A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories
Page 24
ON BROADWAY
XXIII
Once when in New York I observed a middle-aged man remove his coat atthe corner of Fulton street and Broadway and wipe the shoulders thereofwith a large red handkerchief of the Thurman brand. There was a dash ofmud in his whiskers and a crick in his back. He had just sought to crossBroadway, and the disappointed ambulance had gone up street to answeranother call. He was a plain man with a limited vocabulary, but he spokefeelingly. I asked him if I could be of any service to him, and he saidNo, not especially, unless I would be kind enough to go up under theback of his vest and see if I could find the end of his suspender. I didthat and then held his coat for him while he got in it again. Heafterward walked down the east side of Broadway with me.
_A man that crosses Broadway for a year can be mayor ofBoston, but my idee is that he's a heap more likely to be mayor of NewJerusalem_ (Page 220)]
"That's twice I've tried to git acrost to take the Cortlandt streetferry boat sence one o'clock, and hed to give it up both times," hesaid, after he had secured his breath.
"So you don't live in town?"
"No, sir, I don't, and there won't be anybody else livin' in town,either, if they let them crazy teamsters run things. Look at my coat!I've wiped the noses of seventy-nine single horses and eleven doubleteams sence one o'clock, and my vitals is all a perfect jell. I bet if Iwas hauled up right now to be postmortumed the rear breadths of my liverwould be a sight to behold."
"Why didn't you get a policeman to escort you across?"
"Why, condemb it, I did futher up the street, and when I left him thepoliceman reckoned his collar-bone was broke. It's a blamed outrage, Ithink. They say that a man that crosses Broadway for a year can be mayorof Boston, but my idee is that he's a heap more likely to be mayor ofthe New Jerusalem."
"Where do you live, anyway?"
"Well, I live near Pittsburg, P. A., where business is active enough tosuit 'most anybody, 'specially when a man tries to blow out anatural-gast well, but we make our teamsters subservient to theConstitution of the United States. We don't allow this Juggernautbusiness the way you fellers do. There a man would drive clear round theblock ruther than to kill a child, say nuthin of a grown person. Herethe hubs and fellers of these big drays and trucks are mussed up all thetime with the fragments of your best people. Look at me. Whatencouragement is there for a man to come here and trade? Folks that livehere tell me that they do most of their business by telephone in thedaytime, and then do their runnin' around at night, but I've got apastthat. Time was when I could run around nights and then mow all day, butI can't do it now. People that leads a suddentary life, I s'pose,demands excitement, and at night they will have their fun; but take aman like me--he wants to transact his business in the daytime by word o'mouth, and then go to bed. He don't want to go home at 3 o'clock with aplug hat full of digestive organs that he never can possibly put backjust where they was before.
"No, I don't want to run down a big city like New York and nuther do Iwant to be run down myself. They tell me I can go up town on this sideand take the boat so as to get to Jersey City that way, and I'm going todo it ruther than to go home with a neck yoke run through me. Folks saythat Jurden is a hard road to travel, but I'm positive that a man wouldget jerked up and fined for driving as fast there as they do onBroadway; and then another thing, I s'pose there's a good deal lesstraffic over the road."
He then went down Wall street to the Hanover Square station and I sawhim no more.