Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

«I have money.» «You'll sleep here,» she broke in decisively,

«and Mike will put ye on yer feet; sure he knows New York like his pocket, an' yer as welcome as the flowers in May, an'-» What could I do but stay and talk and listen to all sorts of stories about New York, and «toughs» that were «hard cases» and «gunmen» and «wimmin that were worse-bad scran to them.» In due time Mrs. Mulligan and I had dinner together, and after dinner I got her permission to go into the Park for a walk, but «mind now and be home by six or I'll send Mike after ye,» she added, laughing. I walked a little way in the park and then started down town again to the address Jessie had given me near the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a mean street, I thought, but I soon found Jessie's sister's house and went to a nearby restaurant and wrote a little note to my love, that she could show if need be, saying that I proposed to call on the eighteenth, or two days after the ship we had come in was due to return to Liverpool. After that duty, which made it possible for me to hope all sorts of things on the eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth, I sauntered over to Fifth Avenue and made my way uptown again. At any rate I was spending nothing in my present lodging. When I returned that night I was presented to Mike: I found him a big, good looking Irishman who thought his wife a wonder and all she did perfect. «Mary,» he said, winking at me, «is one of the best cooks in the wurrld and if it weren't that she's down on a man when he has a drop in him, she'd be the best gurrl on God's earth. As it is, I married her, and I've never been sorry, have I, Mary?» «Ye've had no cause, Mike Mulligan.»

Mike had nothing particular to do next morning and so he promised he would go and get my little trunk from the custom house. I gave him the key. He insisted as warmly as his wife that I should stay with them till I got work: I told him how eager I was to begin and Mike promised to speak to his chief and some friends and see what could be done. Next morning I got up about five-thirty as soon as I heard Mike stirring, and went down Seventh Avenue with him till he got on the horse-car for down town and left me. About seven-thirty to eight o'clock a stream of people began walking down town to their offices.

On several corners were bootblack shanties. One of them happened to have three customers in it and only one bootblack. «Won't you let me help you shine a pair or two?» I asked. The bootblack looked at me.

«I don't mind,» he said and I seized the brashes and went to work. I had done the two just as he finished the first: he whispered to me «halves» as the next man came in and he showed me how to use the polishing rag or cloth. I took off my coat and waistcoat and went to work with a will; for the next hour and a half we both had our hands full. Then the rush began to slack off, but not before I had taken just over a dollar and a half. Afterwards we had a talk, and Allison, the bootblack, told me he'd be glad to give me work any morning on the same terms. I assured him I'd be there and do my best till I got other work. I had earned three shillings and had found out I could get good board for three dollars a week, so in a couple of hours I had earned my living. The last anxiety left me. Mike had a day off, so he came home for dinner at noon and he had great news. They wanted men to work under water in the iron caissons of Brooklyn Bridge and they were giving from five to ten dollars a day. «Five dollars,» cried Mrs.

Mulligan. «It must be dangerous or unhealthy or somethin'-sure, you'd never put the child to work like that.» Mike excused himself, but the danger, if danger there was, appealed to me almost as much as the big pay: my only fear was that they'd think me too small or too young.

I had told Mrs. Mulligan I was sixteen, for I didn't want to be treated as a child, and now I showed her the eighty cents I had earned that morning bootblacking and she advised me to keep on at it and not go to work under the water; but the promised five dollars a day won me. Next morning Mike took me to Brooklyn Bridge soon after five o'clock to see the contractor; he wanted to engage Mike at once but shook his head over me. «Give me a trial,» I pleaded; «you'll see I'll make good.» After a pause, «O.K.,» he said; «four shifts have gone down already underhanded: you may try.» I've told about the work and its dangers at some length in my novel, The Bomb, but here I may add some details just to show what labor has to suffer. In the bare shed where we got ready, the men told me no one could do the work for long without getting the «bends»; the «bends» were a sort of convulsive fit that twisted one's body like a knot and often made you an invalid for life. They soon explained the whole procedure to me. We worked, it appeared, in a huge bell-shaped caisson of iron that went to the bottom of the river and was pumped full of compressed air to keep the water from entering it from below: the top of the caisson is a room called the «material chamber,» into which the stuff dug out of the river passes up and is carted away. On the side of the caisson is another room, called the «air-lock,» into which we were to go to be «compressed.» As the compressed air is admitted, the blood keeps absorbing the gasses of the air till the tension of the gasses in the blood becomes equal to that in the air: when this equilibrium has been reached, men can work in the caisson for hours without serious discomfort, if sufficient pure air is constantly pumped in. It was the foul air that did the harm, it appeared. «If they'd pump in good air, it would be O.K.; but that would cost a little time and trouble, and men's lives are cheaper.» I saw that the men wanted to warn me thinking I was too young, and accordingly I pretended to take little heed. When we went into the «air-lock» and they turned on one air-cock after another of compressed air, the men put their hands to their ears and I soon imitated them, for the pain was very acute.

Indeed, the drums of the ears are often driven in and burst if the compressed air is brought in too quickly. I found that the best way of meeting the pressure was to keep swallowing air and forcing it up into the middle ear, where it acted as an air-pad on the inner side of the drum and so lessened the pressure from the outside. It took about half an hour or so to «compress» us and that half an hour gave me lots to think about. When the air was fully compressed, the door of the air-lock opened at a touch and we all went down to work with pick and shovel on the gravelly bottom. My headache soon became acute. The six of us were working naked to the waist in a small iron chamber with a temperature of about 180° Fahrenheit: in five minutes the sweat was pouring from us, and all the while we were standing in icy water that was only kept from rising by the terrific air pressure. No wonder the headaches were blinding. The men didn't work for more than ten minutes at a time, but I plugged on steadily, resolved to prove myself and get constant employment; only one man, a Swede named Anderson, worked at all as hard. I was overjoyed to find that together we did more than the four others. The amount done each week was estimated, he told me, by an inspector. Anderson was known to the contractor and received half a wage extra as head of our gang. He assured me I could stay as long as I liked, but he advised me to leave at the end of a month: it was too unhealthy: above all, I mustn't drink and should spend all my spare time in the open. He was kindness itself to me, as indeed were all the others. After two hours' work down below we went up into the air-lock room to get gradually «decompressed,» the pressure of air in our veins having to be brought down gradually to the usual air pressure. The men began to put on their clothes and passed round a bottle of schnapps; but though I was soon as cold as a wet rat and felt depressed and weak to boot, I would not touch the liquor. In the shed above I took a cupful of hot cocoa with Anderson, which stopped the shivering, and I was soon able to face the afternoon's ordeal.