Part 46 (1/2)
”The result need not be told, only that he died and she lived.
”When I made these discoveries from an overheard conversation, I ordered the vile woman from my house.
”'My house, my house, ha, ha, you poor simpleton. Every article in this house and every cent of money that you or your husband has on earth belongs to me, and these are the papers.
”'Now if you behave yourself you can stay here, if not, you will have to tramp, both of you.'
”She shook the papers in my face, and laughed at my look of fear and astonishment. To finish my agony, when I began to talk something about the rights of an English wife, she coolly told me that she had just as good a right to my husband as I had, for he had one wife when I married him, and that rendered my marriage a nullity. What a shock for a wife--to hear that she is no wife, or if she is, the wife of a robber, adulterer, and murderer.
”I heard all this with a sort of indifference foreign to my very nature.
It was well that I did, for it enabled me to perfect my plans, and carry them out with a degree of coolness worthy of a better purpose. I had been promising for some time to visit a friend for a week, and I set about packing up for the journey at once. I said not one word to De Vrai of what I heard, nor gave him one look of reproof. Fortune had made me acquainted with the secret hiding-place of the money this guilty pair had obtained from their poor victim, and I did not feel any compunctions of conscience in taking it from them. In three days afterwards I was in Paris. Here I lived a few months a wretched life of dissipation, and then De Vrai, tracked me to my hiding-place and I had to fly once more; this time across the ocean.
”I had five hundred dollars when I arrived in this city. What might I not have done with that sum, if I had used it prudently? What I did do, I must tell, that it may be a warning to others. It would be a source of consolation to me if I knew that the follies of my life could be illuminated and set up as a beacon light to my fellow creatures, to save them from the quicksands of dissipation upon which I have been wrecked--wrecked by my own folly and foolish pride.
”It was pride, foolish wicked pride, that led me to go to a fas.h.i.+onable hotel, and put up, with my two children and nurse, as Madame De Vrai, from Paris. How soon five hundred dollars melt away, even with prudent living, at a New York hotel. I did not live prudently. I drank to excess, gave late suppers, and gambled. This could not last long, though many hundreds of the dollars worse than wasted in those few weeks, were won from others equally guilty of this besetting wickedness and folly with myself. Such a life could not last. My first step down was to a cheap lodging in Crosby street. I cannot tell how I lived there. I only know that my valuables, my clothes, everything went to the p.a.w.nbroker, and I went to that wretched hole where you first saw me in Cow Bay, from whence I drove my poor little Katy out in the streets at midnight, to sell Hot Corn. It was there that my poor child died. It was there that you received her dying blessing, and I her dying forgiveness for all the wrongs that I had heaped upon her poor innocent head. It was then by her death that I was awakened to consciousness and I felt and saw my own deep soul and body destroying degradation. It was through her death and translation to a home in heaven, that I have obtained a hope that my Father may forgive what my child has forgiven, and that, I may yet see her again. It was Him, it must have been Him that opened your ear to that little plaintive cry of 'Hot Corn,' that rose up through your window on its way to the home of angels watching over a child whom her mother had forsaken.
”It was His power--no earthly power could have aroused my mind from its lethargy, that awakened me one moment before it was too late. It was a bitter trial, but nothing else but the death of that sweet child would have been sufficient to save her wicked mother; I cannot mourn her loss, because I feel that she is now so much better off than while singing her nightly cry through the streets, of 'Hot Corn, Hot Corn, here's your nice hot corn!' Speaking of singing, have you seen the new song, just published, called 'The Dying Words of Little Katy, or Will He Come?”
”Oh it is beautiful. Here it is, do read it:--
”Here's hot corn, nice hot corn!” a voice was crying!
Sweet hot corn, sweet hot corn! the breeze is sighing!
Come buy, come buy--the world's unfeeling-- How can she sell while sleep is stealing?
”Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!”
All alone, all alone, she sat there weeping; While at home, while at home, her sister's sleeping, ”Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of staying; Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of saying, Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!”
Often there, often there, she sat so drear'ly With one thought, for she loved her sister dearly: Did'st hate, did'st hate--how could she ever, How could she hate her mother?--never.
”Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!”
Often there, often there, while others playing, Hear the cry, ”buy my corn,” she's ever praying.
”Pray buy, pray buy, kind hearted stranger, One ear, then home, I'll brave the danger; Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!”
Now at home, now at home, her cry is changing!
”Will he come, will he come?” while fever's raging.
She cries, she cries, ”pray let me see him; Once more, once more, pray let me see him.
Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn!”
”Will he come, will he come?” she's constant crying, ”Will he come, will he come?” poor Katy's dying.
”'Twas he, 'twas he, kind words was speaking Hot corn, hot corn, while I was seeking Hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn?”
”Midnight there, midnight there, my hot corn crying, Kindly spoke, first kind words, they stop'd my sighing.
That night, that night, when sleep was stealing, Kind words, kind words--my heart was healing; Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn!”