A Window in New York

...There I found the window...

...They always came about eleven o'clock in the morning—the gentle old man, bent, ragged and whitehaired, tapping the way with one hand on a cane, the other resting trustingly on the arm of the little boy...

...They were of the poor, these two...

...And the old man would smile and nod...

...The answer always came smilingly...

...He was a very little boy—perhaps ten years old—with a shock of fair hair and eyes that laughed, and very shabby clothes...

...It was sometime in the 1850's when the house was erected, and now it is one of perhaps a dozen of its kind which still stand in old Chelsea...

...Sufficient for me, child of a noisy age replete with warehouses, railroads, and docks, and sadly lacking in privacy and dignity, that I should be allowed to watch them every day—with something of heartache— listening to the old window's whisper—" 'and a little child shall lead them...

...They would pause in front of the window-ledge of the seminary—the boy would spread something down on the ledge for the old man to sit upon...

...I could only hear the boy's when he was playing and excited...

...These are set in, and have deep ledges...

...An hour or two would pass in this way—then the child would fold up the paper, gently help the old man to his feet, and slowly they would walk away as they had come—clear, young eyes seeing for the blind—guarding him at crossings— helping him over wet spots and around obstacles...

...I used to lean from my window and watch them...

...But the old house, surrounded by alien neighbors, stands its ground, as serenely unmoved and unnoticing in inappropriate surroundings as some stately grande dame...

...I never knew—for though in the summer I flung my ancient window high, and leaned forward to listen, the old man's voice never reached me...

...It was one of these ledges that I used to watch from my window in the curious old house...

...When the paper had been read, the two would sit, and from the child's enraptured face, upturned to the moving lips of the old man, I discovered that he was listening to tales...

...One enters it—and from the high ceilings and paneled walls, and winding stairway with its statuary niche at the turn, a breath of the past is shed upon one's spirit...

...My ancient window never told me...

...Sometimes the playmate would scamper away and return later...

...At other times he would stand, impatiently wriggling from one foot to the other, but quietly, it is true—from which I learned that he held his friend in respect—which was strange, for he was older than the little boy by several years...

...Was it the warm shaft of sunlight that came to caress it each morning that first brought the blind man and the little boy there ? I know not—for when I discovered them, their air of familiarity with it told me that it had long been a favorite resting place...

...But if the playmate came too early, before the paper was read, the boy would shake his head at him, and keep resolute eyes on the printed sheet...

...Across the street stretches the long wall of one side of a theological seminary which occupies almost a block, and has, at intervals, on a level with the side-walk, square basement windows...

...It was as though, relic of an age of decorum and reticence, it considered it unseemly that I should seek to know more about them...

...For he used to play sometimes...

...Then he would laugh and chatter, scrambling about and sometimes crying out— "Oh, you should have seen that catch, Grandfather...

...And what I saw from that window, thereafter brought me back many times...

...Occasionally an acquaintance would saunter along and pause—and soon the boy would be on his feet playing ball with the newcomer...

...In that pre-war period, their owners walked down the high steps leading to their dignified front doors, and if they turned west, came in a few minutes' stroll under spreading trees to the banks of the river...

...It was a good one...

...I wondered if they were tales of the sea—or of war—or of a youth spent in far-off lands, by alien shores, or among strange mountains...

...Today shows those once green banks mercilessly encroached upon by warehouses, railroad tracks, and huge docks...

...When they were both seated, the child would open a morning paper, and slowly, with difficulty, his brows puckered earnestly and his fingers tracing each line, he would read the news of the day aloud to his companion...

...The old man, leaning forward with both hands on his stick, would nod his head as he listened —then occasionally take one hand off the stick and put it on the boy's arm, as though questioning him...

...Who were these two...

...It was a little window—and the panes of old glass were small and criss-crossed many times with crumbling window-framing...

...Or—"Oh, Grandfather, you should see how I can run...

...Once I climbed that stairway and went to a little room in the front of the house...

...Their story, what...