Vistas of New York. Brander Matthews

I

       Table of Contents

      NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 1894.

      I came here all right last night, and this morning I went down to the store with your father’s letter. It’s an immense big building Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle keep store in. Mr. Kiddle was busy when I asked for him, but he saw me at last and he said anybody recommended by your father was sure to be just the sort of clerk they wanted. So he turned me over to one of his assistants and he set me to work at once. As I’ve come from the country, he said, and know what country people want, he’s put me in the department where the storekeepers get their supplies. It isn’t easy to get the hang of the work, there’s so much noise and confusion; but when we quit at six o’clock he said he thought I’d do. When night came I was most beat out, I don’t mind telling you. It was the noise mostly, I think. I’ve never minded noise before, but here it is all around you all the time and you can’t get away from it. Nights it isn’t so bad, but it’s bad enough even then. And there isn’t a let-up all day. It seems as though it kept getting worse and worse; and at one time I thought there was a storm coming or something had happened. But it wasn’t anything but the regular roar they have here every day, and none of the New-Yorkers noticed it, so I suppose I shall get wonted to it sooner or later.

      The crowd is 'most as bad as the noise. Of course, I wasn’t green enough to think that there must be a circus in town, but I came near it. Even on the side streets here there’s as many people all day long as there is in Auburnvale on Main Street when the parade starts—and more, too. And they say it is just the same every day—and even at night it don’t thin out much. At supper this evening I saw a piece in the paper saying that summer was nearly over and people would soon be coming back to town. I don’t know where the town is going to put them, if they do come, for it seems to me about as full now as it will hold. How they can spend so much time in the street, too, that puzzles me. My feet were tired out before I had been down-town an hour. Life is harder in the city than it is in the country, I see that already. I guess it uses up men pretty quick, and I’m glad I’m strong.

      But then I’ve got something to keep me up to the mark; I’ve got a little girl up in Auburnvale who is waiting for me to make my way. If I needed to be hearted up, that would do it. I’ve only got to shut my eyes tight and I can see you as you stood by the door of the school-house yesterday as the cars went by. I can see you standing there, so graceful and delicate, waving your hand to me and making believe you weren’t crying. I know, you are ever so much too good for me; but I know, too, that if hard work will deserve you, I shall put in that, anyhow.

      It is getting late now and I must go out and post this. I wish I could fold you in my arms again as I did night before last. But it won’t be long before I’ll come back to Auburnvale and carry you away with me.

      Your own

       JACK.

II

       Table of Contents

      NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 1894.

      DEAREST MIRIAM,—I would have written two or three days ago, but when I’ve had supper I’m too tired to think even. It isn’t the work at the store, either. I’m getting on all right there, and I see how I can make myself useful already. I haven’t been living in Auburnvale all these years with my eyes shut, and I’ve got an idea or two that I’m going to turn to account. No, it’s just the city itself that’s so tiring. It’s the tramp, tramp, tramp of the people all the time, day and night, never stopping. And they are all so busy always. They go tearing through the streets with their faces set, just as if they didn’t know anybody. And sometimes their mouths are working, as if they were thinking aloud. They don’t waste any time; they are everlastingly doing something. For instance, I’ve an hour’s nooning; and I go out and get my dinner in a little eating-house near the rear of our store—ten cents for a plate of roast beef; pretty thin the cut is, but the flavor is all right. Well, they read papers while they are having their dinner. They read papers in the cars coming down in the morning, and they read papers in the cars going up at night. They don’t seem to take any rest. Sometimes I don’t believe they sleep nights. And if they do, I don’t see how they can help walking in their sleep.

      I couldn’t sleep myself first off, but I’m getting to now. It was the pressure of the place, the bigness of it, and the roar all round me.