Бетти Смит: Maggie-Now

from one of Horatio Alger's newsboys, was the first piece of disinterested advice Patsy received in America.

Patsy scuttled back to the sidewalk, thinking: I'll get to know the language in time, for 'tis almost like English.

A hansom cab worked its way over to the curb where Patsy was standing. The driver sat high up on the back of the cab. Of course he had a red nose and a battered top hat.

"Cab, sir?"

1~32:1 Eagerly, gratefully, Patsy held up the card which had Moriarity's Brooklyn address. "Would you IIOW, old Da', take me to this place?" he said.

"Not all the way, me boy, sir. Horse can't swim. But I'll take you to the dock and you take the ferry from there."

"How do I get in your wagon, then?" asked Patsy. "Or do you be having room up there with you where I can see the sights of the town? "

"Let's see the color of your money first," said the driver.

Patsy showed him a pound note. "Counterfeit! " gasped the cabbie. Then he said: "Oh, no, you don't, sport. Lucky I don't turn you over to the cops." He flicked the horse with his whip and worked his way back into the stream of traffic.

A businesslike young man, with a sheaf of papers in his hand, who had been watching Patsy for some time, now approached him.

"Name, please!" he said briskly, giving Patsy a keen look.

"Patrick Dennis Moore," said Patsy obediently. The young man riffled through his papers.

"And you are going. . i" Patsy gave him the card. The young man read the name and address. "Ah, yes," he said.

He pulled a paper out of the sheaf. "I-lere it is. Phew!" He wiped his face with his hand. "I thought I lost you. I've been looking all over for you since the ship docked."

"You know me, then?" Isked Patsy, astonished.

"I know who you are. I work for Mr. Moriarity, too." He extended the hand of friendship. Deliriously happy, Patsy wrung it. "Gee, Mr. Moore," said the young man appealingly, "please don't tell Or. Moriarity that I Nsas late meeting you. He'll sack me."

"Things have been said of me," said Patsy grandly, "but never that I was an informer."

"When I first spotted lT by, said the young man, "I could tell you vvas true bye. Now," lie said briskly, "where's your luggage?"

"All I own in the world is strapped to me back."

"I'll relieve you of it."

"I'll keep it. 'Tis no burtllen a-tall."

The young man consulted the paper. "Mr. Moore," he read [33 1

aloud, "is to be given every consideration. You are to carry his luggage…." The young man shrugged. "Boss's orders," he said cheerfully.

Patsy gave him the knapsack. The young man rolled it up and tucked it under his arm. "Let us be on our way,"

he said, "to your new home in America."

Skillfully, he piloted Patsy across the street. "I'll put you on a horsecar," he said, "and that will take you to the ferry dock. You get on the boat and when it stops you get off and Mr. Moriarity will be waiting for you there with his carriage, to drive you to his home."

"I'm that obliged to you. ." began Patsy.

"Don't thank me, Or. Moore. This is all part of my job.

Now!" He gave a furtive look up and down the street. "Do you have any money on you?" Patsy's eyes narrowed suddenly. "I mean for carfare and the ferry?" added the young man quickly.

"Well. ." began Palsy cagily.

"Here, then," said the young man. He gave Patsy four nickels. "That will get you over to Brooklyn and buy you a beer in the bargain."

Patsy was ashamed `,f his suspicions. "I got two notes,"

he said, "but the cabby said they was counterfeet."

"Let's see 'em." Patsy gave him the notes. The young man examined them carefully. "Why these bills are just as good as gold," he said indignantly. "Only you have to get them changed into American money." He took another furtive look up and down the street. "Wait' I'll run in here and 'change them. Only take a minute. Be right back."

He darted through the swinging doors of a saloon. He did not come back in a minute. As Patsy waited, he became heavy with premonition. I le waited a few minutes longer. Then he went into the saloon.

The plate was empty save for the man behind the bar.

He has a big man with big. mustaches and roached hair.

A smell of vvet sawdust, stale beer and dank graveyard air seemed to rise from the barkeep like a vapor.

"Yah?" he asked.

''Wllere's the man what just came in here? " asked Patsv.

[34] "The man who canoe in to change me pound notes?"

"No Mann ist trier," said the barkeep.

"I saw him come in. He told me to wait."

"Oudt mit you," said the man, yawning. "Reuse!"

"Not till][get me note, back," said Patsy. He heard a small squeak; saw a door close stealthily in the rear. "I le's in there!" shouted Patsy. Ele made a dash for the door.

But the bartender was too quick for him. Burly as he was. he took a nimble one-handed vault over the bar. He had an uglylooking blackjack in his flee hand.

"Oudt' Get oudt from mine place," he bellowed. "Du Gottverdammten Irisher! " Patsy made it just in time. The blackjack came down on the t`'p of one of the inswinging doors and splintered it Patsy shuddc red and ducked around the corner.

He walked the unaccustomed streets for hours. His heart wept for his familiar Irish village. He was lost and terrified. He was friendless and didn't knob where to go.

It was worse than being lost in a vast Backless forest. One could sit down and rest in a forest. There was no plac c on the street where he could sit down and rest.

In time, he came to a lonely side street and saw a man in white pushing a cart in which a broom and shovel were upended. He approached the white wing, cap in hand.

"Officer, could you be telling me, and me a greenhorn just landed," he,aid humbly, "how to get to this village?"

He showed him the card.

"Sure, Greerlie," said the obliging street cleaner. "Here's what you do." He gave him careful directions.

It took Patsy six hours, three horsecars, one ferry and miles of walking to get to Bush~vick Avenue, Brooklyn.

He stood at the bottom of the long stoop and took in the, to him, splendor of the three-story, parlor and 'casement, brownstone house with red geraniums in urns on ~ he stoop railing posts. Patsy climbed the stoop. There was a white porcelain plate next the door. It had a black button in the cent`.r. Underneath it said: Ring bell. patsy looked around but could find no rope to pull to ring a bell. He did the next best thing: He tapped on the etched-glass windovv of the vestibule door. After a while, a buxom wench opened 1 ask]

the door, gave him one look and said: "We don't want none."

From within the darkness of the house, Patsy heard the sweetest voice in the world say: "Who is it, Biddy?"

"A peddler, Miss Mary. . some tinker's son," said Biddy.

"I'll attend to it."

She came out of the darkness to Patsy and his heart fell when he saw that the sweetest voice in the world belonged to, according to Patrick's standards, the plainest face and plainest figure in the world.

"I come from Countv Kilkenny," he began.

"Oh!" She clasped her hands and her face brightened up with the sweetest smile in the world. "You must be the new boy. Come in."

He followed her into the house, his heart sighing: Oh, if God had only gone A little further after he made her voice and her smile!

"Papa," she called, "the boy is here from Ireland."