No, not even rum; yet it often does. We have just read of one of the many thousand sad instances that have occurred in this world, of rum separating those who had taken upon them that holy ordinance which makes them as one flesh, one heart, one mind; and, unless such have one mind both to be drunk together, how can they live with one another? How can they live in rum's pollution in the holy bonds of matrimony? There is nothing holy about such a sinful life.
Do away with the cause—abolish intoxicating liquor from society, and you will not only rivet those holy bonds with golden rivets, but you will shut up nine-tenths of the brothels and gaming houses in this city. Without rum they could not live over the first quarter's rent day. With it their profits are enormous—its effects awful.
I could point you to a house in this city, with its twenty-five painted harlots, where the sales of wine in one year have been thirteen thousand bottles, costing $15,000, and selling for $39,000. And why not a profit, since men and women will get drunk in a palace, the mere repairs or additions to which, in one season, cost the almost incredible sum of $70,000?
Who furnished the money? Who made the inmates what they are? Those who made the wine; not those who furnished the grape juice, for it is probable that the whole did not contain a thousand bottles full of that liquor.
What caused the inmates to be what they are? Rum!
Who made them harlots? Not those who marry, or are given in marriage.
Marriage is one of the best preventives of licentiousness, but it is not often perhaps that it produces so positive a reformation as in the following cases.
"I have married," said Mr. Pease to me one day, "some very curious couples. That of Elting was very remarkable."
He was sitting one evening, trying to post up his books, amid continued interruptions, such as, "Little Lucy's eyes are worse to-night, sir."
"Let me see. She must go into the hospital. Send the sore-eye nurse to me. Take this little girl to your room—keep her eyes well washed with cold water, and use that ointment. Report to me to-morrow. Go."
"That is a fine-looking woman."
"Yes, and an excellent nurse. She lived last year in one of those Centre street cellars. She came here with both eyes nearly out of her head; gouged by a drunken husband. We put her into the sore eye hospital, and soon found she would make a good nurse for the afflicted children."
"Mr. Pease, is it the powder once and the pills every hour, or is it t'other way?"
"Exactly. The other way. You have hit it. The powder is Dover's Powder, to allay fever. The pills are cathartic. Go."
"Cathartic. I never heard of that pill-maker before. Wonder if he will make as many as Brandreth has," says this interrupter as she goes away.
"Susan Apsley says you promised her she might go out this evening."
"Did she come in all right when she was out before?"
"All right, sir."
"Let her go."
"Please, sir, may I go with her?"
"Who is this."
"Juliana, sir. I want to go and see my cousin Madalina, sir."
"Oh, yes, I remember. You are the little Italian tambourine girl. Yes, you may go. See if you can get that pretty cousin of yours to come and live here."
"She would like to, sir, but her mother won't let her."
"Very well. Go."
And he resumed his work. "7 and 5 are 12, and 8 are 20; two 1's are 2—"
"Yes, but two ones want to be made one."
"How is that—what do you want?"
Reader, will you just turn to the illustration of the couple that now presented themselves as candidates for matrimony. The delineator and engraver have made one of the most perfect daguerreian pictures ever got up from description.
"What do you want of me?"
"We want to be married, sir."
"Want to be married—what for?"
"Why, you see, we don't think it is right for us to be living together this way any longer, and we have been talking over the matter to-day, and you see——"
"Yes, yes, I see you have been talking over the matter over the bottle, and have come to a sort of drunken conclusion to get married. When you get sober, you will both repent it, probably."
"No, sir, we are not very drunk now, not so drunk but what we can think, and we don't think we are doing right—we are not doing as we were brought up to do by pious parents. We have been reading about the good things you have done for just such poor outcasts as we are, and we want you to try and do something for us."
"Read! can you read? Do you read the Bible?"
"Well, not much lately, but we read the newspapers, and sometimes we read something good in them. How can we read the Bible when we are drunk?"
"Do you think getting married will keep you from getting drunk?"
"Yes, for we are going to take the pledge too, and we shall keep it, depend upon that."
"Suppose you take the pledge and try that first, and if you can keep it till you can wash some of the dirt away, and get some clothes on, then I will marry you."
"No; that won't do. I shall get to thinking what a poor, dirty, miserable wretch I am, and how I am living with this woman, who is not a bad woman by nature; and then I will drink, and then she will drink—oh, cursed rum!—and what is to prevent us? But if we were married, my wife, yes, Mr. Pease, my wife, would say, 'Thomas'—she would not say, 'Tom, you dirty brute,'—'don't be tempted;' and who knows but we might be somebody yet—somebody that our own mothers would not be ashamed of?"
Here the woman, who had been silent and rather moody, burst into a violent flood of tears, crying, "Mother, mother, I know not whether she is alive or not, and dare not inquire; but if we were married and reformed, I would make her happy once more."
"I could no longer resist the appeal," said Mr. P., "and determined to give them a trial. I have married a good many poor, wretched-looking couples, but none that looked quite so much so as this. The man was hatless and shoeless, without coat or vest, with long hair and beard grimed with dirt. He was by trade a bricklayer, one of the best in the city. The woman wore the last remains of a silk bonnet, and something that might pass for shoes, and an old, very old dress, once a rich merino, apparently without any under garments."
"Your name is Thomas—Thomas what?"
"Elting, sir. Thomas Elting, a good, true name and true man; that is, shall be, if you marry us."
"Well, well. I am going to marry you."
"Are you? There, Mag, I told you so."
"Don't call me Mag. If I am going to be married, it shall be by my right name, the one my mother gave me."
"Not Mag? Well, I never knew that."
"Now, Thomas, hold your tongue, you talk too much. What is your name?"
"Matilda. Must I tell you the other? Yes, I will, and I never will disgrace it. I don't think, I should ever have been as bad if I had kept it. That bad woman who first tempted me to ruin, made me take a false name. They always do that, sir, and so she said I must take another name, I did not know what for then; and so they called me Mag, and that is the name he knows me by, and I never would have told him my right name, only that we are going to get married, and reform."
Could they do it—could beings sunk so low, reform? We shall see.
"It is a bad thing, sir, for a girl to give up her name unless for that of a good husband. Matilda Morgan. Nobody that is good knows me by any other name in this bad city."
Yes, it is a bad thing for a girl to give up her own name for a fictitious one. I could tell a touching story of an instance of a poor sewing woman, who went to one of these name-changing houses to work, not to sin, who was coaxed to be called Lucy, instead of her own sweet name of Athalia, and how she was accidentally discovered and rescued from the very jaws of ruin by her own uncle. But not now, I must go on with the marriage. The bride and bridegroom are waiting, and the reader for a share of the feast.
"Now I am going to join you two in wedlock; it cannot make you worse, it may better. Look me in the face. Now, Matilda and Thomas, take each other by the right hand, look at me, while I unite you in the holy bonds of marriage by God's ordinance. Do you think you are sufficiently sober to comprehend its solemnity?"
"Yes, sir."
"Marriage being one of God's holy ordinances, cannot be kept in sin, misery, filth, and drunkenness. Thomas, will you take Matilda to be your lawful, true, only, wedded wife?"
"Yes, sir."
"You promise that you will live with her, in sickness as well as health, and nourish, protect, and comfort her as your true and faithful wife; that you will be to her a true and faithful husband; that you will not get drunk, and will clothe yourself and keep clean?"
"So I will."
"Never mind answering until I get through. You promise to abstain totally from every kind of drink that intoxicates, and treat this woman kindly, affectionately, and love her as a husband should love his wedded wife. Now, all of this will you, here before me as the servant of the Most High,—here, in the sight of God, in heaven, most faithfully promise, if I give you this woman to be your wedded wife?"
"And you, Matilda, on your part, will you promise the same, and be a true wife to this man?"
"I will try, sir."
"But do you promise all this faithfully?"
"Yes, sir, I will."
It was a woman's "I will," spoken right out with a good, hearty emphasis, that told, as it always tells, the faith and truth of woman, when she says, "I will."
"Then I pronounce you man and wife."
"Now, Thomas," says the new wife, after I had made out the certificate and given it to her, with an injunction to keep it safely—"now pay Mr. Pease, and let us go home and break the bottle." Thomas felt first in the right pocket, then the left, then back to the right, then he examined the watch fob.
It is probable that the former owner of this principal article of his wardrobe, owned a watch. It is more likely that the present owner had been often in the hands of the watch, than that he had often had a watch in his hands. He was evidently searching for lost treasures.
"Why, where is it?" says she. "You had two dollars this morning."
"Yes, I know it; but I have only got two cents this evening. There, Mr. Pease, take them. It is all I have got in the world—what more can I give?"
Sure enough; what could he do more? He took them and prayed over them, that in parting with the last penny, this couple might have parted with a vice—a wicked, foolish practice, which had reduced them to such a degree of poverty and wretchedness, that the monster power of rum could hardly send its victims lower.
So, by a few words, I hope, words of power to do good, Thomas and Matilda, long known as, drunken Tom and Mag, were transformed into Mr. and Mrs. Elting, and having grown somewhat more sober while in the house, seemed to fully understand their new position, and all the obligations they had taken upon themselves.
"For a few days," said Mr. P., "I thought occasionally of this two-penny marriage, and then it became absorbed with a thousand other scenes of wretchedness which I have witnessed since I have lived in this centre of city misery. Time wore on, and I married many other couples; often those who came in their carriage and left a golden marriage fee—a delicate way of giving to the needy—but among all, I had never performed the rite for a couple quite so low as that of this two-penny fee, and I resolved I never would again. At length, however, I had a call from a full match to them, which I refused."
"Why do you come to me to be married, my friend?" said I to the man. "You are both too poor to live separate; and, besides, you are both terrible drunkards, I know you are."
"That is just what we want to get married for, and take the pledge."
"Take that first."
"No; we must take all together—nothing else will save us."
"It did one of my friends."
"Well, then, go and bring that friend here; let me see and hear how much it saved him, and then I will make up my mind what to do. If I can do you any good, I want to do it."
"My friend is at work—he has got a good job and several hands working for him, and is making money, and won't quit till night. Shall I come this evening?"
"Yes, I will stay at home and wait for you."
He little expected to see him again, but about eight o'clock the servant said that man and his girl, with a gentleman and lady, were waiting in the reception room. He told him to ask the lady and gentleman to walk up to the parlor and sit a moment, while he sent the candidates for marriage away, being determined never to unite another drunken couple, not dreaming that there was any sympathy between the parties. But they would not come up; they wanted to see that couple married. So he went down, and found the squalidly wretched pair, that had been there in the morning, in conversation, and apparently very friendly and intimate, with the lady and gentleman. He had the appearance of a well dressed laboring man, for he wore a fine black coat, silk vest, gold watch-chain, clean white shirt and cravat, polished calf-skin boots; and his wife was just as neat and tidily dressed as anybody's wife, and her face beamed with intelligence, and the way in which she clung to the arm of her husband, as she seemed to shrink out of sight, told that she was a loving as well as a pretty wife.
"This couple," said the gentleman, "have come to be married."
"Yes, I know it," said Mr. P., "and I have refused. Look at them; do they look like fit subjects for such a holy ordinance? God never intended those, whom he created in his own image, should live in matrimony like this man and woman. I cannot marry them."
"Cannot! Why not? You married us when we were worse off—more dirty—worse clothed, and more intoxicated."
"The woman shrunk back a little more out of sight. I saw she trembled violently, and put her clean cambric handkerchief up to her eyes."
"What could it mean? Married them when worse off? Who were they?"
"Have you forgotten us?" said the woman, taking my hands in hers, and dropping on her knees; "have you forgotten drunken Tom and Mag? We have never forgotten you, but pray for you every day!"
"If you have forgotten them, you have not forgotten the two-penny marriage. No wonder you did not know us. I told Matilda she need not be afraid, or ashamed, if you did know her. But I knew you would not. How could you? We were in rags and dirt then. Look at us now. All your work, sir. All the blessing of the pledge and that marriage, and that good advice you gave us. Look at this suit of clothes, and her dress—all Matilda's work, every stitch of it. Come and look at our house, as neat as she is. Everything in it to make a comfortable home; and, oh! sir, there is a cradle in our bedroom. Five hundred dollars already in bank, and I shall add as much more next week when I finish my job. So much for one year of a sober life, and a faithful, honest, good wife. Now, this man is as good a workman as I am, only he is bound down with the galling fetters of drunkenness, and living with a woman as I did, only worse, for they have two children. What will they be, if they chance to live, and grow up to womanhood in Cow Bay? Now he has made up his mind to try to be a man again—he is a beast now—he thinks that he can reform just as well as me; but he thinks he must take the pledge of the same man, and have his first effort sanctified with the same blessing, and then, with a good resolution, and Matilda and me to watch over them, I do believe they will succeed."
So they did. So may others, by the same means.
They were married, solemnly, impressively, solemnly married; and pledged to total abstinence in the most earnest manner; and promised most faithfully, not only to keep the pledge, but to do unto others, as Elting had done unto them. Both promises you have seen that they have kept well.
As they were parting, Elting slipped something into Nolan's hand, and told him to pay the marriage fee.
"I thought," said the missionary, "of the two pennies, and expected nothing more, and therefore was not disappointed when he handed me the two reddish-looking coins. I thought, well, they are bright, new looking cents, at any rate, and I hope their lives will be like them. I was in hopes that it might have been a couple of dollars this time, but I said nothing, and we parted with a mutual God bless you. When I went up stairs, I tossed the coin into my wife's lap, with the remark, 'two pennies again, my dear.'"
"Two pennies! Why, husband, they are eagles—real golden eagles. What a deal of good they will do. What blessings have followed that act."
And what blessings did follow the last one; will always follow the pledge faithfully kept; will always follow a well formed, faithfully kept union, even if it is a "two-penny marriage."
THE HOME OF LITTLE KATY.
I have still another little episode in this life drama—a scene in one of the acts, which we may as well put upon the stage at this point of the story, though it is quite unconnected with those that immediately precede it; yet you will find a character here, in whom you have, perhaps, taken some interest. It is the termination of the story of the Hot Corn girl, whom you read about in chapter second, whose portrait you have already looked at in the frontispiece of this volume.
You have read in the story of Little Katy, what a world of cheap happiness can be bought with a shilling. No one of the thousand silver coins wasted that night in hotel, saloon, bar-room, grocery, or rum hole, gave the waster half the pleasure that that shilling gave to three individuals—he that gave and those who received. No ice-cream, cake, jelly, or health-destroying candy, tasted half so sweet as the bread purchased with that sixpence.
No man ever made so small an investment, that paid so well, both in a pecuniary point of view and large increase of human happiness, for it has been the means of waking up benevolence, not dead but sleeping, to look about and inquire, what shall I do to remove this misery-producing curse from among us? Thousands have read the story of Little Katy, and thousands of little hearts have been touched. Many hands have been opened—more will be. These little stories, detailing some of the sufferings which crime and misery bring upon the poor of this city, will be, as some of them already have been, read with tearful eyes. You have read the story of a poor neglected child of a drunken mother—not always so—wasting her young life away with no object but to live, with no thought of death. It is a sad tale, and it is not yet finished. The next night after the interview with that neglected, ill-used little girl, the same plaintive cry of "Hot corn, hot corn!—here's your nice hot corn!" came up through our open window, on the midnight air, while the rain came dripping down from the overcharged clouds, in just sufficient quantities to wet the thin single garment of the owner of that sweet young voice, without giving her an acceptable excuse for leaving her post before her hard task was completed.
At length the voice grew faint, and then ceased altogether, and then I knew that exhausted nature slept—that a tender house-plant was exposed to the chilling influence of a night rain—that an innocent girl had the curb-stone for a bed and an iron post for a pillow—that by and by she would awaken, not invigorated with refreshing slumber, but poisoned with the sleep-inhaled miasma of the filth-reeking gutter at her feet, which may he breathed with impunity awake, but like the malaria of our southern coast, is death to the sleeper.[B] Not soothed by a dreamy consciousness of hearing a mother's voice tuning a soft lullaby of
but starting like a sentinel upon a savage frontier post, with alarm at having slept; shivering with night air and fear, and, finally, compelled to go home, trembling like a culprit, to hear the harsh words of a mother—yes, a mother—but oh! what a mother—cursing her for not performing an impossibility, because exhausted nature slept—because her child had not made a profit which would have enabled her more freely to indulge in the soul and body-destroying vice of drunkenness, to which she had fallen from an estate, when "my carriage" was one of the "household words" which used to greet the young ears of that poor little death-stricken, neglected, street sufferer.
[B] On many of the Rice and Sea Island plantations in South Carolina and Georgia, in fact upon almost all the coast lands of these States, the malaria is so deadly in its effects upon the sleeper, that every effort is made to keep awake by those who are accidentally exposed for a single night to its influence. Many of the most beautiful residences in the vicinity of Charleston, are uninhabited by white persons in summer. The negroes are not at all, or only slightly affected. The overseers often have a little cabin in the most convenient pine woods, to which they retire before nightfall.
No doubt, though to a less deadly degree, the malaria arises from the filth in our dirty streets, killing its thousands of little children every year.
It was past midnight when she awoke, and found herself, with a desperate effort, just able to reach the bottom of the rickety stairs which led to her home. We shall not go up now. In a little while, reader, you shall see where live the city poor.
You shall go with me at midnight to the Home of little Katy. You shall see where she lies upon her straw pallet in a miserable garret; yet she was born in as rich a chamber as you or you, who tread upon soft Turkey carpets when you go to your downy couches.
Wait a little.
Tired—worn with the daily toil—for such is the work of an editor who caters for the appetites of his morning readers—I was not present the next night to note the absence of that cry from its accustomed spot; but the next and next, and still on, I listened in vain—that voice was not there. True, the same hot-corn cry came floating upon the evening breeze across the park, or wormed its way from some cracked-fiddle voice down the street, up and around the corner, or out of some dark alley, with a broken English accent, that sounded almost as much like "lager bier" as it did like the commodity the immigrant, struggling to eke out his precarious existence, wished to sell. All over this great poverty-burdened, and wicked waste, extravagant city, at this season, that cry goes up, nightly proclaiming one of the habits of this late-supper eating people.
Yes, I missed that cry. "Hot Corn" was no longer like the music of a stringed instrument to a weary man, for the treble-string was broken, and, for me the harmony spoiled.
Who shall say there is not music in those two little words? "Hot Corn" shall yet be trilled from boudoir and parlor, as fairy fingers run over the piano keys. Hot Corn! Hot Corn! shall yet be the chorus of the minstrel's song, and hot tears shall flow at the remembrance of "Little Katy." But that one song had ceased. That voice came not upon my listening ear.
What was that voice to me? It was but one in a thousand, just as miserable, which may be daily heard where human misery has its abode. That voice, as some others have, did not haunt me, but its absence, in spite of all reasoning, made me feel uneasy. I do not believe in spiritual manifestations half as strongly as some of the costermongers of the fruits of other men's brains, who eke out their existence by retailing petty scandal to long-eared listeners, would have them believe; yet I do believe there is a spirit in man, not yet made manifest, which makes us yearn after coexisting spirits in this sphere and in this life, and that there is no need of going beyond it, after strange idols.
I shall not stop to inquire whether it was a spirit of "the first, third or sixth sphere," that prompted me, as I left my desk one evening, to go down among the abodes of the poor, with a feeling of certainty that I should see or hear something of the lost voice, or what spirit led me on; perhaps it was the spirit of curiosity; no matter, it led, and I followed, in the road I had seen that little one go before—it was my only cue—I knew no name—had no number, nor knew any one that knew her whom I was going to find. Yes, I knew that good Missionary; and she had told me of the good words which he had spoken; but would he know her from the hundred just like her? Perhaps. It will cost nothing to inquire. I went down Centre street with a light heart; I turned into Cross street with a step buoyed with hope; I stood at the corner of Little-Water street, and looked around inquiringly of the spirit, and mentally said, "which way now?" The answer was a far-off scream of despair. I stood still with an open ear, for the sound of prayer, followed by a sweet hymn of praise to God, went up from the site of the Old Brewery, in which I joined, thankful that that was no longer the abode of all the worst crimes ever concentrated under one roof. Hark! a step approaches. My unseen guide whispered, "ask him." It were a curious question to ask a stranger, in such a strange place, particularly one like him, haggard with over much care, toil, or mental labor. Prematurely old, his days shortened by overwork in his young years, as his furrowed face and almost frenzied eye hurriedly indicate, as we see the flash of the lamp upon his dark visage, as he approaches with that peculiar American step which impels the body forward at railroad speed. Shall I get out of his way before he walks over me? What if he is a crazy man? No; the spirit was right—no false raps here. It is that good missionary. That man who has done more to reform that den of crime, the Five Points of New-York, than all the Municipal Authorities of this Police-hunting, and Prison-punishing city, where misfortune is deemed a crime, or the unfortunate driven to it, by the way they are treated with harsh words, damp cells—death cells—and cold prison-bars, instead of being reformed, or strengthened in their resolution to reform, by kind words; means to earn food, rather than forced to steal it; by schools and infant-teaching, rather than old offenders-punishing.
"Sir," said Mr. Pease, "what brings you here at this time of night, for I know there is an object; can I aid you?"
"Perhaps, I don't know—a foolish whim—a little child—one of the miserable, with a drunken mother."
"Come with me, then. There are many such. I am just going to visit one, who will die before morning—a sweet little girl, born in better days, and dying now—but you shall see, and then we will talk about the one you would seek to save."
We were soon treading a narrow alley, where pestilence walketh in darkness; and crime, wretched poverty, and filthy misery, go hand in hand to destruction.
"Behold," said my friend, "the fruits of our city excise. Here is the profit of money spent for license to kill the body and damn the soul." Proven by the awful curses and loud blows of a drunken husband upon a wife, once an ornament of society, and exemplary member of a Christian church, that came up out of one of the low cellars, which human beings call by the holy name of home!
The fetid odor of this filthy lane had been made more fetid by the late and almost scalding hot rains, until it seemed to us that such an air was only fit for a charnel house. With the thermometer at 86, at midnight, how could men live in such a place, below the surface of the earth? Has rum rendered them proof against the effect of carbonic acid gas?
We groped our way along to the foot of an outside stair-case, where our conductor paused for a moment, calling my attention to the spot. "Here," said Mr. Pease, "the little sufferer we are going to see, fainted a few nights ago, and lay all night exposed to the rain, where she was found and beaten in the morning by her miserable mother, just then coming home from a night of debauch and licentiousness, with a man who would be ashamed to visit her in her habitation, or have 'the world' know that he consorted with a street wanderer."
"Beat her! for what?"
"Because she had not sold all her corn, which she had been sent out with the evening before. Poor thing, she had fallen asleep, and some villain had robbed her of her little store, and, as it is with greater crimes, the wicked escaped and the innocent suffered."
I thought aloud:
"Great and unknown cause, hast thou brought me to her very door?"
My friend stared, but did not comprehend the expression. "Be careful," said he, "the stairs are very old, and slippery."
"Beat her?" said I, without regarding what he was saying.
"Yes, beat her, while she was in a fever of delirium, from which she has never rallied. She has never spoken rationally, since she was taken. Her constant prayer seems to be to see some particular person before she dies.
"'Oh, if I could see him once more—there—there—that is him—no, no, he did not speak that way to me—he did not curse and beat me.'
"Such is her conversation, and that induced her mother to send for me, but I was not the man. 'Will he come?' she says, every time I visit her; for, thinking to soothe and comfort her, I promised to bring him."
We had reached the top of the stairs, and stood a moment at the open door, where sin and misery dwelt, where sickness had come, and where death would soon enter.
"Will he come?"
A faint voice came up from a low bed in one corner, seen by the very dim light of a miserable lamp.
That voice. I could not be mistaken. I could not enter. Let me wait a moment in the open air, for there is a choking sensation coming over me.
"Come in," said my friend.
"Will he come?"
Two hands were stretched out imploringly towards the Missionary, as the sound of his voice was recognised.
"She is much weaker to-night," said her mother, in quite a lady-like manner, for the sense of her drunken wrong to her dying child had kept her sober, ever since she had been sick; "but she is quite delirious, and all the time talking about that man who spoke kindly to her one night in the Park, and gave her money to buy bread."
"Will he come?"
"Yes, yes; through the guidance of the good spirit that rules the world, and leads us by unseen paths, through dark places, for His own wise purposes, he has come."
The little emaciated form started up in bed, and a pair of beautiful, soft blue eyes glanced around the room, peering through the semi-darkness, as if in search of something heard but unseen.
"Katy, darling," said the mother, "what is the matter?"
"Where is he, mother? He is here. I heard him speak."
"Yes, yes, sweet little innocent, he is here, kneeling by your bedside. There, lay down, you are very sick."
"Only once, just once, let me put my arms around your neck, and kiss you, just as I used to kiss papa. I had a papa once, when we lived in the big house—there, there. Oh, I did want to see you, to thank you for the bread and the cakes; I was very hungry, and it did taste so good—and little Sis, she waked up, and she eat and eat, and after a while she went to sleep with a piece in her hand, and I went to sleep; hav'n't I been asleep a good while? I thought I was asleep in the Park, and somebody stole all my corn, and my mother whipt me for it, but I could not help it. Oh dear, I feel sleepy now. I can't talk any more. I am very tired. I cannot see; the candle has gone out. I think I am going to die. I thank you; I wanted to thank you for the bread—I thought you would not come. Good bye—Sissy, good bye. Sissy—you will come—mother—don't—drink—any more—Mother—good b—."
"'Tis the last of earth," said the good man at our side—"let us pray."
Reader, Christian reader, little Katy is in her grave. Prayers for her are unavailing. There are in this city a thousand just such cases. Prayers for them are unavailing. Faith without works, works not reform. A faithful, prayerful resolution, to work out that reform which will save you from reading the recital of such scenes—such fruits of the rum trade as this before you, will work together for your own and others' good. Go forth and listen. If you hear a little voice crying Hot Corn! think of poor Katy, and of the hosts of innocents slain by that remorseless tyrant—rum. Go forth and seek a better spirit to rule over us. Cry aloud, "Will he come," and the answer will be, "Yes, yes, he is here."
The commendation given to these stories, as they were published in the Tribune, was an inducement for me to "keep the cry of Hot Corn before the people," for I saw that they appreciated my labors; and I set about collecting other materials, and writing out notes made during many a night-watch among the habitations of men, yet the abodes of misery, with which this city abounds.
Many an anxious mind, after conning the preceding chapters, has yearned after further knowledge touching the things therein hinted at. Many have asked to know more of "Sissy," and Little Katy's mother. It is a laudable curiosity: it shall be gratified in due time. I have other stories—other scenes where you may stop a moment and drop a tear, and then we will walk on with our Life Scenes. First we will finish that of Maggie's mother.
MAGGIE'S MOTHER.
Reagan took the pledge, and took up his residence at that house of the destitute. At first, he did not ask to live with his wife. He said, he was not worthy of her. He begged Tom to write to Maggie: "I know it will make her happy to learn that I am here." So it did. The rose had another rival now. Her cheeks blossomed afresh. Reagan worked busily—he did up a great many little jobs of joiner-work; and when there was nothing more to do at that, he said, let me go into the bake-shop, shoe-shop, anywhere. I will sit down with those women and use the needle, rather than be idle, or venture out where tempters will beset me. So he went on for some time, till he grew stronger and gained more confidence—his wife strengthened him by her counsel, and then he ventured out to work where he could earn good wages. It was curious to see him go quite out of his way, around a whole square, perhaps, to avoid going by one of his old haunts.
"I have suffered so much," said he to me one day, "from the temptation of these places, where the liquor is placed in our sight on purpose to allure and whet our depraved appetites, that it is no wonder that the poor inebriate loses his balance and falls into the abyss. If there was no liquor in sight, there would be no danger of our falling back into old habits. I never should think of going to look after it. The danger is when it is thrust right under my nose. Oh, that these rum shops might be shut up, or at least, kept out of sight!"
This was the earnest prayer of one who knew the demon power of temptation which one, who is trying to reform, has constantly to combat with.
Those who sell liquor know the advantage to them of this temptation. So they fix up the street corners with all the enticing attractions of artistic skill. The cool ice water; the free lunch; the ever-burning light for the smoker's convenience; the arm-chair and easy lounge, and cool room in summer, or well heated one in winter; the ever open, always free resting-place for the tired walker, or ennui-tormented genteel loafer, are only a few of the inducements to just "step in a moment;" and then the old appetite is aroused by the sight and smell of liquor in the glistening array of cut glass, and by the influence of a score of old companions standing before the bar—they will stand before another bar hereafter—or sitting at the little white marble tables, sipping or sucking "sherry cobblers" and "mint juleps" through a glass "straw."
Woe to the tired walker who has been tempted into one of these invitingly open rooms. If he has the power to resist his own inclination to drink, he may not have enough to resist the persuasion of half a dozen of his acquaintances, or the force of crazed brains and strong hands, by which he is dragged up and held, while they merit the curse denounced upon those who "put the cup to their neighbor's lips." Perhaps he will be taunted with meanness for coming in to drink water and rest himself, "and not patronise the house."
From this, those of us who desire to see those places of temptation shut up, may take the hint.
Let reading rooms be opened, free to all who choose to come in and read the papers, drink ice water, and enjoy their rest in the shade, or partake of the comforts of a warm room, for a five cent fee. A coffee and tea room, strictly so, may be attached. How much better than drinking such liquor as those who visit all our public places must do, or be set down as mean. "Let them stay at home," is a common answer to those who say they fell by the temptations of such places.
"Suppose," said Jim Reagan to me one day, "that we have no home. That was my case when I was a young man. I lived in a common boarding-house; in my little uncomfortable room I would not stay; where else had I to go but the public bar room, and there I learned to drink; I was a good fellow then; a genteel young man, and married a genteel young girl; I did not go down all at once—it was step by step, slow but sure—to Cale Jones's grocery and the Centre street cellar."
True, thought I, as I entered the front door of the first hotel in this great metropolis, the largest in America, and looked through the splendid marble hall, two hundred feet long, lighted by glittering chandeliers, into the immense drinking saloon of that fashionable place of resort; and I said to myself, "some of these fine forms of men, clothed in fine linen and rich broad cloth, may some day fall as low as thee, poor Jim Reagan. You began your course in just such a genteel drinking room."
"Yes," says he, "and the first drink I ever took in one, for I was brought up a temperance boy, I was dragged up by the strength of two companions, and held while the bar-keeper baptised me, as he called it, by pouring the liquor down my throat, over my head, and saturating my clothes till the smell made me sick, and then they gave me more to settle it. 'A hair of the same dog,' said they, 'will cure the bite.' Bite it was. No mad dog's bite ever caused more sin and sorrow than that bite did me. We cry, 'mad dog,' and kill the poor brute; the worse than brute we 'license' to live."
Thus he would sit and talk by the hour. "If I can only keep out of the way of the tempters," said he, "I never shall drink again."
He was now accumulating money; he always came home to sleep, "for," says he, "I feel, as sure as I enter this door, that I am safe."
It was determined, as soon as Maggie came again, that they would go to keeping house. "If that blessed child was only with me," said the father, as the tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks, "I should feel as though I had a shield—through which none of these traffickers in human souls could reach me. My wife is like an aged counsellor, there is wisdom in her every word, but she cannot go out through the streets, leaning upon my arm, still full of manly strength, like Maggie, while I lean upon her still greater strength—the strength and might of a strong mind."
"Here is a letter from our dear child," said Mrs. Reagan to her husband, one evening as he came in from work. "Sit down and read it aloud, for some how, my old eyes get dim every time I try; I cannot imagine what is the matter with them."
I can. They were full of tears. Strange, that we shed bitter and sweet water from the same fountain.
Reagan put on his spectacles, took the letter, looked at the first words, took them off, wiped the glasses, looked again, repeated the operation, laid both letter and spectacles upon the table, got up and walked the room back and forth, then he tried to speak—to utter the first words of that letter; if he could get over that he could go on, but he could not, they stuck in his throat. At length he got them up—"Dear father and mother, I am coming home to kiss you both." Simple words! Common every-day words. But they were strong words, for they had overcome the strength of a strong man, and he fell upon his wife's neck and wept like a child.
"Such words to me—me who have kicked, and cuffed, and froze, and starved, and abused that child for years. Oh, God, preserve my life to make her ample amends for my wrongs and her love! Oh, God, preserve her life to make us both happy, and drop a tear at our grave!"
Prayer calms the spirit. Realization and acknowledgment of sin soothes the soul.
Reagan could now read the letter without difficulty. His spectacles did not need wiping again. It was dated,
"Near Katona, Westchester County, New York.
"Dear Father and Mother:
"I am coming home to kiss you both. I don't know but I shall kiss Tom, for he has written me all about it—I know it all—I know how you was brought in, and how you took the pledge, and how you have kept it, and how industrious you have been, and how you have saved your money, and how you want to go to housekeeping again, and all about it—I know it all. Tom writes me every week. He is a good boy. Well, in two months I am coming down. You need not look for me before, and then, if you want me, I will come and live with you."
"If we want her! Did you ever hear the like? But, then, what is she to do? She is a big girl now, and must not be idle. I wish she had a trade. Every child ought to have a trade."
"Well, well, wife, let us have the balance of the letter."
"Yes, yes, go on; you need not mind what I say. Go on."
"Let me see; where was I? 'Come and live with you,' that's it."
"Heaven bless the girl, what is it?"
"Do wait, wife, and you shall hear."
"It is a nice, genteel trade, too. Now we will take a house, and father will work at his trade, and mother will do the house-work, and I will work at my trade, and we shall live so happy."
"So we shall. But, dear me, why don't she tell what it is?"
"So she will if you let me alone. A girl must have her own way to tell it; probably she will do that in a postscript."
"Well, read on. I am so impatient."
"Perhaps you would like to know what my trade is?"
"Why to be sure we should. Why don't she tell?"
"So I will tell you. I am a stock-maker—those things the gentlemen wear round their necks. And it is very curious how I learned the trade. A lady from New York—oh, she is a lady!—came up here on a visit, and for work she brought along some stocks to make. She lives in New York. I believe she keeps a few boarders, and makes stocks. She is a widow lady, quite young, and very pretty, only she is in bad health; she has no family, only her uncle, who is an old bachelor—a nice old gentleman, who has adopted her as his daughter, and is going to give her all he has when he dies. She has no father and mother, as I have, and no brothers and sisters; nobody to love but the old uncle—he does love her, so do I. I did not at first. I was afraid of her. I thought she was some grand city lady; and she used to sit and sew in her room, only when her uncle—Papa she calls him, and he calls her daughter—'Athalia, daughter,' so sweet; is it not a sweet name? Her name is Athalia Morgan—"
"Morgan, Morgan—Athalia Morgan. I will warrant it is she. Don't you remember, wife, that old Morgan, the great shipping merchant? his son married a sewing girl, and his sister married George Wendall."
"Oh, oh, how singular! It was she that was talking when Maggie took me into the temperance meeting that night, telling how her husband died. And now Maggie has met with another of the family. And her husband must be dead too."
"Yes, he died just as miserable a death as Wendall. Let us read on and see what of his wife. I hope he did not drag her down with him as I did mine."
"James, James, you are not to speak of anything that is past."
"Well, well," and he brushed away another tear and read on:
"After she had been here a few days, our folks told her about me, and how I used to run the streets, and how I got into the House of Industry, and how they got me from there, and what a good girl I had been—yes, they did—and then Mrs. Morgan, she began to talk to me so kindly; and then I told her everything about myself, and some about you, and she told me a great many things about herself. Oh, it would be such a story to put in a book. And then she grew as fond of me as I was of her. And every day when I had my work done, and every evening, I used to be up in her room, and she showed me all about her work, and I used to help her, and now she declares that I can make just as good a stock as she can, and almost as fast. She can make eight in a day; when I help her, odd times and evenings, she can make twelve. Last week she made, with what I did, seventy-two, and put them all in a box. How nice they do look! That is seventy-two York shillings—nine dollars! And she says when I come home to live, she will recommend me—I must have a good recommend to get work—when I can get just as much such work as I can do. Oh, but she is a good woman! I guess you would cry though as much as I have, to hear her story. I will tell it you some day. Mrs. Morgan is going down to-morrow. I wish I was. But I cannot. In two months my time is up; then you will see me. Now, good night. Say 'good by' to Tom for me. Kiss mother, father, and ever love your
"Maggie."
"Oh, James, something tells me that if she don't come before that, I never shall see her. But you will be happy with her. You will live a long life, I hope, for her to bless and comfort you in your old age. You are not so old and so broken down as I am."
"All my fault, all my fault. If I had treated you as a rational man should treat a wife, you would not be so broken down now."
"You must not look back. Look ahead and aloft. Think what a treasure of a daughter you have got. How I should like to see her once more before I go to my rest, and give her my blessing; and oh! how I should like to see that blessed woman, that Mrs. Morgan. I want to bring her and Elsie together, and make peace on earth as there will be in heaven, where I hope to meet them both. They will soon follow. This life, at best, is short. Mine will be, I am sure."
"Don't have such gloomy forebodings, wife; it seems to me that you were never in better health."
"I know it, and never more happy."
This was on Thursday evening. On Saturday evening everybody was astonished to see Maggie come bounding in, with a step as light and quick as a playful lamb.
"Where's mother? Is she well? Has anything happened? Where is father? Is everything all right with him?" were the questions she asked, in such rapid succession that nobody could answer any one of them.
"Where is Tom? Is he well? Where is Mr. Pease and Mrs. Pease? Are they well? Is mother in the kitchen?"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, to the whole string."
Away she went, three stairs at a time, and then she almost overwhelmed her mother with kisses and questions; and up she went to the third story, and there was father in his room, reading the Bible. When had she ever seen that before? The last time she saw him, he was so dreadfully intoxicated that he did not know his own child, that was lifting him out of the gutter. Now he was sober, well clothed, cheerful, and happy. As she opened the door he read:
"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
"They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
"Look not thou upon the wine when it is red; when it giveth his color in the cup; when it moveth itself aright.
"At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.
"Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and—"
And he looked up, as his ear caught a little rustle of a woman's clothes, and his eyes beheld a strange woman—a beautiful, neatly-dressed young woman, with laughing, bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and such a saucy little straw hat, so tastily trimmed—Mrs. Morgan did that—and altogether such a lady-like girl, that he did not recognise her, and he turned his eyes again to the book and repeated:
"Thine eyes shall behold strange women—"
"Father!"
The book dropped from his knees to the floor, as he sprang towards her.
"Am I so strange, father, that you did not know me?"
"Indeed, my daughter, I was afraid to speak; I did not know but a strange woman had been sent to punish me, to 'sting me like an adder.' Oh, Maggie, you don't know how I feel that I deserve it. And yet you are so good. You are a strange woman. It is strange, passing strange, to think that my daughter, my little neglected, dirty, ragged, mischievous—"
"Wild Maggie, father."
"Yes, she had run wild; should be the lovely—you do look lovely, Maggie—girl now in my arms. Oh, Maggie! Maggie! this is all your work."
"No, no, father; you must give the good Missionary his share of the credit; and the good people all over the country who have sent him money and clothes to feed and clothe the naked, and reform the drunkard. What should we have been to-day, if he had not come to live in the Five Points, father?"
"I should have been in my grave; a poor, miserable drunkard's grave; it is awful to think where else I should have been."
"Well, well, father, you are happy now,"
"Yes, I am, and so is mother, and we shall be more so when we get a home of our own, and all live together. Why, Maggie, why, who did dress you up so neat?"
"Oh, my new friend I wrote you about, Mrs. Morgan—you got my letter—yes—well, I do wish you could see her, she is such a good woman."
So they talked on, and then the old lady came up, and then Maggie told how they had arranged it all. On Monday, father was to see if he could find a couple of nice rooms, and Maggie was going to see Mrs. Morgan, for Mrs. Morgan's old uncle had told Maggie, that whenever she wanted to go to keeping house, to come to him, she did not know what for, but she was sure it was something good, for he was a good man, but he never let anybody know what he did for poor folks, he did love to do things in his own way. And Mrs. Morgan was going to write up to the people where she lived, and if father and mother wanted her, they would let her come before her time was up.
"Your father will want you."
"Will you, too? Do not you want me, mother?"
"I do not know, Maggie, I can hardly tell. Who can tell what a day may bring forth. I am glad to see you; I have been praying all day, that the good Spirit would direct your steps hither to-day."
"Did you pray that last night?"
"Yes."
"And this morning?"
"Yes."
"I thought so—I felt it, all night, all the morning, just as though a little stream of fire was running through me, all over; now in my head, now, in my heart, now in my very fingers' ends; now I started at a whisper in my ear, that sounded just like mother, saying, 'Oh, Maggie! Oh, that she would come! Oh, that I could see her once more!' and then I felt as though I must come. I was afraid something was going to happen. But now I find you all well, I see what a foolish girl I have been."
"No, Maggie, not foolish, not foolish; something tells me that you have only obeyed the dictates of a good heart, guided by an invisible power. But we will not talk about it any more now. I have arranged a place for you to sleep to-night, for the house is very full, and we can scarcely find beds for those we have, and there are applications for more poor children every day. Do you remember that pretty little Italian beggar girl, Madalina, that you used to go out with sometimes? She is going to sleep in that little room, and you may sleep with her."
"Oh, mother, she is so dirty!"
"She used to be, she is not so now. She was so when she ran the streets, just like another little girl."
"Oh, mother, I know who you mean, but I did not know that she had been improved."
The next day, the father and mother and daughter were sitting side by side in the chapel, and it was the remark of more than one, "Oh, what a change!" "Is it possible that that is old drunken Reagan and his wife, that used to live in that Centre street cellar, and that that is 'Wild Maggie?' What a change! Why she is real pretty, and so bright, and so affectionate—see how she looks out the hymn for her mother; and now they all kneel together. Well well, that is better than all drunk together."
After morning service, Mrs. Reagan went into the kitchen to assist about dinner.
"I cannot tell how it is," said she, "but I feel as though this was the last meal I shall ever eat with my husband and Maggie; perhaps I shall not eat this."
She never did.
Half an hour after that, the house was in wild commotion. "Where is Mr. Reagan?—where is Maggie?—call the doctor!—oh, dear!—oh, dear! Mrs. Reagan is in a fit."
It was a fit which all must have sooner or later. Her forebodings, from whatever cause they came, had given her prescience of her death.
The husband and daughter were soon kneeling over her where she had fallen upon the floor, vainly trying to revive animation. The physician vainly essayed his skill.
"It is too late. My mother is in heaven."
"It is certain she is in the hands of God, and she died with a blessing on her lips for her child," said one of the women who were present when she fell.
"What did she say, Angeline?"
"Sally, how was it? you heard it best."
This is drunken Sal and old Angeline, whom you have seen before. They, too, are inmates; sober, industrious ones, of the House of Industry.
"She said, 'Oh, God, forgive me all my sins! And my husband, forgive him, oh, Lord! as I do. Margaret, oh, God! I thank thee for sending her to see me once more—God bless as I do my dear Maggie. I die in peace, I die—dying—hap—Oh!' and she fell forward; I caught her in my arms, and laid her down gently, but she never breathed again."
"Oh, mother, mother, are you dead, dead, dead! Will you never, never speak to your Maggie again? Oh! it is so hard to part with you now, just as we were going to be so happy, and all live together."
"Yes," said Angeline, "and that reminds me to tell you that she said just before she died, but I thought she was talking wild like, that if she did not see you again, that I must tell you not to go back to Westchester, but you must be sure to stay with your father, he would be so lonesome when she was gone."
The poor husband was lonesome; he already felt it. Then he felt what blessings he had left. He had good health and strength, and a most affectionate good child to comfort him in his old age. And then he poured out such a prayer, as all ought to hear who lack courage to go on in the glorious work of lifting up the fallen, and giving strength to the feeble, and forgiveness to the erring. The day closed in sadness, yet there were some who witnessed the sad scene who felt that "it is good to be afflicted."
The next day after these events I was in Greenwood Cemetery, that lovely resting-place for the dead. It is a landmark in this progressive age, that shows the good fruits of an improved state of society. If any of the readers of these Life Scenes, are curious to know what becomes of the falling leaves of this great forest of human beings, let them go over the Brooklyn South ferry, and follow some of the score of mourning trains that go every day to put away some dead trunk, or lopped limb, or twig, leaf, or flower, perhaps nothing but a bud, which they will plant in earth to blossom in heaven; and they will see where a portion of the fallen go to decay. It is a place for a day, not of gloom, but sweet meditations, such as does the soul good.
I was meditating over a late made grave. It was by the side of one almost old enough to be forgotten, and yet the number of years since it was made were very few, and very, very short. There was a rose bush growing at the head, but I saw through the green leaves the name of "Morgan, Æt. 62." I was not curious to know what Morgan, for my thoughts were far away. I did wonder, it is natural to do so, if that was Mrs. Morgan by his side, and if they had always lain so quiet, without words of contention, or "Caudle Lectures." My doubts were soon to be solved, for now came a cart and a couple of stone setters. How quick, and how carelessly they work; now the hole is dug, now they lift the little stone out of the cart, now they set it upright, now they fill in the dirt around it, now they give a few stamps with heavy boots just over the head of the sleeper—he hears them not—now the stone is planted, now they jump into the cart, slash the whip, and curse the poor old horse for his laziness, and rattle away with a whistle and merry glee. Now we can read the name on the new stone. Ah, it is not his wife—it is "Walter Morgan, Æt. 27." His son—perhaps, an only son—how soon he has come after his father. It is a common name, or I might moralize farther upon what I know of that name. I am interrupted, and walk off a little way and turn to look again. A fine, benevolent looking gentleman—faces do look benevolent—is getting out of a carriage. He is about the age of the elder Morgan. His brother, perhaps. Now, he lifts out a rose bush, in bloom, in its little world, all its own, in an earthen pot. Ah, ha! that is to be planted at the new stone just put in its place. Now he lifts out a lovelier flower. It is a young widow. Fancy is at work now; it says, "Is she pretty?" We are too far off to discern features, but we can think. We do think that a widow who comes to plant a flower at her husband's grave, is a flower of a woman, let her face be what it may.
So I sat down with pencil in hand, writing, "Musings at the Tomb." I had just written, "Benevolent old gent and beautiful young widow," and was going to add, rose bush planted at husband's grave, and all that sort of thing, when somebody slapped me on the back—that knocks out the sentimental—with a clear hearty expression of, "my old friend."
"Why, Lovetree, is this you? Athalia—Mrs. Morgan, I should say."
"No; always call me by the name you first knew me by."
"Then I should call you Lucy."
"No, no, not that, not that."
"Forgive me, but I did not intend to call up unpleasant reminiscences. Ah, what have we here? A little train of mourners, with a tenant for that open grave. See, that is the Missionary from the Five Points."
"And, oh, uncle, that is Maggie, our little Maggie from up the country. It must be her mother. Yes, it is, for she takes the arm of a man with a crape on his hat—it is her father. Her mother has her wish. He will drop a tear at her grave. See, he does; his handkerchief is at his eyes. Oh, it is a sad thing for a husband to follow the wife he has lived with forty years, to such an end as this. Poor Maggie, how she weeps. I must go and see her as soon as the ceremony is over. Suppose, uncle, that we take them in our carriage home with us, it will not be quite so melancholy as it will be to go back to the house of death."
"So we will, and then I will arrange the plan for them to go to housekeeping together. I have already got a place in view."
So they met, and so Athalia said, "Come with us."
And so they went. Maggie looked upon it as another remarkable interposition, or something, at any rate, that she could not account for, that Mrs. Morgan should have felt impelled to come over here to-day, of all other days, and that they should meet so singularly; "for," said she, "fifty different parties might be riding about among these hills, and dales, and groves, looking at this lonely poor grave, and at that twenty thousand dollar monument, and yet no one know that the other was so near. Well, it is a place where all must come. I hope we shall all meet our friends as happily as I have mine to-day."
So they went home with Mrs. Morgan, and three days after they went to a house of their own.
You have already seen how they were able afterwards to say to others, "Come with us," when a houseless widow and her two children stood in the street the night of the fire—the night that rum and its effects made Mrs. Eaton a widow.
Perhaps you would like to see the benevolent gentleman that clothed the naked after that fire? You have seen him. Turn back a leaf and look at him again as he lifts that rose-bush out of the carriage, to plant at that grave. You did not see him in the crowd at the fire, but he was there, and heard his protégé say, "Come with us." He was just going to say it, but he liked it better that Maggie had said it first. Then he said to himself—it was one of his odd freaks of benevolence—I will surprise the dear girl directly, and make her remember those golden words to her dying day.
You have seen him. It was Athalia's uncle.
Who is Athalia?