Two Thanksgivings

f T is my belief, f ounded on a long and varied experionce, that a man should never give money to a beggar. As a principie, the practice of indiscriminate almsgiving is subversive of true philanthropy. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but in the main I think my argument is sound. But I am fully persuaded that if pressed to do so, I could not give good, sound reasons for my belief, and I eonfess that I often viólate my creed. The fact is, that in the discussion of great fundamental ideas like those of religión or sociology, I find them to be like a creek in the mountains. Follow the creek up, and you will find innumerable brooks babbling into it from innumerable holló ws bet ween the huls. Each brook is filled with the sparklmg product of God's distillery, each rivulet adds something to the volume of water in the creek flowing onward to the sea. But I have not the time nor the genius to explore all these streams of thought tj their source, and so I take the sunshine as he sends it, the water as he brews it, the laughter and the tears as they are cooked at his good pleasure. And sometimes - very often, in f act- I find myself violating the conclusions of cold ethics and giving money to a beggar. This much before I teil my story. . The incident here recorded occurred on a Thanksgiving Day not many years ago. 'Twas a cold November day in Battery park, New York. The sun shone feebly from behind a bank of clouds, yet the air was keen and bracing. It brought color to the cheeks and brightness to the eyes of sonio twenty idlers seated upon the benches. Most of the persons in the park were apparently of foreign extraction. A little Frencbman, wrapped in a cloak and who took frequent pinches of snuff, formed a striking contrast to a brawny 'longshoreman in a blue blouse and overalls. Another picturesque group was formed of a Bulgarian mother with her threo chüdren, aliens who looked upon the evidences of a new civilization with fear and distrust. The rest of the occupants of the park were bits of flotsam and jetsam of humanity common in every large seaport town. The day of Thanksgiving was unknown to them. For the most part they were drinking of the lees of life and had nothing to be thankful for except the material fact of a cheerless existence. While watching this drift from alien shores and wondering vaguely what were the actual conditions surrounding these héroes, my attention was drawn to the shambling figure of a man coming up one of the aisles of the park. The sun carne out for a minute and made him distinctly visible in all his abiectness. For he was the most wretched ïooking man I had ever seen. His derby hat was brimless, his once blue blouse had lost all of its inal color, and his trousers hung about his emaciated legs like a stocking about a pipe stem. Upon his sallow face wa3 four weeks' growth of stubby black beard. His face was dark and his eyes had that pale, sickly gleam sometimes seeu under the dry husk of au onion. He walked with a slow, shambling, uncertaiu step, and his shoulders drooped as though he was all gone úiside aud every minute he expected tü collapse. The very abjectI ness of his condition fascinated me, and while still loathing him I watched his approach with interest. As he camo up to me lje seized the elbow of h3 left arm by putting his right hand behind his back. In this curious attitude he spoke: "Would you give me one cent, sir?" This ho said in a voice which seemed to come out of the very sub cellar of despair, so monotonous was it, eo utterly bereft of the ring of hope. "No, sir," I replied, "I could not." He made no reply in words, but his elbows lifted slightly and his long finger nails, which wore mourning for departed cleanliness, sunk into the palms of his hands. Like a man who feit that death was stepping on his heels, he turned away. There were a dozen other men seated in Battery park, and to each one of these he in turn put the same question that ho had to me. He met the same reply each time,-foras he turned away] could see the sharp elbows lift with a despairing gesture and the sallow face harden into corrugated lines. One man, who looked jolly and well fed, perpetrated a ghastly joke by putting his hand in his trousers pocket when the mendicant asked him the fatal question and producing a paper of tobáceo. Then Mr. Jolly read Mr. Misery a little homily on the injustice of poverty, and over Misery's face there spread a shadow of a grin, and such a grin as may be seen on the face of a mummy. It was if he had said: "Did starvation ever roost in your stomach for three days?" "Will he jump off the doek now?" I wondered to myself. No. He is actually ' ' bracing" a park policeman. The gray coat simply waved him away wilh his club. Then, with a courage bom of his awful need, he tackled two offieers at the door of the barge office, but without success. He stood upon the sidewalk and passed his hand wearily across his forehead, as if he was awakening f rom a dream. A feeling of curiosity had prompted me to follow him. "Does he need whisky or bread?" I thought. I determined to find out, and so I beckoned him into a dark corner around the barge office. The fires of hope must have been enkindled in him, for two tears rolled out of his eyes and I fancied I could hear them fall spat! spat! upon the stones. "Are you hungry?" said I. "I didn't eat anything in three days," he replied. "Are you dry?" "No, sir; there's water in tlie park." "Is your favorito restaurant near by?" "Yes, sir. Up in Greenwich street." "Well, come along." And as we went toward his restaurant I pumped him by the way. 'Twas a long and sorrowful story he told. His name was George Moore, and he was a Cornish miner. "Times was better, sir," said he, "when I carne to this country eight year ago. Ye see, I heard there was money to be made in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, an', like a fule, I camo here. There was three of us - Nellie and the baby and myself. Dear heart, when I think of how my Nellie looked when we landed at Castle Garden eight years ago, with the roses in her cheeks and the light in her brown eyes, and she so hopeful, sir, that we would make a small fortune in a few years" Here he paused as if to choke back the emotions which were sweeping over him like a flood. Then he continued: "Just eight years ago today 'twas, sir. I had dollars in my pocket then. Good, hard English pounds, and the smell of roasting turkey as we went by the restaurants didn't have the effect upon me then that it has today, sir. Well, we went to Shamokin, in Pennsylvania. I had no difflculty in getting work, and we were getting along nicely when I was taken sick. Then all the money melted away like hoar frost. The sickness lasted six months, and because of poor food and weakness the baby died. After that things went on from bad to worse, until Nellie sickened with the consumption. Then I cursed the country and the mines. But it did no good, for my wife went like the baby, and since she's eone, sir, I'm all broke up." Here he stopped, and it seemed to me that he gathered his failing powers together, as if he were about to give expression to a great thought. Then he blurted out: "An' she were a good woman, sir, an' I loved her!" "And what have you been doing since her death'i" said I. "Oh, just knockin' around doin' an odd job here an' there - starvin' mostly. Part of the time on the island for vagrancy. In the winter time sleepin' in the pólice stations an' in the summer on the docks. I've a rich relativo in Michigan, a mine owner." "Why don 't you apply to him for assis tance?" said I. "Becauso I'd die afore he'd know the shape I'm in." By this time we had reaehed the door of one of thoso modest and unconventional eating houses where the menu is painted on a board and set outside the door. We entered and he sat down at a table. His unexpeeted good fortune had paralyzed hiin, and the prospect of a square meal had robbed him of speech. When the frowsy waiter asked him what he would have ho couldn't reply, but sat gazing at the waiter dumbly as a sheep might look at its executioners. Then I ordered for him a big dish of vegetable soup. Wlion it was placed before him, with islands of potatoes, carrots and cabbage floating in it, the savory steam arose and dilated his nostrils and a wolfish glare camo into his onion colored eyes. So famished was he that, there being no spoon handy, he seized a knife and plunged it into the mess, and while he ate there seemed to bo a lump in his throat which prevented his swallowing. While he was busy with this dish I ordered a big plate of roast beef, and the waiter brought two cuts which looked as if they had been taken from tho forehead of the critter. This was fianked by a dish of mealy potatoes, bursting their brown jiekets, and a bowl of cotíes aimost big enough to take a bath in. As Misery gazed upon this feast, wbich in hi3 estiination was plenty good enough for the gods who sat upon Mount Olympus, his eyes filled againand this time the tears feil. When I asked for the bill the proprietor handed me a check for the munificent sum of 20 cents, which I discovered was scheduled rates. "Well, old fellow, I must go," said I, after settlmg the bill, as I reaehed out my hand for a parting shake. He reached out a grimy fist, and when it left mine there was a silver quarter in his palm. He was just about paying his respects to the roast beef, but this princely gift choked him up so that he laid his head upon the arm of the once blue blouse. I could see his stoop shoulders heave, and, although there was no sound, there were plenty of signs of an internal commotion. On Thanksgiving day, a year later, I was seated at a table in a Fourteenth street restaurant. Opposite to me, at the same table, sat a respectablo looking man of about 40 years. He wore a neat suit of cassimere and was clean and wholesome in appearance. I noticed during the course of the meal that he watched me very closely, and just as I rose to leave the restaurant he touched me on the shoulder and said: "Excuse me, sir, but didn't I have the pleasure of meeting you before?" "ïhat may be," I replied, "but if so I have forgotten it." "Do you remember meeting a tramp last Thanksgiving day in Battery Park?" said he. "I do, but- why, you cannot possibly be that man!" "But I am that very chap, and that square meal yon gave me, besides the silver quarter, put new courage into me and I bogan to pluck up heart. And now I am a clerk in a grocery store and earning $10 a week. My luck turned on that silver quarter. I had to part with it once for a bed, bnt I persuaded the hotel keeper to keep it until I could redeem it. " He put liis hand in his pocket and drew the silver piece. It was pocket worn, but had the ring of tho true silver in it. "God bless you," said the rejuvenated tramp as we stepped out upon the sidewalk, placing his hands on my shoulders. His features worked convulsively as he continued: 'Wheu I resolved to take a new grip and was huntmg around for a job, I used to sit in the park and drop the sil ver quarter upon the pavement, and the ring it gave out reminded me of the chapel bell at home and of Nellie and the baby. Even now, comfortably situated as I am, I of ten take out the quarter and jingle it. The sound is always comforting, and so I find that Thanksgiving Day is not confined to the last Thursday in November." Still this giving money to a beggar is a bad practice.