Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 35

Coming up one of the streets west of Broadway, about one o'clock at night, I saw a fellow hovering near a house, whom I recognized as a Negro wood-sawyer that I had seen the day before, engaged at the same house, putting wood down the cellar grate. I knew him or thought I did, as a poor but honest man, and I felt pained with a fear that I had been deceived, that he had left the grate unfastened, and now was about to steal something from the cellar. I pa.s.sed on around the next corner, out of sight, and then turned back and crossed over, where I could have a full view of his operations. There were no lamps burning, because there should, or might have been moonlight, if it had been clear; as it was, it was a fitting time for the burglar's trade. Directly, the fellow approached the grate, opened it carefully, and drew up a trunk. My heart beat with excitement, fear, and sorrow. I was just on the point of calling, "Watch," I must own with a view of letting the fellow escape, and saving the trunk, when I saw a bonnet, then a shawl, and then a full suit of woman's clothes follow the trunk up from that dark recess. My mind was somewhat relieved; my honest wood-sawyer might be honest still, though he was probably a.s.sisting a dishonest woman; else why did she leave that house, to all appearance, an honest house, for all that I had ever seen in pa.s.sing it a hundred times, in such a clandestine manner.

The Negro walked on with the trunk on his shoulder, and the woman followed. It was a scene of such frequent occurrence, that it would excite no suspicion or question from a policeman. He would think it was a pa.s.senger by the train, from Boston, or Albany, or the Erie railroad, all of which make midnight arrivals.

On they went, block after block, and I followed, till I thought the chase likely to prove a long one, and then I stepped up to the woman, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, said, "Stop!" She uttered a little cry of alarm, and said, "Oh, don't take me up, please don't."

The Negro stopped, looked round, and set down the trunk hastily, evidently supposing that a star had nabbed her, and that the better part of a fight consists in running away. There was a light here, for the lamp-lighters were just going their late rounds. He gave one glance back before he started, to be sure he had good cause to run, and instantly burst into a most merry fit of laughter, very unlike what might be supposed that of a caught burglar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'SPEC A BODY HAS A RIGHT TO STEAL OWN TRUNK."--_Page 285._]

"Ha! ha! ha! ki, missee, you don't know dat gemman? You nebber seed dat gemman 'fore? You tink him a star? Look at um. You tink he look so he hurt you? He wouldn't hurt a child, much more a woman. I know dat gemman. Ki, I mighty glad to see him. 'Spose tell him all about um? Spec he say a body has a right to steal he own trunk, and run away from such a house as dat."

"Such a house as that, Peter; is that not a good house?"

"Well, spec him house good enough, but spec he folks dat lib dare, not 'zactly straight up and down like dog hind leg."

"Why, Peter, what do you mean? Is not that Mr. Ingram, whose name I see on the door, and whom I know as apparently a gentleman of wealth and leisure, for I have often seen him a.s.sociating with gentlemen about the hotels; is he not the gentleman of the house?"

"Gentlum! Lord, sir, he is dat woman's man, her pimp, she gives him all dem fine clothes and gold rings, and he gets fellows to come an see her gals."

"Mercy on me! The outside of the platter is made clean, while the inside is full of dead men's bones."

"Dat's just what Agnes says; she says, she find dead men's bones in the ashes, and b.u.t.tons, and bits of burnt woman's clothes in a pile in the cellar, and she seed woman's ghost dare, and she won't stay in dat house no how can fix um, and dat's what it mean 'bout I got dis trunk; did you see how I get him, ma.s.sa?"

"Yes, I did, and I want to know something about why you 'get him' at this time of night out of that cellar. The ghost story won't do; if she was afraid of ghosts she would not go down into that cellar at night any more than she would go down to her grave. It won't do."

"Oh, sir, the ghost goes upstairs every night, to stay in the room where she was seduced. None of the girls in the house will stay in that room.

They gave it to me when first I went there. I did not know it was haunted then, but I found out afterwards that it was, for she told me so, and how she was shut up in the coal cellar, and starved, and suffocated to death, and then cut up, and part of her body burned, and part buried in lime and ashes, and how, if I would look in one corner of the cellar, I would find some of her bones, and I did; and then I determined to run away, and that is why I am hero."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"I am going home with Peter, I have got nowhere else to go, and then I shall try to get a place."

"A place! Why, Peter, is not this one of the girls of that house?"

"Why, no, not 'zactly; but 'spose you go wid us in my house, he close by here now, and she tell you all about herself. I spec she not a bad gal, sir."

"Go ahead then;" and he shouldered his load, and went a few steps farther, and then turned into a dark alley, where I should have hesitated about following the burglars, but now followed the honest, good-hearted wood-sawyer, and his protege with delightful pleasure, up the long, dark alley into the centre of the block, and there was a tenant house, inhabited by the better cla.s.s of blacks. Compared with some of those full of foreigners, it was a little paradise. Up, up to the sixth story, that is where the poor live; here is where the poor legless Negro flower-seller lives, with his nice little family; a door opened as we approached, and a light s.h.i.+ned out, and a voice said:

"Is dat you, Peter? Has you got her, Peter? Thank G.o.d for that!"

It was Peter's wife, rejoicing at the rescue of a woman from perdition.

One of a poor, down-trodden race, a member of a Christian church, yet considered unworthy to sit by the side of white skinned (thin skinned) Christians, doing a most Christian act, such an one as many of her sisters in the church would consider beneath their dignity to do.

We entered Peter's home. It was but one small room, scantily, yet neatly furnished. There was a little stove, and all necessary cooking utensils, and plenty of dishes, a table, a bureau, a carpet on the floor, a stand in one corner covered with a clean white cloth, and on this a large Bible, covered with green baize, lying open, with Phebe's spectacles on the page, indicating her employment while waiting and watching for Peter to return, as she expected, with company--one more than she expected.

There was a bedstead in one corner, from which a portion of the bed had been removed and made into a nice pallet upon the floor, in readiness for an expected lodger. Agnes met a warm welcome from Phebe. We shall see Phebe again, out on another errand of mercy. In some of these ever s.h.i.+fting scenes, we may have another glimpse of Agnes. Peter explained to Phebe, how I happened to be in company, and then we all sat down to hear Agnes's story. I shall not tell it now. But I will tell here another little story, which will give a clue to what she said about the haunted house.

It is a story about "a girl lost."

The "Tribune" one day published an appeal to the kind-hearted of the city, to give a distracted family some information of "a girl lost."

She was "a good-looking, rather tall girl, seventeen years of age, dark complexion and dark hair. She was well-dressed, and started to go from her father's house in Spring street, near Broadway, to her brother's in the same street.

"And she was lost!"

Some stranger who reads that simple announcement, one who has spent a night at one of the three great hotels on the corners of Spring street and Broadway, may wonder that a girl should be lost in such a respectable neighborhood. He does not know that the guests of one of those great hotels look down from one side upon one of the worst gambling h.e.l.ls and police-permitted gambling lottery offices in the city, and on the other side upon still worse premises; houses which the vocabulary of infamous language has no words black enough to describe; houses which are ever open for innocent young girls to enter--from which innocent young girls never return. They are "lost." This is not the first girl lost in New York. These are not the first parents who have been deeply afflicted; who have appealed in vain through the press for any information of "a girl lost."

I have a little incident to relate of a girl lost. A few years ago No.

000 Church street, was accounted the "luckiest house in the street."

There are a great many unlucky ones in that street now, and that particular one is esteemed the most unlucky of all of them. It should be so. It was in that house about three years ago, that a girl was lost.

For the sake of her parents, brothers and sisters, and large family of relatives, I will not give her true name. You may call it Julia Montgomery. She was just such a girl as the one described in the "Mysterious Disappearance!" She was tall and handsome, just seventeen, with dark hair and eyes, and well dressed. She lived in one of the river towns, and came down upon one of the barges that float down such a mult.i.tude of things produced by farmers, in company with her father and mother, who brought some of their own produce to market. On the same boat were two young men who had been up the river, they said, on a sporting excursion. This was true. But they might have added, "What is sport to us is death to you." They were gamblers. On the pa.s.sage they made the acquaintance of Julia, and by their bland manners completely won the confidence of the old folks. When they arrived, they were very anxious that Julia should go home with them and see their sisters. They were not so anxious that her mother should go, but they insisted very hard that she should, because they knew she would not; she had her b.u.t.ter and eggs and chickens to sell, and lots of shopping to do, so Julia went alone. She came back to the boat towards night to tell her mother what nice girls the Miss Camptowns were, and that they wanted she should go with them to the theatre, and then as it would be late, stay all night. The mother consented, as Mr. Camptown was such a fine young man. After the play they had an oyster supper and wine, and Julia became very much elated. Then they went home, to Mr. Camptown's home, which was no other than that notorious Church street den, and the "sisters" the most notorious sinners in it. Of course more wine was drank, and Julia became oblivious of what transpired. She waked to consciousness next morning to find herself--"a girl lost." Almost delirious, she flew from the wicked scoundrel at her side to the street door, to find it barred against her. In vain she begged and prayed, and cried to be let out. The soul incarcerated in the infernal regions might as well pray for egress.

She finds in both cases only scoffing at the victim's agony. Then she grew wildly furious, and then they tied her hands and feet and carried her down into the coal cellar, "to let her get over her fit, and keep her out of sight till the old woman was out of the way." For three days, Camptown watched her father and mother, and then they gave up and went home with heavy hearts, for "a girl was lost." Yes, she was "lost." Then Camptown went back to enjoy his "country beauty." She was lost to him also. In some of the pullings down and diggings up in that street, all that remains to earth will make another "Item" in a daily paper. It will be headed "Human bones found."

The inmates of that house soon left. It was no longer a lucky house. The ghost of that murdered girl walked through every room. One in particular, it never allowed any one to occupy. It is said that that ghost still haunts that house. It is still an unlucky house. The old harridan who kept it--well known in that street when that girl was lost--went off to New Orleans, lost all her property, and then was lost herself. Camptown still lives. I saw him a few days ago, in the very street where that girl was lost, noticed in the "Tribune." Has he any connection with her loss? Reader, there is a girl lost. Ask where and why? Rum and gambling can answer.

Now, let us leave Agnes in the hands of the wood-sawyer and his wife, those good-hearted, kind Christians, that despised, because black-skinned, brother and sister, more worthy than many of the despisers, and return to Mrs. May, and see how she effected the rescue of another prisoner.

What Stella told her mother was sufficient to give her the most intense anxiety about Athalia. She was so well acquainted with the ways of the wicked in this city, that she felt satisfied that her friend wanted good counsel, and perhaps a.s.sistance, and she determined to give it to one who had often given such to her. As soon as it was sufficiently dark, she slipped on a shawl and hood, and went into a neighbor's and borrowed another just like her own.

"What in the world do you want of it?" said the woman.

"No matter, it shall come safe back to you, in the course of the evening."

So it did, and with it came Athalia, who, by that double, had eluded her jailers.

Lovetree went to his hotel in a state of mind not to be envied. He had found the strongest evidence that his niece had been in a house which pollutes all who breathe its atmosphere, and he had heard vile women speak of her as one of themselves, and he knew not how far she was like them. He had witnessed an exposition of character that night, such as he never had before conceived possible. He first saw Mrs. Laylor, a specimen of a high-bred lady,

Bland as the dewy morn That opes the buds to flowers.

Then he saw her furious as the winds,

By Boreas rudely driven, Wild as the storm, when Jove hurls down His thunderbolts from Heaven.

He trembled with fear that she would pursue Athalia, and drag her back, and perhaps hide her where he could never find her. Undoubtedly she would have exercised her vindictiveness upon Athalia in some way, if she had known where she was. Lovetree had heard Mrs. Laylor swear that Athalia had robbed her, and that she would have her punished, and although he did not believe a word of such a charge, he believed that vile woman wicked enough to swear away an innocent girl's life.

He was quite mistaken. She was furious at her disappointment and loss of gain, for gold she wors.h.i.+pped, but after all she would not have done a thing to put the life or liberty of Athalia in danger of the law. The restraint she had put upon her, was one of policy, all in the way of her business. Lying and cheating were a part of her trade; it is of some others. She had been outwitted by one whom she thought too tame to resent an injury, or protect herself. Lovetree did not know that like a furious wind it would soon blow out, or that a portion of her apparent anger was put on for effect, for one of the other girls was held by a slender thread, and it was an object to deter her from taking the same step that Athalia had.

It is a great object--great as it is with the merchant to get new goods--with all this cla.s.s of houses to get new girls; those fresh from the country are objects of great importance; hence the effort to keep them until their conscience is obliterated from hearts made for virtuous actions, and then they stay willingly--often, have to beg for the privilege of staying, for "old goods" in this branch of trade are a greater drug in the market of seduction, than old dry goods upon the merchant's shelves. They are more like old meat upon the butcher's stall; n.o.body wants to buy, though all may admire its fatness, and remark how good it had been, but when they examine closely, an odor cometh up to the nostrils, which giveth offence to the stomach.

Men treat all these poor girls as children treat toys. The fresh and beautiful are admired, then barely tolerated, then kicked aside to make room for a fresh set. Hence all the arts that cunning vile women know of are used to obtain new toys for their customers.

Lovetree slept but little that night. How he did walk up and down the corridors of the Astor house the next morning, watching every one that entered, hoping it might be the little pedler girl. She was at home and asleep. She got home before her mother, and went to bed, so that she knew nothing of the coming of Mrs. Morgan. All slept late, and Stella's mother saw her daughter sleeping so sweetly that she could not bear to wake her for her daily task until breakfast was ready. How delighted she was to see Mrs. Morgan! "Oh, mother, mother, let me go and tell that gentleman; I will bring him right here. He will be so glad to see Mrs.

Morgan."

"So glad to see me, Stella, who is it that knows me?"

"He don't know you at all. But when I told him about you, he and that other gentleman said that they would go right off to Mrs. Laylor's, and get you away."

"Why, Stella, my daughter, who are you talking about? We do not understand a word you are saying."

"Don't you, no, you do not; I had forgotten that I had not told you about those two nice gentlemen that I met at the Astor house last night.