flA
Misslerr
J
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
ILL
MISS JERRY
m'fA
MISS JERRY:::BY
ALEXANDER BLACK
WITH THIRTY-SEI/EN
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
LIFE PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK MDCCCXCV
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE
< nr > HE text of "Miss Jerry " was not originally
designed for print, but for oral delivery in
partnership -with the series of 250 photographs
from life, with which it formed what I have called
a "picture play. ' ' The original draft of the story
was but little longer than the reading version used
in public ; and although it seemed probable that I
might at some time arrange the story for book
publication, it was not until the unexpectedly defi
nite success of the picture play brought with it
repeated requests to print, that the availability of
the existing draft came into consideration at all.
It was urged that the colloquial, story-telling cast
which I had sought to give to the text, in view of
its use in oral delivery before audiences, could
not be regarded as disqualifying : but despite this
opinion and many kindly comments on the story,
as &itch, from critics and correspondents, it was
1782173
PREFACE
impossible to prepare " Miss Jerry " for pub
lication -without certain changes, necessitated by
the fact that in the picture play I tell much of the
story -with the pictures.
And here it may not be out of place to explain
that " Miss Jerry ' ' was cast as a play is cast, and
the successive scenes photographed phase by phase
from the living people. The interiors, excepting
only the interior of Mr. Chauncey M. Depew's
private office at the Grand Central Station, are
fictitious ; that is to say, they were devised under
the skylight of a studio. In the street scenes I
introduced the backgrounds of real life, bringing
the fictitious action of the story against the actual
lineaments of the city In some instances the
pictures preceded the writing of the text, and in
others the text was modified, for the purposes of
the picture play, to bring about a more perfect
harmony between both than would have been pos
sible had the text been fixed, and the photography
a form of illustrating.
The 250 pictures prepared in this way are thrown
upon a sheet by the aid of the stereopticon, dissolv
ing one into another at the rate of three or four to
the minute, the oral story moving concurrently
PREFACE
with the picture story as the eye thus receives it.
In such a plan much of description may be omit
ted from the reading version, since the pictures
to a great extent tell what the characters look
like and do, while the monologue concerns itself
more especially with what they think and say. The
illustrations to this volume represent a selection
from the series of pictures, with two scenes the
first talk between Jerry and Pink, and the final
scene between Jerry and Hamilton approximately
complete.
In this triangular partner ship between the art of
fiction, the art of the tableau vivant and the sci
ence of photography, I have sought to test certain
possibilities of illusion, with this aim always be
fore me, that the illusion should not, because it
need not and could not safely, be that of photo
graphs from an acted play, nor that of an artist' s
illustrations, but the illusion of reality. If it is
the function of art to translate nature, it is the
privilege of photography to transmit nature. Thus,
I have sought to illustrate art with life.
I think that I may be pardoned for expressing
in this place my gratitude to those who, in the
heat- of the hottest of hot summers, underwent
PREFACE
the discomforture of participation in the making
of the first picture play. I -wish to make grateful
acknowledgment to that wittiest of orators and
most gracious of wits, Mr. Depew ; to Official
Weather Forecaster Elias B. Dunn, who since
the interview on the top of the Equitable building
has been translated to that " higher tower to the
south," and to Superintendent Martin of the
great bridge. For assistance in casting the story
I am indebted to the President of the American
Academy of the Dramatic Arts, Mr. Franklin S.
Sargent.
ALEXANDER BLACK,
CHARACTERS OF THE STORY:
GERALDINE HOLBROOK, the Princess of Panther Mine.
MRS. REMSEN-HOLT, a Young Club Woman.
GRACIE DEMOND, the Rose of the Rockies.
OLIVIA PRATTSBY, a Retired Bud.
Miss DOROTHY WALSH, a Social Favorite.
Miss MAUD RUTHERFORD, of a very good family.
MRS. DYCKMAN, who gives a ball.
THE WRITER OF THE LETTER.
KATE, a Servant.
MR. RICHARD HOLBROOK, of the Panther Mine.
MR. WALTER HAMILTON, of the New York Daily Dynamo.
J. SYLVESTER WARD, Pres. of the Long Creek Mine Co.
" PINK" LOPER, of the Mammoth Museum.
FREDERICK PRENTISS, a New Bear.
MR. DYCKMAN, husband of Mrs. Dyckman.
THE ENGLISH CRITIC.
THE WAITER OF THE MONASTERY.
OLD PRATTSBY, who still insists upon dancing.
TIME : WINTER AND SPRING OF 1893-4.
SCENE : NEW YORK CITY.
MISS JERRY
1
THE letter that Richard Holbrook had re
ceived from Colorado contained some
bad news. It was one of those letters
which when you read them twice sound worse
the second time. The cloud of approaching
disaster had fallen upon the Panther Mine.
There seemed no longer to be any hope.
When he went into the West with his
young wife, after the business crash of '73, Hol
brook had no romantic ideas of fortune mak
ing. He had expected a hard fight; and he
found it. Harder to bear than the stress of
those early struggles had been the stroke of
death that left the young miner alone with his
baby girl.
Geraldine ! She was the only girl in the
county then. They called her the Princess of
Panther Mine.
MISS JERRY
For her sake he had regretted the rough
life at the mines and the cow camps. For her
sake, and for the sweet memory of that brave
young wife, he had performed prodigies of
labor, and beside the evening lamp he had
planned the child's lessons for the following
day.
How he had missed Geraldine, and how
the camp had missed her, when she went
away to the academy!
MISS JERRY
On returning to New York, after spending
fifteen years beyond the Mississippi, he had
taken a house in one of those quiet cross
streets just north of Washington Square. The
elevated railroad rattled across one end of the
thoroughfare, and from the opposite direction,
in subdued echoes, came the roar of Broadway.
But West Tenth Street, almost staidly dull, al
ways had the air of scorning to listen to these
vulgar noises.
And now, after five years in New York,
Holbrook began to feel the necessity of mak
ing some radical changes in his way of living.
He flattered himself that he had kept from
Geraldine a knowledge of the awkward situ
ation in his New York investments within the
past year. Yet it was not possible much
longer to conceal from her the distressing
truth, and this brought a bitterness that nothing
else could have contributed to the crisis. It was
hard to confront her with adversity ; as hard,
it seemed to him, as if she had been less cer
tain to bear it with cheerfulness.
When she surprised him in his painful rev
erie he started guiltily, slipped the letter into
3
MISS JERRY
his pocket, and muttered some commonplace
about being late for the office. But she read
the new trouble in his face.
"Father," she said, "why don't you tell
me all about everything?"
"Oh, never mind about everything, Jerry.
Don't bother your head about me."
And he kissed her and went out.
She saw the Colorado postmark on the en
velope that lay upon the table.
4
MISS JERRY
" So," she thought, "there is trouble at the
mine, too ! "
The thought of trouble did not daze her.
Her whole training had fostered her self-re
liance, strengthened her for emergencies, and
at the first signs of distress which her father
had shown some months before, she had per
mitted herself to think again of an early ambi
tion to do something in the world on her
own account.
Her father was not an old man by any means,
but his health was broken, and if disaster should
actually come he could never fight the battle over
again. " It is my turn now," she thought. There
seemed to be nothing in the way but his pride,
and she was confident of overcoming that ob
stacle.
The thought made her cheerful. "I will go
to-day," she was thinking. " I will go and meet
the world on a new footing. And it will be bet
ter to go before the trouble grows any worse."
It surprised her to find how easily she had
persuaded herself to believe that her resolution
w.as entirely rational. If she realized the extent
to which she was using the suspicion of ap-
5
MISS JERRY
preaching trouble as an excuse for entertaining
an ambitious idea, the suggestion did not seem to
be disqualifying.
A noise in the hall made the girl turn, and at
the door of the library appeared Kate, the maid,
her face betraying unmistakable excitement.
"There's a pirate in the hall, Miss Holbrook! "
"A what?"
"A pirate, Miss. Shure he has long hair, an'
a great hat, an' all of him is quare. An' it's
yourself he is askin' for, Miss; but
" Did he give you any name ? "
"An' he says, 'tell her Pink,' he says, ' Pink,'
an' I didn't howld the rest of it, Miss."
" Pink!" cried Geraldine. "Not Pink Loper?"
"The same, I think, Miss."
Geraldine was about to follow the girl into the
hall, when the strange figure of a man appeared
at the door a man of wild appearance, suggest
ing the second heavy villain in a Western melo
drama, who lounged in with a strange mixture
of assurance and diffidence in his manner, and
who drawled, " I guess this is Jerry."
"Yes, it is!" exclaimed the girl. "And is
this you, Pink ?"she added, extending her hand,
6
MISS JERRY
which the man, to the distress of the maid,
grasped fervently. With increased astonish
ment Kate heard the "pirate" say, "Well, I'll
be hanged if I'd knowed yer, Miss Jerry, you've
got to be such a woman! "
"But, Pink," demanded Geraldine, scanning
Pink's buckskin coat, leather breeches and som
brero, "what on earth are you doing in this
rig ? "
~"Rig?" repeated Pink. "Advertisin' the
7
MISS JERRY
show, I guess. Anyhow, I ain't got no other
hat that's fit to wear just about now. I'll have
t' tell yer about it. But shoot me! I can't git
used t' this bein' you! can't hardly believe it! "
"And you look so funny, Pink! Worse than
Charley Allen used to."
"Yes, I suppose I do. But I'm right in this
now. I I suppose y' heard about my gettin'
married to Mary ? "
" Yes, soon after I went away."
MISS JERRY
"An' y' know what kind of a shot Mary
was ?"
' ' Yes, indeed. A much better shot than cook. "
" Well, somehow she got it inter 'er head to
go inter a show, and we got over to Denver and
then to Omaha; an' me an' her got up a shoot-
in' act a regular museum act, y' know an'
Mary's a corker, 'n no mistake! An' I can make
a pretty good stagger myself. Of course it's
dead easy at four or five yards, but we chuck a
9
MISS JERRY
great bluff, an' it goes. Anyhow, we was at
Chicago durin' the Fair, an' now we're on the
Bowery down at the Mammoth. I had your
address all the time from Parker, an' always in
tended t' look y' up if I ever come to New
York."
"And is this why you let your hair grow so
long ? "
"Sure! An' this is why I wear this hat; an'
this is why I wear this hull business. Great
fake, ain't it? It's an ad for the show; but I
did feel kinder queer tacklin' your door bell."
"And does your wife wear
"Not much! She's got a good fake for the
show, but she wouldn't wear nothin' but stylish
clothes on the street, an' when she's got 'er
war-paint on, Mary's a peach! She's got very
high toned lately. She's a remarkable woman."
Pink paused for a moment. " Y' know I'm
called Mortimer on the bills Mortimer De Mond
and she's Gracie. Y' know how it goes the
De Monds, Gracie and Mortimer. Maybe y' seen
the show, an' didn't think about it bein' us ?"
"No," said Geraldine, "I never saw your
show."
MISS JERRY
" Y' oughter; its great! Mary used to be the
Pearl o' the Plains, then the Sylph o' the Sierras.
Now she's the Rose o' the Rockies. Yes, she's a
remarkable woman."
"I wonder if you remember, Pink, that Mary
is the first woman I ever remember seeing ? "
"Well, y' got over it."
"I was a little mite of a girl who didn't re
member her mother, and who had grown big
enough to run around on her own account, to
watch the round-ups and ride a horse
" Yes," interrupted Pink, "I've seen yer ride
a broncho like a young buck when yer wasn't
bigger'n a minute."
" And I had grown up that way, seeing plenty
of men and cattle, but never a woman, until one
day in a party coming over the hills to the new
camp I saw a being in skirts riding a mule. She
was a young woman, dressed in blue calico and
wearing a sun-bonnet; and I remember asking
father if he thought I would ever grow up to
look as pretty as that. Yes," pursued Geraldine,
as Pink turned his eyes toward her, " and that
was Mary Kimes."
& I wish I'd got out of it as easy as you
MISS JERRY
did," said Pink, staring absently before him.
Geraldine dared to laugh at him. "Why,
Pink, you don't seem to be happy about Mary."
"Well, I ain't altogether," returned Pink,
"that's a fact. She's too remarkable a woman
for me. An' I can tell yer, Jerry, if I ever was
bereaved, an' got a good, square chance to marry
again, yer can gamble on it, I wouldn't take up
next time with a dead shot."
" But Pink, you are in no danger of getting
12
MISS JERRY
shot, are you?" demanded Jerry, with an ill-
concealed twinkle.
" Probably I ain't ; but it makes me nervous.
She's a woman that kin git mad quick as light-
nin' and y' never kin give 'er any talk."
Jerry said she remembered something about
her nearly killing a man for saying that she was
the worst cook in Colorado.
"That's it; an' you never know when she
might make a thunderin' big fool of 'erself.
'3
MISS JERRY
How's Mr. Holbrook ? " asked Pink, changing
the subject; and the two rambled off into remi
niscent talk, in which Pink took a grim delight,
that expressed itself for the most part in an ab
sorbed attention, and a nervous movement under
his straggling mustache.
" Pink! " cried Geraldine, in a burst of stirring
recollection, "do you remember the day I fell
out of the bucket near the bottom of the shaft,
and how you and Miles brought me out ? and
how the Creeper cried when he thought I was
killed ? And do you remember the day the
English lord came to see the camp and asked
who I was, and you said ' that's the Princess of
Panther Mine ' ? "
"Yes, I do; an' I remember the day that Banks
was shot, that you got a hole in yer hat for
tryin' t' tell Banks that Thorp was gunnin' for
Mm."
" I had almost forgotten that."
"Yer come mighty near not bein' able t' re
member it. But that wasn't the only close call
yer had."
"And of course you remember the day I got
into a corner of the corral and climbed up there
14
MISS JERRY
to escape the cattle and stood there scream
ing
" Yes, yer did yell."
" And calling for some one to get me down,
and all the cattle in the world seeming to be
jammed right there ready to trample me to death,
and the Boston man dashing for me just in
time ? And you remember the day of the riot over
the Webster gang, how you and Wilkinson, and
father, and I were perched above the cutting
'5
MISS JERRY
when the crowd swept by within a few yards of
us, yelling and shooting right and left; and how
father fell back with a bullet in his shoulder,
while I crouched there beside him crying and
holding fast to that miserable little dog? And
the winter before, Pink will you ever forget
the great six days' storm and the burying of the
camp ? "
" I remember that every time I get on a large
hunger."
" How white the world was when we caught
a glimpse of it ! It all comes back the days of
worry, the gloom of the men, father's queer look
of distress as he watched me; the discussion as
to reaching the other camp, and my getting on
the snowshoes and being lifted up to start out
on the journey with a long rope fastened about
my waist. How delighted and excited I was!
You remember the slope there, Pink just to the
north of the camp ? "
"Yes; an' you pickin' yer way down like a
sparrer."
" I was so light, you see, that I could go where
none of you dared venture; and you were all
watching as long as you possibly could until I
16
MISS JERRY
had scrambled slowly along over the slope and
had gone down beyond the low ridge right
over there "
" Yes, I know, like I was lookin' at it now."
"And then father tugged at the line because
he was afraid I had gone through the crust of the
snow until I came in sight again screaming to
him to let me go ; and they gave me more rope,
until
^' Until yer brought back word from the other
'7
MISS JERRY
camp, the best news that a crowd of men with a
lonesome feelin' inside ever got on the face of
this earth."
The talk was interrupted by the street door
bell, and the appearance of a young woman who
came in with the air of a person who is a fre
quent caller, and who did not disguise her aston
ishment at the presence of the other visitor.
Pink acknowledged the introduction with his
best bow, and said " that he must go now, and
that he would come in again."
" I shall be glad to see you, Pink," said Geral-
dine in parting, ' ' and bring Mrs. Loper with you. "
Mrs. Remsen-Holt heard the explanation with
an expression of countenance indicating that if
she had been surprised she might have known
better. "It's just like you, Jerry," she said;
"and it's a wonder to me after all that fuzzy
Western life of yours, that you haven't been
visited by more desperadoes and rough riders of
the rocky road."
"It was a real delight to meet Pink again,"
Geraldine said. " I wouldn't have missed him
for anything. And besides, Pink isn't so very
wild. His long hair is for revenue only, and
18
MISS JERRY
I assure you that he is as good-hearted as his
hair is long."
"I just ran in," resumed Mrs. Holt, " to tell
you that we are organizing a Municipal Govern
ment Club, and that
" Another club ? "
"Yes, an afternoon club, you know; and we
are going to study taxation, and street cleaning,
and primaries; and Mr. Roosevelt has promised
to speak at the first regular meeting. Everybody
is flighted. It will be a great success ; and it's
never been done, you know."
" And to think," sighed Jerry, tragically, " that
I had hoped so confidently to save you ! Mrs.
Holt, this is simply debauchery ! "
"Jerry ! you are so amusing."
"All the same, Mrs. Holt, I look upon you as
a pitiable victim of the club habit. It's an awful
appetite when once it fastens itself upon you.
You start in with one or two clubs a week ; then
you have to take one every day, and after a while
two a day is the least you can get along with.
If I weren't on my way out now
"Jerry ! will you stop and listen ?"
"No, I mus'n't, Mrs. Holt. I've reformed.
'9
MISS JERRY
I don't think I was born for the frivolous life 1
have been trying to lead here in New York. 1
like to frivol, too; it would be lots of fun to
study municipal government, but 1 must get
down to something serious."
Mrs. Holt smiled. " The idea of your settling
down is really droll, Jerry. I should be very
sorry to see you become sedate; and you have
seemed a bit serious lately for you. The Mu
nicipal Government Club is just what you need
to brighten you up. I never forgot what my
first club did for me. You know I was fretful
and peevish, and complained so much, that Papa
said : ' Fanny, you'll have to either get married
or keep a diary.' But I didn't do either. I just
joined a club, and it simply saved me. Of course
when I did get married, clubs became an abso
lute necessity."
"I suppose so," said Jerry; "but I think I shall
worry along with my eight or ten until I have
your better excuse. Which way are you go
ing?"
Mrs. Holt was too busy a woman now-a-days
to waste words in such a matter. " But I shan't
let you bury yourself," she said, as they went out.
MISS JERRY
A few minutes later Jerry was on an elevated
train scurrying in the direction of the City Hall.
The plan which had formed itself in her mind
had begun to seem like a very daring one. As
that plan included an undertaking on her own
account, without any advice or assistance, it was
one that had a natural fascination for a girl of her
training.
As she crossed City Hall Park it occurred to
her that people who might hear of it would be
inclined to say that it was just like Jerry Holbrook
a thought that both amused her and urged her
to hope that it might not turn out awkwardly
altogether. It was an entirely creditable thing,
she had thought, to determine to enter journal
ism, and to do so without letter of introduction,
or any other influence of the kind. But she had
felt much more comfortable going down the
Panther Mine in a bucket than going up the Dy
namo Building in an elevator ; and when she
had advanced so far as one of those paradoxical
doors that tell you the entrance is somewhere
else, she began to feel a little sorry that her
scheme had made it absolutely necessary for her
to-go alone. For a moment she thought of turn-
MISS JERRY
ing and catching the elevator on its way down ;
in another she had opened the right door.
The guardian of the right door was one of those
boys that bloom in newspaper offices and no
where else on the surface of the globe; a boy
precociously versed in the ways of the world,
equally familiar with the tariff and the prize-ring,
tingling with the latest impulses of the English
language, and terrible in his superhuman self-
possession; a boy to admire and to fear; a boy
who inspires a liking without affection, yet whom
no one likes any less because of an occasional
yearning to kick him down stairs.
When Miss Jerry came in the boy asked her,
without looking up, whom she wished to see.
Of course Jerry didn't know whom she wished
to see, and the boy didn't appear to be listening
when she explained her errand as awkwardly as
people do when challenged to explain anything
to a remorseless boy ; but he said at last that he
guessed she had better see Mr. Hamilton, the
City Editor, anyway.
The City Editor was a younger man than Jerry
had expected to see. She had met young re
porters, but had always fancied an editor as a
MISS JERRY
man who had grown old enough to be tired of
knocking round out-of-doors.
This City Editor was young, but if he had been
eighty-three he could not have waited with more
severe repose for Jerry to begin, or have pre
pared a more judicial countenance while she
explained, clumsily and haltingly, that she wanted
to be a newspaper writer.
When she anticipated his question and said
that she had never written a line for a daily
23
MISS JERRY
newspaper in her life, she fancied that she saw a
twinkle of amusement in the City Editor's eyes,
and the suspicion did not please her at all.
When he asked her bluntly what sort of work
she thought of doing, she began to wonder
whether he was not a brute, young as he was.
"I am willing to write about anything," she
said, catching again the irritating glimmer of a
smile, "I am willing to write about anything
but society."
The City Editor looked as if he did not think
any less of her for this prejudice. "And I am
so tired of reading about women," Jerry added,
"that I would rather not write about them in
particular; you know what I mean."
' ' Oh, yes, " said the City Editor, ' ' I know what
you mean." And then he undertook to tell her
that general newspaper writing required con
siderable experience, that the rough and tumble
of reporting and the preparation of special stories
was not exactly the sort of thing that a young
girl was usually fitted for.
" But you have women reporters," she urged.
This he admitted, adding that some of them
had rather a hard time of it.
24
MISS JERRY
"But I am not afraid of anybody," she de
clared; and the City Editor laughed outright.
"Perhaps not in the daytime," he said. "But
think of the night. One of our women writers
has just been going through the police lodging-
houses at two o'clock in the morning. How
would you like that?"
"I wouldn't like it," said Jerry quietly, "but