"O please sir, take me over the crossing," said a little faint voice,
as I was leisurely taking my morning walk.
The strange request roused me from my reverie; and looking imploringly
in my face stood a thinly-clad, shivering little girl, who carried a
small bundle, which she held in her hand with a singular tenacity. I
gave a searching look into the child's face, while she imploringly
repeated:--
"Will you take me over the crossing quick, I'm in such a hurry."
Tossing her in my arms I bounded over the muddy pathway; and just as I
set down my little charge, the bundle slipped from her grasp, or
rather its contents, leaving the empty paper in her hands, and an
embroidered vest on the sidewalk. I picked up the vest, and in doing
so unrolled the same, when lining, sewing-silk and padding were all
disengaged, so that the nimble fingers of the poor child picked up,
and brushed, and packed them together again with scrupulous care; and
tying them firmly, she gave me a sweet smile and bounded along. She
would soon have passed from my sight had I not again called after her,
and interrogated her why she made such haste.
"O sir," she replied, "because my mother must have expected me an hour
ago. I have been waiting for the young gentleman at the tailor's to
decide which color he preferred, and then the tailor told me to stop
while he cut it, and then he gave me such a beautiful pattern for my
mother to embroider it by--but it is a sight of work to do it, sir,
and I'm afraid she will set up all the long nights to sew, while I am
sleeping, for the man said he must have it completed by next Thursday;
the young gentleman is to be married then, and will want it--and if
it isn't done, maybe he would never give mother another stitch of
work, and then what would become of us?"
And as the child hurried on I caught the same hurried footsteps, and
followed on until we came to another crossing, when again came the
beseeching tone:--
"Will you take me over this crossing too, sir?"
It was done in a trice, and my interest in the child increased as her
prattle continued:--
"Mamma is to have a dollar for this work, and she means to buy me a
new frock with part of the money, and then we shall have a great loaf
of bread and a cup of milk, and mother will find time to eat with
me--if there is any money left, I shall have a little open-work straw
bonnet, and go to Sabbath-school with Susy Niles."
And her little feet scarcely touched the walk, so light and fairy-like
was her tread.
"And does your mother work for one man all the time, little girl?" I
inquired.
"Oh, no, sir; it is only now and then she gets such a nice job. Most
of the time she has to sew for shops where she earns about twenty-five
cents a day, and then she has hardly enough to pay her rent, and it
isn't all the time we get enough to eat--but then mother always gives
me the big slice when there is one big and one little one; sometimes
she cries and don't eat her's at all."