Tattered Tom

“Shall I do it ag’in?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Joe. “I say, Tom, you’re a smart un.”

“I’d ought to be. Granny makes me smart whenever she gets a chance.”

Tom returned to the other end of the crossing, and began to sweep diligently. Her labors did not extend far from the curbstone, as the stream of vehicles now rapidly passing would have made it dangerous. However, it was all one to Tom where she swept. The cleanness of the crossing was to her a matter of comparative indifference. Indeed, considering her own disregard of neatness, it could hardly have been expected that she should feel very solicitous on that point. Like some of her elders who were engaged in municipal labors, she regarded street-sweeping as a “job,” out of which she was to make money, and her interest began and ended with the money she earned.

There were not so many to cross Broadway at this point as lower down, and only a few of these seemed impressed by a sense of the pecuniary value of Tom’s services.

“Gi’ me a penny, sir,” she said to a stout gentleman.

He tossed a coin into the mud.

Tom darted upon it, and fished it up, wiping her fingers afterwards upon her dress.

“Aint you afraid of soiling your dress?” asked the philanthropist, smiling.

“What’s the odds?” said Tom, coolly.

“You’re a philosopher,” said the stout gentleman.

“Don’t you go to callin’ me names!” said Tom; “’cause if you do I’ll muddy up your boots.”

“So you don’t want to be called a philosopher?” said the gentleman.

“No, I don’t,” said Tom, eying him suspiciously.

“Then I must make amends.”

He took a dime from his pocket, and handed it to the astonished Tom.

“Is this for me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Tom’s eyes glistened; for ten cents was a nugget when compared with her usual penny receipts. She stood in a brown study till her patron was half across the street, then, seized with a sudden idea, she darted after him, and tugged at his coat-tail.

“What’s wanted?” he asked, turning round in some surprise.

“I say,” said Tom, “you may call me that name ag’in for five cents more.”

The ludicrous character of the proposal struck him, and he laughed with amusement.

“Well,” he said, “that’s a good offer. What’s your name?”

“Tom.”

“Which are you,—a boy or a girl?”

“I’m a girl, but I wish I was a boy.”

“What for?”

“’Cause boys are stronger than girls, and can fight better.”

“Do you ever fight?”

“Sometimes.”

“Whom do you fight with?”

“Sometimes I fight with the boys, and sometimes with granny.”

“What makes you fight with your granny?”

“She gets drunk and fires things at my head; then I pitch into her.”

The cool, matter-of-fact manner in which Tom spoke seemed to amuse her questioner.

“I was right,” he said; “you’re a philosopher,—a practical philosopher.”

“That’s more’n you said before,” said Tom; “I want ten cents for that.”

The ten cents were produced. Tom pocketed them in a business-like manner, and went back to her employment. She wondered, slightly, whether a philosopher was something very bad; but, as there was no means of determining, sensibly dismissed the inquiry, and kept on with her work.

CHAPTER II

TOM GETS A SQUARE MEAL

About twelve o’clock Tom began to feel the pangs of hunger. The exercise which she had taken, together with the fresh air, had stimulated her appetite. It was about the time when she was expected to go home, and accordingly she thrust her hand into her pocket, and proceeded to count the money she had received.

“Forty-two cents!” she said, at last, in a tone of satisfaction. “I don’t generally get more’n twenty. I wish that man would come round and call me names every day.”

Tom knew that she was expected to go home and carry the result of her morning’s work to her granny; but the unusual amount suggested to her another idea. Her mid-day meal was usually of the plainest and scantiest,—a crust of dry bread, or a cold sausage on days of plenty,—and Tom sometimes did long for something better. But generally it would have been dangerous to appropriate a sufficient sum from her receipts, as the deficit would have been discovered, and quick retribution would have followed from her incensed granny, who was a vicious old woman with a pretty vigorous arm. Now, however, she could appropriate twenty cents without danger of discovery.

“I can get a square meal for twenty cents,” Tom reflected, “and I’ll do it.”

But she must go home first, as delay would be dangerous, and have disagreeable consequences.

She prepared for the visit by dividing her morning’s receipts into two parcels. The two ten-cent scrips she hid away in the lining of her tattered jacket. The pennies, including one five-cent scrip, she put in the pocket of her dress. This last was intended for her granny. She then started homewards, dragging her broom after her.

She walked to Centre Street, turned after a while into Leonard, and went on, turning once or twice, until she came to one of the most wretched tenement houses to be found in that not very choice locality. She passed through an archway leading into an inner court, on which fronted a rear house more shabby, if possible, than the front dwelling. The court was redolent of odors far from savory; children pallid, dirty, and unhealthy-looking, were playing about, filling the air with shrill cries, mingled with profanity; clothes were hanging from some of the windows; miserable and besotted faces were seen at others.

Tom looked up to a window in the fourth story. She could descry a woman, with a pipe in her mouth.

“Granny’s home,” she said to herself.

She went up three flights, and, turning at the top, went to the door and opened it.