MOTHER WINCH.
IN a narrow court, hardly lighted by the one gas-light flaring at
its entrance, 'Toinette stopped, and, looking dismally about her,
began at last to cry. At the sound, a crooked old woman, with a
great bag on her back, who had been resting upon the step of a door
close by, although the little girl had not noticed her, rose, and
came toward her.
"What's the matter, young one?" asked the old woman harshly.
"I don't know the way home, and I'm lost!" said 'Toinette, wiping
her eyes, and looking doubtfully at the old woman, who was very dark
and hairy as to the face, very blinking and wicked as to the eyes,
and very crooked and warped as to figure, while her dress seemed to
be a mass of rags held together by dirt.
"Lost, be you?" asked this unpleasant old woman, seizing Mrs.
Legrange's beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching it off the
child's shoulders. "And where'd you git this 'ere pretty shawl?"
"It's my mamma's, and you'd better not touch it; you might soil it,
you know," said 'Toinette anxiously.
"Heh! Why, I guess you're a little lady, ain't you? B'long to the
big-bugs, don't you?"
"I don't know. I want to go home," stammered 'Toinette, perplexed
and frightened.
"Well, you come right in here along o' me, and wait till I get my
pack off; then I'll show you the way home," said the woman, as,
seizing the little girl's hand, she led her to the bottom of the
court, and down some steps into a foul-smelling cellar-room,
perfectly dark, and very cold.
"You stop right there till I get a light," said the woman, letting
go the child's hand when they reached the middle of the room. "Don't
ye budge now."
Too much frightened to speak, or even cry, 'Toinette did as she was
bid, and stood perfectly still until the old woman had found a
match, and, drawing it across the rusty stove, lighted a tallow
candle, and stuck it into the mouth of a junk-bottle. This she set
upon the table; and, sinking into a chair beside it, stretched out a
skinny hand, and, seizing 'Toinette by the arm, dragged her close to
her.
"Yes, you kin let me have that pooty shawl, little gal, cause--Eh,
what fine clo'es we've got on!" exclaimed the hag, as, pulling off
the shawl 'Toinette had again wrapped about her, she examined her
dress attentively for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes sternly
upon the child, continued angrily,--
"Now look at here, young un. Them ain't your clo'es; you know they
ain't. You stole 'em."
"Stealed my clothes!" exclaimed 'Toinette in great indignation.
"Why, no, I didn't. Mamma gave them to me, and Susan sewed them."
"No sech a thing, you young liar!" returned the old woman, shaking
her roughly by one arm. "You stole 'em; and I'm a-going to take 'em
off, and give you back your own, or some jist like 'em. Then I'll
carry these fine fixings to the one they b'long to. Come, now, no
blubbering. Strip off, I tell yer."
As she spoke, she twirled the little girl round, and began to pull
open the buttons of her dress. In doing this, her attention was
attracted by the bracelet looping up the right sleeve; 'Toinette
having, it will be remembered, pulled off the other, and left it at
home.
"Hi, hi! What sort o' gimcrack you got here?" exclaimed she, pulling
at it, until, as 'Toinette had done with the other, she broke the
links between two of the cameos, without unclasping the bracelet.
"Hi! that's pooty! Now, what a young wretch you be for to go and say
that ere's yourn!" added she severely, as she held the trinket out
of reach of the little girl, who eagerly cried,--
"It is, it is mine! Papa gave me both of them, 'cause it's my
birthday. They're my bracelets; only mamma said I was too little to
wear them on my arms like she does, and she tied up my sleeves with
them."
"Where's t'other one, then?"
"It's at home. I pulled it off 'cause I was going to be like Merry,
that weared a sun-bonnet, and didn't have any bracelets."
"Sun-bonnet! What d'ye want of a sun-bonnet, weather like this? I'll
give you my old hood; that's more like it, I reckon," replied the
hag, amused, in spite of herself, by the prattle of the child.
'Toinette hesitated.
"No," said she at last: "I guess you'd better give me my own very
clo'ses, and carry me home. Then mamma will give me a gingham dress
and a sun-bonnet; and maybe she'll give you my pretty things, if you
want them."
"Thanky for nothing, miss. I reckon it'll be a saving of trouble to
take em now. I don't b'lieve a word about your ma'am giving 'em to
you; and, more'n all, I don't b'lieve you've got no ma'am."
So saying, she rudely stripped off, first the dress, then the
underclothes, and finally even the, stockings and pretty
gaiter-boots; so that the poor child, frightened, ashamed, and
angry, stood at last with no covering but the long ringlets of her
golden hair, which, as she, sobbing, hid her face in her hands, fell
about her like a veil.
Leaving her thus, the old woman rummaged for a few moments in a heap
of clothes thrown into the corner of the room,--the result,
apparently, of many a day's begging or theft. From them she
presently produced a child's nightgown, petticoat, and woollen
skirt, a pair of coarse shoes much worn, and an old plaid shawl:
with these she approached 'Toinette.
"See! I've got your own clo'es here all ready for you. Ain't I
good?"
"They ain't my clothes: I won't have 'em on. Go away, you naughty
lady, you ain't good a bit!" screamed 'Toinette, passionately
striking at the clothes and the hand that held them.
"Come, come, miss, none o' them airs! Take that, now, and mend your
manners!" exclaimed the old woman with a blow upon the bare white
shoulder, which left the print of all her horny fingers. It was the
first time in all her life that 'Toinette had been struck; and the
blood rushed to her face, and then away, leaving her as white as
marble. She cried no more, but, fixing her eyes upon the face of the
old woman, said solemnly,--
"Now the Lord doesn't love you. Did you know it was the bad spirits
that made you strike me? Mamma said so when I struck Susan."
"Shut up! I don't want none of your preaching, miss," replied the
woman angrily. "Here, put on these duds about the quickest, or I'll
give you worse than that. Lor, what a mess of hair! What's the good
on't? Maybe, though, they'd give some'at for it to the store."
She took a large pair of shears from the table-drawer as she spoke,
and, grasping the shining, curls in her left hand, rapidly snipped
them from the head, leaving it rough, tangled, and hardly to be
recognized.
'Toinette no longer resisted, or even cried. The blow of that rough
hand seemed to have stunned or stupefied her, and she stood
perfectly quiet, her face pale, her eyes fixed, and her trembling
lips a little apart; while the old woman, after laying the handful
of curls carefully aside, dragged on the clothes she had selected,
in place of those she was stealing, and finished by trying the plaid
shawl around the child's shoulders, fastening it in a great knot
behind, and placing a dirty old hood upon the shorn head.
"There, now, you'll do, I guess; and we'll go take you home: only
mind you don't speak a word to man, woman, nor child, as we go; for,
if you do, I'll fetch you right back here, and shut you up with Old
Bogy in that closet."
So saying, she bundled up 'Toinette's own clothes, slipped the
bracelet into her pocket, then, with the parcel in one hand, grasped
the child's arm with the other, and led her out into the street.
"Will you really take me home?" asked 'Toinette piteously, as they
climbed the broken steps leading from the cellar to the pavement.
"There, now! What did I tell yer?" exclaimed the woman angrily, and
turning as if to go back. "Now come along, and I will give you to
Old Bogy."
"No, no! oh, please, don't! I will be good. I won't say a word any
more. I forgotten that time, I did;" and the timid child, pale and
trembling, clung to the wretch beside her as if she had been her
dearest friend.
"Well, then, don't go into fits, and I'll let you off this time; but
see that you don't open your head agin, or it'll be all up with
yer."
"Yes'm," said the poor child submissively; and, taking her once more
by the hand, the old woman led her rapidly along the filthy street,
now entirely dark except for the gaslights, and more strange to
'Toinette's eyes than Fairy-land would have been. As they turned the
corner, a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a blue coat with
brass buttons, and a glazed cap, who stood leaning against the wall,
looked sharply at them, and called out,
"Hullo, Mother Winch! What's up to-night?"
"Nothing, yer honor,--nothing at all. Me and little Biddy Mahoney's
going to leave some duds at the pawnbroker's for her mother, who's
most dead with the fever."
"Well, well, go along; only look out you carry no more than you
honestly come by," said the policeman, walking leisurely up the
street.
Mother Winch turned in the opposite direction, and, still tightly
grasping 'Toinette's arm, led her through one street after another,
until, tired and bewildered, the poor child clung with half-closed
eyes to the filthy skirts of the old woman, and stumbled along,
neither seeing nor knowing which way they went.
"Hold up, can't ye, gal!" exclaimed Mother Winch, as the child
tripped, and nearly fell. "Or, if you're so tired as all that, set
down on that door-stone, and wait for me a minute." Pushing her down
upon the step as she spoke, Mother Winch hurried away so fast, that,
before 'Toinette's tired little brain could fairly understand what
was said, she found herself alone, with no creature in sight all up
and down the narrow street, except a cross-looking dog walking
slowly along the pavement toward her. For one moment, she sat
wondering what she had better do; and then, as the cross-looking
dog fixed his eyes upon her with a sullen growl, she started to her
feet, and ran as fast as she could in the direction taken by Mother
Winch. Just at the corner of the alley, something glittering upon
the sidewalk attracted her attention; and, stooping to pick it up,
she uttered a little cry of surprise and pleasure. It was her own
coral bracelet, which had traveled round in Mother Winch's pocket
until it came to a hole in the bottom, and quietly slipping out, and
down her skirts to the pavement, lay waiting for its little mistress
to pick it up.
'Toinette kissed it again and again, not because it was a bracelet
but because her father had given it to her; and it seemed somehow to
take her back a little way toward him and home. It must have been
this she meant, in saying as she did,--
"I guess you have come after me, pretty bracelet, hasn't you? and
we'll go home together."
And so, hugging the toy as close to her heart as she would have
liked herself to be hugged to her mother's heart, 'Toinette wandered
on and on through the dark and lonely streets, her little face
growing paler and paler, her little feet more and more weary, her
heart swelling fuller and fuller with fright and desolation; until
at last, stopping suddenly, she looked up at the sky, all alive now
with the crowding stars, and with a great sob whispered,--
"Pretty stars, please tell God I'm lost. I think he doesn't know
about it, or he'd send me home."
And then, as the wild sob brought another and another, 'Toinette
sank down in the doorway of a deserted house, and, covering her face
with her hands, cried as she had never cried in all her little life.