Part 11 (1/2)
”Will that?”
”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 s.h.i.+rt 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? G.o.d 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 st.i.tch 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 G.o.d 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.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE HOME OF LITTLE KATY.
”There is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
”He, that of the greatest works is finisher, Oft does them by the weakest minister.”
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 s.h.i.+lling. 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 s.h.i.+lling 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!”