Part 35 (1/2)
Coming up one of the streets west of Broadway, about one o'clock at night, I saw a fellow hovering near a house, whom I recognized as a Negro wood-sawyer that I had seen the day before, engaged at the same house, putting wood down the cellar grate. I knew him or thought I did, as a poor but honest man, and I felt pained with a fear that I had been deceived, that he had left the grate unfastened, and now was about to steal something from the cellar. I pa.s.sed on around the next corner, out of sight, and then turned back and crossed over, where I could have a full view of his operations. There were no lamps burning, because there should, or might have been moonlight, if it had been clear; as it was, it was a fitting time for the burglar's trade. Directly, the fellow approached the grate, opened it carefully, and drew up a trunk. My heart beat with excitement, fear, and sorrow. I was just on the point of calling, ”Watch,” I must own with a view of letting the fellow escape, and saving the trunk, when I saw a bonnet, then a shawl, and then a full suit of woman's clothes follow the trunk up from that dark recess. My mind was somewhat relieved; my honest wood-sawyer might be honest still, though he was probably a.s.sisting a dishonest woman; else why did she leave that house, to all appearance, an honest house, for all that I had ever seen in pa.s.sing it a hundred times, in such a clandestine manner.
The Negro walked on with the trunk on his shoulder, and the woman followed. It was a scene of such frequent occurrence, that it would excite no suspicion or question from a policeman. He would think it was a pa.s.senger by the train, from Boston, or Albany, or the Erie railroad, all of which make midnight arrivals.
On they went, block after block, and I followed, till I thought the chase likely to prove a long one, and then I stepped up to the woman, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, said, ”Stop!” She uttered a little cry of alarm, and said, ”Oh, don't take me up, please don't.”
The Negro stopped, looked round, and set down the trunk hastily, evidently supposing that a star had nabbed her, and that the better part of a fight consists in running away. There was a light here, for the lamp-lighters were just going their late rounds. He gave one glance back before he started, to be sure he had good cause to run, and instantly burst into a most merry fit of laughter, very unlike what might be supposed that of a caught burglar.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'SPEC A BODY HAS A RIGHT TO STEAL OWN TRUNK.”--_Page 285._]
”Ha! ha! ha! ki, missee, you don't know dat gemman? You nebber seed dat gemman 'fore? You tink him a star? Look at um. You tink he look so he hurt you? He wouldn't hurt a child, much more a woman. I know dat gemman. Ki, I mighty glad to see him. 'Spose tell him all about um? Spec he say a body has a right to steal he own trunk, and run away from such a house as dat.”
”Such a house as that, Peter; is that not a good house?”
”Well, spec him house good enough, but spec he folks dat lib dare, not 'zactly straight up and down like dog hind leg.”
”Why, Peter, what do you mean? Is not that Mr. Ingram, whose name I see on the door, and whom I know as apparently a gentleman of wealth and leisure, for I have often seen him a.s.sociating with gentlemen about the hotels; is he not the gentleman of the house?”
”Gentlum! Lord, sir, he is dat woman's man, her pimp, she gives him all dem fine clothes and gold rings, and he gets fellows to come an see her gals.”
”Mercy on me! The outside of the platter is made clean, while the inside is full of dead men's bones.”
”Dat's just what Agnes says; she says, she find dead men's bones in the ashes, and b.u.t.tons, and bits of burnt woman's clothes in a pile in the cellar, and she seed woman's ghost dare, and she won't stay in dat house no how can fix um, and dat's what it mean 'bout I got dis trunk; did you see how I get him, ma.s.sa?”
”Yes, I did, and I want to know something about why you 'get him' at this time of night out of that cellar. The ghost story won't do; if she was afraid of ghosts she would not go down into that cellar at night any more than she would go down to her grave. It won't do.”
”Oh, sir, the ghost goes upstairs every night, to stay in the room where she was seduced. None of the girls in the house will stay in that room.
They gave it to me when first I went there. I did not know it was haunted then, but I found out afterwards that it was, for she told me so, and how she was shut up in the coal cellar, and starved, and suffocated to death, and then cut up, and part of her body burned, and part buried in lime and ashes, and how, if I would look in one corner of the cellar, I would find some of her bones, and I did; and then I determined to run away, and that is why I am hero.”
”And what are you going to do now?”
”I am going home with Peter, I have got nowhere else to go, and then I shall try to get a place.”
”A place! Why, Peter, is not this one of the girls of that house?”
”Why, no, not 'zactly; but 'spose you go wid us in my house, he close by here now, and she tell you all about herself. I spec she not a bad gal, sir.”
”Go ahead then;” and he shouldered his load, and went a few steps farther, and then turned into a dark alley, where I should have hesitated about following the burglars, but now followed the honest, good-hearted wood-sawyer, and his protege with delightful pleasure, up the long, dark alley into the centre of the block, and there was a tenant house, inhabited by the better cla.s.s of blacks. Compared with some of those full of foreigners, it was a little paradise. Up, up to the sixth story, that is where the poor live; here is where the poor legless Negro flower-seller lives, with his nice little family; a door opened as we approached, and a light s.h.i.+ned out, and a voice said:
”Is dat you, Peter? Has you got her, Peter? Thank G.o.d for that!”
It was Peter's wife, rejoicing at the rescue of a woman from perdition.
One of a poor, down-trodden race, a member of a Christian church, yet considered unworthy to sit by the side of white skinned (thin skinned) Christians, doing a most Christian act, such an one as many of her sisters in the church would consider beneath their dignity to do.
We entered Peter's home. It was but one small room, scantily, yet neatly furnished. There was a little stove, and all necessary cooking utensils, and plenty of dishes, a table, a bureau, a carpet on the floor, a stand in one corner covered with a clean white cloth, and on this a large Bible, covered with green baize, lying open, with Phebe's spectacles on the page, indicating her employment while waiting and watching for Peter to return, as she expected, with company--one more than she expected.
There was a bedstead in one corner, from which a portion of the bed had been removed and made into a nice pallet upon the floor, in readiness for an expected lodger. Agnes met a warm welcome from Phebe. We shall see Phebe again, out on another errand of mercy. In some of these ever s.h.i.+fting scenes, we may have another glimpse of Agnes. Peter explained to Phebe, how I happened to be in company, and then we all sat down to hear Agnes's story. I shall not tell it now. But I will tell here another little story, which will give a clue to what she said about the haunted house.
It is a story about ”a girl lost.”
The ”Tribune” one day published an appeal to the kind-hearted of the city, to give a distracted family some information of ”a girl lost.”
She was ”a good-looking, rather tall girl, seventeen years of age, dark complexion and dark hair. She was well-dressed, and started to go from her father's house in Spring street, near Broadway, to her brother's in the same street.