Part 27 (1/2)

”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 n.o.body 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 p.a.w.nbroker'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 G.o.d, he is dead!”

What little I could do or say to relieve such heart-crus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed. 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 cla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce of ten feet, ten human beings, big and little, of both s.e.xes, 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.