Perhaps with me it is only a sign that the printers
are on the war-path. Often when I hear her sing with the children
my mind wanders back to the long winter evenings in those early
years when she sat listening late for my step. She sang then to
keep up her courage. My work in Mulberry Street was at night, and
she was much alone, even as I was, fighting my battles there. She
had it out with the homesickness then, and I think hers was a good
deal the harder fight. I had the enemy all in front where I could
see to whack him. But so we found ourselves and each other, and it
was worth all it cost.
Except in the short winter days it was always broad daylight when
I came home from work. My route from the office lay through the
Fourth and the Sixth wards, the worst in the city, and for years I
walked every morning between two and four o'clock the whole length
of Mulberry Street, through the Bend and across the Five Points
down to Fulton Ferry. There were cars on the Bowery, but I liked
to walk, for so I saw the slum when off its guard. The instinct
to pose is as strong there as it is on Fifth Avenue.
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