The curse of gold

The shanty to which Mary Margaret conducted her guest stood in a vacant lot, high up in the city. It was a rustic affair, composed of boards mingled with the odds and ends from old buildings, that Michael Dillon had been engaged in demolishing during his experience as a laboring man. Indeed, Michael was a very favorable specimen of metropolitan squatter sovereignty, and had succeeded in securing no inconsiderable means of creature comfort around him, though another man was owner of the soil. He had managed, when out of work, to wall in a little patch of land, in a rude, loose way, it is true, which he denominated the garden, and some dozen or two of fine cabbages, as many hills of potatoes, and a cucumber vine, where great, plethoric, yellow cucumbers were ripening for seeds, gave color and force to Michael’s assumption.

In addition to these substantials, Mary Margaret had contributed her share of the useful and picturesque by planting nasturtians all along the low, stone wall, which clothed the rude structure with a sheet of gorgeous blossoms, and gave it the look of an immense garland flung upon the ground.

Thus hedging her husband’s usefulness in with flowers, the province of a true woman, Mary Margaret had helped to win a gleam of the beautiful from the rude, stony soil from which Michael strove to wrest a portion of their daily food.

I have often thought that true goodness, in a woman, at least, is always accompanied with glimmerings of fine taste. Certain it is, Mary Margaret had managed to impart no common show of rustic effect to her little, board shanty. Its door and simple window were entwined with morning-glories and scarlet runners that took the morning sunshine beautifully, and on a rainy day shed gleams of red and purple all over the front of the shanty, tangling themselves and peeping out in unexpected crevices even among the slabs on the roof. Indeed, they encroached on the province of a mockorange, that for two years had kept possession of the roof, and the sturdy vine was obliged to drop its golden fruit among the purple and red bells of the morning-glory, and even to creep off to the back of the shanty, where no one could see the richness and symmetry of its fruits.

Then there was a sweet-briar bush indigenous to the soil, at one end of her dwelling, which Mary Margaret had pruned and caressed into profuse luxuriance; though it was dark, the scent of this bush greeted Catharine as she approached the shanty; with this pleasant sensation she entered her new home almost cheerfully.

The shanty was divided by a board partition into two small rooms, not so untidy as to be repulsive, but rather close to one entering from the fresh night air. The anteroom contained a bed, in which Mary Margaret’s sterner half lay sound asleep, after a hard day’s toil beneath the hod.

“Whist a bit, while I light the lamp,” said Mary Margaret, raking the embers in a portable furnace so hurriedly together that the sparks flew all around her, “let the ould man slape his fill; he must be up and at work by six in the morning.”

Catharine hardly drew her breath, for she was seized with terror lest the sleeping man should awake and resent her intrusion into his dwelling.

“Sit down fornent the furnace, while I boil a sup of water for the tay,” whispered the hostess, kindling her tin lamp; “jist give Michael’s coat and hat a toss and take the chair yersel’; faix! ye look tired and white enough for anything.”

Catharine sat down, for she was indeed quite exhausted, and relieved of the anxiety that had tortured her so long, she almost fell asleep while Mary Margaret made her tea, and cut the loaf which had been carefully put aside for the family breakfast.

There was not much refinement in Mary Margaret’s method of serving up her meals; but she certainly made an effort to render things rather genteel than otherwise. A clean sheet, taken from a pile of clothes ready to be sent home, was folded twice and laid on the table for a cloth, and Mary brought forth an old china cup in an earthenware saucer, which she garnished with a pewter spoon, as an especial honor to her guest.

As for herself, she sipped her portion of the “tay” daintily from a little tin cup that belonged to the youngest child.

With all its drawbacks, this was a delicious meal to poor Catharine, and she partook of it with a sense of gratitude so full and gushing that it amounted almost to happiness. Two or three times she turned her eyes upon Mary Margaret and made an effort to thank her, but the words were lost in a glow of emotions, and she could only falter out,—

“Oh, Mrs. Dillon, how I want to thank you for all this, but no human being ever was so poor, I have not even words.”

She spoke with some energy, and before Mrs. Dillon could protest against all this waste of gratitude, which she was just attempting, a cry arose from the bed on one side of Dillon, which was echoed by a half-smothered response from under the blankets close by the wall.

Catharine started to her feet. The faintest cry of an infant was enough to thrill every drop of blood in her veins.

“Whose—whose child is that?” she inquired, breathlessly; “surely I heard two voices!”

“In course ye did, and why not?” said Margaret, with a baby under one arm, while she plunged about among the blankets for the little creature next the wall. “Come out here, little felly, and show yer blue eyes to the lady. Isn’t he a beauty, out and out?”

Catharine held out her arms for the child, who turned his great blue eyes wonderingly upon the lamp, while the poor young creature was striving to fix them on herself, for her very soul yearned toward the little creature. But the child was obstinate, and gave itself up to admiration of the lamp, while she sat gazing on it through a mist of tears, so sadly, wrapped in fond sorrow, that you would have wept at the very attitude.

“Whose—whose is it?” she asked; “both cannot be yours.”

“Ye’re right in that entirely,” answered Margaret, pouring some milk into the tin cup she had been drinking from and placing it on the embers in the furnace. “It’s the nurse maid ye have.”

“And who is its mother?” faltered Catharine, pressing the child fondly to her bosom, and laying her pale cheek to its warm little face.

“Ye remember the poor young crathur that had the cot next to yours, and the baby they took away from yez?”

“Yes, oh, yes.”

“She died, poor, misfortunate soul! and only that I wouldn’t stand by and see the baby starve to death by her side, it might have been buried on her bosom. I had a fight wid the nurse, bad luck to her! but the doctor stood by me, and so the little thing got a fair start in the world before he came to you. Faix! but she’s a wicked crathur, that nurse.”

“I believe she was—I am sure of it!” answered Catharine, in a mournful undertone. “Do you know I sometimes think that my own poor little baby might have lived, if she had taken care of it? Such a large, beautiful—ah, if it had but lived—if it had but lived, nothing could make me quite miserable! Mrs. Dillon, poor, helpless, and deserted as I am, I would give the whole world, if it were mine, only to hold his child in my arms as I do this poor, little motherless baby. He has left me—he has left me, but I know that I should worship his child.”

“Hist, now hist, or ye’ll be after wakin’ the old man, though he does not sleep like a pavin’-stone in general; and ye’ll be afther breakin’ the heart in me busom, too, if ye take so on. Here, feed the poor baby wid a dhrop of the warm milk, while I give this little spalpeen a turn. It’ll aise your heart, never fear!”

Here Mary Margaret began shaking her boy, and scolding him heartily for greediness, bringing various charges against him as a young spalpeen and a thaif of the worldt. In this torrent of superfluous words, the tears that had been crowding to her eyes were dispersed, and she sat up, a strong-minded woman once more.

“Ye asked me about the baby there,” she said, at length, without appearing to notice the tears that filled poor Catharine’s eyes. “That hathenish nurse was nigh gettin’ the upper hands of me. You remember how she let on to the doctor that it was drinkin’ I’d been when the heavy sickness fell on me after takin’ a sup of yer medicine, and he, poor innocent, belaved her, an’ took away the child that I was fond of a’most as if it was my own flesh and blood.” Catharine looked up and inquired how it came about that she got the child back again.

“This is the way,” answered Margaret. “I did not like the woman that nurse Kelly gave the little orphan to when ye begged so hard to keep it. The heart in my bosom felt like a cold stone when I saw her gathering it up like a bundle under her shawl. There was starvation and murther in her face; more than that, she was faregathing wid nurse Kelly, an’ that was another rason agin her. Well, wid these feelins I couldn’t eat or sleep wid thinkin’ of the child, for it seemed to me as plain as the sun that some harm was coming to the little soul. So afore they sent me away from the hospital I inquired, aisy, ye know, where the woman that had got me baby lived, and it turned out that an acquaintance of my own was in the same tinament. When a week was over, I went to visit my acquaintance—d’ye see—and in an aisy sort o’ way asked about the woman and the baby. It was just as I had thought; the woman was niver at home, but went out to her reglar day’s work, laying the poor little orphan all alone in a basket, sound asleep, in consequence of the laud’num and them soothin’-drops. I went into the room to see it, and there it lay in an old basket on a heap of rags, wid its little eyes shut, and a purple ring under ’em. It had famished away till its own mother, if she had lived, wouldn’t a known it.

“Well, I couldn’t stand that, so without sayin’ a word I up an’ takes the crathur in my arms, and walks off to the Alms house in the Park, and there I laid the child that still slept like a log, down afore the gintlemen that sit there for the good o’ the poor, ivery day of the blessed year, and says I,—

“‘Are ye magestrates and gintlemen,’ says I, ‘to sit here while the poor orphan childer that ye should be fathers to,’ says I, ‘are bein’ starved and poisoned with black dhrops under yer honorable noses?’ says I. Wid that, afore the gintlemen could say a word for themselves, I unfolded the rags that the baby was wrapped in, and laid its little legs an’ arms huddled together like a fagot afore ’em, and says I agin,—

“‘Look here, if yese got the heart for it, an’ see for yerselves.’

“Thin one of the gintlemen up an’ spoke for himself, and says he,—

“‘The nurses are all compelled to bring their children here for inspection once in two weeks, an’ the time has but just gone by. How can this be?’ an’ he was mighty sorry an’ put out, I could see that plain enough.

“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘that’s the truth,’ says I, ‘but it’s aisy enough to borry a show-baby when ivery house where these poor orphans go is runnin’ over wid ’em, and young babies are all alike as peas in a pod,’ says I, ‘and it must be a cute man to know any of ’em from one time to another. Just wait a bit,’ says I, ‘if ye don’t belave me, and I’ll show you the very baby that was brought here in the place of this. It’s a plump, hearty little felly, and belongs to an acquaintance of my own.’

“‘Can this be true?’ says one of the gintlemen to another.

“‘True as the gospel,’ says I, spakin’ up boldly, ‘ye’ve been praisen that hathen of a nurse for a baby that didn’t belong til ye, and this poor thing has been starved down to nothin’.’

“‘Well,’ says the gintleman, for he was a rale gintleman, says he, ‘I’ll send an officer for this woman, and she shall never, to her dying day, have another child from this department. But what can we do wid the poor infant? We must send for a nurse that can be trusted at once.’

“Thin my heart ris into my mouth, and I hugged the baby to me, and says I, wid the tears in my eyes, says I, ‘Let me have the child to nurse, I’ll be a mother til it, an’ more too, if that’ll satisfy ye.’

“Well, the long and short of it was, they thanked me kindly for comin’, and give me the baby, wid a dollar a week for takin’ care of it. So when the nurse came home, expectin’ to find it dead in its basket, there was nothin’ for her but a bundle of rags, and a perlice officer to take her down to the Park.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed Catharine, with a burst of gratitude, kissing the child again and again. “It was a brave act, Mrs. Dillon, and the child will live to bless you for it as—as I do.”

“In course he will,” replied Mary Margaret, “for it’s just a miracle the saints might wonder at that he lived at all. At first, ye see, considerin’ his starvin’ condition, I just give me own little felly the could shoulder, and turned him over to the tin porriger; but he got on well enough, niver fear; and the little stranger begun to thrive as ye niver seen in yer born days.”

“He has indeed found a kind mother,” said Catharine, thoughtfully. “But how long will they let you keep him?”

“Well, it’s two years that they put the babies to nurse. I’m tould,” answered Mary, reluctantly.

“And after that?”

“Thin they are sent up to the Almshouse, and after that bound out; if they happen to be killing purty like this one, maybe some rich gintleman or lady up and adopts ’em and makes a lord of ’em entirely. Some day you and I will see them blue eyes a-looking at us through a carriage-windy, and I’ll be bound he’ll bow and smile as if we were the real quality itself.”

Catharine became very thoughtful during this prophecy, and turned her eyes away from the child, as if its innocent face gave her pain.

“Niver mind,” interposed her hostess, interpreting her look with that subtile magnetism with which one true womanly heart reads another.

“A great many things may happen in two years, with the blessings of the saints, so don’t be getting down-hearted; there’s a God above all!”

“I know it,” answered Catharine, gazing with sad tenderness on the child; “but it makes my heart ache to think what may become of this poor baby.”

“There now, hand it over, and go to your bed with the childer; it’s gettin’ down in the mouth ye are, and all for not eatin’ a hearty male whin ye had it to the fore,” exclaimed Mary Margaret, depositing her offspring by its sleeping father, and reaching out her arms for the other child. “There, there, go yer ways now; just push the childer aisy a one side, an’ make yerself contint on half their straw bed on the floor, and a comfortable bed may ye find it.”

Catharine arose to obey this hospitable command, but Mary Margaret called her back.

“See here; isn’t it as like the holy cross now as two paes?” she said, putting the soft hair back from the baby’s temple, and revealing a crimson mark that really had a cruciform appearance, small and delicate as it was.

“Isn’t he born to be a saint now!” exclaimed the Irish woman, exultingly.

“Or a martyr, perhaps,” said Catharine; and she walked sadly into the little room pointed out by her hostess.