716 621 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS \ HOT CORN: . LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED INCLUDING THE STORY OF LITTLE KATY, MADALINA, THE RAG-PICKER'S DAUGHTER, WILD MAO-O-IE, &c. WITH ORIGINAL i>KSIGNS, ENGRAVED BY N. ORE, BY SOLON ROBINSON. " Bid that welcome Which comes to punish us." "A beggar's book outworths a noble's blood. " Of erery inordinate cup beware, Or drink, tind with it misery share." FIFTEENTH THOUSAND. NEW YORK: DE WITT AND DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS, 160 & 162 NASSAU STREET. 185-i. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS ENTKRED according to Act of Congress, !n the year 1853, by DE WITT & DAVENPORT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New- York W. H. TINSON, Stereotyper, Ac., 82 Spruce Stret, New York. R. CRA1OHEAD, PRINTER, 53 Vesey st, N. Y. 4-. TO HORACE GREELET, AND HIS CO-LABORERS, EBITORS OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE; The Friends of the Working Man ; The Advocates of Lifting uj> poor trodden-down Humanity ; The Ardent Supporters of, and Earnest Advocates for the Maine Law ; The Wishers for Better Rewards for Woman's Labor, And All Honest Industry, Ij i B E I D tn * is RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY YOUR FRIEND AND FELLOW WORKER, THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. THE growing taste for works of this kind works intended to promote temperance and virtue, to lift up the lowly, to expose to open day the hidden effects produced by Rum, to give narratives of misery suffered by the poor in this city has induced the Publishers to offer liberal inducements to the author to use his powerful pen, and words of fire, to depict his " Life Scenes," and embody them in a volume, which, we are satisfied, will prove one of the most acceptable to the moral portion of the community, ever published. It is a work of high tone, that must do good. The peculiar stylo of the author is as original as the tales of truth which he narrates. It is unlike that of any other author, and every page is full of fresh interest and thrilling narrative. As a temperance tale, it has no equal. As such, we hope it may prove but the commencement of a series. As an expose of life among the poor in this city, it will be read with deep and abiding interest, in all parts of this country. It is a work for the fireside of every family ; a book that commends itself to the heart. No one who has read the " HOT CORN STORIES," as they appeared in the Tribune, but will rejoice to have the oppor tunity to possess them, and many more like them, all com plete and connected, in one handsome volume, such as we now offer. To a moral and religious public ; to all who would promote (v) VI INTRODUCTION. * temperance; to all who would rather see virtue than vice abound ; to all who have a heart to feel for other's woes ; to all who would have their hearts touched with sympathy for the afflictions of their fellow creatures, "Life Scenes," as depicted in this volume, are respectfully commended, by THE PUBLISHERS. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. " OH, pshaw," says pretty Miss Impulsive, " I hate pre faces." So do I. Nobody reads them ; that is, nobody but a few old fellows with spectacles. , I would not write one, only that some folks think a book looks not well without. Well, then, I have written a great deal in my life travels, tales, songs, temperance stories, some politics, a good deal upon agriculture, much truth, and some fiction, always in the newspapers, never before in a book. I know that many, very many, have read what I have written with pleasure, or else " this world is awfully given to lying," for they have said so. Will they read my book ? That we shall see. If they do, they must not criticise too closely. Remember that some of the most thrilling sketches were written amid the daily scenes and avocations of a city editor's office, for the paper in which they first appeared, without any thought or design on the part of the author of making a book ; that was the thought of the publishers. They read the first sketches, and judged, we hope rightly, if enlarged and embodied in a neat volume, it would be appreciated as one of the best efforts, in this book-making age, to do good. If they have judged rightly, if it does have that effect, if the public do appreciate the volume as they often have my fugitive effusions, then shall I be rewarded, and they may rest assured, whenever they buy a volume, that a portion of the purchase money will go to ameliorate the condition of (vii) vni the poor, such as you will become acquainted with, if you follow rne in my walks through the city, as depicted in this volume, which I offer most hopingly to all who do not know, and most trustingly to all who da know him, who has so often signed himself Your old friend. SOLON ROBINSON. NEW YORK, November, 1853. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page Scenes in Broadway . . . . . . .15 First Appearance of Hot Corn 18 Sally Eaton Julia Antrim 19 Drunken Man Killed by an Omnibus . . . , . ' ; -~aj& Bill Eaton sent to the Hospital 28 The Fire Mrs. Eaton's House Burned 30 Three -Golden Words 41 CHAPTER II. Hot Corn First Interview with Little Katy . . . .44 A Shilling's Worth of Happiness 46 A Watch-word . . .49 CHAPTER III. Wild Maggie 50 The Five Points Dens where Human Beings Live ... 53 Wild Maggie's Home , . . 55 The House of Industry Commencement of the Ragged School . 60 The Rat-hole The Temperance Meeting The Pledge 'Tis Done . 63 Jim Reagan Tom Nolan His Temperance Address ... 69 Ring-nosed Bill Snaky Jo 71 The Pledge and a Kiss 73 CHAPTER IV. The Temptation The Fall James Reagan after the Pledge 75 The Conspiracy at Gale Jones's Grocery .. .. * . . . 76 Tom Top Snaky Jo Ring-nosed Bill Old Angelina . . 78 Reagan Rescued by Maggie . i . 84 His Second Fall .'.... 85 Tom Finds and Feeds Him ....... 87 His Second Visit to the Temperance Meeting .... 89 (9) X CONTENTS. Pagt CHAPTER V. The Two-Penny Marriage Thomas Elting . 95 CHAPTER VI. The Home of Little Katy . .104 A. Sad Tale and its Termination" Will he come ?" . .112 CHAPTER VII. Wild Maggie's Mother .115 Wild Maggie's Father 118 Wild Maggie's Letter 120 Death and his Victim ' . . . . . . . .129 Greenwood, and the Rose planted by a new-made Grave . . 132 CHAPTER VIII. Athalia, the Sewing Girl 135 The Morgans 137 Athalia's Song . . . . 141 Her Home Jeannette . . . ; . . . . 143 The Blow and its Results . . ... . .148 Charley Vail and Walter Morgan 149 CHAPTER IX. The Trip to Lake George Preparation A New Bonnet . .160 One Bottle too many, and the Catastrophe 163 Marriage and Death . " . 165 Where Shall the Dead find Rest ? 170 Going " To Get a Drink " . . . . . . .171 CHAPTER X. Walter Morgan and Wife Charley Vail and Wife . . .175 Going to Savannah . . 179 The Ten Dollar Bill . . 186 Seeing is Believing . . . 187 Athalia Homeless and Friendless . ... . . .189 CHAPTER XI. Life at the Five Points Madalina, the Rag-Picker's Daughter . 190 Cow Bay and its Inhabitants ... ... 204 CONTEXTS. Xl Page Tom and the Glass of Cold. Water . ... . . 217 " I never Kiss any but those I Love " 219 " Our Trade," said the Fiend " 221 Pocket-picking .......... 222 The Poor-House Hearse . 224 CHAPTER XII. Athalia, and the Home she found 225 Mrs. Laylor Nannette 228 The Arts of Deception 230 Frank Barkley .246 C HA P T E R XIII. The Little Peddler 249 The Exchange Money for Rum, Health for Misery . . . 250 Mr. Lovetree . . , . . . . . . . 258 Stella May 261 Savage, Civilized,' and Christian Nature 266 A Walk up Broadway 267 Mysterious Disappearance ....... 26S The Legless Flower-seller . . . " ' . - "' i j " . "* . . ' ; 271 Visit to a Suspicious House . . . ' ' r * ' . . 274 Agnes Brentnall and the Negro Wood-sawyer . . . . 283 Phebe and her Bible V "'' .!' . 287 A Girl Lost . . ( ' f * 289 Stella May and her Mother 294 The Will . ' . . 297 CHAPTER XIV. New Scenes and New Characters . . . . .*:.*,..: 306 Mrs. McTravers . . . . . . . 307 Visit to the Five Points . . . &&&&& . 310 The Home of Little Katy deserted . . . . 'V, ,,.. r i . 321 Mrs. De Vrai Who is- she ? . ^ *v ^-^^Ujtct;-:- * - ^' - / . 324 A Woman Drunk in the Street . .**'?. . . ^ ,- . 328 CHAPTER XV. Little Katy's Mother . , / . ..... >/ ' . ; 334 De Vrai, and a Night Scene . . . *. ./ ' ; V 340 Xll CONTEXTS. Page CHAPTER XVI. Agnes BrentnaU 343 Spirit Mediums 351 How Agnes was Deceived 353 CHAPTER XVII. The Intelligence Office 361 Agnes' Story 364 Mr. Lovetree's Story 370 Agnes finds her Mother 372 Mrs. De Vrai's Story 373 Song Will he Come? 383 A Death-bed Appeal 385 CHAPTER XVIII. Julia Antrim and other Old Acquaintances .... 386 The Penitentiary the Visit to Mrs. May 387 Stella May in her New Home 388 Julia Antrim's Story 390 Names and Characters for Life Scenes 391 Invitation to a Party 392 Going to be Married 393 Visit to Mrs De Vrai Mrs. Meltrand Agnes and Adaleta . 394 CHAPTER THE LAST. " She is Gone, Sir !" 396 The Death-bed Little Sissee 397 The Wedding Party at Mrs. Morgan's 398 Who is the Bride? The Double Marriage .... 399 Greenwood Cemetery the Grave ...... 400 "'Tis the Last of Earth" 401 "Will he Come?" "- 'i . 401 In the Dark Grave Sleeping a Poem 402 A Voice from the Grave a Poem 403 The Last Word . ,408 HOT COKN. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. ^ CHAPTER I. OUR TITLE. THE STORY. " How hard It Is to hide the sparks of nature." IT is a queer title for a book ; what can it mean ?" is the exclamation of those who open it for the first time. Visit this city walk with me from nine o'clock till mid night, through the streets of New York, in the month of August, then read the first interview of the author with little Katy, the Hot Corn girl, and the story of her life, and you will not ask, "What does it mean?" But you may ask, what does it mean that I see so many squalid-looking women, so many tender children, so many boys, who with well directed labor might work their way to fortune; or crippled men, sitting upon the stone steps along the street crying, "Hot corn ! here's your nice hot corn smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot !" Your heart, if it has not grown callous, will be pained as mine has been at the sights of 14 HOT CORN. misery you will meet with, and you will then exclaim, " What does it mean that I see these things in the very heart of this great commercial city, where wealth, luxury, extravagance, all abound in such profusion ? Surely the condition of the people, the ways and wants of the poor, cannot be known, or they would be improved. Why does not somebody write a book illustrating these "Life Scenes in New York," whose every page shall be a cry, startling as this of * Hot corn, hot corn !' now pealing in the midnight air ?" So thought I ; and so straightway set about the work, with ample material at hand, and more accumulating at every step. In writing a book, the first thought of the author is, what shall be my title? What better could I have than HOT CORN, since that was the inciting cry that waked my pen to action, to paint these life scenes in vivid pictures, for the world to look at and improve ? If, in my daily walks and midnight rambles, I have seen revolting sights, the details of which are harrowing to your soul as you read, so much the more need that they be opened to your view. Wounds must be seen to be healed. Old sores are often pronounced incurable, simply because they are old. First, strip off their dirty covering, then probe and wash, and then apply the healing balsam. If not already gan grened from long neglect, you may save the patient's life, and at all events, ease his suffering, and smooth his road to the grave. Be mine the task to strip and expose, and yours to wash and heal. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 15 Of just such life scenes as I depic\ there are enough tran spiring every night to fill a volume. Come, walk with me, of an August evening, from the Bat tery to Union Square, and you shall see all the characters of a romance. "Tis concert night at Castle Garden. Stand here a short half hour, and look at the gay and smiling throng. There is material for many a tale. Three thousand robes of fine cloth, silks, gauze, and lace, pass the Battery gates in one night, fluttering to the open sea breeze, without one thought from those who wear them for the poor little girl that sits shivering by the path, crying hot corn, or vainly striving to beg one penny from the overflowing purses that freely give dollars for amusement, and less than nothing to misery, or for its annihilation. Little do they think that this child has a mother at home, who once counted one in just such a thoughtless throng. Here might a chapter be written, but let us on ; we shall find plenty of subjects. If we stop to write the history of that little girl and her mother, we shall fill our book before we start. The Philadelphia boat has just landed her passengers at Pier No'. 1., North River, and the crowd 'are coming up Bat tery Place. Here is a picture of American character. Every one is pushing forward as though there was but one bed left in the city, and to obtain that he intended to outstride and overreach all his fellow travellers. Take care, little hot corn girl, or you will be run over, and your store trampled under- 16 . HOT CORN. foot. Bitter tears for your loss will run down your hollow cheeks, but they will gain you no sympathy. The only answer that you will get, will be, " Why didn't you get out of the way, you little dirty brat good enough for you." Yes, good enough for you, that you have lost your entire stock of merchandize; what business had you in the way of com merce, or path of pleasure ? " But, sir," says benevolence in a drab bonnet, " you have hurt the child." " What if I have ? she has no business in the way. She is nothing but a hot corn girl ; they are no better than beggars and often are little thieves. Why don't she stay at home ?" Sure enough. Simply because necessity or cruelty drives her into the street. Now your cruelty will drive her home to be beaten by a drunken father, for your act of wanton careless ness. Stand aside, my little sufferer, or you will be run over again. Here comes a little dark skinned, black-eyed, black-haired man, with life and death in his very step. What magic power impels him forward. He is a Jew a dealer in second-hand clothes. Surely his business cannot be so important that he need to upset little children, or step on the gouty toes of slow-going old gentlemen, in his hurry to get forward. It is Friday night, his Sabbath has already commenced, ho can do no business make no monish to-night. He is not in a hurry to reach the synagogue, that is closed, what then ? He has a Christian partner, and he wants to arrange a little LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 17 speculation for to-morrow. He has just received information of a shipment of yellow fever patients' clothing, which will arrive to-morrow or Sunday, and he wants his Christian part ner to look out on Saturday ; on Sunday, the Jew will watch the chance to buy the infected rags, which both will sell on Monday at a hundred per cent profit. " What, at the risk of human life ? Oh, I can believe that of a Jew, but certainly no Christian would do it." There spoke the Christian reader. The Jew will say the same, only reversing the character. No good Christian or Jew either will do it ; yet it will be done, and little beggar girls will be run over in the hot haste to meet the coming ship. "/[ *'' Walk on. The side-walks are crowded, and the street between the curb-stones full of great lumbering omnibuses and 'carriages, that go up and down all night for hire ; but there is a melancholy stillness in all the houses where wealth and fashion, in our young days, lived in lamp-lighted parlors, and diamonds flashed down upon the listener to music which had its home in these gay dwellings, where happy looking faces were seen through open windows. Iron shutters close them how, and commerce wears a dark frown by gas light. On the right is Wall street, where fortunes are made and lost as by the turn of a card, or rattle of a dice box. It is very thronged at noon day. It is very dull now. A few watchmen tread slowly around the great banking houses, working for 'a dollar a night to eke out a poorly paid day, by guarding treasures that the owners would not watch all the 18 HOT CORN. live long night for all the watchman is worth. But he must watch and work ; he has a sick wife at home, and four little girls are growing up to womanhood and city life. God knows for what ! A few express wagons, and more of these ever-going ever- coming omnibuses, are corning out of Wall street to join the great Broadway throng. And a pale-faced little girl sits upon the steps of the Bank of the Republic, adding to that constant cry, " Hot corn ! Hot corn !" Now here comes the Cerberus of this money palace. What possible harm to his treasures, can this little poverty-clad girl and her sickly looking little beggar boy brother do, sitting here upon the cold grey, stone steps, with an appealing look to every passer by to give a penny or buy an ear of corn. Does he think they are merely using their trade to plot mischief and schemes to rob his vaults of their stores of gold? On* 1 , would judge so by the way he growls at them. " Clear out, you dirty brats away with you, lousy beggars home to your kennel, young thieves. Don't come on these steps again, or I will throw your corn in the gutter." Are these the words to work reform ? They are such as fall every day and night upon the ear of just such specimens of the young sprouts of humanity, that vegetate and grow a brief summer in the city, dying in some of the chill winters of neglect, that come over their tender years, blighting, freez ing, killing. How little of the gold, Cerberus guards, would serve to warm these two young children into useful life. How little those who guard or use it, care for those they drive LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 19 unfeelingly away from their door steps for what? They have made it a place of convenience for their nightly trade. Tired of walking, carrying a heavy pail between them heavy to them it would be light, and were it all gold, compared with that within they have sat themselves down, and just uttered one brief cry of "Hot corn, here's your nice hot corn !" when they are roughly ordered to " clear out, you dirty brats." Yes, they are dirty, poor, and miserable, children of a drunken father who made them so ? No matter. They are so, and little has that gold done to make them otherwise. " Clear out get off these steps, or I will kick you off." They did so, and went over to the other side of Broadway, and clung to that strong iron fence, and looked up three hun dred feet along that spire which points to heaven from Trinity church. Did they think of the half million of dollars there piled up, to tell the world of the wealth of New York city ? No, they thought of the poor, wretched room, to them their only home, a little way down Rector street, scarcely a stone's throw from this great pile, in a house, owned and rented to its poor occupants by that great land monopoly, the Rectory of this great church. " Bill," says the girl, " do you see that gal ? how fine she is tittivated up. Don't she look like a lady ? I know who she is, Bill. Do you think when I gets a little bigger, the old woman is going to keep me in the street all day and half the night, peddling peanuts and selling hot corn? No, sir-ee. I will dress as fine as she does, and go to balls and theatres, and have good suppers and wine, at Taylors and lav a-bed 20 HOT 'CORN. next day just as long as I please. Why not ? I am as good- looking, if I was dressed up, as she is." "Why, Sal, how will you do that? You ha'n't got no good clothes, and mother ha'n't got none, and if she had, she wouldn't give 'em to ye." "I don't care, I know how to get them. I know the woman that owns every rag that street gal has got on her back." " Them ain't rags, them's silk, and just as good dress as them opera gals had on, that went stringing along down Broadway a while ago. I don't see how you can get sich, 'less you prig 'em. I'd do that if I had a chance, blessed quick. How'd she get 'em, Sal ?" " I knows, and that's 'nuff." Why should she not know ? She had been to school long enough to learn, and would be a very inapt scholar if she had not learned some of the ways of the street, in thirteen years. In thirteen years more she will be a fit subject to excite the care of the Moral Reform Society, or become the inmate of a Mary Magdalene asylum ; perchar e, of Randall's Island. There is a history about these two children and their parents, which you may read by and by. We cannot stop, now. Let us walk on. Iron shutters bolted, barred, and strong locked doors, what piles of treasure lie just within. At Maiden lane on the right, and Courtlandt street on the left, more omnibuses come up, crowding their way into an already overfull " Broadway." Oh ! what a scream. It is a woman's scream. A cry of LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 21 anguish of horror, that chills the blood. It comes from the apple woman at the corner, and yet she is not hurt. No one is near her, the crowd is rushing to the centre of the street. What .for? An omnibus has run over a drunken man. This is always enough to excite the sympathy of woman, and make her cry out as with pain. It is pain, the worst of pain ; it comes from a blow upon the heart ; worse than that, in this case, for the man is her husband. He has just left her, where he has been tormenting her for an hour, begging, coax ing, pleading, promising, that if she would give him one shilling, he would go directly home and go to bed, as soon as he got something to eat. "Something to drink." No. Upon his word, he would not touch another drop the blessed night. She well knew the value of such promises. She well knew that the corner grocery, where he would stop to buy the loaf of bread, which he promis'ed to share with the two chil dren, kept a row of glistening glasses and decanters upon the same shelf with the loaves. "The staff of life," and life's destroyer, side by side. She knew his appetite she knew the temptation to which he would be subjected, she knew he could not resist, she knew the vampire who dealt in life and death, would suck up that shilling, if with it came the heart's blood of him, her, and their two children. She knew her husband, he could not resist the temptation. Once sober and he could keep so, if the means of intoxication were kept out of his sight. Once drunk and he would keep so, as long as he could obtain a shilling to pay for the poison. His last resource was to beg from his wife's scanty profits, by 22 HOT CORN. which she mainly supported the family, who often went sup perless to bed, for the rent must be paid. Landlords are inexorable. Hers was worth so many millions that the income was a source of great care, how it should be disposed of. Her rent w r as coming due, and every shilling looked to her of tenfold value to-night. Her children are in the street, filling the night air with an appealing cry, " Hot corn, hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn?" her husband was begging for one more shilling to waste worse than waste to close an ill-spent day. Oh, what a contrast between this and their wedding day ! She resisted his importunity until he found 'twas no avail, and then he swore he would upset her little store in the gut ter, if she did not give him the money. "What could she do 2 She would not call an officer to take him away. No, she could not do that, he was her husband. She could not resist him, could not have an altercation in the street, that would draw an idle crowd around her, spoil her trade, and worse than that, let the world know that this bloated, ill- looking, miserable remnant of a man, was her husband. Shame did what persuasion or fear could not : she gave him the shilling, and he started to cross the crowded street. He heeded little of danger he had often crossed when more drunk than now he heeded not the tripartite crush of car riages coming up and going down these streets, all meeting in a sort o"' vortex at that point. He heard, or heeded not, the drivers, " hi, hi, hi, get out of the way, you drunken son of a ." and down he went among the horses' clattering feet, LITE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 23 upon the slippery stones, and the wheels passed over him, crushing bones human bones, and mangling flesh, and mix ing human blood with street dirt. The omnibuses turned aside, the passengers shuddered as the poor wretch was lifted up, covered with blood and dirt, and inquired, "Is he dead?" the drivers looked down coolly from their high seats, with a consoling remark, that, "it's nothing but a drunken man," yet, that drunken man was that woman's husband ; him who, fourteen years ago, walked the streets as well dressed, as proud, as sober as any in the crowd who now gaze carelessly upon his bruised form, and hear the remark, that he, " is nothing but a drunken man." Fourteen years ago yes, this very night that woman walked this very street, arm in arm, with that man, and heard him, for the first time, call her wife. It was a happy time then, and "all was merry as the marriage bell." Lit tle thought they then less thought they a year afterwards, while rocking the cradle in their own happy home, that the time would come when he would raise his hand in anger to strike that loving wife, or that child would be driven, with kicks and curses, into the streets, or that he would lie bleeding upon the pavement he had so often and so' proudly trod before, a poor mangled drunkard. Oh how those words joyous words first rung in that happy mother's ears, when the proud father said : 41 Have you got a baby ?" " Yes, Willie, we have got a baby." 24 HOT CORN. How these words have rung like electric sparks through many a happy heart. "Have you got a baby?" said a little girl to a gentle man riding out of Boston. It was a queer question, arising as it did from a child he overtook on the road. How his city friends would have laughed at him if they had heard the question " Have you got a baby 2" No he had got no baby, yet he was a man full forty years of age, and looked as though he might have been a father, and so thought the little girl. Yet he had no baby. Why ? He was a bache lor ! So he had to answer, " no, my pretty miss, I have got no baby." " Oh la, haven't you ? Well we have. We have got a baby at our house ! !" This was not interesting to a bachelor. How different it would have been if he had married Lucy Smith, whom he intended to a dozen years ago, but he was too busy then too intent upon making money enough, to support a wife before he got one. Nonsense ! How little he knew of the sweet music of the words, " have you got a baby ?" How her heart would have leaped up and choked her utterance if she had now been riding by his side as his wife, instead of his " old flame," Lucy Smith ! Lucy Smi'h, still, for she had never heard those words touchingly applied to her, " have you got a baby ?" nor had she ever heard a sweet little girl say of her, " we have got a baby at our house !" How many a mother's heart has leapt for joy, at that ques tion, when she could answer it, " Yes, I have got a baby !" ,' :;C^ - I----, THK NKW-YOKK KIRKMAN. Page 3U. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 26 How many a father's heart will be touched with emotion when he reads, " Have you got a baby ?" for he will think as I do, of a time when, returning from a long journey, he meets just such a little cherub of a girl at his own gate, who does not stop to ask him how he does, nor climb his knee for the accustomed kiss, so exuberant is her joy so anxious is she to possess him with the secret that wells up and fills her very existence to overflowing, so that she must speak or burst, and hence she watches for Papa, and runs out to meet him at the gate with such a smile such a joyous, glorious smile, and cry of " Oh, Papa, we have got a baby ! !" How many a mother's heart will swell and throb, and how the warm tears tears of joy and gladness will flow as she fyears that husband's footstep approach, for she knows he will say, "Have you got a baby?" But there is no such joy now for that mother's heart. Yet that is the same father fallen, trampled, dying, and she rushes to the rescue. Two police officers bear him to the side-walk and lift him, lifeless as he is, upon a hand-cart. How the idle crowd push and jostle each other to get a sight of the wounded man. What for ? To administer to his wants ; to give, if need be, something to minister to his relief? No. To gratify curiosity morbid, idle curiosity. How this woman pushes and struggles to break the circle, crying, " Let me in, let me in ; let me see him." How little the crowd heed her. They think it is curiosity, too, nothing but curiosity, that impels her, as it does themselves. 26 nor co na. Why don't she say, " It is my husband ?" and then they would give her room, or the officers would make them. Why ! why don't she say it ? She is ashamed to tell unfeel ing hearts how low she has been sunk in the world since first she called that man by that name, or heard those heart- touch ing words when their first child was born. Husband was a sweet word once ; it is a bitter one now ; yet it must be spoken, for they are about to bear him away to the hospital. Whether dead or alive she knows not, and she rushes madly forward, seizing the policeman, with a cry of, " No, no ; not there, not there ; take him home, I will take care of him nobody can take care of him so well as I can. Oh, let me take him home ! Do let me take him home." What could she do with him in her one room, the home of herself and children. She could not stay to nurse him day after day, for then her trade would be lost ; somebody else would fake her stand ; there would be no income, all would be outgo, and all would soon be exhausted ; nothing to buy bread, nothing to pay rent, and then out must go the whole, sick or well ; they must go in the street if they fail to meet that dreaded periodical the rent day. There is no help for it. All this is hastily considered, and there is no other way ; he must go to the hospital. 'Tis a blessed institution a noble honor to the city, charitably sustained, to give relief to who ? A thousand just such subjects as this ; made drunk, covered with gore, maimed with broken limbs, by a legalized traffic in hell's best aid on earth. A trade that fills jails, thieves- dens, and brothels, and furnishes subjects like this for hospitals. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 27 " He must go to the hospital." " Then I will follow and nurse him there." There spoke the wife, as, ever since that holy name was known, the wife "has spoken can speak alone. How can she go ? Something clings to her dress and pulls her back. She looks around npon a little boy and girl it is the hot corn girl, just driven from the banking-house steps three squares below. " Mother, mother, do speak to us ; it is Bill and me. Is father dead ? What killed him ?" Rum! She did not say so. She only thought. She thought, too, of her helpless children, and what would they do if she went to take care of their father. She did not think of the blows, the kicks, and cuffs, and curses, received from him during long bitter years, for they were given by not by him not by her husband but by the demon in him the devil engendered by rum. She thought nothing of the cruel neglect and poverty and suffering of herself and children, for that was a sequence of the other. She did think of this night, fourteen years ago. She did think of the night when this girl, now clinging to her dress and convulsively crying, " Mother, is he dead," was born, for then she was a happy wife and mother. Then that father took that child in his arms and kissed and blessed it then he took her in his arms and kissed and loved her, and called her his dear wife. She did not think of the night when that little slender boy, now ten years old, was born, for then a devil not a husband dragged 28 HOT CORN. her by the hair, while in labor, from her poor cot, and bid her go out 'in the pitiless storm to fill his bottle for him. No, she did not remember that ; she only remembered that he was her husband ; wounded, dying husband, in need of some kind hand to make his bed and smooth his passage to the grave, and she would leave all without a thought to follow him to the hospital. She was his wife. Now there is a strug gle between duty and affection between husband and chil dren. She cannot go with both. One must be neglected ; which shall it be ? Had the husband been what he was when that girl was born, the heart of many a wife would give the ready answer. She looked upon her and remembered the time when she first heard these words, " Have you got a baby ?" She looked upon her, and all intervening time faded from memory, and she thought and felt as she would have felt if he had been struck down that night. She tears herself away from the grasp of the little girl, telling her to pick up the apples and go home, she must go with father. Another hand clings to her dress, and looks up with such an appealing look and says : " Don't go, mother ; they will take care of father. Don't leave us." She looked upon her sickly boy, and thought of the night he was born. Why does she start and turn round ? Did some one pull her by the hair ? No, it was only fancy. A sort of magnetic influence, linked with thought. That twinge decided her. That twinge decided his fate, and saved her childen's lives. She went home with them, and tired nature LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 29 slept in spite of mental agony. At four o'clock the bells rung for fire ; it was long before she could wake sufficiently to count the eight strokes which told it was in her district. Dreamily unconscious of danger, she moves not till she hears a crash and sees a light through the small rear window, when she springs up, opens the door, looks out in the direc tion of the stairs, and meets a burst of flame and smoke coming up. Back, back to the bed, closing the door a thin pine door the only barrier between the fire and her sleeping babes, she drags them out and up to the window. Will she throw them down upon the pavement below, as the only hope of saving their lives, for the fire is fairly up the stairs and rattling at the door behind her ? If it enters all is lost. The window is opened, and the little boy first he is the darling poised upon the sill, in the bewildered amazement of half- awaking consciousness. " Oh mother, mother, don't throw me out ! I will be a good boy, mother. I never will tear my jacket again. Indeed I could not help it. It was a big boy that pulled me. Oh, mother, mother, don't, pray don't." lie screams with fear, as he hangs convulsively upon his mother's neck, and looks down upon the gathering crowd, crying, " Throw him out, throw him out ; we will catch him." And a hundred hands are outstretched, a hundred noble hearts would prostrate themselves upon the pavement tcr save, to break the fall of a beggar boy whom they would have kicked out of their path the day before. Now a mother appeals to her fellow men to save her child. She had oft appealed 30 HOT CORN. i before, but then the house was not on fire ; the fire was in his father's mouth and that they heeded not. No bells rung, to call the engines with copious streams of water to put it out they are ringing now. And now see the outstretched hands, each ready to risk its own life to save that of a child. " Let him go throw him out you will all burn up in five minutes more this old wooden house burns like tinder." She looks behind her ; the flame is sending serpent tongues under the door. Iler dress upon a chair is on fire now the bed. They must jump, naked too, down among those men, or die. " Hold on ! hold on ! Way there give way there Hurrah, men ! lively now !" Oh, that was a sight for that mother and her two children. A ladder company thundered down the street with their cry of " Way there !" for they have caught the sight of a woman and children in distress ; and oh ! how they do press forward, shouting, " Way there ! lively now ! Hold on, we will save you !" How quick, after they reach the spot, a ladder is loosened and off the carriage, with one end on the ground and the other going up, up " Up with her now !" and so they do. Before it has found a resting-place, a man, active as a cat, is halfway up. Now he is at the top ; now hurrah ! how the shouts rend the air, for he has the boy in one arm and the girl in the other, and tells the mother to follow. She hesitates. What for ? The noble fireman sees at a glance, stops a moment, pulls off his coat and throw? it to her "now" down they go now they are safe. Safe with life LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 31 not a thing else on earth but her two fatherless children, her only covering a fireman's coat. Where is her husband now ? Where he will never see them again ; for while his attendant slept he tore the bandages from his wound, and then slept himself a sleep that one voice alone will awaken. Judge him not harshly ; he was the victim, not the criminal. He is dead now, tread lightly upon his grave. Look to his wife and children. It is they who need your sympathy. Raised in the worst school on earth the streets of this city, some of the Life Scenes of which I aim to depict the boy has already learned to " prig ;" and, so he shared the proceeds with his father that father, or rather the monster who made hfe a devil, would encourage the boy to be a thief. What could the mother do to counteract such delete rious influence ? All day she must stand at her corner, sell ing fruit, pea-nuts, and candy, to make bread to feed her else starving offspring, and to keep her husband out of the prison or alms-house. You have already seen the effect of the street education upon Sally ; the sight of her playmate, Julia Antrim, dressed in silks and laces, although borrowed no, furnished, by " the woman," on hire, for a purpose more wicked than murder, for murder only kills the body has already tempted her towards the same road to that broad path to woe ; not in the future, but here present with us every day ; and she has already determined that she will follow it as soon as " she gets big enough." Who shall rescue her? 32 HOT CORN. The danger is still more imminent now. Houseless, naked, starving in the street, how shall she live ? One step, one reso lution, will take her to the clothes-lending harpy, who fattens upon the life-blood of young girls, whom she dooms to the fate of Ixion for the remainder of their lives ; for her garmen-ts are the shirts of Nessus to all who wear them. She feels that she is big enough now big enough to begin. Younger girls than her are night-walkers. Julia is no older, and but little bigger, and she has often stopped in her walk to eat hot corn or pea-nuts with Sally, and show her shining gold, trying to tempt her to go and do likewise. She has an interest, too, in the temptation, for she has told Mrs. Brown of her old playmate, Sally Eaton, and how good-looking she was ; and Mrs. Brown has been to see her, has bought her merchandise, and spoken words of soul-trapping flattery, and promised Julia a present of a new silk dress that is, just as good as new, it had just been bought by a girl whom she turned out of doors because she could not pay her way if she will coax Sally to come and live with her. And so she has been sorely tempted. Eve was so, and fell. These tempting words are now running through the brain of Sally, as she stands in the crowd, wrapt in a blanket, kindly lent her, with her mother and little Willie, looking at their home and every earthly thing going up in flame and smoke heavenward. Her mother weeps, for the first time in long years. Long, long, had she steeled her heart against such indulgence ; its pent up fountains burst now. Not for grief; no, they were tears, such as she shed when that girl was born. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 33 How she cried, and thanked God, and pressed the hand of the fireman and thanked him for saving her children's lives, dearer to her than all her household goods. How little he thought of the noble act. He almost repulsed her and her gratitude. " There, that'll do, old woman. You had better be getting in somewhere." Somewhere ! Yes, somewhere ! Where ? That is the question. The crowd shout at the heroic deeds of the firemen, and would carry them in triumph through the streets, or bring out baskets of champaigne to drink libations to their honor, for saving two helpless children' from the flames. Saved for what? To stand naked in the street! No. Let them go to their friends. They have none. Yes, they have, but not relatives. A. few dollars are put into the mother's hand, but who will take her in ? who will give her a home? One that three years ago had no home himself. One who had been more drunken than Bill Eaton had been drunk for forty years. He is sober now you shall hear directly how he became so. A man advanced in years, say more than half a century, followed by a tall, fine-formed, well-dressed, bright-eyed girl, about one-third her father's age, press through the crowd to where the widow and her children stand, take them by the hand and lead on, with the simple words, " Come with us." It needs but few such words, spoken in such kind tones, to the afflicted to lead them into paths of peace, and hope, and joy. 2* 34 HOT CORN. Thu mother went forward with a sort of mechanical motion of the limbs, unaided by any impulse of the mind. Willie followed, as the lamb follows the ewe, .whether to green fields or the butcher's shambles. Sally was more independent. She was on the point of being entirely so, but a moment before. Now she clung to her girlish companion, as the wrecked mariner to hope. Had hope come one minute later, she had been led by the tempter that was gnawing at her heart-strings, to slip away from her mother, and in one hour afterwards, she would have been knocking at the ever-ready-to-open door of Mrs. Brown, and once passing that threshold, woe, woe, woe, had been written upon every page of her life. Once having passed that door, every other but its like had been closed against her for ever. For the sin of entering that door, in her young years, the world would never forgive her. No matter, that gaudily dressed and luxuriously fed tempters had beset her and led her in. Such tempters such school teachers for city chil dren are allowed to monopolise the Broadway sidewalks, and hold their infant evening schools, if not by authority of the common council, at least by permission and countenance of the chief of police and all his " stars." No Proserpine can walk this street at night alone, without meeting, or at least sub jecting herself to, the sad fate of Proserpine of old. Few of those we meet in our late walks, are Proserpines or Vestas ; although they may be goddesses of fire. Seek not to lift the veil, you will find Pandora there ; Blame not the girl who got her teachings in such a street, if, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 35 ill her deep adversity she was tempted tempted to leave that mother and brother, and slip away in the crowd, to go where she knew she would find a home. Where else should she go ? She knew of none. No one of all that crowd offered to take her home with him. She had no hope. She was a fit subject for despair, and despair is the father of temptation. What a blessed thing is hope, charity, and a will to do good ; when it flows from one young girl to another ! But who is it says, " come with us ?" The voice seemed familiar, and yet not familiar to Sally's ear. If the person had been clothed in such a garb of poverty as she herself had always worn, she would have known her, although it was three years since they had met. She was not ; she wore a neat tidy calico frock, and clean white sun-bonnet, hastily put on, and altogether looked so neat, so smart, so comfortable, as though she had a home which she meant to take them to, when she said, " come with us," that the tempter's spell was broken. Sally would not have gone with Julia Antrim, for all her gold and silks, good suppers and other enjoyments. The words were few and common-place. How often the mother and children had heard them before " come with us.' 1 But they never sounded as they did this night. There is some thing in the tone, as well as words. There is a magnetic power in kindness. Kind words are always winning, wheth er from friend or stranger. These came from strangers. Not altogether so ; the man had been one of the drunken com panions of Bill Eaton ; had helped to make him such, and 30 HOT CORN. now lie was going to pay part of the damage to his family. The girl, in her father's drunken days, had been one of Sally's street companions ; they had begged, and stole, and peddled hot corn and pea-nuts together. But Sally knew her not. How could she ? Then she was, ragged and dirty, far worse than Sally ; her parents were far poorer, and lived in a worse room, one of the worst in Centre street, and both of them were great drunkards, and she was, so everybody said, " the worse child that ever run unhung." How could she know the well behaved, nice looking young lady, walking by her side. But she did know that she spoke kind words in a sweet tone, and her heart was touched, and she went on with a light step. That blanket wrapped a happier heart that night, than ever fluttered under the silk dress of her former playmate, Julia Antrim. They went on ; the old man gave his arm to the widow and led the little boy ; the daughter walked with Sally. They enter the front door of a good house when did either ever enter the front door before up one flight of clean stairs, and there is their home, a room, and two bed-rooms, and kitchen ; small to be sure, but a most comfortable home, for the old man and his daughter. He was a carpenter, and made from a dollar and a half to two dollars a day ; she was a stock- maker, and ould earn from three to five dollars a week, enough to pay nearly all expenses. " Three years ago," said he, " I was the most hopeless drunkard that ever tumbled into a Centre street cellar. And my wife but no matter LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 37 ehe is in heaven now. All that gir^s work. She reformed us ; she made me a sober man, and, God willing, I shall never fill a drunkard's grave." " Oh, if she could only reform my husband, how I would bless her." " It is too late." " No, no ; it is never too late ; while there is life there is hope." " Yes, true ; but " " But what ? what is it ? what do you know P " Why, you see, ma'am, I was in the crowd last night when the accident happened. It was me that first picked him up ; and so, you see, I went up with him. It was me that told you that you couldn't go, 'cause I knew how 'twas with the children, and how you hadn't much to do with at home ; for I had been sort o' watching Bill, and he had promised to go with me this very night to sign the pledge ; and so, you see, I went up with him, and they dressed his wounds, and' I knew he wouldn't get over it, his blood was so bad, and it was so warm ; but he might have lived a while, and so when they got things fixed, I thought I would come down and tell you about it ; but just as I got down to the gate, a fellow came running after me to go back it was a'most morning then and so back I went. They said he had got crazy while T was in the room with another old friend, and when when I I " " Yes, I see ; he is dead." " Yes ; he is dead. When I came back he was about gone, but he was just as rational as I am now. ' Oh, Jim,' said he, 38 HOT CORN. * Jim Reagan, if I had only taken the pledge when you did, I should have been a man now. But I am glad I am going. My folks will be a great deal better off without me.' " " Oh, no, no, no ! he was my husband their father he might have reformed." " ' Tell them,' said he, * that I am dying, and that for the first time in ten years I feel as though I had my senses. If I could see them and know they forgave me all the wrongs I have inflicted upon them ! Do you think my wife could forgive ' " " Yes, yes ; everything, everything." " So I told him, and that seemed to quiet him. And then I begged him to forgive me for what .1 had done towards making him a drunkard. ' Oh,' says he, ' I can forgive every body even those who used to sell it to us, who used to take the bread out of our children's mouths for liquor, but I never can forgive those who made the law, or licensed them to mur der us. I forgive everybody else that ever injured me, and I die in peace. Tell my wife I die loving her- God bless her and my poor children, what will become of them 1 Good bye, Jim ; go and see my wife, and tell her good bye, and that I die as I wish I had lived ; but it is too late, too late. God bless my wife !' "I could not speak, I turned my eyes away a minute, looked again, and poor Bill Eaton was gone gone to Hea ven, I am sure, if sincere repentance would take him there. Well, you see, I could not do anything more for poor Bill, for he was gone where we must all go pretty soon, and so I come down and waked up Maggie." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 39 There was a start a sudden wakening up to consciousness Dn the part of Sally, &} <3 had recognised the name. " And says I, Maggie, daughter, come get up, and go with me to see a poor widow and children in distress. Oh, I wish you could have seen how she bounded out of bed we sleep in beds, good clean beds, now, and how quick she dressed herself, and how neat, and cheerful, and pretty she looked, and how sweetly she said, 'now, father, I am ready, who 'is it?' and when I told her, how her heart bounded with joy, and then she told me she knew Sally, but had not seen her for a long time, and so, arm in arm, we went out, and you know the rest. Poor Bill !" " Oh, that I could have seen him could have heard him speak soberly and affectionately once more I think I could have given him up without a murmur." " No. You would not have been willing to give him up to die, just as he had begun to live. Be content, you must not murmur. Who knows but all this overwhelming affliction will work together for your good, and your children's good." " Yes, mother, I am sure it will for mine. It has already, for I will be like Maggie ; don't you remember Maggie ?" " No. I don't recollect but one Maggie ' Wild Maggie of the Five Points ' the most mischievous, ragged, dirty little beggar in all that dreadful neighborhood ; and her father, the most filthy drunkard I ever saw. Why he was a great deal worse than ." " Your husband. Speak it out, I am not ashamed to own it, now I have reformed." 40 HOT CORN. " You you, not you ; this is not Maggie." "Yes, mother, this is 'Wild Maggie,' and this is her father. This nice young lady, that said so sweetly, ' Come with us,' this is 'Wild Maggie,' and this is is " " Old Jim Reagan, the miserable old drunkard, that used to live in a miserable cellar, in Centre street, and finally got turned out of that, and this is Maggie, and this is our home." And he looked around proudly upon the comforts of this honre, and contrasted them with the miseries of that. Now Margaret Mag or Maggie, no longer began to " fly around." Breakfast was to be got, and what was much more difficult, a full-sized woman, a half-grown girl, and a quarter- grown boy, were to be clothed. How was it to be done ? One of her dresses, " with a tuck," tucks are fashionable in these days was soon made to fit Sally. The father said, he would go out and get some clothes for Mrs. Eaton and little Willie, for, thank God, he was able to do it, for what he saved by soberness, not only enabled him to live and clothe himself, but to fulfil that best of all Christian injunctions, to be'kind to the widows and fatherless, and he did not know of any that he was under more obligations to than the wife and chil dren of Bill Eaton, and, God willing, he was going to clothe them, and then he was going to go with them to Mr. Pease, the man that had been the means of reclaiming him, and get them a home in the House of Industry, until they could find some other one, or a way to earn a living. Apparently it was not willed that he should D pend his Bounty store to clothe the naked at this time ; the will to do LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 41 so was equally acceptable to the great Will, as though the deed were done, for just now there was a rap at the door indicating an early visitor. Who could it be ? Margaret ran, down to see. A boy from a second-hand clothing store, entered with a large bundle. " I wants to know as how if the woman that was burnt out is here I" "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 42 HOT CORN. 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. u 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 destitute, 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 in terposition now ?" Who will believe it, when they are told how all this seem ing 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 tht tell anytning?" " 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." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 43 " Yes, and see how nicely these clothes fit them, just a8 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 'here was. " Breakfast is ready, father.'* " Then let us eat it in thankfulness and then." And then ! 44 HOT CORN. CHAPTER n.* 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 epi demic like that now desolating the same kind of streets in New Orleans, and swallowing up its thousands of victims from the same class of poverty-stricke-n, uncomfortably-pro vided 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. * This chapter was published under the simple title of " Hot Corn," among the " City Items" of the New York Daily Tribune, Augus; 5, 1853. It is but slightly altered from the original text. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 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 Pa*k, 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 misera ble dusty brown trees and doubtful colored grass-patches, we call "the Park." Looking over the popt I discovered $LQ 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 grimuied 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 wolfs whelp," or a name still more 46 HOT CORN. opprobrious both tq 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." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 47 " 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 nobody 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 fashionable upper class 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" HOT CORN. "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 passed 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 listen ing ear. Again, as I turned the corner of Spring street, the glare and splendor of a thousand gas lights, and the glittering cut glass 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 class 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 HOT CORN ! HERE'S YOUR NICE HOT COKN !" 7V/-r 4,3 LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 49 corn! here's your nice hot corn smoking hot hot hot corn." " Yes, yes !" I hear you cry " it is a watchword a glorious watch ward, that bids us do or die until the smoking hot, fiery furnace-like gates of hell, like this one now yawning before us, shall cease to be licensed by a Christian people, or send delicate little girls at midnight through the streets, cry ing * Hot corn,' to support a drunken mother, whose first glass was taken in a ' fashionable saloon,' or first-class liquor- selling hotel." " Hot corn," then, be the watchword of all who would rather see the grain fed to the drunkard's wife and children, than into the insatiable hot maw of the whiskey still. Let your resolutions grow hot and strong, every time you hear this midnight city cry, that you will devote, if nothing more, " Three grains of corn, mother, Only three grains of corn," towards the salvation of the thousand equally pitiable objects as the little girl whose wailing cry has been the inciting cause of this present dish of " Hot Corn smoking hot !" 50 HOT CO UN. CHAPTER IE. WILD MAGGIE. * A woman sometims scorns what best contents her." IT is human nature to scorn many things which would con tent us which do content us after we once taste them. One of the reasons why the vicious scorn those who would mate them better ; why they scorn to change their present wretched life, or miserable habitations, is because they know not what would best content them. When that missionary first located his mission to the poorest of New York city poor, the drunkards, thieves, and prostitutes of the Five Points, he was scorned by those he came to save. He and his mission were hated with all the bitter hate which the evil mind oft feels for the good, made still more bitter by the sectarian venom of ignorant Catholics towards the hated heretic Protestants. Every annoyance that low cunning could invent was thrown in his way. Feeling the inefficiency of the system so long and so use lessly practiced, of giving Bibles or tracts to such people, to be sold or pawned for a tenth part of their value, he began a new system. This was to give employment to the idle, to teach all, who would learn, how to work, how to earn their own living, and that industry would bring more content than LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 61 drunkenness and its concomitant vices. Though stolen fruit may be sweet, the bread of toil is sweeter, and he would teach them how to gain it. One of the first efforts made was work for the needle; because that was the most easily started, can be carried on with less capital, and, on the other hand, produces the least capital or rather poorest pay to those who labor. Yet it is better than idleness, and he soon found willing hands to work, after he opened his shop, and invited all who would conform to the rules, and were willing to earn their bread, rather than beg or steal it, to come and get work such as coarse shirts and pants work that they could do, many of them with skill and great rapidity, but such as they could not get trusted with at any common establishment the very name of the place where they lived being sufficient to discredit them so that security, which they could not give, for the return of the gar ments, closed the door against their very will to work. Another discouraging thing against the very poor who did occasionally get "slop shop work," arose from some gross, cruel, wicked, downright robbery, perpetrated upon " sewing .women " by some incarnate fiend in the clothing trade. The difficulty to get work, the miserably poor pay offered to those who " Stitch, stitch, stitch, Band and gusset and seam, Seam and gusset and band, With eyes and lamp both burning dim! With none to lend a helping hand," 52 HOT CORN. is enough to sink stouter hearts than those which beat in misery's bosom. Sunk in misery, poverty, crime, filth, degradation, want ; neglected by all the world ; hated by those who should love ; trodden down by those who should, if they did a Christian duty, lift up ; living in habitations such as but no matter, you shall go with me, by and by, to see where they live how could they lift themselves up, how could they be indus trious and improve their condition, how could they accept bibles and tracts, with any promise of good ? So thought the missionary; and so he set himself about giving them the means to labor, with a hope and sure promise of reward. Some of those who sent him there to preach salvation to the heathen of the Five Points differed with him differ still thinking that a Christian minister degrades himself when he goes into a " slop shop " to give out needle-work to misery's household or attempts to teach industry to idle, vicious chil dren, or reform degraded women, by teaching them the ways of living without sin, without selling their bodies to buy bread, or in their despair, to exchange the last loaf for rum. + So he opened a shop now enlarged into a "House of Industry " and soon found his reward. But he was annoyed, hate4 ? persecuted, beaten but God and a good will conquered. Among other petty, vexatious trifles it is trifles that annoy a little girl, in rags and filth, with a mat of soft " bonny brown ha : r," no doubt well colonized, bare-headed and bare footed, in cold or heat, used to come every day to the door, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 63 ringing her shrill musical voice through the open way, through the crack or key-hole, if it was shut, calling him all sorts of opprobrious names, mixed with all sorts of sentences of Catho lic hatred to Protestantism, that showed that she was herself a missionary from adults of evil minds. Then she would call over the names of the inmates, with all their catalogue of crimes, giving little scraps of their history, and their hateful nick-names singing some of the songs they used to sing in their drunken debauches at Pete Williams's ; and such a voice as she had would have won her worshippers in high life, an she had been with them and of them. And her features and blue eyes were as beautiful as her voice was strong and sweet ; and there she would tell him, and the crowd of idlers who came to listen, and laugh, and shout at her cunning tricks and evident annoyances, for what purpose he wanted all them old 's ; and so it went on, day after day. All attempts to get rid of her were of no avail. Scolding, threatening, were alike unheeded. "Catch me first," was her answer. Then he followed her to her home, to expostulate with her parents. Vain effort ! Up Anthony street to Centre ; come with me, reader, let us look at that home ! There is a row of dens all along upon the east side of that street, full of those whom hope has forsaken, and misery has in her household. Above ground, below ground, in cellar or garret, back room or front, black and white, see how they swarni at door and window, in hall and stairway, and out upon 54c HOT CORN. the sidewalk, all day in idleness, all night in mischief crime, and sin. Elbow your way along among the standing, and step over the prostrate drunken or sleeping women and children along the side-walk. Stop here here is a sort of hole-in-the-ground entrance to a long, dark, narrow alley, let us enter. " No, no, not there," you will exclaim. " Surely human beings cannot live there ?" Yes, they do. That girl has just gone down there, and wo will follow. " Better not go there," says a young urchin in the crowd ; " a man was stabbed down there last night." Encouraging ; but we enter, and grope along about a hun dred feet, and a door opens on the right, the girl we have followed darts out, up like a cat, over a high fence, on to a roof, up that, into a garret window, with a wild laugh and ringing words, " You didn't do it this time, you old Protes tant thief, did you? You want to catch me, to. send me to * the Island.' I know you, you old missionary villain you. I heard Father Phelan tell what you want to do with the poor folks at the Points ; you want to turn them out of house and home, and build up your grand houses, and make them all go to hear you preach your lies ; you do, you old heretic, but you didn't catch me. I'll plague you again to-morrow." We entered her home the home that the missionary was trying to turn her out of. Can it be possible that human nature can cling, to such a home, and refuse to be turned out, or occupy a better one. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 65 The room is one of a " row," along the narrow dark corri dor we entered, half sunken below the ground, with another just such another row overhead, each ten or twelve feet square, with a door and one little window upon this narrow alley which is the only yard ; at the end of which there is a conta gion-breeding temple of Cloacina, common to all. "* ; In " the house " that we enter, a man lies helplessly drunk upon a dirty rug on the floor ; a woman, too much overcome to rise, sits propped up in one corner. There is altogether, perhaps, fifty cents worth of furniture and clothing in the room. And this is the loved home of one of the smartest, bright est, most intelligent little girls in this God-forsaken neighbor hood. The missionary made known his errand and was told that he might do anything he pleased with the girl, if he would catch her and tame her. " For," said her mother, "what do we want with her at home at home ! She is never here, only to sleep." Only to sleep ! Where did she sleep ? On the damp, bare floor, of course, where else could she sleep in that home ? The next morning various devices were contrived to catch her, to force her into a better home. All failed. When did force ever succeed with one of her sex ? If the serpent had bid our first mother to eat the apple, she would have thrown it down the villain's throat, splitting his forked tongue in its passage. Finally it was arranged that a boy, noted as " a runner," 56 HOT CORN. should stand behind the door, and when she came with her jibes, sometimes provoking mirth, and sometimes ire, he should jump out and catch her. " Catch me if you can !" and away went she, away went he, under this cart and over that. Now he will have her his hand is outstretched to seize his chase vain hope she drops suddenly in his path, and he goes headlong down a cellar. When he came up there was a great shout, and a great many dirty bare-footed girls about, but that one was nowhere m sight. So back he goes, enters the door ; and a wild laugh follows him close upon his heels. " You did'nt catch me this time, did you I Don't you want another race? Ha, ha, ha." And away she went, singing :^ "Up, up, and away with the rising sun, The chase is now before ye ; Up, up and away with hound and gun, The chase is now before ye." It was a chase that cunning must catch, strength could not win. Everybody said she never could be caught and tamed. She had run wild all her young years. She was not by na ture vicious, but she was most incorrigibly mischievous. She was, so everybody said, and he ought to know, beyond the hope of redemption. Yet everybody was mistaken. Reader, you already know this girl, for this is "Wild Maggie, of the Five Points." This is the kind, sweet, tender-hearted Mar garet, you have read of in a former chapter, ministering to the LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 57 wants of that poor widow and destitute children, living in comfort, with neatness and industry, and her father, in a happy home ; and that father the poor, miserable, wretched, besotted drunkard, whom we found in that wretched hole, in that dark alley in Centre street. What a change ! It was a change for good. It was a deed of mercy to redeem such a child as this from a course of life that has but one phase one worse than useless object one wretched ter mination. What magic power had wrought this change ? Words of kindness, charity, hope, teachings of the happi ness attendant on virtue, religion, industry ; by these the worst can be redeemed. How? "Finding every effort unavailing," said the missionary, " I changed my tactics. I was busy one morning in the work shop, laying out work, when I cast my eye towards the open door, and there saw Wild Maggie, waiting for a word upon which she might retort. Without seeming to notice her, 1 said, loud enough for her to hear, ' Oh, how I wish I had some one to help me lay out this work.' There was a look of intelligence spreading over her face, which seemed to say as plainly as looks could say, * 1 could do that.' " * Will you ?' I said ; she started as though I was mentally replying to her passing thoughts. "She did not say, 'Ye?,' but she thought it. I had touched a chord. -*ai 3* 58 HOT CORN. " ' Maggie,' said I, with all the tone and looks of kindness I could command, ' Maggie, my girl, come in ; you can help me ; I know you are smart, come, I will give you sixpence if you will help me a little while.' She stepped into the door, looked behind it suspiciously, and started back. She remem bered the trap. 'No, I won't. You want to catch me and send me to the Island. I know you, you old Protestant. Old Kate told me yesterday, that you had sent off Liz. Smith, Nance Hastings, and hump-backed Lize, and a lot of girls.' " * So I have, but not to the Island. They have all got good places where they are contented and happy. But I don't send anybody away that don't want to go. I won't send you away, nor won't keep you if you don't want to stay.' " ' Will you let me come out again, if I come in, when I am a mind to ?' " * Yes, certainly, my dear child.' " My dear child !" Where has she ever heard those words ? In former days, before her father and mother had sunk so low, as they now' are, when she used to go to school, to church, and sabbath-school, and wear clothes, such as she was not ashamed of. Want of clothing will sink the highest to the lowest state of rags, and dirt, and misery. " ' Will you swear, that you will let me come out, and you won't beat me. Limping Bill and one-eyed Luce, his woman, says, you licked little Sappy till she died.' "* They are great liars.' u ' So they say you are. That you preach nothing but lies.' LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. fij) * ' Well, I won't lie to you, Maggie, and I won t whip you, but I .won't swear. Did you ever know any good man swear ?' " She thought a moment, and replied, * Well, I don't know I know them that swear the most will lie. Will you let the door stand open ? If you will I will come in I ' " ' Yes,' and in she came. " ' Now, what do you want I should do V " * There, do you look at me. I am laying out shirts for the women to sew. That pile, there, that is the body ; this, the sleeves ; that, the collar ; these, the wristbands ; these, the gussets ; here are six buttons, and here is the thread to make it, and then it will be a shirt when made. Now we roll it up and tie a string around it ; now it is ready to give out. Now, you can do that just as well as I can, and you don't know how much it will help me.' " ' Yes, I can, and I can beat you.' So she could. She was just as quick at work as she was at play and mischief, and the piles disappeared under her nimble fingers much more rapidly than they did under his, and so he told her. Who had ever praised her work before, though all had " her deviltry ?" The spirit of reformation had already commenced its glorious work. " When that job was finished, she turned her sweet blue eyes upon me, with an expression which said as plain as eyes can speak, ' I am sorry that job is done, I like that, can't you give me another V 00 HOT CORN. " There was no other which she could do just then, but she said, * What shall I do now ?' " Well, Maggie, I have no more work for you to-day, but here is your sixpence, I promised you, and here are some cakes ; come again to-morrow, you can help me every day. I like your help." She did not want to go. She had tasted of a fruit which had opened her eyes, and she would fain clothe herself in fig leaves, so they hid the deformity of dirt, and rags, and sin. Wild as the fawn, as easily as the fawn subdued. At the approach of man, that timid animal bounds into the thickest brake and hides away ; but once in the hands of man, it turns and follows him to his home, licking his hand as though it were with its own dam. So was Wild Maggie tamed. "What shall I do now?" What should she do ? A score of little girls were huddling around the door, for the news was out that Maggie, Wild Maggie, had been caught and caged, and they wanted to see " what would come of it." " A thought struck me," said the missionary. " I asked her if she could read. Yes, and write. Had she been to school I Yes. Then you shall play school. You shall have these benches, and you shall call in those children, and you shall be the teacher, and so you may play school." Was there ever a happier thought engendered. Maggie was delighted, the children came rushing in, ready for " a play never before enacted in this theatre." For an hour or more she plied her task diligently, and LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 61 it was astonishing with what effect. How she reduced her unruly materials to order. How she made them say, yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, to their school mistress. How she made them sit and " look like somebody." Taught this one his A B Cs, and that one to spell B-a-k-e-r. How she told this one to wash his face, next time he came to school, and that one if she had any better clothes, to wear them. Poor Maggie, she never thought of the poverty of her own. " Now," said she, " every one of you sit still ; not a word of noise, and no running out while I am gone, or I shall punish you worse than shutting you up in a dark closet. Mr. Pease, will you look to my school a moment ?" Away she bounded. Oh, what a step ! Step ! it was more like flying. A moment, hardly time for a few pleasant words to her school, and she bounds in again, with a little paper parcel in her hand. What could it mean ? It means that, Many a flower in wilds unseen, The sweetest fragrance grows ; From many a deep and hidden spring, , rrii i_i ___a__ The coolest water flows. She first inquires, " have they all been good ?" " Yes, all." Then she unwraps her parcel. How they look and wonder, " what is it ?" What is it ? Simply this. She has been out and spent her sixpence to do unto others just as she had been done unto. Did ever cakes taste sweeter? Did ever benevolence better enjoy herself than 62 t HOT CORN. Maggie did, while thus distributing her rewards ? What a lesson of self-sacrifice ! The first sixpence the whole trea sure of this world's goods, spent to promote the happiness' of others. This was a hint. It were a dull intellect that could not improve it. The children were further fed, and bid to come again to-morrow. "And this," said he, "was the beginning of our ragged beggar children school, that has proved such a blessing to this neighborhood. " Maggie," said I, taking her by the hand and looking her in the eye. " Maggie, you have helped me a great deal to-day, will T ou come again to-morrow 2" The string was touched, and tears flowed. When had tears, except tears of anger, filled those eyes before \ What had touched that string ? Kind words ! " If you will let me stay, I wont go away. I can learn to sew. I can make these shirts." " Yes, yes ; and if you are here, these children will come, and we will have school every day." And so Wild Maggie was Wild Maggie no more. She was tamed. Her life had taken on a new phase. To the questions, what would her father say ? what would her mother say ? she replied, " What do they care ? what have they ever cared ? Though they were not always so bad as they now are." No, they were not always so bad as they now are. None of his class were always so bad as they now are. Once her father was James Reagan, a respectable man, a good carpen ter, and had a good home. Now where was he. Sunk, step LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 63 by step, from hotel to saloon, from saloon to bar-room, from bar-room to corner grocery, from grocery to cellar rum hole, from a good house to a filthy, underground den in Centre street. He has but one more step to take one more under ground hole to occupy. But such as he may reform. He did. You have seen that. Will you ask, how ? You shall know. Maggie became one of the household. She was washed, and fed, and clothed ; and how she worked, and learnt every thing, and how she listened at the temperance meetings to what " the pledge " had done, and how she wished her mother would come and try try to leave off drinking, and become " the good mother she was when I was a little girl." For her father she had no hope. For her mother, she determined to persevere. When she was sober she would talk, and cry, and promise, but the demon rum would overcome her, and then she would curse her daughter, and call her all the vile names that the insane devil in her could invent. And so it went on ; Maggie still determined, still trying. The right time came at last. One night, Maggie was not at the meeting. By and by, there was a little stir at the door. What is the matter ? A little girl is pulling a woman, almost by force, into the room. It is Maggie and her mother. She has got her old ragged dress off, and looks quite neat in one that Maggie has made for her. But she hides her face. She is ashamed to look those in the face she would have once 3 looked down upon. A woman is speaking women can spealt ". upon temperance just such a woman as herself is it not 64 HOT CORN. herself is she awake, or does she sleep ani dream? If awake, she hears her own story. The story of a woman with a drunken husband. And she traces his fall from affluence down to beggary ; then her fall, down, down, down, to a cellar in Farlow's Court ; there her husband dies ; there upon a pile of straw and rags upon the floor, in drunken uncon sciousness, she gives birth to a child a living child by the side of its dead father. " What a night what a scene, but you have not seen the worst of it. The very heavens, as though angry at such awful use of the gifts of reason, and the abuse of appetite, sent their forked messengers of fire to the earth less dangerous than the fire that man bottles up for his own damnation ; and the water came down in torrents, pouring into that cave where the dead, and living, and new*born were lying together, and overflowed the floor, and when I felt its chill," said she, " I awaked out of my drunken sleep, and felt around me, to see, no, I could not see, all was pitch darkness. My child cried, and then then a whole army of rats, driven in by the rain, driven by the water from the floor, came creeping on to me. Oh ! how their slimy bodies felt as they crept over my face. Then I tried to awaken my husband, but he would not wake, and in my frenzy I struck and bit him bit a dead man for his was the sleep of eternity. Then I summoned almost su perhuman strength, and creeped up the stairs and out into the court. I looked up ; the storm was gone ; there was a smile in heaven it was the smile of that murdered babe ; for when I had begged a light, and went back again to that dreadful, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. C5 dreadful habitation why are human beings permitted to live, in such awful holes has nobody any care for human life what did I see ? Mothers, mothers mothers that sleep on soft couches rhear me, hear me hear of the bitter fruits the rum trade bears the rats had devoured the life blood of that child. What next I know not. I know that I have never drank since never will again by signing this pledge I was saved all may be saved." " All ? all ? Can I can I be restored as you have been can I shake off this demon that has dragged me down so low that my own mother would not know me ; or knowing, would spurn me ? Can I be saved ?" It was Maggie's mother. " Yes, you, you, I was a thousand times worse. Look at me now." "Yes, mother, you. Come." And she took her by the hand and led her up to the table, put a pen in her hand dropt upon her knees looked up to her mother imploringly up to heaven prayerfully her lips quivered the tears roll ed down her cheeks "Now, mother, now." 'Tis done. She wrote her name in a fair hand Mary Rea gan 'Tis done. ' 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! wild Maggie cries ; 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! the mother sighs ; 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! in chorus join, To bear aloft the news along. 'Tis done ! 'tis dene ! a voice replies, Stand forth, be strong, and you shall rise. 00 HOT CORN. . And so she did. She never fell. She came to live in the house with Maggie. " I cannot go back," she said, "to live with your father, if I would stand fast ; and I cannot think, after hearing that woman's story, last night, of ever drinking again. 1 know that woman ; I knew her when she was a girl, one of the proudest and prettiest. My husband has spent many a dollar with hers in the bar-room. Oh yes, I knew her well. I did not know her last night ; but when she told me who she was that she was Elsie Wendall then I knew her. Oh ! I could tell you such a story but not now. No ! no, I cannot live with your father again, for I never will drink any more never never !" " But what, if father will take the pledge 2" "Oh ! then I should be a happy woman again. But there is no hope." " Yes, there is hope. I shall watch him; and, mother, I will save him." It was a great promise a great undertaking for a young girl to promise with an "I will." When did " I will" in woman's mouth ever fail ? That will was the strength of her life. It was for that she now lived and labored. Now she had hope now 'twas lost now revived again. Now he worked a month sober for a whole month then down he went if he happened to go into one of his old haunts, or meet with some of his old compan ions, who said, " come, Jim, let's take one drink only one one won't do any hurt " but two follow the one. Then Maggie would look him up, get him sober again, and get him to work. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 67 God bless that child ! God did bless her, for she stuck to him, until he finally consented to coine once, just once to the temperance meeting but he would not sign the pledge he never would sign away his liberties no he was a. free man. Well only come, come and listen come and see mother. That touched him. He loved mother Yes he would come. The evening came. Maggie watched every shadow that darkened the door. Finally the last one seemed to have en tered, but Jim Reagan was not among them. Maggie could not give it up. She slipped out into the street, it was well she did. She was just in time. A knot of men were talking together, of the tyranny of temperance men, wanting to make slaves of the people, getting them to sign away their rights rights their fathers fought and bled for." Yes, and so had they at the nose. They had just carried the point, and started to follow Gale Jones over to his grocery, who was going to stand treat all round. One lingered a moment looked back as though he had promised to go that A/V ^y but appetite was too strong for conscience, and he turned towards the rum-hole. Just then a gentle hand is laid upon his arm, and a sweet voice says : " Father, come with me, come and see mother don't go with those men." Woman conquered. When Gale Jones counted noses, to see which he should charge with the treat he had promised " to stand," he found Jim Reagan was not in the crowd. 14 Why, damn the fellow, he has given us the slip after all 08 HOT CORN our trouble. I thought we had made a sure thing of it. I tell you what it is, boys, we must manage somehow to stop this business, or trade is ruined. If people are not to be allowed to drink anything but water, there'll be many an honest man out of business. Times is hard enough now, what'll they be then ?" Just then Tom Nolan, the mason it used to be Drunken Tom Nolan was tellingf what they would be, at the tempe rance meeting. It was a propitious time for Maggie. She led her father in, he hung back a little, and tried to get into a dark corner near the door. That she would not allow ; some of Satan's imps might drag him away from the very threshold of salva tion. She led him along, he was sober now, and looked sad, perhaps, ashamed. " James, you here ? Oh !" It was his wife. He knew her voice, it was that of other days. He stared at her ; could it be her, so neat, and clean, and well dressed, and speaking so fondly to him to him for she had refused to see him ever since she took the pledge. , Now, she came forward, took him by the hand, ragged and dirty as he was she knew what would clean hi m led him to a seat and sat down by his side. Maggie sat on the other. For a minute the speaker could not go on. There was a choking in his throat, strong man as he was, and there were many tears in the eyes that looked upon that father, mother, and daughter, that night. LIFE SCENES IN . NEW YORK. 69 " Jim Reagan," said the speaker, "I am glad to see you here* You are an old acquaintance of mine." Jim Reagan looked at him with astonishment. Could that well dressed laboring man, clean shaved and clean shirted, be Tom Nolan ? u I don't wonder that you look inquiringly at me, as much as to say, 'is that you?' Yes, it is me, Tom Nolan, the mason, me who used to lay around the dirty rum holes with you, begging, lying, stealing, to get a drink. Do you think that now I would pick up old cigar stumps and quids of tobacco, to fill my pipe ? Do you think I would wear a hatf as I have done, that my poor beggared boy picked out of the street ? Look at that. Does that look like the old battered thing I used to wear ? Do these clothes look like the dirty rags I wore when you and I slept in Gale Jones's coal-box ? Do I look like the drunken Tom Nolan that kept a family of starving beggars, with two other families, in one room, ten by twelve feet square ; and that a garret room, without fireplace, without glass in its one window ; with the roof so low that I could only stand up straight in one corner ; and that mean room in the vilest locality on earth, jn a house ah ! whole row of houses, tenanted by just such miserable, rum-beggared human beings buildings owned by a human monster houses for the poor which are enough to sicken the vilest of beasts ; such as no good man would let for tenements, even when he could get tenants as degraded as I was tenements that any Christian grand jury would indict, and any court, vrhich desired to protect the lives of the people, would compel 70 HOT CORN. the owners to pull down, as the worst, with one exception, of all city nuisances. " How did I live there ? How did my wife and children ever live there, in that little miserable room, with seven others, just such wretches as ourselves? How do hundreds of such men, women, and children as we were, still live there ? I was in that same room the place my children used to call home this evening. The entrance is in Cow Bay. If you would like to see it, saturate your handkerchief with camphor, so that you can endure the horrid stench, and enter. Grope your way through the long, dark, narrow passage turn to your right, up the dark and dangerous stairway ; be careful where you place your foot around the lower step, or in the corners of the broad stairs, for it is more than shoe-mouth deep of steaming filth. Be careful too, or you may meet some one perhaps a man, perhaps a woman as nature divides the sexes ; as the rum seller combines them, both beasts, who in their drunken frenzy may thrust you, for the very hatred of your better clothes, or the fear that you have come to rescue them from their crazy loved dens of death, down, headlong down,-those filthy stairs. Up, up, winding up, five stories high, now you are under the black smoky roof; turn to the left take care and not upset that seething pot of butcher's offal soup, that is cooking upon a little furnace at the head of the stairs open that door go in, if you can get in. Look ; here is a negro and his wife sitting upon the floor where else could they sit, for there is no chair eating their supper off of the bottom of a pail. A broken brown earthen LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 71 jug holds water perhaps not all water. Another negro and his wife occupy another corner ; a third sits in the window monopolising all the air astir. In anpther corner, what do we see ? A 'negro man, and a stout, hearty, rather good looking, young white woman." " Not sleeping together ?" " No, not exactly that there is no bed in the room no chair no table no nothing but rags, and dirt, and vermin, and degraded, rum degraded, human beings men and women with just such souls as animate the highest and proudest in the land." "Who is this man?" " Dat am Ring-nosed Bill." " Is that his wife ?" " Well, I don't know that. He calls her his woman." "And she lives with him as his wife you all live here together in this room ?" " Well, we is got nowhere else to live. Poor folks can't lib as rich ones do hab to pay rent pretty hard to do that alone." " How much rent for this room ?" " Seventy-five cents a week, ebry time in advance." " Who is this man ?" " They calls me Snaky Jo. 'Spose may be my name is Jo Snaky. Don't know rightly." " What do you do for a living ?" " Well, mighty hard to tell dat, dat am fact, massa. Picks 72 HOT CORN. up a job now and then. Mighty hard times though give poor man a lift, massa." " Is that man and woman drunk." " Wiell, 'spose am, little tossicated." " A little intoxicated ! They are dead drunk, lying perfectly unconscious, in each other's emesis, upon the bare floor. The atmosphere of this room is enough to breed contagion, and sicken the whole neighborhood, and would, but that the whole neighborhood is equally bad. Let us hasten down to the open air of the court it is but little better all pollution all that breathe it, polluted. Yet, in that gate of death! once lived. Look at me, James, you knew me then. Look at me now, you don't know me. You knew me a beast you may know me a man you may know yourself one. Sign this paper there is a power of magic in it and you shall go home with me, and see where I live now, and I will clothe you and help to sustain you in your sober life, just as Thomas Elting did me, and with heaven's blessing, we will make a man of you." " Too late ! too late ! not enough of the old frame left to rebuild." " It is never too late. Look at the piles of old brick, and tiles, and boards, and joist, and rafters, and doors, and glass, of the pulled down houses. Are they wasted? I am a mason, you a carpenter ; if we cannot put them back and build up the same old-fashioned edifice, we can make a good, snug, comfortable house. Come, sign the contract, and let \i set right about the job." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 71 " Father, come, father !" He turned and spoke a few low words to his wife, to which she replied : " Yes, I will. Keep the pledge one month and I will go and live with you, die with you." "Then try it, father, come." And she led him forward, just as she had done her mother. You have seen, shall see, how heaven blessed her for filial piety. " I used to write. 'Tis a long time since I did. Maggie, my hand trembles. Help me guide the pen. I cannot see clearly." No wonder. There was a tear in each eye. There were other tears when Maggie took him again by the hand, and again said : " Come, father, let us pray ;" and then all kneeled down together, and then Mr. Nolan took him by the arm, and said, " Come, James, let us go home." Not yet. He had one more act to perform. He shook his wife's hand, and said, " Good bye. I shall keep it." Then he looked wishfully at Maggie, as though he wanted some thing, yet dare not ask it, for fear he should be repulsed. Still the yearning of nature was upon him. It was a long time since he had felt it as he now felt, but he was beginning to be a new man. Maggie was his only child, his once loved, much caressed child. Would she ever cling those arias around his neck again. She had shown herself this night one of the blessed of this earth. She had done, or induced him to do, what no other soul on earth could have done, and 4 7 I HOT CORN. how his heart did yearn to clasp her in his arms. He stoppe half way to the door, and looked upon her with tearful, loving, thankful eyes. It needs no wires, no magnet, no human contrivance, to convey the magnetism of the heart. She felt its power, as it sprung from the lightning flash of loving eyes, and quick as that flash, she made one bound, one word, " Father !" and her arms were around his neck, her lips to his, and here let us shift the scene. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 75 CHAPTER IV. THE TEMPTATION. THE FALL. Eve was tempted of Satan, and fell. So have been her children. ABOUT two months after the events of the last chapter, a few of the new friends of James Reagan joined together, pro cured a comfortable room in Mulberry street, and put in the necessary articles of furniture, and his wife, faithful to her promise, came to live with him. There was a great contrast between this and the home where we visited him in Centre street. Nolan and Elting stuck to him, and he stuck to the pledge. Margaret watched him, visited him, went with him and her mother to church and temperance meetings, and, finally, became satisfied and happy that her father had made a complete reformation, and that he had outlived all danger of relapse ; so she accepted a good oner to go into the country, and live in a farmer's house, where she would learn house work. It was her fortune, but his misfortune, thus to be separated. She was his ever-watchful guardian angel. His wife was affectionately kind, and they lived together, as of old, happily. And so, as of Adam and Eve in paradise, they might have lived, if there had been no serpents in New York. They beset him waylaid him tempted him but no art could induce him to enter their sulphurous dens. Gale Jones V6 HOT CORN. B wore that he would get him back ; that he would have him among his old cronies again, or die in the attempt. " Them ere cold water chaps aren't a going to crow over me that ere way, no how. I tell you what it is, boys, you must contrive some way to get Jim in here some night ; he has got money now, and if he won't drink himself, he shall stand treat any how. We've treated him many a time." " Dat am de fac," says Ring-nosed Bill. " Shut your clapper, you drunken nigger, you ; who axt you to put in your oar. If you want to do anything, just get Jim Reagan, by hook or crook, in here once more." " And you will give him what you did Pedlar Jake." " Shut pan, or I'll chuck your ivory into your bread-basket. What's in your wool, Snakey ?" " Dis nigger knows how to fix him. Make him come his self." " Let her rip, Snakey ; how'll you do it ?" "Jis go to work at right end foremost. 'Spose you the debble stick him forked tongue right out all at once to frighten Fader Adam ? No, sir-ee ; he creep round mighty sly, and wiggle him tail at Mudder Eve, and den she come it over de old man. Dat am the way. Aren't you got no gumption ?" " I understand. Who shall the Eve be, Snakey ?" " Smoky Sal. She is a pet of his. He got her in." "I know it. She is in that old missionary's claws. How are you going to get her out ?" " Dat easy 'nuff, so you work him right. Gib us a drink, Cab. I isn't going to grab for you for nothing." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 77 " I'll give you a gallon if you bring him in. How '11 you do it ?' "Do you think this nigger am a fool, sure? 'Spose I gwine to tell you, and lose the gallon. Take notice, King- nose, it's a fair trade. So jis you git ready to-morrow night for business, case he'll be down then." The next night the trap was set. Snakey went to One- eyed Angeline, and promised her a share in the gallon, if she would contrive a plan to get Smoky Sal out of the House of Industry, and get her over to Gale Jones's, and get her drunk. These two had long been sisters in sin. One had reformed, or was trying to reform, for Reagan had got her into the House, and seemed very anxious for her, having, as he said, been the cause of her downfall. The other hated her for her reformation, and would drag her back, down, down, to the wretched life she had escaped from. So she sent word to Sally that she was sick and almost dying, and begged her to come and see her. How could she refuse ? So she went, and found her with her head tied up, and in dreadful pain. Directly in came Snakey Jo, with the first installment of the gallon. It was to bathe her head. Can an old inebriate put liquor upon the outside of the head without putting it in? Sally could not. She smelt she tasted she drank was drunk and then Angeline took hei down to Gale Jones's grocery, and into his back room, and then that black imp of a worse than slave's master, watched for Reagan as he started for home, and with an air of honesty that might deceive the wariest old fox into a trap, he told 78 HOT CORN. him how " Angeline had coaxed Sally into the grocery, and he had been watching an hour" that was the only truth he spoke he watched for another victim "and she hadn't come out yet, and he was afraid she was in trouble ; and now, Mister Reagan, I is so glad I is fell in wid you, accidental like, case I didn't know as you was in the Points, case you can get her out, and get her back home." With a natural impulse to do good, he determined, impru dently, to be sure, to do what he had not done since he signed the pledge to enter a rum-hole. There he found the two women as the negro had told him. Sally was completely overcome, and lying in one corner of "the back room." Back it was, quite out of sight or hearing of the street, where many a victim had been robbed at a game of cards, or by more direct means. It was in this room that Pedlar Jake got his quietus. " I had been in the room often before," said Reagan. " I knew the way, and I paid no heed to the hypocritically angry words I was greeted with as I entered, and told to clear out and mind my own business. I pushed my way through the crowd of loafers, and entered the door of death. That old witch, Angeline, took care to get out of my way as I went in. I sat down upon the bed and tried to rouse up the victim of this infernal plot, little thinking that I was the greatest one of the two. The room was very close and foul, and as I had been unused, lately, to breathe such air, it made me sick. ' Tom,' said I " let me stop and moralize a little upon this name. I would never call a child, Tom. There is some- LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 79 thing fatal in the word. I have known more drunken Toms than of all other names. It -is a low-bred name. Bill, Jiin, Joe, Sam, Ike, are all bad, but none equal to Tom. " Two of my drunkenest companions," said Reagan, " afterwards, my best friends, were Toms now Thomas Elting and Thomas Nolan." Parents, don't nickname your children, it is a step down that may carry them to the bottom of the ladder. Give your children good names ; names they will not be ashamed of in after fife, and never cut them short. Never call, William, Bill ; or, Catherine, Kate ; or, Mary, that most beautiful of all names, a name I love, Moll ; it will, perhaps, be the direct cause of their ruin as they grow up. Who would think of speaking a foul word to Miss Mary Dudley ? Who would speak with respect to Moll Dud ? Parents, think of it. Now, here was another Tom. A bright, active boy Tom Top, whose proper name was, Thomas Topham. What if he had been called Charles ? why, his nickname would have been an elongation to Charley, a name that everybody loves. At any rate, he would not have been, drunken Tom a poor, neglected orphan boy, who, for want of some one to guide and keep him in the path of virtue, had strayed into the very worst of all paths of vice. From a home, where he received a fair education, and had a good mother, but a father who learned him to drink, and who thought it cunning to call him, Tom Top, he was come down to be a mere hanger-on around Cale Jones's grocery. " God never works without an object," is an axiom of those 80 HOT CORN. who look every day to him for counsel. We shall see in time how the villain was defeated in his object of bringing Reagan into this place, and making use of Tom for an instru ment of his ruin. " ' Tom,' said I, ' bring me a glass of water/ He did so, I tasted it and set it down a moment for the ice to melt. When I took it up again, I swallowed the whole tumbler full at a gulph. In a moment my throat, my stomach, nry brain were on fire. I had drank half-a-pint of white whiskey. Those wicked wretches had hired Tom to substitute one glass for the other. What transpired for three days after, I know not." The next morning, before sunrise, his wife came down to the Points in an agony of fear. " Was Reagan there ?" was her hopeful inquiry. Hope sunk and almost carried her with it when told that he left there before ten to go home. ''Then he is lost, lost, lost !" All that day he was searched for up and down, high and low, but nobody had seen him. How the villains lied, for they were all the time gloating over their victory double victory two stray sheep won back back to the wolfs den. All that day the pack were carousing upon the money robbed from Reagan. " What a glorious haul, boys," says Gale Jones, "we must have Tom Elting and Nolan, next, and then hurrah, boys, we'll break up old Pease and drive him out of the Points yet." How could human nature become so infernally depraved, as to rejoice over and glorify such deeds of darkness ? By Rum. The very parent of total depravity. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 81 At night, after their day's work, Elting and Nolan came down and joined the search, looking into every hole that was most likely to have been used for his tomb, worse than tomb, for it was the burial-place of his soul. They did not look in Oale Jones's back room, for he " took his Bible oath that Jiin Reagan had never entered his door in a three month." Finally, after the pack had spent every cent of his money, and pawned every article of his clothing, they were ready to get rid of his company. But they were not quite satisfied with the misery they had made for his wife, and so they plot ted a scheme so wicked that the most incarnate one of all the hosts of the infernal regions would blush to own the deed. They knew that Sally had been a source of disturbance, a cause of jealousy to his wife in by-gone years, and so they laid their plan. Madalina, a little beggar girl, an Italian rag picker's daughter, was promised a sixpence to go, as she would not be suspected, to tell Mrs. Reagan, that Tom knew where her husband was. It was a faint hope, but drowning men catch at straws. Tom was hunted up. He was easily found, for he had his instructions, " to bring the old woman along." Did they hope in her frenzy of despair and jealousy that she too would fall ? Yes they did. Could human ingenuity contrive anything more harrowing to the mind of a wife, searching for her absent husband, than an introduction into a room where he was in bed with another woman, folding her, in his drunken insanity, in his arms, 4* 82 HOT CORN. protesting how he loved her, loved her better than he did better than his grog ? 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 stitch of clothing ; they had not even left him a shirt. 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 gopd 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 Gale 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. No body would say, good boy, if he went back there. Conscience too \ras 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. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 83 Elting and Nolan to go witL 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 opena 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 2" 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 r " 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. 84 HOT CORN. " 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 confess ion ; 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 Gale Jones and the two women ; the rest of the gang were prowling for prey some where 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, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 85 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 goin 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 hus band. A. blow, a black-eye, and a kick. It was one drop toe much in her cup of affliction, and she parted with him for ever, and came back to her old home, the House of Industry. 86 HOT CORN. 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 passed 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 trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' " " True, my boy, you have taught me a lesson. I will for give, 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 des pair 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, tfould not be long. Of that she seemed to have a present^ ment, and made all preparation which it becomes a reason able 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 LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 87 ago, I should be willing to die then. But I cannot bear to die now with the tho\ght 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 soori 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 every body 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 88 HOT CORN. 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. Any where 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.' " 4 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.' " * I will, I will ! I will go away and sweep the streets to morrow ; they will give me another loaf of bread, and that ia more than I have had for a whole week.' " So you see, he will come again to-night, and then it is temperance meeting, and we will get him in. Depend upon it, if he ever takes the pledge again he will never break it." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 89 True to his word, Reagan came the next night sober. " See," said he, " Tom, I have got a quarter of a dollar, and have not spent it for liquor. If some of the harpies knew I had it, how they would be after me." He hesitated long about going into the meeting. He was afraid his wife would be there, and he could not bear to meet her. She was equally afraid to meet him. Finally, one of the assistants went out and talked with him. " Do you think," he replied, " that I could ever be a man again ? I am afraid there is not enough of me left to make one. Manhood is all gone. I feel as though I had made a beast of myself so long, that I must always be a beast But if you think there is enough left of the old wreck " " Enough ? Yes ; come along." This was a new voice, just come up on the other side. He looked around ; it was Nolan. " Nolan, my old friend you were a friend to me ; and 1 will try if Mr. Pease will agree to shut me up and keep me out of the way of these alligators. Look at them. Don't they lie about just like alligators in the mud and swamps, ready to snap up every poor dog that comes within reach of their tails or jaws ?" Well, he took the pledge, and in due time we will see how he kept it. While I give my readers a little respite from the contem plation of such characters as have been introduced in the preceding chapters, I propose to introduce a little episode in 90 HOT CORN. the life of two of those which they have seen engaged in the noble work of reclaiming and sustaining a poor inebriate in his efforts to become a sober man. That they had reason to believe in the possibility of such reclamation, the reader will understand after reading the historical facts of the next chapter. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 01 CHAPTER V. THE TWO PENNY MARRIAGE. *' And ye twain shall be one flesh." "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." No, not even rum ; yet it often does. We have just read of one of the many thousand sad instances that have occurred in this world, of rum separating those who had taken upon them that holy ordinance which makes them as one flesh, one heart, one mind; and, unless such have one mind both to be drunk together, how ca.n they live with one another ? How can they live in rum's pollution in the holy bonds of matri mony ? There is nothing holy about such a sinful life. Do away with the cause abolish intoxicating liquor from society, and you will' not only rivet those holy bonds with go!4en rivets, but you will shut up nine-tenths of the brothels and gaming houses in this city. Without rum they could not live over the first quarter's rent day. With it their profits are enormous its effects awful. I could point you to a house in this city, with its twenty- five painted harlots, where the sales of wine in one year have been thirteen thousand bottles, costing $15,000, and selling for $39,000. And why not a profit, since men and women will get drunk in a palace, the mere repairs or additions y* HOT CORN. to which, in one season, cost the almost incredible sum of $70,000 ? Who furnished the money ? Who made the inmates what they are ? Those who made the wine ; not those who furnished the grape juice, for it is probable that the whole did not con tain a thousand bottles full of that liquor. What caused the inmates to be what they are ? Rum! Who made them harlots ? Not those who marry, or are given in marriage. Marriage is one of the best preventives of licentiousness, but it is not often perhaps that it produces so positive a refor mation as in the following cases. " I have married," said Mr. Pease to me one day, " some very curious couples. That of Elting was very remark able." He was sitting one evening, trying to post up his books, amid continued interruptions, such as, " Little Lucy's eyes are worse to-night, sir." " Let me see. She must go into the hospital. Send the sore-eye nurse to me. Take this little girl to your room keep her eyes well washed with cold water, and use that ointment. Report to me to-morrow. Go." " That is a fine-looking woman." " Yes, and an excellent nurse. She lived last year in one of those Centre street cellars. She came here with both eyes nearly out of her head ; gouged by a drunken husband. We put her into the sore eye hospital, and soon found she would make a good nurse for the afflicted children." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 93 " Mr. Pease, is it the powder once and the pills every hour, or is it t'other way," " Exactly. The other way. You have hit it. The powde- is Dover's Powder, to allay fever. The pills are cathartic. Go." " Cathartic. I never heard of that pill-maker before. Won der if he will make as many as Brandreth has," says this interrupter as she goes away. " Susan Apsley says you promised her she might go out this evening." " Did she come in all right when she was out before ?" "All right, sir." " Let her go." " Please, sir, may I go with her ?" " Who is this." " Juliana, sir. I want to go and see my cousin Madalina, sir." " Oh, yes, I remember. You are the little Italian tambou rine girl. Yes, you may go. See if you can get that pretty cousin of yours to come and live here." " She would like to, sir, but her mother won't let her." "Very well. Go." And he resumed his work. " 7 and 5 are 12, and 8 are 20 ; two 1's are 2 " " Yes, but two ones want to be made one." " How is that what do you want ?" Reader, will you just turn to the illustration of the couple that now presented themselves as candidates for matrimony. 94 HOT CORN. The delineator and engraver have made one of the most per fect daguerreian pictures ever got up from description. " What do you want of me ?" " "We want to be married, sir." " Want to be married what for ?" " Why, you see, we don't think it is right for us to be living together this way any longer, and we have been talking over the matter to-day, and you see " " Yes, yes, I see you have been talking over the matter over the bottle, and have come to a sort of drunken conclusion to get married. When you get sober, you will both repent it, probably." " No, sir, we are not very drunk now, not so drunk but what we can think, and we don't think we are doing right we are not doing as we were brought up to do by pious parents. We have been reading about the good things you have done for just such poor outcasts as we are, and we want you to try and do something for us." " Read ! can you read ? Do you read the Bible ?" " Well, not much lately, but we read the newspapers, and sometimes we read something good in them. How can we read the Bible when we are drunk ?" " Do you think getting married will keep you from getting drunk ?" " Yes, for we are going to 1 ike the pledge too, and we shall keep it, depend upon that." " Suppose you take the pie Ige and try that first, and if you LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 95 can keep it till you can wash some of the dirt away, and get Borne clothes on, then I will many you." " No ; that won't do. I shall get to thinking what a poor, dirty, miserable wretch I am, and how I am living with this woman, who is not a bad woman by nature ; and then I will drink, and then she will drink oh, cursed rum ! and what is to prevent us ? But if we were married, my wife, yes, Mr. Pease, my wife, would say, 'Thomas' she would not say, 'Tom, you dirty brute,' ' don't be tempted ;' and who knows but we might be somebody yet somebody that our own mothers would not be ashamed of?" Here the woman, who had been silent and rather moody, burst into a violent flood of tears, crying, " Mother, mother, I know not whether she is alive or not, and dare not inquire ; but if we were married and reformed, I would make her happy once more." " I could no longer resist the appeal," said Mr. P., " and determined to give them a trial. I have married a good many poor, wretched-looking couples, but none that looked quite so much so as this. The man was hatless and shoeless, without coat or vest, with long hair and beard grimed with dirt. He was by trade a bricklayer, one of the best in the city. The woman wore the last remains of a silk bonnet, and some thing that might pass for shoes, and an old, very old dress, once a rich merino, apparently without any under garments." " Your name is Thomas Thomas what ?" " Eltlng, sir. Thomas Elting, a good, true name and true man ; that is, shall be, if you marry us." 90 HOT CORK. " Well, well. I am going to marry you." " Are you ? There, Mag, I told you so." " Don't call me Mag. If I am going to be married, it shall be by my right name, the one my mother gave me " " Not Mag ? Well, I never knew that." "Now, Thomas, hold your tongue, you talk too much. What is your name ?" "Matilda. Must I tell you the other? Yes, I will, and I never will disgrace it. I don't think, I should ever have been as bad if I had kept it. That bad woman who first tempted me to ruin, made me take a false name. They always do that, sir, and so she said I must take another name, I did not know what for then ; and so they called me Mag, and that is the name he knows me by, and I never would have told him my right name, only that we are going to get married, and reform." Could they do it could beings sunk so low, reform ? We shall see. " It is a bad thing, sir, for a girl to give up her name unless for that of a good husband. Matilda Morgan. Nobody that is good knows me by any other name in this bad city." . Yes, it is a bad thing for a girl to give up her own name for a fictitious one. I could tell a touching story of an instance of a poor sewing woman, who went to one of these name- changing houses to work, not to sin, who was coaxed to be called Lucy, instead of her own sweet name of Athalia, and how she was accidentally discovered and rescued from the very jaws of ruin by her own uncle. But not now, I must THE TWO PENNY MARRIAGE COl PI.E. Page 95. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 97 go on with the marriage. The bride and bridegroom are waiting, and the reader for a share of the feast. "Now I am going to join you two in wedlock; it cannot make you worse, it may better. Look me in the face. Now, Matilda and Thomas, take each other by the right hand, look at me, while I unite you in the holy bonds of marriage by God's ordinance. Do you think you are sufficiently sober to com prehend its solemnity ?" " Yes, sir." " Marriage being one of God's holy ordinances, cannot be kept in sin, misery, filth, and drunkenness. Thomas, will you take Matilda to be your lawful, true, only, wedded wife?" " Yes, sir." "You promise that you will live with her, in sickness as well as health, and nourish, protect, and comfort her as your true and faithful wife; that you will be to her a true and faithful husband ; that you will not get drunk, and will clothe yourself and keep clean ?" " So I will." " Never mind answering until I get through. You promise to abstain totally from every kind of drink that intoxicates, and treat this woman kindly, affectionately, and love her as a husband should love his wedded wife. Now, all of this will you, here before me as the servant of the Most High, here, in the sight of God, in heaven, most faithfully promise, if I give you this woman to be your wedded wife P "Yes, I will" 5 08 HOT COUN. "And you, Matilda, on your part, will you promise the same, and be a true wife to this man ?" "I will try, sir." " But do you promise all this faithfully ?" "Yes, sir, I will." It was a woman's " I will," spoken right out with a good, hearty emphasis, that told, as it always tells,, the faith and truth of woman, when she says, " I will." " Then I pronounce you man and wife." " Now, Thomas," says the new wife, after I had made out the certificate and given it to her, with an injunction to keep it safely " now pay Mr. Pease, and let us go home and break the bottle." Thomas felt first in the right pocket, then the left, then back to the right, then he examined the watch fob. It is probable that the former owner of this principal article of his .wardrobe, owned a watch. It is more likely that the present owner had been often in the hands of the watch, than that he had often had a watch in his hands. He was evidently searching for lost treasures. " Why, where is it ?" says she. " You had two dollars this morning." " Yes, I kttow it ; but I have only got two cents this even ing. There, Mr. Pease, take them. It is all I have got in the world what more can I give ?" Sure enough ; what could he do more ? He took them and prayed over them, that in parting with the last penny, this couple might have parted with a vice a wicked, foolish prac tice, which had reduced them to such a degree of poverty and LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 99 wretchedness, that the monster power of rum could hardly send its victims lower. So, by a few words, I hope, words of power to do good, Thomas and Matilda, long known as, drunken Tom and Ma, were transformed into Mr. r.nd Mrs. Elting, and having grown somewhat more sober while in the house, seemed to fully understand their new position, and all the obligations they had taken upon themselves. " For a few days," said Mr. P., " I thought occasionally of this two-penny marriage, and then it became absorbed with a thousand other scenes of wretchedness which I have wit nessed since I have lived in this ceatre of city misery. Time wore on, and I married many other couples ; often those who came, in their carriage and left a golden marriage fee a deli cate way of giving to the needy but among all, I had never performed the rite for a couple quite so low as that of this two-penny fee, and I resolved I never would again. At length, however, I had a call from a full match to them, which I refused." " Why do you come to me to be married, my friend ?" said I to the man. "You are both too poor to live separate; and, besides, you are both terrible drunkards, I know you are." " That is just what we want to get married for, and take the pledge." " Take that first." " No ; we must take all together nothing else will save us." "Will that T 100 HOT CORN. u It did one of my friends." " Well, then, go and bring that friend here ; let me see and hear how much it saved him, and then I will make up my mind what to do. If I can do you any good, I want to do it." " My friend is at work he has got a good job and several hands working for him, and is making money, and won't quit till night. Shall I come this evening ?" " Yes, I will stay at home and wait for you." He little expected to see him again, but about eight o'clock the servant said that man and his girl, with a gentleman and lady, were waiting in the reception room. He told him to ask the lady and gentleman to walk up to the parlor and sit a moment, while he sent the candidates for marriage away, being determined never to unite another drunken couple, not dreaming that there was any sympathy between the parties. But they would not come up ; they wanted to see that couple married. So he went down, and found the squalidly wretched pair, that had been there in the morning, in conversation, and apparently very friendly and intimate, with the lady and gen tleman. He had the appearance of a well dressed laboring man, for he wore a fine black coat, silk vest, gold watch-chain, clean white shirt and cravat, polished calf-skin boots ; and his wife was just as neat and tidily dressed as anybody's wife, and her face beamed with intelligence, and the way in which she clung to the arm ot her husband, as she seemed to shrink out of sight, told that she was a loving as well as a pretty wife. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 101 " This couple," said the gentleman, u have come to be married." " Yes, I know it," said Mr. P., " and I have refused. Look at them ; do they look like fit subjects for such a holy ordi nance ? God never intended those, whom he created in his own image, should live in matrimony like this man and woman. I cannot marry them." "Cannot! Why not? You married us when we were worse off more dirty worse clothed, and more intoxicated." " The woman shrunk back a little more out of sight. I saw she trembled violently, and put her clean cambric handkerchief up to her eyes." " What could it mean ? Married them when worse off ? Who were they ?" " Have you forgotten us ? ' said the woman, taking my hands in hers, and dropping on her knees ; " have you forgotten drunken Tom and Mag ? We have never forgotten you, but pray for you every day !" " If you have forgotten them, you have not forgotten the two-penny marriage. No wonder you did not know us. I told Matilda she need not be afraid, or ashamed, if you did know her. But I knew you would not. How could you ? We were in rags and dirt then. Look at us now. All your work, sir. All the blessing of the pledge .*nd that marriage, and that good advice you gave us. Look at this suit of clothes, and her dress all Matilda's work, every stitch of it. Come and look at our house, as neat as she is. Everything in it to make a comfortable home ; and, oh ! sir, there is a cradle in our 102 HOT CORN. bedroom. Five hundred dollars already in bank, and I shall add as much more next week when I finish my job. So much for one year of a sober life, and a faithful, honest, good wife. Now, this man is as good a workman as I am, only he is bound down with the galling fetters of drunkenness, and living with a woman as I did, only worse, for they have two children. What will they be, if they chance to live, and grow up to womanhood in Cow Bay ? Now he has made up his mind to try to be a man again he is a beast now he thinks that he can reform just as well as me ; but he thinks he must take the pledge of the same man; and have his first effort sanctified with the same blessing, and then, with a good resolution, and Matilda and me to watch over them, I do believe they will succeed." So they did. So may others, b/ the same means. They were married, solemnly, impressively, solemnly mar ried ; and pledged to total abstinence in the most earnest manner ; and promised most faithfully, not only to keep the pledge, but to do u^ito others, as Elting had done unto them. Both promises you have seen that they have kept well. As they were parting, Elting slipped something into Nolan's hand, and told him to pay the marriage fee. " I thought," said J he missionary, " of the two pennies, and expected nothing more, and therefore was not disappointed when he handed me the two reddish-looking coins. I thought, well, they are bright, new looking cents, at any rate, and I hope their lives will be like them. I was in hopes that it might have been a couple of dollars this time, but I said LIFE SCENES' IN NEW YORK. 103 nothing, and we parted with a mutual God bless you. When I went up stairs, I tossed the coin into my wife's lap, with the remark, " two pennies again, my dear." " Two pennies ! Why, husband, they fere eagles real golden eagles. What a deal of good they, will do. What blessings have followed that act." And what blessings did follow the last one ; will always follow the pledge faithfully "kept ; will always follow a well formed, faithfully kept union, even if it is a " two-penny mar riage." 104 HOT CORN. CHAPTER VL THE HOME OF LITTLE KATT. ** There is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow." " He, that of the greatest works is finisher, Oft does them by the weakest minister.*' I HAVE still another little episode in this life drama a scene in one of the acts, which we may as well put upon the stage at this point of the story, though it is quite unconnected with those that immediately precede it ; yet you will find a character here, in whom you have, perhaps, taken some inter est. It is the termination of the story of the Hot Corn girl, whom you read about in chapter second, whose portrait you have already looked at in the frontispiece of this volume. You have read in the story of Little Katy, what a world of cheap happiness can be bought with a shilling. No one of the thousand silver coins wasted that night in hotel, saloon, bar-room, grocery, or rum hole, gave the waster half the pleasure that that shilling gave to three individuals he that gave and those who received. No ice-cream, cake, jelly, or health-destroying candy, tasted half so sweet as the bread pur chased with that sixpence. No man ever made so small an investment, that paid so well, both in a pecuniary point of view and large increase of LIFE SCENES IN SEW YORK. 105 human happiness, for it has been the means of waking up benevolence, not dead but sleeping, to look about and inquire > what shall I do to remove this misery-producing curse from among us ? Thousands have read the story of Little Katy, and thousands of little hearts have been touched. Many hand* have been opened more will be. These little stories, detail ing some of the sufferings which crime and misery bring upon the poor of this city, will be, as some of them already have been, read with tearful eyes. You have read the story of a poor neglected child of a drunken mother not always so wasting her young life away with no object but to live, with no thought of death. It is a sad tale, and it is not yet finished. The next night after the interview with that neglected, ill-used little girl, the same plaintive cry of " Hot corn, hot corn ! here's your nice hot corn !" came up through our open win dow, on the midnight air, while the rain came dripping down from the overcharged clouds, in ju'.t sufficient quantities to wet the thin single garment of the owner of that sweet young voice, without giving her an acceptable excuse for leaving her post before her hard task was completed. At length the voice grew faint, and then ceased altogether, and then I knew that exhausted nature slept that a tender house-plant was exposed to the chilling influence of a night rain that an innocent girl had the curb-stone for a bed and an iron post for a pillow that by and by she would awaken, not invigorated with refreshing slumber, but poisoned with the sleep-inhaled miasma of the filth -reeking gutter at her feet, which may be breathed with impunity awake, but like 106 HOT CORN. the malaria of our southern coast, is death to the sleeper.* Not soothed by a dreamy consciousness of hearing a mother's voice tuning a soft lullaby of \ "Hush, my child, lie still and slumber;" but starting like a sentinel upon a savage frontier post, with alarm at having slept ; shivering with night air and fear, and, finally, compelled to go home, trembling like a culprit, to hear the harsh words of a mother yes, a mother but oh ! what a mother cursing her for not performing an impossibility, because exhausted nature slept because her child had not made a profit which would have enabled her more freely to indulge in the soul and body-destroying vice of drunkenness, to which she had fallen from an estate, when " my carriage " was one of the " household words " which used to greet the young ears of that poor little death-stricken, neglected, street sufferer. * On many of the Rice and Sea Island plantations in South Carolina and Georgia, in fact upon almost all the coast lands of these States, the malaria is so deadly in its effects upon the sleeper, that every effort is made to keep awake by those who are accidentally exposed for a single night to its influence. Many of the most beautiful residences in the vicinity of Charleston, are uninhabited by white persons in summer. The negroes are not at all, or only slightly affected. The overseers often have a little cabin in the most convenient pine woods, to which they retire before nightfall. No doubt, though to a less deadly degree, the malaria arises from the filth in our dirty streets, killing its thousands of little children every year. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 107 It was past midnight when she awoke, and found herself with 9 desperate effort, just able to reach the bottom of the rickety stairs which led to her home. We shall not go up now. In a little while, reader, you shall see where live the city poor. You shall go with me at midnight to the Home of little Katy. You shall see where she lies upon her straw pallet in a miserable garret ; yet she was born in as rich a chamber as you or you, who tread upon soft Turkey carpets when you go to your downy couches. Wait a little. Tired worn with the daily toil for such is the work of an editor who caters for the appetites of his morning readers I was not present the next night to note the absence of that cry from its accustomed spot ; but the next and next, and still on, I listened in vain that voice was not there. True, the same hot-corn cry came floating upon the evening breeze across the park, or wormed its way from some cracked-fiddle voice down the street, up and around the corner, or out of some dark alley, with a broken English accent, that sounded almost as much like " lager bier " as it did like the commodity the immigrant, struggling to eke out his precarious existence, wished to sell. All over this great poverty-burdened, and wicked waste, extravagant city, at this season, that cry goes up, nightly proclaiming one of the habits of this late-supper eating people. Yes, T missed that cry. " Hot Corn" was no longer like the 108 HOT CORtf. music of a stringed instrument to a weary man, for the treble- string was broken, and, for me the harmony spoiled. * *V Who shall say there is not music in those two little words ? " Hot Corn " shall yet be trilled from boudoir and parlor, as fairy fingers run over the piano keys. Hot Corn ! Hot Corn ! shall yet be the chorus of the minstrel's song, and hot tears shall flow at the remembrance of "Little Katy." But that one song had ceased. That voice came not upon my listening ear. What was that voice to me ? It was but one in a thousand, just as miserable, which may be daily heard where human misery has its abode. That voice, as some others have, did not haunt me, but its absence, in spite of all reasoning, made me feel uneasy. I do not believe in spiritual manifestations half as strongly as some of the costermongers of the fruits of other men's brains, who eke out their existence by retailing petty scandal to long-eared listeners, would have them believe ; yet I do believe there is a spirit in man, not yet made mani fest, which makes us yearn after coexisting spirits in this sphere and in this life, and that there is no need of going be yond it, after strange idols. I shall not stop to inquire whether it was a spirit of " the first, third or sixth sphere," that prompted me, as I left my desk one evening, to go down among the abodes of the poor, with a feeling of certainty that I should see or hear something of the lost voice, or what spirit led me on ; perhaps it was the spirit of curiosity ; no matter, it led, and I followed, in the road LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 109 I had seen that little one go before- it was my only cue I knew no name had no number, nor knew any one that knew her whom I was going to find. Yes, I knew that good Mission ary ; and she had told me of the good words which he had * spoken ; but would he know her from the hundred just like her? Perhaps. It will cost nothing to inquire. I went down Centre street with a light heart ; I turned into Cross street with a step buoyed with hope ; I stood at the corner of Little- Water street, and looked around inquiringly of the spirit, and mentally said, " which way now ?" The answer was a far-off scream of despair. I stood still with an open ear, for the sound of prayer, followed by a sweet* hymn of praise to God, went up from the site of the Old Brewery, in which I joined, thankful that that was no longer the abode of all the worst crimes ever concentrated under one roof. Hark ! a step approaches. My unseen guide whispered, " ask him." It were a curious question to ask a stranger, in such a strange place, particularly one like him, haggard with over much care, toil, or mental labor. Prematurely old, his days shortened by over work in his young years, as his furrowed face and almost fren zied eye hurriedly indicate, as we see the flash of the lamp upon his dark visage, as he approaches with that peculiar American step which impels the body forward at railroad speed. Shall I get out of his way before he walks over me ? What if he is a crazy man ? No ; the spirit was right no false raps here. It is that good missionary. That man who has done more to reform that den of crime, the Five Points of New- York, than all the Municipal Authorities of this Police-hunting, and Prison- 110 HOT CORN. punishing oity, where misfortune is deemed a crime, or the unfortunate driven to it, by the way they are treated with harsh words, damp cells death cells and cold prison-bars, instead of being reformed, or strengthened in their resolution to reform, by kind words ; means to earn food, rather than forced to steal it ; by schools and infant-teaching, rather than old offenders- punishing. " Sir," said Mr. Pease, " what brings you here at this time of night, for I know there is an object ; can I aid you ?" " Perhaps, I don't know a foolish whim a little child one of the miserable, with a drunken mother." "^Come with me, then. There are many such. I am just going to visit one, who will die before morning a sweet lit tle girl, born in better days, and dying now but you shall see, and then we will talk about the one you would seek to save." We were soon treading a narrow alley, where pestilence walketh in darkness ; and crime, wretched poverty, and filthy misery, go hand in hand to destruction. " Behold," said my friend, " the fruits of our city excise. Here is the profit of money spent for license to kill the body and damn the soul." Proven by the awful curses and loud blows of a drunken husband upon a wife, once an ornament of society, and exemplary member of a Christian church, that came up out of one of the low cellars, which human beings call by the holy name of home ! The fetid odor of this filthy lane had been made more fetid by the late and almost scalding hot rains, until it seemed to LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. Ill us that such an air was only fit for a charnel house. With the thermometer at St ? , at midnight, how could men live in such a place, below the surface of the earth'? Has rum ren dered them proof against the effect of carbonic acid gas ? We groped our way along to the foot of an outside stair case, where our conductor paused for a moment, calling my attention to the spot. "Here," said Mr. Pease, "the little sufferer we are going to see, fainted a few nights ago, and lay all night exposed to the rain, where she was found and beaten in the morning by her miserable mother, just then coming home from a night of debauch and licentiousness, with a man who would be ashamed to visit her in her habitation, or have ' the world ' know that he consorted with a street wanderer." "Beat her! for what?" " Because she had not sold all her corn, which she had been sent out with the evening before. Poor thing, she had fallen asleep, and some villain had robbed her of her little store, and, as it is with greater crimes, the wicked escaped and the inno cent suffered." I thought aloud : " Great and unknown cause, hast thou brought me to her very door ?" My friend stared, but did not comprehend the expression. "Be careful," said he, "the stairs are very old, and slip- pery." " Beat her ?" said I, without regarding what he was saying. " Yes, beat her, while she was in a fever of delirium, from which she has never rallied. She has never spoken ration- 112 HOT CORN. ally, since she was taken. Her constant prayer seems to b to see some particular person before she dies. " ' Oh, if I could see him once more there there that is him no, no, he did not speak that way to me he did not curse and beat me.' " Such is her conversation, and that induced her mother to send for me, but I was not the man. * Will he come ?' she says, every time I visit her ; for, thinking to soothe and com fort her, I promised to bring him." We had reached the top of the stairs, and stood a moment at the open door, where sin and misery dwelt, where sickness had come, and where death would soon enter. " Will he come ?" A faint voice came up from a low bed in one corner, seen by the very dim light of a miserable lamp. That voice. I could not be mistaken. I could not enter. Let me wait a moment in the open air, for there is a choking sensation coming over me. " Come in," said my friend. Will he come ?" Two hands were stretched out imploringly towards the Mia sionary, as the sound of his voice was recognised. " She is much weaker to-night," said her mother, in quite a lady-like manner, for the sense of her drunken wrong to her dying child had kept her sober, ever since she had been sick ; " but she is quite delirious, and all the time talking about that man who spoke kindly to her one night in the Park, and gave her money to buy bread." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 113 "Will he come?" " Yes, yes ; through the guidance of the good spirit tha rules the world, and leads us by unseen paths, through dark places, for His own wise purposes, he has come" The little emaciated form started up in bed, and a pair of beautiful, soft blue eyes glanced around the room, peering through the semi-darkness, as if in search of something heard but unseen. " Katy, darling," said the mother, " what is the matter ?" " Where is he, mother ? He is here. I heard him speak." " Yes, yes, sweet little innocent, he is here, kneeling by your bedside. There, lay down, you are very sick." " Only once, just once, let me put my arms around your neck, and kiss you, just as I used to kiss papa. I had a papa once, when we lived in the big house there, there. Oh, I did want to see you, to thank you for the bread and the cakes ; I was very hungry, and it did taste so good and little Sis, she waked up, and she eat and eat, and after a while she went to sleep with a piece in her hand, and I went to sleep ; hav'n't I been asleep a good while ? I thought I was asleep in the Park, and somebody stole all my corn, and my mother whipt me for it, but I could not help it. Oh dear, I feel sleepy now. I can't talk any more. I am very tired. I cannot see ; the candle has gone out. I think I am going to die. I thank you ; I wanted to thank you for the bread I thought you would not come. Good bye Sissy, good bye. Sissy 1 ice water ; the free lunch ; the ever-burning light for the smoker's conve nience ; the arm-chair and easy lounge, and cool room in summer, or well heated one in winter ; the ever open, always free resting-place for the tired walker, or ennui-tormented gen teel loafer, are only a few of the inducements to just " step in a moment ;" and then the old appetite is aroused by the sight and smell of liquor in the glistening array of cut glass, and by the influence of a score of old companions stand ing before the bar they will stand before another bar hereafter or sitting at the little white marble tables, sipping or sucking " sherry cobblers " and " mint juleps " through a glass " straw." Woe to the tired walker who has been tempted into one of these invitingly open rooms. If he has the power to LIFE SCENES IX NEW YORK. 11*7 resist his own inclination to drink, he may not have enough k> resist the persuasion of half a dozen of his acquaintances, or the force of crazed brains and strong hands, by which he is dragged up and held, while they merit the curse denounced up >n those who " put the cup to their neighbor's lips." Per haps he will be taunted with meanness for coming in to drink water and rest himself, " and not patronise the house." From this, those of us who desire to see those places of temptation shut up, may take the hint. Let reading rooms be opened, free to all who choose to come in and read the papers, drink ice water, and enjoy their rest in the shade, or partake of the comforts of a warm room, for a five cent fee. A coffee and tea room, strictly so, may be attached. How much better than drinking such liquor as those who visit all our public places must do, or be set down as mean. " Let them stay at home," is a common answer to those who say they fell by the temptations of such places. " Suppose," said Jim Reagan to me one day, " that we have no home. That was my case when I was a young man. I lived in a common boarding-house ; in my little uncomforta ble room I would not stay ; where else had I to go but the public bar room, and there I learned to drink ; I was a good fellow then ; a genteel young man, and married a genteel young girl ; I did not go down all at once it was step by step, slow but sure to Gale Jones's grocery and the Centre street cellar." True, thought I, as I entered the front door of the first hotel in this great metropolis, the largest in America, and looked HOT CORN. through the splendid marble hall, two hundred feet long, lighted by glittering chandeliers, into the immense drinking saloon of that fashionable place of resort; and I said to myself, "some of these fine forms of men, clothed in fine linen and rich broad cloth, may some day fall as low as thee, poor Jim Reagan. You began your course in just such a genteel drinking room." " Yes," says he, " and the first drink I ever took in one, for I was brought up a temperance boy, I was dragged up by the strength of two companions, and held while the bar-keeper baptised me, as he called it, by pouring the liquor down my throat, over my head, and saturating my clothes till the smell made me sick, and then they gave me more to settle it. ' A hair of the same dog,' said they, ' will cure the bite.' Bite it was. No mad dog's bite ever caused more sin and sorrow than that bite did me. We cry, * mad dog,' and kill the poor brute ; the worse than brute we ' license ' to live." Thus he would sit and talk by the hour. " If I can only keep out of the way of the tempters," said he, " I never shall drink again." He was now accumulating money ; he always came home to sleep, " for," says he, " I feel, as sure as I enter this door, that I am safe." It was determined, as soon as Maggie came again, that they would go to keeping house. "If that blessed child was only with me," said the father, as the tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks, " I should feel as though I had a shield through which none of these traffickers in human souls could LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 119 reach me. My wife is like an aged counsellor, there is wisdom in her every word, but she cannot go out through the streets, leaning upon my arm, still full of manly strength, like Mag gie, while I lean upon her still greater strength the strength and might of a strong mind." " Here is a letter from our dear child," said Mrs. Reagan to her husband, one evening as he came in from work. " Sit down and read it aloud, for some how, my old eyes get dim every time I try ; I cannot imagine what is the matter with them." I can. They were full of tears. Strange, that we shed bitter and sweet water from the same fountain. Reagan put on his spectacles, took the letter, looked at the first words, took them off, wiped the glasses, looked again, repeated the operation, laid both letter and spectacles upon the table, got up and walked the room back and forth, then he tried to speak to utter the first words of that letter ; if he could get over that he could go on, but he could not, they stuck in his throat. At length he got them up " Dear father and mother, I am coming home to kiss you both." Simple words ! Common every-day words. But they were strong words, for they had overcome the strength of a strong man, and he fell upon his wife's neck and wept like a child. " Such words to me me who have kicked, and cuffed, and froze, and starved, and abused that child for years. Oh, God, preserve my life to make her ample amends for my wrongs and her love ! Oh, God, preserve her life to make us both happy, and drop a tear at our grave 1" 120 HOT CORN. Prayer calms the spirit. Realization and acknowledgment of sin soothes the soul. 'Reagan could now read the letter without difficulty. His spectacles did not need wiping again. It was dated, " Near KATONA, Westchester County, New York. " PEAR FATHER AND MOTHER : " I am coming home to kiss yua both. I don't know but I shall kiss Tom, for he has written me all about it I know it all I know how you was brought in, and how you took the pledge, and how you have kept it, and how industrious you have been, and how you have saved your money, and how you want to go to housekeeping again, and all about it I know it all. Tom writes me every week. He is a good boy. Well, in two months I am coming down. You need not look for me before, and then, if you want me, I will come and live with you." " If we want her ! Did you ever hear the like ? But, then, what is she to do ? She is a big girl now, and must not be idle. I wish she had a trade. Every child ought to have a trade." " Well, well, wife, let us have the balance of the letter." " Yes, yes, go on ; you need not mind what I say. Go on." " Let me see ; where was I ? ' Come and live with you,' that's it." "And now I must tell you such a piece of news good news. Oh, it was a good thing I came up here. I have got LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 121 a trade a trade that will support us all when you get so you cannot work." " Heaven bless the girl, what is it ?" " Do wait, wife, and you shall hear." " It is a nice, genteel trade, too. Now we will take a house, a-d father will work at his trade, and mother will do the house-work, and I will work at my trade, and we shall live so happy." "So we shall. But, dear me, why don't she tell what it is ?" " So she will if you let me alone. A girl must have her own way to tell it ; probably she will do that in a postscript." " Well, read on. I am so impatient." " Perhaps you would like to know what my trade is ?" " Why to be sure we should. Why don't she tell ?" " So I will tell you. I am a stock-maker those things the gentlemen wear round their necks. And it is very curious n^w I learned the trade. A lady from New York oh, she is a lady ! came up here on a visit, and for work she brought along some stocks to make. She lives in New York I believe she keeps a few boarders, and makes stocks. She i& a widow lady, quite young, and very pretty, only she is in bad health ; she has no family, only her uncle, who is an old bachelor a nice old gentleman, who has adopted her as his daughter, and is going to give her all he has when he dies. She has no father and mother, as I have, and no brothers and sisters ; nobody to love but the old uncle he does love her, so do L I did not at first I was afraid of her. 122 HOT CORN. 1 thought she was some grand city lady ; and she used to sit and sew in her room, only when her uncle Papa she calls him, and he calls her daughter * Athalia, daughter,' so sweet ; is it not a sweet name ? Her name is Athalia Morgan " " Morgan, Morgan Athalia Morgan. I will warrant it is she. Don't you remember, wife, that old Morgan, the great shipping merchant ? his son married a sewing girl, and his sister married George Wendall." " Oh, oh, how singular ! It was she that was talking when Maggie took me into the temperance meeting that night, telling how her husband died. And now Maggie has met with another of the family. And her husband must be dead too." " Yes, he died just as miserable a death as Wendall. Let us read on and see what of his wife. I hope he did not drag her down with him as I did mine." " James, James, you are not to speak of anything that is "Well, well," and he brushed away another tear and read on : " After she had been here a few days, our folks told hei about me, and how I used to run the streets, and how I got into the House of Industry, and how they got me from there, and what a good girl I had been yes, they did and then Mrs. Morgan, she began to talk to me so kindly ; and then I told her everything about myself, and some about you, and she told me s. great many things about herself. Oh, it would be such a story to put in a book. And then she grew as fond LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 123 of me as I was of her. And every day when I had my work done, and every evening, I used to be up in her room, and she showed me all about her work, and I used to help her, and now she declares that I can make just as good a stock as she can, and almost as fast. She can make eight in a day ; when I help her, odd times and evenings, she can make twelve. Last week she made, with what I did, seventy-two, and put them all in a box. How nice they do look ! That is seventy- two York shillings nine dollars ! And she says when I come home to live, she will recommend me I must have a good recommend to get work when I can get just as much such work as I can do. Oh, but she is a good woman ! I guess you would cr r though as much as I have, to hear her story. I will tell it you some day. Mrs. Morgan is going down to morrow. I wish I was. But I cannot. In two months my time is up ; then you will see me. Now, good night. Say 'good by' to Tom for me. Kiss mother, father, and ever love your "MAGGIE." "Oh, James, something tells me that if she don't come before that, I never shall see her. But you will be happy with her. You will live a long life, I hope, for her to bless and comfort you in your old age. You are not so old and so broken down as I am." "All my fault, all my fault. If I had treated you as a rational man should treat a wife, you would not be so broken down now." 124 HOT CORN. " You must not look back. Look ahead and aloft. Think what a treasure of a daughter you have got. How I should like to see her once more before I go to my rest, and give her my blessing ; and oh 1 how I should like to see that blessed woman, that Mrs. Morgan. I want to bring her and Elsie together, and make peace on earth as there will be in heaven, where I hope to meet them both. They will soon follow. This life, at best, is short. Mine will be, I am sure." " Don't have such gloomy forebodings, wife ; it seems to me that you were never in better health." " I know it, and never more happy." This was on Thursday evening. On Saturday evening everybody was astonished to see Maggie come bounding in, with a step as light and quick as a playful lamb. " "Where's mother ? Is she well ? Has anything happened ? Where is father ? Is everything all right with him ?" were the questions she asked, in such rapid succession that nobody could answer any one of them. "Where is Tom? Is he well? Where is Mr. Pease and Mrs. Pease ? Are they well ? Is mother in the kitch en ?" " Yes, yes, yes, yes, to the whole string." Away she went, three stairs at a time, ard then she almost overwhelmed her mother with kisses and questions ; and up she went to the third story, and there was father in his room, reading the Bible. When had she ever seen that before? The last time she saw him, he was so dreadfully intoxicated that he did not know his own child, that was lifting him out LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 126 of the glitter. Now lie was sober, well clothed, cheerful, and happy. As she opened the door he read : " Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath conten tions ? who hath babbling ? who hath wounds without cause 'i who hath redness of eyes ? " They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine. " Look not thou upon the wine when it is red ; when it giveth his color in the cup ; when it moveth itself aright. " At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. " Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and " And he looked up, as his ear caught a little rustle of a woman's clothes, and his eyes beheld a strange woman a beautiful, neatly-dressed young woman, with laughing, bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and such a saucy little straw hat, so tastily trimmed Mrs. Morgan did that and altogether such a lady-like girl, that he did not recognise her, and he turned his eyes again to the book and repeated : " Thine eyes shall behold strange women " "Father!" The book dropped from his knees to the floor, as he sprang towards her. " Am I so strange, father, that you did not know me ?" " Indeed, my daughter, I was afraid to speak ; I did not know but a strange woman had been sent to punish me, to 'sting me like an adder.' Oh, Maggie, you don't know how I feel that I deserve it. And yet you are so good. You are a 126 HOT CORN. strange woman. It is strange, passing strange, to think that my daughter, my little neglected, dirty, ragged, mischievous " "Wild Maggie, father." "Yes, she had run wild; should be the lovely you do look lovely, Maggie girl now in my arms. Oh, Maggie ! Maggie ! this is all your work." " No, no, father ; you must give the good Missionary his share of the credit ; and the good people all over the country who have sent him money and clothes to feed and clothe the naked, and reform the drunkard. What should we have been to-day, if he had not come to live in the Five Points, fcther?" " I should have been in my grave ; a poor, miserable drunkard's grave; it is awful to think where else I should have been." " Well, well, father, you are happy now," " Yes, I am, and so is mother, and we shall be more so when we get a home of our own, and all live together. Why, Maggie, why, who did dress you up so neat ? w " Oh, my new friend I wrote you about, Mrs. Morgan you got my letter yes well, I do wish you could see her, she is such a good woman." So they talked on, and then the .old lady came up, and then Maggie told how they had arranged it all. On Monday, father was to see if he could find a couple of nice rooms, and Maggie was going to see Mrs. Morgan, for Mrs. Morgan's old uncle had told Maggie, that whenever she wanted to go to keeping house, to come to him, she did not know what for, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 127 but she was sure it was something good, for he was a good man, but he never let anybody know what he did for poor folks, he did love to do things in his own way. And Mrs. Morgan was going to write up to the people where she lived, and if father and mother wanted her, they would let her come before her time was up. " Your father will want you." " Will you, too ? Do not you want me, mother ?" " I do not know, Maggie, I can hardly tell. Who can tell what a day may bring forth. I am glad to see you ; I have been praying all day, that the good Spirit would direct your steps hither to-day." " Did you pray that last night?" "Yes." " And this morning ?" "Yes." "I thought so I felt it, all night, all the morning, just as though a little stream of fire was running through rne, all over ; now in my head, now in my heart, now in my very fingers' ends; now I started at a whisper in my ear, that sounded just like mother, saying, 'Oh, Maggie! Oh, that she would come ! Oh, that I could see her once more !' and then I felt as though I must come. I was afraid something was going to happen. But now I find you all well, I see what a foolish girl I have been." "No, Maggie, not foolish, not foolish; something tells me that you have only obeyed the dictates of a good heart, guided by an invisible power. But we will not talk about it any more 128 HOT CORN. now. I have arranged a place for you to sleep to-night, for the house is. very full, and we can scarcely find beds for those we have, and there are applications for more poor children every day. Do you remember that pretty little Italian beg gar girl, Madalina, that you used to go out with sometimes ? She is going to sleep in that little room, and you may sleep with her." " Oh, mother, she is so dirty !" " She used to be, she is not so now. She was so when she ran the streets, just like another little -girl." " Oh, mother, I know who you mean, but I did not know that she had been improved." The next day, the father and mother and daughter were sitting side by side in the chapel, and it was the remark of more than one, " Oh, what a change !" " Is it possible that that is old drunken Reagan and his wife, that used to live in that Centre street cellar, and that that is ' Wild Maggie ?' What a change! Why she is real pretty, and so bright, and so affectionate see how she looks out the hymn for her mother ; and now they all kneel together. Well well, that is better than all drunk together." After morning service, Mrs. Reagan went into the kitchen to assist about dinner. " I cannot tell how it is," said she, " but I feel as though this was the last meal I shall ever eat with my husband and Maggie ; perhaps I shall not eat this." She never did. Half an hour after that, the house was in wild commotion. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 129 "Where is Mr. Reagan? where is Maggie? call the doc tor ! oh, dear ! oh, dear ! Mrs. Reagan is in a fit." It was a fit which all must have sooner or later. Her fore bodings, from whatever cause they came, had given her pre science of her death. The husband and daughter were soon kneeling over her where she had fallen upon the floor, vainly trying to revive animation. The physician vainly essayed his skill. " It is too late. My mother is in heaven." " It is certain she is in the hands of God, and she died with a blessing on her lips for her child," said one of the women who were present when she fell. " What did she say, Angeline ?" " Sally, how was it ? you heard it best." This is drunken Sal and old Angeline, whom you have seen before. They, too, are inmates ; sober, industrious ones, of the House of Industry. " She said, * Oh, God, forgive me all my sins ! And my husband, forgive him, oh, Lord! as I do. Margaret, oh, God ! I thank thee for sending her to see me once more God bless as I do my dear Maggie. I die in peace, I die dying hap Oh!' and she fell forward; I caught her in my arms, and laid her down gently, but she never breathed again." " Oh, mother, mother, are you dead, dead, dead ! Will you never, never speak to your Maggie again ? Oh ! it is so hard to part with you now, just as we were going to be so happy, and all live together." 6* 180 HOT CORN. " Yes," said Angeline, " and that reminds me to tell you that she said just before she died, but I thought she was talk ing wild like, that if she did not see you again, that I must tell you not to go back to Westchester, but you must be suro to stay with your father, he would be so lonesome when she was gone." The poor husband was lonesome ; he already felt it. Then he felt what blessings he had left. He had good health and strength, and a most affectionate good child to comfort him in his old age. And then he poured out such a prayer, as all ought to hear who lack courage to go on in the glorious work of lifting up the fallen, and giving strength to the feeble, and forgiveness to the erring. The day closed in sad ness, yet there were some who witnessed the sad scene who felt that " it is good to be afflicted." The next day after these events I was in Greenwood Cemetery, that lovely resting-place for the dead. It is a land mark in this progressive age, that shows the good fruits of an improved state of society. If any of the readers of these Life Scenes, are curious to know what becomes of the falling leaves of this great forest of human beings, let them go over the Brooklyn South ferry, and follow some of the score of mourning trains that go every day to put away some dead trunk, or lopped limb, or twig, leaf, or flower, perhaps nothing but a bud, which they will plant in earth to blossom in heaven ; and they will see where a portion of the fallen go to decay. It is a place for a day, not of gloom, but sweet meditations, such as does the soul good. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 131 I was meditating over a late made grave. It was by the side of one almost old enough to be forgotten, and yet the number of years since it was made were very few, and very, very short. There was a rose bush growing at the head, but I saw through the green leaves the name of " Morgan, Mi. 62." I was not curious to know what Morgan, for my thoughts were far away. I did wonder, it is natural to do so, if that was Mrs. Morgan by his side, and if they had always lain so quiet, without words of contention, or " Caudle Lectures." My doubts were soon to be solved, for now came a cart and a couple of stone setters. How quick, and how carelessly they work ; now the hole is dug, now they lift the little stone out of the cart, now they set it upright, now they fill in the dirt around it, now they give a few stamps with heavy boots just over the head of the sleeper he hears them not now the stone is planted, now they jump into the cart, slash the whip, and curse the poor old horse for his laziness, and rattle away with a whistle and merry glee. Now we can read the name on the new stone. Ah, it is not his wife it is " Walter Morgan, JEt. 27." His son perhaps, an only son how soon he has come after his father. It is a common name, or I might moralize farther upon what I know of that name. I am interrupted, and walk off a little way and turn to look again. A fine, benevolent looking gentleman faces do look benevolent is getting out of a carriage. He is about the age of the elder Morgan. His brother, perhaps. Now, he lifts out a rose bush, in bloom, in its little world, all its own, in an earthen pot. Ah, ha ! that is to be planted at 132 HOT CORW. the new stone just put in its place. Now he lifts out a lovelier flower. It is a young widow. Fancy is at work now ; it says, " Is she pretty ?" Wo are too far off to discern features, but we can think. We do think that a widow who comes to plant a flower at her husband's grave, is a flower of a woman, let her face be what it may. So I sat down with pencil in hand, writing, " Musings at the Tomb." I had just written, " Benevolent old gent and beau tiful young widow," and was going to add, rose bush planted at husband's grave, and all that sort of thing, when somebody slapped me on the back that knocks out the sentimental with a clear hearty expression of, " my old friend." " Why, Lovetree, is this you ? Athalia Mrs. Morgan, 1 should say." " No ; always call me by the name you first knew me by." " Then I should call you Lucy." "No, no, not that, not that." " Forgive me, but I did not intend to call up unpleasant reminiscences. Ah, what have we here ? A little train of mourners, with a tenant for that open grave. See, that is the Missionary from the Five Points." " And, oh, uncle, that is Maggie, our little Maggie from up the country. It must be her mother. Yes, it is, for she takes the arm of a man with a crape on his hat it is her father. Her mother has her wish. He will drop a tear at her grave. See, he does; his handkerchief is at his eyes. Oh, it is a sad thing for a husband to follow the wife he has lived with forty years, to such an end as this. Poor Maggie, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 133 how she ffeeps. I must go and se her as soon as the cere mony is over. Suppose, uncle, that we take them in oui carriage home with us, it will not be quite so melancholy as it will be to go back to the house of death." " So we will, and then I will arrange the plan for them to go to housekeeping together. I have already got a place in view." So they met, and so Athalia said, " Come with us." And so they went. Maggie looked upon it as another remarkable interposition, or something, at any rate, that she could not account for, that Mrs. Morgan should have felt impelled to come over here to-day, of all other days, and that they should meet so singularly ; " for," said she, " fifty different parties might be riding about among these hills, and dales, and groves, looking at this lonely poor grave, and at that twenty thousand dollar monument, and yet no one know that the other was so near. Well, it is a place where all must come. I hope we shall all meet our friends as happily as I have mine to-day." So they went home with Mrs. Morgan, and three days after they went to a house of their own. You have already seen how they were able afterwards to say to others, " Come with us," when a houseless widow and her two children stood in the street the night of the fire the night that rum and its effects made Mrs. Eaton a widow. Perhaps you would like to see the benevolent gentleman that clothed the naked after that fire ? You have seen him. Turn back a leaf and look at him again as he lifts that rose- 134 HOT CORN. bush out of the carriage, to plant at that grave. You did not see him in the crowd at the fire, but he was there, and heard his protege say, " Come with us." He was just going to say it, but he liked it better that Maggie had said it first. Then he said to himself it was one of his odd freaks of benevolence I will surprise the dear girl directly, and make her remem ber those golden words to her dying day. You have seen him. It was Athalia's uncle. Who is Athalia ? Turn over. Read. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 135 CHAPTER VIII. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. How full of briars is this working day world.* With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread." ATHALIA wore not unwomanly rags at the period when I shall commence her history. She was clad in the garb of a country girl, just arrived in the city, in the full expectation that fortune awaited her, just as soon as she could learn the trade of a dress-maker. Oh, how she worked, and laughed, and sung ! She was the life of the shop. Sometimes she thought of home home where mother was and then she wept. But the sunshine of youth soon sends the clouds and dew drops that dim the eye away to forgetfulness. Athalia was sixteen sweet sixteen in face and mind. What a bright blue eye, what soft brown hair, what wit, and oh, what a voice in song ! and such a heart, 'twas tuned for others' woes, and not her own. Why comes this mountain flower from her country home ? Her father was a farmer ah ! was would be still, only that he had swallowed his farm. The mortgage to the store at the cross roads, the damage paid in a law suit for a fight, and 136 HOT CORN. the cost of throwing his neighbor's horse down his well, had left him without a home for himself, and so his children went forth into the world to seek bread ; the daughter, of course, by the needle, the sons at sea. Athalia chose the city. How little she knew the danger. She would have shuddered to see a man sit carelessly down upon a powder keg with a pipe in his mouth. Not half so dangerous is that, as for a young country girl, with a beautiful face, to come here. Oh, how she worked one whole year to learn her dress maker's trade, without one cent of compensation. Such is the law. The law of custom with milliners' apprentices. Then she went home. How joyfully her mother opened her arms ; how sweet was that kiss a loved mother's kiss. Did she love her father ? How could she love a man who often cursed, and sometimes beat that mother ? She went home to stay, to ply her new trade among her old neighbors. How could she love her father when he would not let her stay, and, like a drunken brute as he was, drove her back again to the city ? " You have learnt a city trade, and you have got city airs ; nobody wants you here." It was not so. Everybody wanted her there but her mis erable father. Everybody else loved Athalia. They saw no city airs ; all they saw was that a rough diamond had been polished. What is it worth without ? So she came back to the city with a heavy heart. What was she to do 3 She could go back to her old shop and work LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 137 eighteen hours a day, for twenty-five cents, and scanty food ; lodging, as she had done during her long year of apprentice ship, three in a narrow bed, in a room with just air and space enough for the decent accommodation of a cat, nothing more. What hope in such a life ? What would she have at the end of the year ? Just what she had at the beginning ? No ; for one year of youth would be gone. She could not go back ; there was no hope there. So, with another girl just as poor, but just as willing to work, she took a room, and took in work, or went out to do it. Then how she was exposed, how in danger. Libertines live in genteel families. Ah, and are pet sons of mothers who would give dollars to dissipated rakes, and grudge shillings to poor dress makers. And if the poor girl should be caught in the snare of such a son, how the mother would rave and drive her away unpaid, because she had disgraced her " respectable boy." Mrs. Morgan was one of Athalia's lady " patrons." Haugh tily proud, yet not, like some of her class, positively dishonest, cruelly dishonest. She wanted the labor of the poor sewing girl, because she possessed great taste, and could dress her daughters better, and what was still more, though so little practised by the rich, cheaper, than she could get their dresses at a " regular establishment." That was just what the daugh ters most disliked. They knew that none of their acquaint ances wore such neat-fitting dresses, but when the question was put, " Where did you get them made ?" they could not answer, " Oh, we always get everything at Madame Chalam- beau's fashionable establishment in Broadway." 138 HOT CORN. They could not change their mother's policy, and so they determined to drive poor Athalia out of the house. They had another object. Athalia was beautiful. Her face was such as we are apt to conceive that an angel must have. And everybody who came in the house while she was there, and saw her, said, " Oh, what a sweet face !" This was gall and wormwood to the "young ladies," for their faces were just such as you would suppose were made out of those two ingredients, and they were true indications of their minds. So they hated the poor seamstress for double cause. At first she came to the table with the family. But the girls could not help observing that she was the diamond, they the setting, to all eyes. She was better bred than they, with all their boarding-school education. Where had she got it ? In a country school house, and her mother's kitchen. Once, once only, after tea she was invited to sing. Who supposed that she could touch a piano note. She accepted the invitation, as all well-bred girls do, who know that they can sing, and Walter offered his arm to lead her to the piano. Walter was the brother, the only " son and heir of our family." He had just returned from a lady-killing Niagara tour, and met Athalia for the first time at the tea table. It was the last time, the sisters said, that he should meet her there. She went home that evening ; she had finished her job and received her poor pay. That was one of Mrs. Morgan's virtues ; she paid the stipulated price to those who worked for Uer. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 139 What daggers, scorpions' stings, and poisoned darts, poor Athalia and Walter would have felt, while he stood over her at the piano, if they could have felt the glances of scornftu, angry eyes. How he was taken to task afterwards for paying attention to " a sewing girl," particularly for waiting upon her home. How he justified himself. Just as though there was need of it. But aristocracy had stept down to the level of one who " Plied her needle and thread, In poverty, hunger, and toil ;" Who sang with a voice of saddening song, Of the home on her own native soil. Of the spring and the brook where it flow'd, Of the plums ami the pears where they grew, Of the meadows and hay lately mow'd, And the roses all dripping with dew. And her heart it went journeying back, While her fingers plied needle and thread, Till the morning came in at a crack, Where it found her still out of her bed. Shall I ever work thus like a slave, With the scorn of the rich and the proud ? For they think that a seamstress must crave For the work that is making her shroud. Walter justified, apologised, for he was bound in the iron fetters, "polite custom." 44 1 found," says he, " when I came home, a beautiful, well- 140 HOT CORW. dressed, well-behaved girl, to all appearance a young lady, at your tea table." "Well, she shall never come there again. I always told mother that she might know better than to bring her to the table ; and the pert minx, if she knew her place, would never try to stick herself into genteel company. So much for having *a dress-maker in the house." " Elsie, Elsie, I am ashamed of you." "I think you had better be ashamed of yourself, mother." " I found her," resumed Walter, " at your table, and I took the only vacant seat, by her side. I did not find her pert, but on the contrary, I must say it, better behaved, better spoken, than my sister Elsie, when speaking of or to her mother." "You had better insult me, by your comparison, Sir Walter." " No ; I do not intend that. But I was only explaining why I paid attention to the lady." " The lady lady ! That to a sewing girl who goes out to work by day's work. Did you learn that at college or at Saratoga ?" " I have learned to call every female lady, who looks, acts, and talks like one. I hope my sister Elsie will not unlearn me. I found the lady at your table. I found her polite and diffident. She is not a forward minx. I walked with her to the parlor." " Yes, and she should have known better than to go there. Why did she not go back to her work ?" LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 141 " Elsie, she had done her work, and was waiting for your father to come home, so I could get some money to pay her; for I should be ashamed to keep her out of her money, or oblige her to call again. You had spent all the change I had in the house in your afternoon shopping. It was me that asked her to stay. It was me that asked her into the parlor. It was me, your mother, that asked her to sing one of those plaintive, sweet songs, I had heard her sing to the children while at work. It was you that urged her. What for ? That she might fail. Elsie, Elsie, there is envy in your heart." " And she did sing. Was ever anything sweeter ? I can repeat every word, for every note went down into my soul, and printed itself like the magnetic telegraph. Listen : " Oh, I was born where waters leaping, Cascade down the green, green hill ; Oh, I was born where lambkins bleating, Leap along the clear, clear rill. Oh, I was born where lightning flashes, 'Luminate the green, green trees ; Oh, I was bcrn where the wild wind dashes, Raging o'er the deep, deep seas. " Oh, now I live amid confusion, Commerce wears an ugly frown ; Oh, who would give that sweet seclusion, For all the pleasures of the town ? Oh, how I love my native mountain, Hills and glens and all their flocks, Oh, how I love that sweet sweet fountain, Every tree, and all the rocks." 142 HOT CORN. " Smitten smitten my brother Walter smitten with my dress-maker ! Faugh ! I wonder if he went home with her, for he went out at the same time ?" Yes, he did go home with her. It was her first false step. But ye that stand fast, do not censure this first step of her fall. She was young and handsome ; so was he. Theirs were such hearts as nature sports with. Both were touched. He went home with her. They got into a stage at Seventeenth street to ride to Broome, for there was the home of the sew ing girl. At Broome street he forgot to pull the check string. She did not notice it till the crowd of cars, carriages, and swarms of human beings, which fill up that great wide thoroughfare, Canal street, awakened her, from her reverie of wild thoughts, to the fact that they were already too fai down. Before he could stop her she had pulled the string, and the driver held up and looked down through his little peep hole at his passengers, ready for his sixpenny fare, which he will contrive to make seven cents, if he makes change for you. Walter acknowledged that he did not mean to stop the stage ; he wanted Athalia to go to Taylor's, and take an ice cream with him. But she was inexorable. He plead, she said, no ; she said it sweetly, and, finally, they compromised by her agreeing to go to-morrow evening. The second false step ! Then he walked home with her. She said, good night, at the door, he said, " Oh, let me see you up these dim stairs." " Oh, no, I am used to them, I can find my room in the LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 143 dark. If Jeannette is at tome, she will hear a little signal upon the wall, and open the door, then it will be light." " Give it then." She did ; Jeannette was not at home. " Oh, let me go up, and just look in, and see where angels live." Oh, flattery ! thy power is great. Why should she refuse, since he was to come again, she had promised that ? So she said, " come up, then," and away she tripped into the darkness, her step so light that he could not tell where it fell. Directly there was a little scratch, a flash, a blue flame, very email, and then a full white light, and a match, and then a lamp was burning. " Come up. Take care of the narrow, crooked steps, they are not like your broad easy stair-case." She had made another false step. Did far off visions of fancy revel in her brain, that she might some day go up that broad stair-case, arm in arm with that handsome young man ? "What if they did ? you too have dreamed more unlikely daj dreams. " Come up, can you see 3" Yes, he could see, " By the lamp dimly burning," just up there above him, one of the houris he had often read of, often dreamed o never before seen. He went up, to her little heaven of a room. How could she sing that, " Commerce wears an ugly frown," 144 HOT CORN. while everything looked so smiling in her mart ? How could she long for the sweet seclusion of her country home, with such a bijou of a hermit's cell here ? He stood amazed. He spoke not, but he thought. Did she divine his thoughts ? she answered them how did she know them ? The mag netic telegraph of the soul was at work. " Yes, sir, we are obliged to keep our room neat, because ladies come here to get work done, and they would not give us their custom if we lived in a plain room." Plain room ! What would his sisters say to a plainly fur nished room, if that was not one ? " True, it is plainer than theirs I mean but you did not speak I thought you spoke yes it is plain compared with rooms that ladies occupy. We pay enough though for the furniture to have good." " Do you hire it then ?" " Yes, we neither of us had money enough to furnish a room, only a few things, and pay the rent in advance. So we hired a furniture man to put in the things, and we pay him for the use of them." "How much?" " Five dollars a month." " Five dollars ! Why there is not over a hundred dollars worth." " No, sir ; that is just what it was counted at They are all second-hand articles. There is the bedstead ; we furnished the bed and bedding ; my mother gave me that ; Jeannette has no mother ; and the table, and the other little pine table, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 145 the bureau, the wash-stand, the six chairs, the rocker, and the sofa ; we made those ottomans, and the curtains ; and in that pantry . Oh, I declare how I am running on." " Pray, tell me, Miss , I really have not learned your name yet." "Athalia. I am sure you heard your mother call me that." " Yes, but I was going to call you by your sirname." " Lovetree, sir. Athalia Lovetree." " Oh, that is a very sweet, pretty name." " Yes, sir, so much so that I think I shall always keep it." " So all the young ladies say. But it hardly ever proves true with one who owns so pretty a name, and a face prettier still." More flattery. She did not hear it. No. She felt it though. " Well, I am very sure I never shall change my first name. I never shall be called by any other than Athalia." She thought so then ; I wonder if she ever thought of it in after years ? " But you have not told me what is in that pantry." " Oh, no matter ; that is where we keep all our dishes and cooking utensils. We have a stove in winter ; in summer, a little charcoal furnace behind the fire-board." " And is your room warm in winter ?" " Why yes, sir, if we have plenty of work." " Does work keep you warm ?" " Oh, no ; but work gives us money to buy coal. There 7 140 HOT --CORN. was a time last winter, when we were out of work, that " " You had no fire ?" " Yes, sir, but only a few days, we had to make up the month's rent, eight dollars for the room, and five for the fur niture." Walter put his hand in his pocket. What for ? He Mt how easy it would be to take out a hundred dollars, and tell her, to go and pay for that furniture, and not pay rent for it any longer. Then he thought how ridiculous, to be so affected by the woes and wants of a sewing girl. How his proud sisters would laugh at him. Pride conquered a. heart prone to a good action. " And so you went without fire, to pay that usurious old miser who owns this furniture, sixty per cent per annum, for the use of it. Sixty, yes, more than a hundred upon what it would sell for at auction. And what did you do for food in the meantime ?" Well, we did not need much, and should not have suf fered any, if Mrs. Jenkins had paid me for my work. Oh, if ghe only knew how much we did need it. Jeannette was sick, and what little money I had, I spent for her ; I had almost ten dollars due me for work, and could not get one. It is wicked to keep poor girls out of their money ; indeed it is, when they are sick and suffering for it." " And you suffered, while Mrs. Jenkins, with her thirteen servants, and coach and horses owed you for work ?" ** Well, we did not suffer much, except I had to pawn my LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 147 black silk dress, the very one too that I needed most when it was cold, and had to do without fire when Jeannette was sick, and should, by all means, have had one. She is a sweet, good girl ; I wish she was at home." " Wish again, and you will see her." Both started as though caught in something they were ashamed of. Why should they be ? True he had approached very close to Athalia, as she stood watering her flowers and feeding her bird both windows were full of flowers, and over each a canary bird ; and he was watching all her operations with as much interest as though they were all his own. " Poor things," she said, " they look neglected." She loved flowers. So did he. He loved their owner, but he had not said so yet. He hardly knew it ; he would not let any one know it ; hence he started when Jeannette spoke, for he thought she must have seen it. lie blushed and turned round, and then she blushed ; there was a trio of blushes. What for ? Jeannette* did not think it was a stranger. She thought it was Charley Vail. Charley was a sort of beau, yet not a beau. He was Jeannette's cousin ; and though he did not love her exactly, he liked her, and I guess that she liked him ; Athalia thought more than liked him. Charley would have loved Athalia if she had given him the least encourage ment, but she would not, for she hoped he would love his cousin and marry her. He was a good fellow, always ready to do anything on earth for " the girls " in short he was Charley. Jeannette blushed. She harl reason to, for, thinking it 148 HOT CORN. was cousin Charley who else could it be, there in their room alone with Athalia, in the evening she tripped up behind him and gave him a good hearty slap on the back. He turned around, she almost felt him hugging and kiss ing her, but he did not. She looked again, the light now shone in his face, and there she stood before a stranger. Is it any wonder she blushed ? is it any wonder he blushed ? is it any wonder they all blushed ? She played with her bonnet strings ; he twirled his hat ; Athalia could not play with any thing. She had the lamp in one hand, and the bird cage in the other. But she could laugh, and she burst out in such clear, musical tones, as she said, " Why, Jeannette, did you think it was Charley ?" That explained the whole. He understood the blow now. Did he also understand what Charley would have done, if it had been him that got the blow. Perhaps he thought, for he said, " You have struck me, miss. I never take a blow without giving one back. There." Did he strike her ? What ! strike a woman ! Shame ! Oh, no ; but he caught her in his arms, before she could be aware of the movement, and such a kiss ! such a good, hearty kiss as he gave her. Ah, well ! who would not ? She was a nice, sweet girl, not quite so pretty as Athalia, but one that a colder heart than his might relish in just such a case. She pouted a little, and talked about great liberty in a stranger ; but who took the first liberty 2 True ; but " that was a mis take." ,,*;,. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 149 " Then count the other a mistake too." " No, that was done on purpose." " So it was, and I should like to do it again, but I will not, so rudely. Pray forgive me." What had she to forgive? what to be angry abou*. Hov could she hold out against that, " I should like to do it again 1" After all. she was not half so angry as Athalia. And what was she angry about ? That he had kissed Jeannette instead of her ? Take care, little heart, jealousy is creeping in among thy pulsations. Take care, big heart, for just^ now Charley enters the scene, and before, he has observed that a stranger is in the room, he has kissed Athalia. Mischief has broke loose to-night. What is in the men ? What is in Walter Morgan, that a kiss given to that girl, for the first time seen that night, should send a pang to his heart ? How it goes throbbing through every nerve, and pricks into the very core of sensation. Take care, big heart and little heart, nature is at her sports, and she always makes pleasures sweet by contrast with pain. Finally, all are reconciled. How they do laugh over the queer mistakes. Jeannette would have sooner struck a bear than him, yet he did not bite her. Charley would have sooner kissed that same bear, and risked the hug, than have kissed Athalia before a stranger, for he is a good boy, a little mis chievous, but would never do a thing to hurt the feelings of another, particularly a woman. How they did sit, and talk, and laugh, and enjoy happiness, euch as Walter had never found in rose-wood furnished parlors. 150 HOT CORN. What would his proud sisters say, if they knew how " low he had sunk himself, to keep company with sewing girls ?" But he would not tell them. Take ca*re, young man, you are breaking in upon the conventionalities of life. You must stick to your caste, in America as well as India. You may lay your heart at the feet of anything that is old and ugly, even as your sisters, so that she is ton and of the ton the upper ton. But offer to love one who lives, barely lives, by her needle, and see how your own flesh and blood will hate you. So passed the evening away. Then Walter-would go. But he wanted to hear Athalia sing once more. No. She had no piano. His hand was in his pocket again. How he would like to send her one to-morrow, but he dared not say so. He did look around the room, to see where he could set it. There was no room. She could not sing any more to-night. Ask Jeannette. She sings a beautiful little song while we are at work. No, she could not. She was afraid to sing before strangers. But Charley asked her, in his blandest manner, and then she would sing one verse if he would go right home. How anxious she was to get rid of him. So she sung : " "Why bitter life with useless tears, With mourning unavailing? "Why bitter hope with ceaseless fears, Of shoals where we are sailing? With lively song and music peals, Make life just like the ocean, When flapping sails a zephyr steals. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. l;il . To toss us with its motion, Motion, motion, motion. To toss us with its motion " " There now, fc hope you are satisfied. If not you may go, for I shall not sing another word to-night, I don't know how T came to do that." No, they were not satisfied. Who ever knew a man that was ? Who ever got one favor of a woman, that did not ask for two more ? So they both asked both the girls to go to the theatre to-morrow night, and both promised. More false steps. How many will it take to reach the end ? Walter went home, never more happy. You have seen how he was taken to task. He had defied the laws of caste. It did not require stronger Argus eyes than his two sisters possessed to see how deeply he was enamored with Athalia. How they did wish they knew whether she had dared to look up to him, as he had down to her. How should they find out. It does not take mischief-makers long to contrive their plot. If one woman wants to ruin another one, there is one always ready to assist her in her wicked design. No doubt he was the father of millinery, for he caused the first apron to be made, and he has assisted largely in all the designs of female apparel from that day to this. Sometimes his fashion is very fig-leafish, barely hiding a portion of the body, while the limbs, head, neck, shoulders, and other " excitements," are left exposed to Adam's rude gaze. Then he contrives his fashion of so much cloth, that those who 152 HOT CORN. follow it may lose their souls in its attainment, and those who make them may feel, as they " Work, work, work, Till the stars shine through the roof;" That they are weaving a web with sin for the woo^ " Till the brain begins to swim, Till the eyes grow heavy and dim, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A dress for the living and dead." Mischief is always busy. It must be so with an envious wicked woman. The Morgans changed their tactics, and adopted those more wicked than I could invent They soon found that they wanted more dresses, and what was very remarkable, they did not want to go to the French dress-maker. What could be the reason ? They had watched their brother ; they had seen him go to Athalia's ; they had seen him in the theatre with her ; they had met them walk ing, arm in arm, in Broadway, " the shameless hussey ;" and once they had entered Thompson's, and walked upstairs to take ice cream, " actually over our heads." Walter Morgan, the richest merchant's son, in New York, gallanting a seam stress their own dress-maker. And every day some of their acquaintance were asking them, " Who is that beautiful girl I saw with Walter ?" Of course they did not know ; how could they tell that he had taken up with "such a thing?" In vain they talk to him, he was mum, or if he spoke of her, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 153 it was with the highest respect. Would he marry her ? Ah, there was the rub. " It is a pity," said Elsie, " that he would not ruin her, and that would be the end of it." Did a spirit furnish that cue, or was it a wicked woman's own conceit ? At any rate, it was a cue upon which they acted. Athalia was sent for, and the young ladies never were so affable before. Every opportunity was contrived for Walter to accomplish the purpose of a villain. Their schemes had the exact contrary effect desired. He had made such advances at first as " men about town " do make, and had met with such a decided repulse, not an angry one, but a virtuous one, that he never would try again. " I expected it," said she to his proposals, " I am used to it I am almost every day exposed to such tempting offers, to escape a life of poverty I have ceased to look upon theiK as insulting nature, and fashion, and the state of society, are such in this city, that a girl with, an unfortunate face like mine, must fall, unless she is possessed of such fortitude as but few young girls are naturally gifted with. You may ask me that question every day ; every day you may, if you feel like wounding the feelings of a poor girl, repeat your ques tion, and every day you will get the same answer." "Athalia, forgive me. Oh, forgive me ; I never will repeat the question again ; whether you forgive me or not, you need have no fear of that. What a failure then had his sisters made. They did just what they did not intend to do ; they led Walter to think, 7* 154 HOT CORN. that his family would approve a match with one so virtuous, so beautiful, so lovely, even if she was a sewing girl, and he began to build castles in the air upon this foundation. They were very sandy, and *a storm was approaching that would soon beat upon the frail walls, and like all such fabrics, down they will tumble. ^. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 155 CHAPTER IX. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. " One sorrow never comes but brings an heir, That may succeed as its inheritor." " Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid, as- in woman." MARRIAGE, death, bankruptcy, poverty, sin, and, finally, " plucked like a brand from the burning," are the contents, the introduction, and peroration, of tllis chapter. If you are satisfied at a glance, you can pass on, the filling up, is but the shading of the sketch. But if you are curious to know who marries, who dies, and 'who does worse read. " It is but a step from the palace to the tomb," yet the road sometimes seems a long and dreary one, leading through strange, dark places. I have come to the conclusion, that lovers of romance, and those who cater for them, writing tales of fiction, havo mistaken their vocation. Let them gather up and detail a few of the incidents of real Life Scenes as they occur, and there will be no occasion for fiction. So let us on with our narration of events. Mr. Morgan was a merchant, wealthy as Croesus, perhaps more so ; and he had more need to be, for he lived " up town," 156 HOT CORN. in "up town" style. The simple interest upon the cost U uia house and furniture was seven thousand dollars a year, and his annual expenses double that sum. Of course his daughters had never taken a stitch in their lives. They had been to school, where nothing useful is taught ; and learned what is called music, and could waltz to perfec tion. Walter, had been to college. What had he learnt? To drink a bottle of wine every day after dinner, and " fill up," with mint juleps, sherry coblers, and brandy smashes, the intermediate time. Not one useful thing had either of them been taught, not one lesson in the art of self-support ; all was self-indulgence. They laughed, or would have laughed at the idea, if any one had dared to mention it, that the time would ever come, that they would have occasion to lift a hand to procure their own bread. It is a bad school it has many scholars. Mr. Morgan came home one day in unusual glee ; he was naturally a stern man. He had heard of the very successful voyage of the Matilda named after his daughter to China, where she would load with teas and silks for a home voyage. She was insured in a very rich London office* Some of his cautious friends advised him to " hedge," by insuring also in other offices ; he had never met with a single loss in his life ; he had often been his own insurer, and took about half the value of the Matilda now on his own insurance book, which showed a great many thousand dollars in his favor. " Yes," said a Paul Pry, of my acquaintance, " more thou sands than he is now worth, if his debts were paid." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 157 Who believed it ? Not the bank* , which loaned him any amount he desired. Not the wife, and son, and daughters, foi that stern husband and father never told them of his business. " That is my business," was the cut-off valve which always shut down upon every question as certain as that of the steam engine at the point where it must change the motion. After dinner and the second bottle, the family were startled by the sudden announcement he made for to-morrow. " We start for Lake George to-morrow morning ; come, 'get ready." " Why, father, what has started you all of a sudden ?" " That's my business." " Well, we cannot get ready, no way in the world." " Pshaw ! I could get a ship ready before ten o'clock." " But we cannot get new hats." "Plenty of time. Start right out." " To-night ? Buy a hat in the evening, who ever heard of such a thing ? What would Mrs. Grundy say ?" " Ask her, she is going with us ; or rather, we are going with them. Grundy is in shoal water, and wants to get out of sight a few days ; and I want he should, for I am on his paper heavy." " Oh', it is absolutely impossible for us to go to our milliner to-night." " Go in the morning, then. Time enough." " What ? before ten o'clock. How vulgar you are, father." " Very well : if you cannot get up new flying gibs, go to eaa with the old ones." 158 HOT CORN. " Well, I suppose we might send for Madam ^Pantanosi to call in the morning ; but, dear me, there are our dresses all in the work-room, not one of them done. You don't expect Athalia is going to finish them to-night, do you ?" " Have you no others ?" " What if we have ? the Grundys know that we have new ones making, and of course, will expect to see them. You don't expect your daughters, I hope, to wear old dresses, on a tour to the Lakes ?" " Why not ? That is the place to wear them."- " You may talk, father, but it is out of the question." " Well, settle it your own way. I go to-morrow, and if you are going with me, you had better be getting ready; besides,let me tell you, young Wendall is going up too. We are going to have some great sport, fishing." That decided Elsie. If George^Wendall and the Grundys were going, she must go, for he and Minnie Grundy needed watching. She would go, if she wore the old hat, and a dress that had been worn twice before. " Where is that seamstress ? she must work all night, and get my dress done any way." "Elsie, daughter, she cannot do that, her eyes are very weak. You had better take her along with us, the poor girl ; give her a little country air, and let her finish your dresses there." u Yes, yes, that's it, wife, let her go along. She appears to be a right, tight little craft A sail will do her good. What a pity. she did not hail from the right port." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 159 "You have very curious notions, father." " That is my business." " Well, for my part," . says Matilda, " I think she can go just as well as not; our maid and she can lave a room together, and nobody need to know that we have brought a seamstress along with us ; if they did, they would think it very vulgar. Of course, she won't come to the table with us, at the hotel." " No, indeed ; I guess she will not ; though, I suppose, we shall have a private, table ; shall we not, father?" "That is my business." But* as it was settled that she was to go, it was, finally, thought necessary to tell her so, and she was sent for, and told of the arrangement. How could she go ? How start so sudden ? How leave Jeannette? She could not go. Yet she would like to. Perhaps she never would have another opportunity. She would go down and see Jeannette, and if she could go, she would come up very early. Away she ran upstairs for her little straw hat and black mantilla. Walter had been a " silent member " of the party. What wild thoughts ran through his brain, when he found that Athalia was to be one of the party. Did he dream of the shady walk, the moon lit lake, and egg-shell boat, with only two in it, floating upon the fc glassy surface of the water? Did he think that he should climb the rocks with her, and wander through the ruins of old Ticonderoga ? Yes, he did dream ; youth do dream.. Did she dream, while she stood before the glass. 160 HOT CORN. tying her bonnet strings ? What of ? Of the hook that he would bait and put in her hands, and the fish that would be caught. Fish ! It is not fish alone that young girls catch, when young men bait hooks for -them, in wild woods, and lonely glens, where mountain streams murmur soft music. As she came down upon the steps, Walter was waiting there. What for ? For a poor sewing girl. He wanted, he said, that she should stop with him and pick out a hat and some little articles, a toilet box, and sundry conveniences or necessaries, to one on a journey, for his sister Matilda. Oh yes, she would do that, with pleasure, if he wished it. He did wish it. The selections were made with great taste and without regard to expense. The hat was a little treasure. WTiat was that sigh for ? Can a woman a young girl just on the eve, too, of a journey to a watering place, see such a hat shut up in its paper case, without a sigh ? It is more than human nature ever could do. Athalia is human, and that hat is just such a one as she would like herself. She is too poor. So she sighed and went home. "Shall I send it?" " Let it be until I return, and then I will give directions." It is no matter what Walter said to her on the way home, but she had determined to go with the Morgans, to Lake George, and so she told him. "Good night then, I must go home and get ready, you know what the word is with father ' that is my business.' " He had a little other business. He went back to the store, and f*ave the necessary orders about the purchav LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 161 " Would the lady be kind enough to write a little note that he would dictate, and put it in the bonnet box ?" " Certainly, anything to oblige the gentleman. Was that his sister ? His cousin perhaps ? Well, she is very pretty, at any rate. Was that her name ? What a sweet name." What sweet words to Walter. How we do like to hear those we love spoken of in such words. How Athalia busied herself getting her few things ready. What she lacked, Jeannette, the good soul, lent her. "She never thought how lonely the room would be for the two or three weeks she would be away. " I wish I had a few dollars to spare, Jeannette, I certainly would go and buy just such a hat as I picked out this evening for Matilda Morgan. It was very pretty. And Walter, he admired it too. He said it was so tasty, when I tried it on, to let him see how it looked." Just then there was a rap at the door. " Oh there comes cousin Charley." No, it could not be Charley, it was a little rap. The door was opened, and there stood a little girl with a bandbox and bundle. It is a shame to send such little girls out late in the evening with such heavy bundles. " Does Miss Lovetree live here ?" " Yes." " Then this is the place." " Oh dear," says Jeannette, " more work. Who can this be from ? Why, Athalia, what is the matter, you look amazed ? n " I am amazed. Is there no mistake in the direction ?" 1G2 HOT CORN. " No, it is Miss Athalia Lovetree. No. Broome street, up-stairs." " Oh ! I cannot take it, indeed I cannot. Accept such a present from him ? No, no, no." lie had thought of that. Jeannette by this time had the bandbox open. Did woman ever resist that temptation ? j " Ah here is a note. This will explain the mystery." ' " To Miss LOVETREE : " As it is decided that you will go with us to Lake George, please accept a few things that you will need, which I have coin missioned my son to buy. " From your friend, " MRS. MORGAN." " Oh that is a different thing, if they come from her. And then for him to pretend all the time that they were for his sister. It is too bad. Oh, but it is a love of a hat though ! is it not, Jeannette ?" Yes, it was ; that was settled. First one tried it on, and then the other. Jeannette said it was a bride's hat. Athalia said she ought to be ashamed of herself to say so. Then all the other little bijouterie were overhauled, and looked at, and talked over, and praised, and then the note was read again, and the postscript ; there was a postscript, there always is a postscript to a woman's letter. It was the postscript that gave it the air of genuineness. It read : " P. S. Don't say a word to me, orhint where the hat came from, for I don't want Mr. Morgan or the girls ever to know; nobody knows but Walter." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 163 No, nobody knows but Walter. There was no fiction in that. In the morning there was another rap louder this time. It did not disturb any sleep though ; there had been none in that room that night. It was John, come for the trunk and bandbox two things that a modern lady never travels with out. There was a wagon load of them left the Morgan and Grundy mansions that morning, and they and their owners all arrived, in due course of cars and locomotives, at Lake George. Mr. Morgan and George Wendall fished, the girls flirted, Athalia sewed and sighed, and walked out evenings, slyty, with -Walter Morgan. More false steps. Sly walks in town are bad in the coun try, dangerous. There are a great many precipices, down which such a couple may tumble. George was a glorious fishing companion for the shipping merchant. He could row and drive, and get up all the fixings ; and, after dinner, talk, and laugh, and drink, till both went to bed "glorious." " Mr. Morgan, you drink one bottle too many." " Pshaw. What if I do ? that is my business." It is sometimes the wife's business. George was a boon companion, that was all. He had nothing, did nothing, lived somehow, dressed well ill-natured folks said he did not pay his tailor. Who ever thought that he would be Mr. Morgan's son-in- law ? He did, and so had his daughter, Elsie, lately concluded, 104 HOT CORN. for the country air and scenery are provocatives to that end. "Ask father." " Enough said." He did. He took care to ask him just at the right time. "Why, George, my boy, good fellow to fish. Did not think you had your hook there. Got any bait ? No. Well I have. Enough for both of us. I will bait your hook, boy. That is my business." " Thank you, sir. When shall it be ?" * George knew the art of fishing with a fresh bait, and never losing sight of the fish after he had tasted it, until he had him safe bagged. " When shall it be ? Now, now right off to-night. Nothing like going to sea while the tide serves." He was a prompt man always. It was no use to say no, after he had said yes, or, " that is my business ;" so in half an hour after that, Elsie Morgan was Elsie Wendall. Of course more wine was drank, after which a -letter was brought to him, from his head clerk, marked, " Important in haste." So Mrs. Morgan told him. " That is my business ; take it up to my room. Do you think I am going to read the stupid letters of old Precision at this time of the evening, and my daughter just married ?" At ten o'clock next morning, after the mail had gone, he read : " Sir : 11 We have advices by telegraph from London, just as the steamer LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. . 165 was leaving port, of the failure of the London insurance office, in which the Matilda is insured. She is now over-due, and mi yet reported. Shall I insure her ? Be sure to answer by first mail. " JAMES PBTTISION." How the bell did ring ; how he stamped, and swore, and wrote, and yet he could not send his letter till next morning. " Why did not old Precision insure at once ? Every dollar on earth would be swallowed up if that ship were lost." Simply because he was Precision, and the merchant, who had directed him for forty years, had never given him leave to act, upon his own discretion, in an emergency like this. " That is my business," was the unvarying answer. Two days after, he had another letter from his precise clerk. He did not order it up to his room, to wait till next morning, for he was in a tearing passion when it was handed him ; and he felt as though he would have opened it if the biggest rocks in that mountainous region had been piled upon it. What had so disturbed the rich merchant ? Those who have them not, are apt to fancy that riches and happiness are handmaids. What was the matter ? His son, his only son, had just approached him, taking advantage, as Wendall had, of a propitious hour, when wine had done its work he drank brandy since the news in that letter, and that fired, not soothe,d him he approached him with a beautiful sweet girl upon his arm, to ask his consent to their marriage. Mrs. Wendall screamed and fainted that is, in appearance. Matilda said, 106 HOT CORN. "Why, "Walter! to that girl marry that ming a dress maker !" Mrs. Morgan simply said, "Walter, you have disgraced yourself and the" mother that bore you. And I never wish to see you again." Athalia trembled and quailed before the storm of angry words and envenomed looks that surrounded her. How gladly would she have escaped. It was too late. ' Father, your consent." "Never! You, my only son, marry a common sewing girl, never." " It is too late. Here is my marriage certificate." His father opened his mouth to curse him. What for? He had married a girl he loved a girl, handsome, virtuous, industrious, but poor a seamstress. " A letter, sir ;" said a servant. " Give it me." He tore it open and read ; "Sin: " Yours of the 1 2th inst. came too late. News reached the city an hour hefore that the Matilda was " He did not say lost. He looked it. He looked at his son and his poor trembling little wife, as though he wished them both at the bottom of the sea, with the Matilda and hei car g O a ll hi s fortune ! He felt all the envenomed bitterness that a violent v natural temper can feel, when heated and in flamed by drunkenness ; for he was drunk, fashionably drunk ; LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 167 but not so much so but he could feel how irretrievably ruined he was, and that the failure to insure was occasioned by drunkenness, such drunkenness as the highest class of society indulge in, when they take an "extra bottle," after dinner, upon extraordinary occasions. He knew the fault was all his own. He had said, when urged to open the letter, an answer to which would have saved all, "that is my business." It was a sad, sad business. That one more bottle had beggared himself, and all that were dependant upon him. He had just married one daughter to a man whose only qualifica tion was " a good fellow," who could shoot, fish, smoke, drink, drive fast horses, cheat his tailor, and the poor widow board ing-house keeper, and, finally, take advantage of a besotted old rich merchant, when he had drunk just to the point of good nature when the indulger in strong drink feels like hugging * everybody and " all the rest of mankind," to get his consent for him to marry his ugly daughter. It was a marriage of convenience, the obligations of which he intended to keep just as many other such obligations are kept in this city. All this ran through his mind upon the electric telegraph of the brain. Flash after flash it went through, and then came the heavy thunderbolt. He could have endured all the rest ; he could not endure that his son should marry a sewing girl. Why? His father was a tailor, and he married a tailor's daughter, and he- hated everything that could remind him of his own needle-and-thread origin. He hated her too, be cause she was so much more lovely than his own daughters. 1CS HOT CORN. For five minutes he sat with the letter in liis hand, glaring at that, then at his wife and Matilda with a look of sorrow ; then at Elsie and her half-drunken husband, with contempt ; then his eye came back with a fixidity of hatred upon Walter and Athalia. At length Walter ventured to break the awful silence. - "Father." "Don't call me father again. I disown you, you poor milliner's apprentice. Beggar ! Don't speak to me." Walter paid no heed to the order, but said mildly, "is the Matilda lost." " That is my business. Leave the room." His sisters took up the cue. "Yes, you had better go now. Go, and set up shop. You can carry home dresses for your wife." He came to that afterwards. Then Elsie's husband put in a word of insult. " I say, Walter, it strikes me, that is rather a costly topsail for a beggar's wife. I hope she gets her bonnets in an honest way. Who pays the milliners' billy?" Walter raised his cane to strike the villain that could utter such a vile insinuation upon the character of a virtuous girl, and would have paid all his tailors' bills at one blow, but Athalia sprung upon his arm, and held it down. His father either thought, or pretended to think, that he raised his cane to strike him ; probably not having heard the remark of Wendall, and thinking only of his own wrongs. He seized a bottle a weapon that has knocked down its thousands and LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 169 sprang forward to strike down his son. His arm was already up, a horrid oath was struggling in his throat, his face turned black from the effects of suffocation, he reeled, the bottle fell to the floor with a crash, and he would have fallen down among the broken glass and spilt wine, but for Walter, who caught him in his arms, and bore him from the room towards his chamber. Athalia rushed out for a physician. It was too late ! Death had already said, " That is my business." While these events were transpiring in the country, others of great import to the rich merchant's family were enacting in the city. Creditors are not slow when they see misfortune fall upon one, whom they were ready to bow to yesterday, to tread upon him to-day. Creditors and their ministers, the judges, attorneys, sheriffs, are all ready for a share of the pound of the broken merchant's flesh. Shylocks still live, and Antonios still fail. That was a sad funeral cortege which accompanied the dead bankrupt back to the city. Sad, not so much from sorrow, as wounded pride and fallen greatness. It was sad to see the daughters of a dead father absolutely refuse to travel upon the same train, with an only brother's wife. He would not go without her, and so they went without him. It was night when they arrived. They had despatched John in advance, to set the house in order, and meet them at the depot with the carriage and a hearse. The latter was there, the former was not, and they had to submit to the indignity of a hired hack. At the house, all was dark. What could it mean ? 8 170 HOT COttN. "That villain, John, has got drunk again!" That was the fact. Who taught him ? He was only following the long- studied precepts of his employer and lady, the young ladies, the young gentlemen, and all their fashionable associates, in their fondness for exhilarating drink. Why should he not get drunk ? , They rung the bell angrily. It was a long time before it was answered. Then a heavy footstep came down stairs not up from the servants' room and approached the door, and opened the inner one, so that he could see through the blind who demanded admission. A sharp-faced, keen, black- eyed, weasel-looking man, with a chamber-lamp in his hand, and one of Mr. Morgan's dressing gowns upon his back, stood before the astonished family with the question trembling upon his lips, of " Vats you vant here ?" " Want ? we want to come in, to be sure, why don't you open the .door ? Who are you ? What are you doing here ?" " Veil, you can't come in. I is the sheriffs man, and he has put me keeper here, and he tells me not to let anybody in without his order. You must go to him. Vat you vakes me up for ?" And he closed the door in their faces, and they heard his heavy step reverberating through the long hall, and up the broad stair-case, as he went back to his lounge, " in my lady's chamber." There were heavy hearts upon the outside of that door. The men had brought the coffin up, and set it down upon the LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 171 steps. The hearse and hired hack had driven off. There lay the dead he never would say, " This is my business," again the wine-maker might say so. Both were silent. Neithei would own his work. In the vaults of that house, three thousand dollars worth no, cost of wines were stored. Fifty thousand dollars worth of the richest rosewood and mahogany furniture, china, cut glass, and silver ware, stood idle, while its late possessor lay in his coffin upon the threshold, with his family standing around, vainly asking permission to rest the body of the dead owner one night, in its journey to the tomb. What should they do ? Walter, if he had been there, could have directed what to do. He was not. Then he was cursed in thought, if not word, because he was not there. "It is all his fault," said Elsie; "it was his abominable marriage that killed father." Where was her husband ? She looked around for him. He had slipped away " to get a drink." What a brute, she thought. So he was. That is what going to " get a drink " makes of a man. " We must go to Mr. Grundy's," said the widow. IIow? The hearse and hack were gone, and could not be got back in an hour. A passing cart was called, and the coffin of the millionaire placed upon it, and the family followed, to knock at the door of a ' neighbor's house, with the same results to be answered by another sheriff's officer, but who, by chance, happening to be an American, and pos sessed of common sense enough to know that the dead would not steal, and those who attended upon hir\ would not be 172 HOT CORN. likely to do so, he opened the door, lit the gas, called up one or two of the servants still left in the house, and did a few other things that natural humanity dictates upon such an occasion. An hour after, the Grundys themselves arrived, to find their home in the hands of a " keeper," who had let in the Morgans by courtesy, and now admitted them as mourn* ing friends of the family. Here, I draw the curtain. You have already seen the ter mination of a man who could leave his young wife and her dead father standing in the street, to go and " get a drink." It was him that died in the rat hole, in Cow Bay. It was Elsie that told how he died, how she gave birth to a child by the side of her dead husband, and how the rats sucked up the life blood of that child. You have seen Matilda, before. Turn back to a picture, in Chapter V., and look at her upon her wedding-day. It is needless for me to go with you along the beaten path of her career, down, down, down, from ball-room to bar-room ; from house of " a place to meet a friend " to a house of " ladies' boarding-house " to a house of common resort the abode of wretchedness, woe, sin, degradation, disease, and " painted sepulchres " from that to a low room, with " my man," and, finally, to fill the pi iture in the Two penny Marriage. Let the curtain fall the dead rest in peace. Watch the living. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 173 CHAPTER X. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. "It is their husbands' fault, if wives do fall." The weakest goes to the wall." WALTER came down on the train with the Grundys. They urged him to " abandon his folly, and go home with them." They little thought they had no home to go to themselves. He said, no ; she was his wife, and he never would leave her. He thought so then. If he had left the bottle, he never would. " Where shall we go, Athalia ?" " Come with me ; I have a home." So he went to her little room in Broome street. The door was fast, and the room dark. She rapped, and was soon answered by Jeannette's voice : " Who is there 2" "It is me." What a world of meaning is in those three little words. How the memory of many a wife will wander back into otber days, when she heard a midnight rap, and putting her head out of the chamber window, where she had been " making a frock and rocking the cradle " all the early part of the night ; 174 1IOT CORN. and how her heart palpitates at the answer to her half spoken, half whispered question, " Who is there ?" ,"It is me," comes up to her ready ear in the open window. Down goes the sash, for the wind might blow on " the baby ;" they "have got a baby." In a minute, oh half that time, " me " sees 'lie 'i ^ht through the key-hole, and hears a little step running down staii *. It stops an instant to set the lamp on the table. What for ? She could hold it in one hand, while she ub'-ocked the door with the other. Yes, but when the door is open she will have work for both hands both arms will be around the neck of somebody. " Heigho, for somebody !" I wish every loving heart had somebody ; somebody to say, " It is me." " Wait a minute." A little light flashed through the key-hole, then the bolt went back with a click, then the door opened, a night-cap and white gown, a pair of blue eyes, and some pale red curls, were seen a moment, and then a very light scream, and Athalia and Walter were in the dark again. The door was closed in their faces. Was she, too, shut out from her home ? "Open the door, Jeannette. Never mind your night gown." " Oh, I cannot ; indeed I cannot. That is not all. Charles is here." Charles there, at that time of night, and she in her night gown ! What can it mean ? " Jeannette, what does it mean ?" " Now, don't go to being angry with me, Athalia." And LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 175 she opened the door a little way, and looked out. She had slipped on a wrapper, and slipped off the night-cap. What is there in a night-cap, or night-gown, that a lady should be ashamed to be seen in it ? " What does it mean, Jeannette ?" " Oh, now, don't go to being angry, Athalia, don't. Indeed I could not help it, I was so lonesome after you went away only think of staying here all alone." "Shame on you, Jeannette. And so because you were lonesome, you have taken cousin Charles to sleep with you." " Yes ; why not ?" " Why not ! why, Jeannette ?" Why, Athalia, we are married. You don't think I would do it if we were not, do you ?" " Married ! ha, ha, ha ! Come in Walter, you can come in now. We are all married folks together. Ha, ha, ha !" How her laugh did ring. She was anything but angry. " Why, Athalia, you are only joking." " No. I am in sober earnest." How Jeannette did laugh, and hug, and kiss Athalia ; and then she ran to the bed, and there was a " kiss in the dark." " Come, Charley, get up and see the bride. Come, we are all married folks together." " Oh, Jeannette, we must not carry on so with Walter now." " Why not ? Are we not all married ? If we cannot carry on a little now, I don't know when we should." "Yes, but " "What?" 1 76 HOT . CORN. " Walter's father is dead." "Oh, dear! don't say that." " I must ; it is true. And Walter must stay here to-night ; how shall we fix it ?" " Oh, that is very easy. There are two matrasses on the bedstead ; we will lay one down here the bolster will do for pillows there are some nice clean sheets, and a spread. We will just take that side curtain and turn it round, and pin it to the window curtain, and then you see how easy it will be to have two beds and two bed-rooms. You and I will sleep on the floor, and Charles and Walter shall sleep on the bed." ISTo; that would never do. Charles and Walter would both sleep on the floor, and their wives should sleep where they always had, together on the bed. That the girls would not listen to. They were their guests, and they must sleep on the bedstead that was the state bed the bed of honor Walter had never slept on the floor in his life. Then the men put in their argument, and thus the question stood, until it seemed likely that both beds would re main unoccupied. Finally, it was settled by " compromise." Charley whispered Jeannette, and Jeannette answered aloud, ; "Why not? So we will. Husbands and wives should sleep together. Always together. What business has a man sleeping with anybody else?" with another woman she thought. So it was settled how they should sleep. Then there was another contention where, that seemed likely to be as interminable as the first. Finally, Athalia settled it. She LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 177 took Walter by the arm and said, " Come," leaving Jeannetto and Charley with the light, " because they were married longer and were more used to it." Walter was soon asleep. Athalia lay listening to a low conversation between Charles and Jeannette, in which sho caught, now and then, a word. " The West new country log cabin little farm cows, and pigs, and chickens and a baby " she thought that and she thought how happy they will be, and how much better off than here in the city. So she was not at all surprised when Jeannette told her, in the morning, what they had concluded to do. In three days they did it. When I was in their little cabin, and heard from the lips of Jeannette several things that I should not have known other wise, I found that they had realized all their hopes, for they had not built them high. And when she found that I knew Athalia, how she did hang upon -my arm, and insist that I should stay all night, and sleep in the little bed-room where the rose-bush I had so much admired, everhung the window, and tell her the story, how she got along, and what became of her, and all about it. Shall I begin at the beginning, or in the middle, or at the end? " Oh, at the beginning, to be sure. Where is she now ! Is she alive ?" That is it; you are a true woman. You tell me to begin at the beginning, and then the very first question you ask is about the end. I see you are impatient, and so I will gratify 8* 178 HOT CORN. you. I will begin at the beginning of the end, and finish in the middle. Athalia, poor girl, she is " Oh, don't say that not dead !" No, no ; she is alive and very well, and almost as pretty as ever. She is a widow, and lives in New York, and keeps a hoarding house, and is making a comfortable living. " A widow ! why, where is her husband ?" Why, where should he be ? if she is a widow, he must be either dead or in California ; it is about all the same in New York. "What did he die of?" The same disease that kills nine-tenths of his class mm ! " Oh, dear, and he such a fine young man. I would have married him myself, if it had not been for Charley. Well, I have one great blessing ; if Charles is not so rich as Walter, he is as sober &s a judge. Oh, I forgot to tell you that he is almost one ; he is Justice of the Peace. But do tell me, did Walter leave her rich ? The Morgans were very wealthy." Ah, I see now ; Athalia never told of their failure, and how all their wealth vanished like morning dew ; that all those five dollar carpets, thousand dollar mirrors, and single chairs that cost more than all your neat furniture, were sold under the hammer to pay debts ; and that Walter had not a cent in the world, and that he lived a long time upon the money which she earned, with, " ' Work, work, work. From weary chime to chime,' LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK 179 Through many a day and many a night, ' As prisoners work for crime ;' until she sighed and sung : " l Oh, for only one short hour, To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal.' " " And did Walter do nothing ?" What could he do? He knew nothing had never learned to do anything ; besides that, how could he take to any occupation, when he had always been above work, and free from want. If his father had put him into his counting- room with old Precision, he might have been a good book keeper, and could now have had employment upon a salary. As it was, he was a useless, worthless member of society. His father had been asked, if he did not think of putting Walter into some situation where he would learn to help him self, but his answer was, " that is my business ;" and there ended the matter. Finally, after some months of idleness, supported by his young wife's toil, a few friends concluded to advance him a .thousand dollars, to go South, where, as he thought, he could make a fortune ; and if he got away where nobody knew him, he could go into some sort of business. Athalia went with him. They landed at Savannah, put up at the best hotel, four dollars a day, and wine and cigars, upon an average, six more. It was easy to calculate just how long a thousand 180 HOT CORN. dollars would last at that business. Athalia pined in idle ness ; of course, a young "Northern merchant's " wife could not use her needle in a city where a lady, of any pretensions to fashion, would not help herself to a glass of water if the pitcher stood at her eldow. A slave, always ready at her bidding, must be called to wait upon " young missus." It did not take Walter long to form new acquaintances ; besides, he met with several of his old college chums, and so it was a day here and a night there, upon this plantation and that ; of course, his pretty wife was always welcome, so long as nobody knew that she was a sewing girl. That secret leaked out at last, and then " What then ?" Then those who had courted and fawned around the rich merchant's wife, and thought she was the prettiest and best bred woman, and most intelligent, they had ever met with, and the most modest and most amiable " So she was. I never saw her equal." Nor they either but then she was a sewing girl, when he married her perhaps never was married. That was finally annexed by envious, malicious, jealous rivals, who felt her superiority, and how much more she was admired by the gentlemen than they were. All this came at last, by a true friend a slave to Athalia's ear. She had felt the chilling change, and, finally, obtained the secret from her yellow chambermaid. Her mind was instantly made up. That night she packed her trunk ; Walter, aa usual, was out " attending to business," such as young men LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 181 often attend to at midnight in some Private back room, sitting around a table, counting spots upon little bits of pasteboard. The steamboat would leave the next morning for Charles ton. She waited in vain for Walter, and then wrote a long letter, detailing all the facts and giving ample reasons for her course) and begging him to abandon his ; to settle up whal matters he had as soon as possible and follow her. Then she laid down for a short nap, with orders to Mary to wake her if Mr. Morgan came in, and if not, to call her in time for the boat at any rate, and then to give him the letter. It was an impulsive step, but that was her nature. " So it was. She always thought and acted at the same moment ; and almost always right." In one week she was back in her old room, which she had let temporarily during her absence. In one week more she had an additional room and a few girls at work for her at dress-making. She issued her little card, sent it around to old customers, and got some new ones, and all the work that she could do. In three months she had ceased to pay rent for furniture ; she had bought and paid for it, and was making weekly deposits of little sums in the savings bank. Then her hus band came back. Where his thousand dollars had gone you may judge, when I tell you that Athalia had to go and redeem his trunk, retained on board a brig for his passage. He could not go himself for it, he was sick ; with what complaint you may easily judge ; I shall not tell you, as he did not tell his wife, until she too was sick, and in her ignorance, neglected 182 HOT CORN. to call a physician, until so bad that she was laid up from work, and of course lost custom. How her little store melted under this accumulation of expense! Finally, they got agoing again, and she persuaded him to get into some kind of employment. What could he do? There was but one " genteel " mark the word business that he knew of. He became a bar keeper. He had one regular customer. It was Walter Morgan ! Down hill is an easy road. He took it. Athalia soon found some of her best customers dropping off. " What was the cause ?" There were two. In the first place Walter had been the means of getting a notorious courtezan to give her custom to his wife. He brought her there and introduced her as Mrs. Layton, formerly of South Carolina, now living with her nieces and daughter in this city. She used to come often, always in her carriage, with liveried servants. Once Athalia rode home with her to fit -a dress to " a sick young lady, that boarded with her." She found that Mrs. Layton lived in an elegant four story house, near a church and in a very respectable neighborhood in a fashionable street. Her rooms were furnished with a degree of splendor almost equal to the Morgans. Little did she suspect the character of the house, particularly as her husband had introduced her there. But there was anothei cause why she lost her best custo- tomers. In a fashionable soiree, to which Walter still found LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 183 his way occasionally, when questioned by a score of his old acquaintances, with whom he used to flirt, and every one of whom were envious and jealous of Athalia, they rallied Liin most unmercifully upon his marriage with a sewing girl, and then the base cowardly wretch rum makes such of gen tlemen declared upon his honor that he was not married. It was only a marriage of convenience. "A mistress a mistress oh ! that alters the case. And only to think we have been getting the shameless thing to make our common dresses. Well, I never will go near her again." " Nor I. Nor I. Nor I." " And that accounts for what I heard the other day, that she was seen riding home with that Madame Layton, who kfteps a house of assignation in street." " How did she know that she kept such a house !" It was Matilda Morgan, that said it. She had been there. The train once lighted, which fires the dry prairie, how*it sweeps on before the wind. It little regards who stand in the way. As little regards the slanderer, and as rapidly spreads the fire of a scandalous tongue, devouring its victims with a consuming fire. Althalia was a victim. The man who should have been her shield, had himself thrown the first dart. It had been more envenomed by a pretended female friend, who had told her all that he said. She could have forgiven him every thing else, she would not forgive him that. Things now looked dark. She was obliged to look for work among a 184 HOT CORN. class of customers where nothing but the direst necessitj would have led her. Her husband had tended bar, until his employer found that he drank up all the profits. Now he was drinking up the hard earnings of his wife. Then he began to stay out nights. Where, she could only guess. One day she sent him to pay the rent. It was the last money she had. About a week after, the landlord called for it. He had not seen Walter, had not been paid, and was very sorry for her, but he must have the rent. " Would he wait a few days ? she hoped her husband would pay it." There was a curl of derision upon his lip. What could it mean? " Fact is, Mrs. Morgan, or Miss Lovetree, or whatever your name is, I let the premises to you, and look to you for the rent. I shall not run after such a miserable drunken as Walter Morgan." She did not drop dead under this heavy blow ; she simply said, " you shall have your rent to-morrow." " Very well then ; and you may as well look for a new place too, in the course of the week." " I intend to," was her calm reply. When he was gone, she slipt on her bonnet and shawl, and thought she would take her watch and ear-rings, and a few little things, where her husband had twice taken them before, and whence she had redeemed them, after he had spent the money ; for money he would have, and if she did not give it to him, he would steal her things and pawn them. He had LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 185 done so now. All was gone, even her large Bible, the present of her dying mother. Her only alternative was to get a Jew to come and look at the furniture, and advance enough to pay the rent. On the way she thought she would take a dress home, and get the money for that. She knew it was going to a house of bad repute ; she had been obliged to work for such, and on several occasions Walter had carried them home. It was a sort of perquisite with him to get the pay for such. She looked for the dress, that too was gone. There was another to go to the same house, which she could finish in about an hour. It was her only resource for the necessities of to-morrow. At nine o'clock she took it upon her arm and went out, and with trembling step, up to the door of a mag nificent house, only one block from Broadway. As the door opened for her, half-a-dozen " up town bloods," came out " I say," said one of them, before he was out of her hearing, " I say, Fied, that is Walt. Morgan's gal, let us go back and see the fun." The voice was familiar, though the bloated countenance of the roue was not. She had heard it before. It was George Wendall. " See the fun " what could it mean ? She felt like any thing but fun. Is it fun for a man to see a woman's heart broken ? They went on, Fred remarking, " she is dev'lish pretty ; curse me if I don't try my hand there. I will walk into her affections." 186 HOT CORN. Such is the opinion of the roue" that the door of woman's affections is always open for every self-conceited puppy to walk in. Her heart was in her throat. She choked it down, and went in and inquired for Miss Nannette, and was shown up to her room. A gentleman was there, whom Nannette intro duced as Mr. Smith, from the South. He might be from the South, but Athalia knew him to be a married man, with a sweet young wife and two children, in this city. The dress was to be tried on, and Nannette began to strip off without a blush. Athalia did blush, and did object, and would not stay. " Well, then, George, go down a few minutes to the parlor, that is a good soul, she is so fastidious." No, he did not want,to be seen there ; he would go home. " Well, then, give me some money to pay for making this dress. You gave me the stuff, you might as well go the whole figure." He handed her a ten dollar bill ; she handed it to Athalia, the dress was only five remarking : " Give him the change ; I won't take but a five out of it this time." Athalia had no change. She looked at him, to be certain of her man, and remarked : " No ; I will keep the whole, and credit him the balance, on account of seven dollars he has owed me these two months, for work for his wife." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORX. 187 He stammered something about mistake not him cursed blunder and left the room. The dress fitted beautifully, and Athalia felt the soothing influence of praise for her work, and would have left happier than she came, but just then her ear caught a voice in the next rf om. She listened. A woman replied : " Yes, if you have brought any money. I have made up my mind that you shall not stay in this room another night without you give me more money." " Oh, Josephine, I have got something better than money for you. Look here." " Oh ! you are a dear good fellow, after all. What a pretty watch, and what a dear little locket. That will do. Now you may stay all night, and to-morrow we will go down to Coney Island again, and have a good time. I'll pass for your wife, you know." There was a door opening out of Nannette's room into a bath-room, and out of that, a window into the room where the voices came from. It was but a thought ; thoughts are quick, and so were her's, and the step that took her up on a chair, and her hand up to the curtain, which was the only thing preventing her from seeing who owned that voice. She looked. What a sight for a wife ! She saw, what she knew before, but would be doubly sure, that the voice was her husband's. She knew that she knew that he was giving her watch, and the locket which contained the donor's like ness, that of a dear brother lost at sea a. treasure that she 188 HOT CORN. would not part with sooner than her own heart to a woman to whom he had before given money money that came, drop by drop, distilled from her heart's blood, through the alembic of her needle ; and she would see what woman would not what wife could resist the opportunity of seeing ? she could not what the woman looked like, who could displace her in her husband's affections. The first sight she caught was her Bible upon the table. " What could she want of that ?" She was sometimes religious a great many of them are, and read the Bible to find some text to justify their own course. They are also visited by clergymen, who prefer those of " a religious turn of mind." Then this Bible was elegantly bound, and very valuable. Then she saw her watch in the hands of a woman with ugly red hair, with dull, voluptuous eyes, thick lips, ugly teeth, a little snub nose, and a gaunt awkward figure, forming altogether one of the ugliest looking women, Athalia thought, that she had ever seen. The words burst involuntarily from her lips : " Oh, how ugly !" "She is uglier than she looks," said Nannette. "She has ruined more men than any other woman in the city. She has kicked that fool out half a dozen times because he did not give her more money. I should not wonder now, if he has stolen his wife's watch to give that wretch." And this was the woman that Athalia had been toiling for her husband to pamper. Oh, how she did pray to die! LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 180 Nannette, when she learned the facts, was furious. She would have gone in and torn her heart out. She said she never did have anything to do with a mar ried man, if she knew it. George had lied to her, and never should see her but once again once, to get her blessing. Athalia was calm. She sat down a few minutes, to recover from this last stab in the heart, and then said she would look once more and then go home. She did look, and saw her husband locked in the arms of that red-headed fury. Then she went home ; she did not go to bed ; she worked all night putting her things in order. Next day, at ten o'clock, a red flag was fluttering at her window, and while Walter and his mistress were going down the Bay, her furniture was " going, going, gone," to the highest bidder. At sundown she was homeless, friendless, worse than hus- bandless, alone, in the streets of New York 1 190 HOT CORN. CHAPTER XI. LIFE AT THE FIVE POINTS. MADALINA, THE RAG-PICKER's DAUGHTER. 14 Youth is bought more oft, than begged or borrowed." Some wounds do never heal. ALTHOUGH all iny scenes are connected, and bear some relation one to the other, yet they are not continuous. Like the Panorama of Niagara, we must go back, cross over, look up, look down, first from this point of view, then from that, to see all the scenes of that wonder of wonders. So here, where a mighty torrent rushes on, sweeping a multitude down the great cascade, we have to look at scene after scene, before we can join them all together into one panoramic view. Our scenes, too, are as real and life-like as those. Sometimes a tree here, a flower there, then a little spray, then a cloud, or the natural color, a little heightened to give effect, and make the picture more vivid ; but the rocks and rushing torrent, the real foundation of the picture, are all as nature made them* So it is with my present panoramic view of "Life Scenes in New York." Again I shift the scene. Still you will find characters that LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 191 you have met before, will meet again. It is a talc of sorrow, but a tale of truth. A little girl was weeping there, Pearl drops of bitter tears, And hope with her was sleeping whera She spent her youthful years ; Her useless life was fleeing fast, Her only school the street ; The future, gloomy shadows cast, Where e'er she set her feet. Her ev'ry day had one sad end, Her ev'ry night the same ; Or sick, or well, she had no friend, 'Twere worthy of that name. A mother gave this child her birth, Or else she had not been ; But Judas like that mother's worth She sold her child to sin ! For gold she gave her child to sin, For gold her child betray'd ; What gold would you, dear mother, win, Your own to thus degrade ? What gold would you to others give, From sin such others save ? Though gold is good to those who live^ 'Tis useless in the grave. Poor Madalina claims a tear, From those her story read 192 HOT CORIT. Pray stop and pay that tribute here, It is her only meed. Now con ter story careful o'er, Her life was one of grief, She needs not now your pity more To others give relief. I suppose there are some who will turn away in disgust from the double title of this chapter. What, they will say, can " Life at the Five Points " have in it that is interesting to me, who lounge on silk brocatelle, and look down upon beg gar girls and rag-pickers disgusting objects through lace curtains that cost more, to every window, than would furnish a hundred families in that locality with better furniture than they now possess ? No doubt you will turn away in disgust at the very sight of the title of " The Rag-picker's Daughter." Yet you may find something in the character of " Madalina," which will make you love the name. I should not wonder, in some of my walks through the city in future years, to hear that pretty name spoken to some sweet child, yet to be born in rose- perfumed chamber. Then pass not by my tale of one so lowly. See how sweet is a cup of cold water to the dying. Read. " Sir," said the door-keeper, to Mr. Pease, one night, " little Madalina, the beggar girl, is at the door, crying bitterly, and says she wants to see you." " I suppose," said the tired missionary, " I answered hastily, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 193 perhaps petulantly, for I had been very much engaged all day. Tell her to go away, I cannot see her to-night ; it is eleven o'clock, and I am very tired. She must come to-mor row." The poor fellow turned upon his heel to go away, but as he did so, the glimpse of his hand and motion of the coat sleeve across his eyes, told a story. " Tom," said Mr. P., " Tom, my dear boy, what is the mat ter !" Tom did not turn round as he had been taught, and usually did, so as to look him full in the face when he answered ; in fact he did not answer readily ; there was a choking sensation in his utterance which prevented the words from coming forth distinctly. Now, this boy had been but a short time in " the Home," and perhaps a more squalid, wretched, drunken boy, cannot be found in the purlieus of the Five Points, than he was when he was almost literally picked out of the gutter, as he had been once before he came here finally, in the way you have already seen. Once before, he had actually been dragged out of the filthiest hole in Anthony street, brought in, washed and dressed, before he came to, so as to be conscious of the change that had come over him. Then he was brought back again to his low degradation, by just such wretches and ways of the wicked as were brought to bear upon poor Reagan, and will be upon many others, while the destroyer is permitted to walk abroad like a pestilence at noon-day. Now this outcast, who had cared for nothing human, not even himself, stood vainly I) 19i HOT CORN. trying to choke down his grief for the sorrows of a little beg gar girl. Were the reminiscences of one, almost as low down in the scale of humanity, running through his mind one who, after having been herself lifted up, had exerted an influence upon him to his salvation ? The tired missionary forgot his fatigue. " Tom," said he, springing up, " I will go and see what is the matter. Who is this Madalina ?" " She is an Italian rag-picker's daughter, sir they live in Cow Bay I used to lodge with them sometimes. That is, the mother picks rags, and the father goes with the hand- organ and monkey." " Ah, that is where the little tambourine girl came from that we have now in school There is a quarrel, I suppose, and the little girl has come for me." Tom went down stairs, with a heart as light as his step, " which," said Mr. P., " I followed, I must acknowledge, rather heavily, for I did not quite relish the idea of being wakened out of a comfortable evening nap, to do police duty in Co\* Bay, and I fear there might not have been quite as much suavity in my tone and manner towards the rag-picker's daughter, as we ought to use when speaking to those poor children, for I recollect the words were, l What do you want V instead of, * What can I do for you, my child come tell me, and don't cry any more.' " " I don't want to be a beggar girl. I want to be like my cousin Juliana." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. ]05 " Juliana Juliana. I don't know her." " It is the little tambourine girl, sir," said Tom. " Oh, I see now. Juliana is your cousin, then. Come here Madalina ; let me look at you, and I will talk about it. Did Juliana tell you to come here ?" " Yes, sii ; she has told me a good many times, but they would not let me. I am afraid to stay there to-night, they are drinking and fighting so bad." " I thought so ; and you want me to go and stop them ; is that it ?" " No, sir. I want to stay here." " Oh, a poor little girl flying for fear from her own parents, because they are drinking and fighting so." He drew her forward into the light, and looked upon as fine a set of features as he ever saw. Her hair, which, as a matter of course, was black almost as the raven's wing, and subsequently, when cleaned of dirt and its accompaniments, became almost as glossy, overshadowed a pair of the keenest, yet mildest, black eyes I ever met with. Her skin was dark, partly natural, and partly the effect of the sun upon its unwashed, unsheltered surface. Her teeth, oh ! what a set of teeth! which, she afterward told me, she kept clean by a habit she had of eating charcoal. She was about twelve years old, slim form, rather tall, but delicate structure. Her dress consisted of a dirty cotton frock, reaching a little below the knees, and nothing else. Barefooted, bareheaded, almost naked, at the hour of midnight, of a cold March night, a little innocent child, wandering through the streets of New 196 HOT CORN. York, vainly plying the words, " Please give me a penny, sir," to well-fed, comfortably-dressed men, whose feelings have grown callous by constantly hearing such words from such objects, to whom to give is not to relieve, but rather encour age to continue in the pursuit of such ill-gotten means of prolonging life, without any prospect of benefit to themselves or their fellow-creatures. " Then you don't want to beg, Madalina ! Why not ?" " Because people push me, and curse me, and to-day one man kicked me right here, sir." And she laid her hand upon her stomach, and a little groan of anguish and accusation against the unfeeling monster who had done the deed, went to the recording angel, and was set down in the black cata logue of rum-selling crimes, for a day of retribution yet to come. " Kicked you ! What for ? Were you saucy ?" "No, sir; I am never saucy. My mother says if I am Wicy, men won't give me anything. I must be very quiet, and not talk any, nor -answer any questions." " Then how came he to kick you ?" " I don't know, sir ; I did not say a word, I only went into one of those nice rooms in Broadway, where they have such beautiful glass bottles and tumblers, and looking-glasses, and such a sight of all sorts of liquor, and where so many fine gentlemen go and sit, and talk, and laugh, and drink, and smoke ; and I just went along and held out my hand to the gentlemen, when one of them told me to open my mouth, and shut my eyes, and hold out my hand, and he would give me LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 197 a shilling. Now look what he did he put his cigar all burning in my hand, and shut it up and held it there." Horrible ! she opened her hand, and showed three fingers and a palm all in a blister. "Oh, sir, that is nothing to what another one did. He put a great nasty chaw of tobacco in my mouth, and then I could not help crying ; then the man who sells the liquor, he ran out from behind the counter, and how he did swear, and caught me by the hair, and pulled me down on the floor, and kicked me so I could hardly get away. But he told me if I did not he would set the dogs on me and tear me to pieces." " What did you go into such a place for ?" " I had been all day in the streets and only got three pennies, and I wanted to go home." " Well, why did you not go 2" " My mother said if I did not get sixpence to-day she would whip me, and so I went to that place. I did not think such nice dressed gentleme*" would do so. What if they should have to beg some day ! My father used to dress as fine as they when he kept the Cafe de VImperator" " And where have you been since they abused you so ?" "I crept up into a cart in Pearl street; I was so sick, after the tobacco and the kick, for it was very hard." " Could you not get home ?" " No, sir. Besides, what if I could, and my mother had been drinking. She would kick me again, perhaps." " What, then, are you going to do to-night ? You cannot sleep in the street ; it is too cold." 198 HOT CORN. " Won't you let me sleep ?" " With your cousin Juliana ?" "No, sir, not that; she is clean, and I I wish I was, Won't you let me sleep on the floor?" " You shall have a place to sleep to-night ; and to-morrow, if your mother is willing, you shall come and live with your cousin Juliana, and be dressed as she is, and learn to sew ; and when you get big enough" " Her mother will prostitute her, as she did her older sister to a miserable old pimp for ten dollars." " Tom, Tom, what is that ?" " The truth, sir. Have I ever told you a lie since I have been in your house ?" " Well, well, Tom, take Madalina to the housekeeper, and give her somewhere to sleep to-night, and to-morrow morning you shall go to her mother and see what she will do." " Lord, sir, I must go to-night. She will be off" with her hook and basket, poking in the gutters after rags before the stars go to bed. These rag-pickers are early birds. I have known them travel four or five miles of a morning, to get to their own walk." " Own walk. What is that ?" " All the city is divided up among them. Each must keep to his own walk. If one should trespass upon another, he would get a wet cloth over his mouth some ni^ht when he was asleep, and nobody would know or care how he died." " The coroner's jury would inquire into the matter." " Coroner ! fiddlesacks ! I beg your pardon, sir, but I did LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 199 not mean to answer you that way, though I did know that coroner's juries care the least of anybody how such fellows die. The verdict would be ' accidental death,' ' found dead,' ' died of visitation of Providence ;' or, if the murderers got a chance, which they Anight do easy enough, to chuck the body in the dock, the verdict would be ' found drowned,' no matter if he had a hole in his head as big as my fist." " They could not carry the body from this neighborhood to the river without being detected." " Could'nt they. How did Ring-nosed Bill and Snakey Jo carry Pedlar Jake from Gale Jones's to Peck-slip and send him afloat ?" " What, dead ?" "Yes, sir, they put too much opium in his rum to get him to sleep, so they could rob him, and he did not wake up, and so they walked him off." " Walked him off, how 2" " They stood him up and fastened one of their legs to his each side, so that when they stepped his feet travelled too, and so they went along, talking to him and cursing him for being BO drunk, till they got to the dock." " Where were the Police, do they never notice such things ?" " Lord, no sir, they steps round the corner when they sees a drunken man coming, particularly if he has one of his friends with him." " And do you think, Tom, that the rag-pickers would mur der a fellow-creature who trespassed, as they call it, upon their grounds, without compunction of conscience ?" 200 HOT CORX. "Conscience, sir, what do they know about conscience? The ' Padre' keeps their conscience." " But the law, is there no law in this Christian City ?" " Law, pshaw ! what has your book-law to do with rag pickers' law 1" " True enough ; or * father confessors,' either." The next morning Tom made his report. At first it was a positive refusal. " She can make sixpence a day, and pick up enough to eat." " Well then she shall pay you sixpence a day. She can soon learn to sew and earn more than that. Juliana does it every day." " But she shall not stay there nights. They will make a Protestant of her." " That was not the sticking point," says Tom, " if she stays here, she cannot make a of her there. The best I could do was to let her go home nights and come days. That is 6etter than nothing. The poor little thing won't have to go begging, and be burned, and kicked, and vomited with filthy tobacco cuds, and then whipped if she don't bring home six pence every night for her mother to buy rum with. If she cannot earn it here at first, I will, and we will get her away entirely, after a while." Noble Tom ! Glorious good boy ! "What a heart ! How long is it since thou wert as one of them, kicked and cuffed, and groveling drunk in the gutter ? Who thought then that thy rags and filth covered such a heart ? Who knew of the virtuous lessons given thee by a pious mother ; and how, after LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 201 years 'of forge tfulness, sin, wretchedness, misery, that that good seed would vegetate and bring forth such sweet flowers and good fruit, as we are now tasting in these good deeds and kind words. What if nine of the fallen whom we lift up, fall back again ? so that one stand, who'shall refuse to lend a helping hand? Let us lift up the lowly and make the haughty humble. Why should they do evil ? Again the messenger went up to the Great Recorder, and a double deed of mercy was written down. Wild Maggie, thy sins are forgiven. Look at thy work. This is the poor outcast boy of whom you said, "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." The work is more than half done. Madalina, though still suffering from her brutal treatment, was a happy girl when she found that she was not to be driven out to beg in the streets. But she could not understand why her mother wanted her to sleep at home. Tom could. " Too young ! Pooh ! before she is a year older, she will be lost." Too true ! Before she had been in " the Home " six months, she had learned to read, write, and work, and had grown much in stature and fine looks. Then she would have been placed in some good family, but her mother would not consent. She still com plained of her breast, and had frequent turns of vomiting. She always felt worse in the morning, "because," she said, " that was such a dreadful place to sleep." 9* 202 HOT CORN. Sometimes she did not come for a few days ; her mother made her stay at home and sew. She had learned to work,, and her services were worth more at that than beg ging. One night she came in, in great haste, crying. " What is the matter, Madalina ?" " My mother has had an offer for me." " An offer for you. What is that ?" Tom looked daggers. " I told you so." " What is it, my good girl. Tell me all about it." " My mother bid me go out with her this evening, both of us dressed in our best. She said she had an offer for me, and was going to meet the man in Duane street. " 4 What does the man want of me, mother ?' said I. u ' Oh, he will make a fine lady of you, and you will live with him.' " ' But -I don't want to live with him ; I had rather live with Mr. Pease, at "the Home." I had rather live where Tom is, for Tom is good to me.' " Young love's first happy dream ! " But we went on, and I held my head down, and felt very bad. By-and-by I heard my mother say, * Here she is,' and I looked up a little, and saw two gentlemen that is, they were clothed like gentlemen and directly one spoke to the other. " ' I say, Jim, she will do ; give the old woman the money, and let us take her up to Kate's.' " Mercy on me, that voice ! I felt that sore spot in my breast grow more and more painful. I looked up ; it was the LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 203 man who kicked me ; the other was the man who put the tobacco in my mouth." " What did you do ?" " I stood a little behind my mother while she held out her hand for the money, and when their eyes were turned I ran. I only heard them say, ' Why, damn her, she is gone.' Yes, I was gone, and here I am. Oh, I am so sick and so faint! do let me lay down, and don't let those men have me. Oh dear, the thought of it will kill me !" So it did. A cruel blow had fallen upon a tender plant. The beggar girl might not have felt it. The little seamstress did. A taste of virtue, civilization, Christianity, friendship, love, had given the food of sin and shame a hated taste. Sold by a mother to a libidinous brute to a miserable rum-selling, worse than rum-drinking wretch, who wears gentlemanly garments, and kicks, burns, and gags little beggar girls. It was too much for human nature to bear, and it sunk under this last blow, worse than the first. Madalina went to bed with a raging fever a nervous pros tration. All that kindness and skill could do, was done for the poor sufferer ; but what could we do for the body, when the heart was sick ? Next morning her mother came and insisted that she should go home. They begged, pleaded, and promised in vain ; go she must. " Never mind," said Madalina, " it will be only for a little, little while. I shall be wellat least all will be well with me .1 204 HOT CORN. in a few days. I cannot endure this pain in my breast. You will come and see .me. Good bye. Tom, you will ? It was an honest, manly tear that Tom turned away to hide, Poor fellow, he need not have been ashamed of it. Such is nature. " She is worse, sir," said Tom, one morning, " and no won der. I wish you would go and see her ; she wants to see you once more. Such a place to be sick in ! oh, dear ! how did I ever sleep there ? I wish you would go with me to-night r about ten o'clock, when they are all in. You will see life as it is." " Very well, Tom, I will go. Gall for me at ten, or when you are ready." II was my fortune to drop in upon that very evening, and form one of the company to that abode of misery, that home of the city poor, so that I am able to describe it in my own language. The place where Madalina lived, is a well known Five Points locality, called " Cow Bay." As you go up that great Broadway of wealth, fashion, lux ury, and extravagance of this great city, from the Park and its marble halls of justice, you will pass another great marble front it is the palace of trade, where the rich are clothed every day in fine linens, when they go " shopping at Stewart's." Further along are great marts, where velvet coverings for tho floor are sold ; for there are some who have never trod upon bare boards. You need not look down Duane street, unless you have a curiosity to see the spot where a miserable mother LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 206 would sell the virtue of her child to a wretch whose trade ia seduction. Don't look into that little old wooden shanty at the corner of Pearl street ; it is a " family grocery." The little ragged girl you see coming out with a rusty tin coffee-pot, has not been there for milk for her sick mother her father is in the hospital on the opposite side of the way his arm was broken in a " family quarrel." You will pass the Broad way Theatre before you reach the next corner, with its sur roundings of fashionable "saloons," into any of which you may go without fear of losing caste among genteel brandy- smashers and wine-bibbers. Perhaps you will be amused with a small play, such as burning, kicking, or vomiting a little beggar girl ; for nice young men are fond of theatrical amusements. Do not go into that place of " fashionable resort," the theatre, if it is a hot evening, for it is worse ven tilated than the black-hole of Calcutta, and if the fetid air does not breed a fever, it will breed a feverish thirst, which will tempt you to quench it in potations of poison. Probably that is why it was tlus built. A few steps beyond is Anthony street. Stop a moment here, and look up and down the great thoroughfare of New- York before you leave it. A hundred pedestrians pass you every minute ; almost without an exception, every one of them richly dressed men and women, smiling in joy and happiness. Here is an exception, certainly. A woman in poverty's garb, with a bundle of broken boards and old timbers, from a demolished building, that would be- a load for a pack-horse. She is followed by two little boys, with each a bundle, crush- 206 HOT CORN. ing their young years into early decrepitude. They have brought their heavy loads all the long way from Murray street. They turn down Anthony ; look where they go. If they live in that street, it cannot be far, for there, in plain view, stands a large frame house, corner-wise towards you, right in the middle of the street. No, it only looks so, it is beyond the end of it. Yet look, note it well, the corner of that house so plain in view, pointing towards you, is one of the world-wide- known Five Points of New- York. " What ! not so near Broadway, right in plain sight of all who wear silks and broadcloth, and go up and down that street every day ? Surely that is not the place where all those bad, miserable, poor outcasts live, that the newspapers talk so much about." " The very spot, my dear lady." " Really, this must be looked to. It is quite too bad to think that place is so near our fashionable street, and in sight too. I thought it was away off somewhere the other side of town. If I thought it would do any good, I would let Peter take a few dollars and some old clothes, and go down with them to-morrow." " Try it, madam. Better go yourself. Let Peter drive you down ; see for yourself what has been done and what is yet to do. Lend your hand to cure that eye-sore, which will pain you every time you pass, for you cannot shut it out of sight, now you know where it is ; so near your daily walk or drive to Stewart's, or nightly visit to the theatre, or weekly visit to the church. Go to-morrow ; don't put it off till next week." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 20^ In the meantime, reader, let us follow the woman and two boys with their heavy burden, on their homeward way to night. We will go and see where they live. So I followed down Anthony, past some very old rat- harbor houses, filled with human beings, almost as thick as those quadrupeds burrow in a rotten wharf; so on they go across Elm ; now they stand a moment on the edge of Centre, for one of the little boys has taken hold of his mother's dress to pull her back- for she cannot look up with her load with a sudden cry of, " Stop, old woman ! Don't you see the car is coming ? Why, you are as blind as a brick. That is black Jim a-driving, and he had just as soon drive over the likes of you as eat. Hang you for a fool, han't you got no sense, old stupid ? There now, run like thunder, blast ye, for here comes another of the darned cars run, I tell you !" She did run with her great load, till she almost dropped under its overwhelming weight. Why should she thus labor thus expend so much strength to so little purpose ? She knew no other way to live. Nobody gave her remunerative labor for strong hands; nobody took those two stout boys, and set them to till the earth, or taught them how to create bread, and yet they must eat, and so they prowl about the pulled- down houses, snatching everything they can carry away a sort of permitted petty larceny, that teaches those who practice it how to do bigger deeds ; and those old timbers they split up into kindling wood and peddle through the streets. Poor uncared for fellow creatures; working and stealing to escape starvation living, for what ? running to escape being 208 HOT CORN. run over by an unfeeling driver who cared just as much for them as for so many dogs. On they went, down Anthony street ; and I followed, deter mined to see the home of this portion of the city poor. It was but one block further only one little space beyond this great, wide, open, railroad street, whose thoughtless thousands daily go up and down from homes of wealth to wealth-producing ships and stores, little thinking of the amount of human misery within a stone's throw of the rails on which they glide swiftly along. One block further, and the street opens into a little, half acre sort of triangular space, sometimes dignified with the name of " park," but why, those who know can only tell, for it has no fence, no grass, and but a dozen miserable trees ; 'tis lumbered up with carts and piles of stones, and strings of drying clothes, and scores of unwashed specimens of young humanity, whose home is in the dirt, whether in the street or parents' domicil. Here let us stop and look around. A very short street, only one block across the base of the " park," runs to the right from where we stand, past the " Five Points House of Indus try," to Cross street. This is the most notorious little street in New York. Its name is Little Water street. It lead from the " Old Brewery " to " Cow Bay." Who that has lived long in this city, or read its history, particularly that portion of it written by Dickens, has not heard of the " Old Brewery ?" It is not there now. That awful den of crime, poverty, and wretched drunken misery has been pulled down, and in its LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 20f place a substantial brick edifice, in which is a chapel and school-room, and home of another missionary, has been erected by the noble, generous efforts of the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, of the Methodist Church. The old tenants have been driven out or reformed. How different, too, are the present occupants of that large brick pile in Little Water street, from those who filled its numerous rooms before the missionary came there. Every room was a brothel or a den of thieves, or both combined. Now it is a house of prayer a home for the homeless a place of refuge for midnight wandering little beggar girls. Before us lies the misnamed, neglected triangle, called a park. At the further end is the frame house that we see so plainly as we look down Anthony street from Broadway. At the left, as though it were' a continuation of Little Water street, lies that notorious Five Points collection of dens of misery, Cow Bay. It is a cul-de-sac, perhaps thirty feet wide at the mouth, narrowing, with crooked, uneven lines, back to a point about a hundred feet from the entrance. Into this court I tracked the kindling-wood-splitters, and threaded my way among the throng of carts and piles of steaming garbage ; elbowing my way along the narrow side-walk, and up a flight of broken, almost impassable steps, I reached the first floor hall of one of the houses, just in time to see that great load of wood and its bearer toiling up a narrow, dark, broken stair way, which I essayed to climb ; but just then, from the room on the left, at the foot of the stairs, there came such a piercing, murder -telling, woman's shriek, that I started back, grasped 210 HOT CORN. my stout cane, determined to brave the worst for the rescue, made one step, pushed open the door, creaking with a horrid grating upon its rusty hinges, and stood in the presence of an Eve, before the fall, in point of clothing, but long, long after that in point of sin. As I entered the open door, she sprung towards it ; her husband caught her by the hair, and drew her back, with no gentle hand or word. " Let me go, let me go help ! he wants to murder me ; let me go help, help, help !" I did help, but it was help to the poor man, for she turned upon him with the fury of a tiger, scratching and tearing his face and clothes, and then settling with a grasp upon his throat, which produced the death-rattle of suffocation. A strong silk handkerchief served the hand-cuff's place, and to bind hands and feet together ; after which she lay quietly upon a little straw and rags, in one corner, the only articles of furniture in the room, except a bottle, broken cup, and something that looked as though it once had been female apparel. " Is this your wife ?" " She was." "What is she now?" " The devil's fury. You saw what she is." " Do you live with her ?" " I did for seven years." " Did she drink then ?" " Sometimes not so bad." "DidyoudrinV" LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 211 " Well, none to hurt. I kept a coffee house." "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 nobody 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 pawnbroker'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 God, he is dead !" What little I could do or say to relieve such heart-crush ing 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 Mis sionary, for here lived little Madalina. 212 HOT CORN. The second floor was divided into three rooms. We looked in as we passed. 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." llere 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-split ters 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 y6ur 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 H supply, while the time of gleaning was good. Then it has to be carried down to the court, to be split up into kindlings, LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 213 and then again carried up for storage. How so many find room to live in such narrow space, if our readers would learnt 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 passage, 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 dese crated that this child, with sylph-like form and angel face, must call this room her home. 'Tis only for a little while I 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, groan ing 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 space. 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. 214 HOT CORN. " 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 hun gry, 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 win dow. 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 aa play the organ and lead the monkey. I looked about, and counted six men or stout bovs, and eight women and girls, besides several children, monkeys, LIFE S DENES IN NEW YORK. 215 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 simmer ing 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 01 worse brandy ; but generally speaking, this class 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 space of ten feet, ten human beings, big and little, of both sexes, 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 cat- HOT CORN. alogue 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 sn^ell 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 pilfer ing, 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 handker chief, 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 tne face of the suffering innocent. She had said, "I am so thirsty, and nothing to drink but uasty, warm tea." Directly, Tom was missing L rr v-J THK UKATH-BKU OF MAIMUN A. Ptt* 217 LIFE SCENES IN JTEW YORK. 21 7 Now lie was back again, and there lie stood with a nice, white pitcher in one hand, full of ice water, and a glass 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 ?" It was an angelic smile. It was a sight worth days and nights of earnest seeking, and yet, Oh, how cheaply purchased. Only one glass 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 illustration of the principal 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 industiy. 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 10 218 HOT CO UN. to a comfoitable 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 chil dren 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. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 219 " 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 irfoment, 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 passed away, but I fear there was an unforgiving spirit in my heart ; and if the foot which crushed that tender flower had been there then, per haps 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 man 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 t/iese streets at this midnight hour ; now we have no fear. Good night." 220 HOT CORN. " 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 build ing which fills a whole square, looking down gloomily upon the multitude 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. " It is but a step from the palace to the tomb." True, and so it seemed this night ; for ere I had fairly realized the fact that I had passed over the short step of two squares between the City prison the Tombs and Broadway, I stood looking into that great palace hall on the corner of Franklin street, known as Taylor's Saloon. Was ever eating and drinking temptation more gorgeously fitted up? How the gilt and carving, and elaborate skill of the painters art glitter in the more than sun-light splendor of a hundred sparkling gas-burners. Are the windows open ? No. The ten-feet long plates of glass are so clear from speck, it seems as though it were open space. Look in. It is mid* LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 221 night. Is all still ? Do the tired servants sleep ? No. They are flitting up and down, with noiseless tread, to furnish late suppers and health-destroying luxuries,. to a host of men and gayly dressed women. 'Tis the palace of luxury 'tis but a step from the palace to the tombs 'tis but a step beyond to the home of " the Rag Picker's Daughter" 'tis here that the first step is taken which leads to infamy like that of that daughter's mother. 'Tis here that he, whose trade is seduc tion, walketh unsharaed at noonday, or prowls at midnight, to select his victims. 'Tis here that mothers suffer young daugh ters to come at this untimely midnight hour to drink " light wines," or eat ice cream, drugged with passion-exciting vanilla. " Ha, ha, ha !" laughed the fiend as we passed on, " rag- picking mothers are not the only ones who traffic away the virtue of young daughters in this rum-flooded city." , " What," said I, as I passed on, "if all the mis-spent shil lings, worse than wasted in this palace, were dropped into the treasury of-the House of Jndustry ?" " Cow Bay, Farlow's Court, and Rotten Row, would be no more, and my occupation would be gone," said the fiend. " It must not be. Dry up rum, and murder would < easo a "id misery have no home here. It must not be. Our trade is in danger; I must alarm my friends !" And he clattered his cloven foot down the steps of a near by cellar, where there were loud sounds of blasphemous words, the noise of jingling glasses, and much wrangling, amid which I heard female voices in one of the "private rooms," and then an order for more wine then I heard old 222 . HOT CORK. cloven foot say, "give them a bottle of two-and-sixpenny cider, they are so drunk now they wont know the odds." Then I understood why the fiend said " our trade " it is one which none else than such delight in. I listened again. There was an awful string of oaths coining up out of the infernal regions, where men and women street-walkers were getting drunk upon alcohol, carbonic acid, and cider, mixed into three dollar bottles of " wine " pure champagne. u Give me my pocket-book, you " I cannot repeat the horrid expletives. Why does a man call a woman with whom he associates, such vile names? Why does the woman retort upon him that he is the son of a female dog, and call upon God to send his soul to perdition ? Because they have "tarried long at the wine; have looked upon it when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup." Now " it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." Now the woman has picked the pocket of her male com panion I cannot say gentleman ; now he utters those terrible oaths ; now she pours out such a stream of words as would pollute the very air where virtue lives; now there is a struggle ; now a man is stabbed by a woman ; now there is a crash of broken glass, a female street-walker is knocked down with a bottle in the hands of a man who has picked her up, and whf.se pockets she has picked ; surely it was no vision of the brain that fancied we saw the incarnate fiend go down there ; now there is a cry of murder ; now there is a rapping of clubs upon the pavement, and running of men with brass stars upon LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 223 the left breast of tlieir coats; now the police bear up a wounded man if Madalina was here her wounded breast would ache with new pain she is avenged at last ; no\v they drag up a woman, a young girl, on Ler way to the Tombs it is Julia Antrim. Drop the curtain. Surely you would not look into a prison cell, or go into the police court, or with a " vagrant," not yet fourteen years old, to Randall's Island. In some change of the scene you may see her again. Quien sabe ? " It was late next morning," said Mr. Pease, " when I woko up, and then I lay in a sort of dreamy reverie, thinking what a world of good I could do if I had plenty of means, until near ten o'clock. Finally, I heard ail uneasy step outside my door and at length it seemed to venture to approach, and then there was a timid rap." " May I come in ?" " Yes, Tom, come in. What is it, Tom 1" "If you please, sir, I want to go away to-day." '' Oh, no, Tom,- don't go away to-day, you remember what you promised to do for Madalina." " Yes, sir, and I am going to do it. I am going to see where they put her, and then I will plant a flower there, and I will water it too, and that is not all, either, that I am going to do with water before I die. I arn going to teach people to drink it, and not drink rum." " Going to see where they put her 2" " Yes, sir." " Tom, do I understand you 2" 224 HOT COB2C. " I don't know, sir, she did." "Tell me, my boy, what you mean. You seem a Terte wild, your eyes are very red. Did you sleep any last night f " Sleep! could you sleep, with those words ringing >n your ears all night ? Her last words she never spoke again." " By this time I had reached the window. I looked out. There was a " poor house hearse " in Cow Bay. A little coffin was brought down and put in, and it moved away. It carried " the Rag-picker's Daughter." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 225 CHAPTER XII. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. "Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths : Win us with honest trifles, tft betray us In deepest consequence." AT the close of chapter nine, we left Athalia standing by the side of her trunk and bandbox on the sidewalk, in front of her now empty home. After paying up the rent, and a few outstanding little bills, she had but a scanty store left in ner little purse. Of this she set apart, cr on the hearth on the stones in the back-yard, rather than go in the street again, but I won't sleep in your bed." " Well, well, come with me to my room. I will make you a bed on the floor, and you shall sleep there." " Sure, sure, Heaven will bless you ; and if you knew all you would forgive me, for I am not so bad as you tiink I am, or as that woman thinks I am." " Oh, never mind what she says, she has a good heart after all. Come, come along with me." " Did you ever see the like of it. She is going to take that thing to her room, a miserable tramper ; I dare say the house will be robbed before morning. I will pick up the spoons, and lock all the closets, before I go to bed again. Dear me, did anybody ever see such a woman as that ? She never sees a woman in rags, but she wants to pull off her shawl, and give her. I dare say, she won't let this girl out of the house to-morrow till she has all her draggled clothes washed and fixed up, and may be then will send for a car riage to take her away. It is a great plague to anybody to have such a tender heart. It is all the time getting the"m into trouble. " There, now I believe the silver is all safe, but mercy knows what will become of this night's adventure. So much for get- LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 333 ting drunk. What does anybody want to get drunk for ? There was McTravers, the brute, always getting drunk. I am sure, I love a little bitters to clear my throat in the morning, and a glass or two of wine at dinner, and a little hot stuff as I am going to bed, but as for getting drunk bah I hate anybody that gets drunk. Oh, dear, this night air, I wish I had not wasted all the hot water on the drunken dogs, for I do feel as though I wanted a dram now, and no more water what will I do ? I must take a little cold, or I shall not sleep a wink to-night. Bah, how I hate drunkards." What for, Mrs. McTravers, why should you hate your own manufacture ? Let the reader reflect ; there is a night before him. When the curtain rises, we shall see what the author saw last night 334 HOT CORN. CHAPTER XV. LITTLE KATY'S MOTHER. " A true devoted pilgrim is not weary, To measure kingdoms with his steps." WHEN Mrs. McTravers told me that Mrs. De Vrai had sent a message for me, I was too weary to measure steps along a few blocks ; but when I read those three little magic words, weariness had gone. Bridget thought so too. " He is gone, ma 7 am." Yes, he was gone, gone abroad at midnight with a merry heart. "A merry heart goes all day, Your sad one tires in a mile." A mile was soon told, and I felt no tiring. Up this step and that, peering at the blind numbers on the doors ; how could I tell one from the other ? The almanac said there should be moonshine at this hour, the clouds and rain put in their veto. No matter, the almanac had said it, and that was enough for the gas contractors. If the moon chose *o get behind a cloud, it was none of their look out. They would not light their lamps, though darkness, thick, black darkness, spread over the earth. Why should they ? It was not in the bond. So the traveller plodded on in the dark. How LIFE SCENES IN NE\N YORK. 835 could one see the numbers ? Not by city light, but by city license. Here burns a " coffee-house " lamp, where rum alone is sold. More improvident than his city fathers, this one lights up his lamp, of dark, rainy nights, whether the moon is in the almanac, or city fathers' brains. His number is plain enough. 'Tis an even number I am on the wrong side of the street. Now, cross over, and here is, 47, 49, 51, 53 this must be it, and yet it cannot be. It is a neat, two story, brick house, with basement and attic, in a row of the same sort, in a clean, wide street. It is a very unlikely place for such a home as we have seen, for the home of Little Katy's mother. How, are we deceived again ? It must be in the number ', perhaps we can not see it rightly by the dim glimmer of the grog-shop lamp. It is the first glimmer that ever came from such a place to any good. There is no bell but there is an old-fashioned iron knocker upon the door ; shall I use it ; what if it wakes up some strange sleeper and brings a fever-heated night-capped angry head out of the upper window, with hasty words, perhaps cross ones of " who is there ?" I have no familiar " it's me," to answer. No one will say, " wait a moment, dear, and I will open the door." All is still within. It were a pity to disturb the quiet sleepers for nothing, nothing but the gratification of idle cu riosity ; to make the inquiry if if Mrs. Mrs. what was her name ? Now that is gone faded from my memory as easily as it was washed away from that paper. Whom could I inquire 336 HOT CORX. for? Should I inquire for "Little Katy's Mother?" I should in all probability be told to go across the street and inquire there, where I got my liquor, upon which to get drunk. Or else, perhaps, to go home and inquire if my " mother knew /,hat I was out ;" or told that she might happen to wake up, and find her green gosling of a son gone gone out in the street to inquire after little girls' mothers no doubt she would be much alarmed. It was well that the moon was veiled, or else the man in it would have seen how sheepish I looked as I sneaked down the steps, with a weary step, that could not have gone the half a mile without tiring. How I did rejoice that no watchman was in sight to see how crest-fallen I went away and stood up in the shade of a lamp post ! A few minutes afterwards, I would have given gold for the sight of a brass star. What for 1 ? Why did I not go home ? What prompted me to keep watch at that lamp post ? My object in coming had failed. I had acted upon the momentary spur of a ner vous temperament, heated into a state of excitement by what I had seen in the early part of the evening, connected with some of the scenes of the last few weeks' exciting life, which had driven me, without consideration, to start off chasing an ignis fatuus, in the swampy, Jack o'lantern producing air of this city, and it had led me here and left me leaning against a lamp post. Was ever poor wight led into a deeper bog ? " Go home," reason told us. . If the lamp post had been a re pelling magnet, I should have gone. It was the contrary, and I could not break the attraction. A NKW-YORK STKEET SCENE. Page 34 1 LIFE SCENES IN . NEW YORK. . 337 That iron ]amp post may possess a very strong magnetic power, yet it is hardly possible, or probable nay, it is very improbable that it was that power which had drawn me hither and kept me waiting " coming events." They do " cast their shadows before," for the shadow, ana then the substance of a man came round the corner. Like half of those who walk the streets at this hour, he was drunk. 4 Just then there was a moving light in No. 53. The intoxica ted night-walker caught the sight of it just as he came opposite the lamp post, and he stopped and laughed one of those horrid laughs, which give the blood a chill and send it with a pang and fluttering fear to the heart. The last sad remains of a gentlemen no a roue, stood in the dim light of a lamp which had been to him the guide to ruin. " Ha, ha, ha, my old bird, you are astir I see. It is a long time since I have seen you, but I have caged you at last. You would not speak to me, ha, in Broadway, but I tracked you home, and now I am going to roost in the old nest, or I will blow you out of your fine feathers, my lady. Won't let me in ? Won't let me in i Then I will break in. Hold, here comes a tar. I'll keep dark while it shines." Back he went around the corner, the star went carelessly onward down that way, and I went eaves-dropping. I was impelled to do it. I saw a light come in the front room and heard voices, and felt that there was some strange connection between this house and that man, and perhaps myself, and that the mystery must soon be solved. M 338 HOT COKN. . The blinds were closed, but the sash was up. I stood close under the window, and the voices dropped down upor, my ear through the slats, clear and distinct as though I had been in the room. The light-bearer with a noiseless step, as though afraid of awaking some sick sleeper, approached a bed, shading the *light with her hand. It was no use. The timid start easy. There was a rustling sound, as though some one started up from an uneasy pillow and sleep-disturbing dreams. " Will he come ?" That voice, those words. Do I dream, or are there spirits near? Oh, how familiar how painfully familiar reminis- cential of things past. What can it mean ? But one voice ever spoke those words in that tone, and that voice will never speak again. The dreamer is in the street. It is my brain that is disturbed. Hark ! Again ! I heard aright. " Oh, no, he will not come. Why should he ? What am I to him ? Yet I wanted to see him a moment. It seems as though it is he only who can protect me from that dreaded man. Oh, Phebe, Phebe, what should we do if he were to come here to-night? He has sworn to have revenge upon me for leaving him ; yet how could I live with a man who threatened my life every day in his drunken fits? Long after I went to Paris, he wrote to me that he would rob me of my child his child, if he died in the attempt I long thought nfty, hoped that he was that is, that he never would return LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK.- 330 from Cuba. I heard of him in the dungeons of the Moro, and now he is here." " Yes, ma'am, I is sure he is here. Dat am de fact. Jis sich man, stout, red face, black hair, and such eyes. I is sure he is a wicked man." " Only when he is drinking." " Well, dat all de time wid some folk." There was a groan of anguish in the bed. " But, Phebe, you describe his looks just as I saw them to day. Have you seen him ?" " Oh, yes, ma'am thought I wouldn't tell you though but it come out when I didn't know him." " Where ? Has he been here ? Has he tracked me home ?" " Why, you see, ma'am, when I goes to the door to let Agnes Brentnall out, I sees him over the way, by de lamp, and when she goes down the street, he walks after her, and dat am last I see of him dis night." " Poor girl, then she is lost. If ever he fixes his basalisk eye upon her beauty, how can she escape. Poor girl God protect thee man will not." There was a sobbing that told of tears tears that told of a kind heart, crushed by a cold and careless world. Then I was about to enter, but something said, " not yet," and I stepped down into the shadow by the high steps, till the footfall I heard upon the pavement should go by. It did not pass it came directly up to the door, familiar as a burglar with its night latch key. Why had they not 340 HOT CORN. bolted the door? It opened as though to one who had a right to enter. The intruder it was the dark-visaged man I had seen five minutes before closed the door gently after him without latching it. There was a thin lace curtain before the window, through which, as I looked in between the slats of the blind, I could see Um as he approached the bed. Phebe had left the light ' and gone into the back room. The lady had buried her face in the pillows nothing but her raven locks, hanging loose in her neck, were visible. The villain looked at her for a moment, then, satisfied that she was asleep, he reached over her, and lifted a beautiful little girl from her side. "Mother! mother!" The light shone in her face the mother started at the appealing cry for help sprang up Heavens, what do we see ? It is little Sissee Little Katy's sister and her mother ! What a sight for that mother! The man she so much dreaded the man who had so disturbed her dreams with her child, her last, her only child, in his strong arms, and no one near to protect, to save. She sprang towards him, and fixed her feeble hands in his hair. Of what avail ? He flung her from him reeling, fainting, across the room. The noise brought the faithful Phebe from her couch too late. The mother saw her child disappearing m the dark passage she heard her screams for help she heard no more. One look of his terrible eye, as he bore away her struggling child, was enough to kill one of a stronger form than hers. One look of satisfied revenge ^revenge of a man LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 341 upon a feeble woman, and his hand is upon the door. One step more and he is in the street. One step more and ha fell, beneath a blow of a stout cane in a strong man's hand, and lay trembling across that threshold, quivering like a bul lock felled by the butcher's blow. " Here, Phebe, take the child ; take care of the mother ; tell her all is safe ; the Lord watches over the truly penitent , he will protect ; he will save." I dragged the unconscious mass of human flesh down upon the pavement, and struck three sharp blows upon the stones, with the broken cane broken in avenging a feeble woman. It was answered right and left, up and down, and again repeated. I peered into the darkness for the coming succor. Will it come ? Will it come in time ? For a strong hand has seized my only weapon, now he has it in his. There is a momentary struggle the prostrate man is up and the other one down. A large Bowie knife, the midnight prowler's fashionable weapon, is gleaming at my throat. A moment more, and all my debts were paid and duties done. Moments fleet fast, but all too slow for the assassin's knife, when it is not the will of Him that giveth life, that life should fail. The knife fell, but not with a blow it fell from a broken arm. The watchman's club had done the work. The watchman had heard the call, and had come in time to save the avenger, and punish the assassin. 342 HOT CORN. " Take him away. You know me and where to send when I am wanted. I have another life to save inside this house." What was said or done need not be told. The reader is dull of divining power, if he does not already know. 1 cannot tell. I only know that I awaked from a short nap, next morning, in an easy chair, with a sweet little girl, some three years old, clinging her arms around my neck and nest ling her cheek up to mine. Had mortal ever sweeter dreams ? " What time is it, I'hebe ?" " Don't know dat, sir ; sun up yonder." " Is it ? And she sleeps quietly ? Very well, let her sleep. I will send a doctor, on my way home, to look at her. Good by. Bon jour, Sis. One more kiss, there." " You will come again, when mamma wakes up ?" Yes Goodbye." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 343 CHAPTER XVI. AGNES BRENTNALL. Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil." So it proved that night to Agnes Brentnall. But who is she ? That we have yet to learn. We have only heard the name once, during the conversa tion, between Madame De Vrai and the black woman, Phebe, overheard in that eaves-dropping midnight scene described in the last chapter, unless this Agnes is the same one that we saw in a previous midnight scene. Perhaps it is, for now we remember there was a Phebe in that, At any rate that name, from both of these night scenes, had become deeply impressed upon my mind, as belonging to a beautiful girl, followed in the street by a night-prowling wolf, with a canine instinct which snuffs in the breeze the far-off scent that leads him to some wandering female. Mrs. De Vrai had said ; " Then she is lost." What had become of her? Had the woman-devouring monster consumed the innocent girl and come back for more prey? He will prey no more, soon ' f he has met his deserts at last. The stony walls of the Tombs' prison, will hold him safe, and when he recovers from his broken arm, the law will 841 HOT CORIT. have its course. He will make a good Sing Sing worker iu stone. It will not break his heart, for it is as hard as the stone he will hammer. But what of poor Agnes ? Would that I knew. Did she fall before his basalisk eye ? Such thoughts were upon my mind as I entered the door of the house I called my home, after such a night of strange adventures as I have just made the reader acquainted with. " Where have you been ?" was the anxious question that met me as I entered. " What in the world took you out and kept you out all night ? Did you find that woman ? How is she ? Is any thing the matter? I do think you might write quite a romance out of your adventures." . There is no occasion to write romance, it is only necessary to give the real pictures of life real scenes as they occur in New York, to make up a volume more strange than wildest romance. "Where have I been? Where I saw strange sights. Where it does seem as though some mysterious influence led me, to meet with another adventure." " You might have had one at home, sufficiently interesting, I should think. A young girl, wickedly made drunk, for the basest purpose on earth 'tis a horrid tale you shall hear it by and by unprotected alone in the street, at midnight staggering to and fro, chased like a dog by a crowd of boys and half-drunken men, taking refuge in our basement area, within ten minutes after you left the house." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 345 " You took her in ? Yes, yes ; I see, I see a heavenly deed produces a heavenly smile." What was it shot through my brain ? A thought. A strange thought. What could have sent it there. Is it true ? We shall see. " What is her name ? where is she ? You have not sent her away ?" " You shall see come up-stairs. She is not up yet. She has been distressingly sick she is better now, almost well, though very feeble. The doctor says, she was poisoned." " No doubt, if drunk, of course she was. Every drop of drunkenness-producing liquor is poison, of the most subtle kind slow, but sure." She was still in bed. Her kind protector had furnished her with a clean, white bed-gown and cap, and a prettier face,* indicating about sixteeen or seventeen years, never looked up smilingly from a downy pillow. " She is very pale now. She vomited terribly all the lat ter part of the night. Her color will soon come again." " Oh, yes, ma'am, I feel quite well now. Do let me get up and dress myself, and go home I cannot bear to be a trouble to you any longer. Oh, sir, she has been a mother to me more than a mother if I had such a mother ." " Well, well, my girl, never mind now. You cannot get up yet. You must keep quiet to-day. To-morrow, we will see you safe home." " Oh, sir, I cannot possibly wait till to-morrow. What will Mrs. Meltrand think ?" 15* 346 HOT CORN. She shall know all about it before night." "Oh, no, no, no! not all, not all! I should die wittt shame." " Well, then, only that you have been to see a friend, and was taken very sick." " Yes, I have been to see a friend, a dear friend, a poor unfortunate woman. Indeed, I must get up. She is sicker than I am, and besides, I promised to go, too, and see a friend for her. It is a gentleman that she thinks a great deal of, sir, one who was very kind to her when she was very bad, and lived very miserably, and she thinks he was sent by Pro vidence to save her from total ruin. That, sir, was before her little daughter died. Did you ever read about that, sir ? it was published in * the New York Tribune.' " " I do not know ; that paper publishes so many stories. I read the most of them. Then, you want to see Mr. Greeley. You need not go there for that, you can " " Oh, are you Mr. Greeley, then ?" " No, but I shall see him soon, and I will tell him what you want. If it is to assist some poor distressed widow, you may depend upon it, he will do all he can Afford, for he is a good man ; his worst enemies acknowledge that." "No, sir, it is not Mr. Greele^, that I am to go and see, it is another gentleman in the office of his paper." " Who is it ? What is his name ? I know all of the gen- t.emen in that office ; I can take your message to any one of them, and will do so with pleasure. Is it Mr. Dana ? he is the next principal editor to Mr. Greeley." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 34*7 "No, that is not the name. I cannot recollect it, now. But he is one of the editors." " One of the editors ! Why, my girl, that paper has a dozen editors. Perhaps, it is one of the assistants. Is it Mr. Cleveland ? no Mr. Snow ? no Mr. Fry, Mr. Thayer ? no Mr. Ripley ? no Mr. Ottarson ?" " No, I think not, but that sounds something like it." "Why, my dear girl, there are a hundred men, editors, reporters, compositors, pressmen, book-keepers, and all, in that office; now, how are you going to find one that you do not know, and say you have forgotten his name ?" " May be I shall recollect it when I get there. Don't you know how names come back to us sometimes ? Do you never forget names ?" " Often, but I never forget faces. I have seen yours before, but I have forgotten where, just as you have forgotten that gentleman's name." " Oh, sir, have you ? well, I do not remember your face, but it does seem as though I had heard your voice, and, per haps, if the room was not so dark, I should know you. The lady said, I must keep it dark, and sleep this morning. It is no wonder that I should forget everything, I was so badly frightened last night." " Well, I don't see how you are to find which one you wish to see, among so many, unless you can recollect his name." " Oh, that will be easy enough, sir. I will ask one of the gentlemen, f vim sure any one of them will tell me, for I am sure they are all gentlemen, real gentlemen." 348 HOT CORN. " I do not see what it is that you are to inquire for, or who, or how to find out which one, or anything about it." " Oh, sir, it is the one that wrote that little story about her daughter." "Her daughter?" " Yes, sir, Mrs. De Vrai's daughter." A light began to dawn in my mind, and I said carelessly, u her daughter ?" " Yes, sir, her daughter. Little Katy, in that pretty story of Hot Corn. She is Little Katy's mother, sir, and she wants to see the gentleman that wrote that story. She did not know his name until yesterday. She thought it was Mr. Greeley, and he was out of town, and she had never seen him since Little Katy was buried, and she had moved away from where she used to live, without letting him know where she was. Yesterday she found out her mistake, and sent Phebe you laugh do you know Phebe?" " Yes, yes, I know Phebe, and I know you now ; I know you for a kind-hearted, good-natured girl. Your name is Agnes." " Oh, yes, sir, has Mrs. Morgan told you." Now the reader is surprised. Yes, it is Mrs. Morgan Athalia. It was she that faced the crowd of savages that cried " drag her out." It was she that took poor Agnes in and gave up her own bed, and nursed and watched her all night, and sent for a physician for her. It was Agnes, the girl that you have seen in the picture with the negro wood- sawyer, and at his home when Phebe divided her bed to give LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 349 the poor girl a lodging. There is some goodness yet in human nature. It was Phebe that Agnes went to see, while nursing Mrs. De Vrai. It was the latter for whom she was now so anxious to get up out of her sick bed, that she might go and tell the gentleman who wrote the story of " Little Katy," that Little Katy's mother was almost dying to see him. It was by that token that she would find him. " Did Mrs. Morgan tell you my name." " No, she has not told me ; you told me that a long time ago." " Me, sir ? Do you know me, sir ?" "Yes, better than you do me. You have forgotten the gentleman that stopped you in the street one night with old Peter?" " Oh, dear me ; yes, no, not forgotten, but I did not remem ber. Oh, oh, how singular that I should come right here to this house, where you live, and this dear good lady lives. Oh, I wish I was good ; but I am not a good girl. Oh, sir, has this lady told you how bad I was last night ? But it was not all my fault, sir. If you only knew, what a poor unfortunate girl I have been but sir, upon my word, I have not been what folks call a bad girl." "We believe you. There, don't cry, keep yourself quiet to-day, and we hope to see you quite smart this evening." " Oh, do let me go and find that gentleman, for Mrs. De Vrai. If you only knew what a good lady she is now, now she don't drink any more. But I am afraid she won't live very long. She has got a dreadful cough. And she waa 350 HOT CORN. worse last night, for she saw somebody in the street yesterday some man a bad man I believe they are all bad no, no, I don't mean all but a good many of them." " I am glad that the sight of bad men in the street, don't make every lady sick who sees one ; if it did we might turn the whole city into a general hospital. But what about that man ?" " I don't know what, but she was dreadful 'fraid of him, and that he would come where she lives." " So he did, but he will not come again, soon." "Then you know him, too?" " Yes. And that is not all I know. I know you left Mrs. De Vrai's last night about half-past nine o'clock, on your way home ; that soon after you started you were overtaken by a stout-built gentleman, with black hair and black whiskers, who said, ' Good evening, Miss, how did you leave Mrs. De Vrai, this evening?'" " Mercy on me, his exact words. Did you hear them ? I am sure I did not see anybody else near us at the time." " No, I did not hear him was not in that part of the city." " He has told you then. I am sure I never did." " No, neither have told me." "What then?" " What then ? why, then you answered, ' Oh, sir, are you acquainted with Mrs. De Vrai?'" " So I did ; why how strange that you should know it all.'' 1 " And then he began to talk to you about the danger of such a pretty girl going home alone " LIFE SCENES IX NEW YORK. 351 " Yes, sir, and then he offered me his arm ; and, and, and I thought as he was a friend of Mrs. De Vrai's 1 might take it, and he said so many pretty things t^at" " That you were deceived by a villain, and " " Oh, sir, for mercy sake don't tell all before this dear good lady, she who saved my life last night. Don't tell all." " Why, Agnes, I cannot tell all. How do you suppose I know all I" "I don't know, sir, but I am sure you do. What is it makes you know it ; is it what they call animal magnetism, or what is it ? Are you a medium ?" " Y^s, I hope so ; a medium of glad tidings, that will bring great joy to the world. But not a spirit medium, as they are called." " I don't know then how you know all about me, but I am sure you do." " No, I do not ; I never saw you but once before, in my life never heard of you since except to hear your name men tioned once last night, and that you had been at Mrs. De Vrai's in the evening, and that that man followed you from there, and I guessed his wicked purpose." " Yes, yes, wicked indeed." " I know nothing more. I do not ask you either to tell more, yet I believe it would be a relief to you to tell it, and that it will be a burden off of your mind." " Yes, yes, it will, it will ; but I am afraid that you will not believe me, or that you will despise me, or laugh at me for being so simple, to be so deceived by a stranger ; but theu 352 HOT CORN. how could I tell that he was a bad man, and the streets sc dark ?" Poor child, could she have told any better if it had been as light as noonday, that the soft-spoken, smiling gentleman, with his sweet words, only used them to cover up a heart full of bitterness and lying deceit ? " And so he told you he was an acquaintance of Mrs. De Vrai's, a friend, and then he offered you his arm." " Yes, sir, and I thought I might take it that it was so kind of him for he told me that he was just going in to see her when he saw a lady come out, and he thought he would step along and ask her if Mrs. De Vrai was up, and how she was this evening, and if she had gone to bed, he would not disturb her ; perhaps too, he might be of service to a friend of hers, by walking home with her. And then he asked me a great many questions about Mrs. De Vrai, how long she had lived there, and who lived with her, and who else lived in the house, and about little Sissee ; he asked such a heap of ques tions if she was pretty, and how big she was, and where she slept, and where her mother slept, and oh ! I cannot tell you how many things ; and then he told me how he knew her in Paris, and what a pretty little girl she had that was Katy, sir, and then I told him that Katy was dead, and then but I did not think of it then he did not seem a bit sorry about it, while I could not help crying, only thinking about it and that she should die just then too, when her mother was going to be a good mother, and when some good men were just going to begin to be good to her. Oh, sir, it was sad, very LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 363 lad for her to die then, was it not ? But I suppose it is all right that everything is for the best Mr. Pease says it is. Do you know Mr. Pease has Mr. Pease ever told you about her ; has he told you how Mrs. De Vrai used to live in the Five Points, and how little Katy used to sell hot corn ?" " No, nothing, but never mind that now. You were going to tell us about the stranger you were walking and chatting with so cosily." " So I will." "Yes, so I was. But when I talked about Little Katy's death, I got off my story. Well, sir, we walked on to wards Broadway, and he said we would go through Canal street, it was lighter there, and so it was, a good many shops were open, and all the places where folks go to drink, and the ice cream saloons were open, and there were such crowds of pretty girls walking arm in arm with nice gentlemen, look ing so proud and happy with their beaux, and I suppose I looked just so, too, for I could not help thinking how poor I had been, and now how well dressed I was, and that I had a beau, too ; and when I saw others going in to get ice cream and good suppers, I almost wished well, I did feel tempted, and I suppose all girls do, who see such things ; and I sup pose he must have guessed what I was thinking of, for he said, * we won't go into any of those public places, there is a nice place just round the corner real genteel it is the Hotel we will go there and have some ice cream and good cool ice water you don't drink anything else ?' said he, sort of inquiringly ' no, sir, not now, I have taken the pledge,' - ' so have I,' says he * that is right all girls ought to take the 354 HOT CORN. pledge.' So we turned up Broadway, and then I should think just round one corner, but I don't know certain, it was so light, and so many finely dressed gentlemen round the door, and one of them said, * look there, Jim, what a pretty girl De V. has got ; and that made me blush, and feel so confused I did not know which way I went, and so I clung to his arm, for I thought with him I was safe, and the first that I knew, we were standing close behind some ladies and gentlemen going in at a door I saw ' private door ' on it, and did not quite like that, but I did not exactly know what it meant, and hung back a little, and then he spoke so sweetly, and said, * don't be afraid,' that I thought it was all right, or else what would so many ladies and gentlemen go there for ? So we went in, and the gentleman says to the nice-looking waiter, in his clean white apron, * No. C, Bill.' " * No. 6 is occupied, sir, but I will give you another room all right.' ' All right.' What could it mean ? What could it mean that most all the ladies I saw, wore thick, close veils, so that nobody could tell who they were, old or young, ugly or pretty ? But I had not much time to think, for we walked very fast through the passage, between I don't know how many little private supper rooms, and pretty soon we went into one ourselves. There was a table, four chairs and not much else in the room. The waiter made the gas light burn bright and then stood a moment for his order. " ' What shall it be, Miss I do not recollect your LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. , 355 ;< How should lie ? I had never told him, he never knew it, I answered, * Brentnall.' " * Oh, yes, Miss Brentnall, what shall we have ?' " How easy poor, weak girls are flattered. It was the first time, perhaps, she had been thus addressed. What would she have ? She did not know. " I was hungry, real hungry, and, so I toM him, when he insisted upon it, that I was so ; and then he said, how fortu nate that two hungry persons should happen to meet, and that they had come to such a good place, where they could get everything that the heart could wish. Did I like crabs soft crabs then we would have a supper of soft crabs. ' And I say, Bill, while they a r e cooking, bring some ice water, ,a chicken salad, and, iet me see, you drink nothing but water, I drink no liquor, no wine. Are you fond of Heidsick ?' I could not tell I did not know what Heidsick was, only that it was some kind of drink that the fellows used to call for at that house where you saw Peter help me to get away from. I thought it was some kind of soda water, it used to sparkle and foam so, when they poured it out, but I would never taste it then ; I wish I had not now. I would not, only that the gentleman said it was like water. " ' It is a sweet, pleasant French drink,' said he, * not a drop of spirit in it about like ginger pop, or soda water you will see how it flies when I draw the cork.' " It did fly and foam and sparkle, as he poured it out, and looked so good. He handed me a glass with such a smile, how could I refuse ? How could I know I should break my 356 HOT CORN. pledge by tasting ? It tasted so good, how could I help drink ing. The salad was very good, and that made the drink taste better still, and so we cat and sipped, and sipped and eat with a silver fork. It was delightful. "After a while the crabs came, and then we eat them how good. Was it any wonder that so many come here to eat, and drink ' Hiedsick ?' And then the rooms were so quiet. Still, the partitions are very thin, for I overheard a woman in the next room say to a gentleman, ' now quit that, or I will tell my husband. You had better not do that again.' And then I heard a little scuffle, and then she said, * Are you not ashamed of yourself?' " Why was she not ashamed of herself? She would have been " mortified to death " to have hei husband know that she was in that. room, eating late suppers and drinking wine, at least, once a week. No wonder she wore a thick veil. She was yet a little ashamed, for fashion's sake, anhamed to be seen going into a private room, at ten o'clock, at night, with a cavalier servants. She is on a quick voyage to a shameless harbor, and will soon- arrive there perhaps, just such a har bor as the home of Elsie Morgan, where the rats harbored with her in the same cellar ; or the home of little Katy, and her mother in Cow Bay. She would have been ashamed to have her husband know, that under pretence of going to visit a sick friend; she had come with a friend to sup in a "private room," in a "fashionable eating-house." So, too, would that husband have been ashamed to have his wife know, that under pretence of going to call on an old friend LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 357 at the hotel, he was actually, at that moment, enjoying hici- self with that friend in the next room, and that that friend was a friend of his wife, too the fashionable Mrs. Smith, whose husband is in California, toiling to earn money, which he remits to her, which she is using to procure a divorce from him, that she may marry a man she is already playing the harlot with, and whom she will fool in the same way she does her present poor simpleton of a husband. In fact, she is already fooling her paramour, for she is here with another man ; and that man is the husband of a lady, whom she addresses as her " dear friend." Ah, well ! Vest la vie in New York. " So we sat and talked, and eat and drank, a long time, for time went merrily on, and at last he poured out the last of the good bottle, and we were just going to drink it and go, for I said, * I must go home, I have a good mile to go yet/ and he said, ' Oh, I will see you safe home.' So as I was lifting the glass, he caught my arm, and said, ' Stop, there is a fly in it ;' and he took my glass and began to look about for something to take the fly out. " ' Oh, this will do.' And he took a little folded piece of paper out of his pocket, and stooped down a little under the table, as though to throw it on the floor." " What for ?" " Do you think he could have put anything in the glass out of that piece of paper, just in the moment he had it ? 1 thought there was a bitter taste. I wish I had thought so at 358 HOT CORN. first. But I drank it, and then started to go home. When I got in the street, I did not know which way I went. I should have gone up Broadway, but we did not. Everything seemed so strange. I felt as though I could fly almost. I never felt so before. I clung to his arm, I could not walk without it. I felt as though I could almost hug him. And then he put his arm around my waist; I am sure I would not have let him do that if I had known what I was about ; and so we went on, I do not know how far, or which way, but it could not have been a great way, and then he went up to a great fine house, with a silver plate on the door, with a name on it in great letters, :t was Phillips or Brown, or something, only one name just as though they 'were ashamed of the other, or else did not want to be known, or something. I said, don't go in there, what will the folks think ? and he said, ' Oh, this is a friend of mine lives here, a very nice lady, and we will stop and rest a little while, and then I will go home with you. I guess the Hiedsick has got in your head a little, and we will go in here and wait awhile, till you feel better.' Well, I did feel as though I could not go home, until I got over my dizziness, and when he said, he knew th% folks, and that they were nice people, I thought I would go in a few minutes. So he rung the bell, and then a woman came and opened a little blind in the door, so that she could *ee who was there, and then he said, ' Open the door, Leta,' and then she said, 'Oh, is that you ?' and then^f knew^he wag acquainted there, and in we went, and he whispered some- LIFE SCEVES IN NEW YORK. 359 tiling to her, and then she called the servant girl and told her to show the gentleman up to No. 6. There it was, No. 6 again. And there it was again, for she said, ' there is a gen tleman and lady in No. C now ; I will give them another, all right.' I am sure, I never shall hear that word again without believing it means all wrong. But I scarcely knew right from wrong ; I just held to his arm, and went wherever he led me. It was a very nice room that she showed us in. There were beautiful pictures on the walls ; I could not see very well what they were, but I thought they looked like some I had seen once before, such as I am sure never should be hung up anywhere. There was a great mirror, and marble-top tables, and washstand, a very rich carpet, and such a splendid bed, and chairs and rocking chairs, one of which I sat down in, for I felt so tired and sort of sleepy ; and then he told the servant to bring in some water, and when it came, he poured out a tumbler full, but I do believe it was half wine, and I drank it down, and then I felt, oh, I never can tell how I felt, or what happened after that ; but I know more happened, and that more was was what I never can tell." 9 " Villain, black-hearted villain ; who laid his snares for a poor, simple-hearted girl, to work her ruin. I wonder that you ever got away, ever got out >f that house. How did you doit?" " When I came to a little, I in down stairs as fast as I could go, andrhe ran after me, and cried, ' Stop her,' and two other women ran out in the hall to do it, but just then the 360 HOT CORN. door was opened, ana two gentlemen were going out, and I ran right into the arms of one of them, and he carried me clear out, in spite of them, and then the other one said, ' Let her go, she is drunk now run.' I did run and they hallooed, and then the boys took after me, and, oh, dear, you know the rest" LIPB SCENES IN NEW FORK. 861 CHAPTER XVII. THE INTE L LI G E N C E OFFICE. AGNES. "All things are pare to those who are pure." "Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile." PERHAPS some of my readers Lave been sufficiently inter ested to inquire, " Who is Agnes, and what of her ?" Perhaps there may be some, who, like Mrs. McTravers, think she is not a .proper character to introduce into a respectable family, coming as she did from a house which gives an air of taint, spoiled, lost, ruined, to every character that is found within its walls. I am aware that there is room for suspicion, but suspicion is not proof. In the case of Athalia, her acknow ledged sin is no more proof of moral turpitude than any other act of a deranged mind. A lunatic may kill, yet it is not murder. A drunken husband may beat his loving wife, and love her Btilfc. It was not the man who struck the blow, it was the demon Rum ! It was not Athalia who lost her virtue, it was the worse than demon who robbed her intoxicated her destroyed her reason enslaved her mind but he did not, could not, destroy her virtuous, benevolent heart. Her conduct toward Agnes, is alone sufficient to prove this. And if she had known as much as I did of Agnes, that there might be some ground of suspicion against her, it would have made 16 362 . HOT COK3T. no odds ; she would have taken her in and taken care of hei in the same way, if she had known that she was a great sinner; that is the true way to work reformation ; and then she would have said, " Go, daughter, and sin no more." But she knew nothing against Agnes ; even after I had told her of the trunk, she said, all may yet be right. She was unwilling to believe that all was wrong. How triumphantly she met me as I came home in the evening how a woman does love to triumph over us in a good cause, proving herself what she is in all the purest qualities of the heart, our superior. " I told you so," said Athalia. " I knew there had beeD some base deception, some wickedness practiced towards tha* poor girl to inveigle her into that house. Come up stairs, and you shall hear her story from her own lips ; she is quite smart now, and able to sit up and talk, and looks so pretty she is pretty, and that has been the great cause of her trouble. But she is a good girl ; I have heard a good deal about her to day, besides what she has told me. Phebe and Peter, have both been here, and such a meeting, oh ! it would have done your heart good to have been here, and to see these poor blacks' conduct towards this girl, after I had told them the story of her adventures last evening : they hugged her, and kissed her with as much affection as though she had been one of their own ; and then Peter went to see the lady where she had been living, at the place he got for her, the next day after your first interview with her, and the lady was terribly alarmed about the poor girl, and so she would not let Peter LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 303 come back until she had the carriage up, and then she took him in only to think, such a sweet, nice, pretty lady did not feel herself in the least disgraced to -ride with a poor, old, negro wood-sawyer in her fine carriage, to visit a poor sick servant girl. And so she came, and such a time ! why, if she had been her own child, she could not have been more affectionate. And then Agnes told us her story, and then I told Mrs. Meltrand, that is her name, about Mrs. De Vrai, and how that same man, who treated Agnes so badly, tried to steal Mrs. De Vrai's little girl, and then she said, ' how singular,' and then of course I said, what is so singular ?" " Ah me, it is a long story, and would not interesryou, but I was robbed of a dear little girl, fifteen years ago, in England, by just such a man, in just the same way, but it could not have been this man, his name was Brentnall." " Brentnall, why that is my name," said Agnes. " Your name, why you never told me that before." " No, ma'am, you never asked me, and I did not suppose that you cared to know anything about me, only that I was a good girl, and did your work well, and answered to the name of Agnes." True. How little interest we all take in our servants; they come and go and we never know that they have any name but one that is most convenient to call them by, and we take no interest in them, hardly enough to know that they possess souls as precious as our own. " And so, your name is Brentnall, what was your father's name ?" 364 HOT CORN. " I don't know, ma'am, as I ever had any, or mother either." " But you must have had both." " Oh yes, I suppose I must, to have been born, but I mean I never saw any." " Where did you live, and who brought you up ?" " I lived with an uncle, near Belfast, and came over with him and his family, and every one of them died of ship fevei on the voyage, and when I landed here in this great city, I was utterly alone, and almost penniless. Oh dear !" " And then Mrs. Meltrand, said, * Oh dear,' and she went away feeling sad. I do wish I knew what it could be in that name that made her feel so sad. Some reminiscence con nected with the loss of her little girl, I suppose. It is very sad, to lose a child by death, it must be very much more sad to have one stolen away, and never know what becomes of it, whether dead or alive ; and if the mother should meet her own child in the street not to know it ; but dear me, how I am running on while you are eating your supper, as though you had nothing to think of but the things that interest me so much. But if you have been able to eat while I have been talking, come up to my room and see my protege and hear her story." So we went up, and found the invalid almost recovered, looking so sweet, for she looked grateful, and that, when it beams out like the sunlight, will make any face look beautiful. " I told you," said Mrs. Morgan, " about her landing here penniless and alone, and I want she should tell you there now, there is the bell, how I do hope that is uncle yes it is LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 365 it is ; do you hear him talking to Bridget ? that is his step, now " Now the door opens, and now she is in his arras, and now there are more questions than answers : " When did he arrive? How did he find things out West. Has he been to supper ? What is the news ?" " Now you are a perfect woman, you are enough to confuse a whirlwind. Sit down, and be quiet, and I will tell you all that you need to know. But first tell me who is this young lady; you forgot to introduce me," " So I did, but of course she knows by this time that you are my uncle, and you will know directly all about her, for she was just going to tell part of her story, and I shall tell the rest before you go to bed. "I will warrant that. Perhaps you would like to hear mine, and where I have been since I arrived." " Yes, indeed, do tell me, and why you did not come right home ?" "I have been to jail, since I arrived; locked up in the criminal cells. It is a little singular too, how I got there It is all owing to the newspapers." ".Owing to the newspapers, uncle, I do not understand how the papers should get you in prison." "Very well I do. I saw an item in one of them this evening, about the arrest of a person whose name struck me very forcibly as being that of a man whom I once knew iu Europe, and who I was very anxious to see, for I felt the deepest interest to know what had become of his wife. For 366 HOT CORN. him I cared nothing, I knew he was a villain, and felt rejoiced to think he had met his deserts at last ; but his wife was a sweet good woman, a victim of unfortunate circumstances all through her life, and when I saw her last I had reason to fear that she was falling into a course adopted by many, many others, of drowning sorrow in wine. But I shall not tell my story now ; I will sit down and hear yours." " Well then, Agnes, tell what you did after landing." At the sound of her name, Mr. Lovetree gave a little start, and said, "Agnes! oh, pshaw !" and sunk back again in his easy chair, as though he had been affected by the name, and thought it very foolish that he had been so. Agnes, said : "Indeed, ma'am, I don't think the gentlemen will be at all interested to hear anything about me." " Yes, yes, I have promised them." " Well, then, after my uncle died, and all my friends, I felt dreadful ; it is dreadful for a young girl to be left all alone in a strange country. So when the ship landed, or rather when she came to anchor, the people from shore came aboard, and I saw how many of the poor emigrants had friends to wel come them, and that I had none ; it was then that I felt the dreadful loneliness of rny situation, and I sat down and cried, for I could not help it, and then a man came and spoke to me very pleasantly, and asked me where I wanted to go, and all about it, and then I told him all my troubles, and then he said it was the luckiest thing in the world that I had met with him, for he was an emigrant agent, appointed by law, and he would take charge of me and take me ashore to a LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 867 boarding-house, and do everything for me. And then he asked me how much money I had, and I told him that I had but a few shillings, of my own, but that I had three gold sovereigns that were my uncle's he had more, a great deal more, when he, died, but somebody must have taken it away and that was all I had in the world besides their chests of clothes and things. And then he said, that it was very lucky for me that I had that, for he would have to pay half a guinea head-money for each passenger, no matter how many were dead, and then he would have to pay the custom-house duty, and the wharfage and the cartage, and the week in advance for the board, and that would take all the money and more too, but he would pay that and hold the things until I could pay him back. So I gave him the money, and he got the chests, all but my trunk, I would keep that, and took them ashore, and took me to a boarding-house, and that was the last I ever saw of him, or the money or chests either, he had robbed me of all of my poor uncle's things, and my three gold sovereigns; so the landlady said, and he never paid her a cent of board. I did not know what to do ; I was willing to work, but how should I find a place. The land lady said, I must go to the ' Intelligence office.' I thought I should like to go somewhere to get intelligence of the man who had run away with my things, or any other intelligence that would be of any benefit to a poor stranger in this great Babel of a city. And I asked her to tell me the way to the ' Intelligence office,' and I went there. It was a great room, divided into two parts ; one was full of men, and the other 368 HOT CORN. of girls, sitting on long benches. I went in and sat down among them, and I suppose, I looked sad I felt so, and I felt worse when I heard some of the girls snickering, and overheard them say, ' there is a green one.' If that was an * Intelligence ' office, I thought it a very queer way of giving it to one so much in need of it as I was. After a while, one of the girls came and sat down by me, and spoke kindly, and asked where I came from, and a. good many questions ; I was almost afraid to answer her, for fear that she was * an emigrant agent,' too, and had some plan to cheat me, or prac tice some deception, but I became convinced in a little while that she meant kindly ; and then I told her all about myself. Then, she said, that I must get my name registered. I did not know what that was for, but I went up to the book keeper, and told him my name, and age, and where I came from, and what I could do, and he wrote it all down in a book and then told me to give him half a dollar, and when I got a place I must give him another one ; I did not know what for ; he gave me no intelligence about how I was to get a place, but he told me to go and sit down again. So I did, all that day and all the three next days, waiting for some body to pick me out of the lot. Every hour, somebody came and looked over all the girls, for all the world just as I have seen the people do in the pig-market, at an Irish fair, until they found one that would suit. One objected to me because I was * green ;' another, because I had never been at service in this country; another, because I had no recom mend; and then a girj whispered to me, and told me she LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. knew a man who would write me just as many recommends as I wanted, for a shilling a piece. If that is the way recom mends are made, I don't see what good they are. At last, after being looked over day after day, like a lot of damaged goods, a lady, at least, I thought she was a lady, selected me the very first one, and for the very reason that twenty others had rejected me because I was too good-looking. When she found that I had no friends in this country, and no father or mother in the world, she seemed still more anxious to have me, which I thought so kind of her, and then she told me that the work would be very light, only some rooms to take care of, and wait upon company a little, and she knew 1 should like the place ; I thought I should ; I did at first, but, I don't want to tell, before the gentlemen, why I did not like to live there ; this one knows already." " Well, well, you need not tell, we understand all about it. You have been treated just as a great many poor girls with out friends have been treated before in this city ; and you got just as much intelligence, and just as much profit from your application to the ' Intelligence office,' as a great many others have done before you." Now, it was Athalia's turn to tell her uncle all that she knew about Agnes, and then he told about his visit to the prison. " I found," said he, "the very man I expected, or rather hoped, it might be, and it is well that I acted upon the impulse of the moment, for if I had not, I should have been too late. It is the doctor's opinion, that he will ot live till 16* 370 HOT CORN. morning. It seems that he got into some difficulty with tb police last night, and one of them, to prevent him from stab bing another man, broke his arm." There was a little start of surprise on my part, and that of Mrs. Morgan ; but we made no interruption, and Lovetree went on with his story. We thought, though, we could not help that. " I expect he had been drinking hard, for he tore off the bandage from his arm in the night, and when the keeper opened his cell this morning, he found him almost dead with loss of blood and vital prostration. He cannot live. They had aroused him, and I found him quite rational when I went in, and was immediately placed beyond all doubt as to the identity of the man, for he called me by name the moment he saw me." "I am glad you have come," said he, "I can trust you, and I want to make a clean breast of it before I die. My wife and child my last one are in this city, and when I am gone, I want you to go and see her, and tell her, that I shall never trouble her any more ; she will be glad to hear it, for she saw me last night, and I left the old lady somewhat in a fright. I cannot tell you the exact number, but I can tell you so that you can find the house easy enough. It is in W street." " Oh, dear, I cannot stand it any longer," said Mrs. Morgan. u Cannot stand it ? I don't see anything that you cannot stand. You surprise me." LITE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 37 1 "Not half as much as you surprise us. We know all about it. It was him," and she pointed to me, " that knocked the ruffian down ; it was him that he was about to stab when the watchman broke his arm; and it is she, uncle, Mrs. De Vrai, his wife, who is the mother of Little Katy ; now, you know all about it ; we know all about it." " No, not all, for he told me, that he believed his other wife was in this city, also, married here, and he wanted that I should look her up, too; and tell her where, perhaps, she may find her child." " Tell her," said he, " that I left it with my brother, near Belfast, an Irish farmer, by the name of William Brentnall." " William Brentnall !" said Agnes, her eyes opening with wild surprise. "I do think," said Mr. Lovetree, "that I have lost my senses, or else some of the rest of you have. First, one, and then the other, fairly screams out some exclamation as though I were a conjurer, and you could not comprehend my words or actions. Have you done now, shall I go on ?" " Yes, yes, uncle ; I am dying with curiosity, and as for Agnes, she looks the very picture of wonder." "Indeed I feel so." " Well, I don't understand why, but I suppose I might as well proceed. 'Tell her,' said he, 'that he is well known and easily found, and that I left the child with him, telling him that it was mine, and that its mother was dead.' Then I was a little surprised, for I thought his name was De Vrai, * but that,' he said, ' was an assumed one, the name by which 372 HOT CORtf. he married the woman that I knew, because he dared not marry her by his own name. Then, I asked him what was her name, who I should look for, and who she should inquire for, to find her child ? Then he took a little card out of his pocket, as though he would write her name, and then he seemed to recollect his broken arm, and said, with a groan, * my writing d.vs are over, and all my days nearly.' Then, he told me, to take the card and write, and so I did, here it is * this is the mother's name, and this is her daughter's, upon the truth of a dying man tell her so, beg her to forgive and forget the dead.' " " What are the names ? Do tell us, uncle." " Mrs. Meltrand Agnes Brentnall." Now there were at least two screams and one, " Oh how wonderful !" " Then Agnes said, " Mrs. Meltrand my mother ! that is wonderful!" Then Mr. Love^ree looked surprised ; all around him seemed to be a mass of mystery. Others began to see through it, he was now in the dark. Athalia explained. There was one point that she was not quite clear upon, and she asked her uncle if Agnes was really De Vrai's daughter, or only Mrs. Meltrand's ? " His own. Mrs. Meltrand, was his lawful wife when he married Mrs. De Vrai." " Oh my God ! then Agnes is his own child." None spoke what each thought sent a thrill of icy horror to every heart. All groaned or wept, none could speak. There LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 373 are moments in life of speechless agony, when the mind is completely horrified, when anything that breaks the silence comes as a relief. It came now in the sound of the door bell. It was a messenger to Mr. Lovetree. It brought relief to aching minds. It was very short. It only said, "he is dead." It Js perhaps wrong to rejoice at the death of a fellow creature, but we could not feel regret. After the first flush of excitement was over, a note was written to Agnes's mother, simply stating that if she would call at Mrs. Morgan's at her earliest convenience, she would meet with an individual who could tell her of her long-lost daughter. She made it convenient to come immediately, though it was then ten o'clock at night. It is not reasonable to suppose that she could keep away till morning, particularly as she had heard a word or two at her first visit which left her mind uneasy. I drop the curtain upon the scene when the mothev acknowledges and receives to her arms her long-lost daughter, while I go to carry comfort to the heart of Mrs. De Vrai, the ill-treated wife the widow of a villain the mother of his child, soon to be an orphan. What a load it lifted from her crushed heart, when I told her those three little words " he is dead." "Then my child will be safe, at least from his evil influ ences." What a dreadful thing it is for a wife to feel upon the death of her husband that she is safe herself, that her child is safe, more safe among strangers than with its own father, 3 74 HOT CORN. Why should she feel so? Why does she feel so? The answer is still shorter than that which gave her relief which told her that her child's father was dead. That was composed of three words, this of one. That one word is Rum ! ! It was that which made a villain of him, a double villain to two wives and the children of both. It was that which made him attempt the greatest wrong that a father can do to his own child. Poor Agnes ! It was that which drove Mrs. De Vrai step by step from the paths of peaceful, youthful innocence, comfort and affluence, to but I will not name the intermediate steps to that wretched abode where the little girl who sold Hot Corn, and slept in the rain upon the cold stones, breathed her pure life away in prayers to that mother not to drink any more of that soul and body destroying rum. It was that mother, who, upon her death bed, prayed me to tell the world the fruits that the traffic in rum produces. "Tell them to look at me, at my history, or a brief view of it; its details would fill a volume. Tell mothers to watch their daughters. Tell those who bring up children in hotels and public houses, that they are rearing their daughters to one chance of virtue, against ten of sin and woe. My mother was left early a widow, with a competence to raise her two daughters " at home," yet she seemed to delight in the excite ment incident to a life in a hotel or great boarding-house. As children, we were petted and spoiled ; as misses, we learned all that girls usually learn in such boarding-schools as fashionable mothers send them to ; as young ladies, we LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 375 were the flattered of fops and roues, and our mother allowed us to be in a constant flirtation at home, or out every night to parties, balls, soirees, theatres, concerts, and then to saloons, late suppers, and wines, and oh dear ! what if I had had a home and a mother to keep me out of temptation ; but I had not, and I met with the fate almost inevitable. " Among the boarders at the hotel, where we stopped at Saratoga, was an Englishman, who claimed, and I believe rightly, to be one of the nobility, for he wrote his name, Sir Charles R , and had a well-known coat of arms upon his seal, which he used publicly. Of course, I was flattered, proud, vain of the attentions of an English nobleman, young, handsome, full of money, and ardent in his professions of love, which I have no reason to think of otherwise than as sincere ; I was seventeen, tall, straight, handsome form, face, and figure, and always dressed with taste. My eyes were black ; cheeks, rosy ; and hair like the wing of a crow. 1 was well bred, and well read, and could talk and sing to cap tivate. So could he, and we were both equally affected. When we left the Springs, he came with us to New York, and put up at the same hotel. Then I was innocent. Oh, mothers ! mothers ! how long can you answer for the inno cence of your daughters who go to fashionable eating and drinking saloons, and leave them after midnight, with their young blood on fire, and in such a state of mind that they hardly know whether they go home to rest in their own room, or in some of the thousand traps for the unwary, in almost every street in the city ? 376 HOT CORN. " Oh, mothers, mothers, every one. With daughters free from sin, How can you look so coldly on The ways from virtue daughters win ? "Late suppers and wines, and constantly seeing others, wbc should set the young better examples, going the road that ruins virtue, had its effect. If I had been properly restrained by my mother, had been kept at home nights, and nevei learned to sip fashionable intoxicating drinks, my mothoi would not have mourned ' a girl lost.* "A few months after my first acquaintance with Sir Charles, I was living with him in a richly furnished house, in Eighteenth street, shamelessly passing as his wife, and treated as such by our acquaintance, although they knew that I was not. It was here that Katy was born, and received her first impressions of home and a fond father'* love. Here I lived away my young womanhood in fashiona ble dissipation, and then Sir Charles died suddenly, anu without a will. He had always said, he would make a will, and give his vast property to me and our child. But he put it off, as many others do, one day too long. Why do men defer this duty? A sacred duty to those they leave behind them, of their own flesh and blood. I knew, as his wife, I had rights ; and I went to England to try and obtain them. I left my elegantly furnished house, which cost, I don't know how many thousand dollars to furnish, for my mother and my sister, and an uncle to occupy while I was gone. I found all the property in the hands of Sir Charles's brother, and he LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 377 was unwilling to give up the share that rightfully belonged to his wife and child, because he said, we could not recover it by law. He did not say why, my conscience did. As a com promise, if I would give him a general release, he offered five thousand .pounds. I would have taken it, but I had employed a lawyer, and he hooted at the idea ; he looked for more than that for his fee when he recovered the full amount. I told him that I had no marriage certificate, and that the minister who married us was dead. So he was ; Sir Charles was dead. I did not tell him that no other ever blessed our banns. I told him, that numerous persons would swear that they had heard him call me wife, and Katy his child. He said, that would do. I did not know that our opponents could produce as many more to swear, that they had heard Sir Charles say, that it was only a marriage of convenience. So, for an uncertainty of five hundred thousand as a mere prospect, I refused the certainty of five thousand, and went to law. The evidence stood so balanced that the judge could not decide. ' Let the wife be sworn. Let her say, upon her oath, that she was married to Sir Charles, and the case will be given in her favor.' " There was a chuckling laugh just behind me, the tones of which went to my heart, and I fainted. It was De Vrai. He had known me in this city, and persecuted me with his importunities while Sir Charles was living. I had turned him off with a promise, all too common, * when Sir Charles is dead.' Then he renewed his importunities, and I told him, to wait a respectful time. He followed me to England, and 378 HOT CORN. still pressed me, and I still put liim off. He had hinted seve ral times that if I recovered the suit, he well knew that he should lose his. It was him that furnished my opponent with a clue to the proof that we were never married. It was him that laughed in my ear when the case rested upon the question, whether I would swear that I was married or not. For a moment, for the sake of my child, I was tempted ; that laugh recalled me partially, and I was carried away in a litter, and the case adjourned. For aught I know it still remains adjourned. " De Vrai followed me to my hotel. I was in a state bor dering upon distraction. With a foolish pride, to keep up appearances, as the wife of Sir Charles, I had exhausted all my means, and run awfully in debt. I had written to my uncle, in New York, to sell my furniture at auction, and send me the money. After a long delay I got five hundred dol lars, and a very short letter, saying, that was all the nett pro ceeds. I felt, I cannot tell how. I knew I was cheated, and wrote a bitter letter back. Then, my own friends, those who had fawned around the rich mistress of Sir Charles, cast off the poor woman struggling to recover something for his child. In this she failed, because that child was not bom in wedlock. " I was now poor indeed. What could I do, alone in a strange land ? I knew that De Vrai had no affection for me, only such as one animal has for another, but in my despair I married him. " His means of living were derived from the same souroo LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 879 that hundreds of well-dressed gentlemen derive theirs from, in this city. He was a gambler ; a genteel gambler. Such as you may find in every hotel in New York, in every public place, dressed in the very best style, living in the most expen sive manner, with no trade, occupation, or exercise of mind or skil 1 , except the skill of cheating at card playing. " At first, we lived pleasantly ; but pleasures with such men are short-lived, and must be often changed. If successful in business that is what they call their nefarious employment they are all smiles and affection to wife and children ; but if ' luck is against them/ they are the most unhappy men in the world, and make everybody else unhappy around them. As for enduring conjugal affection, I believe the excitement of a gambler's life renders them incapable of feeling its influ ence. I can scarcely tell how the months passed which I lived with that man, for I drank wine to excess every day. Not to become intoxicated ; only just fashionably excited. We lived in the best style of hotel life, often at the expense of the proprietors. " A little before Sis was born, De Vrai met with ' a run of luck,' and we took a cottage out of town, and lived very comfortably for a year, upon the proceeds of that * windfall.' " What that run of luck was, may be guessed at from the following extract from a morning paper : " SUICIDE. An American gentleman was found dead in his bed, at his lodgings, this morning, and it is supposed he died from poison, administered by himself, in consequence of immense losses at the gam- ing table, not only of his own money, but a sum which he had HOT CORN. received in trust for a widow and orphans, in America. It is said, that te owes his losses to the wretched practice of drinking tc intoxi cation, and that he was fairly robbed while in this condition, by a companion of his, one who made great pretence of friendship. H' leaves a beautiful young wife, 'quite destitute,' 'tis said." "I did not know then that this companion of his was my husband. I found that out afterwards, and that he was more than robbed. " Soon after that event, De Vrai brought the widow of his victim to live in our house. I was the wife she the mistress. I was blind at first, but I soon had my eyes opened. Opened not only to that fact, but that that wife had stood behind her husband's chair while he played with the villain who robbed him, and gave the signal of what cards he held ; and afterwards, when he became sober enough to realize his ruin, she proposed that they should take poison, and die together. " The result need not be told, only that he died and she lived. " When I made these discoveries from an overheard conver sation, I ordered the vile woman from my house. " ' My house, my house, ha, ha, you poor simpleton. Every article in this house and every cent of money that you or your husband has on earth belongs to me, and these are the papers. " * Now if you behave yourself you can stay here, if not, you will have to tramp, both of you.' " She shook the papers in my face, and laughed at my look of fear and astonishment. To finish, my agony, when I began LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 381 to talk something about the rights of an English wife, she coolly told me that she had just as good a right to my husband as I had, for he had one wife when I married him, and that rendered my marriage a nullity. What a shock for a wife to hear that she is no wife, or if she is, the wife of a robber, adulterer, and murderer. " I heard all this with a sort of indifference foreign to my very nature. It was well that I did, for it enabled me to per fect my plans, and carry them out with a degree of coolness worthy of a better purpose. I had been promising for some time to visit a friend for a week, and I set about packing up for the journey at once. I said not one word to De Vrai of what I heard, nor gave him one look of reproof. Fortune had made me acquainted with the secret hiding-place of the money this guilty pair h,J obtained from their poor victim, and I did not feel any compunctions of conscience in taking it from them. In three days 'afterwards I was in Paris. Here I lived a few months a wretched life of dissipation, and then De Vrai, tracked me to my hiding-place and I had to fly once more ; this time across the ocean. I had five hundred dollars when I arrived in this city. "What might I not have done with that sum, if I had used it prudently ? What I- did do, I must tell, that it may be a warning to others. It would be a source of consolatior to me if I knew that the follies of my life could be illuminated and set up as a beacon light to my fellow creatures, to save them from the quicksands of dissipation upon which I have been wrecked wrecked by my own folly and foolish pride. 882 HOT CORN. " It was pride, foolish wicked pride, that led me to go to a fashionable hotel, and put up, with my two children and nurse, as Madame De Vrai, from Paris. How soon five hundred dollars melt away, even with prudent living, at a New York hotel. I did not live prudently. I drank to excess, gave late suppers, and gambled. This could not last long, though many hundreds of the dollars worse than wasted in those few weeks, were won from others equally guilty of this besetting wickedness and folly with myself. Such a life could not last. My first step down was to a cheap lodging in Crosby street. I cannot tell how I lived there. I only know that my valuables, my clothes, everything went to the pawn broker, and 1 went to that wretched hole where you first saw me in Cow Bay, from whence I drove my poor little Katy out in the streets at midnight, to sea Hot Corn. It was there that my poor child died. It was there that you received her dying blessing, and I her dying forgiveness for all the wrongs that I had heaped upon her poor innocent head. It was then by her death that I was awakened to consciousness and I felt and saw my own deep soul and body destroying degradation. It was through her death and translation to a home in heaven, that I have obtained a hope that my Father may forgive what my child has forgiven, and that I may yet see her again. It was Him, it must have been Him that opened your ear to that little plaintive cry of ' Hot Corn,' that rose up through your window on its way to the home of angels watch ng over a child whom her mother had forsaken. " It was His power no earthly power could have aroused my LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 383 mind from its lethargy, that awakened me one moment before it was too late. It was a bitter trial, but nothing else but the death of that sweet child would have been sufficient to save her wicked mother ; I cannot mourn her loss, because I feel that she is now so much better off than while singing her nightly cry through the streets, of ' Hot Corn, Hot Corn, here's your nice hot corn ! ' Speaking of singing, have you seen the new song, just published, called ' The Dying Words of Little Katy, or Will He Come ?' " Oh it is beautiful. Here it is, do read it : " Here's hot corn, nice hot corn !" a voice was crying! Sweet hot corn, sweet hot corn ! the breeze is sighing ! Come buy, come buy the world's unfeeling How can she sell while sleep is stealing? " Hot corn ! come buy my nice hot corn 1" All alone, all alone, she sat there weeping ; While at home, while at home, her sister's sleeping, " Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of staying ; Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of saying, Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn 1" Often there, often there, she sat so drear'ly With one thought, for she loved her sister dearly : Did'st hate, did'st hate how could she ever, How could she hate her mother ? never. " Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn !'' Often there, often there, while others playing, Hear the cry, " buy my corn," she's ever praying. #84 HOT CORN. " Pray buy, pray buy, kind hearted stranger, One ear, then home, I'll brave the danger; Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn !" Now at home, now at home, her cry is changing ! " Will he come, will he come?" while fever's raging. She cries, she cries, "pray let me see him ; Once more, once more, pray let me see him. Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn !" "Will he come, will he come?" she's constant crying, " Will he come, will he come?" poor Katy's dying. " 'Twas he, 'twas he, kind words was speaking Hot corn, hot corn, while 1 was seeking Hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn ?" " Midnight there, midnight there, my hot corn crying, Kindly spoke, first kind words, they stop'd my sighing That night, that night, when sleep was stealing, Kind words, kind words my heart was healing; Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn ! " Will he come, will he come ?" weak hands are feeling ! " He has come, he has come I see him kneeling One kiss the light how dim 'tis growing I thank 'tis dark good bye I'm going Hot corn no more shall cry hot coin ! 1 1" Drop a tear, drop a tear, for she's departed, Drop a tear, drop a tear, poor broken hearted, Now pledge, now pledge, the world is crying, Take warning, warning, by Katy's dying, " Hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn ?" LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. * 885 ** The music of this, as it is arranged for the piano, is one of the sweetest, plaintive things you ever heard." " And besides that, there are a good many other songs and tales, so Agnes tells me, already written, which never would have been if my poor child had not been called away from her home of misery here on earth to one made for the inno cent and good beyond the grave. Who knows how much good all those songs and stories, may do in the world, to save others from the road which I took to destruction ?" "Oh, if the wretched, awful misery occasioned by rum, which I alone have seen, could be pictured to the world, it does seem to me that no sane man or woman could ever look upon the picture and live, without becoming so affected that they would foreswear all intoxicating beverages for ever after wards." " Oh, sir, I know that I am now on my death bed, and 1 feel as though I was talking from the spirit world, and I do pray you to tell my fellow creatures, one and all tell my own sex who are just beginning this life of temptation, degradation, sin, shame, woe, and death, what it brought me to, what it will bring all to, sooner or later, who, indulge as I did, first in wine, and, finally, in anything, everything that could sink reason into forgetfulness." Reader, have I obeyed that dying injunction t 386 HOT CORN. CHAPTER XVIH. JULIA ANTRIM, AND OTHER OLD ACQUAINTANCES. "Phould old acquaintance be forgot?" ** ' h-v a l f . . sheep returned to the fold." Ii tb^.^ \ jo wii-d rc/cbrm the vicious, knew the power of love ant kind w is towards the poor fallen creatures who abound in our ci\y, and how much stronger they are than prison bars, how much more powerful than handcuffs, fetters and whip lashes, we should soon see the spirit of reformation hovering over us like the guardian angel sent to save a city that should be found to contain only five righteous persons. My readers may remember the slight glimpse they had of the face of Julia Antrim, on two occasions once as a street walker, only thirteen years old, dressed in borrowed clothes, or rather in garments furnished by one of the beldams who keep the keys of our numerous city pandemoniums, where innocence is entrapped, and virtue sold at a discount; ana again a year or two later, when the fiend who said "our trade," laughed to see her dragged out of one of the under ground dens where demons dwell, where rum is sold and souls destroyed, on her way to prison, and the termination of a career, to which one half, at least, arrive at, who take the first step false step in the same road. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 387 In the morning she was " sent up :" a short phrase which means imprisonment for six months in the citv penitentiary. Penitentiary ! ! What is a penitentiary ? A place of repent ance and reformation. Ours is a place to harden young offenders, or rum-made criminals to make them worse rather than better. It made Julia Antrim worse. It was the work of the missionary, and the benevolent heart of Mr. Lovetree, and the kind words of Mrs. May and Stella, that effected what dungeons, fetters whips, and harsh language could not. " Oh !" said Mrs. Morgan to me one evening, " such a story as my uncle has been telling me ; do tell him, uncle, about one of those * Five Point girls,' rescued from one of those misera ble dens." " Yon remember the girl," said he, " that you saw dragged out of the cellar for picking her paramour's pocket ? Come with me and you shall see her and hear* her own story. Athalia, come put on your hat and go with us. You know how glad Mrs. May and Stella always are to see you." They were so this evening. Stella was in the front shop busy with her pins and needles, threads and tapes, and all the numerous little articles of necessity which go to make up an assortment, for which she had a demand that not only kept her busy, but also a fine bright active little boy. He is on the road to wealth and manhood now. He was on the road to ruin once. He was the son of a drunken father, who taught him to u prig" and sell the stolen articles for rum. The reader has seen him before. Would you like to know 388 HOT CORN. where? Turn back to page 30 look at that picture of the fireman rescuing two children from the flames. This bright boy is the child of drunken Bill Eaton. How Stella's eyes did sparkle as she saw us enter ; far more than they would to see her best customer, for now she saw her best friend, her kind patron, who gave her the means to gain good customers. "Oh, mother, mother, here is Mr. Lovetree and Mrs. Morgan, and that other gentleman !" Then Mrs. May's eyes sparkled, for " she was so glad to see us " she was always glad to see us. She was very busy in the little back shop, working away, and she had two very neat-looking industrious girls at work with her. We have seen both of them before. One of them for the first time on the steps of the Bank of the Republic, clothed in a poor dirty ragged dress, with that same little boy, sickly and pale, leaning upon his sister for support, and keeping her company as the two wandered through the streets, making midnight melodious with that ever pealing summer cry, of, "Hot corn, hot corn, here's your nice hot corn, smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot, all hot, hot, hot !" She will sing it no more. She is in a better situation now for a little girl than midnight street rambling ; that is not the best school for young girls we have seen how near the brink uf ruin it led Sally Eaton. She was rescued just? in time just before she was lost. Two great calamities fell upon her in one night Her father was killed, and her mother's house was burned, leaving the LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 389 poor widow and her two children in the street, naked, except one garment, amid the crowd that came to look upon what she then thought the wreck of all hope. It proved her greacest blessing ; for in that crowd were those who took her in, and clothed and fed, and sent her children to school, and taught her girl how to work ; and, finally, placed her as a help to another widow, where she will soon learn and earn enough to help herself. The other girl, who is now working with her old companion, was once her street associate in rags and wretchedness ; afterwards, her envied, because better clothed, acquaintance. We saw her too, upon the same evening that we first saw the little Hot Corn girl driven away from her hard seat upon those cold stone steps less cold than the heart of the great world towards its outcast population. We saw her again, just where we then knew that her course of life would lead her-^to intoxication, wretchedness crime prisons, and no, she stopped just short of death, and returned to virtue, industry, and happiness. After the heartfelt, happiness-giving congratulations of Mrs. May, Stella, Sally Eaton, and "Brother Willie," were over, I turned to a nice, modest-looking young girl and said, " and who is this ? What is your name ?" " Julia Antrim, sir." Did I dream ? No, I did not dream, I looked upon sober icality. It was the poor outcast, whom I had seen dragged away from the underground abode of all that is bad, to " the Tombs," and from whence she went to " the Island," and as I heard, from there, at the expiration of her noviciate, to one 390 HOT CORN. of the lowest, most degraded, worse than beastly, abodes of those who have only the form of humanity remaining. So I told her I had heard, and she replied, " True where else could I go ? I could go nowhere but there. I came out of prison with only the clothes they gave me there, with my hair cropped branded, to tell all the world to beware of me^ that I was a ' prison bird.' If I desired, and I really did, to return to a virtuous life, the door was for ever closed against me. I went back to Mrs. Brown's, the woman who had first tempted me, with fine clothes and jewelry, to sin to that house where I lost all that a poor girl has on earth her virtue where I had sinned and profited, as the term is, by sinning; where I had left piles of rich clothing, and pretended friends. I knocked at the door, once so ready to open for my first admission, and that too was closed in my face with an oath, a horrid, wicked woman's oath, bidding me to go away or she would send a policeman I knew the policeman would do her bidding to take me away as a common street vagrant, coming there to disgrace a * respectable house.' I went away, dispirited, broken-hearted, arid sunk down into that wretched abode in Anthony street, where I was found by Mr. Pease, and actually compelled, much against my will, to go to the Five Points House of Industry, where I was washed, and clothed, and fed, and sobered, furnished with work, and, above all else, taught to love God and pray, and, for the first time in more than two years, to feel one moment of happiness. When I was with those wretches in that miserable hole LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 31)1 where Mr. Pease found me, I really thought that my heart had got so bad, that it could not, would not, ever be good again. " How I did use to curse and hate everybody that was good. That good man who saved me at last, I hated worse than all others. All who are like what I was then, hate him and fear him more then they do all the prisons and police in the city. If somebody would publish the truth, or only half tho truth, of what I alone know of the crime and misery about the Five Points of New York, and how much good all the good men have done who have devoted themselves to the reformation of those wretched human beings, J do think that everybody with a good heart would buy the book, and thus contribute a mite to aid the good work a work that saves from a life worse than death, scores of children and young girls, lost to every virtuous thought or action ; lost to all hope in life or eternity. " Oh, sir," and she seized me by the hands in her energy, " you can write Stella has told me how you can write that you have written some powerful stories ; pray write more, more, more ; the world will read, and it will do a world of good." " Well, Julia, if I write, I must have characters and names, to fill up the incidents of my Life Scenes, shall I use yours ?" " Yes, yes, if it will do good, and save others." "And mine." "And mine." "And mine." "I think," said Mrs. May, " that the incidents connected with Athalia's life, would alone make quite a volume ; would you have any 592 HOT CORN. objection to having them written out and published, Mm Morgan 2" " Perhaps I might consent, if it was well done, if it would serve as a beacon to save others from being shipwrecked upon the same desolate shore where I came so near being totally lost ; only escaping by the smallest chance, and by one of the most singular interpositions of Providence, and through the efforts of one of the weakest instruments. It is to Stella, first of all that I owe my present happiness. It was through her that all my friends became interested for me. In fact, if it had not been for her, my dear uncle would never have known where to find me." "Rather give the credit to a higher power; that power which gave him the kind benevolent heart that beats in his breast ; that disposition to watch over the young and guard the innocent, which led him to take an interest in my poor child. Let us be grateful to all the humble instruments of Him who giveth every good and perfect gift to man, but to Him to whom we owe all of our present happiness, be the final praise." Now there was a little space of silence ; a time for reflec tion ; all were too full of thought, holy, happy thought, to speak. It is good to think. The world is generally too much given to act without thinking. Mr. Lovetree was not. He thought that we had agreed to visit Mrs. De Vrai, on our way home, " but before I go," said he, " I want to invite you all to dine with us next Sabbath. I want to see our little party of friends all together, for a certain purpose." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 393 " Uncle always has a little surprise to play oft upon his friends. I am afraid this is not a pleasant one, or else he would not have chosen Sunday." " I chose that," said he, " because I know how difficult it is for the laboring poor to give a day from their working time, for any kind of recreation. I assure you that this will be a pleasant surprise, though not an inappropriate one for the day, for I intend to have a minister with us to ask a blessing upon our food." " Oh," said Stella, " I can guess it." Young girls are always ready to guess as she did. She guessed it was to be a wedding. She guessed that Mrs. Morgan was going to be married. Then the others guessed so too. Mrs. Morgan guessed not. She was sure she could not get married without somebody to have her. Of course not. But Stella thought that " somebody" would not be very hard to find. She knew a gentleman that liked her well enough to marry her." At any rate, that the party was to be a wedding one was pretty well settled. Whether the bride will be Athalia or not we shall see So then, after lots of " good night " and " do come again soon," we parted, and went on our way to visit the sick and dying victim of fashionable dissipation, which led her through a rapid career of a few happy months, and then through years of woe, from wine at dinner, to " cobblers " at late suppers, and bitters in the morning ; till an appetite was acquired which 'could only be satisfied by con stant libations of anything that would intoxicate, procured by 17* 394 HOT CORN. any means, however debasing, till she ceased to be a lady ; almost ceased to be a woman ; quite forgot that she was a mother ; else how could she have driven that poor little inno cent child out upon the streets, murky and damp, with her cry of " Hot Corn, hot corn, all smoking hot !" while the poor child was chilly, cold, and starving ? Poor girl poor little Katy ! Thy mother loves thee now. Look down from thy blest abode it is thy mother calls, it is thy voice she hears, and she answers, " Yes, yes I will come." " She is better, sir," said Phebe, as we entered the door. " She has been sitting up a good deal, and she talks of going over to your house to-morrow, Mrs. Morgan ; she says she jaust go out, and take the air, or she never will get well." This was pleasant news, and it quite elated Mrs. Morgan. Mr. Lovetree gave one of his peculiar expressions of counte nance as soon as he saw her, which told as plain as though he had spoken it, that she never would go out again but once, that would be a ride which all must, none are willing, to take. We were all verymuch delighted to find Mrs. Meltraud and Agnes, with Mrs. De Vrai. Mrs. Meltrand, ever since she had first seen her, had fallen in love with little Sissee, the sweet little Adaleta, and this evening Mrs. De Vrai, had made her a final promise, that if she should not get well, Mrs. Meltrand should have her for her own ; and she had promised to adopt her and make her as much her child as though she was really so. " But what is the use of talking ? I don't feel any more like dying than you do. I am almost well. My cough has quite gone." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 395 But a bright crimson spot upon each cheek had not gone ; and that told its own tale. Adaleta was delighted with sister Agnes. She could hardly bear to part with her. She will not, but her mother must. How little any one would have thought, as we parted that evening, leaving the invalid so cheerful and full of hope, that we had parted for the last time. No ! not the last time may we hope for one more meetirg? Let us now retire to our chambers and prepare for that meet ing. Let us say to the reader, as we said to the poor sufferer, " Good night. God be with you !" 396 HOT CORN. CHAPTER THE LAST. All things must l.are an end. Where there is true friendship, there needs no glosa to our deeda, no hollow welcome to real friends. "Brand by" is easy said ; it means an uncertain time, but it comes at last, It came to Mrs. De Vrai, only a few hours after our last parting. Phebe came with the early morning to say, " She is gone, sir ; gone to meet her poor child in the hope of the penitent. After you went away, she lay and talked and talked about you, all of you, and Mrs. Meltrand and Agnes, and how happy she should be if she was a going to die, to think that her child would have such a good mother and sister, and so many real friends ; and how different it would be with herself now, here and hereafter, as well as her child, than it would have been if she had died in her former residence of wretchedness, sin, and woe. Then I asked her if she would take her medicine and go to sleep, and she said* * by and by, not now ; I feel so well, so happy, I can almost fancy that I see my poor little Katy in heaven among the angels. I often see her here in the room when I am laying with my eyes closed, but not asleep ; and I often think I hear her dying words, " Will ha Come !" and I say " yes, he has come; the Saviour has come, my child, to your mother." LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 397 Then she says, " then come, mother, come and live with us ;" and I answer, " by and by." By and by, Phebe I shall go, but not yet, I am going to get well now.' " So I went and lay down in the back room, and I heard nothing of her, though I got up and looked at her a good many times, but she seemed to be sleeping so sweet, I thought I would not wake her to take her medicine the doctor said I need not. In the morning I got up, and looked in the room, and there was Sissee sitting up in the bed, trying to open her mother's eyes ; then she would put her arms around her neck and kiss her, but there was no kiss in return. Then she sat back and looked at her a minute, and then called ' Phebe, Phebe, mamma does not speak, oh Phebe, is mamma dead ?' " Yes mamma was dead. She had died as calm and free from pain and full of joy as when she said " good night " to her friends. She had died full of anticipation that she was going to live to get well ; that she would not join the spirit of Little Katy now, but by and by : by and by she would come. Drop a tear, drop a tear, for she's departed ! Wreath a smile, for she died not broken-hearted. This was on Friday morning. On the Sunday following, the intended party met at Mrs. Morgan's and partook of an early dinner. "For," said Mr. Lovetree, "we have a good deal to do this afternoon. In the first place, some of our friends are disposed to be united in the holy, the blessed bonds, that bind the sexes together in a union that should be indissoluble, and oroductive of nothing but happiness. After that we have a 398 HOT CORN. duty to perform, which though it is generally termed melan choly, must not be made so on the present occasion. We shall go to deposit the body in Greenwood, that lovely place of rest for the dead, of one who we have every reason to believe died a true penitent, and is now with the spirit of Little Katy, where those who are murdered by the same cause that produced her death, will seldom ever be found. Our good missionary is with us, and we will have the wedding ceremony before the funeraL one, because many go from that to the grave, none come from there to the marriage feast." Now all began to look around for the happy couple. Mrs. Morgan was dressed as though she might be a bride, but where was the groom ? Mr. Lovetree whispered to Mrs. Meltrand, for she was there with Agnes and little Sis, and Mrs. Meltrand said that Frank would be there by the time. " Now what Frank is that ?" said Stella in a whisper to Mrs. May; "it must be Frank Barkley ; and so it is Mrs. Morgan that is going to be married. Oh, dear, I am sorry, I was in hopes she would always live with her old uncle, as she does now." It was Frank Barkley who was expected. He was an old acquaintance of Mrs. Meltrand, a little wild in his youth, and came within an inch of the precipice over which so many young men tumble. Mr. Lovetree had said, " there is some thing good in the fellow," and between him and Mrs. Mel trand, it was developed. He is a good fellow a sober fellow now and he is going to be married. Now the door bell rings. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 309 " There that is him." Yes, it was him. He was told that all were waiting foi him, and he said " he had come to the minute agreed upon." Poor Stella shed tears. She cried to think her dear friend, Mrs. Morgan, was about to be married. She cried without a cause. Mr. Lovetree said to Frank, " allow me to introduce you to my niece, Mrs. Morgan." He started back from her, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Stella rubbed hers. She was convinced now that they were not to be married. Poor Frank looked confused and in doubt. He approached near enough to Mrs. Morgan to whisper, " Lucy," to which she replied, " Yes," and he said, " God bless you then," and turned away to meet his bride. This was Agnes. And he took her by the hand, and led her up to the minister who was to pronounce them man and wife, and said " Now, sir, we are ready." Then a couple, who were to act as bridesmaid and bridegroom's attendant, took their stations upon the floor. It was the opinion of all present that they would act as principals in a similar scene by and by. Perhaps the reader would like to know who this neatly- dressed, bright couple are, for he has seen them several times before. It is one of Mr. Lovetree's oddities that you see them now. You have seen them when they would not be very fitting guests in a parlor, but they wear wedding-gar ments now. This is Tom, who held the cup of cold water 400 HOT CORN U> the lips of the dying Madalina, and this is his reward.- The neat, lovely girl at his side is Wild Maggie Miss Margaret Reagan. The fine-looking hearty man that is leading up a well-dressed woman to the altar another couple to be mar ried is one of the former customers of Gale Jones's grocery. It is Maggie's father. His bride is Mrs. Eaton. We have seen her and her two children in some of the early scenes of this volume. We saw them in the street then we see them in the parlor now. V{e see them much better, much hap pier this time, and we see them just as we might see all the laboring class, if we could abolish the traffic in rum from the world. There are two other couples here to bear testimony to that fact. It was the particular request of Reagan and Maggie that they should be present to witness and rejoice over the power of the pledge to save. We have seen both these couples stand up to be married before the same minister who is now saying the solemn words of the marriage cere mony to those before him. You may see them as they were when you first saw them, if you will turn back to the plate facing the " Two Penny Marriage." Julia Antrim and Willie Reagan act as attendants upon this last couple, and Sally Reagan and Stella May, dressed in pure white dresses of their own make with wreaths of flowers in their hair, made by their own hands served the company with cakes and fruits and tea and coffee. Then the carriages came to the door, and all wer t not to a tavern, or drinking salooa for a riot, to commemor.ite the most serious event of life, but in all soberness due to the occasion, to con LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 401 sign the remains of poor Madame De Vrai to her final resting- place on the earth. It is a pleasant drive to Greenwood Cemetery, and it is a pleasant place for the tombs of our friends. It is a good place to go to meditate, among the new-made graves in the fresh-turned earth, and among the proud monuments of those who have lain long enough beneath their marble coverings to be forgotten. I did not forget to look, as I passed along, at the rose bush which I saw planted by a widow at the grave of her rum-murdered husband. It was growing fresh and vigorously. Now we stand around the open grave that is soon to be filled by another victim of a trade that feeds scores and starves millions that saves one life and causes a thousand deaths that consigns youth, innocence and beauty, equally with old age, to a premature grave. Now we lower this last victim still young, beautiful, intelligent, full of sweetness of disposi tion and kindness of heart into her grave. Now we look at the little cherub, the darling, sweet, much loved Adaleta, her orphan child, and now at her sister's grave, then at the weep ing circle, who stand and sob as the falling clods bring forth that hollow sound, never heard in any other place. Now the voice of him who says: "'Tis,the last of earth," "Let us pray," breaks the charmed circle of intense silence. Why is every eye upturned at the close ? Did each listen ing ear fancy it heard the sound of an angel's voice in the air, breathing the words, "Will he Come ?" " Will he Come " And did they expect to see the face of Little Katy in the 402 HOT CORN. clouds, looking down upon those she loved, paying this tribute to her mother, now sleeping by her side in the grave ; now with her child in the spirit land of the blest ? Now the tall corn is waving o'er the mountain and glen, And the sickle is reaping both the corn and the men ; And the child that was sleeping where the lamps dimly shone, Like the corn, now is with'ring, in the vale all alone. "Hot corn !" she was crying, in the night, all alone, " Hot corn ! here's your nice hot corn !" in the grave all alone. Where the chill rain was falling, sat the poor child asleep ; * Where the lights nightly burning, city vigils help keep Where the ague was creeping through the blood and the bone Of the child that was sleeping on the curb-stone alone. " Hot corn !" she was crying, in the night all alone, " Hot corn ! here's your rJ-?e hot corn !" hi the grave all alone. In a dark room lonely, lay the cnild all awake, With a voice wildly crying, " Will he come, for my sake ?" Then a good man was praying, while to her dimly shone, Poor fading light ceases burning and with God she's alone. " Hot corn !" she was crying, in the night all alone, " Hot corn ! here's your nice hot corn !" in the grave all alone. In the dark grave sleeping, while poor Katy's at rest, While the wild storm raging, ever sweeps o'er her breast While the mourners are weeping for the dead passed away, Let us pledge by the living that the cause we will stay. " Hot corn !" she was crying, in the night all alone, '' Hot corn ! here's your nice hot corn," in the grave all alone. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 403 A VOICE FROM KATY S GRAVE. Among the many poetical effusions which have been elicited by reading the story of " Little Katy," I think the following, which appeared in the New York Tribune, will be read with pleasure. It is from the pen of Mrs. B. F Foster, of New York : With dizzy whirl, on rushed the wheels Along the City's murky street, And music's light, inspiring peals Rang out from folly's gay retreat ; And busy footsteps hurried past, And human voi<;es, harsh and wild, Commingling, floated on the blast ; When the shrill accents of a child Rose mid the din, in tones forlorn, And cried, " Come, buy hot corn, hot corn !" Like some sad spirit wafted by, A stranger to the ways of earth, Came up that little plaintive cry Sweet discord to the sounds of mirth. Unheeded by the reckless crowd, There stood a girl, a pale, wan thing, And 'neath her bosom's tattered shroud. There lurk'd an age of suffering ; While e'en till night approached the mom, In feebler voice, she cried, " Hot Corn !" 404 HOT CORN. The gas lamp's glare fell on her face, But lighted not her languid eyes; And down her pallid cheeks;, the trace Of tears, bespoke her miseries ; With hunger gnawing at her heart, She shivered, as the night wind blew Her soiled and ragged clothes apart ; Till all insensible she grew, And sinking in unblessed sleep, Forgot to cry, " Hot Corn," and weep. Alone, so young, how came she there ? To sell hot corn so late at night ; Had she no friends, no home, nowhere To rest, and hide her f-om the sight Of the rude world ? No mother ? Hush ! That holy name is not the one For Katy's parent. Woman ! blush For thy lost sister ; blush to own That thou canst ever fall so low, To plunge thy childre*n into woe. Within that mother's heart, the light Of love was quench'd. quench'd by the flood, The damning flood, whose waters blight All that is left of human good : And in her breast that demon reigned, Who "Give, give, give!" is ever crying; Demanding still to be maintained, While all within, around, is dying; Outpouring in its baneful breath, Destruction, sorrow, sin and death. LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 405 The lips which should have kiss'd away Her daughter's tears, dealt curses forth; The hand which should have been her stay, Was but the minister of wrath ; . Blind to her wants, deaf to her prayers, Regardless of the driving storm, To open streets and midnight airs, She drove that little shrinking form, To earn a dram ! In shame and scorn With famished lips to cry, " Hot corn 1" "Hot corn, hot corn !" night after night, More faint and feeble grew that voice- Still fiercely burned each glaring light, Still music bade the town rejoice ; The ceaseless footsteps passed along, Up came the wild discordant tones, The voices of the thoughtless throng, The bounding wheels rolled o'er the stones, But midst the din, the rush, the roar, Poor Katy's cry is heard no more. In one of those dark, noisome cells, The wretched call their home, she lies All motionless ; the icy spells Of death, have closed those weary eyes : She speaks not now. Alas ! how dread ! That calm reproachful silence, when Beside the wronged and injured dead, We kneel in vain ! Low in that den Behold the stricken mother cower ; Grown sober in one fearful hour. 406 HOT CORN. Sh calls her, "Katy, darling!" peers Into that pale and sunken face, She bathes her senseless brow with tears, Sees on those bruised limbs, the trace Of her own cruelty ; r again She calls, and prays for one last word, Of blest forgiveness ; all in vain, The answering )ics no more is heard, The soulless clay alone is there, And fell remorse, and dark despair. Weep, wretched woman, weep ! That face Shall haunt thee to thy dying day ; Nor time from memory erase Thy child's deep wrongs ; for they Shall scorch into thy guilty breast ; In mad excitement thou shalt hear Her cries ; and midst thy fitful rest, Shall that pale phantom form appear, And o'er thy drunken moping, stand To curse thee with an outstretched hand. Yet not alone with thee, abides That curse. Oh, Men, and Christians ! can Ye robe yoursei * in god-like pride, And boast your land, the one where man Is most exalted ; yet permit The Demon Drunkenness to roam Unfettered through your streets ; to sit By ev'ry corner, ev'ry home The weak and wretched to allure To drink, to suffer, and endure? LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK. 407 In mercy, then, arrest the reign Of this dread fiend ; and Oh ! protect Man from his self-inflicted pain. Spare the young wife, whose hopes are wreck' d, Whose heart is crushed, whose home forsaken, Whose life's a desolated wild. To infant prayers and tears awaken, And from the mother save the child. Hark to that echo ! " Save, oh, save 1" Pleads a sad voice from Katy's grave. " Pleads a sad voice from Katy'a grave- Save, oh, save !" Fathers ! mothers ! sons ! daughters ! husbands ! wives ! Christians ! philanthropists ! All brothers and sisters ! hear ye that voice ? If ye do not, then, indeed, are ye deaf. Then have I cried in vain. In vain I have visited the abodes of wretchedness and sin, to draw materials for my panorama of " Life Scenes in New York." In vain I have painted you dark scenes of life, instead of those which shine out in the noonday sun. In vain have I endeavored to awaken your sympathies by relations of tales of woe, or painted vice, as I have met with it in my midnight rambles, to guard you from its snares, if I have failed to touch that chord in your heart which brings a tear to the eye, for it is that which will prompt you to action to sleepless vigilance, to eradicate from the world the great 408 HOT cause of such human misery as I have depicted. It is that which will prompt you to give, if nothing more, ".Three grains of corn, Only three grains of corn, mother," towards the redemption of the fallen, and protection of those who need a staff and a guide to hold them back from the precipice over which they have gone down to ruin. Reader, if you have not yet done it, do not close the book until you have paid the tribute of a tear at the grave of RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (415)642-6233 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW JAN 2 N9 536215 PS2719 Robinson, S. R6 Hot corn, H6 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS