A SHORT, SAD STORY.
"Ah! poverty is a weary thing!
It burdeneth the brain,
It maketh even the little child
To murmur and complain."
"It is not much I have to tell," began Capitola. "I was brought up in
Rag Alley and its neighborhood by an old woman named Nancy Grewell."
"Ah!" ejaculated Old Hurricane.
"She was a washwoman, and rented one scantily furnished room from a poor
family named Simmons."
"Oh!" cried Old Hurricane.
"Granny, as I called her, was very good to me, and I never suffered cold
nor hunger until about eighteen months ago, when Granny took it into her
head to go down to Virginia."
"Umph!" exclaimed Old Hurricane.
"When Granny went away she left me a little money and some good clothes
and told me to be sure to stay with the people where she left me, for
that she would be back in about a month. But, your honor, that was the
last I ever saw or heard of poor Granny! She never came back again. And
by that I know she must have died."
"Ah-h-h!" breathed the old man, puffing fast.
"The first month or two after Granny left I did well enough. And then,
when the little money was all gone, I eat with the Simmonses and did
little odd jobs for my food. But by and by Mr. Simmons got out of work,
and the family fell into want, and they wished me to go out and beg for
them. I just couldn't do that, and so they told me I should look out for
myself."
"Were there no customers of your grandmother that you could have applied
to for employment?" asked the Recorder.
"No, sir. My Granny's customers were mostly boarders at the small
taverns, and they were always changing. I did apply to two or three
houses where the landladies knew Granny; but they didn't want me."
"Oh-h-h!" groaned Major Warfield, in the tone of one in great pain.
"I wouldn't have that old fellow's conscience for a good deal,"
whispered a spectator, "for, as sure as shooting, that gal's his
unlawful child!"
"Well, go on! What next?" asked the clerk.
"Well, sir, though the Simmonses had nothing to give me except a crust
now and then, they still let me sleep in the house, for the little jobs
I could do for them. But at last Simmons he got work on the railroad
away off somewhere, and they all moved away from the city."
"And you were left alone?"
"Yes, sir; I was left alone in the empty, unfurnished house. Still it
was a shelter, and I was glad of it, and I dreaded the time when it
would be rented by another tenant, and I should be turned into the
street."
"Oh! oh! oh, Lord!" groaned the major.
"But it was never rented again, for the word went around that the whole
row was to be pulled down, and so I thought I had leave to stay at least
as long as the rats did!" continued Capitola, with somewhat of her
natural roguish humor twinkling in her dark-gray eyes.
"But how did you get your bread?" inquired the Recorder.
"Did not get it at all, sir. Bread was too dear! I sold my clothes,
piece by piece, to the old Jew over the way and bought corn-meal and
picked up trash to make a fire and cooked a little mush every day in an
old tin can that had been left behind. And so I lived on for two or
three weeks. And then when my clothes were all gone except the suit I
had upon my back, and my meal was almost out, instead of making mush
every day I economized and made gruel."
"But, my boy--my good girl, I mean--before you became so destitute you
should have found something or other to do," said the Recorder.
"Sir, I was trying to get jobs every hour in the day. I'd have done
anything honest. I went around to all the houses Granny knew, but they
didn't want a girl. Some of the good-natured landlords said if I was a
boy, now, they could keep me opening oysters; but as I was a girl they
had no work for me. I even went to the offices to get papers to sell;
but they told me that crying papers was not proper work for a girl. I
even went down to the ferry-boats and watched for the passengers coming
ashore, and ran and offered to carry their carpet-bags or portmanteaus;
but some growled at me, and others laughed at me, and one old gentleman
asked me if I thought he was a North American Indian to strut up
Broadway with a female behind him carrying his pack. And so, sir, while
all the ragged boys I knew could get little jobs to earn bread, I,
because I was a girl, was not allowed to carry a gentleman's parcel or
black his boots, or shovel the snow off a shopkeeper's pavement, or put
in coal, or do anything that I could do just as well as they. And so
because I was a girl there seemed to be nothing but starvation or
beggary before me!"
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! that such things should be!" cried Old Hurricane.
"That was bad, sir; but there was worse behind! There came a day when my
meal, even the last dust of it, was gone. Then I kept life in me by
drinking water and by sleeping all I could. At first I could not sleep
for the gnawing--gnawing--in my stomach; but afterwards I slept deeply,
from exhaustion, and then I'd dream of feasts and the richest sort of
food, and of eating such quantities; and, really, sir, I seemed to taste
it and enjoy it and get the good of it, almost as much as if it was all
true! One morning after such a dream I was waked up by a great noise
outside. I staggered upon my feet and crept to the window, and there,
sir, were the workmen all outside a-pulling down the house over my
head!"
"Good Heaven!" ejaculated Old Hurricane, who seemed to constitute
himself the chorus of this drama.
"Sir, they didn't know that I or any one was in the empty house! Fright
gave me strength to run down-stairs and run out. Then I stopped. Oh! I
stopped and looked up and down the street. What should I do? The last
shelter was gone away from me--the house where I had lived so many
years, and that seemed like a friend to me, was falling before my eyes!
I thought I'd just go and pitch myself into the river and end it all!"
"That was a very wicked thought," said the Recorder.
"Yes, sir, I know it was, and, besides, I was dreadfully afraid of being
suffocated in the dirty water around the wharf!" said Capitola, with a
sparkle of that irrepressible humor that effervesced even through all
her trouble. "Well, sir, the hand that feeds young ravens kept me from
dying that day. I found a five-cent piece in the street and resolved not
to smother myself in the river mud as long as it lasted. So I bought a
muffin, ate it, and went down to the wharf to look for a job. I looked
all day but found none, and when night came I went into a lumber yard
and hid myself behind a pile of planks that kept the wind off me, and I
went to sleep and dreamed a beautiful dream of living in a handsome
house, with friends all around me and everything good to eat and drink
and wear!"
"Poor, poor child; but your dream may come true yet!" muttered Old
Hurricane to himself.
"Well, your honor, next day I spent another penny out of my half-dime
and looked in vain for work all day and slept at night in a broken-down
omnibus that had happened to be left on the stand. And so, not to tire
your patience, a whole week passed away. I lived on my half-dime,
spending a penny a day for a muffin, until the last penny was gone, and
sleeping at night wherever I could--sometimes under the front stoop of a
house, sometimes in an old broken carriage and sometimes behind a pile
of boxes on the sidewalk."
"That was a dreadful exposure for a young girl," said the Recorder.
A burning blush flamed up over the young creature's cheek as she
answered:
"Yes, sir, that was the worst of all; that finally drove me to putting
on boy's clothes."
"Let us hear all about it."
"Oh, sir, I can't--I--How can I? Well, being always exposed, sleeping
outdoors, I was often in danger from bad boys and bad men," said
Capitola, and, dropping her head upon her breast and covering her
crimson cheeks with her hands, for the first time she burst into tears
and sobbed aloud.
"Come, come, my little man--my good little woman, I mean! don't take it
so to heart. You couldn't help it!" said Old Hurricane, with raindrops
glittering even in his own stormy eyes.
Capitola looked up, with her whole countenance flashing with spirit, and
exclaimed: "Oh! but I took care of myself, sir! I did, indeed, your
honor! You mustn't, either you or the old gentleman, dare to think but
what I did!"
"Oh, of course! of course!" said a bystander, laughing.
Old Hurricane sprang up, bringing his feet down upon the floor with a
resound that made the great hall ring again, exclaiming:
"What do you mean by 'of course! of course!' you villain? Demmy! I'll
swear she took care of herself, you varlet; and if any man dares to hint
otherwise, I'll ram his falsehood down his throat with the point of my
walking stick and make him swallow both!"
"Order! order!" said the clerk.
Old Hurricane immediately wheeled to the right about faced and saluted
the bench in military fashion, and then said:
"Yes, sir! I'll regard order! but in the meanwhile, if the court does
not protect this child from insult I must, order or no order!" and with
that the old gentleman once more subsided into his seat.
"Governor, don't you be so noisy! You'll get yourself stopped up into a
jug next! Why, you remind me of an uproarious old fellow poor Granny
used to talk about, that they called Old Hurricane, because he was so
stormy!" whispered Capitola, turning toward him.
"Humph! she's heard of me, then!" muttered the old gentleman to himself.
"Well, sir--I mean, miss--go on!" said the clerk, addressing Capitola.
"Yes, sir. Well, your honor, at the end of five days, being a certain
Thursday morning, when I couldn't get a job of work for love nor money,
when my last penny was spent for my last roll, and my last roll was
eaten up, and I was dreading the gnawing hunger by day and the horrid
perils of the night, I thought to myself if I were only a boy I might
carry packages and shovel in coal, and do lots of jobs by day, and sleep
without terror by night. And then I felt bitter against Fate for not
making me a boy. And so, thinking and thinking and thinking I wandered
on until I found myself in Rag Alley, where I used to live, standing
right between the pile of broken bricks, plaster and lumber that used to
be my home, and the old Jew's shop where I sold my clothes for meal. And
then all of a sudden a bright thought struck me? and I made up my mind
to be a boy!"
"Made up your mind to be a boy?"
"Yes, sir, for it was so easy! I wondered how I came to be so stupid as
not to have thought of it before. I just ran across to the old Jew's
shop and offered to swap my suit of girl's clothes, that was good,
though dirty, for any, even the raggedest suit of boy's clothes he had,
whether they'd fit me or not, so they would only stay on me. The old
fellow put his finger to his nose as if he thought I'd been stealing and
wanted to dodge the police. So he took down an old, not very ragged,
suit that he said would fit me, and opened a door and told me to go in
his daughter's room and put 'em on.
"Well, not to tire your honors, I went into that little back parlor a
girl and I came out a boy, with a suit of pants and jacket, with my hair
cut short and a cap on my head! The Jew gave me a penny roll and a
sixpence for my black ringlets."
"All seemed grist that came to his mill!" said Old Hurricane.
"Yes, Governor, he was a dealer in general. Well, the first thing I did
was to hire myself to the Jew, at a sixpence a day and find myself, to
shovel in his coal. That didn't take me but a day. So at night the Jew
paid me, and I slept in peace behind a stack of boxes. Next morning I
was up before the sun and down to the office of the little penny paper,
the 'Morning Star.' I bought two dozen of 'em and ran as fast as I could
to the ferry-boats to sell to the early passengers. Well, sir, in an
hour's time I had sold out and pocketed just two shillings, and felt
myself on the highroad to fortune!"
"And so that was the way by which you came to put yourself in male
attire?"
"Yes, sir, and the only thing that made me feel sorry was to see what a
fool I had been not to turn to a boy before, when it was so easy! And
from that day forth I was happy and prosperous! I found plenty to do! I
carried carpet-bags, held horses, put in coal, cleaned sidewalks,
blacked gentlemen's boots and did everything an honest lad could turn
his hand to. And so for more'n a year I was as happy as a king, and
should have kept on so, only I forgot and let my hair grow; and instead
of cutting it off, just tucked it up under my cap; and so this morning
on the ferry-boat, in a high breeze, the wind blowed off my cap and the
policeman blowed on me!"
"'Twasn't altogether her long hair, your honor, for I had seen her
before, having known her when she lived with old Mrs. Grewell in Rag
Alley," interrupted the officer.
"You may sit down, my child," said the Recorder, in a tone of
encouragement.