INSTRUMENTS OF EROS
Oh, it's then I 'ankers after 'Ome,
An' a sniff o' Bethnal Green,
An' 'Er, who was queen o' Pub an' 'All,
—An' th' Things w'ot Might 'Ave Been!
INSTRUMENTS OF EROS
HE had always been called "Hungry"—Hungry Dooley. Just how he came by this name no one knew. It was thought by many to have been inspired by the boy's thin, wistful-looking face, with its restless eyes and queer little outstanding cheekbones. Others, again, held that the name sprang from Hungry's passion for carting away envied loads of luscious fruit and delectable vegetables, picked up along the river front. These he disappeared with into the dim recesses of an East Side cellar which he dignified by the name of home.
For Hungry, besides being an everyday wharf rat, was the stay and support of three even hungrier-looking sisters and a sickly mother, to say nothing of an alcoholic father who was able, now and then, to beat or bully a penny or two out of him.
It was only right, therefore, that Hungry, as he wandered busily about the odoriferous curbs and the crate-covered docks of the river front, should take himself seriously. He had, of course, many rivals, for there was always a wandering herd of equally hungry-eyed, ragged-looking urchins haunting those alluring wharves, flitting about from boat to boat and cart to cart, like a flock of overgrown city sparrows, ever ready to pounce down upon and fight over any stray piece of fruit, melon rind, or other dubiously misplaced edible to be found among those over-crowded, dirty, busy, clamorous streets and stalls where men bring from far off all those things that go to feed a great, hungry, heedless city.
But the most opulent of those hawk-eyed scavengers was Hungry Dooley. Not an over-ripe banana fell to the ground but he knew of it. Not an unsalable apple was cast away but he had sized it up as a matter of food-stuff. Not a remnant of old fish was left behind but his aquiline eye was on it.
And things went well, and business throve with Hungry. In fact, as time on, he even took unto himself a mate.
She was as diminutive, as thin of leg, and as dirtily unkempt as Hungry himself. But one could see by the way in which he laid his choicest portions of refuse banana and bruised pineapple before her, that to him she was as a goddess on a pedestal, and a thing to kneel to, and worship, and adore.
So plain was it that Hungry had a "stiddy" that envious stories went about through the busy little band, and even certain taunts were thrown out.
But none of these disturbed either Hungry or his sweetheart Brickie, who, by the way, was seen rapidly to gain flesh under Hungry's solicitous eye.
And as spring glided into summer all life changed for Hungry Dooley. A rose mist seemed to hang over the river, and a happy golden halo over the world. He did not know what it meant, but the rattle of the waggons seemed like unending music to him. The sound of the cables became, to his ears, like the murmur of running streams. The alley where Brickie lived was an Eden and a place of infinite delight, and with her at his side he was happy, indescribably happy!
In Hungry the paternal instinct had developed at an early age. He even gave Brickie, willingly, his last bit of orange, for Brickie's appetite was enormous. He found he could satisfy the gnawing pain in his own stomach by saving the peelings and eating them afterwards, when Brickie was n't looking. At times, it was true, the gnawing would become frightfully strong, but on his hungriest day he would rather see Brickie's lips close deliciously round the end of an over-ripe banana than eat it himself.
For three beautiful but fleeting months Brickie clung to him, and the rose mist hung over the river, and the halo over his world.
But it was a dark day for Hungry Dooley when Ikey Rosenberg discovered that riverside El Dorado. When Ikey found a place where fruit could be had for the picking up, he transferred his hunting-ground from the East Side to the region of wharves. Ikey was an element from a different world, however, and from the first it was felt he was an intruder and a menace.
He brought seven pennies in his pocket, the very first day of his invasion, and took pains to show them, by which vanity he lost three. But in two short days he had won the heart of Brickie Sniffins with a broken mouth-organ, a little red and blue lantern, and four penny dishes of ice cream, purchased, with great ostentation, from the despised Italian who dispensed that cooling essence of perpetual joy from a three-wheeled red cart on a nearby corner.
Brickie, in a wonderfully short space of time, grew to feel that she was cut out for a man who had money and could treat her as a girl ought to be treated. She openly declared that she did not care to be seen with a person who could n't wear shoes and stockings, and who had to live in a cellar. That declaration was made the day after Ikey had taken her round and showed her the riches that lay in dazzling disarray in the window of the store of "Isaac Rosenberg, Pawnbroker."
The final break came when Brickie stood on the curb with Ikey and made faces at Hungry.
Hungry saw the change, but he said nothing. Strange tales went the rounds of the wharves, and it was said he was silently eating his heart out. Disconsolately he passed by bananas and onions and oranges, letting ready hands snatch the treasures from under his very nose. He would not even stop to fight over a discarded pineapple.
How it all might have turned out it is hard to say. But on the paltriest accidents of life hinges the course of destiny.
It came about simply because the driver of an express waggon took four glasses of beer, when he knew three glasses were enough. His waggon was piled high with crates on their way to the commission house. And in those crates were little wooden boxes of imported Maryland strawberries. Their fragrance was wafted up and down the wharf, and they glowed through the chinks in the crate in such a manner that Hungry could not help following after the waggon.
When the driver cut a street corner too short, and sent his front waggon wheel up on the curbstone, Hungry knew that top crate was going to fall off—knew it ten seconds before it struck the ground.
The huge crate burst, of course, and a great odorous, crimson wealth of Maryland strawberries tumbled out into the road. A couple of passing waggon wheels crushed juicily through them. The driver sat helplessly in his seat, calling all the curses of heaven down on the heads of his docile team.
But Hungry had been ready. He fell bodily on the ruddy and tumbled mass, and at the risk of being run down by a dozen passing rigs, scooped up the fallen wealth as he had never scooped up fruit before. Brickie they should be for—Brickie—every one of them. Brickie's mouth it was he seemed to see closing on them as he thrust handful after handful into his grimy coal sack, now reminiscent, in perfumes, of many mingled fruits. The fact, too, that they were out of season added infinitely to their value.
But the driver felt that he had to get even with some one. Still swearing, he climbed down slowly from his waggon. He broke off one of the sides of the ruined crate. With it he viciously welted the unheeding child down on his knees in the road. The child did not move, so he struck him again, and then again. Still the boy with the bag kept on gathering in the scattered berries. A policeman sauntered up, tasted a berry or two, and told the driver to leave the kid alone. But in a minute or two the whole herd was upon them, and the crate was irretrievably lost. It was Hungry, however, who had the pick of the pile.
Brickie watched the scene with wistful eyes from the sidewalk. She had not been getting on very well with Ikey of late, and when he declined to enter the struggle for some of the berries, she felt a new and strange contempt for him. For Brickie was very fond of strawberries!
Then, before the whole world, Hungry limped over to the curb and proffered her his bag of precious fruit. Brickie blushed, declined with feigned reluctance, blushed deeper, and then broke out crying. Hungry gave Ikey Rosenberg a black eye for jeering at those tears.
Through her sobs she protested that she would never do it again, and having eyed the open bag, and caught a glimpse of the wealth therein, made a mouth at Ikey Rosenberg that decided the matter for all time.
Once more the rose-tinted mists seemed to dwell on the river, and a golden halo hung over the city, but few people ever knew that a mere little crate of Maryland strawberries was the means of bringing back a lost Eden!