 | CHAPTER VI.
MOTHER WINCH. Outpost |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
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
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
into 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 tying the plaid shawl around the child's
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 gas-lights,
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 pawn-broker'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
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 travelled 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.
| CHAPTER VI.
MOTHER WINCH. Outpost | |