NURSES FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.
I must go back a year or two, and take up an event, which happened
during Catharine’s sojourn in the Insane Asylum.
An old man, gray-haired, and with a most bland countenance, cordial and
ruddy, lighted by those soft chestnut-brown eyes that are always so
pleasant of expression, sat behind his desk in the Almshouse building at
the Park. It was visiting-day in his department, when all the orphan
infants, put out to nurse by the city, were expected to be brought to
the office for inspection, or for such changes as time made necessary.
It was a strange scene, at times painfully revolting, and again full of
natural pathos. One after another, these poor little pauper souls were
brought in, wrapped in an old shawl or torn blanket, motherless, or
worse than motherless,—their very existence the growth of sin, or of
misfortunes almost as bitter. The women who carried them were usually
but one degree removed from the Almshouse themselves, and became the
paid mothers of these miserable children, in order to save their own
offspring from the same terrible fate.
Some of these women were kind, and gave themselves lovingly to their
infant charges, yielding their hearts to humanity without reservation.
These took their seats in the outer office, with quiet and serene faces,
folding their orphan babies in their arms, with a soft, motherly
instinct that had no thought of the searching eyes turned upon them, but
waited serenely in an atmosphere of honest love. Others, cruel and
crafty, were anxious only to pass examination, and obtain the money
which was to repay the forced succor they had given the forlorn children
in their arms. These women were often seized with paroxysms of
affection, as they ranged themselves to wait, and fell to caressing the
poor infants with revolting fondness, hugging them to bosoms that
loathed the contact, and kissing the poor lips from which their cruel
hands would gladly have withheld the very food necessary to life.
Among these women, some motherly from nature, others cruel against
nature, there came a little Irish woman, plump and rosy, and evidently
of a cheerful habit, better clad and better looking every way than her
companions. She held a beautiful little boy by the hand, who came
reluctantly, lifting his fine eyes to her face with a wondering, anxious
look, and dragging back shyly, half-hiding behind her gown, as he
approached the crowd of strange women.
The poor creature had evidently been crying. Her eyes were red, and her
rosy cheeks tear-stained, while her plump lips seemed laden with
suppressed sobs, that threatened to break forth afresh every time her
eyes fell upon the boy, who was so anxious to hide himself in her
garments.
“Mammy, mammy, take me home; don’t stay here, mammy; let’s go home,”
pleaded the boy, pulling her gown with both his plump hands, while she
lingered to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I won’t stay; I won’t speak
to that man; he makes you cry.”
Mary Margaret could not answer him, but a great sob burst from her lips,
and snatching him up, she buried her face in his bosom.
The little fellow drew back, and laid a soft palm on each cheek, while
he looked—oh! so lovingly, into her eyes.
“Don’t, mammy, don’t; please don’t—home, go home!” he said, grieved and
wondering.
“I can’t, I can’t; they won’t let me take you home again. My heart is
broke. Oh! it’s got a pain that’ll last forever. Eddie, my darlint, put
your two blissid little hants together, as if ye was prayen’ to the
Virgin herself, me boy; and ask the gentleman to let yees go back wid
yer own nurse.”
Eddie patted her cheeks again, while his beautiful lips began to quiver,
and his eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, yes, don’t cry any more. Eddie will tell him; don’t cry; he will.”
Struggling down from the poor woman’s arms, the little fellow clenched
his small white fists, and rubbed the tears from his baby-eyes,
half-grieved, half-belligerent, while he marched up to the
superintendent, who greeted him with an extended hand, smiling kindly.
“Well, Eddie, my boy, where’s your hand?”
Eddie hid his little clenched fist in the folds of his dress, and
received these advances with a defiant pout.
“Mammy wants me to go home, and I _will_ go home!” he said, while his
little form swelled and struggled with a rising sob.
“And so you shall, to a nice, big home, where you will have lots of
little boys to play with.”
“I don’t want no boys to play with, but Pat and mammy,” answered the
little fellow, walking backward toward his nurse.
“But you shall live in a grand, big house.”
“Mammy lives in a grand, big house,” answered the child, quite convinced
that his shanty-home was equal to any palace. “I like her grand home!”
“But mammy hasn’t got cherry-trees, and apple-orchards, and meadows full
of clover,” said the officer, amused, and yet touched by the child’s
resolute air.
“But she’s got morning-glories, and—and red beans, and oh, dear! she’s
got everything—she has,” cried the child, with a burst of tearful
eloquence.
“Mister,” said Mary Margaret, approaching the officer in her motherly
sorrow, “if ye’d only let the little felly stay a bit longer, till he’s
big enough to wear jacket and trousers, ye know; he’s backard-like, ye
see, and wants good motherly nursin’ more ’n a three months child.”
The officer shook his head, and Mary Margaret looked wofully down upon
the little fellow, who was striving to envelop himself in the folds of
her calico dress.
“He’s no mother but me, yer honor. It’d kill him intirely to go up
yonder with the rest, and have all his beautiful curls cut short,
and—and, oh! yer honor, it’ll be the death of us both—it will. Couldn’t
ye be merciful this onest? Consither he’s a poor, motherless crathur,
and only me to look up to in the wide worlt!”
Again the officer shook his head, but there was relenting and sympathy
in his eyes. How could he help it, with that frank, pleading look fixed
upon him, and the pretty child peeping out wistfully from the shelter of
her garments.
“Indeed, Mrs. Dillon, I am sorry, but we have stretched a point in this
case already, in consideration of your affection for the boy. The law is
that all children, dependent on the city, must be removed to the
institution when they are two years old. Now we know that little Eddie
there is almost three, and he must take his chance with the rest.”
Poor Mary Margaret’s countenance fell, and Eddie made a grand effort to
draw her away by force.
“Home!” he pleaded, “home, mammy; I will go home!”
“It may be,” said Mary Margaret, determined not to give up while a hope
was left. “It may be yer honor thinks it’s the dollar a week I want; and
it’s bad enough me and the childer need it, anyhow; but if ye’d but
consint, I’d take Eddy, the crathur, for half price, an’ ’d think it a
bargain, yer honor. If the old man had a word agin it, d’ ye see, I’d
sit up anights, and do another ’xtra gentleman’s washing; it’d be no
throuble in life, while I saw his beautiful, curly head peeping up from
under the blankets, wid my own two spalpeens on each side, to keep the
darlint from falling out of bed, ye know. I’d always manage to get him a
sup of new milk, yer honor, and ’d never put in a taste of water, as I
do—an’ little blame to me—wid the others.”
Again Mary Margaret paused; she had no other arguments to offer, and her
poor, kind heart swelled painfully, when she saw no symptom of yielding
in the face of the official.
“I cannot, indeed, Mrs. Dillon. It is out of my power; the child must
not remain entirely with you; with so many children of your own, it
would be impossible for you to bring him up as he should be; your
husband ought not to permit this injudicious kindness.”
Poor Mary Margaret had nothing to answer. She knew well enough her
husband, a hard-working man, had trouble enough to supply the clamorous
wants of his own children, and that little Eddie, with his beauty and
his sweet ways, had never been taught to rough it at home with the rest.
Besides, there was a more powerful argument still,—that inexorable
officer.
Mary Margaret looked down at the boy, and tears stole into her eyes,
slowly blinding her to his wistful little face. She looked at the
officer, clasping her hands and bending forward as if he had been the
picture of a saint.
“Would ye do it, if I’d just go down on me two bended knees to yer
honor—would ye now?”
“I have no power,” answered the man abruptly, bending over the book of
records that lay open before him, that the woman might not observe the
moisture that crept into his eyes. “I have no power,” he repeated again,
abruptly, nay, almost with harshness, for he was afraid to trust himself
longer with those two faces turned so imploringly upon him, compelled as
he was to act by a rigid law.
Mary Margaret stooped down, and lifting the child in her arms, drew a
corner of her shawl over him.
“Would yer honor let me keep him wid meself and the childer one more
night then? It mayn’t come so hard to give him up, after we’ve had time
to consider on it, and raisen it over wid de poor motherless orphan. If
it was to go to heaven itself, we couldn’t give the crathur up the
night. Will ye let him go home wid me just lying agin on me own motherly
breast, as ye see him now? It’ll never be again, an’ I’ve nursed him
like me own.”
“Yes!” said the officer, kindly, glad to have a petition he could grant,
“yes, yes; take him along, and if you wish it, go with him yourself up
to the Island. Then you can be satisfied how well he will be cared for
in his new home.”
“Thank yer honor kindly. I’ll do me best to be content,” said the poor
woman, wiping her eyes with a corner of her shawl, and folding it over
the boy again. “Do ye think they’ll bind him out, and put him to
strangers entirely, yer honor?”
“No, no! he is quite too young for that. It is more likely that some
person may adopt him and make a gentleman of him.”
“He is a gintleman, every inch of him,” answered Margaret, giving the
child an enthusiastic hug, while her ardent temperament caught fire at
this prophecy of a grand fortune. “It’s meself that has been particular
regarding his manners, never letting him run out in the sun or make
dirt-pies, or pick up oyster-shells from the gutter, wid the common. See
if he isn’t white an’ clane as a dove—the crathur—neck an’ all, wid
reverence to ye.”
Here Mary Margaret jerked down the little fellow’s calico frock in
front, exhibiting a plump, snowy neck, softly flushed like a shell that
has just left the water, and a pair of dimpled shoulders, from which the
short sleeves were gathered up by bows of faded pink ribbon.
“Wouldn’t any gintleman be proud of the like of that for a child of his
own, now?” she continued, uttering her words between the kisses that she
lavished on the white neck and shoulders, leaving a flush with every
touch. “Thank ye, kindly, for giving him to me and the childer for one
night more; it’s like sending a lost bird to its nest agin. God’s
blessings on ye!”
Thus, half in tears, and half grateful, Mrs. Dillon made her way through
the hungry crowd, that even in its misery cast admiring glances after
the child, and walked homeward. Striving to reconcile herself to the
inevitable with resolute philosophy, but with a swell of grief at heart,
which threatened every moment to break into a deluge of tears, she
presented little Edward to his foster-brothers and playfellows once
more. She informed them, a little crossly, for her true sorrow would
break forth in some shape, that it was only for a night, and after that
Eddie would be made a gintleman of entirely, and that “if he was going
up among the common childer, it was only for convanience like, and after
a while would be traiting ’em all with great civility, and bowing to ’em
from his carriage-windy.”
Her young brood took this information rather shyly, and Terry, who had
been like a twin-brother to the little orphan, rebelled at once,
vociferously protesting that he would go with Eddie and be a gintleman,
too. But at length young Ireland was consoled with a promise, that
perhaps he might yet ride behind the carriage which Eddie was
undoubtedly to occupy, while the dear little fellow himself underwent a
world of caresses, and was hushed to sleep with many a smothered sob.