She dropped upon a low table, by which she stood, and burst into tears.
I walked round the kitchen a few times to let her fret spend itself;
then I went back, and stood by her side.
"How many children have you, Allen?"
"Three, ma'am; two boys and a girl."
"If they were not all right your husband would have come, or sent some
one to tell you."
"That's what I'm afraid of, ma'am. The little girl has had a fever. I'm
afraid she is worse, or has died, and my husband hates to tell me."
"Perhaps he couldn't leave his work. What does he do?"
"He's a house-builder, ma'am. He's one of the best workmen, ma'am, and
they don't like to let him go. He gets three dollars a day, and now he
has the whole care of the childer."
"What did you come in here for, Allen?"
"Shoplifting, ma'am."
"With your husband earning three dollars a day you had no excuse; that
was enough to keep you comfortably."
"So it would, ma'am, if I had been contented. I don't know what made
me,--I got a hankering for it. It was eighteen years ago, I was going
out to buy me a silk dress, and one of my comrades went with me. I stood
looking at a piece of silk, and was going to buy it. She touched my
shoulder, 'don't buy that till we look in another store!' When we got
out she showed me a piece of silk that she had under her shawl. She got
it while I was looking at the other. After that we used to go together."
"Did you ever get caught before?"
"Yes, ma'am; I was in here seven years ago."
"And for eighteen years you have followed that wicked life, constantly,
and never got caught but twice."
"I never stole from the poor. It was from those that could well afford
to spare it. I always took the richest of silks and satins and velvets
and linens. Sometimes I had seven or eight hundred dollars' worth at a
time."
There was an exhibition of pride in her statement.
The larger the crime, the more honorable, she thought. A strange code of
honesty, but a very common one, it would be found, if the practical
principles of every person were subjected to analysis.
"But you had no right to the goods; you paid nothing for them."
"It is the way they do. If a rich customer goes into one of those big
stores, they ask him a big price. If a poorer one comes in, and they
think he knows what a thing is worth, they don't ask him so much. What
is that but stealing?"
"Their doing wrong does not make it right for you to do wrong. What did
you do with what you took?"
"Sometimes I used it, and sometimes I sold it at people's doors. I went
out West a great many times with a lot."
"What did you intend to do with your money?"
"Buy a big house, and live in the fashion, when the childer get up."
"Do you think you would enjoy a house bought with money got in that
way?"
"Most of the big houses are bought with money got in that way. I know
many a person as has carried on the business for years, and got rich by
it."
"The business of shoplifting! then the crime has become dignified into a
business." Rather a liberal translation of the example set, I thought.
"Did your husband know what you were doing?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Did he approve of it?"
"No, ma'am; he always warned me, and sometimes forbid me. But as soon as
he was off to his work, I would shift my clothes and go out. I hurried
back, and got them shifted again before he came home; and he wouldn't
know it till I had got a great many pieces."
"Does he turn against you now?"
"O no! He is a good man; and he cried when I came here,--for me and the
poor childer. He pitied me, and told me how hard it would be on me,
seein' I was never used to it."
Crazy Manhattan came up just in time to hear the last sentence.
"An' sure it is hard on her! I've known her outside, and she's not
bein' used to lift her finger to work."
"She had better have been, than to have been lifting her finger to take
other people's goods."
"Give me a slice of bread, ma'am, an' you please! I've been ironing in
the wash-room, and I've done your own things beautifully. Don't tell the
Deputy!" she said, as she slipped it under her apron and ran away.
"I knew her a little outside," said the steam woman; "but she was
nothing but a house thief!"
Well, well! the fashions of society obtain among thieves as well as the
principles. A shop lifter ranks in a higher grade than a house thief.
I talked with Allen some time, and tried to show her that whatever
others might do was no excuse for her in wrong doing. At last she
admitted it; but wound up by saying,--
"Ise got such an itching in my fingers for it, I couldn't help taking
the things."
The patience which is required to inculcate right principles, where
wrong ones have been practiced for half a century, is incalculable. But
it does not come in comparison with that which is exercised towards us
by the long-suffering Father of our spirits.