The curse of gold

I must go back a year or two, and take up an event, which happened during Catharine’s sojourn in the Insane Asylum.

An old man, gray-haired, and with a most bland countenance, cordial and ruddy, lighted by those soft chestnut-brown eyes that are always so pleasant of expression, sat behind his desk in the Almshouse building at the Park. It was visiting-day in his department, when all the orphan infants, put out to nurse by the city, were expected to be brought to the office for inspection, or for such changes as time made necessary.

It was a strange scene, at times painfully revolting, and again full of natural pathos. One after another, these poor little pauper souls were brought in, wrapped in an old shawl or torn blanket, motherless, or worse than motherless,—their very existence the growth of sin, or of misfortunes almost as bitter. The women who carried them were usually but one degree removed from the Almshouse themselves, and became the paid mothers of these miserable children, in order to save their own offspring from the same terrible fate.

Some of these women were kind, and gave themselves lovingly to their infant charges, yielding their hearts to humanity without reservation. These took their seats in the outer office, with quiet and serene faces, folding their orphan babies in their arms, with a soft, motherly instinct that had no thought of the searching eyes turned upon them, but waited serenely in an atmosphere of honest love. Others, cruel and crafty, were anxious only to pass examination, and obtain the money which was to repay the forced succor they had given the forlorn children in their arms. These women were often seized with paroxysms of affection, as they ranged themselves to wait, and fell to caressing the poor infants with revolting fondness, hugging them to bosoms that loathed the contact, and kissing the poor lips from which their cruel hands would gladly have withheld the very food necessary to life.

Among these women, some motherly from nature, others cruel against nature, there came a little Irish woman, plump and rosy, and evidently of a cheerful habit, better clad and better looking every way than her companions. She held a beautiful little boy by the hand, who came reluctantly, lifting his fine eyes to her face with a wondering, anxious look, and dragging back shyly, half-hiding behind her gown, as he approached the crowd of strange women.

The poor creature had evidently been crying. Her eyes were red, and her rosy cheeks tear-stained, while her plump lips seemed laden with suppressed sobs, that threatened to break forth afresh every time her eyes fell upon the boy, who was so anxious to hide himself in her garments.

“Mammy, mammy, take me home; don’t stay here, mammy; let’s go home,” pleaded the boy, pulling her gown with both his plump hands, while she lingered to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I won’t stay; I won’t speak to that man; he makes you cry.”

Mary Margaret could not answer him, but a great sob burst from her lips, and snatching him up, she buried her face in his bosom.

The little fellow drew back, and laid a soft palm on each cheek, while he looked—oh! so lovingly, into her eyes.

“Don’t, mammy, don’t; please don’t—home, go home!” he said, grieved and wondering.

“I can’t, I can’t; they won’t let me take you home again. My heart is broke. Oh! it’s got a pain that’ll last forever. Eddie, my darlint, put your two blissid little hants together, as if ye was prayen’ to the Virgin herself, me boy; and ask the gentleman to let yees go back wid yer own nurse.”

Eddie patted her cheeks again, while his beautiful lips began to quiver, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Yes, yes, don’t cry any more. Eddie will tell him; don’t cry; he will.”

Struggling down from the poor woman’s arms, the little fellow clenched his small white fists, and rubbed the tears from his baby-eyes, half-grieved, half-belligerent, while he marched up to the superintendent, who greeted him with an extended hand, smiling kindly.

“Well, Eddie, my boy, where’s your hand?”

Eddie hid his little clenched fist in the folds of his dress, and received these advances with a defiant pout.

“Mammy wants me to go home, and I will go home!” he said, while his little form swelled and struggled with a rising sob.

“And so you shall, to a nice, big home, where you will have lots of little boys to play with.”

“I don’t want no boys to play with, but Pat and mammy,” answered the little fellow, walking backward toward his nurse.

“But you shall live in a grand, big house.”

“Mammy lives in a grand, big house,” answered the child, quite convinced that his shanty-home was equal to any palace. “I like her grand home!”

“But mammy hasn’t got cherry-trees, and apple-orchards, and meadows full of clover,” said the officer, amused, and yet touched by the child’s resolute air.

“But she’s got morning-glories, and—and red beans, and oh, dear! she’s got everything—she has,” cried the child, with a burst of tearful eloquence.

“Mister,” said Mary Margaret, approaching the officer in her motherly sorrow, “if ye’d only let the little felly stay a bit longer, till he’s big enough to wear jacket and trousers, ye know; he’s backard-like, ye see, and wants good motherly nursin’ more ’n a three months child.”

The officer shook his head, and Mary Margaret looked wofully down upon the little fellow, who was striving to envelop himself in the folds of her calico dress.

“He’s no mother but me, yer honor. It’d kill him intirely to go up yonder with the rest, and have all his beautiful curls cut short, and—and, oh! yer honor, it’ll be the death of us both—it will. Couldn’t ye be merciful this onest? Consither he’s a poor, motherless crathur, and only me to look up to in the wide worlt!”

Again the officer shook his head, but there was relenting and sympathy in his eyes. How could he help it, with that frank, pleading look fixed upon him, and the pretty child peeping out wistfully from the shelter of her garments.

“Indeed, Mrs. Dillon, I am sorry, but we have stretched a point in this case already, in consideration of your affection for the boy. The law is that all children, dependent on the city, must be removed to the institution when they are two years old. Now we know that little Eddie there is almost three, and he must take his chance with the rest.”

Poor Mary Margaret’s countenance fell, and Eddie made a grand effort to draw her away by force.

“Home!” he pleaded, “home, mammy; I will go home!”

“It may be,” said Mary Margaret, determined not to give up while a hope was left. “It may be yer honor thinks it’s the dollar a week I want; and it’s bad enough me and the childer need it, anyhow; but if ye’d but consint, I’d take Eddy, the crathur, for half price, an’ ’d think it a bargain, yer honor. If the old man had a word agin it, d’ ye see, I’d sit up anights, and do another ’xtra gentleman’s washing; it’d be no throuble in life, while I saw his beautiful, curly head peeping up from under the blankets, wid my own two spalpeens on each side, to keep the darlint from falling out of bed, ye know. I’d always manage to get him a sup of new milk, yer honor, and ’d never put in a taste of water, as I do—an’ little blame to me—wid the others.”

Again Mary Margaret paused; she had no other arguments to offer, and her poor, kind heart swelled painfully, when she saw no symptom of yielding in the face of the official.

“I cannot, indeed, Mrs. Dillon. It is out of my power; the child must not remain entirely with you; with so many children of your own, it would be impossible for you to bring him up as he should be; your husband ought not to permit this injudicious kindness.”

Poor Mary Margaret had nothing to answer. She knew well enough her husband, a hard-working man, had trouble enough to supply the clamorous wants of his own children, and that little Eddie, with his beauty and his sweet ways, had never been taught to rough it at home with the rest. Besides, there was a more powerful argument still,—that inexorable officer.

Mary Margaret looked down at the boy, and tears stole into her eyes, slowly blinding her to his wistful little face. She looked at the officer, clasping her hands and bending forward as if he had been the picture of a saint.

“Would ye do it, if I’d just go down on me two bended knees to yer honor—would ye now?”

“I have no power,” answered the man abruptly, bending over the book of records that lay open before him, that the woman might not observe the moisture that crept into his eyes. “I have no power,” he repeated again, abruptly, nay, almost with harshness, for he was afraid to trust himself longer with those two faces turned so imploringly upon him, compelled as he was to act by a rigid law.

Mary Margaret stooped down, and lifting the child in her arms, drew a corner of her shawl over him.

“Would yer honor let me keep him wid meself and the childer one more night then? It mayn’t come so hard to give him up, after we’ve had time to consider on it, and raisen it over wid de poor motherless orphan. If it was to go to heaven itself, we couldn’t give the crathur up the night. Will ye let him go home wid me just lying agin on me own motherly breast, as ye see him now? It’ll never be again, an’ I’ve nursed him like me own.”

“Yes!” said the officer, kindly, glad to have a petition he could grant, “yes, yes; take him along, and if you wish it, go with him yourself up to the Island. Then you can be satisfied how well he will be cared for in his new home.”

“Thank yer honor kindly. I’ll do me best to be content,” said the poor woman, wiping her eyes with a corner of her shawl, and folding it over the boy again. “Do ye think they’ll bind him out, and put him to strangers entirely, yer honor?”

“No, no! he is quite too young for that. It is more likely that some person may adopt him and make a gentleman of him.”

“He is a gintleman, every inch of him,” answered Margaret, giving the child an enthusiastic hug, while her ardent temperament caught fire at this prophecy of a grand fortune. “It’s meself that has been particular regarding his manners, never letting him run out in the sun or make dirt-pies, or pick up oyster-shells from the gutter, wid the common. See if he isn’t white an’ clane as a dove—the crathur—neck an’ all, wid reverence to ye.”

Here Mary Margaret jerked down the little fellow’s calico frock in front, exhibiting a plump, snowy neck, softly flushed like a shell that has just left the water, and a pair of dimpled shoulders, from which the short sleeves were gathered up by bows of faded pink ribbon.

“Wouldn’t any gintleman be proud of the like of that for a child of his own, now?” she continued, uttering her words between the kisses that she lavished on the white neck and shoulders, leaving a flush with every touch. “Thank ye, kindly, for giving him to me and the childer for one night more; it’s like sending a lost bird to its nest agin. God’s blessings on ye!”

Thus, half in tears, and half grateful, Mrs. Dillon made her way through the hungry crowd, that even in its misery cast admiring glances after the child, and walked homeward. Striving to reconcile herself to the inevitable with resolute philosophy, but with a swell of grief at heart, which threatened every moment to break into a deluge of tears, she presented little Edward to his foster-brothers and playfellows once more. She informed them, a little crossly, for her true sorrow would break forth in some shape, that it was only for a night, and after that Eddie would be made a gintleman of entirely, and that “if he was going up among the common childer, it was only for convanience like, and after a while would be traiting ’em all with great civility, and bowing to ’em from his carriage-windy.”

Her young brood took this information rather shyly, and Terry, who had been like a twin-brother to the little orphan, rebelled at once, vociferously protesting that he would go with Eddie and be a gintleman, too. But at length young Ireland was consoled with a promise, that perhaps he might yet ride behind the carriage which Eddie was undoubtedly to occupy, while the dear little fellow himself underwent a world of caresses, and was hushed to sleep with many a smothered sob.