Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 8

The monsters missed their aim. Mrs. Reagan spoke kindly to him as though in her own bed; begged him to get up and go home with her. No he would not. She might go back to her old missionary paramour. She might go to ---- no matter where, he was drunk. But he could not get up, for the villains had stripped him of every st.i.tch of clothing; they had not even left him a s.h.i.+rt. So she went away, sorrowing.

"Tom," said she, "come, go home with me, that is a good boy, I feel so faint and weak." Tom was a good boy; who had ever said it though? One, one he remembered, and these words came like hers and nestled down in his heart. They will live there and drive out evil ones.

Tom went home with her, giving her his arm and telling her to lean upon it. Tom was not the best of guides, he made several missteps that day, for tears dimmed his eyes, but he made one good step, it was up the ladder of reform.

"Mrs. Reagan," said he, "let me stay here to-day, I have got no home, and I don't feel as though I wanted to go back to Cale Jones's."

No. He did not want to go back there. He had heard the sound of his dead mother's voice, saying, good boy. n.o.body would say, good boy, if he went back there. Conscience too was doing her work; conscience told him what he had done to a woman who now said, "good boy."

So he stayed--he was a good boy--she was sick and he waited upon her all day. At night he was going to get Mr. Elting and Nolan to go with him and bring Reagan home. That would be his reward. He has his hand upon the door to go out, but waits a moment to see who comes. He opens it to a hurried footstep, and in bounds Wild Maggie, her face radiant with health, strength, and the lovely bloom of country life.

"Where's father? Mother sick? What's the matter?"

Her mother draws the clothes over her face. She would not have her daughter see her weep.

"Tom, my boy, tell me; come, Tom, that is a good boy--the truth, nothing but the truth--I must know it."

Good boy, again, and his heart overflowed. He could stand kicks, and cuffs, and curses, without a tear, but he could not hold out against, "good boy."

"Maggie, I will not lie to _you_, I could not; but I can't tell you the truth."

"Why?"

"I am 'fraid you won't call me good boy again."

"Yes, I will. I don't believe you are a bad one."

"And you won't hate me?"

"No, no; she cannot hate you, for you have been good to her mother, to-day."

"Mother! Oh! I know all about it. You need not tell me. Only, where is he? I will go and bring him home."

"Did Heaven ever give a mother such another child?"

Yes, many such. Many a flower would send its blossomed sweets to many a heart, but for blighting frosts in its young years.

"What sent you home, Maggie?"

"I don't know, mother; I felt as though I was wanted. Something told me so. I dreamed so for three nights, and so I came."

She was soon told everything. Tom made a full confession; and still she did not hate him. She told him how he could help her. He should go with her; she was going to bring her father home. She gave him a little bundle of clothes to carry; and away they went. She stopped on her way down, at the police office, made her complaint, and took an officer along with her, who arrested Cale Jones and the two women; the rest of the gang were prowling for prey somewhere else. The women were sent to the Island, next day, for they had no friends. The plotter of villainy had. The Alderman of the Sixth Ward, was his friend; political friend; him he sent for; and after being an hour in custody, he was discharged; and this was the end of his punishment.

Reagan, since his wife's visit in the morning, had steadily refused to drink any more, and had become in a measure sober. It was a sad meeting with his daughter. At first, he refused to see or speak to her. He was ashamed. Nature overcame him at last, and he got up and pulled off the dirty suit his robbers had put on him, preparatory to kicking him into the street, and put on the clean ones, which Maggie and Tom had brought him; and then they took him, each by an arm, and went home. It was a sad home; it never will be a happy one again. Then she went to work and got him some supper, spending of her own little store to buy some tea, and such things as he could eat.

"Now," says she, "I have got another thing to do to-night, for I must go back again in the morning. Tom, I am going to provide you with a home.

You must go to the House of Industry, reform, and make a man of yourself."

Reader, do not forget. This ministering angel, is Wild Maggie.

Most willingly he went with her, and was most kindly received by the Superintendent. There we will leave him awhile. We shall see him again perhaps.

Maggie went back to her country home. Her father remained sick for some days, and then went to work, but his spirit was broken, he grew more and more uneasy, and finally, in a fit of despondency, met with one of his old cronies, and back he went, down, down, to his former degradation.

Had he gone back and renewed his pledge, after his first fall, when he was dragged down, he might have been saved; but he would not; he said, he had proved himself incapable of ever being a man again, and so he sunk in despair. Week after week his clothes, his furniture, his wife's clothes, even her daughter's gift-Bible, went for rum. Nothing was left, but starvation. Yes, there was one thing left for her--one thing that that wife had never before received from her husband.

A blow, a black-eye, and a kick. It was one drop too much in her cup of affliction, and she parted with him for ever, and came back to her old home, the House of Industry.

Tom welcomed her with a smile; he was door-keeper now.

"It is better to be door-keeper," said he, "in the house--you know the rest. I will call Mr. P. I am sure, he will give you a home, he said as much yesterday. I shall write to Maggie now, and let her know all about it."

"You are very kind, Tom, to say that."

"Well, wasn't she kind to me? Where should I have been all this time, if it had not been for her? I think, we will get the old man in again, yet."

"No, no, he is pa.s.sed everything, now. He never was so bad before, never struck me a blow before. A blow from him! Oh! it is dreadful. I never can forgive that."

"Don't say that. 'Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us.'"

"True, my boy, you have taught me a lesson. I will forgive, but I don't think he will ever get over this bout; he is very violent."

"The most violent fires are soonest burnt out."

Tom had faith, she had none, she was a sad victim of despair--a despairing wife. But time will heal the deepest wounds. She went to work, grew cheerful, and contented there to spend the remainder of her life, which she said, would not be long. Of that she seemed to have a presentiment, and made all preparation which it becomes a reasonable mortal to make for such a prospective journey. She seemed to have but one wish.

"Oh! if I could see my husband as he was a few months ago, I should be willing to die then. But I cannot bear to die now with the thought upon my mind, that he would never shed a tear at my grave."

His time was coming. Tom was a philosopher. "Didn't I tell you," says he, "that the fire would soon burn out. He was here last night, walking up and down the pavement for hours, looking down into the kitchen when you were at work."

"Perhaps he wanted to strike me again."

"No, he was as sober as a judge."

"Oh, dear! then may be he was hungry, poor man."

"So I thought, and went and bought him a loaf of bread. When I gave it to him, he burst into tears, and walked away to a cart and sat down to eat it. He was hungry, and for fear he would be dry, and go to that cursed hole--"

"Don't swear, Tom."

"I can't help it; it is one, and why not call it so? I did not want him to go there, and so I went and got him a cup of water, and carried to him, and then I thought if everybody knew what a blessed thing it is to give these poor old drunkards bread and water instead of rum, how much happiness they might make in the world. And then I talked to him about taking the pledge again, but he said, 'no, Tom, I took it once, I don't want to break it again.' 'No,' said I, 'you did not break it, it was me that did it, I was the guilty one.' And then I told him all about it. He never knew before. The rascals there told him, that he and Sally came there together and called for whiskey, and then got drunk and went to bed together, and he believed it; his mind was so confused that he forgot all about the past, and he never knew till now that they had lied to him so shockingly. 'You don't know,' says he, 'Tom, what a load you have lifted off of my conscience.' Then I asked him where he was going to sleep that night?

"'Where? where should I? In the cart or under it. Anywhere I can find a hole. Me that have had a house of my own, and built a score of houses for others to sleep in, have not slept in one these two months. Perhaps never shall again.'

"'Yes you will,' says I; 'you will sleep in that one to-night.'

"'What! under the same roof with my wife once more; I don't know as I could stand it; it is more happiness than I deserve.'

"'No, it is not; and if you will go away in the morning, and stay away all day, and come back at night as sober as you are now, I will ask the Superintendent to take you in for good.'