Urban Sketches

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URBAN SKETCHES

by Bret Harte




CONTENTS


A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR

FROM A BALCONY

MELONS

SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF MASTER CHARLES SUMMERTON

SIDEWALKINGS

A BOY'S DOG

CHARITABLE REMINISCENCES

"SEEING THE STEAMER OFF"

NEIGHBORHOODS I HAVE MOVED FROM

MY SUBURBAN RESIDENCE

ON A VULGAR LITTLE BOY

WAITING FOR THE SHIP




URBAN SKETCHES




A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR.


As I glance across my table, I am somewhat distracted by the spectacle
of a venerable head whose crown occasionally appears beyond, at about
its level. The apparition of a very small hand--whose fingers are bunchy
and have the appearance of being slightly webbed--which is frequently
lifted above the table in a vain and impotent attempt to reach the
inkstand, always affects me as a novelty at each recurrence of the
phenomenon. Yet both the venerable head and bunchy fingers belong to
an individual with whom I am familiar, and to whom, for certain reasons
hereafter described, I choose to apply the epithet written above this
article.

His advent in the family was attended with peculiar circumstances. He
was received with some concern--the number of retainers having been
increased by one in honor of his arrival. He appeared to be weary,--his
pretence was that he had come from a long journey,--so that for days,
weeks, and even months, he did not leave his bed except when he was
carried. But it was remarkable that his appetite was invariably regular
and healthy, and that his meals, which he required should be brought to
him, were seldom rejected. During this time he had little conversation
with the family, his knowledge of our vernacular being limited, but
occasionally spoke to himself in his own language,--a foreign tongue.
The difficulties attending this eccentricity were obviated by the young
woman who had from the first taken him under her protection,--being,
like the rest of her sex, peculiarly open to impositions,--and who at
once disorganized her own tongue to suit his. This was affected by the
contraction of the syllables of some words, the addition of syllables to
others, and an ingenious disregard for tenses and the governing powers
of the verb. The same singular law which impels people in conversation
with foreigners to imitate their broken English governed the family in
their communications with him. He received these evidences of his power
with an indifference not wholly free from scorn. The expression of his
eye would occasionally denote that his higher nature revolted from them.
I have no doubt myself that his wants were frequently misinterpreted;
that the stretching forth of his hands toward the moon and stars might
have been the performance of some religious rite peculiar to his own
country, which was in ours misconstrued into a desire for physical
nourishment. His repetition of the word "goo-goo,"--which was subject to
a variety of opposite interpretations,--when taken in conjunction with
his size, in my mind seemed to indicate his aboriginal or Aztec origin.

I incline to this belief, as it sustains the impression I have already
hinted at, that his extreme youth is a simulation and deceit; that he
is really older and has lived before at some remote period, and that his
conduct fully justifies his title as A Venerable Impostor. A variety of
circumstances corroborate this impression: His tottering walk, which is
a senile as well as a juvenile condition; his venerable head, thatched
with such imperceptible hair that, at a distance, it looks like a mild
aureola, and his imperfect dental exhibition. But beside these physical
peculiarities may be observed certain moral symptoms, which go to
disprove his assumed youth. He is in the habit of falling into
reveries, caused, I have no doubt, by some circumstance which suggests
a comparison with his experience in his remoter boyhood, or by some
serious retrospection of the past years. He has been detected lying
awake, at times when he should have been asleep, engaged in curiously
comparing the bed-clothes, walls, and furniture with some recollection
of his youth. At such moments he has been heard to sing softly to
himself fragments of some unintelligible composition, which probably
still linger in his memory as the echoes of a music he has long
outgrown. He has the habit of receiving strangers with the familiarity
of one who had met them before, and to whom their antecedents and
peculiarities were matters of old acquaintance, and so unerring is
his judgment of their previous character that when he withholds his
confidence I am apt to withhold mine. It is somewhat remarkable that
while the maturity of his years and the respect due to them is denied by
man, his superiority and venerable age is never questioned by the brute
creation. The dog treats him with a respect and consideration accorded
to none others, and the cat permits a familiarity which I should shudder
to attempt. It may be considered an evidence of some Pantheistic quality
in his previous education, that he seems to recognize a fellowship even
in inarticulate objects; he has been known to verbally address plants,
flowers, and fruit, and to extend his confidence to such inanimate
objects as chairs and tables. There can be little doubt that, in the
remote period of his youth, these objects were endowed with not only
sentient natures, but moral capabilities, and he is still in the habit
of beating them when they collide with him, and of pardoning them with a
kiss.

As he has grown older--rather let me say, as we have approximated to his
years--he has, in spite of the apparent paradox, lost much of his senile
gravity. It must be confessed that some of his actions of late appear to
our imperfect comprehension inconsistent with his extreme age. A habit
of marching up and down with a string tied to a soda-water bottle, a
disposition to ride anything that could by any exercise of the liveliest
fancy be made to assume equine proportions, a propensity to blacken his
venerable white hair with ink and coal dust, and an omnivorous appetite
which did not stop at chalk, clay, or cinders, were peculiarities not
calculated to excite respect. In fact, he would seem to have become
demoralized, and when, after a prolonged absence the other day, he was
finally discovered standing upon the front steps addressing a group of
delighted children out of his limited vocabulary, the circumstance could
only be accounted for as the garrulity of age.

But I lay aside my pen amidst an ominous silence and the disappearance
of the venerable head from my plane of vision. As I step to the other
side of the table, I find that sleep has overtaken him in an overt act
of hoary wickedness. The very pages I have devoted to an exposition
of his deceit he has quietly abstracted, and I find them covered
with cabalistic figures and wild-looking hieroglyphs traced with his
forefinger dipped in ink, which doubtless in his own language conveys
a scathing commentary on my composition. But he sleeps peacefully,
and there is something in his face which tells me that he has already
wandered away to that dim region of his youth where I cannot follow him.
And as there comes a strange stirring at my heart when I contemplate the
immeasurable gulf which lies between us, and how slight and feeble as
yet is his grasp on this world and its strange realities, I find, too
late, that I also am a willing victim of the Venerable Impostor.




FROM A BALCONY


The little stone balcony, which, by a popular fallacy, is supposed to be
a necessary appurtenance of my window, has long been to me a source of
curious interest. The fact that the asperities of our summer weather
will not permit me to use it but once or twice in six months does not
alter my concern for this incongruous ornament. It affects me as I
suppose the conscious possession of a linen coat or a nankeen trousers
might affect a sojourner here who has not entirely outgrown his memory
of Eastern summer heat and its glorious compensations,--a luxurious
providence against a possible but by no means probable contingency. I do
no longer wonder at the persistency with which San Franciscans adhere
to this architectural superfluity in the face of climatical
impossibilities. The balconies in which no one sits, the piazzas
on which no one lounges, are timid advances made to a climate whose
churlishness we are trying to temper by an ostentation of confidence.
Ridiculous as this spectacle is at all seasons, it is never more so than
in that bleak interval between sunset and dark, when the shrill
scream of the factory whistle seems to have concentrated all the hard,
unsympathetic quality of the climate into one vocal expression. Add to
this the appearance of one or two pedestrians, manifestly too late for
their dinners, and tasting in the shrewish air a bitter premonition of
the welcome that awaits them at home, and you have one of those ordinary
views from my balcony which makes the balcony itself ridiculous.

But as I lean over its balustrade to-night--a night rare in its kindness
and beauty--and watch the fiery ashes of my cigar drop into the abysmal
darkness below, I am inclined to take back the whole of that preceding
paragraph, although it cost me some labor to elaborate its polite
malevolence. I can even recognize some melody in the music which comes
irregularly and fitfully from the balcony of the Museum on Market
Street, although it may be broadly stated that, as a general thing,
the music of all museums, menageries, and circuses becomes greatly
demoralized,--possibly through associations with the beasts. So soft and
courteous is this atmosphere that I have detected the flutter of one or
two light dresses on the adjacent balconies and piazzas, and the front
parlor windows of a certain aristocratic mansion in the vicinity, which
have always maintained a studious reserve in regard to the interior,
to-night are suddenly thrown into the attitude of familiar disclosure. A
few young people are strolling up the street with a lounging step which
is quite a relief to that usual brisk, business-like pace which the
chilly nights impose upon even the most sentimental lovers. The genial
influences of the air are not restricted to the opening of shutters
and front doors; other and more gentle disclosures are made, no doubt,
beneath this moonlight. The bonnet and hat which passed beneath my
balcony a few moments ago were suspiciously close together. I argued
from this that my friend the editor will probably receive any quantity
of verses for his next issue, containing allusions to "Luna," in which
the original epithet of "silver" will be applied to this planet, and
that a "boon" will be asked for the evident purpose of rhyming with
"moon," and for no other. Should neither of the parties be equal to this
expression, the pent-up feelings of the heart will probably find vent
later in the evening over the piano, in "I Wandered by the Brookside,"
or "When the Moon on the Lake is Beaming." But it has been permitted me
to hear the fulfilment of my prophecy even as it was uttered. From the
window of number Twelve Hundred and Seven gushes upon the slumberous
misty air the maddening ballad, "Ever of Thee," while at Twelve Hundred
and Eleven the "Star of the Evening" rises with a chorus. I am inclined
to think that there is something in the utter vacuity of the refrain
in this song which especially commends itself to the young. The simple
statement, "Star of the evening," is again and again repeated with an
imbecile relish; while the adjective "beautiful" recurs with a steady
persistency, too exasperating to dwell upon here. At occasional
intervals, a base voice enunciates "Star-r! Star-r!" as a solitary and
independent effort. Sitting here in my balcony, I picture the possessor
of that voice as a small, stout young man, standing a little apart from
the other singers, with his hands behind him, under his coat-tail, and
a severe expression of countenance. He sometimes leans forward, with
a futile attempt to read the music over somebody else's shoulder, but
always resumes his old severity of attitude before singing his part.
Meanwhile the celestial subjects of this choral adoration look down upon
the scene with a tranquillity and patience which can only result from
the security with which their immeasurable remoteness invests them.
I would remark that the stars are not the only topics subject to
this "damnable iteration." A certain popular song, which contains the
statement, "I will not forget you, mother," apparently reposes all its
popularity on the constant and dreary repetition of this unimportant
information, which at least produces the desired result among the
audience. If the best operatic choruses are not above this weakness,
the unfamiliar language in which they are sung offers less violation to
common sense.

It may be parenthetically stated here that the songs alluded to above
may be found in sheet music on the top of the piano of any young
lady who has just come from boarding-school. "The Old Arm-Chair," or
"Woodman, spare that Tree," will be also found in easy juxtaposition.
The latter songs are usually brought into service at the instance of
an uncle or bachelor brother, whose request is generally prefaced by a
remark deprecatory of the opera, and the gratuitous observation that "we
are retrograding, sir,--retrograding," and that "there is no music
like the old songs." He sometimes condescends to accompany "Marie" in a
tremulous barytone, and is particularly forcible in those passages where
the word "repeat" is written, for reasons stated above. When the song is
over, to the success of which he feels he has materially contributed, he
will inform you that you may talk of your "arias," and your "romanzas,"
"but for music, sir,--music--" at which point he becomes incoherent and
unintelligible. It is this gentleman who suggests "China," or "Brattle
Street," as a suitable and cheerful exercise for the social circle.
There are certain amatory songs, of an arch and coquettish character,
familiar to these localities, which the young lady, being called upon
to sing, declines with a bashful and tantalizing hesitation. Prominent
among these may be mentioned an erotic effusion entitled "I'm talking
in my Sleep," which, when sung by a young person vivaciously and with
appropriate glances, can be made to drive languishing swains to the
verge of madness. Ballads of this quality afford splendid opportunities
for bold young men, who, by ejaculating "Oh!" and "Ah!" at the affecting
passages, frequently gain a fascinating reputation for wildness and
scepticism.

But the music which called up these parenthetical reflections has died
away, and with it the slight animosities it inspired. The last song has
been sung, the piano closed, the lights are withdrawn from the windows,
and the white skirts flutter away from stoops and balconies. The silence
is broken only by the rattle and rumble of carriages coming from theatre
and opera. I fancy that this sound--which, seeming to be more distinct
at this hour than at any other time, might be called one of the civic
voices of the night--has certain urbane suggestions, not unpleasant to
those born and bred in large cities. The moon, round and full, gradually
usurps the twinkling lights of the city, that one by one seem to fade
away and be absorbed in her superior lustre. The distant Mission hills
are outlined against the sky, but through one gap the outlying fog which
has stealthily invested us seems to have effected a breach, and only
waits the co-operation of the laggard sea-breezes to sweep down and
take the beleaguered city by assault. An ineffable calm sinks over the
landscape. In the magical moonlight the shot-tower loses its angular
outline and practical relations, and becomes a minaret from whose
balcony an invisible muezzin calls the Faithful to prayer. "Prayer is
better than sleep." But what is this? A shuffle of feet on the
pavement, a low hum of voices, a twang of some diabolical instrument,
a preliminary hem and cough. Heavens! it cannot be! Ah, yes--it is--it
is--SERENADERS!

Anathema Maranatha! May purgatorial pains seize you, William, Count
of Poitou, Girard de Boreuil, Arnaud de Marveil, Bertrand de Born,
mischievous progenitors of jongleurs, troubadours, provencals,
minnesingers, minstrels, and singers of cansos and love chants!
Confusion overtake and confound your modern descendants, the "metre
ballad-mongers," who carry the shamelessness of the Middle Ages into
the nineteenth century, and awake a sleeping neighborhood to the
brazen knowledge of their loves and wanton fancies! Destruction and
demoralization pursue these pitiable imitators of a barbarous age,
when ladies' names and charms were shouted through the land, and
modest maiden never lent presence to tilt or tourney without hearing a
chronicle of her virtues go round the lists, shouted by wheezy heralds
and taken up by roaring swashbucklers! Perdition overpower such
ostentatious wooers! Marry! shall I shoot the amorous feline who nightly
iterates his love songs on my roof, and yet withhold my trigger finger
from yonder pranksome gallant? Go to! Here is an orange left of last
week's repast. Decay hath overtaken it,--it possesseth neither savor nor
cleanliness. Ha! cleverly thrown! A hit--a palpable hit! Peradventure I
have still a boot that hath done me service, and, barring a looseness of
the heel, an ominous yawning at the side, 'tis in good case! Na'theless,
'twill serve. So! so! What! dispersed! Nay, then, I too will retire.




MELONS


As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers will believe that
anybody's sponsors in baptism ever wilfully assumed the responsibility
of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that
Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any
other, I never knew it.

Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange
cognomen. His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that
which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show
through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent
vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance in
the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child,
was an Oriental explanation. That from his infancy, he was fond of
indulging in melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly
as Fancy was not bred in McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as Melons.
His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful voices, as "Ah, Melons!"
or playfully, "Hi, Melons!" or authoritatively, "You, Melons!"

McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of some obstinate
and radical property-holder. Occupying a limited space between two
fashionable thoroughfares, it refused to conform to circumstances, but
sturdily paraded its unkempt glories, and frequently asserted itself in
ungrammatical language. My window--a rear room on the ground floor--in
this way derived blended light and shadow from the court. So low was the
window-sill, that had I been the least predisposed to somnambulism, it
would have broken out under such favorable auspices, and I should have
haunted McGinnis's Court. My speculations as to the origin of the court
were not altogether gratuitous, for by means of this window I once saw
the Past, as through a glass darkly. It was a Celtic shadow that early
one morning obstructed my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an
individual with a pea-coat, a stubby pipe, and bristling beard. He was
gazing intently at the court, resting on a heavy cane, somewhat in the
way that heroes dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood. As
there was little of architectural beauty in the court, I came to the
conclusion that it was McGinnis looking after his property. The fact
that he carefully kicked a broken bottle out of the road somewhat
strengthened me in the opinion. But he presently walked away, and the
court knew him no more. He probably collected his rents by proxy--if he
collected them at all.

Beyond Melons, of whom all this is purely introductory, there was little
to interest the most sanguine and hopeful nature. In common with all
such localities, a great deal of washing was done, in comparison with
the visible results. There was always something whisking on the line,
and always something whisking through the court, that looked as if
it ought to be there. A fish-geranium--of all plants kept for the
recreation of mankind, certainly the greatest illusion--straggled
under the window. Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of
Melons.

His age was about seven. He looked older, from the venerable whiteness
of his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always
wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen.
A pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender,
completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this
lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising
gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness, I have never been
able to tell. His "turning the crab," and other minor dislocations, were
always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of
the day to find Melons suspended on a line, or to see his venerable head
appearing above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the exact height
of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities for scaling, and the
possibility of seizure on the other side. His more peaceful and quieter
amusements consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a large string,
with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires.

Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age
sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their
visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk
which formed the staple of McGinnis's Court. Overcome by loneliness one
day, Melons inveigled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did
that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, unrecompensed, and
going round and round the court, apparently under the impression that it
was some other place, while Melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence
with calm satisfaction. It was this absence of conscientious motives
that brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors.
Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should
play with him. This mandate, as a matter of course, invested Melons with
a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at Melons
from nursery windows. Baby fingers beckoned to him. Invitations to tea
(on wood and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic back-yards. It
was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, untrammelled
by the conventionalities of parentage, and physically as well as
mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion
prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's Court. Looking from my window I
saw Melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by which
one "Tommy," an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house, was
suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy congregated
in the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain the unhappy father
shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, Melons redoubled his
exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the
humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion
with Melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if "by merit
raised to that bad eminence." Long before the ladder arrived that was
to succor him, he became the sworn ally of Melons, and, I regret to say,
incited by the same audacious boy, "chaffed" his own flesh and blood
below him. He was eventually taken, though, of course, Melons escaped.
But Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship
was limited to "Hi, Melons!" and "You, Tommy!" and Melons, to all
practical purposes, lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some
signs of sorrow on Melons's part, but in vain; he buried his grief, if
he had any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment.

At about this time my opportunities of knowing Melons became more
extended. I was engaged in filling a void in the Literature of the
Pacific Coast. As this void was a pretty large one, and as I was
informed that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart two
hours each day to this work of filling in. It was necessary that I
should adopt a methodical system, so I retired from the world and locked
myself in my room at a certain hour each day, after coming from my
office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio and read what I had
written the day before. This would suggest some alteration, and I would
carefully rewrite it. During this operation I would turn to consult a
book of reference, which invariably proved extremely interesting and
attractive. It would generally suggest another and better method of
"filling in." Turning this method over reflectively in my mind, I would
finally commence the new method which I eventually abandoned for the
original plan. At this time I would become convinced that my exhausted
faculties demanded a cigar. The operation of lighting a cigar usually
suggested that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be of
service to me, and I always allowed myself to be guided by prudential
instincts. Eventually, seated by my window, as before stated, Melons
asserted himself, though our conversation rarely went further than
"Hello, Mister!" and "Ah, Melons!" a vagabond instinct we felt in common
implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the
time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line (always
with an eye to my window) until dinner was announced and I found a more
practical void required my attention. An unlooked for incident drew us
in closer relation.