streets of Cincinnati. Since his mother's death he had driven on the
canal boat; but now the boat was to lie by for winter, and the hands of
course turned loose to find employment till spring. Fred was told that
he must look up a place; every body was busy about their own affairs,
and he must shift for himself; and so with half his wages in his pocket,
and promises for the rest, he started to seek his fortune.
It was a cold, cheerless, gray-eyed day, with an air that pinched
fingers and toes, and seemed to penetrate one's clothes like snow
water--such a day as it needs the brightest fire and the happiest heart
to get along at all with; and, unluckily, Fred had neither. Christmas
was approaching, and all the shops had put on their holiday dresses; the
confectioners' windows were glittering with sparkling pyramids of candy,
with frosted cake, and unfading fruits and flowers of the very best of
sugar. There, too, was Santa Claus, large as life, with queer, wrinkled
visage, and back bowed with the weight of all desirable knickknacks,
going down chimney, in sight of all the children of Cincinnati, who
gathered around the shop with constantly-renewed acclamations. On all
sides might be seen the little people, thronging, gazing, chattering,
while anxious papas and mammas in the shops were gravely discussing tin
trumpets, dolls, spades, wheelbarrows, and toy wagons.
Fred never had heard of the man who said, "How sad a thing it is to look
into happiness through another man's eyes!" but he felt something very
like it as he moved through the gay and bustling streets, where every
body seemed to be finding what they wanted but himself.
He had determined to keep up a stout heart; but in spite of himself, all
this bustling show and merriment made him feel sadder and sadder, and
lonelier and lonelier. He knocked and rang at door after door, but
nobody wanted a boy: nobody ever does want a boy when a boy is wanting a
place. He got tired of ringing door bells, and tried some of the shops.
No, they didn't want him. One said if he was bigger he might do; another
wanted to know if he could keep accounts; one thought that the man
around the corner wanted a boy, and when Fred got there he had just
engaged one. Weary, disappointed, and discouraged, he sat down by the
iron railing that fenced a showy house, and thought what he should do.
It was almost five in the afternoon: cold, dismal, leaden-gray was the
sky--the darkness already coming on. Fred sat listlessly watching the
great snow feathers, as they slowly sailed down from the sky. Now he
heard gay laughs, as groups of merry children passed; and then he
started, as he saw some woman in a black bonnet, and thought she looked
like his mother. But all passed, and nobody looked at him, nobody wanted
him, nobody noticed him.
Just then a patter of little feet was heard behind him on the
flagstones, and a soft, baby voice said, "How do 'oo do?" Fred turned in
amazement; and there stood a plump, rosy little creature of about two
years, with dimpled cheek, ruby lips, and long, fair hair curling about
her sweet face. She was dressed in a blue pelisse, trimmed with swan's
down, and her complexion was so exquisitely fair, her eyes so clear and
sweet, that Fred felt almost as if it were an angel. The little thing
toddled up to him, and holding up before him a new wax doll, all
splendid in silk and lace, seemed quite disposed to make his
acquaintance. Fred thought of his lost sister, and his eyes filled up
with tears. The little one put up one dimpled hand to wipe them away,
while with the other holding up before him the wax doll, she said,
coaxingly, "No no ky."
Just then the house door opened, and a lady, richly dressed, darted out,
exclaiming, "Why, Mary, you little rogue, how came you out here?" Then
stopping short, and looking narrowly on Fred, she said, somewhat
sharply, "Whose boy are you? and how came you here?"
"I'm nobody's boy," said Fred, getting up, with a bitter choking in his
throat; "my mother's dead; I only sat down here to rest me for a while."
"Well, run away from here," said the lady; but the little girl pressed
before her mother, and jabbering very earnestly in unimaginable English,
seemed determined to give Fred her wax doll, in which, she evidently
thought, resided every possible consolation.
The lady felt in her pocket and found a quarter, which she threw towards
Fred. "There, my boy, that will get you lodging and supper, and
to-morrow you can find some place to work, I dare say;" and she hurried
in with the little girl, and shut the door.
It was not money that Fred wanted just then, and he picked up the
quarter with a heavy heart. The sky looked darker, and the street
drearier, and the cold wind froze the tear on his cheeks as he walked
listlessly down the street in the dismal twilight.
"I can go back to the canal boat, and find the cook," he thought to
himself. "He told me I might sleep with him to-night if I couldn't find
a place;" and he quickened his steps with this determination. Just as he
was passing a brightly-lighted coffee house, familiar voices hailed him,
and Fred stopped; he would be glad even to see a dog he had ever met
before, and of course he was glad when two boys, old canal boat
acquaintances, hailed him, and invited him into the coffee house. The
blazing fire was a brave light on that dismal night, and the faces of
the two boys were full of glee, and they began rallying Fred on his
doleful appearance, and insisting on it that he should take something
warm with them.
Fred hesitated a moment; but he was tired and desperate, and the
steaming, well-sweetened beverage was too tempting. "Who cares for me?"
thought he, "and why should I care?" and down went the first spirituous
liquor the boy had ever tasted; and in a few moments, he felt a
wonderful change. He was no longer a timid, cold, disheartened,
heart-sick boy, but felt somehow so brave, so full of hope and courage,
that he began to swagger, to laugh very loud, and to boast in such high
terms of the money in his pocket, and of his future intentions and
prospects, that the two boys winked significantly at each other. They
proposed, after sitting a while, to walk out and see the shop windows.
All three of the boys had taken enough to put them to extra merriment;
but Fred, who was entirely unused to the stimulant, was quite beside
himself. If they sung, he shouted; if they laughed, he screamed; and he
thought within himself he never had heard and thought so many witty
things as on that very evening. At last they fell in with quite a press
of boys, who were crowding round a confectionery window, and, as usual
in such cases, there began an elbowing and scuffling contest for places,
in which Fred was quite conspicuous. At last a big boy presumed on his
superior size to edge in front of our hero, and cut off his prospect;
and Fred, without more ado, sent him smashing through the shop window.
There was a general scrabble, every one ran for himself, and Fred, never
having been used to the business, was not very skilful in escaping, and
of course was caught, and committed to an officer, who, with small
ceremony, carried him off and locked him up in the watch house, from
which he was the next morning taken before the mayor, and after
examination sent to jail.
This sobered Fred. He came to himself as out of a dream, and he was
overwhelmed with an agony of shame and self-reproach. He had broken his
promise to his dead mother--he had been drinking! and his heart failed
him when he thought of the horrors that his mother had always associated
with that word. And then he was in jail--that place that his mother had
always represented as an almost impossible horror, the climax of shame
and disgrace. The next night the poor boy stretched himself on his hard,
lonely bed, and laid under his head his little bundle, containing his
few clothes and his mother's Bible, and then sobbed himself to sleep.
Cold and gray dawned the following morning on little Fred, as he slowly
and heavily awoke, and with a bitter chill of despair recalled the
events of the last two nights, and looked up at the iron-grated window,
and round on the cheerless walls; and, as if in bitter contrast, arose
before him an image of his lost home--the neat, quiet room, the white
curtains and snowy floor, his mother's bed, with his own little cot
beside it, and his mother's mild blue eyes, as they looked upon him only
six months ago. Mechanically he untied the check handkerchief which
contained his few clothes, and worldly possessions, and relics of home.
There was the small, clean-printed Bible his mother had given him with
so many tears on their first parting; there was a lock of her soft brown
hair; there, too, were a pair of little worn shoes and stockings, a
baby's rattle, and a curl of golden hair, which he had laid up in memory
of his lost little pet. Fred laid his head down over all these, his
forlorn treasures, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
After a while the jailer came in, and really seemed affected by the
distress of the child, and said what he could to console him; and in the
course of the day, as the boy "seemed to be so lonesome like," he
introduced another boy into the room as company for him. This was a
cruel mercy; for while the child was alone with himself and the memories
of the past, he was, if sad, at least safe, and in a few hours after
this new introduction he was neither. His new companion was a tall boy
of fourteen, with small, cunning, gray eyes, to which a slight cast gave
an additional expression of shrewdness and drollery. He was a young
gentleman of great natural talent,--in a certain line,--with very
precocious attainments in all that kind of information which a boy gains
by running at large for several years in a city's streets without any
thing particular to do, or any body in particular to obey--any
conscience, any principle, any fear either of God or man. We should not
say that he had never seen the inside of a church, for he had been, for
various purposes, into every one of the city, and to every camp meeting
for miles around; and so much had he profited by these exercises, that
he could mimic to perfection every minister who had any perceptible
peculiarity, could caricature every species of psalm-singing, and give
ludicrous imitations of every form of worship. Then he was _au fait_ in
all coffee house lore, and knew the names and qualities of every kind of
beverage therein compounded; and as to smoking and chewing, the first
elements of which he mastered when he was about six years old, he was
now a _connoisseur_ in the higher branches. He had been in jail dozens
of times--rather liked the fun; had served one term on the
chain-gang--not so bad either--shouldn't mind another--learned a good
many prime things there.
At first Fred seemed inclined to shrink from his new associate. An
instinctive feeling, like the warning of an invisible angel, seemed to
whisper, "Beware!" But he was alone, with a heart full of bitter
thoughts, and the sight of a fellow-face was some comfort. Then his
companion was so dashing, so funny, so free and easy, and seemed to make
such a comfortable matter of being in jail, that Fred's heart, naturally
buoyant, began to come up again in his breast. Dick Jones soon drew out
of him his simple history as to how he came there, and finding that he
was a raw hand, seemed to feel bound to patronize and take him under his
wing. He laughed quite heartily at Fred's story, and soon succeeded in
getting him to laugh at it too.
How strange!--the very scenes that in the morning he looked at only with
bitter anguish and remorse, this noon he was laughing at as good
jokes--so much for the influence of good society! An instinctive
feeling, soon after Dick Jones came in, led Fred to push his little
bundle into the farthest corner, under the bed, far out of sight or
inquiry; and the same reason led him to suppress all mention of his
mother, and all the sacred part of his former life. He did this more
studiously, because, having once accidentally remarked how his mother
used to forbid him certain things, the well-educated Dick broke out,--
"Well, for my part, I could whip my mother when I wa'n't higher than
_that_!" with a significant gesture.
"Whip your mother!" exclaimed Fred, with a face full of horror.
"To be sure, greenie! Why not? Precious fun it was in those times. I
used to slip in and steal the old woman's whiskey and sugar when she was
just too far over to walk a crack--she'd throw the tongs at me, and I'd
throw the shovel at her, and so it went square and square."
Goethe says somewhere, "Miserable is that man whose _mother_ has not
made all other mothers venerable." Our new acquaintance bade fair to
come under this category.
Fred's education, under this talented instructor, made progress. He sat
hours and hours laughing at his stories--sometimes obscene, sometimes
profane, but always so full of life, drollery, and mimicry that a more
steady head than Fred's was needed to withstand the contagion. Dick had
been to the theatre--knew it all like a book, and would take Fred there
as soon as they got out; then he had a first-rate pack of cards, and he
could teach Fred to play; and the gay tempters were soon spread out on
their bed, and Fred and his instructor sat hour after hour absorbed in
what to him was a new world of interest. He soon learned, could play for
small stakes, and felt in himself the first glimmering of that fire
which, when fully kindled, many waters cannot quench, nor floods drown!
Dick was, as we said, precocious. He had the cool eye and steady hand of
an experienced gamester, and in a few days he won, of course, all Fred's
little earnings. But then he was quite liberal and free with his money.
He added to their prison fare such various improvements as his abundance
of money enabled him to buy. He had brought with him the foundation of
good cheer in a capacious bottle which emerged the first night from his
pocket, for he said he never went to jail without his provision; then
hot water, and sugar, and lemons, and peppermint drops were all
forthcoming for money, and Fred learned once and again, and again, the
fatal secret of hushing conscience, and memory, and bitter despair in
delirious happiness, and as Dick said, was "getting to be a right jolly
'un that would make something yet."
And was it all gone, all washed away by this sudden wave of evil?--every
trace of prayer, and hope, and sacred memory in this poor child's heart?
No, not all; for many a night, when his tempter slept by his side, the
child lived over the past; again he kneeled in prayer, and felt his
mother's guardian hand on his head, and he wept tears of bitter remorse,
and wondered at the dread change that had come over him. Then he
dreamed, and he saw his mother and sister walking in white, fair as
angels, and would go to them; but between him and them was a great gulf
fixed, which widened and widened, and grew darker and darker, till he
could see them no more, and he awoke in utter misery and despair.
Again and again he resolved, in the darkness of the night, that
to-morrow he would not drink, and he would not speak a wicked word, and
he would not play cards, nor laugh at Dick's bad stories. Ah, how many
such midnight resolves have evil angels sneered at and good ones sighed
over! for with daylight back comes the old temptation, and with it the
old mind; and with daylight came back the inexorable prison walls which
held Fred and his successful tempter together.
At last he gave himself up. No, he could not be good with Dick--there
was no use in trying!--and he made no more midnight resolves, and drank
more freely of the dreadful remedy for unquiet thoughts.
And now is Fred growing in truth a wicked boy. In a little while more
and he shall be such a one as you will on no account take under your
roof, lest he corrupt your own children; and yet, father, mother, look
at your son of twelve years, your bright, darling boy, and think of him
shut up for a month with such a companion, in such a cell, and ask
yourselves if he would be any better.
And was there no eye, heavenly or earthly, to look after this lost one?
Was there no eye which could see through all the traces of sin, the yet
lingering drops of that baptism and early prayer and watchfulness which
consecrated it? Yes; He whose mercy extends to the third and fourth
generations of those who love him, sent a friend to our poor boy in his
last distress.
It is one of the most refined and characteristic modifications of
Christianity, that those who are themselves sheltered, guarded, fenced
by good education, knowledge, and competence, appoint and sustain a
pastor and guardian in our large cities to be the shepherd of the
wandering and lost, and of them who, in the Scripture phrase, "have none
to help." Justly is he called the "City Missionary," for what is more
truly missionary ground? In the hospital, among the old, the sick, the
friendless, the forlorn--in the prison, among the hardened, the
blaspheming--among the discouraged and despairing, still holding with
unsteady hand on to some forlorn fragment of virtue and self-respect,
goes this missionary to stir the dying embers of good, to warn, entreat,
implore, to adjure by sacred recollections of father, mother, and home,
the fallen wanderers to return. He finds friends, and places, and
employment for some, and by timely aid and encouragement saves many a
one from destruction.
In this friendly shape appeared a man of prayer to visit the cell in
which Fred was confined. Dick listened to his instructions with cool
complacency, rolling his tobacco from side to side in his mouth, and
meditating on him as a subject for some future histrionic exercise of
his talent.
But his voice was as welcome to poor Fred as daylight in a dungeon. All
the smothered remorse and despair of his heart burst forth in bitter
confessions, as, with many tears, he poured forth his story to the
friendly man. It needs not to prolong our story, for now the day has
dawned and the hour of release is come.
It is not needful to carry our readers through all the steps by which
Fred was transferred, first to the fireside of the friendly missionary,
and afterwards to the guardian care of a good old couple who resided on
a thriving farm not far from Cincinnati. Set free from evil influences,
the first carefully planted and watered seeds of good began to grow
again, and he became as a son to the kind family who had adopted him.
THE CANAL BOAT.
Of all the ways of travelling which obtain among our locomotive nation,
this said vehicle, the canal boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and
inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the
lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go, take your
stand on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of
silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken
forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking
the waters with unbroken and powerful tread; and, like some fabled
monster of the wave, breathing fire, and making the shores resound with
its deep respirations. Then there is something mysterious, even awful,
in the power of steam. See it curling up against a blue sky, some rosy
morning--graceful, floating, intangible, and to all appearance the
softest and gentlest of all spiritual things; and then think that it is
this fairy spirit that keeps all the world alive and hot with motion;
think how excellent a servant it is, doing all sorts of gigantic works,
like the genii of old; and yet, if you let slip the talisman only for a
moment, what terrible advantage it will take of you! and you will
confess that steam has some claims both to the beautiful and the
terrible. For our own part, when we are down among the machinery of a
steamboat in full play, we conduct ourself very reverently, for we
consider it as a very serious neighborhood; and every time the steam
whizzes with such red-hot determination from the escape valve, we start
as if some of the spirits were after us. But in a canal boat there is no
power, no mystery, no danger; one cannot blow up, one cannot be drowned,
unless by some special effort: one sees clearly all there is in the
case--a horse, a rope, and a muddy strip of water--and that is all.
Did you ever try it, reader? If not, take an imaginary trip with us,
just for experiment. "There's the boat!" exclaims a passenger in the
omnibus, as we are rolling down from the Pittsburg Mansion House to the
canal. "Where?" exclaim a dozen of voices, and forthwith a dozen heads
go out of the window. "Why, down there, under that bridge; don't you see
those lights?" "What! that little thing?" exclaims an inexperienced
traveller; "dear me! we can't half of us get into it!" "We! indeed,"
says some old hand in the business; "I think you'll find it will hold us
and a dozen more loads like us." "Impossible!" say some. "You'll see,"
say the initiated; and, as soon as you get out, you _do_ see, and hear
too, what seems like a general breaking loose from the Tower of Babel,
amid a perfect hail storm of trunks, boxes, valises, carpet bags, and
every describable and indescribable form of what a westerner calls
"plunder."
"That's my trunk!" barks out a big, round man. "That's my bandbox!"
screams a heart-stricken old lady, in terror for her immaculate Sunday
caps. "Where's my little red box? I had two carpet bags and a--My trunk
had a scarle--Halloo! where are you going with that portmanteau?
Husband! husband! do see after the large basket and the little hair
trunk--O, and the baby's little chair!" "Go below--go below, for mercy's
sake, my dear; I'll see to the baggage." At last, the feminine part of
creation, perceiving that, in this particular instance, they gain
nothing by public speaking, are content to be led quietly under hatches;
and amusing is the look of dismay which each new comer gives to the
confined quarters that present themselves. Those who were so ignorant of
the power of compression as to suppose the boat scarce large enough to
contain them and theirs, find, with dismay, a respectable colony of old
ladies, babies, mothers, big baskets, and carpet bags already
established. "Mercy on us!" says one, after surveying the little room,
about ten feet long and six high, "where are we all to sleep to-night?"
"O me! what a sight of children!" says a young lady, in a despairing
tone. "Poh!" says an initiated traveller; "children! scarce any here;
let's see: one; the woman in the corner, two; that child with the bread
and butter, three; and then there's that other woman with two. Really,
it's quite moderate for a canal boat. However, we can't tell till they
have all come."
"All! for mercy's sake, you don't say there are any more coming!"
exclaim two or three in a breath; "they _can't_ come; _there is not
room_!"
Notwithstanding the impressive utterance of this sentence, the contrary
is immediately demonstrated by the appearance of a very corpulent,
elderly lady, with three well-grown daughters, who come down looking
about them most complacently, entirely regardless of the unchristian
looks of the company. What a mercy it is that fat people are always good
natured!
After this follows an indiscriminate raining down of all shapes, sizes,
sexes, and ages--men, women, children, babies, and nurses. The state of
feeling becomes perfectly desperate. Darkness gathers on all faces. "We
shall be smothered! we shall be crowded to death! we _can't stay_ here!"
are heard faintly from one and another; and yet, though the boat grows
no wider, the walls no higher, they do live, and do stay there, in spite
of repeated protestations to the contrary. Truly, as Sam Slick says,
"there's a _sight of wear_ in human natur'."
But, meanwhile, the children grow sleepy, and divers interesting little
duets and trios arise from one part or another of the cabin.
"Hush, Johnny! be a good boy," says a pale, nursing mamma, to a great,
bristling, white-headed phenomenon, who is kicking very much at large in
her lap.