T The Cafe of the Eagle By Ernest Poole With Drawings by Wladyslaw T. Benda HEIR dreams of America were dead. Five years ago, from an old town in Bohemia, Anton, Jan, and August had come to New York. They had come with vague dreams of a land of wonderful chances. But a New York sweatshop, year by year, with machines that in rush seasons buzzed from before daylight until many hours after dark, had ground the life out of the dreams they had brought. And they had but one grim pleasure left. Each night, in Kusaky's Café of Two Worlds, a brand-new, glittering place, at the table by the window, they had supper together for twenty cents each, and then over Kusaky's bitter beer they smoked black cigarettes and "knocked." They called themselves "the knockers." Anton, thin and swarthy, could read the New York "Journal." He read it aloud, with a savage sneer, stopping to comment now and then. August, short and very fat, would join in with an angry cackle or snort; while Jan, a heavy-shouldered giant with a mass of yellow hair, would sit silent and attentive, gloomily nodding or shaking his head. Their hopes of a rise in life were gone. Their dreams of America were dead. So they believed. But the spell of America is strong. And these were all young men. One night August came into Kusaky's excitedly waving a letter. "Read this!" he cried. "Fritzy is coming to New York! His old blind aunt is dead at last, and he has left Bohemia! In two weeks more he will be here!" When Anton and Jan had read the letter, they chuckled in unholy glee. For back in their Bohemian town Fritzy was the editor and poet of the place. And he had dreams, this Fritzy-dreams of a great America, with boundless wealth and fresh ideals and an equal chance for every man. In a certain old café at home, down by the river, under an ancient bridge of stone, this dreamer had held forth at night. It was called the "Café of the Eagle." From one of its walls an enormous eagle, clumsily carved out of old gray wood, spread wide his wings and glared down into the little room as though fiercely impatient to fly away. And, telling them that this great bird was "the emblem of free America," Fritzy had drawn vivid pictures of what the American Eagle could see in his flight across his native land-California gold mines, mountains ribbed with silver, prairies dark with cattle, wheat-fields far as the eye could reach, railways, mighty rivers, cities with buildings high as the crag that overlooked their Bohemian town. When they had doubted what he said, he had proved it all with solid facts from a book a ship agent had given him-a thick red book with stars and stripes. So Fritzy was to blame for their coming to New York. 66 He got us into this," they chuckled. Now we'll see how he likes it himselfthis fine free eagle's country! We'll see what happens to his dreams!" Their evening talks grew almost gay. Each night as Anton read from the paper the stories of graft and high-life scandals, murders, mine explosions, strikes, the bread line, and the unemployed, the worse this "eagle's country" looked, the livelier grew their anticipations of what would happen to Fritzy's dreams. "We won't tell him," they decided, "how rotten his America is. We won't tell him about our sweatshop jobs. We'll just look on and see the fun." So eager they were to see the fun that they became anxious lest he had changed. But no. When at last he arrived and sat with them in Kusaky's Café, they found with delight that he was the same old Fritzy. He rumpled his black hair just as before, his eyes behind their glasses had their familiar twinkle, his mustache its dashing upward curl, and in his voice and his laugh you could feel the same old fires of youth. For on the long journey Fritzy had seen with his eyes the thing he had dreamed-the peoples of the earth all moving toward New York. "It was like a great river of peoples," he said; "a river fed by a thousand brooks. When we left home, we were only eleven, but at Prague we were over a hundred. Then our train started off for the sea. Hungarians got on the train, and Slovaks, and Rumanians, Bulgarians, Italians, Greeks. At the ship we were over two thousand, and most of us young men! Off we started; the band struck up! And from Naples, from Paris, from Hamburg and London, more bands struck up, more crowded ships were starting! And here in New York those ships all met! In the crowd at Ellis Island you could see all the nations, hear all the tongues, and the voices were glad! The peoples are coming to Amer ica! They are coming while we are talking-on foot and on wagons, on trains and on ships, they are coming to-night from all over the world!" Anton winked at August. "How they will enjoy it!" he said. Fritzy was lighting a fresh cigarette. 66 You remember the old Café of the Eagle?" he asked. "The one by the river, down under the bridge? Remember all the talks we had? Well, those talks are going on, sometimes half the night. The crowd is new. Fellows are there who were only little shavers when you left. But the talk is the same. Soon the whole crowd will be ready to come! Only the eagle will be left." "Tell us what they say about America," said August. "I forget." He gave Jan a delighted nudge. But big Jan took no notice. As though slowly coming under some old familiar spell, he was looking intently at Fritzy. And as he Fritzy began to tell them. talked a strange thing happened. In the minds of these three "knockers" New York and its hard realities little by little dropped away. Their memories went back five years; their questions lost their irony, became intense and eager. And the picture of the old café grew vivid in their minds. They could almost hear the murmur of the quiet stream below. The gray stone bridge loomed above. Inside the quaint three-cornered room the huge wooden eagle, "emblem of freedom," glared down from his place on the wall, his wings outspread, fiercely impatient to fly away. And they sat again at the big center-table, a dozen restless youngsters under the spell of America, with Fritzy leading them on. Kusaky brought them back to life. It was nearly two o'clock, and he was closing his place for the night. "Come on, you bums," he snapped. "Clear out!" Anton, Jan, and August rose and looked about in a dazed sort of way at the brand-new, glittering room with its blue painted walls and its mirrors. In one of these mirrors Anton caught a glimpse of his face that made him start and scowl. He threw a quick glance at the others to see if they had noticed. But they had not. And what he saw in the fares of Jan and August made him break into a bitter laugh. "And here we are at last!" he cried. "In America !" Jan and August turned sharply around. They, too, had come to their senses. The three "knockers" were themselves again. The "fun" was about to begin. In the street outside Anton pointed up to a shadowy bridge that loomed high above the tenement roofs, between them and the stars; no quaint old bridge of stone, but a colossal bridge of steel. "In three hours more," he said impressively, "before daylight, the crowds will pour over up there, pour down by thousands into New York-and go on making their fortunes." "Like us," said August, smiling. "But you will not see our money. We keep it in the bank." "You are right," continued Anton, as they walked back to their tenement, where Fritzy had taken a room over theirs. "It's a country of wonderful chances. How are you going to make your start?" "Get work," said Fritzy, promptly. "On a Bohemian paper here, until I can learn to write English. Already I Already I can read it a little. I will soon learn more. And I'll look around, see the city while I'm fresh, and write down what I I want to see life." "Good," said Anton, grimly. life. It's fine." see. "See For the next few weeks Fritzy was busy seeing life. From early morning he roamed the streets, not knowing where he went. The Ghetto, Little Italy, the Tenderloin, Fifth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park, all passed in endless panorama before his hungry eyes. In the papers In the papers he read astounding accounts of heroic deeds at fires, mysterious murders, dazzling weddings. With these stories as guides and spurs to his active imagination, he watched the people that passed him in crowds. And in Kusaky's at night he sat at the table trying to write down what he had seen. "It is just as I thought," he said; "a country of wonderful chances !" Fat August jumped half out of his chair. "Chances for whom?" he demanded. "For me!" cried Fritzy. "A writer! Never in the world has a writer had a chance like this! Here are four million people, all nations, all kinds, good and bad, young and old. Each day in this city hundreds are born and hundreds die. And between-who knows what happens? You see thousands go by in the street. What makes some of them laugh so hard? And in their rooms, shut in alone, what makes some of them clinch their hands? The funniest and the most terrible stories are here all around you, crowded close, never meeting. And most of us never see or hear. If a man could only see and hear and write it down, his books would soon be famous ! "And let me tell you this," he went on. "In New York a man gets famous fast. In an hour his name and his picture can be put into many big papers at once and be seen by millions of people." "You are right," said Anton, gruffly. "In New York a man gets famous fast. All that he needs is to get his start." Anton scowled. He forgot that he was enjoying the "fun." For he had gone in secret many times to the three Bohemian weekly papers; he knew that Fritzy had tried them all, again and again, and that all had refused to give him work. "The fool can't get his start," he told Jan and August that night in their room. "He can't even get a job in this fine eagle's country. And already he is getting scared. This big talk of his is bluff. Watch him close and you will see.” But Fritzy's talk went on. He had brought from Bohemia that red book with stars and stripes. With the book under his arm he found his way one morning down to the Wall Street region, went past imposing buildings with thousands of office windows reaching tier on tier to the sky, entered the Stock Exchange at last, mounted to the gallery, and there with the old book on his knees he looked down and held his breath. For he had read in the book that the mountains ribbed with silver, the prairies dark with cattle, the wheat-fields far as the eye could see, the railways, factories, mills, and mines-all somehow had their center here. He took the book to Kusaky's that |