THE SOLDIER'S FAMILY.
Fanny stood on the platform in front of the station-house, waiting for
the return of Kate. She had no suspicion that her friend had deserted
her, and was at that moment running away as fast as she could. The
train was approaching, and with the nervousness of one not accustomed
to travelling, she feared they might be left. The cars stopped, and
Kate did not return. Fanny rushed into the station-house in search of
her. She was not there! she was not in the building; she was not to be
seen from the open door.
Then Fanny realized that her companion's courage had failed, and that
she had deserted her. The bell on the locomotive was ringing, and the
train was in the act of starting. Fanny was quick and decisive in her
movements, and she bounded out of the building, and stepped upon the
train after it was in motion. She was angry and indignant at the
defection of Kate, and, taking a seat in the car, she nursed her bitter
feelings until her wrath had expended itself.
Kate's desertion affected the plans of the runaway, for in a few hours,
at most, what she had done, and what she intended to do, would be known
at Woodville. Mr. Long would take one of the afternoon trains for the
city, and the whole police force of the great metropolis would be on
the lookout for her before dark. Constables and policemen were now more
than ever Fanny's especial horror, and she trembled at the very thought
of being arrested for the crime she had committed.
Fanny was a girl of quick, bright parts. She had read the newspapers,
and listened to the conversation of her elders. She was better informed
in regard to the ways of the world than most young persons of her age
with no more experience. She knew all about the telegraph, and the uses
to which it was put in the detection and arrest of rogues. Though it
was hardly possible for Kate to reach Woodville, and inform the people
there where she had gone, yet circumstances might conspire against her
so as to render the telegraph available. Mr. Long might have discovered
in what direction the fugitives had gone, and followed them down to
Pennville. He might have met Kate there, and learned her destination.
It was possible, therefore, that a despatch might reach the city before
she did, and an officer be waiting for her at the railroad station.
She was too cunning to be entrapped by any such expedients; and when
the train stopped at Harlem, she got out, with the intention of walking
into the city. Deeming it imprudent to follow the principal street, in
which some of the terrible policemen might be lying in wait for her,
she made her way to one of the less travelled thoroughfares, in which
she pursued her way towards the city. The street she had chosen led her
through the localities inhabited by the poorer portions of the
population. The territory through which she was passing was in a
transition state: broad streets and large squares had been laid out, in
anticipation of vast improvements, but only a little had been
accomplished in carrying them out. There were many tasty little houses,
and many long blocks of buildings occupied by mechanics and laborers,
and occasionally a more pretentious mansion.
In some of the most ineligible places for building, there were houses,
or rather hovels, constructed in the roughest and rudest manner,
apparently for temporary use until the march of improvement should
drive their tenants into still more obscure locations. Fanny passed
near one of these rude abodes, which was situated on a cross street, a
short distance from the avenue on which she was journeying to the city.
In front of this house was a scene which attracted the attention of the
wanderer, and caused her to forget, for the time, the great wrong she
had committed, and the consequences which would follow in its train.
In front of the house lay several articles of the coarsest furniture,
and a man was engaged in removing more of the same kind from the hovel.
He had paused for a moment in his occupation, and before him stood a
woman who was wringing her hands in the agonies of despair. Fanny could
hear the profane and abusive language the man used, and she could hear
the piteous pleadings of the woman, at whose side stood a little boy,
half clothed in tattered garments, weeping as though his heart would
break.
Fanny was interested in the scene. The woman's woe and despair touched
her feelings, and perhaps more from curiosity than any other motive,
she walked down the cross-street towards the cottage. Being resolute
and courageous by nature, she had no fear of personal consequences. She
did not comprehend the nature of the difficulty, having never seen a
tenant forcibly ejected from a house for the non-payment of rent.
"You'll kill my child! You'll kill my child!" cried the poor woman, in
such an agony of bitterness that Fanny was thrilled by her tones.
"Isn't it a whole year I've been waiting for my rint?" replied the man,
coarsely. "Didn't ye keep promisin' to pay me for a twelvemonth, and
niver a cint I got yet?"
"I would pay you if I could, Mr. O'Shane."
"If ye could! What call have I to wait any longer for me money?"
"My husband has gone to the war, and I haven't heard a word from him
for a year; but I'm sure he will send me some money soon--I know he
will."
"What call had he to go to the war? Why didn't he stay at home and take
care of his childer? Go 'way wid ye! Give me up me house!"
Mr. O'Shane broke away from her, and, rushing into the house, presently
returned bearing a dilapidated table in his hands.
"Have mercy, Mr. O'Shane. Pity me!" pleaded the woman, when he
appeared.
"I do pity ye; 'pon me sowl, I do, thin; but what can a poor man like
me do?" replied the landlord. "I live in a worse house nor this, and
work like a mule, and I can't make enough, for the high prices, to take
care of me family. Didn't I wait month after month for me rint, and
sorra a cint I iver got? Sure it isn't Mike O'Shane that would do the
likes of this if he could help it."
"But I will pay you all I owe, Mr. O'Shane."
"That's what ye been sayin' this twelvemonth; and I can't wait any
longer. Why don't ye stir yoursilf, and go among the rich folks?"
"I can't beg, Mr. O'Shane."
"But ye better beg than chate me out of me honest dues. Go 'way wid ye!
Pay me the rint, or give me the house; and sorra one of me cares which
you do."
"I would move if I could. You know that my poor child is very sick. For
her sake don't turn me out of the house to-day," added the woman, in
the most beseeching tones.
"Didn't I wait six months for the child to die, and she didn't die? She
won't die. Sure, don't she sit in the chair all day? and what harm
would it do to move her?"
"I have no place to move her to."
"That's what's the matter! Now go 'way wid your blarney, and don't be
talking to me. It's Mike O'Shane that has a soft spot in his heart, but
he can't do no more for ye. That's the truth, and ye must move to-day."
The landlord went into the house again, for more of the furniture. As
he had represented, it was, doubtless, a hard case for him; but it was
infinitely harder for the poor woman, and Fanny was too deeply
interested now to leave the spot. What she had known of human misery
was as nothing compared with the suffering of this poor mother.
"What's the matter, ma'am?" asked Fanny of her, when the harsh landlord
had gone into the house.
"This man is my landlord, and he is turning me out of the house because
I cannot pay him the rent," sobbed the woman. "I wouldn't care, if it
wasn't for poor Jenny."
"Who is Jenny?"
"She is my daughter. She has been sick, very sick, for nearly a year,
and she cannot live much longer. The doctor gave her up six months
ago."
"How old is Jenny?"
"She is fourteen; and she is such a patient child! She never complains
of anything, though I am not able to do much for her," replied the
afflicted mother, as her tears broke forth afresh at the thought of the
sufferer.
"Haven't you any place to go if this man turns you out of the house?"
asked Fanny.
"No, no!" groaned the woman, bursting out into a terrible paroxysm of
grief.
"I know it's hard for you, Mrs. Kent, but it's harder for me to do it
than it is for you to have it done," continued Mr. O'Shane, as he came
out of the house with a rocking chair in his hands.
"O mercy! that is poor Jenny's chair!" almost screamed Mrs. Kent. "What
have you done with her?"
The mother, in her agony, rushed into the house to ascertain if any
harm had come to her suffering daughter, who had been deprived of the
easy chair in which she was accustomed to sit. Fanny was moved to the
depths of her nature--moved as she had never been moved before. She
couldn't have believed that such scenes were real. She had read of them
in romances, and even in the newspapers; but she had never realized
that a man could be so hard as Mr. O'Shane, or that a woman could
suffer so much as Mrs. Kent. Between her grief and indignation she was
almost overwhelmed.
"You are a cruel man," said she, with something like fierceness in her
tones.
"That's very foine for the likes of you to say to the likes of me; but
it don't pay me rint," replied Mr. O'Shane, not as angry as might have
been expected at this interference.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a mean thing!" added
Fanny, her black eyes snapping with the living fire of her indignation.
"Shall I let me own childer starve for another man's childer?" answered
the landlord, who, we must do him the justice to say, was ashamed of
himself.
"How much does the woman owe you?" demanded Fanny.
"A matther of a hundred dollars--for a whole year's rint. Sure, miss,
it isn't many min that would wait a twelvemonth for the rint, and not
get it thin."
"And her daughter is sick?"
"Troth she is; there's no lie in that; she's got the consoomption, and
she's not long for this world," replied the landlord, moving towards
the door of the house, again to complete the work of desolation he had
begun.
[Illustration: THE CRUEL LANDLORD. Page 103.]
"Stop, sir!" said Fanny, in tones so imperative that the man could not
help obeying her.
"What would I stop for?" asked Mr. O'Shane, rather vacantly.
"You shall not do this cruel thing."
"The saints know how it breaks me heart to do it, but I can't help it."
"Now you put all these things back into the house just as you found
them."
"Faix, I'd like to do it, miss," said the man, taking off his hat and
rubbing his tangled hair.
"You must do it."
"And not git me rint?"
"You shall have your money--every cent of it. Put the furniture back,
and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it," said
Fanny, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.
Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified with
astonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, he
regarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied by
Mrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two other
families, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he was
obliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainly
could not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly entitled. He
had indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparent
hopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruel
proceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify a
landlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. He
looked at Fanny with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but he
was sceptical.
"Why don't you put back the furniture?" demanded Fanny, impatiently.
"It's meself that would be glad to do that same," replied he. "Would
you let me see the color of your money, miss?"
"Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you have
done it," added Fanny, moving down the street. "I will be back in a few
moments."
The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, but
there was something about the girl so different from what he had been
accustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was strongly
impressed by her words. Fanny sat down on a rock in the shade of a lone
tree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obey
the haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energy
than he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back into
the house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of the
grief-stricken mother.
Fanny counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in her
pocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this time
completed his work, and was awaiting the result.
"They be all put back, miss," said he, doubtfully.
"There is your money," replied Fanny, proudly.
Mr. O'Shane's eyes opened, and he fixed them with a gloating stare upon
the bills. He counted them; there was a hundred dollars.
"God bless you, miss, for a saint as ye are!" ejaculated he, as he put
the money in his pocket. "Ye saved me from doing the worst thing I ever
did in me life. I'll send the receipt to Mrs. Kent to-day;" and he
walked away towards his own house.