Bowery is worth walking through by a stranger, little as it is known or valued by the native citizen, whose lot has been cast in choicer neighborhood. The common pulse of humanity beats audibly and visibly there, wrapped in no cloak of convention or pseudo-refinement. The fundamental business of life is carried on there as being confessedly the main business; not, as in Broadway, as if it were a thing to be huddled into a corner to make way for the carved-work and gilding, the drapery and color of the great panorama. There is another reason why the Bowery has a claim on our attention. ”

“ It was, mon cheri, all because I wanted to live within half-an-hour's journey of the enchanting old Bowery!
On my first spree, I made my way up and down the crowded sidewalks for an hour, staring with all my eyes at the brilliantly lighted fronts of beer-gardens, the many gaudily dressed girls strutting up and down all alone, but, most of all, the sporty-looking youthful laboring men seeking their evening's fun. ”

“ They shine upon the tempter setting his snares there, and upon the missionary and the Salvation Army lass, disputing his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon the wreck that is past hope, and upon the youth pausing on the verge of the pit in which the other has long ceased to struggle. Sights and sounds of Christmas there are in plenty in the Bowery. Balsam and hemlock and fir stand in groves along the busy thoroughfare, and garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. ”

“ The Bowery is a mile of American life in which the nations of the earth meet for excitement and change. There is a business aspect of it which is permanent, but the many-colored throng surging up and down its side-walks all day and all night is ephemeral. It is the place for the homeless, for the out of kilter, for the rudderless wrecks who drift. ”

“ The people one sees in these places are very characteristic of the Bowery. Many of them are what the police call "hard cases,"—men, with coarse, bulldog features, their mustaches trimmed very close, and dyed with something that gives them a foxy-black hue. Women, many of them with children in their arms, have come to look out for bargains. Near the entrance, which is quite open to the street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth marked by him in the crowd. ”

“ Coroner Phelan rendered a verdict that death was due to electricity diverted from its fixed pathway by the unfastening of copper-rail bond wires.
Bowery Minstrel Dies.
The Minstrel of the Bowery, in New York, is dead!
The sweetest singer that ever entertained the men of the fifteen-cent lodging houses and the five-cent eating places died with the echo of his own singing, and just as he heard a dozen men burst into applause in the saloon at 28 Bowery. And the Bowery is sad. ”

“ Say, but they'd make a hit on a Bowery stoige, them soldiers."
"What do you know about the Bowery?" demanded the drummer. "Have you been reading about it in the Newsboy's Delight?"
"I know every inch of the Bowery," was the indignant reply. "When I walk down to Chatham Square the lamps bow to me. I'm hungry for it right now." ”

“ It must be owned that he did not take much trouble about this; what these poor people were thinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, suffering; just where and how they lived; who and what they individually were—these were the matters of his waking dreams as he stared hard at them, while the train raced farther into the gay ugliness—the shapeless, graceful, reckless picturesqueness of the Bowery.
There were certain signs, certain facades, certain audacities of the prevailing hideousness that always amused him in that uproar to the eye which the strident forms and colors made. ”

“ Strange as it may seem, it is from the people who haunt the Bowery that the United States take their character abroad. Foreigners insist upon considering the "Bowery b'hoys,"—a class at once an enigma and a terror to the greater portion of their fellow-citizens,—as distinctive specimens of Americanism, much to the horror of their more fastidious countrymen. This we think a great mistake, though truly there are worse people in the world than the "Bowery b'hoys," who are noted for a sort of bonhomie, in the midst of all their coarseness. ”

“ The net flew, but wide of the mark, for Bowery let himself go feet first beneath it and kicked the Icelander’s legs from under him, himself falling across the hot cylinders of the engine until his ribs were seared with the heat and he jerked himself clear. Barely in time was the jerk, for Gislison was erect and whirling on him, but Bowery kicked the feet from under the man once more and sent him sprawling across the tubs of nets and the long coils of line with the bloater hooks.
In that instant Bowery caught at Mary, lifting her with one arm, and scrambled back to the rising stern of the boat. ”

“ No one grows any better, either bodily or morally, by being on the Bowery. So the quicker they go to some other place the better.
But the Bowery draws men by its own strange attraction. They get into the swing of its life, and find the company that misery loves. God knows there's plenty of it there! I've seen men that you could not drive from the Bowery. But when a man takes Jesus as his guide he wants to search for better grounds. ”

“ Chuck's distinction is attributed in a manner to his style of dress. A blue flannel shirt, a short coat with white pearl buttons, a white tie and a very small hat; that makes the character you read about. In fact, his dress is as famous on the Bowery as himself.
It is in his talk that the remarkable qualities of the man are revealed. Men of all stations in life are held by his wit, his originality, the honest, forcible character of his mind, the uncompromising manner he knows best. The life of the Bowery, “de lane” he calls it, the streets he loves, he could not be torn from. ”

“ It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and the Third Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were running less frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of the green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker Street, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soon do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days, or any thing of that kind) ”

“ His finger indicated a Bowery character as typical as anything ever seen in melodrama—a ragged little old figure with an amazing set of whiskers, engaged in picking up cigar butts along the gutters. He was immediately taken to headquarters. ”

“ This plan was laughed at, at first, but finally adopted, and it took seven years and millions [89] of dollars, and hundreds of the best scholars in the United States and foreign countries to complete the work. They raised my salary from $10 a week to $100 a month; but when an opening came to work as a missionary among the Bowery lodging houses at $60 a month, I considered it the opportunity of a lifetime, and in 1890 entered my new parish—the Bowery.
[90]
CHAPTER VIIToC FISHING FOR MEN ON THE BOWERY
The Bowery is one of the most unique thoroughfares of the world. ”

“ The sense of humor is the saving grace of the American people.
I first made acquaintance with the Bowery as a boy through some lithographic prints. I was interested in them, for I was looking forward to learning to shoot, and my father had told me that there used to be pretty good shooting at the upper end of the Bowery, though, of course, not so good as there was farther up near the Block House, or in the wood beyond. Besides, the pictures showed a very pretty country road with big trees on both sides of it, and comfortable farm-houses, and, I suppose, an inn with a swinging sign. ”

“ He has been advanced twice, with a raise in salary, and comes down to help me in my work on the Bowery. God has blessed him wonderfully, and He will any one who has faith to believe.
JIM THE BRICKLAYER
Where I meet so many men every day and have so many confessions and try to lend a helping hand in so many places, I do forget some of the men, for it seems as though there was an endless procession of them through the Bowery. But some cases stand out so prominently that I shall never forget them. I remember one man in particular who used to come into the Mission. ”

“ Larry the Bat, disreputable denizen of the underworld, alias Jimmie Dale, millionaire clubman, alias the Gray Seal, whom Garruthers of the Morning News-Argus called the master criminal of the age, shuffled along in the direction of the Bowery, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his frayed and tattered trousers, where his fingers, in a curious, wistful way, fondled the keys of his own magnificent residence on Riverside Drive. ”

“ Gisli Gislison is the name of him. On the ocean in the war he was, so Mary Boyle was tellin’ me."
Bowery started at that. "And how does Mary know about it?"
"He’ll be takin’ her to the dance to-night, I guess," said Willie Boyle, who was Mary’s uncle. "It's a free country, ye know, Eddie."
Bowery came to his feet, all the laughing good-humor gone from the face of him. "Any man," said he, "who camps on Pismire, and fishes lonely, and don’t flag his nets, is crazy! I s'pose you buy his fish, James?"
His cousin James nodded. "Being the company’s agent, I play square. He gets fish too! ”

“ The Bowery never sleeps. The policeman on the beat set her in the doorway and sent a hurry call for an ambulance. It came at last, and Nigger Martha was taken to the hospital.
As Mame told it, so it was recorded on the police blotter, with the addition that she was anywhere from forty to fifty years old. That was (p. 128) the strange part of it. It is not often that any one lasts out a generation in the Bowery. Nigger Martha did. ”

“ There was a scud of mist and gray slime that hid Garden from sight, so Bowery got out his compass and laid it between the feet of him. and laughed into Mary’s eyes.
"It’ll be storm by afternoon," said Mary, taking the tiller, her cheeks flushed with the sharp wind.
"Hear the fog whistle from Squaw Island driftin’ on the gale? Let her blow." Bowery’s rich laugh broke out.
"We'll be drinkin' coffee with old Nels, and if ye don’t like the weather he’ll take ye home in his big tug, Mary."
"Oh, will he?" She laughed back at him. "Speak for yourself. Eddie Bowery! I’m satisfied where I am." ”

“ Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night, must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there. Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. ”

“ They wanted to show their sympathy and their love, and a delegation of them came in a body and placed a wreath on Mary's coffin. I learned afterwards how they all chipped in for the collection—some a few cents, some a nickel. Don't think for a moment that the Bowery down-and-out has no heart, for it isn't so. Many a tough-looking fellow with a jumper instead of a shirt has one of the truest hearts that beats. ”

“ North of this settlement stretched a primeval forest through which cattle wandered and were lost. Then the future Chatham Square was fenced in as a place of protection for the cattle.
Bouwerie Lane
The lane leading from this enclosure to the outlying bouweries, during the Revolution was used for the passage of both armies. At that period [Pg 47] the highway changed from the Bouwerie Lane of the Dutch to the English Bowery Road. In 1807 it became "The Bowery." ”

“ I hit de feathers somew'ere's about 2 o'clock, an' de next mornin' er cupple uv de mob cum up ter tell me dat Slats wuz pinched fer sluggin' two Chinks an' stoppin' er trolley car on de Bowery, an' fer givin' de cop er fight w'en he tried ter take her in.
Dere wuz only wun t'ing fer me ter do, so I takes er walk over ter de Tombs, an' dere I seen her wid er bunch uv de talent in de pen. She looked kind uv rockey. I went over and sez: “Wot's de matter wid yer?”
“Nuttin,” sez she. “Pay me fine an' don't leave me here wid dis bunch.” ”

“ Weary turned his horse, with a glance toward the cattle, and, beckoning
Pink to follow, rode out to the right.
"It's the posse!" he hissed. "They'll go to the herd so look for me. Mr. Perkins, the time has come to fly. If only I had a horse that could drift!"
Pink thought he caught the meaning. "Is—is mine any good, Mr. Weary?" he quavered. "If he is, you—you can have him. I—I'll stay and—and fool them as—long as I can." ”

“ You can tell the bunch what she’s for.”
“Oh, what the heck do we want with a speech?” Lance remonstrated. “They know it’s a schoolhouse, unless they’re blind. And I thought maybe some one––you, probably, since you’re the one who hazed her out of the other place––would just tell Mary Hope to bring her books over here and 150 teach. And I thought, to cinch it, you could tell Jim Boyle that you felt you ought to do something toward a school, and since you couldn’t furnish any kids, you thought you’d furnish the house. That ought to be easy. It’s up to you, I should say. ”