Page 1 of If Looks Could Kill
Part One
Tabitha—The War Cry(Friday, September 7, 1888)
Commander Maud Ballington Booth had warned me—well, all of us—that Satan would strew trials and adversities in our path to glory. I just never expected one of them to be Pearl Davenport, my roommate and companion soldier in the Salvation Army. Wherever I go, there is Pearl, and wherever Pearl goes, there am I.
I’d arrived in New York on Saturday. I spent Sunday attending rally meetings, then several days training at headquarters. By Wednesday night, I’d been assigned my base camp—the one on the Bowery—and my comrade in arms. Pearl.
I had brought a little present for my soon-to-be sister and absolute forever best friend, as yet unmet, likely to be the maid of honor at my wedding if I ever did marry: a bracelet of small coral beads. Modest and pretty. Not very expensive, but nice.
I handed her the tissue-wrapped package.
Some people look pleased when given a gift. Or, at least, they know how to fake it.
She couldn’t, Pearl explained gravely, indulge in such vanity. However,to please me, she would accept the gift and sell it to feed the poor.
And that was us, just getting started.
Maid ofdishonor at my wedding. Silly, silly me to think joining the Salvation Army would ensure I’d make new friends.
I may have been somewhat snippish toward Pearl after the fourth or so little display of her precious piety. So much for new-roommate sisterly warmth. Grim politeness didn’t last a day before open hostilities broke out. Not for nothing are we called an army.
It was early Friday evening. We’d been companions for forty-six hours. We marched up and down the Bowery and surrounding streets, entering concert saloons and grimy dives before they’d gotten going for the evening, though the saloons were certainly never empty. Dressed in our military uniforms—long blue serge skirts, long matching jackets trimmed in yellow, and poke bonnets—we called people to hear the brass band performing that night at our base camp.
This time, our fortunate host was O’Flynn’s Tavern, which meant that the proprietor and patrons would be Irish Catholic and wouldn’t have any interest in a Salvation Army—or, in other words, a Protestant—message.
Men slowly craned their necks around to look at us. At Pearl.
I might as well get this out of the way. She’d said little, but I felt I could construct her life story: Pearl was a bonny farm lass from a poor but humble family who read their Bible nightly and held each other’s hands at prayer, when they weren’t ladling broth down the gullets of the sick and elderly. She was pure and holy, but with a feisty streak that fit her Army calling, and as pretty as Little Bo Peep. Strawberry blond curls and rosy cheeks. Her soul was clad in a blue gingham frock. Little lambs gamboled at her feet. (The feet of her soul. Never mind.) I didn’t know what “gamboling” looked like—not many sheep in my city home—but that’s what sheep would do around Pearl. Angels probably did too. These men at the bar would gambol if it meant they could keep company with Pearl, except that Pearl wascemented, head to toe, to Jesus, who is almost as effective as a squinty-eyed maiden aunt at keeping male suitors at bay. My aunt Lorraine thwarted my chances of winning the only boy I thought I could love in high school, not that those chances were great, mind you; in my case, I didn’t blame Jesus.
Where was I?
As always: Pearl. Right now: O’Flynn’s Tavern. Staring men. I’ll proceed.
O’Flynn’s was your basic Lower East Side tavern, the bottom floor of a tenement on a side street, below pavement level. The men looked like they’d put in a long day’s grimy work.
The barkeep was young, with a wiry frame and a thick shock of dark hair. He was handsome, in spite of the toothpick jawing away at the corner of his mouth, which thing I never could abide. He took in Pearl and me as though he thought, Well, now we’re in for some fun.
“You’re all invited, gentlemen,” declared Pearl, “to tonight’s Hallelujah Spree. Eight o’clock at the Salvation Army outpost beneath Steve Brodie’s saloon on the Bowery.”
Silence greeted this announcement.
The undaunted Pearl went on. “Tonight’s meeting will be better than any show on earth.”
“What’ve you got,” said a grizzled older man, “a circus?”
“Bigger than a circus,” cried my companion. “We’ll have music and singing, and a marching band, and preaching that’ll curl your hair!” This drew some laughs.
“That’d be quite a job, Ronnie,” said the barkeep, “seeing as you’ve got none.”
His voice lilted like a true Irishman’s. Musical.
We sang them a hymn, “I’m a Soldier Bound for Glory.”
I love Jesus, hallelujah!
I love Jesus, yes, I do;
I love Jesus, he’s my Savior,
