aif from Mott Street cast anchor is called
Randall's Island, and there its stay ends, or begins. The chances are
that it ends, for with an ash barrel filling its past and a foundling
asylum its future, a baby hasn't much of a show. Babies were made to
be hugged each by one pair of mother's arms, and neither white-capped
nurses nor sleek milch cows fed on the fattest of meadow-grass can
take their place, try as they may. The babies know that they are
cheated, and they will not stay.

THE CHRISTENING IN BOTTLE ALLEY

All Bottle Alley was bidden to the christening. It being Sunday, when
Mulberry Street was wont to adjust its differences over the cards and
the wine-cup, it came "heeled," ready for what might befall. From
Tomaso, the ragpicker in the farthest rear cellar, to the Signor
Undertaker, mainstay and umpire in the varying affairs of life, which
had a habit in The Bend of lapsing suddenly upon his professional
domain, they were all there, the men of Malpete's village. The baby
was named for the village saint, so that it was a kind of communal
feast as well. Carmen was there with her man, and Francisco Cessari.

If Carmen had any other name, neither Mulberry Street nor the Alley
knew it. She was Carmen to them when, seven years before, she had
taken up with Francisco, then a young mountaineer straight as the
cedar of his native hills, the breath of which was yet in the songs
with which he wooed her. Whether the priest had blessed their bonds no
one knew or asked. The Bend only knew that one day, after three years
during which the Francisco tenement had been the scene of more than
one jealous quarrel, not, it was whispered, without cause, the
mountaineer was missing. He did not come back. From over the sea The
Bend heard, after a while, that he had reappeared in the old village
to claim the sweetheart he had left behind. In the course of time new
arrivals brought the news that Francisco was married and that they
were living happily, as a young couple should. At the news Mulberry
Street looked askance at Carmen; but she gave no sign. By tacit
consent, she was the Widow Carmen after that.

The summers passed. The fourth brought Francisco Cessari, come back to
seek his fortune, with his wife and baby. He greeted old friends
effusively and made cautious inquiries about Carmen. When told that
she had consoled herself with his old rival, Luigi, with whom she was
then living in Bottle Alley, he laughed with a lig