MARY MARGARET DILLON’S SHANTY.
The shanty to which Mary Margaret conducted her guest stood in a vacant
lot, high up in the city. It was a rustic affair, composed of boards
mingled with the odds and ends from old buildings, that Michael Dillon
had been engaged in demolishing during his experience as a laboring man.
Indeed, Michael was a very favorable specimen of metropolitan squatter
sovereignty, and had succeeded in securing no inconsiderable means of
creature comfort around him, though another man was owner of the soil.
He had managed, when out of work, to wall in a little patch of land, in
a rude, loose way, it is true, which he denominated the garden, and some
dozen or two of fine cabbages, as many hills of potatoes, and a cucumber
vine, where great, plethoric, yellow cucumbers were ripening for seeds,
gave color and force to Michael’s assumption.
In addition to these substantials, Mary Margaret had contributed her
share of the useful and picturesque by planting nasturtians all along
the low, stone wall, which clothed the rude structure with a sheet of
gorgeous blossoms, and gave it the look of an immense garland flung upon
the ground.
Thus hedging her husband’s usefulness in with flowers, the province of a
true woman, Mary Margaret had helped to win a gleam of the beautiful
from the rude, stony soil from which Michael strove to wrest a portion
of their daily food.
I have often thought that true goodness, in a woman, at least, is always
accompanied with glimmerings of fine taste. Certain it is, Mary Margaret
had managed to impart no common show of rustic effect to her little,
board shanty. Its door and simple window were entwined with
morning-glories and scarlet runners that took the morning sunshine
beautifully, and on a rainy day shed gleams of red and purple all over
the front of the shanty, tangling themselves and peeping out in
unexpected crevices even among the slabs on the roof. Indeed, they
encroached on the province of a mockorange, that for two years had kept
possession of the roof, and the sturdy vine was obliged to drop its
golden fruit among the purple and red bells of the morning-glory, and
even to creep off to the back of the shanty, where no one could see the
richness and symmetry of its fruits.
Then there was a sweet-briar bush indigenous to the soil, at one end of
her dwelling, which Mary Margaret had pruned and caressed into profuse
luxuriance; though it was dark, the scent of this bush greeted Catharine
as she approached the shanty; with this pleasant sensation she entered
her new home almost cheerfully.
The shanty was divided by a board partition into two small rooms, not so
untidy as to be repulsive, but rather close to one entering from the
fresh night air. The anteroom contained a bed, in which Mary Margaret’s
sterner half lay sound asleep, after a hard day’s toil beneath the hod.
“Whist a bit, while I light the lamp,” said Mary Margaret, raking the
embers in a portable furnace so hurriedly together that the sparks flew
all around her, “let the ould man slape his fill; he must be up and at
work by six in the morning.”
Catharine hardly drew her breath, for she was seized with terror lest
the sleeping man should awake and resent her intrusion into his
dwelling.
“Sit down fornent the furnace, while I boil a sup of water for the tay,”
whispered the hostess, kindling her tin lamp; “jist give Michael’s coat
and hat a toss and take the chair yersel’; faix! ye look tired and white
enough for anything.”
Catharine sat down, for she was indeed quite exhausted, and relieved of
the anxiety that had tortured her so long, she almost fell asleep while
Mary Margaret made her tea, and cut the loaf which had been carefully
put aside for the family breakfast.
There was not much refinement in Mary Margaret’s method of serving up
her meals; but she certainly made an effort to render things rather
genteel than otherwise. A clean sheet, taken from a pile of clothes
ready to be sent home, was folded twice and laid on the table for a
cloth, and Mary brought forth an old china cup in an earthenware saucer,
which she garnished with a pewter spoon, as an especial honor to her
guest.
As for herself, she sipped her portion of the “tay” daintily from a
little tin cup that belonged to the youngest child.
With all its drawbacks, this was a delicious meal to poor Catharine, and
she partook of it with a sense of gratitude so full and gushing that it
amounted almost to happiness. Two or three times she turned her eyes
upon Mary Margaret and made an effort to thank her, but the words were
lost in a glow of emotions, and she could only falter out,—
“Oh, Mrs. Dillon, how I want to thank you for all this, but no human
being ever was so poor, I have not even words.”
She spoke with some energy, and before Mrs. Dillon could protest against
all this waste of gratitude, which she was just attempting, a cry arose
from the bed on one side of Dillon, which was echoed by a half-smothered
response from under the blankets close by the wall.
Catharine started to her feet. The faintest cry of an infant was enough
to thrill every drop of blood in her veins.
“Whose—whose child is that?” she inquired, breathlessly; “surely I heard
_two_ voices!”
“In course ye did, and why not?” said Margaret, with a baby under one
arm, while she plunged about among the blankets for the little creature
next the wall. “Come out here, little felly, and show yer blue eyes to
the lady. Isn’t he a beauty, out and out?”
Catharine held out her arms for the child, who turned his great blue
eyes wonderingly upon the lamp, while the poor young creature was
striving to fix them on herself, for her very soul yearned toward the
little creature. But the child was obstinate, and gave itself up to
admiration of the lamp, while she sat gazing on it through a mist of
tears, so sadly, wrapped in fond sorrow, that you would have wept at the
very attitude.
“Whose—whose is it?” she asked; “both cannot be yours.”
“Ye’re right in that entirely,” answered Margaret, pouring some milk
into the tin cup she had been drinking from and placing it on the embers
in the furnace. “It’s the nurse maid ye have.”
“And who is its mother?” faltered Catharine, pressing the child fondly
to her bosom, and laying her pale cheek to its warm little face.
“Ye remember the poor young crathur that had the cot next to yours, and
the baby they took away from yez?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“She died, poor, misfortunate soul! and only that I wouldn’t stand by
and see the baby starve to death by her side, it might have been buried
on her bosom. I had a fight wid the nurse, bad luck to her! but the
doctor stood by me, and so the little thing got a fair start in the
world before he came to you. Faix! but she’s a wicked crathur, that
nurse.”
“I believe she was—I am sure of it!” answered Catharine, in a mournful
undertone. “Do you know I sometimes think that my own poor little baby
might have lived, if she had taken care of it? Such a large,
beautiful—ah, if it had but lived—if it had but lived, nothing could
make me quite miserable! Mrs. Dillon, poor, helpless, and deserted as I
am, I would give the whole world, if it were mine, only to hold _his_
child in my arms as I do this poor, little motherless baby. He has left
me—he has left me, but I know that I should worship his child.”
“Hist, now hist, or ye’ll be after wakin’ the old man, though he does
not sleep like a pavin’-stone in general; and ye’ll be afther breakin’
the heart in me busom, too, if ye take so on. Here, feed the poor baby
wid a dhrop of the warm milk, while I give this little spalpeen a turn.
It’ll aise your heart, never fear!”
Here Mary Margaret began shaking her boy, and scolding him heartily for
greediness, bringing various charges against him as a young spalpeen and
a thaif of the worldt. In this torrent of superfluous words, the tears
that had been crowding to her eyes were dispersed, and she sat up, a
strong-minded woman once more.
“Ye asked me about the baby there,” she said, at length, without
appearing to notice the tears that filled poor Catharine’s eyes. “That
hathenish nurse was nigh gettin’ the upper hands of me. You remember how
she let on to the doctor that it was drinkin’ I’d been when the heavy
sickness fell on me after takin’ a sup of yer medicine, and he, poor
innocent, belaved her, an’ took away the child that I was fond of a’most
as if it was my own flesh and blood.” Catharine looked up and inquired
how it came about that she got the child back again.
“This is the way,” answered Margaret. “I did not like the woman that
nurse Kelly gave the little orphan to when ye begged so hard to keep it.
The heart in my bosom felt like a cold stone when I saw her gathering it
up like a bundle under her shawl. There was starvation and murther in
her face; more than that, she was faregathing wid nurse Kelly, an’ that
was another rason agin her. Well, wid these feelins I couldn’t eat or
sleep wid thinkin’ of the child, for it seemed to me as plain as the sun
that some harm was coming to the little soul. So afore they sent me away
from the hospital I inquired, aisy, ye know, where the woman that had
got me baby lived, and it turned out that an acquaintance of my own was
in the same tinament. When a week was over, I went to visit my
acquaintance—d’ye see—and in an aisy sort o’ way asked about the woman
and the baby. It was just as I had thought; the woman was niver at home,
but went out to her reglar day’s work, laying the poor little orphan all
alone in a basket, sound asleep, in consequence of the laud’num and them
soothin’-drops. I went into the room to see it, and there it lay in an
old basket on a heap of rags, wid its little eyes shut, and a purple
ring under ’em. It had famished away till its own mother, if she had
lived, wouldn’t a known it.
“Well, I couldn’t stand that, so without sayin’ a word I up an’ takes
the crathur in my arms, and walks off to the Alms house in the Park, and
there I laid the child that still slept like a log, down afore the
gintlemen that sit there for the good o’ the poor, ivery day of the
blessed year, and says I,—
“‘Are ye magestrates and gintlemen,’ says I, ‘to sit here while the poor
orphan childer that ye should be fathers to,’ says I, ‘are bein’ starved
and poisoned with black dhrops under yer honorable noses?’ says I. Wid
that, afore the gintlemen could say a word for themselves, I unfolded
the rags that the baby was wrapped in, and laid its little legs an’ arms
huddled together like a fagot afore ’em, and says I agin,—
“‘Look here, if yese got the heart for it, an’ see for yerselves.’
“Thin one of the gintlemen up an’ spoke for himself, and says he,—
“‘The nurses are all compelled to bring their children here for
inspection once in two weeks, an’ the time has but just gone by. How can
this be?’ an’ he was mighty sorry an’ put out, I could see that plain
enough.
“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘that’s the truth,’ says I, ‘but it’s aisy enough to
borry a show-baby when ivery house where these poor orphans go is
runnin’ over wid ’em, and young babies are all alike as peas in a pod,’
says I, ‘and it must be a cute man to know any of ’em from one time to
another. Just wait a bit,’ says I, ‘if ye don’t belave me, and I’ll show
you the very baby that was brought here in the place of this. It’s a
plump, hearty little felly, and belongs to an acquaintance of my own.’
“‘Can this be true?’ says one of the gintlemen to another.
“‘True as the gospel,’ says I, spakin’ up boldly, ‘ye’ve been praisen
that hathen of a nurse for a baby that didn’t belong til ye, and this
poor thing has been starved down to nothin’.’
“‘Well,’ says the gintleman, for he was a rale gintleman, says he, ‘I’ll
send an officer for this woman, and she shall never, to her dying day,
have another child from this department. But what can we do wid the poor
infant? We must send for a nurse that can be trusted at once.’
“Thin my heart ris into my mouth, and I hugged the baby to me, and says
I, wid the tears in my eyes, says I, ‘Let me have the child to nurse,
I’ll be a mother til it, an’ more too, if that’ll satisfy ye.’
“Well, the long and short of it was, they thanked me kindly for comin’,
and give me the baby, wid a dollar a week for takin’ care of it. So when
the nurse came home, expectin’ to find it dead in its basket, there was
nothin’ for her but a bundle of rags, and a perlice officer to take her
down to the Park.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Catharine, with a burst of gratitude, kissing the
child again and again. “It was a brave act, Mrs. Dillon, and the child
will live to bless you for it as—as I do.”
“In course he will,” replied Mary Margaret, “for it’s just a miracle the
saints might wonder at that he lived at all. At first, ye see,
considerin’ his starvin’ condition, I just give me own little felly the
could shoulder, and turned him over to the tin porriger; but he got on
well enough, niver fear; and the little stranger begun to thrive as ye
niver seen in yer born days.”
“He has indeed found a kind mother,” said Catharine, thoughtfully. “But
how long will they let you keep him?”
“Well, it’s two years that they put the babies to nurse. I’m tould,”
answered Mary, reluctantly.
“And after that?”
“Thin they are sent up to the Almshouse, and after that bound out; if
they happen to be killing purty like this one, maybe some rich gintleman
or lady up and adopts ’em and makes a lord of ’em entirely. Some day you
and I will see them blue eyes a-looking at us through a carriage-windy,
and I’ll be bound he’ll bow and smile as if we were the real quality
itself.”
Catharine became very thoughtful during this prophecy, and turned her
eyes away from the child, as if its innocent face gave her pain.
“Niver mind,” interposed her hostess, interpreting her look with that
subtile magnetism with which one true womanly heart reads another.
“A great many things may happen in two years, with the blessings of the
saints, so don’t be getting down-hearted; there’s a God above all!”
“I know it,” answered Catharine, gazing with sad tenderness on the
child; “but it makes my heart ache to think what may become of this poor
baby.”
“There now, hand it over, and go to your bed with the childer; it’s
gettin’ down in the mouth ye are, and all for not eatin’ a hearty male
whin ye had it to the fore,” exclaimed Mary Margaret, depositing her
offspring by its sleeping father, and reaching out her arms for the
other child. “There, there, go yer ways now; just push the childer aisy
a one side, an’ make yerself contint on half their straw bed on the
floor, and a comfortable bed may ye find it.”
Catharine arose to obey this hospitable command, but Mary Margaret
called her back.
“See here; isn’t it as like the holy cross now as two paes?” she said,
putting the soft hair back from the baby’s temple, and revealing a
crimson mark that really had a cruciform appearance, small and delicate
as it was.
“Isn’t he born to be a saint now!” exclaimed the Irish woman,
exultingly.
“Or a martyr, perhaps,” said Catharine; and she walked sadly into the
little room pointed out by her hostess.