CHAPTER XVI THE BATTLE OF MAXWELL STREET

“But what is it?” Petite Jeanne stepped back, half in terror, as she gripped Florence’s arm and stared about her.

They had just alighted from a Halsted Street car and had entered the maze of booths, carts, rough board counters, and wagons. “This is Maxwell Street on a bright Sunday afternoon in late autumn,” replied Merry with a smile.

They were on their way, Petite Jeanne and Merry, to the promised party at which many mysterious bags and trunks were to be opened. Florence was with them; so, too, was Angelo. Dan Baker also had agreed to come at the last moment. So they were quite a party, five in all.
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About these portable stores swarmed a motley throng. Some were white, some brown, some black. All, stall keepers and prospective purchasers alike were poor, if one were to judge by attire.

“Don’t be afraid,” Merry smiled at the little French girl. “These are harmless, kindly people. They are poor, to be sure. But in this world, ninety out of every hundred are poor and probably always will be.

“Some of these people have a few poor things to sell. The others hope to purchase them at a bargain; which indeed they often do.

“So you see,” she ended, “like other places in the world, Maxwell Street deserves its place in the sun, for it serves the poor of this great city. What could be nobler?”

“Ah, yes, What could be nobler?” the little French girl echoed.

“How strange!” she murmured as they walked along. “There is no order here. See! There are shoes. Here are cabbages. And here are more shoes. There are chickens. Here are more shoes. And yonder are stockings to go with the shoes. How very queer.”
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“Yes,” Florence sighed, “there is no order in the minds of the very poor. Perhaps that is why they are poor.”

“Come!” Merry cried impatiently. “We must find the shops of our friends. They are on Peoria Street. Two blocks up.”

“Lead the way.” Petite Jeanne motioned her friends to follow.

As they wedged their way through the throng, Petite Jeanne found her spirits drooping. “How sad it all seems!” she thought to herself. “There is a little dried up old lady. She must be eighty. She’s trying to sell a few lemons. And here is a slip of a girl. How pinched her face is! She’s watching over a few wretched stockings. If you whistled through them they’d go into rags.

“And yet,” she was ready to smile again, “they all seem cheerful.”

She had said this last aloud. “Yes,” Merry answered, “cheerful and kind. Very considerate of one another. It is as if suffering, hunger, rags, disease, brought friends who cannot be bought with gold.”
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“It is true. And such a beautiful truth. I—”

Petite Jeanne broke short off, then dodged quickly to one side. She had barely escaped being run down by an automobile. Coming in from behind, the driver had not honked his horn.

The man was large. The companion at his side was large. The bright blue car was large. The whole outfit fairly oozed comfort, riches and self-satisfaction.

“Stand gawking around and you’ll get a leg taken off!” The driver’s voice was harsh, unkind. He spoke to the little French girl.

The hot fire that smouldered behind Angelo’s dark eyes blazed forth.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he demanded in a fury. “Running people down! Crowding them about! You with your big car! If you want to gaze, why don’t you walk as we do?”
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The car came to a halt. A deep flush had spread over the driver’s face. Springing from the car, he launched a blow that sent the slight Italian youth spinning into the crowd behind him.

But what was this? Hardly had the man swayed back, a leer of satisfaction on his face, than a whirling catapult launched itself upon him. A circle of steel closed about his neck. He found himself whirling through space. He landed with a mighty clatter atop a pile of frying pans and stew kettles.

Quickly scrambling to his feet, he glowered at the gathering throng as he demanded,

“Who did that?”

For the count of ten, no one answered. Then a scrawny little Irishman, who wore a Cross of Honor on his ragged jacket, pushed Florence forward as he whispered hoarsely,

“Tell ’im, Miss. I’m wid y’. Me, as never lost a battle yet.”

“I did!” The girl’s words were clear and quite distinct.

A hush fell over the thickening crowd. A fight on Maxwell Street is always an occasion. But a fight between a prosperous man and a good looking girl! Who had seen this before?
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Florence, as you will recall, was not one of those weaklings who subsist on pickles and ice-cream in order to develop a slender figure. She weighed one hundred and sixty, was an athletic instructor, knew a few tricks and was hard as a rock.

There was no fight. The man looked her up and down. Then he called her a name. It was a nasty name, seldom heard on Maxwell Street. For the people there, though poor, are a gentle folk.

Then Maxwell Street, slow going, gentle, kindly, poverty-stricken Maxwell Street, went mad. Who threw the first ripe tomato that struck this prosperous insulter squarely on the jaw? No one will ever know. Enough that it was thrown. It was followed quickly by a bushel more, and after that by a cart load of over-ripe fish.

When at last the irate but badly beaten man of importance turned his car southward and fled from Maxwell Street, his beautiful car was no longer blue. It was tomato-pink and fish-yellow. And his costume matched the car.
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Then Maxwell Street indulged in a good laugh. In this laugh Angelo did not join. He divided his attention between the business of nursing his swollen jaw and paying the poor venders of tomatoes and fish for their missing wares.

“Some people,” he might have been heard to grumble to himself, “talk too much.”

“The battle of Maxwell Street!” exclaimed Merry at his elbow. Her eyes shone. “And we won!”

“I am sure of it!” Angelo agreed heartily. “However, I am out four dollars and sixty-five cents for fish and tomatoes.”

“But look!” Merry pointed to the battered little Irishman with the Cross of Honor. “He is taking up a collection. You will be paid.”

“No, no! That cannot be!” True distress was in the Italian boy’s eyes. “Stop him.”

“No. We must not!” Merry’s tone was tense with emotion. “You are their hero. You stood up for their rights. Would you be so mean as to rob them of the right to do homage to their hero?”
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“Ah, me!” Angelo rubbed his eyes. “This is a very strange world.”

In the end he departed with a heavy sack of nickels and pennies, while the crowd shouted their approval of the “brave little Dago.” And for once Angelo did not hate this name they had given his people.

They had gone another block before Angelo spoke again. What he said both puzzled and troubled the little French girl. “That whole affair,” he said quietly, “was a faux pas.”

“How could it be!” she exclaimed. “I thought it quite wonderful. What right have those big, bluffing bullies to run down poor people on Maxwell Street?”

“None at all,” Angelo replied soberly. “But after all, the battle of Maxwell Street is not our battle. This is a large city. Yet it is strange the way we meet the same people again and again. If that man really comes upon me in some other place, if he finds out what I do and where I live, he will do his best to ruin me. That is the way of his kind.”
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Little did Angelo guess the manner in which his prophecy was to come true, much less the manner of vengeance that would be employed.

Petite Jeanne remained silent for a moment. Then she gave Angelo’s arm an affectionate squeeze as she answered: “I shall pray every night that he may never see you even once again.”