Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 27

"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.

How many persons are, or can be stowed into this one room, is beyond my powers of computation.

Will some of my readers, who faint at the smell of unsavory food, or who could not sleep but in fresh linen and well aired rooms, fancy what must be the feelings of poor Madalina, who had just begun to taste of the comforts of civilized life, now sick and dying in such a room, where the penny candle only served to make the thick clouds of tobacco smoke more visible and more suffocating?

One of the difficulties in all these close-packed rooms is the necessity of keeping the door always shut, to prevent pilfering, thus leaving the only chance for fresh air to enter, or foul air to escape, by the one small window in the roof.

Having given you a view of the room, and its inhabitants and furniture, let us look again upon poor Madalina, as she lies panting for breath upon her hard pallet. Her face, naturally dark, has an unhealthy whiteness spread over it, and there is a small, bright crimson spot upon one cheek--the other is hidden in the taper fingers of the hand upon which it rests. Such a pair of bright black eyes! Oh, how beautiful! Her wavy locks of jet, are set off by a clean, white handkerchief, spread over the bundle of rags which forms her pillow, by one of her visitors.

Now, in spite of pain, there is a smile lighting up her face, and showing such a set of teeth as a princess might covet. Whence this happy smile? Listen how cheaply it is brought upon the face of the suffering innocent. She had said, "I am so thirsty, and nothing to drink but nasty, warm tea." Directly, Tom was missing. Now he was back again, and there he stood with a nice, white pitcher in one hand, full of ice water, and a gla.s.s tumbler in the other. Now he pours it full of the sparkling nectar--now he drops upon one knee and carries it to those parched lips. Is it any wonder that she smiles? Is it any wonder that that simple-minded, good-hearted boy should look up, as I stood looking over the kneeling Missionary, and say, "Don't she look like an angel, sir?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEATH-BED OF MADALINA.--_Page 217._]

It was an angelic smile. It was a sight worth days and nights of earnest seeking, and yet, Oh, how cheaply purchased. Only one gla.s.s of cold water!

Would that I had some Raphaelic power to transfer the picture of that scene to this page, for you to look upon as well as read of, for a sight of that face with its surroundings, would do you good. It would make you yearn after the blessed opportunity of holding the cup of cold water to other fevered lips, lighting up other angelic, happy, thankful smiles.

As it is, the artist has only been able to give you a faint ill.u.s.tration of the princ.i.p.al features of this scene. So far as it goes, you cannot but admire his skill--admire the delineator's art, by which the picture is sketched upon the block, and the engraver's skill, who cuts the lines by which the printer spreads the scene out before the admiring eyes of those who read and view. Such is art, and skill, and industry. How much better than the idle life of those who furnished the originals for these "Life Scenes!"

Vainly we pleaded with the mother of Madalina to carry her to a comfortable room--to my house--to any house--to the hospital--to get a physician--a nurse--some one, at least, to give her a drink of cold water through the next long, long day, when she would be left nearly alone--perhaps quite so--locked in this dreadful room--while men and monkeys, organs and tambourines, beggers and rag-pickers, were all away plying their trades in the streets of the city. It was no use; she was inexorable. The _padre_ was a very good doctor--the _padre_ was good for her soul--the _padre_ would pray for her; and if she was to die, she should not die in the house of a heretic. So we parted. It was a hard parting, for she clung to each one as she said:

"Good bye; I wish I could go with you, but my mother--you have taught me to obey my mother, that all good children obey their mothers--so good bye--good bye, Tom. You will bring me another drink to-morrow? yes, I knew you would, if I asked you, you are so good to me."

There were tears at parting, and they were not all tears of a sick child, or good boy, but strong men wept.

"Tom," said the feeble, sobbing voice, after we had almost reached the door, over the careless sleepers on the floor; "Tom, come back a minute, I want to--want to--say--what if I should not see you again? I want to send something to Mrs. Pease; she was so kind to me; I wish I had something to send her to remember me by; but I have got nothing--nothing. Yes, I will send her a--a little nearer."

And she put her arms around his neck, and imprinted a kiss upon his lips.

"There, I will send her that, it is all I have--it will tell her I love her, for I never kiss any but those I love."

Poor Madalina! Poor Tom! What must have been his feelings at that moment, with the kiss of that angelic, dying girl burning upon his lips, and running streams of lava down into his young heart, while these words, "I never kiss any but those I love," are thrilling through his brain like words of fire?

What he felt I cannot tell. I will not tell what I felt after the first flow of scalding tears had pa.s.sed away, but I fear there was an unforgiving spirit in my heart; and if the foot which crashed that tender flower had been there then, perhaps it and its fellow had not carried their moving power, the head, "this side up with care." Perhaps that head would have been pitched headlong down these long, steep, dark, and narrow stairs, to the pavement--less hard than its guiding heart.

"We must not kill," said Tom, as we reached the street.

Had he divined my secret thoughts, or was it the response to his own?

"We must not kill those who sell the rum, or kick little children to death, or make brutes of their mothers, but we will kill the business, or else we will prove that all are not good men in this world who pretend to be."

"It is greatly changed," I said to the Missionary, as we came down upon the street, "since you have lived here; as it was some years ago, when I first knew this locality, it might not have been quite safe to walk alone through these streets at this midnight hour; now we have no fear.

Good night."

"It will be better two years hence, if you and I live. Good night."

"Good night. Heaven protect you, and bless your labors. Good night, Tom."

But Tom heard me not. "I never kiss any but those I love," was ringing in his ears. He heard nothing--thought of nothing else. Poor Tom! He carried a heavy heart to a sleepless bed that night.

Back, up Anthony to Centre, then along that one block, and I stood and contemplated that great sombre, gray stone building which fills a whole square, looking down gloomily upon the mult.i.tude who reek in misery on the opposite side of the street, or pursue their nefarious schemes of crime within the very shadow of "the Tombs." Alas! prisons prevent not crime, nor does incarceration work reformation upon such as dwell in tenements such as we have just visited.