VISITING MANUEL

Two or three weeks after their adventure with Manuel pa.s.sed before Brenda and Nora were able to visit him. They talked several times of going, but something always interfered. Sometimes it was the weather, sometimes it was another engagement, more often they could not go because they had no one to accompany them. For it was evident that two young girls could not go alone to the North End. At length one morning one of the under teachers in the school offered to go with them that very afternoon. She had overheard them at recess expressing their sorrow that they could not go alone.

"Really," pouted Brenda, "I think that mamma is very mean. We could go as well as not by ourselves, and why we should have to wait for her or some older person to go with us I cannot see."

"Don't call your mother mean," Miss South said laughingly in pa.s.sing, and then as Brenda explained the cause of her rather undutiful expression, she had added, "Your mother is perfectly right. It would never do for you to go alone. But I have an errand down near Prince Street this very day. If you get Mrs. Barlow's permission I shall be happy to have you go with me." So it happened that one warm, sunny day in early November, the girls and Miss South exchanged their Back Bay car at Scollay Square for a Hanover Street electric car. It whizzed swiftly down a street which neither Brenda nor Nora had ever seen before, filled with gay shops whose windows were bright with millinery or jewelry--or, I am sorry to say it--bottles of liquor, amber and red. There was more display here than in the streets up town.

"Sometimes," said Miss South, "I call this the Bowery of Boston. It is the chief shopping street of the North End, and on Sat.u.r.day nights the poor people do most of their buying. I came here one evening with my brother. It was really very amusing."

They had been in the car but a few minutes when Miss South gave the signal for the car to stop.

"It will interest you," she said, "to see this quaint old street. It has an old-time name, too--'Salem Street.'"

Brenda and Nora glanced around them in surprise. It was a narrow street, winding along almost in a curve. Though most of the houses were brick, a number were of wood. Some of them had gable-roofs, and nearly all of them looked old. Shops occupied the lower part of most of these houses, and many of them were p.a.w.n-shops. As they entered the street it seemed as if they could hardly pa.s.s through. Hooks and poles laden with old clothes projected from many of these shops, and the sidewalks themselves held numerous loungers and children. Nora looked interested, Brenda, a trifle disgusted, as they saw a woman chattering with a hand-cart man who sold fish.

"Ugh, I wouldn't want to eat it," said the latter.

"Oh, it's probably perfectly good fish," responded Miss South with a smile. "Only it does not look quite as inviting as it would if shown on a marble slab in an up-town fish market."

"Are these people _dreadfully_ poor?" asked Nora.

"No," replied Miss South. "This is the Jewish section, and most of the men here make a pretty good living. They are peddlers, and go out into the country selling tins or fruit, or they have little shops."

"But these children look so poor!"

"If you will notice more carefully you will see that their clothes are dingy rather than poor. Nearly all wear good shoes, and there are not many rags. Many of these Russian and Polish Jews when they first come to Boston have very little money, and are supported by their friends. But they soon find a chance to earn their living, and a man coming here without a cent, in five years sometimes owns a house. I speak of this, girls, because I have known people to think that dirt and dinginess mean great poverty."

Nora and Brenda made many exclamations of surprise as they looked down some of the narrow lanes leading from Salem Street.

"It's just like pictures of Europe, isn't it?" cried Nora; "and then these people--and the queer signs--Oh! really I think it's _too_ interesting for anything."

The signboards of which Nora spoke certainly did look strange.

Some of them had Russian names, others were in odd Hebrew characters.

Those which were English were peculiarly worded. The owner of a tiny shop with one little window described himself as a "Wholesale and retail dealer in dry goods," a corner groceryman called himself an "importer."

The English spelling was not always correct, and the names of the shop-people were long and odd.

Miss South's errand took her to a large building occupied as an industrial school. On their way upstairs they saw some boys at work at a printing press, and Miss South told the girls a little about the boys'

and girls' clubs, which met in this building certain evenings in the week. Miss South wished to speak to the kindergarten teacher whose school was on the top floor. Most of the little children had gone home for the day, and only a few remained whose mothers were out working and had no one with whom to leave the children. Nora and Brenda exclaimed with delight at sight of five or six little boys and girls seated in small chairs around a low table. Nearly all had dark hair and eyes, although there was one little blonde girl with long, light curls. They looked at the visitors with small wonder, for they were used to seeing strangers. Nora at once began to play with the light-haired girl, but Brenda, after a glance or two, preferred to look out of the window.

Unlike Nora, she was not very fond of children. They did not remain long in the building, and were soon in the street again.

"Just one block below," said Miss South, "is Prince Street, but before we go there let us look at Christ Church. Do you realize that you are under the very shadow of the spire where Paul Revere hung his lantern?"

The girls fairly jumped with surprise.

"Of course I knew it was somewhere down here, but I hadn't an idea it was so near," said Brenda, while Nora began to recite,

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere."

They had turned the corner again into Salem Street, and following Miss South, had crossed the street. There before them loomed the gray front of the old church with its tall spire on which they could read the inscription:

"The signal lanterns of Paul Revere displayed in the steeple of this church April 18, 1775, warned the country of the march of the British troops to Concord and Lexington."

"This is the oldest church building in the city," said Miss South, "and some Sunday you would find it worth while to come down here to a service, for the interior has been restored to look just as it did in its earliest days."

"Oh, how Julia would enjoy that!" exclaimed Nora. "You know that she just loves old things."

"Yes," continued Miss South, "you must take her, too, to see Copp's Hill Burying Ground, up this street. We haven't time to go to-day, but if you do not make other arrangements I shall be very glad to come with you some Sunday."

"You're awfully good, Miss South," said Brenda. "I don't care so much for old things myself, but still I'd like to come again."

"I know, Brenda, you like new things--Manuel for instance. Well, you shall see him in less than five minutes--that is, if he is at home."

They had reached the corner of Prince Street. Like Salem Street this too, was narrow with quaint old houses. One wooden house which looked as if it might fall down at any minute bore a placard which warned pa.s.sers-by of possible danger. The placard stated that it had been built in 1723.

"In the time of George II.,--just think of it!" exclaimed Brenda, who when she wished, could remember dates.

"Rear of No. 11," said Miss South, and they turned down a short alley.

They had not to ask the way, however, for there, in front of the second house, stood Manuel himself. He looked at them at first without recognizing them, but when Nora called his name, he took his finger from his mouth, and in a moment began to smile very broadly. But instead of running to the girls he turned toward the house.

"Come, come," he said, and almost at the same moment Mrs. Rosa appeared at the door. She looked very pale and thin and she had an old black shawl drawn over her head. Nora and Brenda now found that they had lost their tongues. They really did not know what to say, and they were very glad that Miss South had come with them. The alley, too, was so dirty, so different from any place they had ever seen, that they willingly followed Mrs. Rosa into the house when she asked them to do so.

Mrs. Rosa talked very poor English, but Miss South was able to gather from what she said that she had been ill for two or three weeks. She had not been able to go to her fruit stand. Her eldest daughter had been attending to it for her, a girl twelve years old.

"But why isn't Manuel at school?" asked Miss South.

"Him home for company," smiled Mrs. Rosa, showing both rows of white teeth.

Miss South shook her head. "He ought to go every day to the kindergarten."

"His shoes so bad," apologized Mrs. Rosa, and as they all looked at the little boy they saw a red toe peeping out from one shoe. Nora nudged Brenda--Brenda smiled a.s.sent. The nudge and the smile meant that in Manuel they were surely going to have a field for their charitable efforts.

The little room in which they sat looked very poor and bare. It had no carpet, and the table and the two or three chairs were of unpainted wood. The most important piece of furniture was the large cook-stove. On the mantelpiece were various dishes, several of which were broken, and there were the remains of a meal on the table. Altogether the room did not look very neat. Although it was not a cold day there was a large fire burning in the stove where something rather savory was boiling in a pot.

While Miss South was talking the two girls realized that they had come rather aimlessly to Mrs. Rosa's. They managed to ask her if Manuel had run away again, and she smiled as she answered, "Every day," and shook her head at the little boy.

"Well, he must be careful not to run under the horses' feet," said Nora.

"He won't find some one ready to pull him back every day," chimed in Brenda, while Manuel and his mother both smiled, though I am sure that the little boy hardly understood a word of what was said.

"Oh, them 'lectrics," said Mrs. Rosa, "they're awful bad. I whip Manuel all the time so he won't run in front of them 'lectrics."

"Aren't you afraid whipping will make him run away more often?" asked Miss South. But Mrs. Rosa looked as if she did not quite understand the meaning of this question, and after a few more inquiries about the other children who were still in school, Miss South said it was time to return home. Before going, Nora gave Manuel a picture-book, and Brenda gave him a top which they had bought for him.

"Come again," called Mrs. Rosa, waving an end of her shawl at them, and "Come again" shouted Manuel as they turned from the narrow alley into the broader street.

"Isn't it perfectly dreadful," exclaimed Nora, "for people to be so poor."