_MRS. HOYT_, _alias_ Bray, found Pinky Swett, but she did not find the
poor cast-off baby. Pinky had resolved to make it her own capital in
trade. She parleyed and trifled with Mrs. Hoyt week after week, and each
did her best to get down to the other's secret, but in vain. Mutually
baffled, they parted at last in bitter anger.
One day, about two months after the interview between Mrs. Dinneford
and Mrs. Hoyt described in another chapter, the former received in an
envelope a paragraph cut from a newspaper. It read as follows:
“A CHILD DROWNED.--A sad accident occurred yesterday on board the
steamer Fawn as she was going down the river. A woman was standing with
a child in her arms near the railing on the lower deck forward. Suddenly
the child gave a spring, and was out of her arms in a moment. She caught
after it frantically, but in vain. Every effort was made to recover the
child, but all proved fruitless. It did not rise to the surface of the
water.”
Mrs. Dinneford read the paragraph twice, and then tore it into little
bits. Her mouth set itself sternly. A long sigh of relief came up from
her chest. After awhile the hard lines began slowly to disappear, giving
place to a look of satisfaction and comfort.
“Out of my way at last,” she staid, rising and beginning to move about
the room. But the expression of relief and confidence which had come
into her face soon died out. The evil counselors that lead the soul into
sin become its tormentors after the sin is committed, and torture it
with fears. So tortured they this guilty and wretched woman at every
opportunity. They led her on step by step to do evil, and then crowded
her mind with suggestions of perils and consequences the bare thought of
which filled her with terror.
It was only a few weeks after this that Mrs. Dinneford, while looking
over a morning paper, saw in the court record the name of Pinky
Swett. This girl had been tried for robbing a man of his pocket-book,
containing five hundred dollars, found guilty, and sentenced to prison
for a term of two years.
“Good again!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with satisfaction. “The wheel
turns.”
After that she gradually rose above the doubts and dread of exposure
that haunted her continually, and set herself to work to draw her
daughter back again into society. But she found her influence over Edith
entirely gone. Indeed, Edith stood so far away from her that she seemed
more like a stranger than a child.
Two or three times had Pinky Swett gone to the mission sewing-school in
order to get a sight of Edith. Her purpose was to follow her home, and
so find out her name and were she lived. With this knowledge in her
possession, she meant to visit Mrs. Bray, and by a sudden or casual
mention by name of Edith as the child's mother throw her off her guard,
and lead her to betray the fact if it were really so. But Edith was sick
at home, and did not go to the school. After a few weeks the little girl
who was to identify Edith as the person who had shown so much interest
in the baby was taken away from Grubb's court by her mother, and nobody
could tell where to find her. So, Pinky had to abandon her efforts in
this direction, and Edith, when she was strong enough to go back to
the sewing-school, missed the child, from whom she was hoping to hear
something that might give a clue to where the poor waif had been taken.
Up to the time of her arrest and imprisonment, Pinky had faithfully paid
the child's board, and looked in now and then upon the woman who had it
in charge, to see that it was properly cared for. How marvelously the
baby had improved in these two or three months! The shrunken limb's were
rounded into beautiful symmetry, and the pinched face looked full and
rosy. The large brown eyes, in which you once saw only fear or a mystery
of suffering, were full of a happy light, and the voice rang out often
in merry child-laughter. The baby had learned to walk, and was daily
growing more and more lovable.
But after Pinky's imprisonment there was a change. The woman--Mrs. Burke
by name--in whose care the child had been placed could not afford to
keep him for nothing. The two dollars week received for his board added
just enough to her income to enable her to remain at home. But failing
to receive this, she must go out for day's work in families at least
twice in every week.
What, then, was to be done with little Andy, as the baby was called?
At first Mrs. Burke thought of getting him into one of the homes
for friendless children, but the pleasant child had crept into her
affections, and she could not bear the thought of giving him up. His
presence stirred in her heart old and tender things long buried out of
sight, and set the past, with its better and purer memories, side
by side with the present. She had been many times a mother, but her
children were all dead but one, and she--Alas! the thought of her,
whenever it came, made her heart heavy and sad.
“I will keep him a while and see, how it comes out,” she said, on
getting the promise of a neighbor to let Andy play with her children and
keep an eye on him whenever she was out. He had grown strong, and could
toddle about and take care of himself wonderfully well for a child of
his age.
And now began a new life for the baby--a life in which he must look
out for himself and hold his own in a hand-to-hand struggle. He had no
rights that the herd of children among whom he was thrown felt bound to
respect; and if he were not able to maintain his rights, he must go down
helplessly, and he did go down daily, often hourly. But he had will and
vital force, and these brought him always to his feet again, and with
strength increased rather than lost. On the days that Mrs. Burke went
out he lived for most of the time in the little street, playing with the
children that swarmed its pavements, often dragged from before wheels or
horses' hoofs by a friendly hand, or lifted from some gutter in which he
had fallen, dripping with mud.
When Mrs. Burke came home on the evening of her first day out, the baby
was a sight to see. His clothes were stiff with dirt, his shoes and
stockings wet, and his face more like that of a chimney-sweep than
anything else. But this was not all; there was a great lump as large
as a pigeon's egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his
forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the
tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm's about her neck quite overcame
Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight
in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had
promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in
turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or
put him in one of the homes.
The fresh care and anxiety felt by Mrs. Burke drew little Andy nearer
and made her reject more decidedly the thought of giving him up. She
remained at home on the day following, but did not find it so easy as
before to keep the baby quiet. He had got a taste of the free, wild life
of the street, of its companionship and excitement, and fretted to go
out. Toward evening she put by her work and went on the pavement with
Andy. It was swarming with children. At the sight of them he began to
scream with pleasure. Pulling his hand free from that of Mrs. Burke,
he ran in among them, and in a moment after was tumbled over on the
pavement. His head got a hard knock, but he didn't seem to mind it, for
he scrambled to his feet and commenced tossing his hands about, laughing
and crying out as wildly as the rest. In a little while, over he was
knocked again, and as he fell one of the children stepped on his hand
and hurt him so that he screamed with pain. Mrs. Burke caught him in her
arms; but when he found that she was going to take him in the house he
stopped crying and struggled to get down. He was willing to take the
knocks and falls. The pleasure of this free life among children was more
to him than any of the suffering it brought.
On the next day Mrs. Burke had to go out again. Another neighbor
promised to look after Andy. When she returned at night, she found
things worse, if anything, than before. The child was dirtier, if that
were possible, and there were two great lumps on his head, instead of
one. He had been knocked down by a horse in the street, escaping death
by one of the narrowest of chances, and had been discovered and removed
from a ladder up which he had climbed a distance of twenty feet.
What help was there? None that Mrs. Burke knew, except to give up the
child, and she was not unselfish enough for this. The thought of sending
him away was always attended with pain. It would take the light out of
her poor lonely life, into which he had brought a few stray sunbeams.
She could not, she would not, give him up. He must take his chances. Ah,
but they were hard chances! Children mature fast under the stimulus
of street-training. Andy had a large brain and an active, nervous
organization. Life in the open air gave vigor and hardness to his
body. As the months went by he learned self-reliance, caution,
self-protection, and took a good many lessons in the art of aggression.
A rapidly-growing child needs a large amount of nutritious food to
supply waste and furnish material for the daily-increasing bodily
structure. Andy did not get this. At two years of age he had lost all
the roundness of babyhood. His limbs were slender, his body thin and his
face colorless and hungry-looking.
About this time--that is, when Andy was two years old--Mrs. Burke took
sick and died. She had been failing for several months, and unable to
earn sufficient even to pay her rent. But for the help of neighbors and
an occasional supply of food or fuel from some public charity, she would
have starved. At her death Andy had no home and no one to care for him.
One pitying neighbor after another would take him in at night, or let
him share a meal with her children, but beyond this he was utterly cast
out and friendless. It was summer-time when Mrs. Burke died, and the
poor waif was spared for a time the suffering of cold.
Now and then a mother's heart would be touched, and after a
half-reluctantly given supper and a place where he might sleep for the
night would mend and wash his soiled clothes and dry them by the fire,
ready for morning. The pleased look that she saw in his large, sad
eyes--for they had grown wistful and sad since the only one he had known
as a mother died--was always her reward, and something not to be put
out of her memory. Many of the children took kindly to Andy, and often
supplied him with food.
“Andy is so hungry, mamma; can't I take him something to eat?” rarely
failed to bring the needed bread for the poor little cast-adrift. And
if he was discovered now and then sound asleep in bed with some pitying
child who had taken him in stealthily after dark, few were hard-hearted
enough to push him into the street, or make him go down and sleep on the
kitchen floor. Yet this was not unfrequently done. Poverty is sometimes
very cruel, yet often tender and compassionate.
One day, a few months after Mrs. Burke's death, Andy, who was beginning
to drift farther and farther away from the little street, yet always
managing to get back into it as darkness came on, that he might lay his
tired body in some friendly place, got lost in strange localities.
He had wandered about for many hours, sitting now on some step or
cellar-door or horse-block, watching the children at play and sometimes
joining in their sports, when they would let him, with the spontaneous
abandon of a puppy or a kitten, and now enjoying some street-show or
attractive shop-window. There was nothing of the air of a lost child
about him. For all that his manner betrayed, his home might have been in
the nearest court or alley. So, he wandered along from street to
street without attracting the special notice of any--a bare-headed,
bare-footed, dirty, half-clad atom of humanity not three years old.
Hungry, tired and cold, for the summer was gone and mid-autumn had
brought its chilly nights, Andy found himself, as darkness fell, in a
vile, narrow court, among some children as forlorn and dirty as himself.
It was Grubb's court--his old home--though in his memory there was of
course no record of the place.
Too tired and hungry for play, Andy was sitting on the step of a
wretched hovel, when the door opened and a woman called sharply the
names of her two children. They answered a little way off. “Come in
this minute, and get your suppers,” she called again, and turning back
without noticing Andy, left the door open for her children. The poor
cast-adrift looked in and saw light and food and comfort--a home that
made him heartsick with longing, mean and disordered and miserable as
it would have appeared to your eyes and mine, reader. The two children,
coming at their mother's call, found him standing just on the threshold
gazing in wistfully; and as they entered, he, drawn by their attraction,
went in also. Then, turning toward her children, the mother saw Andy.
“Out of this!” she cried, in quick anger, raising her hand and moving
hastily toward the child. “Off home with you!”
Andy might well be frightened at the terrible face and threatening words
of this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as
she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he
were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through
importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his
large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman's face as she advanced
upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked
the woman's purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust him out
into the damp street, nevertheless, though not roughly, and shut the
door against him.
Andy did not cry; poor little baby that he was, he had long since
learned that for him crying did no good. It brought him nothing. Just
across the street a door stood open. As a stray kitten creeps in through
an open door, so crept he through this one, hoping for shelter and a
place of rest.
“Who're you?” growled the rough but not unkindly voice of a man, coming
from the darkness. At the same moment a light gleamed out from a match,
and then the steadier flame of a candle lit up the small room, not more
than eight or nine feet square, and containing little that could be
called furniture. The floor was bare. In one corner were some old bits
of carpet and a blanket. A small table, a couple of chairs with the
backs broken off and a few pans and dishes made up the inventory of
household goods.
As the light made all things clear in this poor room, Andy saw the
bloodshot eyes, and grizzly face of a man, not far past middle life.
“Who are you, little one?” he growled again as the light gave him a view
of Andy's face. This growl had in it a tone of kindness and welcome to
the ears of Andy who came forward, saying,
“I'm Andy.”
“Indeed! You're Andy, are you?” and he reached out one of his hands.
“Yes; I'm Andy,” returned the child, fixing his eyes with a look so
deep and searching on the man's face that they held him as by a kind of
fascination.
“Well, Andy, where did you come from?” asked the man.
“Don't know,” was answered.
“Don't know!”
Andy shook his head.
“Where do you live?”
“Don't live nowhere,” returned the child; “and I'm hungry.”
“Hungry?” The man let the hand he was still holding drop, and getting up
quickly, took some bread from a closet and set it on the old table.
Andy did not wait for an invitation, but seized upon the bread and
commenced eating almost ravenously. As he did so the man fumbled in his
pockets. There were a few pennies there. He felt them over, counting
them with his fingers, and evidently in some debate with himself.
At last, as he closed the debate, he said, with a kind of compelled
utterance,
“I say, young one, wouldn't you like some milk with your bread?”
“Milk! oh my I oh goody! yes,” answered the child, a gleam of pleasure
coming into his face.
“Then you shall have some;” and catching up a broken mug, the man went
out. In a minute or two he returned with a pint of milk, into which he
broke a piece of bread, and then sat watching Andy as he filled himself
with the most delicious food he had tasted for weeks, his marred face
beaming with a higher satisfaction than he had known for a long time.
“Is it good?” asked the man.
“I bet you!” was the cheery answer.
“Well, you're a little brick,” laughed the man as he stroked Andy's
head. “And you don't live anywhere?”
“No.”
“Is your mother dead?”
“Yes.”
“And your father?”
“Hain't got no father.”
“Would you like to live here?”
Andy looked toward the empty bowl from which he had made such a
satisfying meal, and said,
“Yes.”
“It will hold us both. You're not very big;” and as he said this the man
drew his arm about the boy in a fond sort of way.
“I guess you're tired,” he added, for Andy, now that an arm was drawn
around him, leaned against it heavily.
“Yes, I'm tired,” said the child.
“And sleepy too, poor little fellow! It isn't much of a bed I can give
you, but it's better than a door-step or a rubbish corner.”
Then he doubled the only blanket he had, and made as soft a bed as
possible. On this he laid Andy, who was fast asleep almost as soon as
down.
“Poor little chap!” said the man, in a tender, half-broken voice, as he
stood over the sleeping child, candle in hand. “Poor little chap!”
The sight troubled him. He turned with a quick, disturbed movement and
put the candle down. The light streaming upward into his face showed
the countenance of a man so degraded by intemperance that everything
attractive had died out of it. His clothes were scanty, worn almost
to tatters, and soiled with the slime and dirt of many an ash-heap or
gutter where he had slept off his almost daily fits of drunkenness.
There was an air of irresolution about him, and a strong play of feeling
in his marred, repulsive face, as he stood by the table on which he
had set the candle. One hand was in his pocket, fumbling over the few
pennies yet remaining there.
As if drawn by an attraction he could not resist, his eyes kept turning
to the spot where Andy lay sleeping. Once, as they came back, they
rested on the mug from which the child had taken his supper of bread and
milk.
“Poor little fellow!” came from his lips, in a tone of pity.
Then he sat down by the table and leaned his head on his hand. His face
was toward the corner of the room where the child lay. He still fumbled
the small coins in his pocket, but after a while his fingers ceased to
play with them, then his hand was slowly withdrawn from the pocket, a
deep sigh accompanying the act.
After the lapse of several minutes he took up the candle, and going over
to the bed, crouched down and let the light fall on Andy's face. The
large forehead, soiled as it was, looked white to the man's eyes, and
the brown matted hair, as he drew it through his fingers, was soft and
beautiful. Memory had taken him back for years, and he was looking at
the fair forehead and touching the soft brown hair of another baby. His
eyes grew dim. He set the candle upon the floor, and putting his hands
over his face, sobbed two or three times.
When this paroxysm of feeling went off, he got up with a steadier air,
and set the light back upon the table. The conflict going on in his
mind was not quite over, but another look at Andy settled the question.
Stooping with a hurried movement, he blew out the candle, then groped
his way over to the bed, and lying down, took the child in his arms and
drew him close to his breast. So the morning found them both asleep.