THE RAGGED EDGE

The Ragged Edge A Tale of Ward Life & Politics

By John T. Mc. Intyre

First Novel

Series

New York McClure, Phillips & Co. Mcmii

Copyright, 1902, by McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO Published, September, 1902, R

To Wayne, Andy, George & Lew

THE RAGGED EDGE

Chapter I

“Arrah, me jewel, sure, Larry’s the boy!”

Old Song.

WEARY horses dragged ponderous trucks homeward; the drivers drooped upon their high seats and thought of cans of beer; a red sun threw shafts of light along the cross-town streets and between the rows of black warehouses.

The porters had all gone for the night from Mason & Sons, and young Mason stood upon the office step, about to lock the door, when Kerrigan jumped from a passing car and hailed him.

“I just happened to notice you as I was going by,” Kerrigan said; “and that reminded me that I wanted to speak to you.”

“Come in and sit down,” said Mason, leading the way into the office.

“I drew up a will the other day in which you were[4] named as executor,” said Kerrigan, mounting a stool at the bookkeeper’s desk.

Mason looked at him questioningly.

“It’s old Miss Cassidy who kept house for your father, years ago. She said that she had not spoken to you about the matter, but that she felt sure that you would consent to act.”

“She’s a queer old soul,” smiled Mason.

“No queerer than the will she had me make for her. Quite a tidy sum of money, too.”

“She was very saving; and then father thought well of her and advised her about small investments which were successful. But what induced her to make a will? Is she ill?”

“She says she is getting old, and thought that the matter should be settled. By the way, Mason, there are rumours going about the City Hall that must interest a reformer like you,” and Kerrigan smiled at his friend. “The Motor Traction Company is endeavouring to secure possession of Center and Line streets.”

“Do they contemplate purchasing the rights of the new company?”

“Not while there’s a chance to steal them; and from[5] what I’ve heard during the last few days that has been their object since the time the injunction was granted against the rival concern.”

The young attorney planted his back against the desk and braced himself with his elbows. “Let me give you a sketch of the thing,” said he. “The City Railway Company was duly chartered, secured the franchise from councils for these two streets and spent thousands of good dollars in putting down road-bed, rails and all that sort of thing. At this stage the Motor Company suddenly discovered that Center and Line streets were arteries that would tap the thickly populated sections, and that the new company would reduce their earnings.

“Under cover of a protest from citizens living along the line of the new road, an injunction was gotten out staying all work; the matter was carried into the courts, where it has been hanging fire ever since.”

“But,” put in Mason, “a decision was rendered in favour of the City Company less than a week ago.”

“I know that; and in that decision the new move of the Motor people had its birth. The long delay, the[6] cost of fighting the case and all that, pretty well drained the resources of the City people, who were none too rich to begin with. And a time limit was put upon the building of the line at the time the franchise was granted. The time specified will shortly expire and the road is but half built. The Motor Company intends to put unlimited money into the next local election in order to elect a majority in both branches of councils favourable to revoking the franchise on the ground of failure to live up to their contract.”

“Why, this is infamous!” exclaimed Mason. “How could the road be built in the time specified when the courts prevented their working upon it?”

Kerrigan shrugged his shoulders. “The Motor Company want that franchise and it is not at all particular about how it is gotten.”

The two young men rose and made their way to the sidewalk.

“I understand,” said Mason, as he sprang the catch of the office door, “when the new company was organized that the stock was mostly taken up in small[7] lots by small store-keepers and people with accounts in saving banks.”

“That’s true,” answered Kerrigan; “and that’s what makes the company easy game.”

A heavy team swung up to the curb and a square-jawed young fellow climbed down from his seat. A battered, drink-sodden man tremulously clutched him by the arm and began mumbling incoherently. The teamster slipped him a nickel and gave him a helpful shove down the street; then he approached and said to Mason:

“There’s a lot o’ stuff up at Shed B for youse people. Shannon wants t’ know when ye want it hauled.”

“Ah, yes,” replied Mason. “We received the notice late this afternoon. Tell Shannon to have it here the first thing in the morning.”

“Good enough!” The driver was about to turn away when Kerrigan exclaimed:

“Hello, Larry! What’s doing?”

“Hello, Johnnie,” greeted the other. “I didn’t know youse.”

[8]“Who’s your friend?” questioned Kerrigan, nodding toward the receding form of the tramp.

“Oh, just a guy what braced me for a nickel so’s he could hang up his hat on the inside of a wall. He said it’s been so long since he covered his stilts wit’ a sheet that he forgets what it feels like.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that I was workin’ this side o’ the street meself. Say, it’s a big t’ing when a guy kin dig down in his pants an’ produce a roll that would stop a window; but the minute I run up against a bundle o’ rags me vest buttons is in danger. Say, Johnnie, was youse ever strapped?”

Kerrigan confessed that he had been.

“I guess every geezer along the line has done the stunt at some stage o’ the game. Why, I’ve been so tight on the hooks that I couldn’t tell the difference between a coon blowin’ a cake walk an’ a gutter band handin’ out the ‘Dead March in Saul’; an’ if Queen Anne cottages was sellin’ for a quarter a bunch I couldn’t buy in a cellar window. I tell youse what it is, Kerrigan, when a guy’s room rent’s six weeks on the wrong side o’ the ledger an’ his meal ticket wont[9] stan’ for another hole in it, it’s time for him to start somethin’ doin’, an’ try an’ git his eyes on a graft what’s got ‘In God we trust’ chalked on its back. Ain’t that right?”

“A man entirely without money,” said Mason, “is certainly an object for sympathy.”

Larry gestured his contempt.

“I’d like to deal in that,” said he. “If I could sell it at two bits a crate I’d make money till youse couldn’t rest. The lobsters what runs the beanery’s got sympathy to give away; but youse couldn’t coax a beef stew out o’ the kitchen if ye had a smile like Maude Adams. And the gent that runs the hock shop keeps it in stock too, but the same guy wouldn’t lend youse a half a plunk on a pair o’ bags wit’ a hole in ’em if ye was spittin’ blood.

“Sympathy,” continued the square-jawed young man, “is the cheapest graft that ever looked over the hill; it’s got every other con game skinned to death and a guy in a tight pull takes chances o’ breakin’ his neck over it every time he opens his mouth. But, say, on the level, when a man’s single, an’ on’y got one end to watch he kin pipe up a breeze if he ain’t[10] dead leary on action; but when he’s got a full hand o’ kids like me friend Chip Nolan, an’ has to keep leather on their tootseys an’ their first teeth busy three times a day, he’s got to keep his t’ink-tank stirrin’ to beat the band, or he’ll look like a last year’s poster on a broken-down fence.”

He climbed up to his high seat and gathered up the reins.

“Don’t t’ink from this song an’ dance,” said he, “that I’ve ever stood in line wit’ a yellow ticket an’ a tin can. But, say, as Chip Nolan ’ed say: ‘Yer on the turf, mate, but youse ain’t under it yet.’ See? Git ’ep, Pete!”

Chapter II

IT was Sunday morning. The iron heart of the bell that hung in the tower of St. Michael’s beat against its brazen ribs, and the clangour went rioting over the housetops. Streams of people, dressed in their Sunday best, picked their way across the railroad toward the sound; heavy faces peered through bedroom windows and sleep-dry lips murmured curses at the noise; a shifting engine panted heavily as it dragged a milk train over the rails, and spat cinders into the face of day.

In the kitchen of a squat, shabby building fronting on the railroad, a lean, yellow-faced old woman sat beside the range, nursing her knees and drawing at[12] a black clay pipe. Another, almost her counterpart, was sweeping the floor with the worn stump of a broom.

“God be good till uz, Ellen!” suddenly exclaimed the first. “What are yez about?”

“What talk have ye, Bridget?”

“Sure ye wur as near as a hair till swapin’ the bit av dust out av the dure!”

“Divil a fear av me. Is it swape the luck from the house I’d be doin’?”

Ellen scraped up the sweepings. “There do be bad luck enough about the place,” she continued, as she slid the dust into the fire and watched it burn, the flame lighting up her old, faded face, her dirty white cap, her bony, large-veined hands. “Malachi tells me that the biz’ness do be poorly.”

“Little wonder,” declared Bridget, knocking the ashes from her pipe and laying it carefully on the top of a tin at the back of the stove. “I know’d what ’ud come av havin’ the son av a Know-nothin’ glosterin’ about the place! Sure the curse av God is on the loike!”

“True for yez,” assented her sister. “Owld Larkin[13] wur the spit av the owld felly himself; he wur a Derry man an’ as black a Presbyterian as iver cried ‘To h—l wid the Pope!’”

Ellen took up the hot pipe and charged it from the tin, shaking her head ominously.

“Ah, the Orange thafe!” piped the other. “Well do I raymember him, years ago, at the riots at the Nanny-Goat Market, that stood beyant there where the railroad is. Sure it wur him that put the divil in their heads till burn down St. Michael’s; an’ wid me own two eyes I see him shoutin’ an’ laffin’ as the cross tumbled intill the street!”

Ellen made a hurried sign of the cross and muttered some words in Gaelic.

“An’ they say,” whispered she, awed, “that he barked loike a dog iver after!”

“Sorra the lie’s in it, avic. Owld Mrs. Flannagan, that lived nixt dure till him, towld me, wid her own two lips, that it wur so. Bud he always said it wur asthma he wur after havin’.”

“Oh, the robber! It wur himself that cud twist t’ings till serve his turn. More like it wur the divil in him, cryin’ till be let out.”

[14]“An’ d’yez raymember at the toime av the riots, Ellen, whin he stood be the fince, overight our back yard, wid Foley’s musket, waitin’ for any av uz till pop out our heads?”

Ellen, through some mischance, had swallowed some of the rank pipe smoke, and she gasped and strangled, with waving hands and protruding eyes.

“Well do I, asthore,” she panted between her fits of coughing. “Oh, the Crom’ell!”

“Bridget,” cried a voice from the storeroom in front, “have ye not me bit av breakfast ready? It’s late for Mass I’ll be iv yez don’t stir yezself, woman.”

Malachi O’Hara stood in his shop among his stock in trade. About him were heaped the rakings of low auction rooms and pawnbrokers’ sales; stacks of half-worn clothing lay upon the counter; the shelves were loaded with crockery, oil lamps, plaster of paris images, table cutlery, clocks, fly-specked pictures and a heterogeneous mass of battered, greasy and utterly useless articles for which it would be impossible to find names. In the window hung a banjo with two broken strings; a family Bible, its pages held open by a set of steel “knuckle dusters” lay just below,[15] and it was garnished on all sides with old-fashioned silver watches, seal rings, black jacks and so on down the list of articles that clutter such establishments.

O’Hara, a pot-bellied man, bald, broad-faced and with hard little eyes, walked back to the kitchen.

“We wur talkin’ av owld Jimmie Larkin,” said Bridget putting the crockery upon the table. “Look till the sup av coffee, Ellen,” she whispered, hurriedly, “d’ye not see that it’s b’ilin’ over!”

O’Hara glowered at them, angrily.

“An’ it’s only startin’ yez are!” he cried. “D’ye si’ here like a pair av owld cacklin’ hens, an’ the bell just rung for Mass!”

The bell had just ceased and people were still hurrying on; the red sun peeped at them from behind the church tower; the hands of the big clock reproachfully pointed out the fact that they were late. Bridget glanced through the side window.

“There goes Clancy’s wife in her new silk,” said she. “It’s proud enough she’s gettin’ till be, since her husband opened the grocery.”

“May the divil fly away wid Clancy’s wife an’ her silks as well! Faix an’ there do be other things that[16] Clancy could do wid his money!” O’Hara was in a stormy mood.

“Sit down till yez bit av breakfast,” soothed Ellen. “Clancy do be doin’ well an’ will pay the money he borried av ye, Malachi. It’s drink yez coffee black yez’ll have till,” she added, “for young McGonagle have not come wid the milk yet.”

He sat down with a crabbed laugh.

“McGonagle is it!” exclaimed he. “Faith an’ there’s another wan. The toime is drawin’ on, so it is, but divil the dollar richer is he. It’s wait for me bit av money he’ll be wantin’ me till, but scure till the day will I. I’ll sell him out, the spalpeen! He do not trate me wid rayspect.”

A rattling of wheels ceased at the door, and it shook under a thundering hand.

“Spake av the divil!” remarked Ellen. She took a pitcher from the table and opened the door. “A pint,” she said.

The youth with the milk-pail dexterously dipped out the required quantity.

“Heard the news?” inquired he.

[17]“We’ve heerd nothin’,” returned Ellen, “barrin’ that Hogan as he passed on his bate this mornin’, towld uz that his b’y Tom wur near kilt las’ noight at yez bla’gard club.”

“Ah, Hogan’s daffy! I meant did ye hear about old man Murphy a-dyin’?”

“What!” exclaimed O’Hara, his mouth full, “is owld Larry cold, thin?”

“Not yet; but he’ll die before the day’s over.” And with this the milkman threw himself and can into the wagon at the curb, and rolled down the street. Ellen closed the door and put the pitcher upon the table.

“So he’ll be goin’ at las’,” said she.

“Small wonder,” put in the sister; “sure he’s been poorly this long time.”

“The owld man made a tidy bit av money in his day,” said the brother, admiringly. “Bud,” with a sigh, “it’s lavin’ it all he’ll be.”

“An’ tell me, Malachi,” said Bridget, “d’yez think the gran’son’ll git any av it?”

O’Hara spilled some of the milk into his coffee.

“Divil a cint,” answered he, positively. “Sure, the[18] owld man have niver noticed him since the day he wur born. An’ small blame till him,” rapping upon the table with his spoon, “for what call had his son till take up wid a Jewess?”

“But,” reasoned Ellen, “now that he do be dyin’ he might call him in an’—”

“Sorra the fear av that! Faix an’ whin Mike lay dead at O’Connor’s, the undertaker, he wint naythur nixt nor near him. Some say Kelly wur the cause av that, but owld Larry had timper enough av his own, God knows.”

“An’ do ye t’ink he’ll lave the property till the Church?”

“Ayther that or till Mary Carroll. Kelly t’inks there do be a chance for his boy, Martin; but Martin’s a hard drinker an’ the owld man niver liked a bone in his body.”

The gong over the store door rattled sharply. A plump little woman with a rosy, chubby face had entered; she wore a bright scarlet shawl shot with green and saffron, and upon her head was perched a tiny black bonnet with blue strings.

“Good mornin’ all,” greeted this lady with a sweeping[19] flourish of a big brass-clasped prayer book. “An’ Bridget, acushla, have ye heard about poor owld Larry Murphy?”

“God luk down on uz, I have,” answered Bridget, wagging her head from side to side. “Ah bud death’s a sad t’ing, Mrs. McGonagle.”

“True for ye, asthore, true for ye!” And Mrs. McGonagle wagged her head also. “But,” she continued, “what will become av the houses in the alley, an’ the power av money they say he have in bank?”

“We wur this minit spakin’ av that same,” said Ellen; “an’ Malachi t’inks the gran’son’ll git sorra the cint av it.”

“God be good till uz, Malachi! An’ d’ye t’ink so?”

Mrs. McGonagle caught her breath and stared at O’Hara in horror. “Till t’ink,” she added, in an awed tone, “av him holdin’ the grudge an’ him a-dyin’.”

O’Hara had finished his breakfast and was putting on his coat.

“I can see nothin’ ilce for it,” remarked he, sagely.

“Young Larry is a study, sober, hard workin’ boy!” exclaimed Mrs. McGonagle, “an’ its a sin an’ a shame[20] for him till be treated so. He have lodged in me third story for a long time, now, an’ I have the first time till see him wid a sup av drink in him; an’ I’d say that iv it wur me last breath, so I wud!”

The gong rattled; the door slammed; and a girl, flushed and breathless, darted through the store and into the kitchen.

“Aunt Ellen,” cried she, “give me the candles we had from last Candlemas Day; an’ I want the ivory crucifix, too, for they’ve sent for Father Dawson.”

Ellen began a hurried rummaging for the articles named; the girl caught sight of Mrs. McGonagle and grasped her by the arm.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “is it you, Mrs. McGonagle? I’m glad you’re here; I was just a-goin’ to run around to your house.”

“For why?”

“Here!” cried Ellen pushing a parcel into the girl’s hand. “Here’s what yez want; away wid ye, now, an’ don’t be stan’in’.”

“You’ll hurry home, won’t you, Mrs. McGonagle,” the girl was now at the door, her hand on the latch,[21] “an’ tell Larry Murphy his gran’father wants to see him before he dies.”

And with that the side door closed behind her and she went by the window like a flash.

“Be the powers av Moll Kelly!” exclaimed O’Hara, his broad face blank with wonder, “but that bates the Owld Nick.”

He stood staring at his sisters, who had their withered hands in the air in gestures of amazement. Mrs. McGonagle’s face shone with glee and she cackled rapturously.

“I must hurry home,” said she, “an’ waken Larry.”

“Is he still in bed?” cried Ellen.

“Do he not go till Mass?” cried Bridget.

“Why, not very often,” admitted Mrs. McGonagle, reluctantly. “He an’ Jimmie Larkin slapes till a’most dinner toime ivery Sunday. But Larry’s a daysint b’y for all that. Good day till yez.” And with that the good little woman bolted into the street and went sailing toward McGarragles’ Alley, her bright shawl fluttering in the breeze.

The two old crones clawed mystic signs in the air[22] over the spot where their visitor had lately stood and began muttering in Gaelic. O’Hara was brushing his Sunday high hat with the sleeve of his coat and paused as he caught the words.

“What humbuggin’ are yez at now?” demanded he.

“Would yez be after lettin’ the curse stay in the house?” cried Bridget.

“Sure, she hav the evil eye!” asserted Ellen.

O’Hara regarded them fixedly for a moment; then with a snort he put on his hat, took his black-thorn stick from behind the door, and started off for church.

Chapter III