An Astral Onion
WHEN Tig Braddock came to NoraFinnegan he was red-headed andfreckled, and, truth to tell, he remainedwith these features to theend of his life -- a life prolonged by a lucky,if somewhat improbable, incident, as you shallhear.Tig had shuffled off his parents as saurians,of some sorts, do their skins. During thetemporary absence from home of his mother,who was at the bridewell, and the more extendedvacation of his father, who, like Villon,loved the open road and the life of it,Tig, who was not a well-domesticated animal,wandered away. The humane society neverheard of him, the neighbors did not misshim, and the law took no cognizance of thisdetached citizen -- this lost pleiad. Tigwould have sunk into that melancholy whichis attendant upon hunger, -- the only form ofdespair which babyhood knows, -- if he hadnot wandered across the path of Nora Finnegan.Now Nora shone with steady brightnessin her orbit, and no sooner had Tig enteredher atmosphere, than he was warmed and comforted.Hunger could not live where Norawas. The basement room where she kepthouse was redolent with savory smells; andin the stove in her front room -- which wasalso her bedroom -- there was a bright fireglowing when fire was needed.Nora went out washing for a living. Butshe was not a poor washerwoman. Not at all.She was a washerwoman triumphant. Shehad perfect health, an enormous frame, anabounding enthusiasm for life, and a richabundance of professional pride. She believedherself to be the best washer of whiteclothes she had ever had the pleasure ofknowing, and the value placed upon her services,and her long connection with certainfamilies with large weekly washings, bore outthis estimate of herself -- an estimate whichshe never endeavored to conceal.Nora had buried two husbands without beingunduly depressed by the fact. The first husbandhad been a disappointment, and Norawinked at Providence when an accident in atunnel carried him off -- that is to say, carriedthe husband off. The second husband wasnot so much of a disappointment as a surprise.He developed ability of a literaryorder, and wrote songs which sold and madehim a small fortune. Then he ran away withanother woman. The woman spent his fortune,drove him to dissipation, and when hewas dying he came back to Nora, who receivedhim cordially, attended him to theend, and cheered his last hours by singinghis own songs to him. Then she raised aheadstone recounting his virtues, which werequite numerous, and refraining from anyreference to those peculiarities which hadcaused him to be such a surprise.Only one actual chagrin had ever nibbledat the sound heart of Nora Finnegan -- acruel chagrin, with long, white teeth, suchas rodents have! She had never held a childto her breast, nor laughed in its eyes; neverbathed the pink form of a little son ordaughter; never felt a tugging of tiny handsat her voluminous calico skirts! Nora hadburnt many candles before the statue of theblessed Virgin without remedying this deplorablecondition. She had sent up unavailingprayers -- she had, at times, wept hot tears oflonging and loneliness. Sometimes in hersleep she dreamed that a wee form, warm andexquisitely soft, was pressed against her firmbody, and that a hand with tiniest pink nailscrept within her bosom. But as she reachedout to snatch this delicious little creaturecloser, she woke to realize a barren woman'sgrief, and turned herself in anguish on herlonely pillow.So when Tig came along, accompanied bytwo curs, who had faithfully followed himfrom his home, and when she learned thedetails of his story, she took him in, cursand all, and, having bathed the three ofthem, made them part and parcel of herhome. This was after the demise of thesecond husband, and at a time when Norafelt that she had done all a woman could beexpected to do for Hymen.Tig was a preposterous baby. The curswere preposterous curs. Nora had alwaysbeen afflicted with a surplus amount oflaughter -- laughter which had difficulty inattaching itself to anything, owing to thelack of the really comic in the surroundingsof the poor. But with a red-headed andfreckled baby boy and two trick dogs in thehouse, she found a good and sufficient excusefor her hilarity, and would have torn thecave where echo lies with her mirth, had thatcave not been at such an immeasurable distancefrom the crowded neighborhood whereshe lived.At the age of four Tig went to free kindergarten;at the age of six he was in school,and made three grades the first year and twothe next. At fifteen he was graduated fromthe high school and went to work as errandboy in a newspaper office, with the fixed determinationto make a journalist of himself.Nora was a trifle worried about his moralswhen she discovered his intellect, but as timewent on, and Tig showed no devotion for anywoman save herself, and no consciousnessthat there were such things as bad boys orsaloons in the world, she began to have confidence.All of his earnings were brought toher. Every holiday was spent with her. Hetold her his secrets and his aspirations. Headmitted that he expected to become a greatman, and, though he had not quite decidedupon the nature of his career, -- saving, ofcourse, the makeshift of journalism, -- itwas not unlikely that he would elect to be anovelist like -- well, probably like Thackeray.Hope, always a charming creature, put onher most alluring smiles for Tig, and hemade her his mistress, and feasted on thelight of her eyes. Moreover, he was chaperoned,so to speak, by Nora Finnegan, wholistened to every line Tig wrote, and made amighty applause, and filled him up with goodIrish stew, many colored as the coat of Joseph,and pungent with the inimitable perfume of"the rose of the cellar." Nora Finneganunderstood the onion, and used it lovingly.She perceived the difference between the useand abuse of this pleasant and obvious friendof hungry man, and employed it with enthusiasm,but discretion. Thus it came aboutthat whoever ate of her dinners, found themeals of other cooks strangely lacking insavor, and remembered with regret the soupsand stews, the broiled steaks, and stuffedchickens of the woman who appreciated theonion.When Nora Finnegan came home with acold one day, she took it in such a jocularfashion that Tig felt not the least concernabout her, and when, two days later, she diedof pneumonia, he almost thought, at first,that it must be one of her jokes. She haddeparted with decision, such as had characterizedevery act of her life, and had made aslittle trouble for others as possible. Whenshe was dead the community had the opportunityof discovering the number of herfriends. Miserable children with faceswhich revealed two generations of hunger,homeless boys with vicious countenances,miserable wrecks of humanity, women withbloated faces, came to weep over Nora's bier,and to lay a flower there, and to scuttle away,more abjectly lonely than even sin could makethem. If the cats and the dogs, the sparrowsand horses to which she had shown kindness,could also have attended her funeral, theprocession would have been, from a point ofnumbers, one of the most imposing the cityhad ever known. Tig used up all their savingsto bury her, and the next week, by somepeculiar fatality, he had a falling out with thenight editor of his paper, and was discharged.This sank deep into his sensitive soul, andhe swore he would be an underling no longer-- which foolish resolution was directly traceableto his hair, the color of which, it will berecollected, was red.Not being an underling, he was obliged tomake himself into something else, and herecurred passionately to his old idea of becominga novelist. He settled down inNora's basement rooms, went to work on abattered type-writer, did his own cooking,and occasionally pawned something to keephim in food. The environment was calculatedto further impress him with the idea ofhis genius.A certain magazine offered an alluring prizefor a short story, and Tig wrote one, andrewrote it, making alterations, revisions, annotations,and interlineations which wouldhave reflected credit upon Honoré Balzachimself. Then he wrought all together, withsplendid brevity and dramatic force, -- Tig'sown words, -- and mailed the same. He wasconvinced he would get the prize. He wasjust as much convinced of it as Nora Finneganwould have been if she had been withhim.So he went about doing more fiction, takingno especial care of himself, and wrapt inrosy dreams, which, not being warm enoughfor the weather, permitted him to come downwith rheumatic fever.He lay alone in his room and suffered suchtorments as the condemned and rheumaticknow, depending on one of Nora's formerfriends to come in twice a day and keep upthe fire for him. This friend was aged ten,and looked like a sparrow who had been ina cyclone, but somewhere inside his boneswas a wit which had spelled out devotion.He found fuel for the cracked stove, somehowor other. He brought it in a dirty sackwhich he carried on his back, and he keptwarmth in Tig's miserable body. Moreover,he found food of a sort -- cold, horrible bitsoften, and Tig wept when he saw them,remembering the meals Nora had servedhim.Tig was getting better, though he was consciousof a weak heart and a lamentingstomach, when, to his amazement, the Sparrowceased to visit him. Not for a momentdid Tig suspect desertion. He knew thatonly something in the nature of an act ofProvidence, as the insurance companies woulddesignate it, could keep the little bundle ofbones away from him. As the days went by,he became convinced of it, for no Sparrowcame, and no coal lay upon the hearth. Thebasement window fortunately looked towardthe south, and the pale April sunshine wasbeginning to make itself felt, so that the temperatureof the room was not unbearable. ButTig languished; sank, sank, day by day, andwas kept alive only by the conviction that theletter announcing the award of the thousanddollarprize would presently come to him.One night he reached a place, where, forhunger and dejection, his mind wandered,and he seemed to be complaining all nightto Nora of his woes. When the chill dawncame, with chittering of little birds on thedirty pavement, and an agitation of thescrawny willow "pussies," he was not ableto lift his hand to his head. The windowbefore his sight was but "a glimmeringsquare." He said to himself that the endmust be at hand. Yet it was cruel, cruel,with fame and fortune so near! If only hehad some food, he might summon strength torally -- just for a little while! Impossible thathe should die! And yet without food therewas no choice.Dreaming so of Nora's dinners, thinkinghow one spoonful of a stew such as she oftencompounded would now be his salvation, hebecame conscious of the presence of a strongperfume in the room. It was so familiar thatit seemed like a sub-consciousness, yet hefound no name for this friendly odor for abewildered minute or two. Little by little,however, it grew upon him, that it was theonion -- that fragrant and kindly bulb whichhad attained its apotheosis in the cuisine ofNora Finnegan of sacred memory. He openedhis languid eyes, to see if, mayhap, the planthad not attained some more palpable materialization.Behold, it was so! Before him, in a brownearthen dish, -- a most familiar dish, -- was anonion, pearly white, in placid seas of gravy,smoking and delectable. With unexpectedstrength he raised himself, and reached forthe dish, which floated before him in a halomade by its own steam. It moved towardhim, offered a spoon to his hand, and as heate he heard about the room the rustle ofNora Finnegan's starched skirts, and now andthen a faint, faint echo of her old-time laugh-- such an echo as one may find of the sea inthe heart of a shell.The noble bulb disappeared little by littlebefore his voracity, and in contentmentgreater than virtue can give, he sank backupon his pillow and slept.Two hours later the postman knocked at thedoor, and receiving no answer, forced hisway in. Tig, half awake, saw him enter withno surprise. He felt no surprise when he puta letter in his hand bearing the name of themagazine to which he had sent his short story.He was not even surprised, when, tearing itopen with suddenly alert hands, he foundwithin the check for the first prize -- thecheck he had expected.All that day, as the April sunlight spreaditself upon his floor, he felt his strength grow.Late in the afternoon the Sparrow came back,paler, and more bony than ever, and sank,breathing hard, upon the floor, with his sackof coal."I've been sick," he said, trying to smile."Terrible sick, but I come as soon as I could.""Build up the fire," cried Tig, in a voiceso strong it made the Sparrow start as if astone had struck him. "Build up the fire,and forget you are sick. For, by the shade ofNora Finnegan, you shall be hungry no more!"
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