Edith and John Part 6

"Naw he didn't," said the ten-year-old, after taking a swallow of the faintly discolored water called coffee.

"When did he go?" again questioned the mother, after the lapse of a few minutes.

"Soon after you left," answered the fourteen-year-old, indifferent as to where he went, "and took his overcoat with him."

"To sell it, too, s'pose," said the mother unconcernedly.

"Yep," replied the ten-year-old; "said he'd bring me a pair of shoes."

"I see you gettin' a pair of shoes from him, Liz," retorted the mother, without the least concern whether the child had any or no, as she rolled the fried potatoes and dough-bread between her gums.

Thus the mother and the children talked about "pap," the father, who had that day wandered out of his beaten course, the one that he had learned to travel in so regularly for twenty years or more. This course lay between his squalid home and the tempting saloons that lined the streets of old Birmingham farther up the river way. Billy Barton was a man with an unconquerable appet.i.te for strong drink as might be judged from what has been said heretofore. All his unvarying life before this memorable day he had but one thought, but one ambition, but one predominating idea, and that was to get drink--either by buying, begging, stealing, or trading for it. But when his wife left him this morning, with the parting word that she would fetch home the things that he had sold the day before, he, too, left shortly after her departure, taking with him an old rusty overcoat.

As he departed from his door, with his flock of half-starved children standing in it watching him leave, he went with a new resolution in his mind, a new determination formed, a new purpose in view. This was that he would go away and find work--away from his old environments, away from his drunken a.s.sociates. With this new resolve burning feebly in his irresolute breast, he struck a course for the mills in the Soho district.

That night he did not return; nor the next day; nor the next night; nor the following day. Mrs. Barton and the family thought little of his failure to return in the s.p.a.ce of time, for they had been used to his absence on a spree for almost a whole week at a stretch. But when a week had gone by, and when ten days had gone by, and two weeks had finally pa.s.sed, they began to feel uneasy at his prolonged absence. When a third week had pa.s.sed and he did not put in an appearance in the hilarious condition they antic.i.p.ated to behold him wheeling down upon them, the mother thought it time to make some concerted attempt to ascertain the cause of his disappearance.

She took the matter very calmly, consoling herself with the reflection that her spouse was safe somewhere, or otherwise she would have heard about him through the police department, or through the gossips of her disreputable neighborhood. Little by little she began to inquire cursorily among the neighbors, then among the keepers of the saloons, then of the policeman of the district. She got no tidings of him. A month pa.s.sed; no news. Another month pa.s.sed; no news. He was gone.

So Kate Barton, with her twelve children, was left alone to fight against starvation, or go to the poor house, or have her family broken up, and scattered among the charitable, who are very often among the worst as saviors of the outcasts.

Alone, alone! What if we, who live in gilded halls, had to take her place! Ah, we would call on a merciful G.o.d to deliver us! For there are things in this life, mind you, my good keepers of the loaves and fishes, that are even worse than death--worse than death.

Alas, too often, men of piety are p.r.o.ne to shun their christian duty.

Millions of beings, such as she, vegetate from the cradle to the grave and never see the ministering hand of the followers of that Christ who taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Millions go up and down the obscure pathways of this world, within the sacred sound of the clanking bells of religion, and never receive the helping meed that was promised them. Millions live like the rioting motes invisible in the air about us as if all the philanthrophy of Christendom were set aside for the chosen few. The successful gloat over and glory in their achievements, and extend a cursory hand to those below as if they were fulfilling the ten commandments as a great finale of their extravaganza. But, do they do any good? There are many Kate Bartons all around us, the natural among the unnatural, who deserve more compa.s.sion from those preachers of the Good Will than they ever receive. It is not believed by all that only the chosen few shall answer the call. It is not believed by all that the doctrine of the Christ should prevail one day in the week and be sunk in oblivion for the other six. No, not by all.

But Kate Barton's day shall come, some day; and those who shun her now will a.s.sert their cringing hypocracy when she has been lifted up, and not lifted by their hands.

Charity is not what the Kate Bartons want--it is the meed of opportunity.

CHAPTER V.

STAR BARTON SEEKS A NEW HOME.

Star Barton? She was the one scintillating light that shone out of the milky way of the Barton family. She was a sport of the family tree--a lily nourished in a quagmire. And how a wondering world marvels at such unaccountable things of nature!

Through eighteen weary summers and eighteen dreary winters she went, before seeing a light above the dim horizon of her impoverished world.

Through babyhood she crawled in frightful filth, as if it were a part of her wretched existence, seeing nothing beyond the bare walls and bare floors of her cramped up playgrounds; through childhood she toddled, with the same dismal conditions abetting her expanding innocence; through the period of adolescence she walked without a thought of what the outside world contained, except as she intuitively gathered such knowledge as the thick curtain of ignorance slowly rose before her; till now she had come to the springtime of womanhood, full of its snares and pitfalls for such as she. Then, like the bursting of the sun through a rent-way in the clouds on a rainy day, she, for the first time, saw the beckoning star that should lead her on--on--on--to a life of rect.i.tude, or--dissoluteness.

Star Barton was the second child of Kate Barton, and early in her teening years gave some promise of her future. When only ten she began to be a drudge, doing all the things that her delicate hands could, with exertion, be laid to. She was the patient "little mother" to all the new babies as they yearly floated out of Paradise to this place of desolation. She was the scrub-woman, the washer-woman, the charwoman, the cook, the chamber maid, ever cheerful in her efforts to perform her tasks. Illy clad, scantily fed, roundly abused by her father, continually scolded by her mother, and never praised by either parent, she mutely submitted, like a black slave, to all the torments of blighting servitude that could be heaped upon her. Thus, for eighteen long years, Star Barton was subjected to all the demoralizing influences of drunkenness and poverty; and how she came out of it unblighted any one may wonder at. And now, at this age, she stood looking out the narrow window of her vantage point, seeing the promise of a brighter life.

Then why was she a freak of nature from the family tree? Because she had a round face, pink cheeks, two even rows of white teeth, two mild blue eyes underneath dark eyebrows, a sharp, shrewd, straight nose, and dark hair; and because she was of average height, well formed, muscular and courageous; and still, because nature had provided her, as it provides the offspring of the weak, sometimes, with all the qualities and graces that were necessary to combat the deteriorating effects of a life of toil.

As suddenly as she had seen the new light mount the horizon of her life, as suddenly did she long for better ways, a better home, a better life.

This longing came to her the very time her father disappeared. She sought work, and found it, still as a drudge, in a lodging house up in Birmingham. The small pittance that she earned she took home every Sat.u.r.day night, and gave it to her mother as a helping mite towards banis.h.i.+ng the horde of wolves that constantly prowled about her door.

This small sum was not sufficient to maintain a successful contest with those beasts of starvation that gnawed their way, like famished whelps, into the growing bodies of the ten starvelings of Kate Barton. But, notwithstanding, Star never failed in her willingness to turn her last penny for their sustenance. An older brother had been her a.s.sistant in this trial, and he kept it up with a good will till about the hour the father had deserted them; but he, losing heart, after acquiring new habits and forming ill-savored acquaintances, so far forgot his duty to his mother that he also deserted her in her time of greatest need. He went away as suddenly as her father--they knew not where. And Star was ever faithful, ever trustworthy, ever to be relied upon by her hapless mother.

One day, after ten hours of the severest toil, Star came home, with the little bundle of her personal effects under her arm. It was on that memorable day in November when the heavens seemed to have bursted their flood gates and let out a deluge to come down in gimlets to pierce the fog and smoke with its weird pattering. Without cloak, or coat, or protection of any kind, Star waded through the sodden streets, arriving at the door of her home as wet as a drowning rat. Entering, she deposited her bundle on the only table in the house, and took up a position close to a cast iron stove that was about as cheerless in its warmth as the evening itself. She was so thoroughly soaked that every lineament of her form could be seen through the thin garment that clung to her body as closely as paper on a wall.

"Mother," said Star, as that lean creature came indolently into the room, "I have quit my job."

"You have?" answered the mother, about as carelessly as if she were talking gossip over the back fence.

"Yes, mother, I have quit."

"Very well, I've lots to do here; I reckon you can keep busy," said the mother, as if the future had been provided with all the necessaries of life.

Star left her mother suckling a child by the stove, and proceeded to her dark and shabbily furnished room for a change of clothing. Presently she returned looking less distressful. Then she bathed her face in a water bucket that stood on a box by a besmoked window, following with the combing of her long dark hair. After which, she rolled her hair into a knot at the back of her head, looked into a crooked mirror, dampened her fingers on her tongue and touched her eyebrows, then set to work to cook the evening meal for the brats caterwauling around like so many wild-cats.

Kate Barton gave no concern about Star's future. She asked no questions as to why she quit her work as scrub-woman at the lodging house. She said nothing that would leave the least impression as to what she thought about providing for the family. Deplorable mortal!

"Mother," said Star, after awhile, "I am going away tomorrow to look for a new place."

"It makes no difference, Star," was the response of the mother. "I can use you here."

"How will we live, if I don't work, mother?"

"As we have always lived, s'pose."

"And that has been poorly, mother."

"Yes."

"Don't you want me to go away, mother?"

"It makes no difference, s'pose," answered the mother. "I've put up with it this long, s'pose I can put up with it the rest of my days."

"Mother," said Star, whose love for her mother was of the undemonstrative kind, the kind born of instinct, and is taken for granted among the very poor; "mother, I am going to the East End tomorrow to look for a job as a domestic in a rich man's home."

"Yes," replied the mother.

"A woman came to me today and told me to go to a certain house, in the East End, where I could get work at six dollars a week, and board thrown in."

"Yes, Star," returned the mother, now showing a little more interest in the conversation than she had shown in any thing before--unless it was, perhaps, her drunken husband.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Star."

"That is twenty-four dollars a month; that will keep me in clothing, and plenty for the children to eat."

"Yes, Star," said the mother, as she rose from her chair, with the suckling still hanging to her breast, and walked across the floor, for no purpose whatever, other than that perhaps the performance might dissolve her cold brooding into a semblance of interest in her material welfare. Then she sat down again and rocked to and fro with the rockerless chair, as a jolting dose of soothing syrup for the pain that had suddenly twisted the child's mouth into a howling breadth.

"And mother," continued Star, "the woman gave me the address of a rich family that wants a maid for a young lady, or a cook, or something else, I forget which."