New York - The Novel

approached, Mary said: “We’d better find a place to stay the night.”
    But Gretchen didn’t seem to hear her.
    They saw a great flare of fire arise from the direction of the Bowery, where Gretchen’s children were. Gretchen gasped, and Theodore looked grave. Mary thought it best to say nothing.
    The sun was coming grimly down over the harbor when an old man walked up to them.
    “I got a boat. Wife’s over there.” He indicated the area by South Street. “Soon as it’s dark, I’ll be going over. I can take you if you want.”

    It was strange, being rowed across the East River in the dark. Ahead, the houses of the city were mostly shuttered, therefore dark. Many of the gas lamps in the street were also out—though leaking dangerous gas, no doubt. All over the city, the glow of fires could be seen, and the faint crackling sounds and the smell of their smoke drifted over the water.
    But the South Street waterfront was quiet now, and they were able to tie up the boat and clamber out. Theodore gave the old man several dollars for his kindness. Though Gretchen protested, Theodore and Mary persuaded her to let him go to her house near the Bowery, while Mary took her to Sean’s saloon, which was not far off. “If there’s one place that will be safe down there, it’ll be Sean’s,” Mary pointed out.
    Sean was just locking up when they reached him, and he ushered them quickly inside, not best pleased to see them.
    “I thought you were safe on Coney Island,” he said. But he understood. “A mother goes to her children,” he said to Gretchen with a shrug. “What can you do?”
    Half an hour later, Theodore arrived. The children were at their grandparents’ house. “I can get you there safely,” he told his sister.
    As they left, he turned to Mary.
    “We’ll be speaking again, Mary, when this is all over,” he said softly.
    “Perhaps,” she said.
    Not that he wouldn’t go through with it. If she went round to his studio,she was sure he would. But things had been different, out on Coney Island, and she was back in the city now. Back in her usual world. Well, she’d see.
    The immediate question was, where should she go now?
    “You’d better stay here,” Sean told her. When she said she wanted to go to Gramercy Park, he reiterated: “I don’t know what’s going on up there, but you’re definitely safer with your own family here.”
    But the Masters were her family now really, though she didn’t say it, and she told him she wanted to go uptown all the same. So with no good grace, Sean escorted her. The approach to Gramercy Park had to be cautious, and as they came to Irving Place it was obvious that there had been trouble there. Broken glass and debris littered the whole area. Sean had heard that Twenty-first Street, on the north side of the square, was barricaded. When they reached the quiet square from its western side, they found their way barred by a patrol, not of rioters, but of residents of Gramercy Park, well armed with pistols and muskets. These men didn’t know Sean, but one of them did recognize Mary. And after insisting that she part from her brother at the patrol point, he personally took her to the door of the Masters’ house and roused them. Sean waited until he knew she was safely in.
    Mrs. Master herself came from her room at once. In the kitchen she made her drink some hot chocolate.
    “Now you must go straight to bed, Mary,” she insisted, “and you can tell me all about your adventures in the morning.”

    But Mary didn’t tell her adventures in the morning. Whether it was the heat, the shock of what she’d just seen, or some other cause, during that night she began to feel feverish. The next morning, she was shivering and burning up. Mrs. Master herself nursed her, making her drink liquids and placing cool compresses on her head. “Don’t talk now, Mary,” she said, when Mary tried to thank her. “We’re just glad you’re safely home.”
    So Mary was not aware of the burnings and killings that continued all over the city that day. She did not know that Brooklyn, too, had erupted into violence on the waterfront where she’d been, or that there had been killings down most of the East River. Only after her fever had broken, and she awoke feeling hungry on Thursday morning, did she learn that the troops had arrived at last, that they were scattering the rioters with fusillades,and that Gramercy Park itself was now being protected with howitzers.
    The terrible