Part 38 (1/2)
”What's the use? He is burnt, and must stand it. If he refuse, they will take his coat, or hat, or shoes. If he gets off with his breeches on he is lucky.”
”What does this woman's husband do to support his family?”
”Deil a bit can I tell. It is not for me to pry into peoples' business who pay the rint like honest folks.”
”The rent. How much rent do you pay for this room?”
”Fifty cents a week for each of us--that is two dollars in all, every Monday morning in advance; sure, you may well believe that, if you know Billy Crown, the agent. It's never a poor woman that he lets slip; if she was dying, and never a mouthful of bread or drop of anything in the house, the rint must be paid.”
”Well, these women what do they do?”
”What should a lone woman do? she must live. There is but one way.”
”Have you a husband?”
”The Lord be thanked, no. It is enough for me to live with me boys. What would I do if I had a drunken husband to support out of me arnings?”
Sure enough. What should any woman want of a drunken husband? Let us look above ground. Perchance misery only dwells in dark, low, damp cellars. Up, then, to the very garret of the same house. It is divided into three rooms, one is ten feet square with one window, without fire-place or stove. What may be inside we know not, for a strong hasp and padlock guard the treasure. Back of this, through a two feet wide pa.s.sage, is another room, eight feet by twelve. This is partly under the roof, has a dilapidated fire-place and broken window. This is inhabited by a black man and his wife. There is a bed, a table, dishes and two chairs, and an air of neatness, contrasting strongly with the cellar.
By the side of this is another room inhabited by a negro and his white wife, and a white man and wife. Did you ever see four uglier beasts in one cage? The white man is a hyena; his wife a tiger; the negro a hippopotamus; his wife a sort of human tortoise; the dirt, representing the sh.e.l.l, out of which the vicious head poked itself, glaring at the intruders upon her premises, with a look that plainly said, Oh, how I should like to bite and claw you, and strip off those clean clothes, and spoil that face, and put out those eyes, and make ye as dirty and ugly and miserable as I am. The black man was social, courteous and intelligent. He was a cobbler, and diligently plied his hammer and awl.
With a kind master and well cared for, he would be a faithful, good servant. He has no faculty to take care of himself. By nature the slave of one of nature's strongest pa.s.sions, he has sunk down into slavery to this hard-sh.e.l.l woman, and the tool of his designing hyena and tiger room-mates. The white man looked as if he were counting the contents of our pockets, and what chance there would be for a grab at our watches.
The shape of this room was peculiar. Take a large watermelon, cut it in quarters, cut one of those across--the flesh sides will represent the floor and one wall--the cross-cut the end, where there is a fire-place--the rind is the roof and other side of the room, through which at the b.u.t.t end, there is a window. There is no bedstead, or place for one. There is no table, or occasion for any. Two boxes and a stool serve for chairs. The bedding is very scarce, but the floor is of soft wood, and the weather is warm. Each of these rooms rents for three dollars a month, always in advance.
Now let us go down the rotten stairway to the next floor. Though what we have seen is bad, we may yet say:
”The worst is not So long as we can say, 'this is the worst.'”
What have we here?
Something worse. Yes, for coupled with poverty and crime, is fanatical hatred of everything that is not worse than itself. Let us rap at this door. A gruff woman's voice bids us enter. We are met by an insolent defiant scowl and an angry ”what do you want here?”
”Good woman, is some one sick here?”
”Yes. What of that. n.o.body wants the like of you, with your pious faces and 'good woman,' prowling about at this time of night. You're after nothing good, any one might swear that.”
”Perhaps we can give you some good advice for your sick child.”
”Give your advice when we ask it. Haven't we got Father Mullany to give us advice, and he a good doctor too. I tell you we don't want any miserable heretics in the house and me child a dying. And who have I to thank for it?”
”Surely, madam, we cannot tell. Perhaps you can, or your husband, where is he?”
If a dog were thrown among the whelps in a wolf's lair, it would not arouse the dam quicker than these words did this human she-wolf. She sprang towards us, foaming with rage. A stout cane in my strong right hand caught her eye, and she stood at bay.
”What was she so mad at you and your companion for? Did she know either of you?”
”She knew us by sight, or rather she knew him as one of the active helpers of the Missionary, Mr. Pease, the House of Industry, and the Five Points Mission. What more should she know to hate us? She knew we were not of her faith; that we believed not in the efficacy of holy water and confession, to work out sin; that we did not kneel and receive a consecrated wafer with 'extreme unction', and so she hated us with all the fervent rancor of religious hate. She hated us for our mission of good; for she knew we hated what she dearly loved--drunkenness and all its concomitant evils. She hated us with that envious hate of depravity, which would sink everything to its own level. She knew that we would take her dying child to a clean bed and airy room, and give it food and medicine, and nurse it into life, and she hated us for that.”
”How could she? How could a mother be so wicked to her poor sick child?
I am sure if I could not take care of mine, I would trust it with anybody who would save its life.” Thus will say more than one Christian mother.