The small combatants pounded and kicked, scratched
and tore. They began to weep and their curses
struggled in their throats with sobs. The other
little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their
legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle
about the pair.
A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated.
“Cheese it, Jimmie, cheese it! Here comes
yer fader,” he yelled.
The circle of little boys instantly parted.
They drew away and waited in ecstatic awe for that
which was about to happen. The two little boys
fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago,
did not hear the warning.
Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen
eyes.
He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood
pipe.
As he neared the spot where the little boys strove,
he regarded them listlessly. But suddenly he
roared an oath and advanced upon the rolling fighters.
“Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt yer
life out, you damned disorderly brat.”
He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground.
The boy Billie felt a heavy boot strike his head.
He made a furious effort and disentangled himself
from Jimmie. He tottered away, damning.
Jimmie arose painfully from the ground and confronting
his father, began to curse him. His parent kicked
him. “Come home, now,” he cried,
“an’ stop yer jawin’, er I’ll
lam the everlasting head off yehs.”
They departed. The man paced placidly along
with the apple-wood emblem of serenity between his
teeth. The boy followed a dozen feet in the
rear. He swore luridly, for he felt that it was
degradation for one who aimed to be some vague soldier,
or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license,
to be taken home by a father.
Eventually they entered into a dark region where,
from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways
gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter.
A wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles
and swirled it against an hundred windows. Long
streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes.
In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms,
rags and bottles. In the street infants played
or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the
way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed
hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on
railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered
persons, in curious postures of submission to something,
sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand
odors of cooking food came forth to the street.
The building quivered and creaked from the weight
of humanity stamping about in its bowels.
A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawling infant
along the crowded ways. He was hanging back,
baby-like, bracing his wrinkled, bare legs.
The little girl cried out: “Ah, Tommie,
come ahn.
Dere’s Jimmie and fader. Don’t be
a-pullin’ me back.”
