_THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS._
The husband of widow Martin had been killed by a railroad accident.
The family were very poor. Mrs. Martin could sew, and she could have
sustained her family if she had had a machine. But fingers are not
worth much against iron wheels. And so, while others had machines, Mrs.
Martin could not make much without one. She had been obliged to ask
help from the overseer of the poor.
Mr Lampeer, the overseer, was a hard man. He had not skill enough to
detect impostors, and so he had come to believe that everybody who was
poor was rascally. He had but one eye, and he turned his head round in
a curious way to look at you out of it. That dreadful one eye always
seemed to be going to shoot. His voice had not a chord of tenderness in
it, but was in every way harsh and hard. It was said that he had been
a schoolmaster once. I pity the scholars.
Widow Martin lived--if you could call it living--in a tumble-down
looking house, that would not have stood many earthquakes. She had
tried diligently to support her family and keep them together; but
the wolf stood always at the door. Sewing by hand did not bring in
quite money enough to buy bread and clothes for four well children,
and pay the expenses of poor little Harry’s sickness; for all through
the summer and fall Harry had been sick. At last the food was gone,
and there was nothing to buy fuel with. Mrs. Martin had to go to the
overseer of the poor.
She was a little, shy, hard-working woman, this Mrs. Martin; so when
she took her seat among the paupers of every sort in Mr. Lampeer’s
office, and waited her turn, it was with a trembling heart. She watched
the hard man, who didn’t mean to be so hard, but who couldn’t tell the
difference between a good face and a counterfeit; she watched him as he
went through with the different cases, and her heart beat every minute
more and more violently. When he came to her he broke out with--
“What’s _your_ name?” in a voice that sounded for all the world as if
he were accusing her of robbing a safe.
“Sarah Martin,” said the widow, trembling with terror, and growing red
and white in turns. Mr. Lampeer, who was on the lookout for any sign of
guiltiness, was now sure that Mrs. Martin could not be honest.
“Where do you live?” This was spoken with a half sneer.
“In Slab Alley,” whispered the widow, for her voice was scared out of
her.
“How many children have you got?”
Mrs. Martin gave him the list of her five, with their ages, telling him
of little Harry, who was six years old and an invalid.
“Your oldest is twelve and a girl. I have a place for her, and, I
think, for the boy, too. You must bind them out. Mr. Slicker, the
landlord of the Farmers’ Hotel, will take the girl, and I think James
Sweeny will take the boy to run errands about the livery stable. I’ll
send you some provisions and coal to-day; but you must let the children
go. I’ll come to your house in a few days. Don’t object; I won’t hear
a word. If you’re as poor as you let on to be, you’ll be glad enough
to get your young ones into places where they’ll get enough to eat.
That’s all, not a word, now.” And he turned to the next applicant,
leaving the widow to go home with her heart _so_ cold.
Let Susie go to Slicker’s tavern! What kind of a house would it be
without her? Who would attend to the house while she sewed? And what
would become of her girl in such a place? And then to send George, who
had to wait on Harry, to send him away forever was to shut out all hope
of ever being in better circumstances. Then she could not sew, and the
children could never help her. God pity the people that fall into the
hands of public charity!
The next few days wore heavily on with the widow. What to do she did
not know. At night she scarcely slept at all. When she did drop into a
sleep, she dreamed that her children were starving, and woke in fright.
Then she slept again, and dreamed that a one-eyed robber had gotten in
at the window, and was carrying off Susie and George. At last morning
came. The last of the food was eaten for breakfast, and widow Martin
sat down to wait. Her mind was in a horrible state of doubt. To starve
to death together, or to give up her children! That was the question
which many a poor mother’s heart has had to decide. Mrs. Martin soon
became so nervous she could not sew. She could not keep back the tears,
and when Susie and George put their arms about her neck and asked
what was the matter, it made the matter worse. It was the day before
Christmas. The sleigh-bells jingled merrily. Even in Slab Alley one
could hear sounds of joy at the approaching festivities. But there was
no joy in Widow Martin’s house or heart. The dinner hour had come and
passed. The little children were hungry. And yet Mrs. Martin had not
made up her mind.
At the appointed time Lampeer came. He took out the two indentures with
which the mother was to sign away all right to her two eldest children.
It was in vain that the widow told him that if she lost them she could
do no work for her own support, and must be forever a pauper. Lampeer
had an idea that no poor person had a right to love children. Parental
love was, in his eyes, or his eye, an expensive luxury that none but
the rich should indulge in.
“Mrs. Martin,” he said, “you may either sign these indentures, by which
your girl will get a good place as a nurse and errand girl for the
tavern-keeper’s wife, and your boy will have plenty to eat and get to
be a good hostler, or you and your brats may starve!” With that he took
his hat and opened the door.
“Stop!” said Mrs. Martin, “I must have medicine and food, or Harry will
not live till Sunday. I will sign.”
The papers were again spread out. The poor-master jerked the folds
out of them impatiently, in a way that seemed to say, “You keep me an
unconscionable long time about a very small matter.”
When the papers were spread out, Mrs. Martin’s two oldest children,
who began to understand what was going on, cried bitterly. Mrs. Martin
took the pen and was about to sign. But it was necessary to have two
witnesses, and so Lampeer took his hat and called a neighbor-woman, for
the second witness.
Mrs. Martin delayed the signature as long as she could. But seeing no
other help, she took up the pen. She thought of Abraham with the knife
in his hand. She hoped that an angel would call out of heaven to her
relief. But as there was no voice from heaven, she dipped the pen in
the ink.
Just then some one happened to knock at the door, and the poor woman’s
nerves were so weak that she let the pen fall, and sank into a chair.
Lampeer, who stood near the door, opened it with an impatient jerk,
and--did the angel of deliverance enter?
It was only Willie Blake and Sammy Bantam.