The Bread Line Part 2

"Why, yes; I suppose a few hundred will be needed at the start to pay such little bills as may be presented. We want to impress everybody with the fact that we pay cash, don't you see? And discount everything. By paying the first bill the minute it's presented we'll establish the necessary credit, of course, and the next bill will be held till we call for it. Frisby didn't have a dollar,--not a dollar,--but then, the 'Voice of Light' was established, and possibly had some slight income, besides certain fixtures and connections, all of which we would have to secure, and probably at some cost. I could invite in all the money needed--all we need. Of course, it would be better if we could handle everything ourselves and not feel under any outside obligations. I could manage a fourth of it all right, or even a third--" He hesitated and looked dreamily across the table at the others.

Perner was first to speak.

"I'm like Frisby," he laughed. "I haven't got a dollar--in money." He made this statement in a manner that indicated he might have vast possessions in real properties or stocks. "I suppose I could manage a sixth, though, some way," he concluded suddenly, as if to regain a hold on a golden opportunity that was about to slip from his grasp.

The glamour of prospective riches was upon them. Van Dorn, remembering an old schoolmate who had prospered in commerce, stated incontinently that he could borrow anything from two dollars up to two thousand if he only had a mind to ask for it. Livingstone added hastily that he would take the other sixth interest, even if he didn't have quite enough money saved to pay for it right away. At each of these statements Barrifield a.s.sured them that they were talking sense, and that they were as good as millionaires already. The "Whole Family" had become definite. The friends were in high spirits as they rose to leave. The waiter who helped them on with their coats was liberally remembered.

It was eleven o'clock when they stepped out into the winter night.

Barrifield, who was a married man and a suburban Brooklynite, took the South Ferry car at Broadway. The other three set their faces north in the direction of their apartments. Van Dorn was a widower, Perner a confirmed bachelor, and Livingstone also unmarried. They were untrammeled, therefore, as to their hours and habits.

As they marched up Broadway they laughed a great deal. They were p.r.o.ne to see the humorous side of life in all its phases, and the new paper with its various premium combinations furnished a novel source of amus.e.m.e.nt. It may be that the champagne stimulated the tendency to mirth, for the three became really hilarious as they proceeded.

On the corner of Tenth Street they halted. Across the way there was a long line of waiting men that extended around the corner in either direction.

"What's that?" exclaimed Perner.

"Why, don't you know?" said Van Dorn. "That's the bread line. They get a cup of coffee and a loaf of bread every night at twelve o'clock. Old Fleischmann, who founded the bakery, made that provision in his will.

They begin to collect here at ten o'clock and before, rain or s.h.i.+ne, hot or cold."

"It's cold enough to-night!" said Livingstone.

They drew nearer. The waifs regarded them listlessly. They were a ragged, thinly clad lot--a drift-line of hunger, tossed up by the tide of chance.

The bohemians, remembering their own lavish dinner and their swiftly coming plenitude, regarded these unfortunates with silent compa.s.sion.

"I say, fellows," whispered Livingstone, presently, "let's get a lot of nickels and give one to each of them. I guess we can manage it," he added, running his eye down the line in hasty calculation.

The others began emptying their pockets. Perner the businesslike stripped himself of his last cent and borrowed a dollar of Van Dorn to make his share equal. Then they separated and scoured in different directions for change. By the time all had returned the line had increased considerably.

"We'd better start right away or we won't have enough," said Livingstone.

He began at the head of the line and gave to each outstretched hand as far as his store of coins lasted. Then Van Dorn took it up, and after him Perner. They had barely enough to give to the last comers. The men's hands stretched out long before they reached them. Some said "Thank you"; many said "G.o.d bless you"; some said nothing at all.

"There's more money in that crowd than there is in this now," said Perner, as they turned away.

"That's so," said Livingstone. "But wait till a year from to-night.

We'll come down here and give these poor devils a dollar apiece--maybe ten of them."

Livingstone's face had grown tender again. In fancy he saw them returning a year from to-night with ample charity. And another would come with them--one who would make the charity sweeter because of bestowing it with fair hands.

III

A LETTER FROM THE "DEAREST GIRL IN THE WORLD," OTHERWISE MISS DOROTHY CASTLE OF CLEVELAND, TO MR. TRUMAN LIVINGSTONE OF NEW YORK

"MY DEAR OLD TRUE: I have both laughed and cried over your letter, and I have thought, too, a great deal. It was awfully jolly to think of you and those good friends of yours dining together on New Year's eve, and there is only one way I would have had it different, and that way would have seemed selfish on my part, and unfair to the others, too.

"I do wish I might have been near by, though, unknown to you, and heard all that pa.s.sed, for I know you only told me the good things the others said, and not all the best things--those you said yourself. Or, if you did not say them, you thought them, and were only restrained by modesty.

"I suppose you will get over that by and by, when you are as old as Perny and Barry and Van (you see, I am beginning to feel that I know your friends, and call them as you do); only I hope you won't get entirely over it, either, for do you know, True, that is just one reason why I love you--I mean because you are fine and manly and modest--just old True, that's all. And when I came to where you gave the money to the s.h.i.+vering men waiting for bread, I knew just how you felt, and I couldn't keep back the tears to save my life.

"And I know it was you, True, who proposed it, though you didn't say so, for it is exactly what you _would_ do; and when you told how they put out their hands for the money, and some of them said 'G.o.d bless you,' and how we would go there together in a year, and with Perny and Van, too, and give them all something again, and perhaps more,--a great deal more,--I wanted to put my arms about you, True, and give you a good hug, and tell you how n.o.ble and generous you are, and how I wish I were more like you, for your sake.

"What a wonderful plan that is of Mr. Barrifield's! Do you know, it quite startles me; it seems like some fairy tale.

And as for the figures, they fairly make me dizzy. Mr.

Barrifield must be a very remarkable man to conceive such an extraordinary idea; and how fortunate for him that he has such men as you and Van and Perny to help him! Between Barry and Perny with their business and literary ability, and you and Van to look after the pictures, I am sure you will get out a beautiful paper, and one that ought to succeed. It seems like magic that it could be made to do so without great capital at the start, but, of course, Mr. Frisby did it 'without a dollar,' so it is possible, and Barry's plan certainly is plausible and fascinating. Then, too, if it should not turn out exactly as planned, he can always get those capitalists to come in, you know; and while I suppose you would be obliged to take a very small share then, it would be better than failure.

"You see, True, I have been thinking, as I said at the start, and I am with you, of course, heart and soul, in whatever you undertake; only, do you know, True, I can't make myself very enthusiastic about it. I mean I don't feel about it as I do about your work, and as I felt when you wrote me that you had got into the big magazines, and had been given a serial to ill.u.s.trate by the greatest of them all. I hardly slept a wink that night, I was so happy for you and for myself and for everybody. I am glad of this, too, but it is in a different way.

"I know it is hard to save when money is earned with one's hands, for it comes little at a time, and if the paper prospers it will be easier for you afterward. But, somehow, premiums and showy offers in big type don't seem to fit in with my thought of you, and the Bible premium especially doesn't appeal to me entirely. I suppose it is all right, and perhaps, as you say, a great many people will get Bibles who never had them before; but to me there is something almost sacrilegious in the thought of using the Bible as a means of making the paper sell. You know, True, I am not very strait-laced about such matters, either, and, after all, of course, if Mr. Frisby used it, and with the sanction of the Rev. Montague Banks, it must be all right. But you know also, True, that it isn't for money or luxury that I care,--I have had plenty of such things,--and it is just for your own dear, trusting self, and your aims and triumphs, that I love you.

"Your bohemian life there with Perny and Van has always seemed so delightful to me. You are all such good friends, and it must be beautiful to do your work together, and then go out and see the different phases of living and dying, and the struggle of existence, without the cares and worries of business. I have pictured you so often sitting about the fire at evening, smoking your pipes and dreaming the dreams that are only of your world, and happy in that comrades.h.i.+p which only men ever understand and feel for each other. Then I have tried not to be jealous of the others, and to make myself believe that by and by, when I came, it would not be so hard for you to give them up, and that sometimes I would let you go back to them, and then for the evening you could forget that I had ever come into your life and changed it all.

"You must let me say all this, True, because I feel it, and know, in spite of your n.o.ble letters to me, that it _will_ make a difference, and that your life will never be quite the same afterward. And that is why I feel about the paper as I do, too, I suppose, for I feel that it will in some way rob you of the quiet happiness and the serene sweetness of art that you now enjoy, and for which I have been more than once tempted to give you up and go out of your life for your own sake. Only, True, I am weak and human, and can't let you go as long as you, too, are weak and human enough to love me and to make us both believe that I will be a help and an inspiration to you by and by.

"As I read over this letter now, it seems to me neither very cheerful nor encouraging, and not at all the letter I started out to write. But if I should write another I fear I should not improve on it, and anyway, True, you know it is from the heart, and that always and always my heart is _with_ you and _for_ you in whatever you do or undertake.

Write to me as often as you can, and tell me the good things that happen, and the funny things, too; for I enjoy them all, and your letters are precious to me beyond anything that the days bring. Go right on, True; don't let anything I say make you hesitate for a moment. I am away off here, dreaming idle dreams, while you are there and see and know.

I am sure you will do what is best--you always do; and remember that, whatever comes, I am, now and forever, your

"DOROTHY."

IV

SOME PREMIUMS

It was decided to make Perner the editor. This decision was reached during a lunch on Twenty-third Street, where the proprietors of the "Whole Family" met one day some weeks after the initial dinner. A number of brief and informal meetings had been held, and a liberal amount of talk expended, besides the continuous discussion and badinage in the studio where Livingstone, Van Dorn, and Perner still worked, though in a manner disheartening to their publishers. The idea of starting a vast enterprise with little or no capital had in it something very fascinating to the bohemian temperament, while the consideration of its unique phases and the more or less appropriate premiums to be offered, afforded never-ending amus.e.m.e.nt. Work lagged, while hope tinted the air rose-color, and the G.o.d of mirth perched by the side of Venus Milo on the mantelpiece.

Livingstone, it is true, had begun, and with fine enthusiasm at first, a picture of the bread line as they had seen it on New Year's eve. The sketch was on canvas, and strong in composition and feeling. The others came over and stood one on either side of him and said so. They said so more than once, and with various degrees of emphasis. Perhaps this satisfied Livingstone, for after that his interest in the undertaking became that of a spectator also. The canvas stood on an easel in one corner, and served as a diversion when the "Whole Family" topic was for the moment exhausted.

But one day Barrifield came over just before noon, and announced that they should organize forthwith. He had been investigating certain premium articles, a number of which he had in his pockets. He said it was necessary to have some definite address, and whoever was to be editor should be chosen, that he might begin to cast about for desirable features. So they drifted over to the Twenty-third Street place to "eat things and talk," as Livingstone said. They had done a good deal of this lately.

While they were waiting for the dishes, Barrifield began emptying his pockets. He produced first from his vest an article that caused Livingstone to whisper:

"I say, old man, put that clock out of sight. You can hear it all over the place."

Barrifield stared at him reproachfully.

"That," he said, with great deliberation, "is a watch."

"I wouldn't have believed it," said Van Dorn, taking it in his hand. "I thought it was a water-meter."