Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 2

and, so he shared the proceeds with his father--that father, or rather the monster who made him a devil, would encourage the boy to be a thief.

What could the mother do to counteract such deleterious influence? All day she must stand at her corner, selling fruit, pea-nuts, and candy, to make bread to feed her else starving offspring, and to keep her husband out of the prison or alms-house.

You have already seen the effect of the street education upon Sally; the sight of her playmate, Julia Antrim, dressed in silks and laces, although borrowed--no, furnished, by "the woman," on hire, for a purpose more wicked than murder, for murder only kills the body--has already tempted her towards the same road--to that broad path to woe; not in the future, but here present with us every day; and she has already determined that she will follow it as soon as "she gets big enough."

Who shall rescue her?

The danger is still more imminent now. Houseless, naked, starving in the street, how shall she live? One step, one resolution, will take her to the clothes-lending harpy, who fattens upon the life-blood of young girls, whom she dooms to the fate of Ixion for the remainder of their lives; for her garments are the s.h.i.+rts of Nessus to all who wear them.

She feels that she _is_ big enough now--big enough to begin. Younger girls than her are night-walkers. Julia is no older, and but little bigger, and she has often stopped in her walk to eat hot corn or pea-nuts with Sally, and show her s.h.i.+ning gold, trying to tempt her to go and do likewise. She has an interest, too, in the temptation, for she has told Mrs. Brown of her old playmate, Sally Eaton, and how good-looking she was; and Mrs. Brown has been to see her, has bought her merchandise, and spoken words of soul-trapping flattery, and promised Julia a present of a new silk dress--that is, just as good as new, it had just been bought by a girl whom she turned out of doors because she could not pay her way--if she will coax Sally to come and live with her.

And so she has been sorely tempted. Eve was so, and fell.

These tempting words are now running through the brain of Sally, as she stands in the crowd, wrapt in a blanket, kindly lent her, with her mother and little Willie, looking at their home and every earthly thing going up in flame and smoke heavenward. Her mother weeps, for the first time in long years. Long, long, had she steeled her heart against such indulgence; its pent up fountains burst now. Not for grief; no, they were tears, such as she shed when that girl was born. How she cried, and thanked G.o.d, and pressed the hand of the fireman and thanked him for saving her children's lives, dearer to her than all her household goods.

How little he thought of the n.o.ble act. He almost repulsed her and her grat.i.tude.

"There, that'll do, old woman. You had better be getting in somewhere."

Somewhere! Yes, somewhere! Where?

That is the question. The crowd shout at the heroic deeds of the firemen, and would carry them in triumph through the streets, or bring out baskets of champaigne to drink libations to their honor, for saving two helpless children from the flames. Saved for what? To stand naked in the street! No. Let them go to their friends. They have none. Yes, they have, but not relatives. A few dollars are put into the mother's hand, but who will take her in? who will give her a home? One that three years ago had no home himself. One who had been more drunken than Bill Eaton--had been drunk for forty years. He is sober now--you shall hear directly how he became so.

A man advanced in years, say more than half a century, followed by a tall, fine-formed, well-dressed, bright-eyed girl, about one-third her father's age, press through the crowd to where the widow and her children stand, take them by the hand and lead on, with the simple words, "Come with us."

It needs but few such words, spoken in such kind tones, to the afflicted to lead them into paths of peace, and hope, and joy.

The mother went forward with a sort of mechanical motion of the limbs, unaided by any impulse of the mind. Willie followed, as the lamb follows the ewe, whether to green fields or the butcher's shambles.

Sally was more independent. She was on the point of being entirely so, but a moment before. Now she clung to her girlish companion, as the wrecked mariner to hope. Had hope come one minute later, she had been led by the tempter that was gnawing at her heart-strings, to slip away from her mother, and in one hour afterwards, she would have been knocking at the ever-ready-to-open door of Mrs. Brown, and once pa.s.sing that threshold, woe, woe, woe, had been written upon every page of her life. Once having pa.s.sed that door, every other but its like had been closed against her for ever. For the sin of entering that door, in her young years, the world would never forgive her. No matter, that gaudily dressed and luxuriously fed tempters had beset her and led her in. Such tempters--such school teachers for city children are allowed to monopolise the Broadway sidewalks, and hold their infant evening schools, if not by authority of the common council, at least by permission and countenance of the chief of police and all his "stars."

No Proserpine can walk this street at night alone, without meeting, or at least subjecting herself to, the sad fate of Proserpine of old.

Few of those we meet in our late walks, are Proserpines or Vestas; although they may be G.o.ddesses of fire.

Seek not to lift the veil, you will find Pandora there; Blame not the girl who got her teachings in such a street, if, in her deep adversity she was tempted--tempted to leave that mother and brother, and slip away in the crowd, to go where she knew she would find a home. Where else should she go? She knew of none. No one of all that crowd offered to take her home with him. She had no hope. She was a fit subject for despair, and despair is the father of temptation. What a blessed thing is hope, charity, and a will to do good; when it flows from one young girl to another!

But who is it says, "come with us?" The voice seemed familiar, and yet not familiar to Sally's ear. If the person had been clothed in such a garb of poverty as she herself had always worn, she would have known her, although it was three years since they had met. She was not; she wore a neat tidy calico frock, and clean white sun-bonnet, hastily put on, and altogether looked so neat, so smart, so comfortable, as though she had a home which she meant to take them to, when she said, "come with us," that the tempter's spell was broken. Sally would not have gone with Julia Antrim, for all her gold and silks, good suppers and other enjoyments. The words were few and common-place. How often the mother and children had heard them before--"come with us." But they never sounded as they did this night. There is something in the tone, as well as words. There is a magnetic power in kindness. Kind words are always winning, whether from friend or stranger. These came from strangers. Not altogether so; the man had been one of the drunken companions of Bill Eaton; had helped to make him such, and now he was going to pay part of the damage to his family. The girl, in her father's drunken days, had been one of Sally's street companions; they had begged, and stole, and peddled hot corn and pea-nuts together. But Sally knew her not. How could she? Then she was, ragged and dirty, far worse than Sally; her parents were far poorer, and lived in a worse room, one of the worst in Centre street, and both of them were great drunkards, and she was, so everybody said, "the worse child that ever run unhung."

How could she know the well behaved, nice looking young lady, walking by her side. But she did know that she spoke kind words in a sweet tone, and her heart was touched, and she went on with a light step. That blanket wrapped a happier heart that night, than ever fluttered under the silk dress of her former playmate, Julia Antrim.

They went on; the old man gave his arm to the widow and led the little boy; the daughter walked with Sally. They enter the _front_ door of a good house--when did either ever enter the front door before--up one flight of clean stairs, and there is their home, a room, and two bed-rooms, and kitchen; small to be sure, but a most comfortable home, for the old man and his daughter. He was a carpenter, and made from a dollar and a half to two dollars a day; she was a stock-maker, and could earn from three to five dollars a week, enough to pay nearly all expenses. "Three years ago," said he, "I was the most hopeless drunkard that ever tumbled into a Centre street cellar. And my wife--but no matter--she is in heaven now. All that girl's work. She reformed us; she made me a sober man, and, G.o.d willing, I shall never fill a drunkard's grave."

"Oh, if she could only reform my husband, how I would bless her."

"It is too late."

"No, no; it is never too late; while there is life there is hope."

"Yes, true; but--"

"But what? what is it? what do you know?"

"Why, you see, ma'am, I was in the crowd last night when the accident happened. It was me that first picked him up; and so, you see, I went up with him. It was me that told you that you couldn't go, 'cause I knew how 'twas with the children, and how you hadn't much to do with at home; for I had been sort o' watching Bill, and he had promised to go with me this very night to sign the pledge; and so, you see, I went up with him, and they dressed his wounds, and I knew he wouldn't get over it, his blood was so bad, and it was so warm; but he might have lived a while, and so when they got things fixed, I thought I would come down and tell you about it; but just as I got down to the gate, a fellow came running after me to go back--it was a'most morning then--and so back I went.

They said he had got crazy while I was in the room with another old friend, and when--when I--I--"

"Yes, I see; he is dead."

"Yes; he is dead. When I came back he was about gone, but he was just as rational as I am now. 'Oh, Jim,' said he, 'Jim Reagan, if I had only taken the pledge when you did, I should have been a man now. But I am glad I am going. My folks will be a great deal better off without me.'"

"Oh, no, no, no! he was my husband--their father--he might have reformed."

"Tell them," said he, "that I am dying, and that for the first time in ten years I feel as though I had my senses. If I could see them and know they forgave me all the wrongs I have inflicted upon them! Do you think my wife could forgive--"

"Yes, yes; everything, everything."

"So I told him, and that seemed to quiet him. And then I begged him to forgive me for what I had done towards making him a drunkard. 'Oh,' says he, 'I can forgive everybody--even those who used to sell it to us, who used to take the bread out of our children's mouths for liquor, but I never can forgive those who made the law, or licensed them to murder us.

I forgive everybody else that ever injured me, and I die in peace. Tell my wife I die loving her. G.o.d bless her and my poor children, what will become of them? Good bye, Jim; go and see my wife, and tell her good bye, and that I die as I wish I had lived; but it is too late, too late.

G.o.d bless my wife!'

"I could not speak, I turned my eyes away a minute, looked again, and poor Bill Eaton was gone--gone to Heaven, I am sure, if sincere repentance would take him there. Well, you see, I could not do anything more for poor Bill, for he was gone where we must all go pretty soon, and so I come down and waked up Maggie."

There was a start--a sudden wakening up to consciousness on the part of Sally, she had recognised the name.

"And says I, Maggie, daughter, come get up, and go with me to see a poor widow and children in distress. Oh, I wish you could have seen how she bounded out of bed--we sleep in beds, good clean beds, now, and how quick she dressed herself, and how neat, and cheerful, and pretty she looked, and how sweetly she said, 'now, father, I am ready, who is it?'

and when I told her, how her heart bounded with joy, and then she told me she knew Sally, but had not seen her for a long time, and so, arm in arm, we went out, and you know the rest. Poor Bill!"

"Oh, that I could have seen him--could have heard him speak soberly and affectionately once more--I think I could have given him up without a murmur."

"No. You would not have been willing to give him up to die, just as he had begun to live. Be content, you must not murmur. Who knows but all this overwhelming affliction will work together for your good, and your children's good."

"Yes, mother, I am sure it will for mine. It has already, for I will be like Maggie; don't you remember Maggie?"

"No. I don't recollect but one Maggie--'Wild Maggie of the Five Points'--the most mischievous, ragged, dirty little beggar in all that dreadful neighborhood; and her father, the most filthy drunkard I ever saw. Why he was a great deal worse than----."

"Your husband. Speak it out, I am not ashamed to own it, now I have reformed."

"You--you, not you; this is not Maggie."

"Yes, mother, this is 'Wild Maggie,' and this is her father. This nice young lady, that said so sweetly, 'Come with us,' this is 'Wild Maggie,'

and this is--is--"

"Old Jim Reagan, the miserable old drunkard, that used to live in a miserable cellar, in Centre street, and finally got turned out of that, and this is Maggie, and this is our home."

And he looked around proudly upon the comforts of this home, and contrasted them with the miseries of that.

Now Margaret--Mag or Maggie, no longer--began to "fly around." Breakfast was to be got, and what was much more difficult, a full-sized woman, a half-grown girl, and a quarter-grown boy, were to be clothed. How was it to be done? One of her dresses, "with a tuck,"--tucks are fas.h.i.+onable in these days--was soon made to fit Sally. The father said, he would go out and get some clothes for Mrs. Eaton and little Willie, for, thank G.o.d, he was able to do it, for what he saved by soberness, not only enabled him to live and clothe himself, but to fulfil that best of all Christian injunctions, to be kind to the widows and fatherless, and he did not know of any that he was under more obligations to than the wife and children of Bill Eaton, and, G.o.d willing, he was going to clothe them, and then he was going to go with them to Mr. Pease, the man that had been the means of reclaiming him, and get them a home in the House of Industry, until they could find some other one, or a way to earn a living.

Apparently it was not willed that he should spend his scanty store to clothe the naked at this time; the will to do so was equally acceptable to the great Will, as though the deed were done, for just now there was a rap at the door, indicating an early visitor. Who could it be?

Margaret ran down to see. A boy from a second-hand clothing store, entered with a large bundle.