TOM FLATT'S HUT--A DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE IN WHICH
HE MURDERS HIS WIFE.
When Flatt arrived at the hovel where his wife and children
burrowed (for they could scarcely be said to live) he found them
in the most abject misery. But I will ask my reader to accompany
me to it.
Imagine a log shanty, twelve by sixteen in dimensions, roofed by
troughs, or what appeared to be halves of hollow logs. The back of
the shanty on the outside was not originally more than six feet
high; but as the logs which formed the sides, and ends had so
rotted that by their own weight they had settled considerably, it
was now much lower. The shanty contained two windows, which were
ornamented by having two or three old hats used as substitutes
for panes of glass, and the panes which were not broken were so
cracked and splintered that they were in eminent peril of being
blown out at every violent gust of wind.
But the exterior of the shanty, dilapidated-looking though it was,
gave no conception of the squalor and wretchedness which its walls
confined. I will introduce my readers to the inmates.
Mrs. Flatt was an undersized, dark-complexioned little woman, who
at one time possessed considerable personal beauty; but she had
been so worn by toil, hard usage, and insufficient food, that she
now appeared little else than skin and bone; in fact, she as much
resembled a mummy as a being through whose veins throbbed the
blood of life.
In different attitudes--on the clay floor, on the two miserable
beds, and on the old broken chairs and benches of the hut--were
distributed six children. They, if possible, were more squalid and
wretched-looking than their mother; for though it was midwinter,
not one of them was so fortunate as to possess a pair of shoes,
but they had frequently to run out from the hut into the deep snow
in their poor little bare feet, which were red, cracked, and
bleeding from the cold. The miserable rags in which they were
clothed did not serve to cover their nakedness; and their blue,
pinched faces pathetically spoke of want and neglect.
The youngest of the number was a babe, some five or six months
old; she was lying in a creaky old cradle, which squeaked when
rocked as if uttering a discordant protest. She was a poor,
pallid, little thing, that scarcely seemed to have strength to
utter her low moan of pain, as she lay famishing for the
nourishment which the now starved mother was unable to supply.
The next older was barely able to toddle round on the clay floor;
and they ranged up from that until the eldest of the six was
reached, who was a bare-footed, bare-legged girl of eight. She
was, however, so dwarfed through rough usage, insufficient food,
and exposure, as to be little larger than an ordinary child of
six.
"Mamma! I want a piece. I'se so hungry!" cried the third child
from the youngest--a little boy, about four years of age. "Oh,
mamma! I do want a piece."
"And so do I, mother," cried the next, a little girl of five. "Oh!
why don't dad come with the bread?"
"Piece, mamma, piece!" whined out little Katie, the next to the
youngest. "Piece, mamma, piece!" she cried out again piteously, as
she toddled over to her mother, and, hanging on to the skirts of
her dress, looked up with a famished longing that made the latter
sob convulsively.
"Oh, children!" she said, "mother would give her darlings bread
if she had any, but there is not a crumb in the house; no, dears,
not one poor crumb, so I can't give my children any now; but I
hope your father will come home and bring some bread with him; and
if he does, then you shall all have some. Don't cry, now--you make
mother feel so bad."
"Mamma," said Nannie, the eldest girl, "I wish father was dead."
"Hush, child," said the mother sharply; "you must not talk so."
But in the mother's reproof there was an utter want of the emotion
of horror at the astounding and unnatural wish of the child. It
seemed as if she was reproved for giving utterance to her
thoughts--not for entertaining them. In fact, the mother had often
in her heart entertained similar sentiments, and wished that her
drunken, brutal husband were dead.
When they were first married, Flatt had treated his wife well for
a time, and they lived as comfortably as people of their means and
limited stock of intelligence generally do. But he began to
indulge in drink, and from that period until after the Dunkin Act
became law, he seemed to be predominated with the instincts of a
brute. He worked but little at his trade, which was that of a
brickmaker, and the small amount that was earned by him was mostly
squandered in drink. Mrs. Flatt tried to keep her children from
starving by taking in washing; and very frequently the brutal
husband and father would return from his drunken orgies to eat the
scanty meal she had toiled so hard, with weary body and reeling
brain, to procure for her children. If, under such provocation,
she ventured to protest, she would be answered by blows, and many
a time she had been beaten black and blue by the brutal monster.
After the Act came in force he had remained sober for several
weeks, and there was comparative cheerfulness and comfort in the
hut where he resided; the children, during that brief period, had
plenty to eat, and they did not dread his coming home for fear of
a beating. But it was not long before he was brought again under
the force of his old habits. He was, in fact, met by those who had
been appointed to induce him to drink; and they were as successful
in his case as they had been in the other instances which we have
mentioned. From that period, the life of Mrs. Flatt and her
children had been utterly wretched.
Is it strange she had lost all affection for the brutal ruffian
who had the right, by law, to call her his wife? or that his
neglect of both her, and their children, his kicks and blows, had
driven out even the last vestige of respect, and that now
detestation--yes, even intense hatred--had taken full possession
of her soul? And once, or twice, as he lay in his drunken slumber,
utterly in her power, the awful thought had possessed her that she
could, in a few short minutes, revenge herself for all his abuse
by taking the life which had so utterly cursed and blighted her
own. And then, when, coming to her better self, she meditated upon
the sin of harboring such thoughts, a feeling of horror crept over
her and chilled, her blood; when, throwing herself impulsively on
her knees, the cry had gone up from her heart:
"Oh, my Father! save me from temptation."
The reader, after this explanation, can easily understand how it
was she rebuked her child for giving expression to her thoughts
rather than for entertaining them.
"But, mother, I do often wish dad was dead, and I might as well say
it as think it," said Nancy.
"And so do I," boldly chimed in little Jack, a precocious and
manly little fellow of seven, who very much resembled his mother;
"for if he was dead he could not beat you and thump us until we
were black and blue, mother. And he would not eat up everything
from us, and drive us all out into the snow."
The mother sternly rebuked the children for talking in that
manner. "No matter how bad he is," she said, "he is your dad, and
it is very sinful to be talking after that style.
"Hush, children!" she whispered; "I guess here he comes!"
In a moment the only noise which could be heard in the shanty was
the low moan of the baby, as it lay in the cradle, while from the
outside could be heard the heavy, uneven thud of advancing
footsteps.
"Drunk as usual!" whispered little Jack; "now look out for thumps
and bruises. Oh!" he whispered through his clenched teeth, "I wish
I were a man, then he wouldn't beat us like he does now, for I
wouldn't let 'un do it."
"Take the baby, mother, and run over to Tremaine's," said Nannie;
"I'm afraid he'll kill you."
"No, Nannie, I'll not run; if he kills me I can't help it; I'll
not run away any more. I'm afraid it will come to that some day,
but I will stay and take care of you all, no matter what happens."
The children had just managed to crawl under the two dilapidated
beds when their father lifted the latch and stumbled into the
room.
"Oh! what's the matter, Tom?" said his wife, as at a glance she
took in his disfigured face.
"What's that to you?" he replied with an oath. "If you'd get me
something to eat, it 'ud show more sense than asking what's none
of your business."
"There is not a bit in the house," she replied, and then, stung
into reckless madness by his asking for food when he had spent for
whiskey the money with which he had promised to procure it, she
continued bitterly: "The children have been crying for something
to eat for the last two hours, in tones that would melt the heart
of a stone, and I hadn't a crumb to give 'um, and you, who have
been spending on drink what should have bought it for them, have
the brazen impudence to come home drunk, demanding food. Go to the
cupboard and get you some, if you think there is any there."
"Now, Nance, I don't want any of your chin music, but I wants you
to get me suthin' to eat. You can't fool me; I knows you has got
it in the house."
"God knows, Tom, there isn't a bit. Do you suppose if there was
any I would let the children be crying for it and not give it to
them? If you think so, you don't know me yet; for I can tell you
it would have been given to them two hours ago, and not saved for
one who allows his own flesh and blood to starve, while he spends
that which would furnish them with bread for rum in a rum-shop."
The reader might be ready to assert, after reading this connubial
wrangle, that the fault was not all on one side, but that Nancy's
sharp tongue was in some measure responsible for Tom's drinking;
that, in fact, if she had not been such a termagant he might, at
least, have been an average husband. But if you have so concluded,
I will endeavour to disabuse your mind; for Nancy, before she
married Tom Flatt, was a smart, good-tempered lass, but his
continued neglect and abuse had vinegared all her sweetness, and
she was not of that temperament which could bear ill-treatment
without giving expression to her feelings. If, in her youth, she
had been surrounded by different associations, and then married to
a man who could have appreciated her, she might have developed
into an intelligent, loving woman; but the terrible wretchedness
of her life, brought about by the faults of her husband, had
turned all her nature into bitterness.
And let me ask any of my gentle readers if, under similar
circumstances, honeyed words would have been uttered by you? If
you had suffered such treatment, and not only you but your
children, who were bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, do
you not think you would protest? If you were being dragged down
into the slough of poverty, disgrace, and wretchedness, and you
knew that he who was thus dragging you down could, if he were a
true husband and father, place you in a position of comfort and
respectability, but who was devouring from you and your children
food that you had earned by the most menial drudgery--by the sweat
of body and brain--and leaving you all to nearly famish for
bread, would you not remonstrate? Nay, would not feelings of
outraged confidence, of soul-anguish, sorrow, and shame coin
themselves into bitter chiding words which you would be powerless
to repress?
How many thousands of sweet, pure souls, who, in their innocent
maiden days, were the embodiment of gentleness and affection,
have, after marriage to some brute in human shape, been brought,
by years of neglect and abuse, to become that which is among the
most maligned and despised of all creatures--a scolding wife.
We must, in all fairness, admit that such Nancy Flatt had become.
Her nature, as we have said, was intense, and she had endured a
great deal in her early married life. At first she would gently
remonstrate, but as years rolled on and she had not only to suffer
neglect and abuse herself, but her helpless little ones also, her
remonstrances became tinged with the acidity of her soured nature;
and finally as toil, neglect, and hunger reduced her to the
haggard, dejected creature we have presented to the reader, she
would meet Tom's oaths and blows with her only weapon of defence,
and pour out sharp, rasping words from her woman's tongue.
"I tell you what it is, Nance," said Tom, in answer to her
chiding; "I want you to shut that jaw of thine and get me some
grub, or I'll make you wish you had never been born."
"You have made me wish that a thousand times, Tom," she answered
with passionate bitterness. "See that wasted arm," and suiting the
action to her words she stripped up her sleeve; "look at my
fleshless face--what has brought me to this but starvation and
drudgery? Hear the moaning of that helpless babe in the cradle,
crying for nurse that starvation has dried up. Oh, Tom! how can
you spend your money in whiskey when you know we are starving at
home? You knew when you left this morning there was not a morsel
of food in the house, nor money to buy it, for you have not
brought in a cent for weeks, and you promised when you left to
come right back with bread, but instead of that you have spent the
day in drinking whiskey and fighting with great hulking loafers
like yourself, and now you come home to abuse your wife and
children. You are worse than a brute; for brutes do provide for
their own flesh and blood, while you have nothing better than
oaths and blows for yours."
With fearful oaths Flatt sprang forward to answer his wife's
passionate arraignment of his conduct by the method he usually
adopted on such occasions--that was, by the irresistible logic of
his ponderous fist. As she saw he was about to make the rush, her
first impulse was to open the door and run for safety, for well
she knew, from a terrible experience, that when he was aroused he
had the ferocity of a brute with the temper of a demon. But as she
was about to do so she saw he did not heed the cradle which lay in
his way. The danger of her child caused the mother to be heedless
of her own, and, with the wild cry, "Look out for the babe, Tom!"
she sprang forward and snatched it from the cradle, thus bringing
herself into the power of the furious brute. In his mad rage he
picked up a trowel which, unfortunately, lay near him, and, as his
wife was rising with her babe, he struck her with terrific force
upon the head, the sharp corner of the instrument cutting through
the flesh and imbedding itself deep into the skull, carrying the
hair with it.
"Oh, Tom! you have killed me!" she groaned, as she fell forward on
her face, covering her babe as she fell. But even in that terrible
moment she must have had some thought of it, for she managed to
shift over on her side, clasping it to her breast as she did so.
All the ferocity in Tom's brutal nature seemed to be aroused, and
the sight of his wife's blood running down over her forehead and
dyeing with red the pallid face of his child, which one would
think might have moved even a demon to pity, only seemed to arouse
the latent tiger within him, for he struck the prostrate woman
again and again, until she settled heavily on to the floor and was
limp and still. This act in the tragedy was complete, for Nancy
Flatt was dead, and her infant lay clasped in her arms bespattered
with the life-blood of its dead mother.
The children, who had been cowering under the beds, witnessed the
terrible scene, and though they were frightened at their father's
and mother's jangling, as they thought it would result in the
latter being beaten--which was usually the case--at first they
kept perfectly still, for fear of what the result might be to
themselves if they drew their father's attention. But when he
struck their mother with the trowel and she fell forward with her
face bathed in blood, they gave vent to their terror in wild and
frantic screams.
"Oh, dad!" cried little Jack, almost fiercely, "you've killed our
mamma." And as he thus spoke he stepped boldly out and faced his
father, seeming to have lost all fear in the presence of the
calamity that had befallen them; and then he and Nanny escaped
from the house and ran over to Tremaine's. When they reached there
Nannie, who had outrun her brother, burst into the door and said
in a ghastly whisper, which appeared all the more horrible because
of her pallid face, over which her hair was streaming in tangled
masses, giving her a ghost-like appearance:
"Oh, Mr. Tremaine, dad has murdered mother! Run quick, sir, and
see!"
Just then little Jack came up with face as pallid as Nannie's, and
though panting for want of breath managed to say:
"Dad struck mother with the trowel!--and cut an awful gash in her
head!--and her face is all covered with blood--and I think she is
dead."
Tremaine, who was really a noble fellow, though he unfortunately
did indulge in strong drink, immediately ran over to the shanty,
and when he arrived there he found the children's fears were well
founded, for a spectacle so ghastley in its details met his view
that, strong man as he was, he stood for a moment as if bereft of
motion, and even thought.
Nancy Flatt was lying stark dead on the floor, and her babe, which
was yet muttering its low moan of hunger, was clasped close in the
arms of its dead mother, and was dabbling in the blood which had
flowed from the wounds in her head and face.
Tom was not to be found. He had evidently realized, when it was
too late, what would be the consequence of his terrible crime, and
had fled to escape the Nemesis, in the form of avenging justice,
which he knew would soon be on his track.
I will not, however, enter into the details of his capture,
imprisonment, trial and execution; for Tom Flatt was executed for
the murder of Nancy, his wife; and on the scaffold he, as
thousands of others in similar circumstances have done, blamed his
wife's murder, his own sad fate, and his children's orphanage, to
love for strong drink.
Reader, was Tom Flatt alone responsible for the murder of his
wife, or were there not others who, at least to some extent,
shared with him that responsibility? Could the man who sold him
the liquor, or he who manufactured it, or the Government who drew
revenue--which to all intents and purposes was blood money--from
its sale, or the intelligent electors who, in the exercise of
their franchise and by their sympathy, endorsed that legislation,
escape all responsibility? My dear reader, ponder this question,
for great issues are involved in your conclusion.