AN ASSISTED EMIGRANT


Guido stood on the curb-stone in Fourteenth Street, between Fifth Avenue
and Sixth Avenue, with a row of plaster figures drawn up on the sidewalk
in front of him. It was snowing, and they looked cold in consequence,
especially the Night and Morning. A line of men and boys stretched on
either side of Guido all along the curb-stone, with toys and dolls, and
guns that shot corks into the air with a loud report, and glittering
dressings for the Christmas trees. It was the day before Christmas. The
man who stood next in line to Guido had hideous black monkeys that
danced from the end of a rubber string. The man danced up and down too,
very much, so Guido thought, as the monkeys did, and stamped his feet on
the icy pavement, and shouted: "Here yer are, lady, for five cents. Take
them home to the children." There were hundreds and hundreds of ladies
and little girls crowding by all of the time; some of them were a
little cross and a little tired, as if Christmas shopping had told on
their nerves, but the greater number were happy-looking and warm, and
some stopped and laughed at the monkeys dancing on the rubber strings,
and at the man with the frost on his mustache, who jumped too, and
cried, "Only five cents, lady--nice Christmas presents for the
children."

Sometimes the ladies bought the monkeys, but no one looked at the cold
plaster figures of St. Joseph, and Diana, and Night and Morning, nor at
the heads of Mars and Minerva--not even at the figure of the Virgin,
with her two hands held out, which Guido pressed in his arms against his
breast.

Guido had been in New York city just one month. He was very young--so