his first conscious recollection was of sitting on a high chair drawn up to a table at which he was having a meal. he could never recall whether this was in harlem, hoboken, brooklyn, jersey city, or the bronx. because they moved so often he had little more memory of places than he had of clouds. tenements, streets, and suburbs of new york melted into one big sense of squalor. it was not squalor to him because he was used to it. it only obscured the difference between one dwelling and another, as monotony always obscures remembrance. wherever their wanderings carried them, the background was the same, crowded, dirty, seething, a breeding place rather than a home.
what marked this occasion was a question he asked and the answer he got back.
"mudda, id my name gracie, or id it tom?"
the mother spoke sharply, as she whisked about the kitchen. "what do you want to know for?"
the question was difficult. he knew what he wanted to know for, and yet it wasn't easy to explain. the nearest he could get to it in language was to say: "i'm a little boy, ain't i?"
"yes, you're a little boy, but you should have been a little girl. it was a little girl i wanted."
"but you want me, don't you, mudda?"
[pg 20]
she dropped whatever she was doing to press his head fiercely against her side. "yes, i want you! i want you! i want you!"
he remembered this paroxysm of affection not because it was special but because it was connected with his gropings after his identity. paroxysms were what he lived on. they were of love or of anger or of something which frightened him and yet was nameless. he thrummed to himself, beating time on the table with his spoon, while he worked on to another point.
"wadn't there never no gracie, mudda?"
she wheeled round from the gas-stove. "for goodness' sake, what's putting this into your head? of course there was a gracie. you're her. you don't suppose i stole you, do you?"
he ceased his thrumming; he ceased to beat on the table with his spoon. the mystery of being grew still more baffling.
"mudda!"
"what's it now?"
"if i wad gracie i'd be a little girl, wouldn't i?"
she stamped her foot. "stop it! if you ask me another thing i'll slap you."
he stopped it, not because he was afraid of being slapped. accustomed to that he had learned to discount its ferocity. a sharp stinging smart, it passed if you grinned and bore it, and grinning and bearing had already entered his life as part of its philosophy. if for the minute he asked no more questions it was in order not to vex his mudda. she was easily vexed; she easily lost her self-control; she was easily
[pg 21]
repentant. it was her repentance that he feared. it was so violent, so overwhelming. he loved love; he loved caressing; he loved to sit in her lap and sing with her; but her tempests of self-reproach alarmed him.
as she washed the dishes or switched about the kitchen, he watched her with that trepidation which makes the children of the poor sharp-witted. though under five years of age, he was already developing a sense of responsibility. you could see it in the gravity of a wholly straightforward little face, which had the even tan of a healthy fairness, in keeping with his crisp ashen hair. he knew when the moment had come to clamber down from his perch, and snuggle himself against her petticoats.
"mudda, sing!"
"i can't sing now. don't you see i'm busy! look out, or this hot dish-water'll scald you."
nevertheless, a few minutes later they were settled in the rocking chair, he on her knee, with his cheek against her shoulder. she was not as ungracious as her words would have made her seem, a fact of which he was aware.
"what'll i sing, troublesome?"
"sing 'three cups of cold poison.'"
so she sang in a sweet, true voice, the sort of childish voice which children love, her little boy joining in with her whenever he knew the words, but with only a hit-or-miss venture at the tune.
"where have you been dining, lord ronald, my son?
[pg 22]
where have you been dining, my handsome young man?"
"i've been dining with my true love, mither, make my bed soon,
there's a pain in my heart, and i fain would lie doon."
"and what did she give you, lord ronald, my son?
and what did she give you, my handsome young man?"
"three cups of cold poison, mither, make my bed soon,
there's a pain in my heart, and i fain would lie doon."
"what'll you will to your mither, lord ronald, my son?
what'll you will to your mither, my handsome young man?"
"my gowd and my silver, mither, make my bed soon,
there's a pain in my heart, and i fain would lie doon."
"what'll you will to your brither, lord ronald, my son?
what'll you will to your brither, my handsome young man?"
"my coach and six horses, mither, make my bed soon,
there's a pain in my heart, and i fain would lie doon."
"what'll you will to your truelove, lord ronald, my son?
what'll you will to your truelove, my handsome young man?"
"a rope for to hang her, mither, make my bed soon,
there's a pain in my heart, and i fain would lie doon."
his next conscious memory was more dramatic. he had been playing in the street, in what town he could never remember. they had recently moved, but they had always recently moved. a month in one set of rooms, and his mother was eager to be off. rarely did they ever stay anywhere for more than the time of moving in, giving the necessary notice, and moving out again. when they stayed long enough for him to know a few children he sometimes played with them.
[pg 23]
in this way the thing happened. the boy's name was frankie bell, a detail which remained long after the larger facts had escaped him. frankie bell and he had been engaged in scraping the dust and offal of the street into neat little piles, with the object of building what they called a "dirt-house." the task was engrossing, and to it little tom coburn gave himself with good will. suddenly, as each bent over his pile, frankie bell threw off the observation, casually uttered:
"my mother says your mother's crazy."
tom coburn raised himself from his stooping posture, standing straight, and looking straight. the expression in his dark blue eyes, over which the eyebrows even now stood out bushily, was of pain, and yet of pain that left him the more dauntless. though knowing but vaguely what the word crazy meant, he knew it was insulting.
"she ain't."
frankie bell, a stout young man, lifted himself slowly. "yes, she is. my mother says so."
"well, your mudda id a liar."
one rush and frankie bell lay sprawling with his head in the cushioned softness of his own dirt-heap. the attack had taken him so much by surprise that he went down before he could bellow. before he could bellow his enemy was upon him, filling his mouth with the materials collected for architectural purposes. victor in the fray, tom coburn ran homeward blinded with his tears.
he found his mother at the stove, stirring something with a tablespoon.
[pg 24]
"mudda, you're not crazy, are you?"
his reply was a blow on the head with the spoon. the woman was beside herself.
"who said that?"
rubbing his head, he told her.
"don't you ever let them say no such thing again. if you do i'll kill you." she threw back her head, her arms outstretched, the spoon in her right hand. "god! god! what'll they say next? they'll say i stole him. it'll be twenty years for me; it'll be forty; it may be life. i won't live to begin it. i know what'll end it before they can...."
he was terrified now, terrified as he had never been in all his terrifying moments. throwing himself upon her, he clutched at her skirts.
"don't, mudda, don't! i'm your little boy! you didn't steal me. don't cry, mudda! oh, don't cry! don't cry!"
when, in one of her sudden reactions, she sank sobbing to the floor, he sank with her, petting her, coaxing her, wiping away her tears, forcing himself to laugh so that she should laugh with him; but a few days afterward they moved.
