Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 3

"I wants to know as how if the woman that was burnt out is here?"

"Yes."

"And a little boy and gal?"

"Yes."

"This is the place then. Are you the gal what was at the fire and said, 'come with us?'"

"Yes, why do you ask that?"

"'Cause the gentleman told me to ask, and when I was sure I was right, to give the gal these three gold pieces, one for each word, and the bundle of clothes and the letter to the woman. That's all. So here they are. I am sure I is right for you don't look as though you could tell a lie if you tried. Why what ails the gal? I'll be blamed if I see anything to cry about. Why, hang me, what does it mean? I feel just so I should cry too if I stayed in this house long. So good bye. I am sure it is all right?"

And the door closed behind him, and he was gone. What could it mean? Was she dreaming? No! There lay the bundle, there glistened the half eagles in her hand. It could not be a dream, yet it was a mystery. How could any one know so soon that her roof contained one so needy? Who had heard those words, those three little words, every one of which had turned to gold? Yes, and will yet turn to fruit more precious.

How she wished she had asked the boy who it was, who had been so suddenly raised up, so mysteriously sent to visit the widow in her affliction. Perhaps the letter would tell. So she took it and the bundle up stairs and opened both. One contained full suits for the mother, daughter, and little boy, all black--the other was a letter to Mr.

Pease.

"Can this be the work of man?" said Mrs. Eaton; "who knew, who could know, that I must wear the widow's weeds, so soon?"

"There is a spirit of intelligence which maketh known secret things. How could any one without such spiritual aid know that you was a widow, that you was dest.i.tute, that we had bid you come with us, that I was just going out to buy clothes, and here they come like manna in the wilderness to Israel's host. Who will deny spiritual influence and special interposition now?"

Who will believe it, when they are told how all this seeming mystery will melt away with the shades of the night which brought it into the minds of these simple people?

"But what is in the letter, my child, does that tell anything?"

"Nothing, father; it is addressed to the Rev. Mr. Pease, at the Five Points House of Industry, requesting him to give a home to a poor woman and two children, and says the writer will see him about it soon."

"Ah, that is just where I intended to take them, after the funeral."

"Yes, and see how nicely these clothes fit them, just as well as though made on purpose. How could anybody guess so well?"

"It is no guess work. There is something more than guess work about this."

So there was.

"Breakfast is ready, father."

"Then let us eat it in thankfulness and then."

And then!

CHAPTER II.[A]

LITTLE KATY.--A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.

What is said in this, will apply to everything similar.

"Here's your nice Hot Corn, smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot!" Hour after hour one evening, as I sat over the desk, this cry came up in a soft, plaintive voice, under my window, which told me of one of the ways of the poor to eke out means of subsistence in this over-burdened, ill-fed, and worse-lodged home of misery--of so many without means, who are constantly crowding into the dirtiest purlieus of this notoriously dirty city, where they are exposed to the daily chance of death from some sudden outbreaking epidemic like that now desolating the same kind of streets in New Orleans, and swallowing up its thousands of victims from the same cla.s.s of poverty-stricken, uncomfortably-provided for human beings, who know not how, or have not the power, to flee to the healthy hills and green fields of the country.

Here they live--barely live--in holes almost as hot as the hot corn, the cry of which rung in my ears from dark till midnight.

[A] This chapter was published under the simple t.i.tle of "Hot Corn,"

among the "City Items" of the New York Daily Tribune, August 5, 1853. It is but slightly altered from the original text.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HOT CORN! HERE'S YOUR NICE HOT CORN!"--_Page 45._]

"Hot corn! hot corn! here's your nice hot corn," rose up in a faint, child like voice, which seemed to have been aroused by the sound of my step as I was about entering the Park, while the city clock told the hour when ghosts go forth upon their midnight rambles. I started, as though a spirit had given me a rap, for the sound seemed to come out of one of the iron posts which stand as sentinels over the main entrance, forbidding all vehicles to enter, unless the driver takes the trouble to pull up and tumble out of the way one of the aforesaid posts, which is not often done, because one of them, often, if not always, is out of its place, giving free ingress to the court-yard, or livery stable grounds of the City Hall, which, in consideration of the growth of a few miserable dusty brown trees and doubtful colored gra.s.s-patches, we call "the Park."

Looking over the post I discovered the owner of the hot corn cry, in the person of an emaciated little girl about twelve years old, whose dirty shawl was nearly the color of the rusty iron, and whose face, hands, and feet, naturally white and delicate, were grimmed with dirt until nearly of the same color. There were two white streaks running down from the soft blue eyes, that told of the hot scalding tears that were coursing their way over that naturally beautiful face.

"Some corn, sir," lisped the little sufferer, as she saw I had stopped to look at her, hardly daring to speak to one who did not address her in rough tones of command, such as "give me some corn, you little wolf's whelp," or a name still more opprobrious both to herself and mother.

Seeing I had no look of contempt for her, she said, piteously, "please buy some corn, sir."

"No, my dear, I do not wish any; it is not very healthy in such warm weather as this, and especially so late at night."

"Oh dear, then, what shall I do?"

"Why, go home. It is past midnight, and such little girls as you ought not to be in the streets of this bad city at this time of night."

"I can't go home--and I am so tired and sleepy. Oh dear!"

"Cannot go home. Why not?"

"Oh, sir, my mother will whip me if I go home without selling all my corn. Oh, sir, do buy one ear, and then I shall have only two left, and I am sure she might let little Sis and me eat them, for I have not had anything to eat since morning, only one apple the man gave me, and part of one he threw away. I could have stole a turnip at the grocery when I went to get--to get something in the pitcher for mother, but I dared not. I did use to steal, but Mr. Pease says it is naughty to steal, and I don't want to be naughty, indeed I don't; and I don't want to be a bad girl, like Lizzy Smith, and she is only two years older than me, if she does dress fine; 'cause Mr. Pease says she will be just like old drunken Kate, one of these days. Oh dear! now there goes a man, and I did not cry hot corn, what shall I do?"

"Do! There, that is what you shall do," as I dashed the corn in the gutter. "Go home; tell your mother you have sold it all, and here is the money."

"Wont that be a lie, sir? Mr. Pease says we must not tell lies."

"No, my dear, that wont be a lie, because I have bought it and thrown it away, instead of eating it."

"But, sir, may I eat it then, if you don't want it?"

"No, it is not good for you; good bread is better, and here is a sixpence to buy a loaf, and here is another to buy some nice cakes for you. Now that is your money; don't give it to your mother, and don't stay out so late again. Go home earlier and tell your mother you cannot sell all your corn and you cannot keep awake, and if she is a good mother she won't whip you."

"Oh, sir, she is a good mother sometimes. But I am sure the grocery man at the corner is not a good man, or he would not sell my mother rum, when he knows--for Mr. Pease told him so--that we poor children are starving. Oh, I wish all the men were good men like him, and then my mother would not drink that nasty liquor, and beat and starve us, 'cause there would be n.o.body to sell her any--and then we should have plenty to eat."

Away she ran down the street towards that reeking centre of filth, poverty and misery, the noted Five Points of New, York.

As I plodded up Broadway, looking in here and there upon the palatial splendors of metropolitan "saloons"--I think that is the word for fas.h.i.+onable upper cla.s.s grog-shops--I almost involuntarily cried, "hot corn," as I saw the hot spirit of that grain, under the various guises of "pure gin"--"old rum"--"pale brandy"--"pure port"--"Heidsick"--or "Lager-bier"--poured down the throats of men--and ah! yes, of women, too, whose daughters may some day sit, at midnight, upon the cold curbstone, crying "Hot corn," to gain a penny for the purchase of a drink of the fiery dragon they are now inviting to a home in their bosoms, whose cry in after years will be, "Give, give, give," and still as unsatisfied as the horse-leech's daughters.

Again, as I pa.s.sed on up that street, still busy and thronged at midnight, as a country village at mid-day intermission of church service, ever and anon, from some side-street, came up the cry of "Hot corn--hot corn!" and ever as I heard it, and ever as I shall, through all years to come, I thought of that little girl and her drunken mother, and the "bad man" at the corner grocery, and that her's was the best, the strongest Maine Law argument which had ever fallen upon my listening ear.

Again, as I turned the corner of Spring street, the glare and splendor of a thousand gas lights, and the glittering cut gla.s.s of that, for the first time lighted-up, bar-room of the Prescott House--so lauded by the press for its magnificence--dashes our eyes and blinds our senses, till we are almost ready to agree, that first cla.s.s hotels must have such Five Point denizen-making appurtenances, as this glittering room, shamelessly, invitingly open to the street; when that watch-word cry, like the pibroch's startling peal, came up from the near vicinity, wailing like a lost spirit on the midnight air--"Hot corn, hot corn!--here's your nice hot corn--smoking hot--hot--hot corn."