Chapter VII (1)

FIRST CORINTHIANS CHAP. XIII., v. 4

Since this must deal in great part with the Finkelstein family and what charity did for them, I began the task by seeking in the pages of an invaluable book called Ten Thousand Familiar Quotations for a line that suitably might serve as the text to my chapter. Delving there I came upon abundant material, all of it more or less appropriate to our present purpose. There were revealed at least a half a dozen extracts from the works of writers of an established standing that might be made to apply. For instance, Wordsworth, an English poet of the Early Victorian Era, that period which gave so much of rhythmic thought to Britain and so much of antirhythmic furniture to us, is credited with having said:

_The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers._

Now that passage, at first blush, appeared exactly to fit the Finkelsteins. Most certainly charities were scattered at their feet and likewise showered on their heads.

However, before making a definite choice, I went deeper into this handy volume. As a result, I exhumed an expression attributed to Pope--not one of the Roman Popes, but Pope, Alex. (b. 1688; d. 1744)--to the effect that

_In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity._

That statement likewise proved in a measure applicable. To the Finkelsteins it must have seemed that all mankind's concern was charity, devised for their especial benefit.

Now Hood takes an opposite view. In that choppy style of versification so characteristic of this writer, Hood is discovered saying:

_Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!_

Speaking with particular reference to the case in hand I must respectfully but nevertheless firmly take issue with the late Hood. Assuredly the components of this particular household group had no cause to cavil concerning the rarity of Christian charity. Christian charity went miles out of its way to lavish rich treasures from a full heart upon them. Under the sun, too, under the rays of an ardent and a scorching sun, was some of it bestowed. But of that phase, more--as the fancy writers say--anon.

The Scriptures were found to abound in reference to this most precious of the human virtues. What does Peter say? Peter--First Epistle, fourth chapter and eighth verse--says: "Charity shall cover the multitude of sins." Here, too, a point might be stretched without giving offence to any interested party. I cannot deny there were a multitude of Finkelsteins. That, there is no gainsaying.

Elsewhere in the Good Book it is set forth: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal; ... and"--furthermore--"though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

One of the most significant recollections of at least two members of the Finkelstein family in their experiences with the manifestations of charity was associated with mountains. And was not the occasion of the outing of the _Evening Dispatch's_ Fresh Air Fund made glad by the presence and the activities of Prof. Washington Carter's All-Coloured Silver Cornet Band? If ever you heard this organisation you would know that, when it came to sounding brass and cymbals which tinkled when not engaged in clashing, no band had anything whatsoever on Prof. Washington Carter's.

But it was hard by, in the Testaments, that I happened on the one verse which seemed best to sum up the situation in its more general aspects; and notably the first three words of the said verse. The text has been chosen, therefore, after much consideration of the subject and its merits.

To proceed: In Pike Street, approximately midway of a block that enjoys the dubious distinction of being a part of the most congested district of the globe, up four flights of stairs and thence back to the extreme rear, the Finkelstein family, at the time of its discovery, resided. There were many of them and their lot was very lowly. To begin at the top, there was Papa Finkelstein, a man bearded and small, shrinking, unobtrusive and diffident; fashioned with sloping shoulders and an indented chest as though in his extreme youth, when his bones were supple and yielding, a partly successful effort had been made to crowd him, head first, into a narrow-mouthed jar. His back was bent, for he was of the race that for more than nineteen centuries has borne, palfrey-like, upon its patient spines the persecutions of the world.

Next in order came Mamma Finkelstein, hiding her dark head beneath a wig of slick brown horsehair in accordance with the same ritual which ordained that her husband should touch not the corners of his beard. To attend to the business of multiplying and replenishing the earth with Finkelsteins was her chief mission in life. From the family stepladder of these two no rungs were missing. Indeed, about a third of the way down there was a double rung--to wit, twins. The married life of the pair extended over a period of less than eleven years and already there were eight little Finkelsteins, ranging from little to littler to littlest.

Papa Finkelstein was by profession an old-clo' man. It was his custom to go into the favoured sections where people laid aside their weathered habiliments instead of continuing to wear them, and there watching on street corners to waylay pedestrians of an ample and prosperous aspect, and to inquire of them in his timid and twisted English, whether they had any old clothes to sell. A prospective seller being by this method interested, Papa Finkelstein would accompany the other to his apartment--follow him, rather--and when discarded garments had been fetched forth from closets and piled in a heap upon the floor he would gaze deprecatingly at the accumulation and then, with the air of one who courts ruin by his excessive generosity, tender one dollar and thirty-five cents for the entire lot.

So far so good, this course being in perfect accord with the ethics of the old-clo' business. But if, as most generally, the owner of the raiment indignantly declined the first offer Papa Finkelstein was at a loss to proceed with the negotiations. The chaffering; the bargaining; the raising of the amount in ten-cent advances, each advance accompanied by agonised outcry; the pretended departure; the reluctant return from the door; the protest; the entreaty; the final gesture, betokening abject and complete surrender, with which the buyer came up to two dollars and fifteen cents--all this, so agreeable to the nature of the born old-clo' man, was quite beyond him. Oftener than not, the trading ended in no trade.

Or if a bargain was arrived at, if he bore away his bundled purchases to the old-clothes mart on Bayard Street, just off the Bowery, where daily the specialist in sick hats, let us say, swaps decrepit odd trousers and enfeebled dress waistcoats for wares more suitable to his needs, still he tempted bankruptcy. Sharper wits than his, by sheer weight of dominance, bore him down and trafficked him, as the saying goes, out of his eyeteeth. He could have taken over a tannery and run it into a shoestring in no time at all. Many a day was there when he returned home at eventide with nothing to show for his day's industry except lamentable memories and two tired flat feet.

Lacking the commercial instinct, he was a failure in trade; lacking, too, the artistic, neither would he have made headway with his coreligionists as a professional _Schnorrer_. By persistent and devoutful attendance upon synagogue services, by the constant exhibition of his poverty in public places, he might have enlisted the sympathies of the benevolent among his fellow worshippers. But he was a dilettante in the practice of piety, even as in the practice of the old-clo' business. Except as the head of a family, he was what this world is pleased to call a failure.

From all this I would not have you jump at the conclusion that Papa and Mamma Finkelstein and their steadily accruing progeny constituted an unhappy group. Mere precarious existence and the companionship of one another spelled for them contentment. The swarming East Side satisfied them as an abiding place. To the adults it was a better home by far than the drear, dreadful land of pogroms and Black Hundreds from which they had fled; to the younger ones it was the only home they had ever known. They were used to its tormented sky lines, faced in on either side by tall tenements and blocked across by the structures of elevated roads and the stone loops of viaducts; they were used to its secondhand sunshine that filtered down to them through girders and spans. To them the high arch of the Bridge approach was an acceptable substitute for the rainbow; their idea of the profusion of Nature was a tiny square, containing many green benches, a circular band stand, and here and there a spindling tree.

Having nothing they craved for nothing. When there was food they ate thereof; _kosher_ food preferably, though the food of the _Goyim_ was not despised. When there was none they went without, feeding on the thought of past feasts and the hope of future ones. Being without knowledge of the commoner rule of hygiene, their days were neither enhanced by its advantages nor disturbed by its observances.

With the coming of the winter Mamma Finkelstein sewed up her offspring, all and sundry, in their heavy undergarments. Only one consideration ever interposed to prevent her from so doing--the occasional absence of any heavy undergarments in which to sew them up. To the pores, which always ye have with ye, she gave no heed. An interrupted duct more or less meant nothing to her, she being serenely unaware of the existence of such things as ducts, anyhow. In the springtime she cut the stitches and removed the garments, or such portions of them as had not been taken up by natural process of absorption, finding her young, as now newly revealed, to be pinkish, though soiled as to their skins, and in every regard hale, hearty and wholesome.

Thus abided the Finkelsteins in their dire and happy extremity at the time of their discovery. The manner of their being discovered came about as follows:

Christmastide impended. The spirit of it was every where reflected: in the price tags; in the swollen ankles and aching insteps of shop girls on their feet behind counters twelve to fifteen hours a day; in the harassed countenances and despairing eyes of shoppers; in the heaving sides and drooping heads of wearied delivery-wagon teams; in the thoughts of the children of the rich, dissatisfied because there was nothing Santa Claus could bring them they didn't already have; in the thoughts of the children of the poor, happy as they pressed their cold little noses against the plate-glass fronts of toy shop windows and made discriminating selection of the treasures which they would like for Santa to bring them, but knowing at the same time he couldn't because of his previous engagements among the best families.

This all-pervading spirit penetrated even into the newspaper offices, borne thither upon the flapping wings of the full-page display advertisements of our leading retail establishments. One of the papers--the _Morning Advocate_--compiled a symposium of paragraphed miseries under the title of the One Hundred Most Deserving Cases of Charity, and on the Monday before Christmas printed it with a view to enlisting the aid of the kindly disposed. The list was culled largely from the files of various philanthropic organisations. But it so befell that a reporter, who had been detailed on these assignments, was passing through Pike Street on his way back to the office from one of the settlement houses when he encountered Papa Finkelstein, homeward bound after a particularly disappointing business day uptown.

The reporter was impressed much by the despondent droop of the little man's sloping shoulders and by the melancholy smoulder in his big, dark eyes; but more was he impressed by the costume of Papa Finkelstein. It was a part of Papa Finkelstein's burden of affliction that he customarily wore winter clothes in the summertime and summer clothes in the wintertime. On this gusty, raw December day he wore somebody's summer suit--a much larger somebody evidently--and a suit that in its youth had been of light-coloured, lightweight flannel. It was still lightweight.

Infolded within its voluminous breadths the present wearer shivered visibly and drew his chilled hands farther up into its flapping sleeve ends until he resembled the doubly mutilated victim of a planing-mill mishap. If his expression was woebegone, his shoe soles were more--they practically were all-begone. A battered derby hat--size about seven and five-eighths--threatened total extinguishment of his face, being prevented from doing so only by the circumstance of its brim resting and pressing upon the upper flanges of the owner's ears. They were ears providentially designed for such employment. Broad, wide and droopy, they stood out from the sides of Papa Finkelstein's head like the horns of the caribou.

This reporter was a good reporter. He knew a human-interest story when he met it walking in the road. He turned about and tagged Papa Finkelstein to his domicile and there, after briefly inspecting the Finkelstein household in all its wealth of picturesque destitution, he secured the names and the address from the head of it, who perhaps gave the desired information all the more readily because he had not the slightest idea of what use this inquiring stranger wished to make of it.

Half an hour later the reporter was saying to the irritable functionary in charge of the _Advocate's_ news desk:

"Oh, so-so; just fair to middling, most of them; about the usual run of shad. But, say, I've got one bird of a case. I dug it up myself--it's not down on any of the records I got from the charity people. When it comes to being plumb down and out none of them has anything on the meek and lowly Finkelsteins."

"Good!" said the news editor. "You might lead with it if you want to. No, I guess you'd better run 'em alphabetically--it won't do to be playing favourites."

Mark now, how a little flame may kindle a large blaze: The afternoon half sister of the _Morning Advocate_ was the _Evening Dispatch_. Between the two papers, owned as they were by the same gentleman and issued from the same printshop, a bitter rivalry prevailed; it generally does in such instances.

On Tuesday morning the city editor of the _Evening Dispatch_ ran an agile and practiced eye through the story the _Advocate_ had printed. With his shears he chopped out the first column of it. With his pencil he ringed one paragraph in the scissored section and then he lifted his voice and called to him a young woman professionally known as Betty Gwin, who sat in the city room at a desk somewhat withdrawn from copy readers, rewriters and leg men. This distinction of comparative aloofness was hers by right, she being a special-feature writer, under yearly contract, and, therefore, belonging to the aristocracy of the craft.

After the custom of her sex Miss Betty Gwin--whose real name, I may state, in confidence, was Ferguson--first put a hand up to be sure that her hair was quite right and then put it behind her to be sure her belt made proper connection with her skirt at the back; and then she answered her superior's call. Answering it, all about her betokened confidence and competence. And why shouldn't it? As a pen-smith this young person acknowledged no superiors anywhere. Her troupe of trained performing adjectives was admitted to be the smartest in town. Moreover, she was artistically ambidextrous. Having written a story she would illustrate it with her own hand. Her drawings were replete with lithesome curves; so, too, was her literary style. None but a Betty Gwin could write what she wrote; none but a Betty Gwin properly illustrate it afterward.

"Fergy," said the city editor, "here's a beaut for you--right in your line. Full of that heart-throb junk nine ways from the jack. Those idiots upstairs gave it ten lines when it was worth six sticks all by itself--buried it when they should have played it up. You run down to this number and get a good, gummy, pathetic yarn. We'll play it up for to-morrow, with a strong picture layout and a three-col. head. Might call it: 'What Christmas Means for the Whatyoumaycall'em Family and What Christmas Might Mean for Them!' Get me?"

He passed over the clipping. In a glance his star comprehended the pencilled passage.

"Judging from the name and the neighbourhood Christmas wouldn't excite this family much, anyhow," she said.

"What do you care?" said her chief crisply. "There's a story there--go get it!"

Doubtlessly the Christmas spirit got into Betty Gwin's typewriter keys. Certainly it got into her inkpot and deposited the real essence of the real sob stuff there. The story she wrote trickled pathos from every balanced paragraph; there was pity in the periods and sentiment in the semicolons. As for the exclamation-points, they simply were elongated tear drops. It was one of the best stories Betty Gwin ever wrote. She said so herself--openly. But the picture that went with the story was absolutely diademic; it crowned figures of speech with tiaras of the graphic art. It showed Mamma Finkelstein seated on an upended box, which once had contained pickled herrings, surrounded by the eight little Finkelsteins. The children looked like ragged cherubs.

To accomplish this result it had been necessary for Miss Gwin to depart somewhat from a faithful delineation of the originals. But of what value is the creative ability unless it be used to create? I ask you that and pause for a reply. Not that the junior Finkelsteins were homely; without an exception they were handsome and well-formed. A millionaire might have been proud to own them.

But the trouble was, the Old Masters, who first painted cherubim, were mainly Italians, and for a variety of reasons chose their models from a race other than that to which the Finkelsteins appertained. To make her portraits conform with the popular conceptions of cherubs Miss Gwin saw fit to--shall we say?--conventionalise certain features. Indeed, when it came to reproducing for publication the physical aspect of Master Solly Finkelstein she did more than conventionalise--she idealised. Otherwise subscribers, giving the picture a cursory inspection, might have been led to believe that this cherub's wings had sprouted mighty high up on him. For Solly, eldest man child of the Finkelstein brood, had inherited the paternal ear--not all of it, as we know, but an ample and conspicuous sufficiency. Yet, with his ears trimmed, he, on his own merits, had enough of sombre child beauty for any seven-year-older anywhere. So Betty Gwin trimmed them--with her drawing pencil.

The bright light of publicity having been directed upon this cheerfully forlorn family, results followed. Of the publicity its beneficiaries knew nothing. Such papers as Papa Finkelstein read were Yiddish papers; he was no bookworm at that. Of the results, though, they were all speedily made aware.

Miss Gwin embodied the original and pioneer one of the forces speedily set marching to the relief of the Finkelsteins. Persons of a philanthropic leaning, reading what she had written and beholding what she had drawn, were straightway moved to forward, in care of that young author and the publication which she served, various small sums of money to be conveyed to this practically fireless, substantially foodless and semigarmentless household. Miss Gwin thought, at first, of founding a regular subscription list under the title of Betty Gwin's Succour Fund; but, on second thought, disliked the sound of the phrase when spoken, although it looked well enough written out.

Instead, she elected to carry in person to their proper destination the cash contributions already in hand, and along with them a somewhat more cumbersome offering consisting of a one-piece costume sent by a young lady in the theatrical profession--the chorus profession, to be circumstantial about it--who had accompanied the donation with a note on scented violet note paper, with a crest, stating that she wished the devoted mother of those "poor birdlings"--a direct quotation, this, from Miss Gwin's story--to have the frock, and to keep it and wear it for her very own. With the Compliments of Miss Trixie Adair, of the Gay Gamboliers Musical Comedy Company.

Thus laden, Miss Gwin descended upon Pike Street and ascended upon the Finkelsteins, bringing with her, in addition to the other things mentioned, an air of buoyancy and good cheer. As on the occasion of her former call, two days earlier, the medium of intercourse between the visitor and the heads of the household was Miriam, aged nine, the topmost round of the family stepladder, ably reenforced by her brother Solly, who was mentioned just a bit ago with particular reference to his ears. In truth I should put it the other way round; for, to be exact, it was Solly who sustained the main burden of translation, his sister being a shy little thing and he in temperament emphatically the opposite.

Besides, his opportunities for acquiring facility and a repertoire in tongues had been more extensive than hers. While Miriam frequented the hallways of the tenement, or, at best, the sidewalk in front of it, concerned with the minding of the twins--Israel and Isadore, but both called, for convenience, Izzy--it was his practice to range far and wide, risking death beneath trolley cars, capture by the law, and murder at the hands of roused custodians of jobbing houses and buildings in course of construction, about which he lurked on the lookout for empty packing cases and bits of planking, and the like--such stuff as might be dragged home and there converted into household furnishings or stove fuel, depending upon whether at the moment the establishment stood more desperately in need of something to sit on than of something to burn.

Even now, at the tender age of seven, going on eight, Solly betrayed the stirrings of a restless ambition such as his sire had never known. It was an open question whether he would grow up to be a gunman or a revered captain of finance. A tug of fate might set his eager footsteps toward either goal. Already he had a flowing command of the sort of English spoken by startled and indignant motormen, pestered policemen and watchmen, tempted by provocation entirely beyond their powers of self-control. So Solly served as chief interpreter while Miss Gwin informally tendered the presents that had been intrusted to her charge for transmission.

In the same spirit Papa and Mamma Finkelstein, who continued to entertain the vaguest of theories regarding the sources of and the reasons for these benefactions, accepted them gratefully, with no desire to look a gift horse in the mouth. Gift horses were strange livestock in their experience, anyhow.

The money--eight dollars and ninety-five cents, all told--went for fuel and food; but mainly for food. With the Finkelsteins, life was a feast or else it was a famine; in their scheme of domestic economics they sought no middle ground. As for the gown bestowed by Miss Trixie Adair, of the Gay Gamboliers, Mamma Finkelstein started wearing it right away, merely adapting it to existing conditions--conditions that were, with her, not only existent but, I may say, chronic. It was--or had been--a pale-blue evening gown of a satinlike material, with no neck and no sleeves to the upper part, but with a gracefully long train to the skirt part, and made to hook up the back.

Because of the frequency of the demands put upon the maternal resources by the newest and smallest Finkelstein, it was deemed expedient and, in fact, essential to turn the gown round backward, so as to have the bodice fastenings directly in front of Mamma Finkelstein instead of directly behind her. This necessitated drawing the train up from beneath the occupant's feet and draping it, sash-fashion, about her waist. Mamma Finkelstein wore it so. She was wearing it so that afternoon when Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass arrived, direct from upper Fifth Avenue, and also the next morning when Miss Godiva Sleybells came, representing, semi-officially and most competently, the Cherry Hill Neighbourhood House.

Since of these two Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass was first, firstly then we may consider her. I will begin by stating that she was a lady of augmented wealth and indubitable preeminence, being of that elect group who have ceased merely to smell society from afar off and now taste of its exclusive delights close up. For her it had been a hard climb, laboriously uphill all the way, boulder-strewn and beset by hazards, pitfalls and obstacles. But she had arrived finally upon those snow-capped peaks where the temperature is ever below freezing and life may only be maintained artificially.

Inasmuch as she had not been born to breathe the atmosphere of this rarefied altitude, but had achieved her right to breathe it by her own efforts, Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass felt it incumbent on her to maintain her position away up there on Mount Saint Elias by such manifold and varied activities as were most aptly designed to make for publicity, which meant prominence, which meant success. For the moment she was principally concerned with living up to the rôle of good angel to the worthily indigent. Those who loved her and in return wished to be loved by her called her the Lady Bountiful of the Slums.

She conferred the sweet boon of charity with the aid of a press agent, a subscription to a clipping bureau, a special secretary--not her regular secretary, but a special one--and a new photograph--copyright by De Valle, Fifth Avenue, all infringements prohibited--appearing about once in so often in the Sunday Magazine Sections.

It was no strain upon the eyes to gaze upon Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass; nor yet upon her photograph. Nor did she consciously and willfully deny any properly respectful person the opportunity. A distinguished portrait painter once had said, shortly after completing a commission which brought him large pecuniary returns from Mr. F. Fodderwood Bass, that Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass possessed the most beautiful profile on the entire North American continent. When in company the recipient of this tribute kept her side face turned to the majority present--the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number, you see. She had one secret regret: one could not walk sideways--or, at least, one could not for any considerable distance.

I would not go so far as to say that Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass actually read the prose poem emanating from Miss Betty Gwin's sympathetic typewriter; but I will go so far as to say that promptly the article of that gifted young word chandler was brought to her attention. No time was to be lost; in fact, no time was lost. Very shortly thereafter Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass, attired in housings appropriately plain, to accord with her errand--housings which had cost less than five hundred dollars, exclusive of import duties--and suitably riding in a simple French limousine of but forty-eight horse power, was conveyed southward and eastward from her home to Pike Street. Her arrival there created a measure of popular tumult only to be equalled by a bank run or a fire alarm. A self-appointed escort at least seventy-five strong piloted her up four flights to the Finkelstein flat.

Papa Finkelstein was out temporarily, and Mamma Finkelstein was stunned into a state approximating dumb stupor by the grandeur of the visitation that appeared before her, heralded though its coming had been by many small, excited couriers dashing up the stairs in advance. Though Mamma Finkelstein was of humble station, Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass did not deny her a treat. Throughout her stay, which was short, she remained standing in the doorway, with her profile presented to the dazzled stare of her hostess.

Her purpose being explained through volunteer interpreters, and largess having been bestowed generally, she masterfully bore away Miriam, Solly and the two small duplicate Izzys, Mamma Finkelstein making no sign either of demur to or acquiescence in the plan, to a Christmas-tree entertainment given under her direct patronage in a rented hall some distance north of Cooper Union.

At eight P. M., long before their mother had in any visible respect rallied from her coma of dumb bewilderment, these four, a torpid and satiated quartet, were safely returned to the home nest, gorged on goodies, and laden with small gifts for themselves and for their yet more juvenile sisters and brothers. Throughout the remainder of the evening, though, little Miriam persisted in regarding her father with a certain silent and distressful reproach in her big black eyes. Made uneasy by his daughter's bearing he questioned her; and she divulged something she had heard.

It seemed that in explaining the intent of the festival of Christmas, Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass, though actuated by the best intentions imaginable, had nevertheless revealed certain phases of Sacred History which, when the first shock of disclosure was over, left sensitive little Miriam in a state of mind where she stood ready to fix direct responsibility upon her own parent. Papa Finkelstein may have been lax in the precept and practice of his theological beliefs, but assuredly his convictions were both sound and orthodox. Immediately he developed an entirely unwarranted but none the less sincere distrust for the motives of Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass.

Truly, he wronged her there. There was nothing that was ulterior, but much that was superior in the lady's attitude toward the lower forms of animal life which she observed flourishing below her. By lower forms of animal life I, as the historian of this episode, would include everything and everybody outside of her set. These lesser manifestations of an inscrutable scheme of creation she regarded benignantly, tolerantly and at times--wonderingly. To her they seemed so--well, so different--if you get my meaning and hers. One wondered sometimes, really one did, if they could be so susceptible to emotion and sensation as those who had been called to service in a higher sphere of activity? The answer might be yes and then again it might be no. It all depended upon one's point of view. Indeed when one came to ponder these matters, so much always did depend upon one's point of view, did it not? Meanwhile pending the ultimate solution of these perplexing sociological problems, she would minister Samaritanlike to the wants of the needy, and not forget to advertise the Samaritan. That was at once her pleasure and her duty.

If Papa Finkelstein's suspicions endured through the night, as I have my reasons for believing they did endure, they found no permanent lodgment in the bosom of his helpmate; for the next morning an event occurred that for the time being, at least, served to dispossess Mamma Finkelstein's mind of all lesser considerations. I refer to the arrival of Miss Godiva Sleybells, from the Cherry Hill Neighbourhood House. Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass typified amateur philanthropy; but not so Miss Sleybells. She came, panoplied with purposeful intent, as the specialised, the expert, the austere representative of systematic relief.

In a period not far remote the allegation had been made that, so often, organised charity was lacking in the personal and the direct touch. It had been said that its common attitude was this: if a starving man applied for help in the guise of sustenance, organised charity took his name and address and made a very painstaking investigation of the merits of the mendicant and his plea, sparing neither time nor expense in the scope of its inquiry. His case being established as a worthy one, organised charity took steps to seek him out and providing he had not inconsiderately died in the interim, or moved to another park bench, it bestowed upon him a small blue ticket entitling the holder to saw wood so many hours a day at a specially maintained wood yard, and to receive in return for such labour a specified number of frugal meals. Mind you I do not pretend to assume that this actually was the fact; I merely repeat a form of criticism current at one time. But now, organised charity was become more personal and possibly a trifle less statistical in its methods. For proof, observe how promptly Miss Godiva Sleybells moved. She, too, read Miss Betty Gwin's account of the lorn Finkelsteins. She waited not for an inquisition to be made and a report to be filed. She girded up her walking skirt, as a result of which girding it hiked in front and it drooped behind; and she put on her heavy rubbers and she came.

She walked in, unannounced, on the assembled Finkelsteins and the instant she crossed the threshold all there, regardless of age, somehow realised that they were hers to do with as she pleased; realised that in her efficient hands they would be but as plastic clay between the fingers of the moulder. Everywhere she went Miss Sleybells conveyed this feeling. It travelled with her even as her aura. She could walk through a crowded street, pausing not and looking neither to the right nor the left and yet leave behind her, in the minds of those among whom she had passed, the firm conviction that she had taken this particular street under her direct management and control. Nay more. She could traverse a stretch of empty landscape and even after she was gone, inanimate nature would somehow bear the impress of her dominance as though thereafter the Original Creator of that landscape would be relieved of all responsibility in connection with its conduct, maintenance and development. Were there more like her in this hemisphere, woman would not now be asking for the suffrage. But man would be.

A variety of causes had actuated her in going into settlement work. One half the world didn't know how the other half lived. Miss Sleybells meant to find out. Already she had written a considerable number of magazine articles embodying the fruits of her observations and deductions among the poor. Eventually, from the rich stores of her knowledge she meant to draw material for a novel. This novel would be in the style of the best work of Gorky, only stronger and more vivid than Gorky, and infinitely rich in its analytical appraisals of character. One who knew Miss Sleybells might not doubt of this. If she had had a middle name, her middle name would have been Thoroughness.

Such, in brief, was the ardent and enthusiastic woman who invaded the Finkelstein citadel, surprising its resident garrison in the middle of their comfortable untidiness and causing them instantly and unconditionally to capitulate before her onslaught. She looked about her, choosing for her initial attack the point of least resistance. It was the second to the youngest Finkelstein, Lena by name, engaged at the moment in regaling her infantile palate with a mid-forenoon snack consisting of a large, sea-green dill pickle and a rather speckly overripe banana. By Mrs. Finkelstein's standards these two articles constituted a well-balanced food ration. If the banana was soft and spotty, the pickle certainly was firm and in the immature hands of Lena practically indestructible. Besides, the results spoke for themselves. Lena liked her dill pickle and her banana; and she thrived on them.

Miss Sleybells looked and said: "Tut! Tut!" And with these words she deprived the startled and indignant child of both those treasures. That, however, was merely the beginning. She fell to then in earnest--most expeditiously and painstakingly fell to. From a neighbouring lady, more addicted to the healthful exercise of sweeping than Mamma Finkelstein was, she commandeered the use of a broom; also a mop. She heated water to the boiling point upon the rickety stove. She gave little Miriam a quarter and sent the child forth to buy two kinds of soap--human and laundry. Following this things ensued with a dizzying celerity.

At the outset, Miss Sleybells completely upset Mamma Finkelstein's domestic arrangements; or, rather, she disturbed and disarranged them, for to have them upset was Mamma Finkelstein's notion of having them properly bestowed. She ferreted out from beneath beds the stored accumulations of months. She pried open the windows, admitting the chill air of winter in swift gusts. She swept, she dusted, and with suds she mopped the floor and stayed not her hand. She herded the abashed Finkelsteins into a corner, only to drive them out again before the strokes of broom and mop and dust rag, all the while tut-tutting like a high-powered dynamo.

This done, she took individual after individual in hand for cutaneal renovation. While Mamma Finkelstein hovered timorously by, stricken with a great and voiceless apprehension, Miss Sleybells took scissors and snipped the children out of their flannel swaddlings into which they had so carefully been sewn but a short six weeks before. As fast as she denuded a submissive form she bathed it soapily, set it before the fire to dry out, and seized, with moist, firm grasp, upon another unresisting victim. I indulge in no cheap effort at punning but speak the sober fact when I say Miss Godiva Sleybells that day proved herself a veritable Little Sister of the Pore.

Presently from the group of small naked figures squatted by the stove a sound of sneezing arose. The baby began it and the baby's example was contagious. Soon these youthful Finkelsteins who had undergone the water ordeal, as contradistinguished from those who had not yet undergone it, were going off with sneezes at regular half-minute intervals, like so many little pink cuckoo clocks.

Behind Miss Sleybells' indomitable back, then, Mamma Finkelstein wrung her hands in mute and helpless distress. But no word of protest did she utter. For one thing, her knowledge of the English language practically was negligible. For another thing, she dared not speak even had she had the words. To Mamma Finkelstein, Miss Sleybells personified the visible authority of the state--that same dread force which, in the guise of truant officers, sought to drag Miriam away to public school when her services were required for nursing duties; and which, again, wearing brass and blue, harried Solly from his wood-collecting enterprises.

Starting with the youngest and progressing toward the top, Miss Sleybells bathed up the line as far as the twins before she stopped. She stopped there for lack of living material.

Solly, opportunely, had fled into hiding, and with him Miriam, his sister. Anyhow, Miss Sleybells reflected, as she looked about her at the surroundings, now all cleansed and dampish, all lathered and purged, that she had done a great deal for one day--a very great deal. Still, much remained undone.

Upon leaving, she gave Mamma Finkelstein express and explicit commands regarding the conduct of her home, speaking with especial reference to fresh air, ablutions and diet. By nods and by gestures Mamma Finkelstein pledged obedience, without sensing in the smallest degree what she was promising to do. Then Miss Sleybells announced that she would return on the morrow, and departed. Mamma Finkelstein understood that part, at least, and her wigged head sank in her hands. Papa Finkelstein, arriving home shortly before dark, sustained a hard shock. For a minute he almost thought he must have got into the wrong flat.

Miss Godiva Sleybells was as good as her word; in fact, better. She did come back the next day and on many days thereafter, coming to correct, to admonish, to renovate, to set erring feet upon the properest way, to scold poor Mamma Finkelstein for her constantly recurrent backslidings from the paths of domestic duty. Nearly always she came at unexpected intervals; and, having come, she entered always without knocking. Mamma Finkelstein fell into the habit of hearkening fearsomely for the sound of footsteps in the hall without.

Being warned by an approaching resolute tread, betokening flat, low heels and broad, sensible soles, she would drop whichever child she happened to be mothering at that moment and fly about in a perfect frenzy of purposeless activity, snatching up things, casting them aside, rattling kitchen pans, shoving loose articles--and nearly everything she owned was loose--out of sight. The artifice was a transparent one at best. Assuredly it never deceived Miss Godiva Sleybells. With shiftlessness she had no patience. Shiftlessness was one of several thousand things with which she had no patience.

It was on the occasion of her second visit that Miss Sleybells brought along and bestowed upon Mamma Finkelstein a bound volume dealing with the proper care of infants, and bade her consult its pages. This gift Mamma Finkelstein put to usage, but not the usage the donor had devised for it. She gave it to the next-to-the-youngest baby, who was teething, to cut her little milk teeth upon. The sharp corners proved soothing to the feverish gums of Lena; but, under constant and well-irrigated mumblings, the red dye on the covers came off, resulting in an ensanguined appearance of Lena's lips and a sharp attack of colic elsewhere in Lena. Mamma Finkelstein had suspected evil lurked within the volume; now she was certain dangers abode in its outer casings. She kindled a fire with it.

It was on the occasion of her third visit that Miss Sleybells brought with her two co-labourers who listened intently and took notes while their guide discoursed upon the subject of the Finkelstein family's domestic and hygienic shortcomings, she speaking with the utmost candour and just as frankly as though her living topics had not been present at the time.

It was following the occasion of her fourth visit that Miss Godiva prepared and read to a company of her associates in the Neighbourhood House a paper dealing with her observations in this particular quarter. In the course of her reading she referred variously to the collective Finkelsteins as a charge, a problem, a question, an enigma and a noteworthy case.

For all her lack of acquaintanceship with the language, it is possible that Mamma Finkelstein, in her dim, inarticulate way, comprehended something of Miss Godiva's attitude toward her. Perhaps she would have preferred to be regarded not as a problem but occasionally as a person. Perhaps she craved inwardly for those vanished days of comparative privacy and unlimited disorderliness within the two rooms she called her home. Her situation may have been miserable then. Miss Sleybells said so. But what matters misery if its victims mistake it for happiness?

But since Mrs. Finkelstein never by act or sign or look betrayed her feelings, whatsoever they may have been, it is not for me or for you to assume that she harboured resentment. She was a daughter of a tribe bitted and bridled to silent endurance; of a people girthed and saddled through the centuries to the uncomplaining bearing of their burdens.

Meantime Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass was by no means slack in well-doing. As regards the younger Finkelsteins particularly, her alms-deeds were many. She took them under her silken wings. At intervals she arrived, rustling, to confer advice and other things more material and therefore more welcome. She spoke of the Finkelsteins as her Pet Charities.

Among the younger inmates of the flat her visits were by no means distasteful. Quite aside from the gifts she brought, the richness of the clothes she wore appealed to a heritage of their ancestry that was in them; they had a natural taste and appreciation for fabrics. But Papa Finkelstein found it impossible to cure himself of his earlier suspicions. He remembered what he remembered, and remained dubious.

For all that, Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass presently aimed her batteries of benevolence upon him. It was like this: She had aided conspicuously in a Bundle Day movement. Someone else, I believe, originated the idea, but Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass practically took it over as soon as she heard about it. Through the daily press an appeal was made to the well-to-do of the community that they should assemble into parcels their cast-off garments for distribution among the poor. The police force, the fire department, the express companies and the newspapers--all were to cooperate in gathering up such parcels and depositing them at a designated central station, where the objects of this bounty on a given date might be outfitted.

The notion caught the fancy and became popular. It assumed a scope beyond the dream horizon of its creator and of the legatees of the notion; for in itself it had four elements that inevitably appeal to the New York heart: first, generosity, for New York may be thoughtless, but it is vastly generous underneath its face-paint; second, novelty; third, size; and fourth, notoriety. But the greatest of these is notoriety.

The effects were magnificently far-reaching. Thousands made contributions; thousands of others profited thereby. Many a poor Bowery "dinner waiter," owning merely a greasy short jacket and one paper-bosomed shirt, and compelled therefore to serve in some quick order place for his food and nothing else, secured, without cost, the dress suit of his visions and was in consequence enabled to get a regular job, in a regular restaurant, with regular pay and regular tips. Many a shivering derelict got a warm if threadbare overcoat to cover him. Many a half-clad child repaired to a big building and there selected whole garments suitable to his or her size, if not to his or her station. And meanwhile the sponsors of the affair, including Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass and lesser patronesses, looked on approvingly, acquiring merit by the minute and, incidentally, long reading notices in all the papers.

On the day before Bundle Day the lady called in Pike Street, timing her arrival so as to be sure of finding Papa Finkelstein in. With the aid of Miriam and Solly she explained to him her designs. He was to come to such and such an address next morning and be equipped with a wardrobe less accessibly ventilated to the eager and the nipping air of winter than the one he now possessed.

Papa Finkelstein solemnly pledged himself to be there at the appointed hour, and so she went away, well-content. Therein, however, a subtle Oriental strain of duplicity in Papa Finkelstein's nature found play. He had no intention of having his timid sensibilities massacred before a large crowd to make a Bundle Holiday. It may have been that he feared in Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass' friendly overtures there was concealed a covert campaign to proselyte him away from the faith of the Fathers. It may have been that, through professional reasons, he privily deplored a movement calculated to strike so deadly a blow at the very vitals of the old-clo' business. At any rate he did not go where she had bade him go; completely he absented himself therefrom.

It was late in the afternoon of the following day before Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass realised that Papa Finkelstein had not yet appeared. She called to her a footman of her employ, specially detailed to attend her on this occasion, and ordered him to proceed at once to Pike Street and find her missing ward and bring him before her. Being a good footman, his expression gave no clue to his feelings. He deemed it to lie far outside the proper functions of a footman to be hunting up persons named Finkelstein; but he obeyed.

For the moment the scene must shift to Pike Street. The time is half an hour later. Partly by words, partly by wide-armed gesticulations, Papa Finkelstein explained his position in the matter, if not his private reasons.

"Is that so?" said the footman, whose name was Cassidy--Maurice J. Cassidy. He fixed a strong hand grippingly in the back of Papa Finkelstein's collar. "Well, you listen to me, young fella! Wan way or another you're goin'--wit' me, nice and peaceable or in an ambylance. You can make your own choice."

The words possibly were confusing to the alien understanding, but the large knobby fist, which swayed to and fro an inch or so below the tip of the captive's nose, spoke in a language that is understood of all men. Papa Finkelstein saw his way clear to accompanying Footman Cassidy. Aboard the street car, on the way uptown, several of his fellow passengers decided he must be a thief who had been caught red-handed, and said it served him right.

Arriving, he was ushered--perhaps I should say propelled--into the presence of Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass. She greeted his appearance coosomely. Or is cooingly the right word? At any rate, she cooed her approval; she cooed beautifully, anyhow. With open pride she directed the attention of certain of her associate patronesses to the little huddled shape of Cassidy's prisoner.

"Ah, there he is!" she said. "My Pet Charity! So improvident, so shiftless; but isn't he just too picturesque!"

Levelling their lorgnettes on him, her friends agreed in chorus that he was very picturesque. They wondered, though, why he wriggled so.

"The dearest, gentlest little man!" continued Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass in clear, sweet tones. "So diffident, but so grateful for everything--the poor, tattered dear! He never says a word to me when I talk to him; but by the look in his eyes I can tell he is fairly worshipping the ground I walk on."

As if to prove the truth of what she said Papa Finkelstein's gaze even now was directed upon the floor at her feet.

"Now, Cassidy," went on his mistress, "you take him into one of the dressing rooms yonder and have him undress. It's too bad nearly everything has been picked over; but we shall find something for him, I'm sure."

Within a curtained recess Cassidy explained his meaning with threatening mien.

"Take off thim rags!" he commanded.

Rags they may have been, but Papa Finkelstein cherished them. Reluctantly he parted with them, filled with the melancholy conviction that he should see them never more. It was a true foreboding. But that was not the worst of it. Papa Finkelstein was in figure slight and of a contour difficult to drape garments upon. Moreover, it was as his benefactor had said--everything had been picked over so. Nevertheless, a selection agreeable to the lady's ideals was finally made.

Fifteen minutes passed. At the end of those fifteen minutes Papa Finkelstein, under the menacing urgings of Footman Cassidy, made a diffident but spectacular reappearance before the Bundle Day audience. His head was bent apologetically low, so that his whiskers, spraying upon his bosom, helped to cover him. His two hands were spread flat upon his chest, hiding still more of his abashed shape. Nevertheless, it might be discerned that Papa Finkelstein wore the abandoned cream-coloured whipcords of somebody's chauffeur--very abandoned and very cream-coloured, the whole constituting a livery, complete, from the visored cap upon his head to the leather puttees reefed about his bowed shanks.

"Now just look at him!" cried Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass in an ecstasy. "How neat! How trim! How cosy!"

Papa Finkelstein didn't want to be neat. He abhorred cosiness; likewise trimness. Moreover he shrunk mentally from the prospect of his homeward journey, foreseeing difficulties. There again was his intuition prophetically justified.

At the corner of Hester Street and the Bowery a skylarking group beheld him and greeted him with cries of an almost incredulous joy. By force they detained the little man, making mock of him in English and in Yiddish. The English passed over his head, but into his soul the Yiddish bit deep, leaving scars. He wrested himself free and fled to his home. His arrival there made a profound impression on Mamma Finkelstein--after she recognised him. So did his language.

Only the absolute necessity of gleaning rent money from the realms of trade drove him forth two days later from the comparative sanctuary of the inner room of his domicile. In the spirit he suffered, and in the flesh as well. Citizens en route to the Subway, on being hailed with inquiries touching on old clothes, from an undersized pedestrian attired as a chauffeur, in reduced circumstances, who had neglected to shave for a long time past, did not halt to listen. They halted to laugh and to gibe and to gird with derision. Until Papa Finkelstein had effected a trade with a compassionate but thrifty compatriot, with an utter disregard for intrinsic values exchanging what he wore for whatsoever the other might give, just so it sufficiently covered him, he felt himself to be a hissing and a byword in the highways--which he was.

And now into the tangling skeins of the Finkelstein family's life in their relation to the charitable impulses enlisted upon their behalf--but without their consent or their approval--it is fitting to reintroduce Miss Betty Gwin. Springtime came and passed, its passage dappled for all the Finkelsteins with memory spots attesting the more or less intermittent attentions of Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass, and the more or less constant ministrations of Miss Godiva Sleybells.

Summer came; and with the initial weeks of summer came also the time for the first of the series of annual outings conducted under the auspices of the _Evening Dispatch's_ Fresh Air Fund for the Children of the Poor. Yearly it was the habit of this enterprising sheet to give excursions to the beach, employing therefor a chartered steamboat and the contributions of the public.