The Making of an American

On the outskirts of the ancient town of Ribe, on the Danish north seacoast, a wooden bridge spanned the Nibs River when I was a boy—a frail structure, with twin arches like the humps of a dromedary, for boats to go under. Upon it my story begins. The bridge is long since gone. The grass-grown lane that knew our romping feet leads nowhere now. But in my memory it is all as it was that day nearly forty years ago, and it is always summer there. The bees are droning among the forget-me-nots that grow along shore, and the swans arch their necks in the limpid stream. The clatter of the mill-wheel down at the dam comes up with drowsy hum; the sweet smells of meadow and field are in the air. On the bridge a boy and a girl have met.

He whistles a tune, boy-fashion, with worsted jacket slung across his arm, on his way home from the carpenter shop to his midday meal. When she has passed he stands looking after her, all the music gone out of him. At the other end of the bridge she turns with the feeling that he is looking, and, when she sees that he is, goes on with a little toss of her pretty head. As she stands one brief moment there with the roguish look, she is to stand in his heart forever—a sweet girlish figure, in jacket of gray, black-embroidered, with schoolbooks and pretty bronzed boots—

"With tassels!" says my wife, maliciously—she has been looking over my shoulder. Well, with tassels! What then?

The next day it rained, and the next day after that, and I footed it back to the city, still on my vain quest. A quarter is not a great capital to subsist on in New York when one is not a beggar and has no friends. Two days of it drove me out again to find at least the food to keep me alive; but in those two days I met the man who, long years after, was to be my honored chief, Charles A. Dana, the editor of the Sun. There had been an item in the Sun about a volunteer regiment being fitted out for France. I went up to the office, and was admitted to Mr. Dana's presence. I fancy I must have appealed to his sense of the ludicrous, dressed in top-boots and a linen duster much the worse for wear, and demanding to be sent out to fight. He knew nothing about recruiting. Was I French? No, Danish; it had been in his paper about the regiment. He smiled a little at my faith, and said editors sometimes did not know about everything that was in their papers. I turned to go, grievously disappointed, but he called me back.

"Have you," he said, looking searchingly at me, "have you had your breakfast?"

No, God knows that I had not: neither that day nor for many days before. That was one of the things I had at last learned to consider among the superfluities of an effete civilization.

in the streets reminding me that a time was rapidly coming when such a life as I led could no longer be endured.

Not in a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it came. It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me, with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and discouraged. I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home. How far it seemed, and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with my courage. There was warmth and cheer where she was. Here—An overpowering sense of desolation came upon me, I hitched a little nearer the edge. What if—? Would they miss me much or long at home if no word came from me? Perhaps they might never hear. What was the use of keeping it up any longer with, God help us, everything against and nothing to back a lonely lad?

And even then the help came. A wet and shivering body was pressed against mine, and I felt rather than heard a piteous whine in my ear. It was my companion in misery, a little outcast black-and-tan, afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway with me

Of all this the beats knew nothing. They kept up their warfare of backbiting and of raising petty ructions at the office when I was not there, until I hit upon the plan of putting Pat in charge. Pat was a typical Irish coal-heaver, who would a sight rather fight than eat. There was a coal office in the building, and Pat was generally hanging around, looking for a job. I paid him a dollar a week to keep the office clear of intruders, and after that there was no trouble. There was never any fighting, either. The mere appearance of Pat in the doorway was enough, to his great disgust. It was a success as far as preserving the peace of the office was concerned. But with it there grew up, unknown to me, an impression that personally I would not fight, and the courage of the beats rose correspondingly. They determined to ambush me and have it out with me. One wintry Saturday night, when I was alone in the office closing up the business of the week, they met on the opposite corner to see me get a thrashing. One of their number, a giant in stature, but the biggest coward of the lot, was to administer it. He was fitted out with an immense hickory club for the purpose, and to nerve his arm they filled him with drink.

My office had a large window running the whole length of the front, with a sill knee-high that made a very good seat when chairs were scarce. Only, one had to be careful not to lean against the window. It was made of small panes set in a slight wooden framework, which every strong wind blew out or in, and I was in constant dread lest the whole thing should collapse.

The Tribune next day was the only paper that had an account of the tidal wave on the island. But something about it did not seem to strike the city editor just right. There was an unwonted suavity in his summons when he called me to his desk which I had learned to dread as liable to conceal some fatal thrust.

"So you went to the island last night, Mr. Riis," he observed, regarding me over the edge of the paper.

"No, sir! I couldn't get across; nobody could."

"Eh!" He lowered the paper an inch, and took a better look: "this very circumstantial account—"

"Was gathered from the hotel-keepers in Sheepshead Bay, who had seen it all. If there had been a boat not stove by the ice, I would have got across somehow."

Mr. Shanks dropped the paper and considered me almost kindly. I saw that he had my bill for the sleigh-ride in his hand.

"Right!" he said. "We'll allow the sleigh. We'll allow even the stove, to a man who owns he didn't see it, though it is pretty steep." He pointed to a paragraph which described how, after the wreck of the watchman's shanty, the kitchen stove floated ashore with the house-cat alive and safe upon it. I still believe that an unfriendly printer played me that trick.

"Next time," he added, dismissing me, "make them swear to the stove. There is no accounting for cats."