until she sighed and sung:
"And did Walter do nothing?"
What could he do? He knew nothing—had never learned to do anything; besides that, how could he take to any occupation, when he had always been above work, and free from want. If his father had put him into his counting-room with old Precision, he might have been a good bookkeeper, and could now have had employment upon a salary. As it was, he was a useless, worthless member of society. His father had been asked, if he did not think of putting Walter into some situation where he would learn to help himself, but his answer was, "that is my business;" and there ended the matter.
Finally, after some months of idleness, supported by his young wife's toil, a few friends concluded to advance him a thousand dollars, to go South, where, as he thought, he could make a fortune; and if he got away where nobody knew him, he could go into some sort of business. Athalia went with him. They landed at Savannah, put up at the best hotel, four dollars a day, and wine and cigars, upon an average, six more. It was easy to calculate just how long a thousand dollars would last at that business. Athalia pined in idleness; of course, a young "Northern merchant's" wife could not use her needle in a city where a lady, of any pretensions to fashion, would not help herself to a glass of water if the pitcher stood at her elbow. A slave, always ready at her bidding, must be called to wait upon "young missus."
It did not take Walter long to form new acquaintances; besides, he met with several of his old college chums, and so it was a day here and a night there, upon this plantation and that; of course, his pretty wife was always welcome, so long as nobody knew that she was a sewing girl. That secret leaked out at last, and then—
"What then?"
Then those who had courted and fawned around the rich merchant's wife, and thought she was the prettiest and best bred woman, and most intelligent, they had ever met with, and the most modest and most amiable—
"So she was. I never saw her equal."
Nor they either—but then she was a sewing girl, when he married her—perhaps never was married. That was finally annexed by envious, malicious, jealous rivals, who felt her superiority, and how much more she was admired by the gentlemen than they were.
All this came at last, by a true friend—a slave—to Athalia's ear. She had felt the chilling change, and, finally, obtained the secret from her yellow chambermaid. Her mind was instantly made up. That night she packed her trunk; Walter, as usual, was out "attending to business," such as young men often attend to at midnight in some private back room, sitting around a table, counting spots upon little bits of pasteboard.
The steamboat would leave the next morning for Charleston. She waited in vain for Walter, and then wrote a long letter, detailing all the facts and giving ample reasons for her course, and begging him to abandon his; to settle up what matters he had as soon as possible and follow her. Then she laid down for a short nap, with orders to Mary to wake her if Mr. Morgan came in, and if not, to call her in time for the boat at any rate, and then to give him the letter. It was an impulsive step, but that was her nature.
"So it was. She always thought and acted at the same moment; and almost always right."
In one week she was back in her old room, which she had let temporarily during her absence. In one week more she had an additional room and a few girls at work for her at dress-making. She issued her little card, sent it around to old customers, and got some new ones, and all the work that she could do.
In three months she had ceased to pay rent for furniture; she had bought and paid for it, and was making weekly deposits of little sums in the savings bank. Then her husband came back. Where his thousand dollars had gone you may judge, when I tell you that Athalia had to go and redeem his trunk, retained on board a brig for his passage. He could not go himself for it, he was sick; with what complaint you may easily judge; I shall not tell you, as he did not tell his wife, until she too was sick, and in her ignorance, neglected to call a physician, until so bad that she was laid up from work, and of course lost custom. How her little store melted under this accumulation of expense! Finally, they got agoing again, and she persuaded him to get into some kind of employment. What could he do? There was but one "genteel"—mark the word—business that he knew of. He became a bar keeper. He had one regular customer. It was Walter Morgan!
Down hill is an easy road. He took it.
Athalia soon found some of her best customers dropping off.
"What was the cause?"
There were two. In the first place Walter had been the means of getting a notorious courtezan to give her custom to his wife. He brought her there and introduced her as Mrs. Layton, formerly of South Carolina, now living with her nieces and daughter in this city. She used to come often, always in her carriage, with liveried servants.
Once Athalia rode home with her to fit a dress to "a sick young lady, that boarded with her." She found that Mrs. Layton lived in an elegant four story house, near a church and in a very respectable neighborhood in a fashionable street.
Her rooms were furnished with a degree of splendor almost equal to the Morgans. Little did she suspect the character of the house, particularly as her husband had introduced her there.
But there was another cause why she lost her best customers. In a fashionable soirée, to which Walter still found his way occasionally, when questioned by a score of his old acquaintances, with whom he used to flirt, and every one of whom were envious and jealous of Athalia, they rallied him most unmercifully upon his marriage with a sewing girl, and then the base cowardly wretch—rum makes such of gentlemen—declared upon his honor that he was not married. It was only a marriage of convenience.
"A mistress—a mistress—oh! that alters the case. And only to think we have been getting the shameless thing to make our common dresses. Well, I never will go near her again."
"Nor I. Nor I. Nor I."
"And that accounts for what I heard the other day, that she was seen riding home with that Madame Layton, who keeps a house of assignation in —— street."
"How did she know that she kept such a house!"
It was Matilda Morgan, that said it. She had been there.
The train once lighted, which fires the dry prairie, how it sweeps on before the wind. It little regards who stand in the way. As little regards the slanderer, and as rapidly spreads the fire of a scandalous tongue, devouring its victims with a consuming fire.
Athalia was a victim. The man who should have been her shield, had himself thrown the first dart. It had been more envenomed by a pretended female friend, who had told her all that he said. She could have forgiven him everything else, she would not forgive him that. Things now looked dark. She was obliged to look for work among a class of customers where nothing but the direst necessity would have led her. Her husband had tended bar, until his employer found that he drank up all the profits. Now he was drinking up the hard earnings of his wife. Then he began to stay out nights. Where, she could only guess. One day she sent him to pay the rent. It was the last money she had. About a week after, the landlord called for it. He had not seen Walter, had not been paid, and was very sorry for her, but he must have the rent.
"Would he wait a few days? she hoped her husband would pay it."
There was a curl of derision upon his lip. What could it mean?
"Fact is, Mrs. Morgan, or Miss Lovetree, or whatever your name is, I let the premises to you, and look to you for the rent. I shall not run after such a miserable drunken —— as Walter Morgan."
She did not drop dead under this heavy blow; she simply said, "you shall have your rent to-morrow."
"Very well then; and you may as well look for a new place too, in the course of the week."
"I intend to," was her calm reply.
When he was gone, she slipt on her bonnet and shawl, and thought she would take her watch and ear-rings, and a few little things, where her husband had twice taken them before, and whence she had redeemed them, after he had spent the money; for money he would have, and if she did not give it to him, he would steal her things and pawn them. He had done so now. All was gone, even her large Bible, the present of her dying mother. Her only alternative was to get a Jew to come and look at the furniture, and advance enough to pay the rent. On the way she thought she would take a dress home, and got the money for that. She knew it was going to a house of bad repute; she had been obliged to work for such, and on several occasions Walter had carried them home. It was a sort of perquisite with him to get the pay for such. She looked for the dress, that too was gone. There was another to go to the same house, which she could finish in about an hour. It was her only resource for the necessities of to-morrow. At nine o'clock she took it upon her arm and went out, and with trembling step, up to the door of a magnificent house, only one block from Broadway.
As the door opened for her, half-a-dozen "up town bloods," came out.
"I say," said one of them, before he was out of her hearing, "I say, Fred, that is Walt. Morgan's gal, let us go back and see the fun."
The voice was familiar, though the bloated countenance of the roué was not. She had heard it before. It was George Wendall.
"See the fun"—what could it mean? She felt like anything but fun. Is it fun for a man to see a woman's heart broken?
They went on, Fred remarking, "she is dev'lish pretty; curse me if I don't try my hand there. I will walk into her affections."
Such is the opinion of the roué—that the door of woman's affections is always open for every self-conceited puppy to walk in.
Her heart was in her throat. She choked it down, and went in and inquired for Miss Nannette, and was shown up to her room. A gentleman was there, whom Nannette introduced as Mr. Smith, from the South.
He might be from the South, but Athalia knew him to be a married man, with a sweet young wife and two children, in this city.
The dress was to be tried on, and Nannette began to strip off without a blush. Athalia did blush, and did object, and would not stay.
"Well, then, George, go down a few minutes to the parlor, that is a good soul, she is so fastidious."
No, he did not want to be seen there; he would go home.
"Well, then, give me some money to pay for making this dress. You gave me the stuff, you might as well go the whole figure."
He handed her a ten dollar bill; she handed it to Athalia,—the dress was only five—remarking:
"Give him the change; I won't take but a five out of it this time."
Athalia had no change. She looked at him, to be certain of her man, and remarked:
"No; I will keep the whole, and credit him the balance, on account of seven dollars he has owed me these two months, for work for his wife."
He stammered something about mistake—not him—cursed blunder—and left the room.
The dress fitted beautifully, and Athalia felt the soothing influence of praise for her work, and would have left happier than she came, but just then her ear caught a voice in the next room. She listened. A woman replied:
"Yes, if you have brought any money. I have made up my mind that you shall not stay in this room another night without you give me more money."
"Oh, Josephine, I have got something better than money for you. Look here."
"Oh! you are a dear good fellow, after all. What a pretty watch, and what a dear little locket. That will do. Now you may stay all night, and to-morrow we will go down to Coney Island again, and have a good time. I'll pass for your wife, you know."
There was a door opening out of Nannette's room into a bath-room, and out of that, a window into the room where the voices came from.
It was but a thought; thoughts are quick, and so were her's, and the step that took her up on a chair, and her hand up to the curtain, which was the only thing preventing her from seeing who owned that voice.
She looked. What a sight for a wife! She saw, what she knew before, but would be doubly sure, that the voice was her husband's. She knew that—she knew that he was giving her watch, and the locket which contained the donor's likeness, that of a dear brother lost at sea—a treasure that she would not part with sooner than her own heart—to a woman to whom he had before given money—money that came, drop by drop, distilled from her heart's blood, through the alembic of her needle; and she would see—what woman would not—what wife could resist the opportunity of seeing?—she could not—what the woman looked like, who could displace her in her husband's affections. The first sight she caught was her Bible upon the table.
"What could she want of that?"
She was sometimes religious—a great many of them are, and read the Bible to find some text to justify their own course. They are also visited by clergymen, who prefer those of "a religious turn of mind." Then this Bible was elegantly bound, and very valuable. Then she saw her watch in the hands of a woman with ugly red hair, with dull, voluptuous eyes, thick lips, ugly teeth, a little snub nose, and a gaunt awkward figure, forming altogether one of the ugliest looking women, Athalia thought, that she had ever seen. The words burst involuntarily from her lips:
"Oh, how ugly!"
"She is uglier than she looks," said Nannette. "She has ruined more men than any other woman in the city. She has kicked that fool out half a dozen times because he did not give her more money. I should not wonder now, if he has stolen his wife's watch to give that wretch."
And this was the woman that Athalia had been toiling for her husband to pamper. Oh, how she did pray to die!
Nannette, when she learned the facts, was furious. She would have gone in and torn her heart out.
She said she never did have anything to do with a married man, if she knew it. George had lied to her, and never should see her but once again—once, to get her blessing.
Athalia was calm. She sat down a few minutes, to recover from this last stab in the heart, and then said she would look once more and then go home. She did look, and saw her husband locked in the arms of that red-headed fury. Then she went home; she did not go to bed; she worked all night putting her things in order. Next day, at ten o'clock, a red flag was fluttering at her window, and while Walter and his mistress were going down the Bay, her furniture was "going, going, gone," to the highest bidder.
At sundown she was homeless, friendless, worse than husbandless, alone, in the streets of New York!
LIFE AT THE FIVE POINTS.
MADALINA, THE RAG-PICKER'S DAUGHTER.
Although all my scenes are connected, and bear some relation one to the other, yet they are not continuous. Like the Panorama of Niagara, we must go back, cross over, look up, look down, first from this point of view, then from that, to see all the scenes of that wonder of wonders. So here, where a mighty torrent rushes on, sweeping a multitude down the great cascade, we have to look at scene after scene, before we can join them all together into one panoramic view. Our scenes, too, are as real and life-like as those. Sometimes a tree here, a flower there, then a little spray, then a cloud, or the natural color, a little heightened to give effect, and make the picture more vivid; but the rocks and rushing torrent, the real foundation of the picture, are all as nature made them. So it is with my present panoramic view of "Life Scenes in New York."
Again I shift the scene. Still you will find characters that you have met before, will meet again. It is a tale of sorrow, but a tale of truth.
I suppose there are some who will turn away in disgust from the double title of this chapter. What, they will say, can "Life at the Five Points" have in it that is interesting to me, who lounge on silk brocatelle, and look down upon beggar girls and rag-pickers—disgusting objects—through lace curtains that cost more, to every window, than would furnish a hundred families in that locality with better furniture than they now possess?
No doubt you will turn away in disgust at the very sight of the title of "The Rag-picker's Daughter." Yet you may find something in the character of "Madalina," which will make you love the name. I should not wonder, in some of my walks through the city in future years, to hear that pretty name spoken to some sweet child, yet to be born in rose-perfumed chamber.
Then pass not by my tale of one so lowly. See how sweet is a cup of cold water to the dying.
Read.
"Sir," said the door-keeper, to Mr. Pease, one night, "little Madalina, the beggar girl, is at the door, crying bitterly, and says she wants to see you."
"I suppose," said the tired missionary, "I answered hastily, perhaps petulantly, for I had been very much engaged all day. Tell her to go away, I cannot see her to-night; it is eleven o'clock, and I am very tired. She must come to-morrow."
The poor fellow turned upon his heel to go away, but as he did so, the glimpse of his hand and motion of the coat sleeve across his eyes, told a story.
"Tom," said Mr. P., "Tom, my dear boy, what is the matter?"
Tom did not turn round as he had been taught, and usually did, so as to look him full in the face when he answered; in fact he did not answer readily; there was a choking sensation in his utterance which prevented the words from coming forth distinctly.
Now, this boy had been but a short time in "the Home," and perhaps a more squalid, wretched, drunken boy, cannot be found in the purlieus of the Five Points, than he was when he was almost literally picked out of the gutter, as he had been once before he came here finally, in the way you have already seen. Once before, he had actually been dragged out of the filthiest hole in Anthony street, brought in, washed and dressed, before he came to, so as to be conscious of the change that had come over him. Then he was brought back again to his low degradation, by just such wretches and ways of the wicked as were brought to bear upon poor Reagan, and will be upon many others, while the destroyer is permitted to walk abroad like a pestilence at noon-day. Now this outcast, who had cared for nothing human, not even himself, stood vainly trying to choke down his grief for the sorrows of a little beggar girl.
Were the reminiscences of one, almost as low down in the scale of humanity, running through his mind—one who, after having been herself lifted up, had exerted an influence upon him to his salvation?
The tired missionary forgot his fatigue.
"Tom," said he, springing up, "I will go and see what is the matter. Who is this Madalina?"
"She is an Italian rag-picker's daughter, sir—they live in Cow Bay—I used to lodge with them sometimes. That is, the mother picks rags, and the father goes with the hand-organ and monkey."
"Ah, that is where the little tambourine girl came from that we have now in school. There is a quarrel, I suppose, and the little girl has come for me."
Tom went down stairs, with a heart as light as his step, "which," said Mr. P., "I followed, I must acknowledge, rather heavily, for I did not quite relish the idea of being wakened out of a comfortable evening nap, to do police duty in Cow Bay, and I fear there might not have been quite as much suavity in my tone and manner towards the rag-picker's daughter, as we ought to use when speaking to those poor children, for I recollect the words were, 'What do you want?' instead of, 'What can I do for you, my child—come tell me, and don't cry any more.'"
"I don't want to be a beggar girl. I want to be like my cousin Juliana."
"Juliana—Juliana. I don't know her."
"It is the little tambourine girl, sir," said Tom.
"Oh, I see now. Juliana is your cousin, then. Come here Madalina; let me look at you, and I will talk about it. Did Juliana tell you to come here?"
"Yes, sir; she has told me a good many times, but they would not let me. I am afraid to stay there to-night, they are drinking and fighting so bad."
"I thought so; and you want me to go and stop them; is that it?"
"No, sir. I want to stay here."
"Oh, a poor little girl flying for fear from her own parents, because they are drinking and fighting so."
He drew her forward into the light, and looked upon as fine a set of features as he ever saw. Her hair, which, as a matter of course, was black almost as the raven's wing, and subsequently, when cleaned of dirt and its accompaniments, became almost as glossy, overshadowed a pair of the keenest, yet mildest, black eyes I ever met with. Her skin was dark, partly natural, and partly the effect of the sun upon its unwashed, unsheltered surface. Her teeth, oh! what a set of teeth! which, she afterward told me, she kept clean by a habit she had of eating charcoal. She was about twelve years old, slim form, rather tall, but delicate structure. Her dress consisted of a dirty cotton frock, reaching a little below the knees, and nothing else. Barefooted, bareheaded, almost naked, at the hour of midnight, of a cold March night, a little innocent child, wandering through the streets of New York, vainly plying the words, "Please give me a penny, sir," to well-fed, comfortably-dressed men, whose feelings have grown callous by constantly hearing such words from such objects, to whom to give is not to relieve, but rather encourage to continue in the pursuit of such ill-gotten means of prolonging life, without any prospect of benefit to themselves or their fellow-creatures.
"Then you don't want to beg, Madalina! Why not?"
"Because people push me, and curse me, and to-day one man kicked me right here, sir." And she laid her hand upon her stomach, and a little groan of anguish and accusation against the unfeeling monster who had done the deed, went to the recording angel, and was set down in the black catalogue of rum-selling crimes, for a day of retribution yet to come.
"Kicked you! What for? Were you saucy?"
"No, sir; I am never saucy. My mother says if I am saucy, men won't give me anything. I must be very quiet, and not talk any, nor answer any questions."
"Then how came he to kick you?"
"I don't know, sir; I did not say a word, I only went into one of those nice rooms in Broadway, where they have such beautiful glass bottles and tumblers, and looking-glasses, and such a sight of all sorts of liquor, and where so many fine gentlemen go and sit, and talk, and laugh, and drink, and smoke; and I just went along and held out my hand to the gentlemen, when one of them told me to open my mouth, and shut my eyes, and hold out my hand, and he would give me a shilling. Now look what he did—he put his cigar all burning in my hand, and shut it up and held it there."
Horrible! she opened her hand, and showed three fingers and a palm all in a blister.
"Oh, sir, that is nothing to what another one did. He put a great nasty chaw of tobacco in my mouth, and then I could not help crying; then the man who sells the liquor, he ran out from behind the counter, and how he did swear, and caught me by the hair, and pulled me down on the floor, and kicked me so I could hardly get away. But he told me if I did not he would set the dogs on me and tear me to pieces."
"What did you go into such a place for?"
"I had been all day in the streets and only got three pennies, and I wanted to go home."
"Well, why did you not go?"
"My mother said if I did not get sixpence to-day she would whip me, and so I went to that place. I did not think such nice dressed gentlemen would do so. What if they should have to beg some day! My father used to dress as fine as they when he kept the Café de l'Imperator."
"And where have you been since they abused you so?"
"I crept up into a cart in Pearl street; I was so sick, after the tobacco and the kick, for it was very hard."
"Could you not get home?"
"No, sir. Besides, what if I could, and my mother had been drinking. She would kick me again, perhaps."
"What, then, are you going to do to-night? You cannot sleep in the street; it is too cold."
"Won't you let me sleep?"——
"With your cousin Juliana?"
"No, sir, not that; she is clean, and I—I wish I was. Won't you let me sleep on the floor?"
"You shall have a place to sleep to-night; and to-morrow, if your mother is willing, you shall come and live with your cousin Juliana, and be dressed as she is, and learn to sew; and when you get big enough"——
"Her mother will prostitute her, as she did her older sister to a miserable old pimp for ten dollars."
"Tom, Tom, what is that?"
"The truth, sir. Have I ever told you a lie since I have been in your house?"
"Well, well, Tom, take Madalina to the housekeeper, and give her somewhere to sleep to-night, and to-morrow morning you shall go to her mother and see what she will do."
"Lord, sir, I must go to-night. She will be off with her hook and basket, poking in the gutters after rags before the stars go to bed. These rag-pickers are early birds. I have known them travel four or five miles of a morning, to get to their own walk."
"Own walk. What is that?"
"All the city is divided up among them. Each must keep to his own walk. If one should trespass upon another, he would get a wet cloth over his mouth some night when he was asleep, and nobody would know or care how he died."
"The coroner's jury would inquire into the matter."
"Coroner! fiddlesticks! I beg your pardon, sir, but I did not mean to answer you that way, though I did know that coroner's juries care the least of anybody how such fellows die. The verdict would be 'accidental death,' 'found dead,' 'died of visitation of Providence;' or, if the murderers got a chance, which they might do easy enough, to chuck the body in the dock, the verdict would be 'found drowned,' no matter if he had a hole in his head as big as my fist."
"They could not carry the body from this neighborhood to the river without being detected."
"Couldn't they. How did Ring-nosed Bill and Snakey Jo carry Pedlar Jake from Cale Jones's to Peck-slip and send him afloat?"
"What, dead?"
"Yes, sir, they put too much opium in his rum to get him to sleep, so they could rob him, and he did not wake up, and so they walked him off."
"Walked him off, how?"
"They stood him up and fastened one of their legs to his each side, so that when they stepped his feet travelled too, and so they-went along, talking to him and cursing him for being so drunk, till they got to the dock."
"Where were the Police, do they never notice such things?"
"Lord, no sir, they steps round the corner when they sees a drunken man coming, particularly if he has one of his friends with him."
"And do you think, Tom, that the rag-pickers would murder a fellow-creature who trespassed, as they call it, upon their grounds, without compunction of conscience?"
"Conscience, sir, what do they know about conscience? The 'Padre' keeps their conscience."
"But the law, is there no law in this Christian City?"
"Law, pshaw! what has your book-law to do with rag-pickers' law?"
"True enough; or 'father confessors,' either."
The next morning Tom made his report. At first it was a positive refusal. "She can make sixpence a day, and pick up enough to eat."
"Well then she shall pay you sixpence a day. She can soon learn to sew and earn more than that. Juliana does it every day."
"But she shall not stay there nights. They will make a Protestant of her."
"That was not the sticking point," says Tom, "if she stays here, she cannot make a —— of her there. The best I could do was to let her go home nights and come days. That is better than nothing. The poor little thing won't have to go begging, and be burned, and kicked, and vomited with filthy tobacco cuds, and then whipped if she don't bring home sixpence every night for her mother to buy rum with. If she cannot earn it here at first, I will, and we will get her away entirely, after a while."
Noble Tom! Glorious good boy! What a heart! How long is it since thou wert as one of them, kicked and cuffed, and groveling drunk in the gutter? Who thought then that thy rags and filth covered such a heart? Who knew of the virtuous lessons given thee by a pious mother; and how, after years of forgetfulness, sin, wretchedness, misery, that that good seed would vegetate and bring forth such sweet flowers and good fruit, as we are now tasting in these good deeds and kind words. What if nine of the fallen whom we lift up, fall back again? so that one stand, who shall refuse to lend a helping hand? Let us lift up the lowly and make the haughty humble. Why should they do evil?
Again the messenger went up to the Great Recorder, and a double deed of mercy was written down.
Wild Maggie, thy sins are forgiven. Look at thy work. This is the poor outcast boy of whom you said, "Tom, I am going to provide you with a home. You must go to the House of Industry, reform, and make a man of yourself."
The work is more than half done.
Madalina, though still suffering from her brutal treatment, was a happy girl when she found that she was not to be driven out to beg in the streets.
But she could not understand why her mother wanted her to sleep at home. Tom could. "Too young! Pooh! before she is a year-older, she will be lost." Too true! Before she had been in "the Home" six months, she had learned to read, write, and work, and had grown much in stature and fine looks. Then she would have been placed in some good family, but her mother would not consent. She still complained of her breast, and had frequent turns of vomiting. She always felt worse in the morning, "because," she said, "that was such a dreadful place to sleep."
Sometimes she did not come for a few days; her mother made her stay at home and sew. She had learned to work, and her services were worth more at that than begging.
One night she came in, in great haste, crying.
"What is the matter, Madalina?"
"My mother has had an offer for me."
"An offer for you. What is that?"
Tom looked daggers. "I told you so."
"What is it, my good girl. Tell me all about it."
"My mother bid me go out with her this evening, both of us dressed in our best. She said she had an offer for me, and was going to meet the man in Duane street.
"'What does the man want of me, mother?' said I.
"'Oh, he will make a fine lady of you, and you will live with him.'
"'But I don't want to live with him; I had rather live with Mr. Pease, at "the Home." I had rather live where Tom is, for Tom is good to me.'"
Young love's first happy dream!
"But we went on, and I held my head down, and felt very bad. By-and-by I heard my mother say,'Here she is,' and I looked up a little, and saw two gentlemen—that is, they were clothed like gentlemen—and directly one spoke to the other.
"'I say, Jim, she will do; give the old woman the money, and let us take her up to Kate's.'
"Mercy on me, that voice! I felt that sore spot in my breast grow more and more painful. I looked up; it was the man who kicked me; the other was the man who put the tobacco in my mouth."
"What did you do?"
"I stood a little behind my mother while she held out her hand for the money, and when their eyes were turned I ran. I only heard them say, 'Why, damn her, she is gone.' Yes, I was gone, and here I am. Oh, I am so sick and so faint! do let me lay down, and don't let those men have me. Oh dear, the thought of it will kill me!"
So it did. A cruel blow had fallen upon a tender plant. The beggar girl might not have felt it. The little seamstress did. A taste of virtue, civilization, christianity, friendship, love, had given the food of sin and shame a hated taste. Sold by a mother to a libidinous brute—to a miserable rum-selling,—worse than rum-drinking—wretch, who wears gentlemanly garments, and kicks, burns, and gags little beggar girls. It was too much for human nature to bear, and it sunk under this last blow, worse than the first.
Madalina went to bed with a raging fever—a nervous prostration. All that kindness and skill could do, was done for the poor sufferer; but what could we do for the body, when the heart was sick?
Next morning her mother came and insisted that she should go home. They begged, pleaded, and promised in vain; go she must.
"Never mind," said Madalina, "it will be only for a little, little while. I shall be well—at least all will be well with me in a few days. I cannot endure this pain in my breast. You will come and see me. Good bye. Tom, you will?"
It was an honest, manly tear that Tom turned away to hide. Poor fellow, he need not have been ashamed of it. Such is nature.
"She is worse, sir," said Tom, one morning, "and no wonder. I wish you would go and see her; she wants to see you once more. Such a place to be sick in! oh, dear! how did I ever sleep there? I wish you would go with me to-night, about ten o'clock, when they are all in. You will see life as it is."
"Very well, Tom, I will go. Call for me at ten, or when you are ready."
It was my fortune to drop in upon that very evening, and form one of the company to that abode of misery,—that home of the city poor,—so that I am able to describe it in my own language. The place where Madalina lived, is a well known Five Points locality, called "Cow Bay."
As you go up that great Broadway of wealth, fashion, luxury, and extravagance of this great city, from the Park and its marble halls of justice, you will pass another great marble front—it is the palace of trade, where the rich are clothed every day in fine linens, when they go "shopping at Stewart's." Further along are great marts, where velvet coverings for the floor are sold; for there are some who have never trod upon bare boards. You need not look down Duane street, unless you have a curiosity to see the spot where a miserable mother would sell the virtue of her child to a wretch whose trade is seduction. Don't look into that little old wooden shanty at the comer of Pearl street; it is a "family grocery." The little ragged girl you see coming out with a rusty tin coffee-pot, has not been there for milk for her sick mother—her father is in the hospital on the opposite side of the way—his arm was broken in a "family quarrel." You will pass the Broadway Theatre before you reach the next corner, with its surroundings of fashionable "saloons," into any of which you may go without fear of losing caste among genteel brandy-smashers and wine-bibbers. Perhaps you will be amused with a small play, such as burning, kicking, or vomiting a little beggar girl; for nice young men are fond of theatrical amusements. Do not go into that place of "fashionable resort," the theatre, if it is a hot evening, for it is worse ventilated than the black-hole of Calcutta, and if the fetid air does not breed a fever, it will breed a feverish thirst, which will tempt you to quench it in potations of poison. Probably that is why it was thus built.
A few steps beyond is Anthony street. Stop a moment here, and look up and down the great thoroughfare of New-York before you leave it. A hundred pedestrians pass you every minute; almost without an exception, every one of them richly dressed men and women, smiling in joy and happiness. Here is an exception, certainly. A woman in poverty's garb, with a bundle of broken boards and old timbers, from a demolished building, that would be a load for a pack-horse. She is followed by two little boys, with each a bundle, crushing their young years into early decrepitude. They have brought their heavy loads all the long way from Murray street. They turn down Anthony; look where they go. If they live in that street, it cannot be far, for there, in plain view, stands a large frame house, corner-wise towards you, right in the middle of the street. No, it only looks so, it is beyond the end of it. Yet look, note it well, the corner of that house so plain in view, pointing towards you, is one of the world-wide-known Five Points of New-York.
"What! not so near Broadway, right in plain sight of all who wear silks and broadcloth, and go up and down that street every day? Surely that is not the place where all those bad, miserable, poor outcasts live, that the newspapers talk so much about."
"The very spot, my dear lady."
"Really, this must be looked to. It is quite too bad to think that place is so near our fashionable street, and in sight too. I thought it was away off somewhere the other side of town. If I thought it would do any good, I would let Peter take a few dollars and some old clothes, and go down with them to-morrow."
"Try it, madam. Better go yourself. Let Peter drive you down; see for yourself what has been done and what is yet to do. Lend your hand to cure that eye-sore, which will pain you every time you pass, for you cannot shut it out of sight, now you know where it is; so near your daily walk or drive to Stewart's, or nightly visit to the theatre, or weekly visit to the church. Go to-morrow; don't put it off till next week."
In the meantime, reader, let us follow the woman and two boys with their heavy burden, on their homeward way to-night. We will go and see where they live.
So I followed down Anthony, past some very old rat-harbor houses, filled with human beings, almost as thick as those quadrupeds burrow in a rotten wharf; so on they go across Elm; now they stand a moment on the edge of Centre, for one of the little boys has taken hold of his mother's dress to pull her back—for she cannot look up with her load—with a sudden cry of, "Stop, old woman! Don't you see the car is coming? Why, you are as blind as a brick. That is black Jim a-driving, and he had just as soon drive over the likes of you as eat. Hang you for a fool, han't you got no sense, old stupid? There now, run like thunder, blast ye, for here comes another of the darned cars—run, I tell you!"
She did run with her great load, till she almost dropped under its overwhelming weight. Why should she thus labor—thus expend so much strength to so little purpose? She knew no other way to live. Nobody gave her remunerative labor for strong hands; nobody took those two stout boys, and set them to till the earth, or taught them how to create bread, and yet they must eat, and so they prowl about the pulled-down houses, snatching everything they can carry away—a sort of permitted petty larceny, that teaches those who practice it how to do bigger deeds; and those old timbers they split up into kindling wood and peddle through the streets.
Poor uncared for fellow creatures; working and stealing to escape starvation—living, for what?—running to escape being run over by an unfeeling driver who cared just as much for them as for so many dogs.
On they went, down Anthony street; and I followed, determined to see the home of this portion of the city poor. It was but one block further—only one little space beyond this great, wide, open, railroad street, whose thoughtless thousands daily go up and down from homes of wealth to wealth-producing ships and stores, little thinking of the amount of human misery within a stone's throw of the rails on which they glide swiftly along.
One block further, and the street opens into a little, half acre sort of triangular space, sometimes dignified with the name of "park," but why, those who know can only tell, for it has no fence, no grass, and but a dozen miserable trees; 'tis lumbered up with carts and piles of stones, and strings of drying clothes, and scores of unwashed specimens of young humanity, whose home is in the dirt, whether in the street or parents' domicil.
Here let us stop and look around. A very short street, only one block across the base of the "park," runs to the right from where we stand, past the "Five Points House of Industry," to Cross street. This is the most notorious little street in New York. Its name is Little Water street. It lead from the "Old Brewery" to "Cow Bay." Who that has lived long in this city, or read its history, particularly that portion of it written by Dickens, has not heard of the "Old Brewery?" It is not there now. That awful den of crime, poverty, and wretched drunken misery has been pulled down, and in its place a substantial brick edifice, in which is a chapel and school-room, and home of another missionary, has been erected by the noble, generous efforts of the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, of the Methodist Church. The old tenants have been driven out or reformed. How different, too, are the present occupants of that large brick pile in Little Water street, from those who filled its numerous rooms before the missionary came there. Every room was a brothel or a den of thieves, or both combined. Now it is a house of prayer—a home for the homeless—a place of refuge for midnight wandering little beggar girls.
Before us lies the misnamed, neglected triangle, called a park. At the further end is the frame house that we see so plainly as we look down Anthony street from Broadway. At the left, as though it were a continuation of Little Water street, lies that notorious Five Points collection of dens of misery, Cow Bay. It is a cul-de-sac, perhaps thirty feet wide at the mouth, narrowing, with crooked, uneven lines, back to a point about a hundred feet from the entrance. Into this court I tracked the kindling-wood-splitters, and threaded my way among the throng of carts and piles of steaming garbage; elbowing my way along the narrow side-walk, and up a flight of broken, almost impassable steps, I reached the first floor hall of one of the houses, just in time to see that great load of wood and its bearer toiling up a narrow, dark, broken stairway, which I essayed to climb; but just then, from the room on the left, at the foot of the stairs, there came such a piercing, murder-telling, woman's shriek, that I started back, grasped my stout cane, determined to brave the worst for the rescue, made one step, pushed open the door, creaking with a horrid grating upon its rusty hinges, and stood in the presence of an Eve, before the fall, in point of clothing, but long, long after that in point of sin. As I entered the open door, she sprung towards it; her husband caught her by the hair, and drew her back, with no gentle hand or word.
"Let me go, let me go—help!—he wants to murder me; let me go—help, help, help!"
I did help, but it was help to the poor man, for she turned upon him with the fury of a tiger, scratching and tearing his face and clothes, and then settling with a grasp upon his throat, which produced the death-rattle of suffocation.
A strong silk handkerchief served the hand-cuff's place, and to bind hands and feet together; after which she lay quietly upon a little straw and rags, in one corner, the only articles of furniture in the room, except a bottle, broken cup, and something that looked as though it once had been female apparel.
"Is this your wife?"
"She was."
"What is she now?"
"The devil's fury. You saw what she is."
"Do you live with her?"
"I did for seven years."
"Did she drink then?"
"Sometimes—not so bad."
"Well, none to hurt. I kept a coffee house."
"And made your wife a drunkard. How came she reduced to this dreadful condition? You are well dressed."
"I left her three months ago, and went West to find a place to move to. She said if she could go where nobody knew her she would reform. I left her in a comfortable room, with good furniture and good clothes. Now, where are they? All gone to the pawnbroker's; the money gone for rum—her virtue, shame, everything gone. How, what, and where do I find her? As you see, crazy drunk, in this miserable hole, in Cow Bay. And my boy, starved, made drunk, and—"
"What, have you a child by her, then?"
"Yes, a sweet little boy, six years old. Oh, I wish he was awake, that you might see him."
And he stepped to the miserable bed, and lifted the dirty rag of a quilt, looked a moment upon the pale boy, dropped upon his knees, raised him in his arms, looked again wildly, and fell back fainting as he exclaimed, "Great God, he is dead!"
What little I could do or say to relieve such heart-crushing woe as overwhelmed this poor father of that murdered child—this miserable husband of that wretched, crazy—rum-crazy woman, was soon done. What else could I do than call in a police officer to take her away to prison? whence she went to the hospital, then to the drunkard's uncared-for, unwept-over grave!
Now, strange footsteps are winding up the rickety stairs, which I follow. They were those of Tom and the Missionary, for here lived little Madalina.
The second floor was divided into three rooms. We looked in as we passed. The back room was ten by twelve feet square, inhabited by two black men and their wives, and a white woman lodger, who "sometimes has company." Here they eat, drink, and sleep,—cook, wash, and iron. The latter operation is performed on the bottom of the wash-tub, for there is no table. The front room, eight by fourteen feet, contained five blacks, men and women. Each of these rooms rented for four dollars a month, in advance.
A dark centre room, occupied by a white woman, was only six by seven feet, for which she paid fifty cents a week. On the third floor, the dark centre room, same size, was occupied by a real good looking, young, healthy German woman, with her husband, a great burly negro, as black as Africa's own son, and a fine looking little white boy, four years old, as a lodger. We found the door shut, and no ventilator bigger than the key-hole. There was a smell about the air.
In the back room, ten by twelve, we found the wood-splitters—the woman and her two boys, a negro and his wife, a woman lodger, and occasional company. The rent of this room is one dollar a week in advance. The total amount of furniture, was not good security for one week's rent.
"Good woman, why do you bring all your great piles of wood up these steep, slippery stairs, to fill up your room?"
"Cot in himmel, vare vould I puts him? In te court? De peoples steal him all."
True, there was no place but in that one room to store up a supply, while the time of gleaning was good. Then it has to be carried down to the court, to be split up into kindlings, and then again carried up for storage. How so many find room to live in such narrow space, if our readers would learn, let them go and make personal inquiry. They will find plenty of just such cases, with slight search.
Up, up again, one more flight of creaking stairs, without bannisters, the thin worn steps bending beneath our tread, and we are on the upper floor of this one of a hundred just alike "tenant houses." Along the dark, narrow passage, opening by that low door at the end, into a room under the roof, ten by fifteen feet, lighted by one dormer window, and we are in the home of Madalina, the rag-picker's daughter. Home! Can it be that that holy name has been so desecrated—that this child, with sylph-like form and angel face, must call this room her home. 'Tis only for a little while! She will soon have another!
In one corner of the room stood two hand organs, such as the most of us city dwellers are daily tormented with, groaning out their horrid music under our windows, while the grinder and his monkey look anxiously for falling pennies or pea-nuts. These stand a little way apart, with a couple of boards laid across the space. On these boards there had been an attempt to make a bed, of sundry old coats, a dirty blanket, and other vermin harbors.
On this bed lay the poor little sufferer. Not so very little either. In her own native Italy she had been counted almost a woman.
We have seen many, many beautiful faces, but never one like this—so angelic.
"It is a bad sign," said Tom, in answer to a remark upon the expression of her face; "it is a sign she will soon be among those she looks so much like. She never looked so before. She is a living angel now, she will soon be a real one."
"Madalina, my good child," said the missionary, "how do you feel to-night?"
"The pain in my breast has been very bad, but it is easier now. It always goes away when you come. I am so glad you came to-night, for I wanted to thank you for a thousand good things you have done for me."
"Are you afraid you will not get well?"
"Oh, no, I am not afraid; I know I shall not, but I am not afraid. I don't want to live, if I must live here; look around. It did not use to look as it does now to me; when I went out begging, and came home tired and cold and hungry, I could lay down with the monkeys on my mother's bag of nasty, wet rags, and go to sleep directly. Now they worry me to death with their chattering. Do drive them down, Tom, that is a dear, good fellow."
It would evidently have been a source of great gratification to Tom, to have pitched five or six of them out of the window. But there were dark eyes scowling on him, out of a dozen sockets of men who come from the land of the stiletto, and looked now as though they could as readily use it as play the organ and lead the monkey.
I looked about, and counted six men or stout boys, and eight women and girls, besides several children, monkeys, tambourines and hand organs. In one corner was the rag-picker's store. This had been the bed of Madalina until this evening, she grew so much worse, that she was lifted up to the bed I have described. But here she had not escaped the torment of the monkeys. They had long been her companions and seemed determined to be so still. They were climbing up and down, or sitting chattering on her bed. Late as it was in the evening there were several fresh arrivals of parties of musicians and rag-pickers from their distant walks. Several were at supper. A long, black table with a wooden bench, on either side, was furnished with two wooden trays, which had seen long service and little soap. Into these was ladled from time to time, the savory contents of a large pot simmering upon the stove. Each guest helped himself with fingers and spoon. Whether the stew was composed of monkey meat, or two days old veal, I cannot say. That onions formed a strong part of the ingredients, we had olfactory demonstration. Some of the party indulged in a bottle of wine, and we smelt something very much like bad rum or worse brandy; but generally speaking, this class of the city poor are not great drunkards. One end of the room was entirely occupied by a camp bed. That is, in that narrow space of ten feet, ten human beings, big and little, of both sexes, laid down side by side. The balance of the family lay around here and there; some on and some under the table, some on great black chests, of which each family had one, wherein they lock all their personal goods from their pilfering room mates. The stove and a few dishes finishes the catalogue of furniture. How many persons are, or can be stowed into this one room, is beyond my powers of computation.
Will some of my readers, who faint at the smell of unsavory food, or who could not sleep but in fresh linen and well aired rooms, fancy what must be the feelings of poor Madalina, who had just begun to taste of the comforts of civilized life, now sick and dying in such a room, where the penny candle only served to make the thick clouds of tobacco smoke more visible and more suffocating?
One of the difficulties in all these close-packed rooms is the necessity of keeping the door always shut, to prevent pilfering, thus leaving the only chance for fresh air to enter, or foul air to escape, by the one small window in the roof.
Having given you a view of the room, and its inhabitants and furniture, let us look again upon poor Madalina, as she lies panting for breath upon her hard pallet. Her face, naturally dark, has an unhealthy whiteness spread over it, and there is a small, bright crimson spot upon one cheek—the other is hidden in the taper fingers of the hand upon which it rests. Such a pair of bright black eyes! Oh, how beautiful! Her wavy locks of jet, are set off by a clean, white handkerchief, spread over the bundle of rags which forms her pillow, by one of her visitors. Now, in spite of pain, there is a smile lighting up her face, and showing such a set of teeth as a princess might covet. Whence this happy smile? Listen how cheaply it is brought upon the face of the suffering innocent. She had said, "I am so thirsty, and nothing to drink but nasty, warm tea." Directly, Tom was missing. Now he was back again, and there he stood with a nice, white pitcher in one hand, full of ice water, and a glass tumbler in the other. Now he pours it full of the sparkling nectar—now he drops upon one knee and carries it to those parched lips. Is it any wonder that she smiles? Is it any wonder that that simple-minded, good-hearted boy should look up, as I stood looking over the kneeling Missionary, and say, "Don't she look like an angel, sir?"