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THE DAUGHTER OF A REPUBLICAN
BY
BERNIE BABCOCK
CHICAGO:
THE NEW VOICE PRESS
1900
_Copyright by Dickie and Woolley 1899_
The world at large gives small attention to human effort until it has
reached the full stature of a robust maturity.
By way of encouragement, it is well for many obscure toilers that there
are those who think they see a bud of promise in the yet undeveloped
effort.
Because of the loving interest she has always taken in my every "first
attempt," I dedicate this little volume to
MY MOTHER.
[Illustration: "'I'm cold,' whined the boy."]
The Daughter of a Republican.
CHAPTER I.
THE CROWLEY FAMILY.
Let me introduce the reader to the Crowley family, and when you have
become acquainted with them bear well in mind that in this broad land of
ours there are thousands upon thousands of families in a condition as
deplorable, and some whose mercury line of debauchery has dropped to a
point of miserable existence as yet unsounded by this family.
The Crowleys are all in tonight, except the father, and he is
momentarily expected.
It is a bitter night in February. The ground is covered with ice and
sleet causing many a fall to the unwary pedestrian.
The wind comes in cutting blasts directly from the north, rattling and
twisting everything in its way not securely fastened, then dying away in
a long weary moan, abandoning its effort only to seize upon the elements
with a firmer grasp and come battling back with fresh vindictiveness and
force.
There were those who did not mind this storm, people around whose homes
all was secure and whom no rattling annoyed, people who enjoyed bright
lights and warm fires, but these were not the Crowleys. The Crowley's
home consisted of two rooms in a rickety old tenement house around which
everything rattled and flapped as the wind raged. Their light came from
a dingy little lamp on a goods box. Every now and then a more violent
gust of wind struck the house with such force that the structure
trembled and the feeble light flickered dangerously.
Here and there broken windows were stopped up with rags and papers and
through the insecure crevices the wind found its way with a rasping,
tiresome groan.
What little fire there was, burned in a small rusty stove. Its door
stood open, perhaps to keep the low fire burning longer, perhaps to let
the warmth out sooner, and against the pale red glow four small hands
were visible, spread to catch the feeble heat.
On a bed in one corner, gaunt, and with wasted form, a woman lay.
This was the mother.
A girl of perhaps fifteen sat close to the stove and held a tiny baby
wrapped in a gingham apron.
A spell seemed to have fallen on the usually noisy group. Even Cora, the
family merrymaker, was quiet, until aroused from her reverie by an act
of her brother who replenished the fire.
She spoke rather severely.
"Johnnie, how many pieces of coal are there left in the box?"
"Five--and little ones."
"Then get to work quick! Take out one of the pieces that you have just
put in. We are not rich enough to burn three pieces at once."
"I'm cold," whined the boy.
"So am I, awful cold, but you know that coal must do till pa comes."
"I'd like to know when that will be. Any other pa would be home such a
freezing night as this. I hate my pa."
"Johnnie, Johnnie, you must not talk that way. He is your father,
child."
The voice came from the bed and was marked by that peculiar tone
noticeable when persons extremely cold try to speak without chattering.
"I can't help it, mother. I'm cold, so cold, and I'm hungry, too. I only
had half a potato, and Maggie says they're all gone."
"Poor child!" said the mother with a sigh. "Here, Maggie, give him
this," and she drew from under the pillow a small potato which she held
toward the girl.
But the girl did not stir until the hungry boy made a move in the
direction of the bed. This movement aroused her as his overdose of coal
had roused his other watchful sister a moment previous.
"No! No! Johnnie. Do not take it. Our mother will starve. She has not
eaten anything for two days."
"Let him have it, Maggie. I cannot eat it. Perhaps your father will
come soon and bring some tea. I think a good cup of tea would make me
better."
"And, mother," said Cora, "we will take the money we were going to spend
for shoes and get a bit of flannel for you and the baby. You must have
it or you will freeze. Surely father will come soon. He said he would."
"Nearly everyone has gone home now. Hardly a person passes," Cora
observed, with her nose pressed against the frosty pane.
"That is because it is so cold. It is not late yet. We will wait a
little longer, and then Maggie----"
"O, mother! Do not ask me to go. It is so cold, and suppose--suppose I
had to go into a saloon again. It nearly kills me to go about such
places."
"You might meet him, Maggie, and keep him from going in."
"If my pa don't come tonight, he's a big liar, that's all!" broke in
Johnnie, hotly.
His mother did not answer him. She was watching the face bent low over
the tiny baby. She noted the careworn look and the nervous pressure of
the hand held over the tiny one to keep it warm.
Presently the girl lifted her eyes to her mother. Those tender pleading
eyes of the mother would have melted a harder heart than hers. She went
to the bed and put the baby in, close to its mother's side. Then she
threw her arms around the haggard woman's neck and kissed her
passionately.
"Dear mother," she said, "I would do anything for you. I will go for
father, and before it gets any later."
"Pray, child! Pray every breath you draw! Pray every step you take that
you may find him before it is too late. If you do not--I cannot imagine
what is to become of us. Pray! God is not cruel. Surely he will hear us
in our misery."
Would you see the drunkard's daughter dressed for a walk this bitter
night? A frail, slender girl, who should have been warmly clad, she is
dressed in thinnest, shabby cotton, through which the elements will play
as through rags of gauze, while the flesh of her feet, unprotected by
her almost soleless shoes, will press against the sleet. The two faded
pink roses that flap forlornly on the side of her coarse straw hat bear
a silent suggestion of pathos--a faint remembrance, perhaps, of the days
of departed happiness.
While she is adjusting the remnant of a shawl so as to cover as much of
her shoulders as possible, the children are giving her numerous messages
to be given their father when she finds him. At last she is ready. After
hesitating a moment she kisses them all and with a shudder steps out
into the howling, swirling blast.
She walked briskly, halting a second every time she met a man to see if
he were the object of her search and passing each time with a growing
fear, as each time she was disappointed.
At last she came to the door of the saloon where her father had so
often worse than wasted the money his family were perishing for at home.
She stopped.
She knew it was warm and light inside. Perhaps her father had just
stepped inside to get warm. Should she look?
While she stood shivering in the wind, getting her courage up to the
point of entering, a man passed her and went in. As he went through the
door a familiar voice greeted her ear, a voice she well knew and had
learned to fear.
She did not hesitate longer. Opening the door she walked swiftly and
noiselessly in. For a moment the air seemed to stagger her, so laden was
it with the fumes of liquor and tobacco. There was a crowd around the
bar and the bartender was busy mixing drinks and jingling glasses.
She saw her father. He was about two-thirds drunk and she knew, poor
child, that she had found him at his worst. Her courage almost failed
her, and she took an involuntary step toward the door. Her father's
voice arrested her.
"Here it goes, and it's my last. Now, who can say Dam Crow has not done
the square thing?" And with the words he flung a silver dollar on the
bar. His last had joined his first. All had gone into the same coffer
while an innocent wife and helpless children were starving and freezing
at home.
A pair of hungry, pleading blue eyes came like a vision to Maggie.
Before the ring of the silver had died away, she sprang forward like a
tiger and seized the dollar.
"Thief! thief!" cried a chorus of voices and two or three seized her.
"By the Lord, it's Mag! my Mag! Give that money where it belongs, and
tell what brings you here, you huzzy," and Damon Crowley seized his
daughter by the shoulder and shook her savagely.
"I will give it where it belongs, and that will be to mother. I came
here for you, father. Mother is sick and cold and nearly starved. The
children are all crying for something to eat and the coal is gone; and
this is the last?"
She opened her hand and looked at the dollar. Damon Crowley reached for
it, but quick as a flash she closed her fingers over it and thrust her
hand behind her.
"Never," she said firmly. "This is the last. It shall be ours to buy
mother some tea and the children some bread."
"Give me that money, you devilish brat!" and stepping forward he struck
her a blow in the face.
She staggered.
Some of the bystanders laughed. Some called her a plucky girl, and one,
more nearly drunk than the rest, thinking that he was in a dog pit no
doubt, called lustily, "Sic 'em! Sic 'em!"
Maggie cast an appealing glance around the room. All of the men had
been drinking. Some were nearly intoxicated. The bartender was sober,
but it was his dollar that was involved; he could not interfere.
Poor Maggie! She stood her ground bravely. It was the last; she could
not let it go. The enraged man gave vent to his passion in a volley of
oaths. "Give me that dollar, or ---- I'll bust your head. I won't stand
such treatment, you ---- fool!" and suiting the action to the words, he
drew from under the stove a heavy poker and started toward her.
Someone caught his upraised arm.
"Let her go, Dam Crow. Let her have her dollar. You've done the square
thing. Not a stingy bone in your body."
A laugh followed this speech, in which Damon Crowley joined, and which
seemed to put him in better humor. He threw the poker down heavily and
taking the frightened girl rudely by the arm pushed her toward the door.
"Tell the sick lady her husband wants her to have tea, nice warm tea,
plenty of tea, and this is your share," and opening the door he pushed
her into the passageway and gave her a violent kick.
The crowd inside laughed loudly and then went on with their drinking and
swearing as if nothing had happened. Such visits as the visit of Maggie
were of too frequent occurrence to cause any prolonged ripple of
excitement.
Poor Maggie! She lay groaning on the cold, slippery ground, just
outside this licensed, money-making pet of Uncle Sam's.
She was half crazed with pain and growing numb when two young gentlemen
came along. One stooped and picked up something lying in the street.
"Gad! I've good luck," and he held up the dollar.
"Please, mister! it's mine. Give it to me quick. It's all that's left."
"And what did you do with the others? Come now, you've had a little too
much of the stuff inside, but you'd better move on or you'll freeze."
"Let's call a policeman."
"Too cold to stop. They'll find her; and if she freezes, well enough.
Her kind are of no use to the world."
Then the speaker dropped the dollar in his pocket, and taking his
companion's arm hastened away.
"O God! O God!" groaned Maggie. But her cry was lost on the moaning
wind.
Presently a man wrapped in a fur-trimmed coat turned the corner and
almost ran over the prostrate form. He halted suddenly and spoke to her.
No answer.
He shook her. Only a faint groan.
Then he stepped to the saloon, and after a sharp, decided knock by way
of announcement, entered.
"Does the girl lying outside belong to anyone here? She is nearly
frozen."
A couple of men stepped to the door and peered out.
"It's Dam Crow's girl. She was in here a huntin' him."
"Where is her father?"
"That's him," pointing to a man lying on a bench behind the stove.
"Guess he's asleep," said the man, smiling broadly.
"Wake him, and hurry about it," said the gentleman.
But Damon Crowley was not in a sleep that could be easily broken. Like a
beast he lay. The spittle oozed from his mouth and spread over his dirty
beard in true drunkard fashion. When told that his daughter was just
outside freezing, he could only grunt.
"Where is his home?"
"Small use to take her there," one man observed, recounting part of the
interview that had taken place a short time before. But no one knew
where he lived. The muffled man left the saloon abruptly, evidently much
disgusted.
Stepping into the street he called a cab just passing. After having had
the half-dead girl placed in the vehicle, the gentleman followed,
slamming the door.
Then he took off his great coat and threw it over her tattered garments.
Judge Thorn was a tender-hearted man.