I have always been an early riser. The popular legend that "Early to
bed and early to rise," invariably and rhythmically resulted in
healthfulness, opulence, and wisdom, I beg here to solemnly protest
against. As an "unhealthy" man, as an "unwealthy" man, and doubtless
by virtue of this protest an "unwise" man, I am, I think, a glaring
example of the untruth of the proposition.
For instance, it is my misfortune, as an early riser, to live upon a
certain fashionable avenue, where the practice of early rising is
confined exclusively to domestics. Consequently, when I issue forth on
this broad, beautiful thoroughfare at six A. M., I cannot help thinking
that I am, to a certain extent, desecrating its traditional customs.
I have more than once detected the milkman winking at the maid with a
diabolical suggestion that I was returning from a carouse, and
Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed me a block or two with the
evident impression that I was a burglar returning from a successful
evening out. Nevertheless, these various indiscretions have brought me
into contact with a kind of character and phenomena whose existence I
might otherwise have doubted.
First, let me speak of a large class of working-people whose presence
is, I think, unknown to many of those gentlemen who are in the habit of
legislating or writing about them. A majority of these early risers in
the neighborhood of which I may call my "beat" carry with them
unmistakable evidences of the American type. I have seen so little of
that foreign element that is popularly supposed to be the real working
class of the great metropolis, that I have often been inclined to doubt
statistics. The ground that my morning rambles cover extends from
Twenty-third Street to Washington Park, and laterally from Sixth Avenue
to Broadway. The early rising artisans that I meet here, crossing
three avenues,—the milkmen, the truck-drivers, the workman, even the
occasional tramp,—wherever they may come from or go to, or what their
real habitat may be,—are invariably Americans. I give it as an honest
record, whatever its significance or insignificance may be, that during
the last year, between the hours of six and eight A. M., in and about
the locality I have mentioned, I have met with but two unmistakable
foreigners, an Irishman and a German. Perhaps it may be necessary to
add to this statement that the people I have met at those early hours I
have never seen at any other time in the same locality.
As to their quality, the artisans were always cleanly dressed,
intelligent, and respectful. I remember, however, one morning, when
the ice storm of the preceding night had made the sidewalks glistening,
smiling and impassable, to have journeyed down the middle of Twelfth
Street with a mechanic so sooty as to absolutely leave a legible track
in the snowy pathway. He was the fireman attending the engine in a
noted manufactory, and in our brief conversation he told me many facts
regarding his profession which I fear interested me more than the
after-dinner speeches of some distinguished gentlemen I had heard the
preceding night. I remember that he spoke of his engine as "she," and
related certain circumstances regarding her inconsistency, her
aberrations, her pettishnesses, that seemed to justify the feminine
gender. I have a grateful recollection of him as being one who
introduced me to a restaurant where chicory, thinly disguised as
coffee, was served with bread at five cents a cup, and that he
honorably insisted on being the host, and paid his ten cents for our
mutual entertainment with the grace of a Barmecide. I remember, in a
more genial season,—I think early summer,—to have found upon the
benches of Washington Park a gentleman who informed me that his
profession was that of a "pigeon catcher"; that he contracted with
certain parties in this city to furnish these birds for what he called
their "pigeon-shoots"; and that in fulfilling this contract he often
was obliged to go as far west as Minnesota. The details he gave—his
methods of entrapping the birds, his study of their habits, his evident
belief that the city pigeon, however well provided for by parties who
fondly believed the bird to be their own, was really ferae naturae, and
consequently "game" for the pigeon-catcher—were all so interesting
that I listened to him with undisguised delight. When he had finished,
however, he said, "And now, sir, being a poor man, with a large family,
and work bein' rather slack this year, if ye could oblige me with the
loan of a dollar and your address, until remittances what I'm expecting
come in from Chicago, you'll be doin' me a great service," etc., etc.
He got the dollar, of course (his information was worth twice the
money), but I imagine he lost my address. Yet it is only fair to say
that some days after, relating his experience to a prominent sporting
man, he corroborated all its details, and satisfied me that my
pigeon-catching friend, although unfortunate, was not an impostor.
And this leads me to speak of the birds. Of all early risers, my most
importunate, aggressive, and obtrusive companions are the English
sparrows. Between six and seven A. M. they seem to possess the avenue,
and resent my intrusion. I remember, one chilly morning, when I came
upon a flurry of them, chattering, quarreling, skimming, and alighting
just before me. I stopped at last, fearful of stepping on the nearest.
To my great surprise, instead of flying away, he contested the ground
inch by inch before my advancing foot, with his wings outspread and
open bill outstretched, very much like that ridiculous burlesque of the
American eagle which the common canary-bird assumes when teased. "Did
you ever see 'em wash in the fountain in the square?" said Roundsman
9999, early one summer morning. I had not. "I guess they're there
yet. Come and see 'em," he said, and complacently accompanied me two
blocks. I don't know which was the finer sight,—the thirty or forty
winged sprites, dashing in and out of the basin, each the very
impersonation of a light-hearted, mischievous puck, or this grave
policeman, with badge and club and shield, looking on with delight.
Perhaps my visible amusement, or the spectacle of a brother policeman
just then going past with a couple of "drunk and disorderlies,"
recalled his official responsibilities and duties. "They say them
foreign sparrows drive all the other birds away," he added, severely;
and then walked off with a certain reserved manner, as if it were not
impossible for him to be called upon some morning to take the entire
feathered assembly into custody, and if so called upon he should do it.
Next, I think, in procession among the early risers, and surely next in
fresh and innocent exterior, were the work-women or shop-girls. I have
seen this fine avenue on gala afternoons bright with the beauty and
elegance of an opulent city, but I have see no more beautiful faces
than I have seen among these humbler sisters. As the mere habits of
dress in America, except to a very acute critic, give no suggestion of
the rank of the wearer, I can imagine an inexperienced foreigner
utterly mystified and confounded by these girls, who perhaps work a
sewing-machine or walk the long floors of a fashionable dry-goods shop.
I remember one face and figure, faultless and complete,—modestly yet
most becomingly dressed,—indeed, a figure that Compte-Calix might have
taken for one of his exquisite studies, which, between seven and eight
A. M. passed through Eleventh Street, between Sixth Avenue and
Broadway. So exceptionally fine was her carriage, so chaste and
virginal her presence, and so refined and even spiritual her features,
that, as a literary man, I would have been justified in taking her for
the heroine of a society novel. Indeed, I had already woven a little
romance about her, when one morning she overtook me, accompanied by
another girl—pretty, but of a different type—with whom she was
earnestly conversing. As the two passed me, there fell from her
faultless lips the following astounding sentence: "And I told him, if
he didn't like it he might lump it, and he traveled off on his left
ear, you bet!" Heaven knows what indiscretion this speech saved me
from; but the reader will understand what a sting the pain of rejection
might have added to it by the above formula.
The "morning-cocktail" men come next in my experience of early rising.
I used to take my early cup of coffee in the cafe of a certain
fashionable restaurant that had a bar attached. I could not help
noticing that, unlike the usual social libations of my countrymen, the
act of taking a morning cocktail was a solitary one. In the course of
my experience I cannot recall the fact of two men taking an
ante-breakfast cocktail together. On the contrary, I have observed the
male animal rush savagely at the bar, demand his drink of the
bar-keeper, swallow it, and hasten from the scene of his early
debauchery, or else take it in a languid, perfunctory manner, which, I
think, must have been insulting to the bar-keeper. I have observed two
men, whom I had seen drinking amicably together the preceding night,
standing gloomily at the opposite corners of the bar, evidently trying
not to see each other and making the matter a confidential one with the
bar-keeper. I have seen even a thin disguise of simplicity assumed. I
remember an elderly gentleman, of most respectable exterior, who used
to enter the cafe as if he had strayed there accidentally. After
looking around carefully, and yet unostentatiously, he would walk to
the bar, and, with an air of affected carelessness, state that "not
feeling well this morning, he guessed he would take—well, he would
leave it to the bar-keeper." The bar-keeper invariably gave him a
stiff brandy cocktail. When the old gentleman had done this half a
dozen times, I think I lost faith in him. I tried afterwards to glean
from the bar-keeper some facts regarding those experiences, but I am
proud to say that he was honorably reticent. Indeed, I think it may be
said truthfully that there is no record of a bar-keeper who has been
"interviewed." Clergymen and doctors have, but it is well for the
weakness of humanity that the line should be drawn somewhere.
And this reminds me that one distressing phase of early rising is the
incongruous and unpleasant contact of the preceding night. The social
yesterday is not fairly over before nine A. M. to-day, and there is
always a humorous, sometimes a pathetic, lapping over the edges. I
remember one morning at six o'clock to have been overtaken by a
carriage that drew up beside me. I recognized the coachman, who
touched his hat apologetically, as if he wished me to understand that
he was not at all responsible for the condition of his master, and I
went to the door of the carriage. I was astonished to find two young
friends of mine, in correct evening dress, reclining on each other's
shoulders and sleeping the sleep of the justly inebriated. I stated
this fact to the coachman. Not a muscle of his well-trained face
answered to my smile. But he said: "You see, sir, we've been out all
night, and more than four blocks below they saw you, and wanted me to
hail you, but you know you stopped to speak to a gentleman, and so I
sorter lingered, and I drove round the block once or twice, and I guess
I've got 'em quiet again." I looked in the carriage door once more on
these sons of Belial. They were sleeping quite unconsciously. A
bouttonniere in the lappel of the younger one's coat had shed its
leaves, which were scattered over him with a ridiculous suggestion of
the "Babes in the Wood," and I closed the carriage door softly. "I
suppose I'd better take 'em home, sir?" queried the coachman, gravely.
"Well, yes, John, perhaps you had."
There is another picture in my early rising experience that I wish was
as simply and honestly ludicrous. It was at a time when the moral
sentiment of the metropolis, expressed through ordinance and special
legislation, had declared itself against a certain form of "variety"
entertainment, and had, as usual, proceeded against the performers, and
not the people who encouraged them. I remember, one frosty morning, to
have encountered in Washington Park my honest friend Sergeant X. and
Roundsman 9999 conveying a party of these derelicts to the station.
One of the women, evidently, had not had time to change her apparel,
and had thinly disguised the flowing robe and loose cestus of Venus
under a ragged "waterproof"; while the other, who had doubtless posed
for Mercury, hid her shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and changed her
winged sandals for a pair of "arctics." Their rouged faces were
streaked and stained with tears. The man who was with them, the male
of their species, had but hastily washed himself of his Ethiopian
presentment, and was still black behind the ears; while an exaggerated
shirt collar and frilled shirt made his occasional indignant profanity
irresistibly ludicrous. So they fared on over the glittering snow,
against the rosy sunlight of the square, the gray front of the
University building, with a few twittering sparrows in the foreground,
beside the two policemen, quiet and impassive as fate. I could not help
thinking of the distinguished A., the most fashionable B., the wealthy
and respectable C., the sentimental D., and the man of the world E.,
who were present at the performance, whose distinguished patronage had
called it into life, and who were then resting quietly in their beds,
while these haggard servants of their pleasaunce were haled over the
snow to punishment and ignominy.
Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture of that same season.
It was early; so early that the cross of Grace Church had, when I
looked up, just caught the morning sun, and for a moment flamed like a
crusader's symbol. And then the grace and glory of that exquisite
spire became slowly visible. Fret by fret the sunlight stole slowly
down, quivering and dropping from each, until at last the whole church
beamed in rosy radiance. Up and down the long avenue the street lay in
shadow; by some strange trick of the atmosphere the sun seemed to have
sought out only that graceful structure for its blessing. And then
there was a dull rumble. It was the first omnibus,—the first throb in
the great artery of the reviving city. I looked up. The church was
again in shadow.
