A Christmas Story

Mary Kyle Dallas

It was Christmas-day, 18—, and among those who trod the busy streets of great New York was a man one scarcely could have passed without some notice: a man with an under-jaw that was ferocious; a man with beetling-eyebrows and glittering black eyes, and a hard redness of cheek; shoulders like Robin Hood’s, “a cloth yard measure from tip to tip,” and six feet at least in his boots; a man of might and pluck. It was a pity that he had put those qualities to the uses he had plainly put them to. It was a pity that, at thirty years of age, this man could not have remembered, had he desired to do so, one worthy deed, one honest piece of labor honestly paid for, even one kindly deed, such as ordinary men do out of mere good-nature every day of their lives. 

Somehow he had come by the name of Ishmael—certainly not by christening. It was the fittest name for him that could have been chosen. His hand had been against every man, and every man’s hand against him, from the time when he stole “barbers’ poles” from the candy women until those years in which he had been “committed” and “sent up” under every alias under the sun. Even his babyhood had nothing gentle in it to remember. His mother was a drunken jade, who taught him to pick pockets and to swear. His first home was a loathsome cellar, with a stagnant pool in the center.

Since his boyhood days, he had committed every crime under the sun, and under the moon, and being no fool, had made his mark in his own select circle. He always had enough to eat, and too much to drink; often exhibited gorgeous garments, glittering watch chains and kid gloves. He took more silver to the “melters” than any other house-breaker among that gentleman’s customers; and awed policemen into blindness, and detectives into silence, by… Read More