IN HELL'S HALF ACRE.
The forlorn individual whom Peter Dieman saw through his spyhole, during
his soul stirring conversation with the stranger, was Kate Barton, the
wife of Billy Barton, the waterman, and the ragged but chunky young
woman with her was her daughter, Star Barton.
They had come into Peter's place to redeem, if possible, or to take away
as a gift of charity, if lucky, a few battered and broken kitchen
utensils that Billy Barton had sold during one of his thirsty spells
while staggering through a vaporless period of inebriacy.
Kate Barton's outlook on life was hopeless. She came into the world as
poor as the proverbial church mouse, and seemed doomed to go out of it
even poorer. She married Billy Barton, a shiftless young man, with an
inherent predilection for hankering after the flowing bowl, and ere she
had passed a score of years of wedded life twelve innocent starvelings
had opened their eyes to her as their mother to gravitate for themselves
around the "old block."
The poor woman! She was a meek victim of the direst kind of
circumstances that could possibly surround a human being. She was one of
those submissive and inept mortals that blindly plod the road of
domesticity without a spark of the beautiful to light up the narrow
channel of unrequitted effort. When she married Billy Barton, she went
about it with that fatality of purpose as is usual with her class, and
bore her burdens with the equanimity of a horse hitched to a loaded cart
on the uphill pull, without a thought for anything beyond her daily
tribulations, save that vague idea that the good Lord would take care of
her in the after while. She had no ambition further than the difficult
task of caring for her home with its limited accommodations and
plethoric adornment of young life. The unworthy addition of an imbibing
husband, on whom she looked as an inalienable part of her existence, did
in no sense tend her thoughts to any less love for him than if he had
been a more renowned character among men. Poor, helpless woman!
When Peter Dieman saw her that day through his place of outlook, he saw
a woman as lean as a bean pole, as tall as a rail splitter, as
cadaverous as a ghost, with a hook nose, deeply sunken gray eyes, a
complexion that was a cross between yellow and black, brown stringy hair
and toothless mouth. Her dress was of faded black alpaca, her shoes
coarse and well worn, with a dirty yellow shawl hooded over her head and
hanging with frayed edges over her shoulders.
After the stranger had left him, Peter stood a few moments, blinkingly
observing her. He then stepped out of his office into the less dingy
shop. He lumbered up to where she stood having an altercation with Eli
Jerey.
"Well, Mrs. Barton," he said, rubbing his hands as if very cold, and
grinning like a cheshire cat; "can't you and Eli come to terms? What is
the trouble?"
"Eli Jerey says I cannot redeem my goods without I pay a profit for your
trouble," she answered.
"Can't have what?" he quizzed.
"Them things that Bill sold you to get drink money with," she replied.
"What things?" asked Peter.
"Them dishes of mine--them tin pans--them knives--them forks--them
spoons--he carried off," she whimperingly returned.
"I paid him the cash for them--the cold cash, Mrs. Barton," said Peter,
with a stony smile.
"You did, no doubt, or else he wouldn't've been drunk last night," she
replied.
"I never ask any questions where the things I buy come from--I give all
anything is worth; no more, no less, and never ask where the money goes
when it leaves my hands--I expect to sell them for a profit, or else
what am I in business for?" thus screeched the junkman.
"Oh, Mr. Dieman!" wailed the poor creature. "I have nothing left to cook
with or eat on. He's taken the last dish in the house. My children have
been eating off the bare boards--and eating their vituals raw."
"That's not my outlook, Mrs. Barton," retorted Peter, rubbing his hands
now more vigorously than ever, as if he had a fresh chill, or had just
come in out of a cold blast of weather.
"I thought you might return them to me," said Mrs. Barton, appealingly.
"Thought nothing," he answered, with a croak. "Give me my price and you
can take them."
"I have only fifty cents," said the forlorn woman, "and I need that to
buy something to eat."
"I have nothing to give you, Mrs. Barton," he snorted, turning his back
to her, and rubbing his hands as if in meditation, and batting his small
eyes, as if he were winking at his little god--Mammom.
Feeling that it was hopeless to plead with him for the articles, and
wanting to save her fifty cents, Mrs. Barton turned slowly, pulled the
yellow shawl closer over her head and shoulders, and started to leave
the junk shop. Eli stood by agape, without a sign of sympathy for her,
or an emotion of any kind, any more than if he had been a fence post.
Mrs. Barton bowed her head as she walked away, and her daughter, Star,
after casting a disdainful look at Eli, followed. Eli stood still
looking after them. Peter stood still rubbing his hands and batting his
eyes, as if he were preparing to offer up devotion to his deity. Then of
a sudden he turned, and roared:
"Come back, Mrs. Barton!"
Mrs. Barton stopped as suddenly as Peter had cried out, faced about, and
looked blankly at the object who gave the command.
"Come back!" roared Peter again.
The poor woman, having no reason to be independent about the matter,
went hesitatingly toward him. When she came up to the blinking idol of
greed, she stood waiting for him to speak further.
"Take your old things, and tell Bill the next time he comes into my
place of business I'll tear him to pieces," he cried. "I've had enough
of him already. He's nothing but an old sot, unworthy of a woman like
you," now with commiseration in his sordid heart for her, and only
condemnation for her weak husband. "Take them, and go, and tell him that
I'll get even with him sometime."
"Thank you; thank you," said Mrs. Barton, with a gleam of merciful
gratitude in her eyes for this philanthropic pig.
"Eli," said Peter, without returning a "welcome" to Mrs. Barton, as he
turned to that dutiful menial, "give the woman her trumphery and let her
begone."
Then rubbing his hands more furiously, and squinting his eyes more
swiftly and gritting his teeth more viciously at the turn this action of
benefaction gave his conscience, he waddled to his black office, where
he resumed his smoking, and took to calculating to a certainty as to how
he could recover from some one else the small pittance he was out by
this disreputable transaction, as he termed it, on the part of Billy
Barton, the waterman.
Eli Jerey at once proceeded to obey his superior, for that was his only
aim at that period in his life. Into a gunny sack he piled the chipped
and broken dishes, the battered pans, the rusty iron forks and knives,
and tin spoons, composing the entire culinary outfit of Kate Barton.
With the sack thus loaded, Mrs. Barton swung it once in front of her,
and with a quick jerk whirled it over her right shoulder, bent under it
as if it were of great weight, said good bye to Eli, and strode out,
with Star following. They crossed the street and went down the glacis of
the cobblestoned wharf. Following the water's edge, they passed among
the miscellaneous collection of freight piled high on every hand. Over
taut ropes, holding boats, barges and rivermen's houses, they stepped,
catching their toes now and then, and almost falling; proceeding ever
on, through all kinds of heaps and piles of freightage; ever on, among
the men moving about performing their duties silently. Ever on, Kate
Barton led the way, a tireless, fearless, forbidding being, who created
no more comment among the habitues of this district than if she were
nowhere to be seen; till, at last, she, like one with the joy of success
bound up in a spiritless heart, arrived where a dog-boat lay tethered to
a ring-bolt in the stone abutment of the Point bridge.
Into the boat she tumbled her bundle, with no thought as to the result
such an act might have upon the dishes, ordered Star to climb in and
take a seat in the rear, untied the rope, and jumped in herself as she
gave the boat a shove into the stream. Taking up the oars she bent to
them with the energy of a man, and pulled through the puffing, snorting,
wheezing, churning craft for the farther shore--where house boats lay
moored; where shanties hugged dangerously close to the water line; where
decrepit buildings stood in all stages of deformity; where every inch of
ground on the narrow space between the margin of the river and the
verticle cliff behind was utilized to its utmost with everything
imaginable, from the detritus of the hill to a pretentious manufacturing
plant of equivocal worth in its baleful aspect. The hill above was
straight up and down, almost, rock ribbed and bleak, a barrier to the
pleasant places above and beyond; and at its base a railway system held
indisputable sway; while betwixt it and the river were the straggling
homes of men, with a few stunted and wheezy domesticated animals and
fowls roaming about them.
Once upon a time this place bore the evil name of Hell's Half Acre.
To a low-browed, unpainted, unadorned, uninviting three-roomed shack
Mrs. Barton took her way, with the bundle of precious household articles
on her back, with Star following. They passed along narrow, winding
alleys, with frightful looking fences bulging out, or leaning in; past
foul mud holes; past filthy doorsteps, where brawling children, like her
own, screamed at her, or taunted her, or spoke friendly to her; through
sticky mire, over rickety board walks, over stepping stones at watery
places, and on, over everything and through everything that had a
squalid and sickly hue she went--with Star following--and with one
unswerving gait, or changed expression of her leathery face, to the door
of her own abode.
The door squeaked with the pain of lassitude as she shoved it open. She
entered the kitchen--Star following. Dropping the sack on a dilapidated
chair, she began lifting the contents therefrom, as the children
gathered around, in all stages of filthiness, to see the operation. A
toddling three-year-old grasped a spoon, as soon as he saw it come
forth, and resorted to the ashes in the grate as material by which to
test its usefulness. Another child took up a knife and began hacking at
a table leg; another took up a cup and ran out to procure some water;
while another took up a small battered tin pail to fetch in a little
coal to replenish the dying fire.
The children ranged in age from one to nineteen, the
eldest--Michael--being away earning money for his own keep, so that she
had a short dozen mouths to fill for the nonce.
After completing the task of unburdening the sack, Mrs. Barton delivered
the youngest child unto Star to tend while she set about to cook a meal.
Her bill of fare was meager and simple, withal. It consisted wholly of
fried potatoes, dough-bread hurryingly mixed, and coffee. After the fare
was spread upon the table, ten greedy youngsters and their mother sat
down to dine, while Star stood off, waiting to take potluck with the
leavings. Unselfish child, as she was, she deferred always first to the
appeasement of the hunger of the others. The savory provender lay heaped
in a lusterless dish in the center of the table, and the coffee stood
hot in a tin pot on a corner of the stove, while the bread was broken
into fragments, as per age of child and capacity, and laid by each
place. As plates and cups and saucers, knives and forks, were not
sufficient to go around, the younger children fought and scratched and
pulled as to whose turn should come "next" in being served. Some being
ferociously hungry, and impatient over delays, dipped into the platter
with their hands, clapping the contents to their mouths, like monkeys,
and ate their bread with such an eager determination to get filled up
that they almost choked. Some drank the coffee out of the pot, and
spluttered and cried and slobbered with such wild frenzy that they were
called she-wolves by their mother sitting by eating sparingly but as
contentedly and as heartily as if her young hopefuls were angels instead
of brats.
"Where's your pap?" asked the mother, directing her question to any, or
all, of them, so indifferently was the question pronounced.
"Went to the city," answered the eldest.
"Naw he didn't," said the ten-year-old, after taking a swallow of the
faintly discolored water called coffee.
"When did he go?" again questioned the mother, after the lapse of a few
minutes.
"Soon after you left," answered the fourteen-year-old, indifferent as to
where he went, "and took his overcoat with him."
"To sell it, too, s'pose," said the mother unconcernedly.
"Yep," replied the ten-year-old; "said he'd bring me a pair of shoes."
"I see you gettin' a pair of shoes from him, Liz," retorted the mother,
without the least concern whether the child had any or no, as she rolled
the fried potatoes and dough-bread between her gums.
Thus the mother and the children talked about "pap," the father, who had
that day wandered out of his beaten course, the one that he had learned
to travel in so regularly for twenty years or more. This course lay
between his squalid home and the tempting saloons that lined the streets
of old Birmingham farther up the river way. Billy Barton was a man with
an unconquerable appetite for strong drink as might be judged from what
has been said heretofore. All his unvarying life before this memorable
day he had but one thought, but one ambition, but one predominating
idea, and that was to get drink--either by buying, begging, stealing, or
trading for it. But when his wife left him this morning, with the
parting word that she would fetch home the things that he had sold the
day before, he, too, left shortly after her departure, taking with him
an old rusty overcoat.
As he departed from his door, with his flock of half-starved children
standing in it watching him leave, he went with a new resolution in his
mind, a new determination formed, a new purpose in view. This was that
he would go away and find work--away from his old environments, away
from his drunken associates. With this new resolve burning feebly in his
irresolute breast, he struck a course for the mills in the Soho
district.
That night he did not return; nor the next day; nor the next night; nor
the following day. Mrs. Barton and the family thought little of his
failure to return in the space of time, for they had been used to his
absence on a spree for almost a whole week at a stretch. But when a week
had gone by, and when ten days had gone by, and two weeks had finally
passed, they began to feel uneasy at his prolonged absence. When a third
week had passed and he did not put in an appearance in the hilarious
condition they anticipated to behold him wheeling down upon them, the
mother thought it time to make some concerted attempt to ascertain the
cause of his disappearance.
She took the matter very calmly, consoling herself with the reflection
that her spouse was safe somewhere, or otherwise she would have heard
about him through the police department, or through the gossips of her
disreputable neighborhood. Little by little she began to inquire
cursorily among the neighbors, then among the keepers of the saloons,
then of the policeman of the district. She got no tidings of him. A
month passed; no news. Another month passed; no news. He was gone.
So Kate Barton, with her twelve children, was left alone to fight
against starvation, or go to the poor house, or have her family broken
up, and scattered among the charitable, who are very often among the
worst as saviors of the outcasts.
Alone, alone! What if we, who live in gilded halls, had to take her
place! Ah, we would call on a merciful God to deliver us! For there are
things in this life, mind you, my good keepers of the loaves and fishes,
that are even worse than death--worse than death.
Alas, too often, men of piety are prone to shun their christian duty.
Millions of beings, such as she, vegetate from the cradle to the grave
and never see the ministering hand of the followers of that Christ who
taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Millions go up
and down the obscure pathways of this world, within the sacred sound of
the clanking bells of religion, and never receive the helping meed that
was promised them. Millions live like the rioting motes invisible in the
air about us as if all the philanthrophy of Christendom were set aside
for the chosen few. The successful gloat over and glory in their
achievements, and extend a cursory hand to those below as if they were
fulfilling the ten commandments as a great finale of their
extravaganza. But, do they do any good? There are many Kate Bartons all
around us, the natural among the unnatural, who deserve more compassion
from those preachers of the Good Will than they ever receive. It is not
believed by all that only the chosen few shall answer the call. It is
not believed by all that the doctrine of the Christ should prevail one
day in the week and be sunk in oblivion for the other six. No, not by
all.
But Kate Barton's day shall come, some day; and those who shun her now
will assert their cringing hypocracy when she has been lifted up, and
not lifted by their hands.
Charity is not what the Kate Bartons want--it is the meed of
opportunity.