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MAGGIE
MAGGIE STEPHEN CRANE Chapter I
A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of
Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's
Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him.
His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body
was writhing in the delivery of great crimson oaths.
"Run Jimmie run! Dey'll get yehs" screamed a retreating
Rum Alley child.
"Naw" responded Jimmie with a valiant roar "dese micks can't
make me run."
Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats.
Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel
heap. On their small convulsed faces there shone the grins of
true assassins. As they charged they threw stones and cursed in
shrill chorus.
The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down
the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle and
his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body and
blood was dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore
a look of a tiny insane demon.
On the ground children from Devil's Row closed in on their
antagonist. He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and
fought with cursing fury. The little boys ran to and fro dodging
hurling stones and swearing in barbaric trebles.
From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form
from amid squat ignorant stables there leaned a curious woman.
Some laborers unloading a scow at a dock at the river paused for
a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat
hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island a worm
of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled
slowly along the river's bank.
A stone had smashed into Jimmie's mouth. Blood was bubbling
over his chin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows
on his dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and
turn weak causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of
the first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter.
In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's Row children
there were notes of joy like songs of triumphant savagery.
The little boys seemed to leer gloatingly at the blood upon
the other child's face.
Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of sixteen
years although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat
upon his lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over
his eye. Between his teeth a cigar stump was tilted at the angle
of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which
appalled the timid. He glanced over into the vacant lot in which
the little raving boys from Devil's Row seethed about the shrieking
and tearful child from Rum Alley.
"Gee!" he murmured with interest. "A scrap. Gee!"
He strode over to the cursing circle swinging his shoulders
in a manner which denoted that he held victory in his fists.
He approached at the back of one of the most deeply engaged
of the Devil's Row children.
"Ah what deh hell" he said and smote the deeply-engaged one
on the back of the head. The little boy fell to the ground and
gave a hoarse tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet and
perceiving evidently the size of his assailant ran quickly off
shouting alarms. The entire Devil's Row party followed him. They
came to a stand a short distance away and yelled taunting oaths at
the boy with the chronic sneer. The latter momentarily paid no
attention to them.
"What deh hell Jimmie?" he asked of the small champion.
Jimmie wiped his blood-wet features with his sleeve.
"Well it was dis way Pete see! I was goin' teh lick dat
Riley kid and dey all pitched on me."
Some Rum Alley children now came forward. The party stood for
a moment exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few
stones were thrown at long distances and words of challenge passed
between small warriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned
slowly in the direction of their home street. They began to give
each to each distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat
in particular cases were magnified. Blows dealt in the fight were
enlarged to catapultian power and stones thrown were alleged to
have hurtled with infinite accuracy. Valor grew strong again
and the little boys began to swear with great spirit.
"Ah we blokies kin lick deh hull damn Row" said a child swaggering.
Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the flow of blood from
his cut lips. Scowling he turned upon the speaker.
"Ah where deh hell was yeh when I was doin' all deh fightin?"
he demanded. "Youse kids makes me tired."
"Ah go ahn" replied the other argumentatively.
Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. "Ah youse can't fight
Blue Billie! I kin lick yeh wid one han'."
"Ah go ahn" replied Billie again.
"Ah" said Jimmie threateningly.
"Ah" said the other in the same tone.
They struck at each other clinched and rolled over on the
cobble stones.
"Smash 'im Jimmie kick deh damn guts out of 'im" yelled Pete
the lad with the chronic sneer in tones of delight.
The small combatants pounded and kicked scratched and tore.
They began to weep and their curses struggled in their throats with
sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their
legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair.
A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated.
"Cheese it Jimmie cheese it! Here comes yer fader" he yelled.
The circle of little boys instantly parted. They drew away
and waited in ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen.
The two little boys fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago
did not hear the warning.
Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes.
He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe.
As he neared the spot where the little boys strove he
regarded them listlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and
advanced upon the rolling fighters.
"Here you Jim git up now while I belt yer life out
you damned disorderly brat."
He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground. The boy
Billie felt a heavy boot strike his head. He made a furious effort
and disentangled himself from Jimmie. He tottered away damning.
Jimmie arose painfully from the ground and confronting his
father began to curse him. His parent kicked him. "Come home
now" he cried "an' stop yer jawin' er I'll lam the everlasting
head off yehs."
They departed. The man paced placidly along with the apple-
wood emblem of serenity between his teeth. The boy followed a
dozen feet in the rear. He swore luridly for he felt that it was
degradation for one who aimed to be some vague soldier or a man of
blood with a sort of sublime license to be taken home by a father.
Chapter II
Eventually they entered into a dark region where from a
careening building a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of
babies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raised
yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows.
Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all
unhandy places there were buckets brooms rags and bottles. In
the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat
stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women with uncombed
hair and disordered dress gossiped while leaning on railings or
screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons in curious
postures of submission to something sat smoking pipes in obscure
corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the
street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of
humanity stamping about in its bowels.
A small ragged girl dragged a red bawling infant along the
crowded ways. He was hanging back baby-like bracing his
wrinkled bare legs.
The little girl cried out: "Ah Tommie come ahn.
Dere's Jimmie and fader. Don't be a-pullin' me back."
She jerked the baby's arm impatiently. He fell on his face
roaring. With a second jerk she pulled him to his feet and they
went on. With the obstinacy of his order he protested against
being dragged in a chosen direction. He made heroic endeavors to
keep on his legs denounce his sister and consume a bit of orange
peeling which he chewed between the times of his infantile
orations.
As the sullen-eyed man followed by the blood-covered boy
drew near the little girl burst into reproachful cries.
"Ah Jimmie youse bin fightin' agin."
The urchin swelled disdainfully.
"Ah what deh hell Mag. See?"
The little girl upbraided him "Youse allus fightin' Jimmie
an' yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead
an' it's like we'll all get a poundin'."
She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared at
his prospects.
"Ah what deh hell!" cried Jimmie. "Shut up er I'll smack yer mout'.
See?"
As his sister continued her lamentations he suddenly swore
and struck her. The little girl reeled and recovering herself
burst into tears and quaveringly cursed him. As she slowly
retreated her brother advanced dealing her cuffs. The father heard
and turned about.
"Stop that Jim d'yeh hear? Leave yer sister alone on the
street. It's like I can never beat any sense into yer damned
wooden head."
The urchin raised his voice in defiance to his parent and
continued his attacks. The babe bawled tremendously protesting
with great violence. During his sister's hasty manoeuvres he was
dragged by the arm.
Finally the procession plunged into one of the gruesome doorways.
They crawled up dark stairways and along cold gloomy halls.
At last the father pushed open a door and they entered a lighted room
in which a large woman was rampant.
She stopped in a career from a seething stove to a pan-covered table.
As the father and children filed in she peered at them.
"Eh what? Been fightin' agin by Gawd!" She threw herself
upon Jimmie. The urchin tried to dart behind the others and in the
scuffle the babe Tommie was knocked down. He protested with his
usual vehemence because they had bruised his tender shins against
a table leg.
The mother's massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the
urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled.
She dragged him to an unholy sink and soaking a rag in water
began to scrub his lacerated face with it. Jimmie screamed in pain
and tried to twist his shoulders out of the clasp of the huge arms.
The babe sat on the floor watching the scene his face in contortions
like that of a woman at a tragedy. The father with a newly-ladened
pipe in his mouth crouched on a backless chair near the stove.
Jimmie's cries annoyed him. He turned about and bellowed at his wife:
"Let the damned kid alone for a minute will yeh Mary? Yer allus
poundin' 'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'cause
yer allus poundin' a kid. Let up d'yeh hear? Don't be allus
poundin' a kid."
The woman's operations on the urchin instantly increased in violence.
At last she tossed him to a corner where he limply lay cursing and weeping.
The wife put her immense hands on her hips and with a
chieftain-like stride approached her husband.
"Ho" she said with a great grunt of contempt. "An' what in
the devil are you stickin' your nose for?"
The babe crawled under the table and turning peered out
cautiously. The ragged girl retreated and the urchin in the corner
drew his legs carefully beneath him.
The man puffed his pipe calmly and put his great mudded boots
on the back part of the stove.
"Go teh hell" he murmured tranquilly.
The woman screamed and shook her fists before her husband's
eyes. The rough yellow of her face and neck flared suddenly
crimson. She began to howl.
He puffed imperturbably at his pipe for a time but finally
arose and began to look out at the window into the darkening chaos
of back yards.
"You've been drinkin' Mary" he said. "You'd better let up
on the bot' ol' woman or you'll git done."
"You're a liar. I ain't had a drop" she roared in reply.
They had a lurid altercation in which they damned each
other's souls with frequence.
The babe was staring out from under the table his small face
working in his excitement.
The ragged girl went stealthily over to the corner where the
urchin lay.
"Are yehs hurted much Jimmie?" she whispered timidly.
"Not a damn bit! See?" growled the little boy.
"Will I wash deh blood?"
"Naw!"
"Will I--"
"When I catch dat Riley kid I'll break 'is face! Dat's right! See?"
He turned his face to the wall as if resolved to grimly bide
his time.
In the quarrel between husband and wife the woman was victor.
The man grabbed his hat and rushed from the room apparently
determined upon a vengeful drunk. She followed to the door and
thundered at him as he made his way down stairs.
She returned and stirred up the room until her children were
bobbing about like bubbles.
"Git outa deh way" she persistently bawled waving feet
with their dishevelled shoes near the heads of her children.
She shrouded herself puffing and snorting in a cloud of steam
at the stove and eventually extracted a frying-pan full of potatoes
that hissed.
She flourished it. "Come teh yer suppers now" she cried
with sudden exasperation. "Hurry up now er I'll help yeh!"
The children scrambled hastily. With prodigious clatter they
arranged themselves at table. The babe sat with his feet dangling
high from a precarious infant chair and gorged his small stomach.
Jimmie forced with feverish rapidity the grease-enveloped pieces
between his wounded lips. Maggie with side glances of fear of
interruption ate like a small pursued tigress.
The mother sat blinking at them. She delivered reproaches
swallowed potatoes and drank from a yellow-brown bottle.
After a time her mood changed and she wept as she carried
little Tommie into another room and laid him to sleep
with his fists doubled in an old quilt of faded red
and green grandeur. Then she came and moaned by the stove.
She rocked to and fro upon a chair shedding tears
and crooning miserably to the two children about their
"poor mother" and "yer fader damn 'is soul."
The little girl plodded between the table and the chair with
a dish-pan on it. She tottered on her small legs beneath burdens
of dishes.
Jimmie sat nursing his various wounds. He cast furtive glances
at his mother. His practised eye perceived her gradually emerge
from a muddled mist of sentiment until her brain burned in
drunken heat. He sat breathless.
Maggie broke a plate.
The mother started to her feet as if propelled.
"Good Gawd" she howled. Her eyes glittered on her child with
sudden hatred. The fervent red of her face turned almost to
purple. The little boy ran to the halls shrieking like a monk in
an earthquake.
He floundered about in darkness until he found the stairs. He stumbled
panic-stricken to the next floor. An old woman opened a door.
A light behind her threw a flare on the urchin's quivering face.
"Eh Gawd child what is it dis time? Is yer fader beatin'
yer mudder or yer mudder beatin' yer fader?"
Chapter III
Jimmie and the old woman listened long in the hall. Above the
muffled roar of conversation the dismal wailings of babies at
night the thumping of feet in unseen corridors and rooms mingled
with the sound of varied hoarse shoutings in the street and the
rattling of wheels over cobbles they heard the screams of the
child and the roars of the mother die away to a feeble moaning and
a subdued bass muttering.
The old woman was a gnarled and leathery personage who could
don at will an expression of great virtue. She possessed a small
music-box capable of one tune and a collection of "God bless yehs"
pitched in assorted keys of fervency. Each day she took a position
upon the stones of Fifth Avenue where she crooked her legs under
her and crouched immovable and hideous like an idol. She received
daily a small sum in pennies. It was contributed for the most
part by persons who did not make their homes in that vicinity.
Once when a lady had dropped her purse on the sidewalk the
gnarled woman had grabbed it and smuggled it with great dexterity
beneath her cloak. When she was arrested she had cursed the lady
into a partial swoon and with her aged limbs twisted from
rheumatism had almost kicked the stomach out of a huge policeman
whose conduct upon that occasion she referred to when she said:
"The police damn 'em."
"Eh Jimmie it's cursed shame" she said. "Go now like a dear
an' buy me a can an' if yer mudder raises 'ell all night yehs
can sleep here."
Jimmie took a tendered tin-pail and seven pennies and departed.
He passed into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar.
Straining up on his toes he raised the pail and pennies as high
as his arms would let him. He saw two hands thrust down and take them.
Directly the same hands let down the filled pail and he left.
In front of the gruesome doorway he met a lurching figure.
It was his father swaying about on uncertain legs.
"Give me deh can. See?" said the man threateningly.
"Ah come off! I got dis can fer dat ol' woman an' it 'ud be
dirt teh swipe it. See?" cried Jimmie.
The father wrenched the pail from the urchin. He grasped it
in both hands and lifted it to his mouth. He glued his lips to the
under edge and tilted his head. His hairy throat swelled until it
seemed to grow near his chin. There was a tremendous gulping
movement and the beer was gone.
The man caught his breath and laughed. He hit his son on the
head with the empty pail. As it rolled clanging into the street
Jimmie began to scream and kicked repeatedly at his father's shins.
"Look at deh dirt what yeh done me" he yelled. "Deh ol'
woman 'ill be raisin' hell."
He retreated to the middle of the street but the man did not
pursue. He staggered toward the door.
"I'll club hell outa yeh when I ketch yeh" he shouted and
disappeared.
During the evening he had been standing against a bar drinking
whiskies and declaring to all comers confidentially: "My home
reg'lar livin' hell! Damndes' place! Reg'lar hell! Why do I come
an' drin' whisk' here thish way? 'Cause home reg'lar livin' hell!"
Jimmie waited a long time in the street and then crept warily
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