The Crowded Curb

________________________________________________
Title:     The Crowded Curb
Author: Charles S. Brooks [More Titles by Brooks]

Recently I came on an urchin in the crowded city, pitching pennies by himself, in the angle of an abutment. Three feet from his patched seat--a gay pattern which he tilted upward now and then--there moved a thick stream of shoppers. He was in solitary contest with himself, his evening papers neglected in a heap, wrapped in his score, unconscious of the throng that pressed against him. He was resting from labor, as a greater merchant takes to golf for his refreshment. The curb was his club. He had fetched his recreation down to business, to the vacancy between editions. Presently he will scoop his earnings to his pocket and will bawl out to his advantage our latest murder.

How mad--how delightful our streets would be if all of us followed as unreservedly, with so little self-consciousness or respect of small convention, our innocent desires!

Who of us even whistles in a crowd?--or in the spring goes with a skip and leap?

A lady of my acquaintance--who grows plump in her early forties--tells me that she has always wanted to run after an ice-wagon and ride up town, bouncing on the tail-board. It is doubtless an inheritance from a childhood which was stifled and kept in starch. A singer, also, of bellowing bass, has confided to me that he would like above all things to roar his tunes down town on a crowded crossing. The trolley-cars, he feels, the motors and all the shrill instruments of traffic, are no more than a sufficient orchestra for his lusty upper register. An old lady, too, in the daintiest of lace caps, with whom I lately sat at dinner, confessed that whenever she has seen hop-scotch chalked in an eddy of the crowded city, she has been tempted to gather up her skirts and join the play.

But none of these folk obey their instinct. Opinion chills them. They plod the streets with gray exterior. Once, on Fifth Avenue, to be sure, when it was barely twilight, I observed a man, suddenly, without warning, perform a cart-wheel, heels over head. He was dressed in the common fashion. Surely he was not an advertisement. He bore no placard on his hat. Nor was it apparent that he practiced for a circus. Rather, I think, he was resolved for once to let the stiff, censorious world go by unheeded, and be himself alone.

On a night of carnival how greedily the crowd assumes the pantaloon! A day that was prim and solemn at the start now dresses in cap and bells. How recklessly it stretches its charter for the broadest jest! Observe those men in women's bonnets! With what delight they swing their merry bladders at the crowd! They are hard on forty. All week they have bent to their heavy desks, but tonight they take their pay of life. The years are a sullen garment, but on a night of carnival they toss it off. Blood that was cold and temperate at noon now feels the fire. Scratch a man and you find a clown inside. It was at the celebration of the Armistice that I followed a sober fellow for a mile, who beat incessantly with a long iron spoon on an ash-can top. Almost solemnly he advanced among the throng. Was it joy entirely for the ending of the war? Or rather was he not yielding at last to an old desire to parade and be a band? The glad occasion merely loosed him from convention. That lady friend of mine, in the circumstance, would have bounced on ice-wagons up to midnight.

For it is convention, rather than our years--it is the respect and fear of our neighbors that restrains us on an ordinary occasion. If we followed our innocent desires at the noon hour, without waiting for a carnival, how mad our streets would seem! The bellowing bass would pitch back his head and lament the fair Isolde. The old lady in lace cap would tuck up her skirts for hop-scotch and score her goal at last.

Is it not the French who set aside a special night for foolery, when everyone appears in fancy costume? They should set the celebration forward in the day, and let the blazing sun stare upon their mirth. Merriment should not wait upon the owl.

The Dickey Club at Harvard, I think, was fashioned with some such purpose of release. Its initiation occurs always in the spring, when the blood of an undergraduate is hottest against restraint. It is a vent placed where it is needed most. Zealously the candidates perform their pranks. They exceed the letter of their instruction. The streets of Boston are a silly spectacle. Young men wear their trousers inside out and their coats reversed. They greet strangers with preposterous speech. I once came on a merry fellow eating a whole pie with great mouthfuls on the Court House steps, explaining meantime to the crowd that he was the youngest son of Little Jack Horner. And, of course, with such a hardened gourmand for an ancestor, he was not embarrassed by his ridiculous posture.

But it is not youth which needs the stirring most. Nor need one necessarily play an absurd antic to be natural. And therefore, here at home, on our own Soldiers' Monument--on its steps and pediment that mount above the street--I offer a few suggestions to the throng.

Ladies and gentlemen! I invite you to a carnival. Here! Now! At noon! I bid you to throw off your solemn pretense. And be yourself! That sober manner is a cloak. Your dignity scarcely reaches to your skin. Does no one desire to play leap-frog across those posts? Do none of you care to skip and leap? What! Will no one accept my invitation?

You, my dear sirs, I know you. You play chess together every afternoon in your club. One of you carries at this moment a small board in his waistcoat pocket. Why hurry to your club, gentlemen? Here on this step is a place to play your game. Surely your concentration is proof against the legs that swing around you. And you, my dear sir! I see that you are a scholar by your bag of books. You chafe for your golden studies. Come, sit alongside! Here is a shady spot for the pursuit of knowledge. Did not Socrates ply his book in the public concourse?

My dear young lady, it is evident that a desire has seized you to practice your soprano voice. Why do you wait for your solitary piano to pitch the tune? On these steps you can throw your trills up heaven-ward.

An ice-wagon! With a tail-board! Is there no lady in her forties, prim in youth, who will take her fling? Or does no gentleman in silk hat wish a piece of ice to suck?

Observe that good-natured father with his son! They have shopped for toys. He carries a bundle beneath his arm. It is doubtless a mechanical bear--a creature that roars and walks on the turning of a key. After supper these two will squat together on the parlor carpet and wind it up for a trial performance. But must such an honest pleasure sit for the coming of the twilight? Break the string! Insert the key! Let the fearful creature stride boldly among the shoppers.

Here is an iron balustrade along the steps. A dozen of you desire, secretly, to slide down its slippery length.

My dear madam, it is plain that the heir is naughty. Rightfully you have withdrawn his lollypop. And now he resists your advance, stiff-legged and spunky. Your stern eye already has passed its sentence. You merely wait to get him home. I offer you these steps in lieu of nursery or woodshed. You have only to tip him up. Surely the flat of your hand gains no cunning by delay.

And you, my dear sir--you who twirl a silk moustache--you with the young lady on your arm! If I am not mistaken you will woo your fair companion on this summer evening beneath the moon. Must so good a deed await the night? Shall a lover's arms hang idle all the day? On these steps, my dear sir, a kiss, at least, may be given as a prelude.

Hop-scotch! Where is my old friend of the lace cap? The game is already chalked upon the stones.

Is there no one in the passing throng who desires to dance? Are there no toes that wriggle for release? My dear lady, the rhythmic swish of your skirt betrays you. A tune for a merry waltz runs through your head. Come! we'll find you a partner in the crowd. Those silk stockings of yours must not be wasted in a mincing gait.

Have lawyers, walking sourly on their business, any sweeter nature to display to us? Our larger merchants seem covered with restraint and thought of profit. That physician with his bag of pellets seems not to know that laughter is a panacea. Has Labor no desire to play leap-frog on its pick and go shouting home to supper? Housewives follow their unfaltering noses from groceries to meats. Will neither gingham nor brocade romp and cut a caper for us?

Ladies and gentlemen! Why wait for a night of carnival? Does not the blood flow red, also, at the noon hour? Must the moon point a silly finger before you start your merriment? I offer you these steps.

Is there no one who will whistle in the crowd? Will none of you, even in the spring, go with a skip and leap upon your business?

[The end]
Charles S. Brooks's essay: Crowded Curb

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN