The Island of Faith Read online

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  The Island of Faith

  By MARGARET E. SANGSTER

  1921

  To M's M and Chance

  Contents

  I. INTRODUCING--THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE

  II. THE QUARREL

  III. CONCERNING IDEALS

  IV. THE PARK

  V. ROSE-MARIE COMES TO THE RESCUE

  VI. "THERE'S NO PLACE--"

  VII. A LILY IN THE SLUMS

  VIII. ANOTHER QUARREL

  IX. AND ANOTHER

  X. MRS. VOLSKY PROMISES TO TRY

  XI. BENNIE COMES TO THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE

  XII. AN ISLAND

  XIII. ELLA MAKES A DECISION

  XIV. PA STEPS ASIDE

  XV. A SOLUTION

  XVI. ENTER--JIM

  XVII. AN ANSWER

  XVIII. AND A MIRACLE

  XIX. AND THE HAPPY ENDING

  I

  INTRODUCING--THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE

  There is a certain section of New York that is bounded upon the north byFourteenth Street, upon the south by Delancy. Folk who dwell in it seldomstray farther west than the Bowery, rarely cross the river that flowssluggishly on its eastern border. They live their lives out, withsomething that might be termed a feverish stolidity, in the dim crowdedflats, and upon the thronged streets.

  To the people who have homes on Central Park West, to the frail wingedmoths who flutter up and down Broadway, this section does not exist. Itspoor are not the picturesque poor of the city's Latin quarter, itscriminals seldom win to the notoriety of a front page and inch-highheadlines; it almost never produces a genius for the world to smileupon--its talent does not often break away from the undefined, but nonethe less certain, limits of the district.

  It is curious that this part of town is seldom featured in song or story,for it is certainly neither dull nor unproductive of plot. The tenementsthat loom, canyon-like, upon every side are filled to overflowing withhuman drama; and the stilted little parks are so teeming with romances,of a summer night, that only the book of the ages would be big enough tohold them--were they written out! Life beats, like some great wave, upthe dim alleyways--it breaks, in a shattered tide, against rock-likedoorways. The music of a street band, strangely sweet despite itsshrillness, rises triumphantly above the tumult of pavement vendors, thecrying of babies, the shouting of small boys, and the monotonous voicesof the womenfolk.

  In almost the exact center of this district is the Settlement House--abrown building that is tall and curiously friendly. Between a greathive-like dwelling place and a noisy dance-hall it stands valiantly, likethe soldier of God that it is! And through its wide-open doorway come andgo the girls who will gladly squander a week's wage for a bit of satin ora velvet hat; the shabby, dull-eyed women who, two years before, werecare-free girls themselves; the dreamers--and the ones who have neverlearned to dream. For there is something about the Settlement House--andabout the tiny group of earnest people who are the heart of theSettlement House--that is like a warm hand, stretched out in welcome tothe poor and the needy, to the halt in body and the maimed in soul, andto the casual passer-by.

  II

  THE QUARREL

  "They're like animals," said the Young Doctor in the tone of one whostates an indisputable fact. "Only worse!" he added.

  Rose-Marie laid down the bit of roll that she had been buttering andturned reproachful eyes upon the Young Doctor.

  "Oh, but they're not," she cried; "you don't understand, or you wouldn'ttalk that way. You don't understand!"

  Quite after the maddening fashion of men the doctor did not answer untilhe had consumed, and appreciatively, the last of the roll he was eating.And then--

  "I've been here quite as long as you have, Miss Thompson," he remarked, ashade too gently.

  The Superintendent raised tired eyes from her plate. She was little andslim and gray, this Superintendent; it seemed almost as though the slumshad drained from her the life and colour.

  "When you've been working in this section for twenty years," she saidslowly, "you'll realize that nobody can ever understand. You'll realizethat we all have animal traits--to a certain extent. And you'll realizethat quarrelling isn't ever worth while."

  "But"--Rose-Marie was inclined to argue the point--"but Dr. Blanchardtalks as if the people down here are scarcely human! And it's not rightto feel so about one's fellow-men. Dr. Blanchard acts as if the peopledown here haven't _souls_!"

  The Young Doctor helped himself nonchalantly to a second roll.

  "There's a certain sort of a little bug that lives in the water," hesaid, "and it drifts around aimlessly until it finds another little bugthat it holds on to. And then another little bug takes hold, andanother, and another. And pretty soon there are hundreds of little bugs,and then there are thousands, and then there are millions, and thenbillions, and then--"

  The Superintendent interrupted wearily.

  "I'd stop at the billions, if I were you," she said, "particularly asthey haven't any special bearing on the subject."

  "Oh, but they _have_" said the doctor, "for, after a while, the billionsand _trillions_ of little bugs, clinging together, make an island. Theyhaven't souls, perhaps," he darted a triumphant glance at Rose-Marie,"but they make an island just the same!"

  He paused for a moment, as if waiting for some sort of comment. When itdid not come, he spoke again.

  "The people of the slums," he said, "the people who drift into, and outof, and around this Settlement House, are not very unlike the littlebugs. And, after all, _they do help to make the city_!"

  There was a quaver in Rose-Marie's voice, and a hurt look in her eyes, asshe answered.

  "Yes, they are like the little bugs," she said, "in the blind way thatthey hold together! But please, Dr. Blanchard, don't say they aresoulless. Don't--"

  All at once the Young Doctor's hand was banging upon the table. All atonce his voice was vehemently raised.

  "It's the difference in our point of view, Miss Thompson," he toldRose-Marie, "and I'm afraid that I'm right and that you're--not right.You've come from a pretty little country town where every one was fairlycomfortable and fairly prosperous. You've always been a part of acommunity where people went to church and prayer-meeting andSunday-school. Your neighbours loved each other, and played Pollyannawhen things went wrong. And you wore white frocks and blue sasheswhenever there was a lawn party or a sociable." He paused, perhaps forbreath, and then--"I'm different," he said; "I struggled for myeducation; it was always the survival of the fittest with me. I worked myway through medical school. I had my hospital experience in Bellevue andon the Island--most of my patients were the lowest of the low. I've triedto cure diseased bodies--but I've left diseased minds alone. Diseasedminds have been out of my line. Perhaps that's why I've come through withan ideal of life that's slightly different from your sunshine and appleblossoms theory!"

  "Oh," Rose-Marie was half sobbing, "oh, you're so hard!"

  The Young Doctor faced her suddenly and squarely. "Why did you comehere," he cried, "to the slums? Why did you come to work in a SettlementHouse? What qualifications have you to be a social service worker, youchild? What do you know of the meaning of service, of life?"

  Rose-Marie's voice was earnest, though shaken.

  "I came," she answered, "because I love people and want to help them. Icame because I want to teach them to think beautiful thoughts, to havebeautiful ideals. I came because I want to show them the God that Iknow--and try to serve--" she faltered.

  The Young Doctor laughed--but
not pleasantly.

  "And I," he said, "came to make their bodies as healthy as possible. Icame because curing sick bodies was my job--_not because I loved peopleor had any particular faith in them_. Prescribing to criminals andnear-criminals isn't a reassuring work; it doesn't give one faith inhuman nature or in human souls!"

  The Superintendent had been forgotten. But her tired voice rose suddenlyacross the barrier of speech that had grown high and icy between theYoung Doctor and Rose-Marie.

  "You both came," she said, and she spoke in the tone of a mother ofchickens who has found two young and precocious ducklings in her brood,"you both came to help people--of that I'm sure!"

  Rose-Marie started up, suddenly, from the table.

  "I came," she said, as she moved toward the door that led to the hall,"to make people better."

  "And I," said the Young Doctor, moving away from the table toward theopposite side of the room and another door, "I came to make themhealthier!" With his hand on the knob of the door he spoke to theSuperintendent.

  "I'll not be back for supper," he said shortly, "I'll be too busy.Giovanni Celleni is out of jail again, and he's thrown his wife down aflight of stairs. She'll probably not live. And while Minnie Cohen wasat the vaudeville show last night--developing her soul, perhaps--heryoungest baby fell against the stove. Well, it'll be better for thebaby if it does die! And there are others--" The door slammed upon hisangry back.

  Rose-Marie's face was white as she leaned against the dark wainscoting.

  "Minnie Cohen brought the baby in last week," she shuddered, "such a dearbaby! And Mrs. Celleni--she tried so hard! Oh, it's not right--" She wascrying, rather wildly, as she went out of the room.

  The Superintendent, left alone at the table, rang for the stolid maid.Her voice was carefully calm as she gave orders for the evening meal. Ifshe was thinking of Giovanni Celleni, his brute face filled withsemi-madness; if she was thinking of a burned baby, sobbing alone in adarkened tenement while its mother breathlessly watched the gay coloursand shifting scenes of a make-believe life, her expression did notmirror her thought. Only once she spoke, as she was folding her napkin,and then--

  "They're both very young," she murmured, a shade regretfully. Perhaps shewas remembering the enthusiasm--and the intolerance--of her own youth.