A Bandit's Tale

by Deborah Hopkinson

  By noon, the stable was a bustling place. I didn’t stop for hours. Mr. Hallanan sent me running here and there, fetching bridles and bringing horses. A few of their owners had gotten jobs hauling snow. And since the men stored their vehicles along with their animals, we had to dig wagons and carts out of the drifts too.

  The owner of the underweight mare appeared. “Board your team here from now on. You owe me that much, my friend,” I heard Mick Hallanan say. “I’ve got an ankle the size of a tree trunk because of you. I’ll give you a bargain on hay. And just look at your mare, her coat’s as shiny as the Hudson River in moonlight, thanks to my new stableboy here.

  “You’ll cut a fine figure on the streets with this pair,” he told the man. “Times are changing. These days, people like to see a driver who takes pride in his team. It’s good for business.”

  Mr. Hallanan winked at me. The deal was done.

  “Is it always so busy?” I asked Mary breathlessly as I trotted by to grab a harness.

  She nodded, blowing some straggling curls out of her eyes as she lugged a bucket of water. Mary wouldn’t be able to get through the snowy streets to school for a few days yet. “It’s like this early in the morning, before I leave for school. Tim finishes up and Da gets busy shoeing horses. I’m back in the evening to help when the boarders come back in.”

  We were so busy that it was late afternoon before I finally had time to brush Mr. Hallanan’s horse, Sheridan. Mary said he was named after a famous Civil War cavalry general her father admired. He was my favorite. He looked wise, and his scars reminded me of the horses in Black Beauty. If he could talk, Sheridan would have stories to tell about the past.

  “Ti voglio bene.” I whispered the familiar words of love as I brushed his coat. He twitched one ear back and nickered softly. I chuckled. “So, you like Italian, do you?”

  Suddenly the quiet was interrupted by the noise of angry boots.

  “Who are you?” came a voice I didn’t know.

  I turned. This boy with the brash blue eyes and square chin must be Tim. I decided to tease him a little.

  “Hallo, Tim. Finally come back, have you?” I asked pleasantly. “Now, if I had a good job like this, I wouldn’t be slacking off on account of a little snow.”

  I watched him tighten his hands into fists by his side. Then I grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not after your place; I’ll soon be gone. I think you’ll find Mr. Hallanan in the kitchen. He twisted his ankle but it’s getting better. He’ll be glad to have you back.”

  As he stomped off, I called after him, “Tim, I appreciate the loan of your clothes.”

  That was truer than he could know.

  As it turned out, Tim wouldn’t be back to work right away. Tim’s father delivered milk; when he’d tried to do his usual rounds on Blizzard Monday, he’d fallen, breaking his right arm. So Tim would be needed every morning for the next few weeks to help his father drive the milk wagon and climb in and out to put bottles on doorsteps.

  “Tim will come when he can to help in the smithy,” Mr. Hallanan told me later. “I’ll be shorthanded, though, especially once Mary goes back to school. So I have a proposition for you, Rocco. What would you think about staying on for a while longer to help in the stable? Same terms as before—a dollar a day.

  “So far I’ve been pleased. You’ve done well.” He looked me straight in the eye. “I’ll continue to expect an honest day’s work. Can you do that?”

  I felt sure Mr. Hallanan suspected I was a runaway. Yet he was still willing to give me a chance. I made myself meet his eyes. “I can, sir. You have my word.”

  He held my gaze for a long moment. “I’ll hold you to that promise, lad.”

  “I like working with the horses,” I told him. “They’re nicer than some donkeys.”

  And that was true. I liked the feel of their soft, silky noses when they pushed their heads at me, looking for an apple or a lump of sugar. I liked the noises they made as they shifted in their stalls or peered out to see what I was doing while I swept the floor.

  Being a blacksmith, Mr. Hallanan knew as much about horses’ hooves as Pug or Tony did about pickpocketing. Mary’s father hadn’t forgotten his resolve during the storm either. He’d been using the evenings to perfect the design for his new invention: a rubber hoof pad for horses—the same rubber shoe he’d been rambling about the night we met.

  He tried to explain the problems he’d had with earlier versions. “We want something made of leather and rubber so the horse won’t slip. I think I’m getting close to coming up with a good design.”

  As I looked at the table strewn with his sketches, I could see the determination that had made his dreams come true. Mary took after both her parents.

  —

  On Wednesday evening, Max Fischel showed up as we were sitting down to eat. “Ah, just in time for Mary’s famous stew,” he said with an elfish grin. “Not that I planned it that way.”

  Max had come to return the rope, along with Mr. Hallanan’s coat. He also brought sad news. “We got word at the newspaper that Henry Bergh died Monday morning. The Great Meddler is gone.”

  “A good man,” said the blacksmith, putting a hand on Mary’s arm. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  Bowls of stew sat before us, but no one was eating. I started to spear a carrot with my fork, then put it down again.

  “His work will go on.” Max looked at Mary as he spoke. “Not just with animal rights. You may remember the case of that little girl called Mary Ellen. Henry Bergh and his friends stepped in to save her, and then they started a society to prevent cruelty to children.”

  His words surprised me. So Mr. Bergh had been concerned about people too. If there was a society to prevent cruelty to children, why didn’t people in it close down Padrone’s den? I thought I knew the answer already: No one really knew the stories of boys like me, Luigi, Marco, and Giuseppe. No one noticed us on the street or saw inside 45 Crosby Street. The street musicians might as well be ghosts.

  “Mr. Bergh lived a worthy life,” Mr. Hallanan was saying.

  “I know.” Mary lifted her chin. “I’m not stopping just because he’s gone, Da. I want to keep inspecting streets and writing letters to the city to make sure dangerous spots get fixed.”

  “I never thought you would stop, darling girl.”

  Max picked up his fork and began attacking his stew. “All I can say is, I can’t keep up with you, Mary. Or Jacob Riis either. Most nights, after chasing stories all day, I’m home with my feet by the stove, while Jacob’s just getting started.”

  Finally! We could eat. Shoveling had made me hungry. I chewed for a while. Mary’s stew, I thought, might be even more delicious than sausages. Then I heard my name.

  “That reminds me, Mick. I wonder if you can spare Rocco tomorrow night,” Max was saying. “Jacob wants to get back out taking photographs in the evenings. It seems being cooped up in the storm gave him a new idea. He thinks the lectures he’s been giving aren’t enough—now he wants to write a book and put pictures in it.”

  “Who’s Jacob Riis?” I mumbled in between bites.

  “A newspaperman like me,” said Max. “A few months ago, he heard that the Germans have invented a contraption to make flash photography possible. Since then, he’s been on a crusade. He bought a camera and has been taking pictures to tell the story of the tenements and the people of the Lower East Side.

  “Jacob is struck by the notion that one half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives. He’s convinced that if only people could see the conditions in the tenements, things would change. He’s convinced that photographs are the answer.

  “I’m his eyes and ears in the Jewish quarters,” Max went on, turning to me. “Rocco, after Mary mentioned the other day that you spoke Italian, I got to thinking. You could smooth the way for Mr. Riis with Italian immigrants, just like I do with Jewish families.”

  “What would I do?”

  “It’s not hard. I help translate, carry his equipment,
that sort of thing,” Max replied. “I suggested to him that you could be his guide when he visits places like Mulberry Bend, that desperately poor section of Mulberry Street, and Bandits’ Roost.”

  Mulberry Street and Bandits’ Roost—the very places I don’t want to get anywhere near!

  “It’s fine with me,” agreed Mary’s father. “Rocco will be taking Tim’s place for a few weeks. He should be able to do both jobs.”

  Mr. Hallanan turned to look at me, and maybe I imagined the challenge in his eyes. “What do you say, Rocco? Is that all right with you?”

  I tried not to squirm. But I couldn’t think of a way out. Then Mary leaned forward to give me a little smile of encouragment.

  “Yes, it’s fine,” I managed to stammer out. “I would love to help Mr. Riis if I can.”

  And that’s how I ended up agreeing to meet Jacob Riis at the Mulberry Street police station at eight the next evening.

  Just the idea of being anywhere near a police station—especially one that I had been inside of as a convicted pickpocket—was enough to make my stomach churn. Would the House of Refuge have sent out my description? Would some copper take one look at me and put me in handcuffs then and there?

  Nevertheless, the next night, I made my way to the police station at 301 Mulberry Street. I wore a sweater and pulled my cap down low on my forehead. I left my gray jacket hidden under Tim’s blanket. Mary’s father hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe I’d just imagined he’d recognized it that night. Maybe all he’d been thinking about had been the pain in his ankle and getting those horses rescued.

  When I leave my job as a stableboy, I won’t take that jacket with me, I decided. I’ll bunch it up at the bottom of the crate where Tim keeps his clothes. Or maybe I’ll even dump it in the river!

  It was about a mile walk, though it took longer than usual, with the piles of snow still clogging every street and sidewalk. Soon the neighborhoods began to look more familiar. I was getting close to 45 Crosby Street, which was only a few blocks from the station. I hadn’t been back since I’d been arrested.

  I wondered about Luigi, Marco, Giuseppe, and the other boys. Were they out on the streets again? Had the padrone fed them during the storm? Before leaving Barrow Street, I’d eaten a full bowl of Mary’s stew. Between Tony’s mob and the regular food at the House of Refuge, I’d almost forgotten the hunger of those first weeks in America. Luigi and Marco had been hungry every day for a long time now—that is, if they were still alive.

  Outside the police station, I spotted a copper chatting with a trim man wearing oval wire-framed glasses and an intense frown of concentration. The man was balancing a camera and a long pole-like apparatus. This must be Jacob Riis, I thought. I stood a little ways off, hoping to be noticed, and was relieved when he spoke to me first.

  “Oh, are you Max’s young friend?” he asked. Then Mr. Riis said goodbye to the copper, who didn’t give me a second glance. “Time for work. My new assistant is here.”

  “I’m Rocco.”

  “And I’m Jacob. Let’s go, then,” he said, handing me the pole. “I want to get shots of the police-station lodging on Elizabeth Street. It houses Italian women most nights.”

  He walked so quickly I had to skip to keep up. “What exactly will I do, sir?”

  “Ah, well, it’s not easy for a stranger to barge in and take pictures, especially since I don’t speak the language,” he said, not slowing his pace. “I’d like you to explain my purpose to the lodgers gathered here, and tell them what will happen when the flash gun goes off. And I might sometimes ask you to translate when I do interviews.”

  “Max told me a little bit about what you do.”

  “Good. Well, as he probably mentioned, I want to show the true state of the tenements,” he told me. “I’ve been writing stories, but that doesn’t seem enough. Flash photography allows me to light up dark places—to bring the lives of these people into the light so they can be seen.”

  “I don’t think most people want to see,” I found myself saying. Then I wondered if I’d said too much.

  He slowed and looked at me closely for the first time. “What makes you say that?”

  “I guess I think it’s easy to pass poor people by, to walk by the tenement houses.”

  “You’re right. That’s my challenge: to make images so powerful that more people will stop, will finally see—especially people with the power to change things.

  “Mulberry Bend is such a maze of alleys and grim, dirty rooms.” Mr. Riis gestured at the wooden tenements on every side. He spoke in a low, intense voice, almost as if he was talking to himself. I had to step closer to catch his words. “Sometimes I just can’t bear to see the children here. They have so little. And their poor mothers struggle to feed them. I feel…I feel called to bear witness to it, perhaps because I’m an immigrant myself. And if I can capture all this in a book for people who never come here, I feel sure it can create ripples of change.”

  A book. Maybe Mr. Riis was right. After all, Black Beauty had changed Mary’s life.

  “Some of these tenements aren’t fit for human beings and should be torn down,” Mr. Riis went on, shaking his head. He adjusted the camera strap on his shoulder and kept walking. “Decent housing is possible. We need to make laws so landlords provide clean water and safe buildings. We need to prosecute them if they don’t.”

  He sighed. “I just need people to see.” Then he shot a glance at my face. “I’m sorry, Rocco. I expect I’ve overwhelmed you. I’ve been giving so many lectures these days that my dear wife tells me I’m in danger of making a speech whenever I open my mouth.

  “Just last night, she complained I was addressing the children at the table as if I was speaking to an audience. And all I wanted was for someone to pass the butter.”

  —

  Inside the Elizabeth Street station, Mr. Riis spoke to one of the police officers and then led the way along a dim hallway. He stopped before a wooden door.

  “This is it. The police have set aside these rooms so people don’t have to sleep on the streets.” He began to fiddle with his equipment. “As I mentioned, this lodging room is used by Italian women, so you can explain to them in Italian what will happen. Then I’ll take one or two photographs.”

  I swallowed hard, staring at the closed door in front of me. I might have spurted out random thoughts, but I’d certainly never made a speech before. I watched as Mr. Riis unfolded a tripod, placed the camera on it, and loaded a glass plate into a special drawer in the camera. The camera had a cord attached too.

  He chuckled. “Don’t look so bewildered, Rocco. It’s quite easy. I’ll even show you, if you like. We simply press this button on the cord to take the picture once the flash lights up the room.

  “Now for the flash powder. I use a special chemical mixture developed by my friend Henry Piffard from the Amateur Photographers’ Club, where I learned to take pictures. Works brilliantly.” What he had called the flash gun actually looked like a broom handle with a narrow rectangular tray on top. Mr. Riis poured the chemicals into the tray.

  “Lighting this powder causes a small chemical explosion and a flash of light. I time the exposure to the light, which allows me to take pictures at night and inside. Since the light and noise of the flash gun can be startling, please tell everyone not to be frightened.”

  When he was ready, I opened the door. Six or seven women were huddled around a potbellied stove. Their skirts and faces were smudged with dirt. The brick walls were lined with soot. The floor was cold, bare stone.

  The women looked tired, their heads bowed. They reminded me of the horses Mary and I had rescued, who had stood waiting patiently in the snow, enduring the storm because they had no other choice.

  I stepped forward.

  “Buona sera. Good evening,” I began. I kept on in Italian. “This gentleman is Signor Jacob Riis. He is a good man who cares about people. He has come to take a picture so that others may see the hardships you suffer.”

  I took a rag
ged breath. What would Mary say now? I wondered.

  One woman raised her head, staring straight at me. She had a strong, bold face and piercing eyes. Her clothes were ragged, but I could see she wasn’t ashamed. “Always be proud of who you are,” Mama had told us.

  I muddled on. “I know you have strong hearts. Mr. Riis does too. But he has a strong voice too: People listen to his words. They look at his pictures.

  “Signor Riis will take a photograph now. A photograph shows a moment in time. It lasts forever, like a fresco in a church back home. First will come a noise. Whoosh! Then there will be a sudden bright light. But don’t worry, you will be safe.”

  The match was lit, the powder exploded, and the room burst into light.

  —

  “You did well, Rocco,” said Mr. Riis. “Thank you. I’ll show you the picture in a few days, once I develop it in my darkroom.”

  I felt relieved to have gotten through that first speech. Our work wasn’t over for the night, though. We spent the next two hours poking into alleyways and visiting other police-station lodging rooms. I made more speeches, watching closely as Mr. Riis took his photographs.

  The night air was growing cold when Mr. Riis stopped and pointed. “Look—those three boys are sleeping around that metal grate. Probably it’s a steam vent, so there might be a little warm air coming out.

  “I have a son about that age,” he murmured.

  He proceeded to set up his tripod, fix the camera on top of it, and once again pour powder into the flash-gun tray.

  He handed a small box of matches to me and whispered, “You do it, but be careful. Make sure to hold the powder tray away from your face. Don’t want your eyebrows singed off.”

  Whoosh!

  The boys were so tired they didn’t even wake.

  CHAPTER 26

  Containing matters of much significance relating to a locket, a dog, and a most difficult reunion