Part 2 (1/2)
and, so he shared the proceeds with his father--that father, or rather the monster who made him a devil, would encourage the boy to be a thief.
What could the mother do to counteract such deleterious influence? All day she must stand at her corner, selling fruit, pea-nuts, and candy, to make bread to feed her else starving offspring, and to keep her husband out of the prison or alms-house.
You have already seen the effect of the street education upon Sally; the sight of her playmate, Julia Antrim, dressed in silks and laces, although borrowed--no, furnished, by ”the woman,” on hire, for a purpose more wicked than murder, for murder only kills the body--has already tempted her towards the same road--to that broad path to woe; not in the future, but here present with us every day; and she has already determined that she will follow it as soon as ”she gets big enough.”
Who shall rescue her?
The danger is still more imminent now. Houseless, naked, starving in the street, how shall she live? One step, one resolution, will take her to the clothes-lending harpy, who fattens upon the life-blood of young girls, whom she dooms to the fate of Ixion for the remainder of their lives; for her garments are the s.h.i.+rts of Nessus to all who wear them.
She feels that she _is_ big enough now--big enough to begin. Younger girls than her are night-walkers. Julia is no older, and but little bigger, and she has often stopped in her walk to eat hot corn or pea-nuts with Sally, and show her s.h.i.+ning gold, trying to tempt her to go and do likewise. She has an interest, too, in the temptation, for she has told Mrs. Brown of her old playmate, Sally Eaton, and how good-looking she was; and Mrs. Brown has been to see her, has bought her merchandise, and spoken words of soul-trapping flattery, and promised Julia a present of a new silk dress--that is, just as good as new, it had just been bought by a girl whom she turned out of doors because she could not pay her way--if she will coax Sally to come and live with her.
And so she has been sorely tempted. Eve was so, and fell.
These tempting words are now running through the brain of Sally, as she stands in the crowd, wrapt in a blanket, kindly lent her, with her mother and little Willie, looking at their home and every earthly thing going up in flame and smoke heavenward. Her mother weeps, for the first time in long years. Long, long, had she steeled her heart against such indulgence; its pent up fountains burst now. Not for grief; no, they were tears, such as she shed when that girl was born. How she cried, and thanked G.o.d, and pressed the hand of the fireman and thanked him for saving her children's lives, dearer to her than all her household goods.
How little he thought of the n.o.ble act. He almost repulsed her and her grat.i.tude.
”There, that'll do, old woman. You had better be getting in somewhere.”
Somewhere! Yes, somewhere! Where?
That is the question. The crowd shout at the heroic deeds of the firemen, and would carry them in triumph through the streets, or bring out baskets of champaigne to drink libations to their honor, for saving two helpless children from the flames. Saved for what? To stand naked in the street! No. Let them go to their friends. They have none. Yes, they have, but not relatives. A few dollars are put into the mother's hand, but who will take her in? who will give her a home? One that three years ago had no home himself. One who had been more drunken than Bill Eaton--had been drunk for forty years. He is sober now--you shall hear directly how he became so.
A man advanced in years, say more than half a century, followed by a tall, fine-formed, well-dressed, bright-eyed girl, about one-third her father's age, press through the crowd to where the widow and her children stand, take them by the hand and lead on, with the simple words, ”Come with us.”
It needs but few such words, spoken in such kind tones, to the afflicted to lead them into paths of peace, and hope, and joy.
The mother went forward with a sort of mechanical motion of the limbs, unaided by any impulse of the mind. Willie followed, as the lamb follows the ewe, whether to green fields or the butcher's shambles.
Sally was more independent. She was on the point of being entirely so, but a moment before. Now she clung to her girlish companion, as the wrecked mariner to hope. Had hope come one minute later, she had been led by the tempter that was gnawing at her heart-strings, to slip away from her mother, and in one hour afterwards, she would have been knocking at the ever-ready-to-open door of Mrs. Brown, and once pa.s.sing that threshold, woe, woe, woe, had been written upon every page of her life. Once having pa.s.sed that door, every other but its like had been closed against her for ever. For the sin of entering that door, in her young years, the world would never forgive her. No matter, that gaudily dressed and luxuriously fed tempters had beset her and led her in. Such tempters--such school teachers for city children are allowed to monopolise the Broadway sidewalks, and hold their infant evening schools, if not by authority of the common council, at least by permission and countenance of the chief of police and all his ”stars.”
No Proserpine can walk this street at night alone, without meeting, or at least subjecting herself to, the sad fate of Proserpine of old.
Few of those we meet in our late walks, are Proserpines or Vestas; although they may be G.o.ddesses of fire.
Seek not to lift the veil, you will find Pandora there; Blame not the girl who got her teachings in such a street, if, in her deep adversity she was tempted--tempted to leave that mother and brother, and slip away in the crowd, to go where she knew she would find a home. Where else should she go? She knew of none. No one of all that crowd offered to take her home with him. She had no hope. She was a fit subject for despair, and despair is the father of temptation. What a blessed thing is hope, charity, and a will to do good; when it flows from one young girl to another!
But who is it says, ”come with us?” The voice seemed familiar, and yet not familiar to Sally's ear. If the person had been clothed in such a garb of poverty as she herself had always worn, she would have known her, although it was three years since they had met. She was not; she wore a neat tidy calico frock, and clean white sun-bonnet, hastily put on, and altogether looked so neat, so smart, so comfortable, as though she had a home which she meant to take them to, when she said, ”come with us,” that the tempter's spell was broken. Sally would not have gone with Julia Antrim, for all her gold and silks, good suppers and other enjoyments. The words were few and common-place. How often the mother and children had heard them before--”come with us.” But they never sounded as they did this night. There is something in the tone, as well as words. There is a magnetic power in kindness. Kind words are always winning, whether from friend or stranger. These came from strangers. Not altogether so; the man had been one of the drunken companions of Bill Eaton; had helped to make him such, and now he was going to pay part of the damage to his family. The girl, in her father's drunken days, had been one of Sally's street companions; they had begged, and stole, and peddled hot corn and pea-nuts together. But Sally knew her not. How could she? Then she was, ragged and dirty, far worse than Sally; her parents were far poorer, and lived in a worse room, one of the worst in Centre street, and both of them were great drunkards, and she was, so everybody said, ”the worse child that ever run unhung.”
How could she know the well behaved, nice looking young lady, walking by her side. But she did know that she spoke kind words in a sweet tone, and her heart was touched, and she went on with a light step. That blanket wrapped a happier heart that night, than ever fluttered under the silk dress of her former playmate, Julia Antrim.
They went on; the old man gave his arm to the widow and led the little boy; the daughter walked with Sally. They enter the _front_ door of a good house--when did either ever enter the front door before--up one flight of clean stairs, and there is their home, a room, and two bed-rooms, and kitchen; small to be sure, but a most comfortable home, for the old man and his daughter. He was a carpenter, and made from a dollar and a half to two dollars a day; she was a stock-maker, and could earn from three to five dollars a week, enough to pay nearly all expenses. ”Three years ago,” said he, ”I was the most hopeless drunkard that ever tumbled into a Centre street cellar. And my wife--but no matter--she is in heaven now. All that girl's work. She reformed us; she made me a sober man, and, G.o.d willing, I shall never fill a drunkard's grave.”
”Oh, if she could only reform my husband, how I would bless her.”
”It is too late.”
”No, no; it is never too late; while there is life there is hope.”
”Yes, true; but--”
”But what? what is it? what do you know?”
”Why, you see, ma'am, I was in the crowd last night when the accident happened. It was me that first picked him up; and so, you see, I went up with him. It was me that told you that you couldn't go, 'cause I knew how 'twas with the children, and how you hadn't much to do with at home; for I had been sort o' watching Bill, and he had promised to go with me this very night to sign the pledge; and so, you see, I went up with him, and they dressed his wounds, and I knew he wouldn't get over it, his blood was so bad, and it was so warm; but he might have lived a while, and so when they got things fixed, I thought I would come down and tell you about it; but just as I got down to the gate, a fellow came running after me to go back--it was a'most morning then--and so back I went.