He went into the Battery. The benches
were crowded with that jetsam and flotsam of humanity that New York's
mighty sewers throw in armies upon her inland beaches at every sunrise:
Here a sodden brute sleeping off a prolonged debauch, there a lad whose
frankness of face and homespun clothes and bewildered eyes spelt, "from
the farm and mother's watchful love." On another bench an Italian woman
who had a half-dozen future dollar kings and social queens about her, and
whose clothes told of the immigrant ship just into port. Bob Brownley
apparently saw none. But suddenly he stopped. Upon a bench sat a
sweet-faced mother holding a sleeping babe in her arms, while a
curly-pated boy nestled his head in her lap and slept through the magic
lanes and fairy woods of dreamland. The woman's face was one of those that
blend the confidence of girlhood with the uncertainty of womanhood. 'Twas
a pretty face, which had been plainly tagged by its Maker for a
light-hearted trip through this world, but it had been seared by the iron
of the city.
"Mr. Brownley--" She started to rise.
He gently pushed her back with a "hush," unwilling to rob the sleepers of
their heaven.
"What are you doing here, Mrs.----?" He halted.
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