University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE ABODE OF POVERTY DISCOVERED.

Old Jarvey and the watchman followed
the track up the narrow passage
way, between a row of old houses and a
high board fence. The miser kept his
body stooping close to the snow that he
might not miss the tracks, notwithstanding
Dalton went on before and kept
them in sight by the aid of his lantern.

`Do you still find 'em?' shrieked out
the little man. Look sharp coz she may
ha' turned in some o' these dog holes,
or climbed the fence.'

`Don't fear, old gentleman,' responded
David, with utter contempt for the
miserable wretch who was using all this
vigilance to recover an old broken shutter
that was not worth a sixpence for any
thing but fire word, and to find and
throw into jail the miserable creature
who had taken it from the snow where
the charitable winds had cast it.

`There is the mark here where she
set it down to rest,' said David. `She
must ha' been a poor, weekly thing, Mr.
Jarvey, not to be able to carry it, for it
was dried till it was like pith for lightness.
It is three times we've seen the
mark where she has set it down in the
snow. Suppose, sir, we let her go.
Doubtless she needed it to warm her
children or cook by.'

`Children? Humph! what business
has a poor woman with children if she
can't support 'em without stealing? why
don't she give 'em to the poor house?
No, no! Cook by? Any body that
has vittals to cook can get fire-wood.
They are not so poor. But if she was—
if it was to keep her from starving and
freezing to death. I tell you, I will have
my shutter and have her in gaol for
thieving.'

`You are a hard-hearted man, Mr.
Jarvey.'

`Hard-hearted! Yes, yes! I would
rather be hard-hearted then soft-hearted
if looking after one's own is hard hearted.
The best reputation a man can
have is that of being hard-hearted. People
will let him alone. He'll never lose
his money and property. There was
my father, now, had the reputation of
a `clever man!' It was the ruin of
him. Every body borrowed his tools
and never brought 'em back because he
was a clever man! They borrowed
money and never paid, him because he
was a clever man. He would ride
through the streets in his market-wagon,
and all the boys in town would climb up
upon it and steal his apples and nearly
break his horse down because, forsooth,
he had the reputation of a `clever man.'
It was the ruin of him, sir. His kindness
was his destruction. He died not
worth a penny!'

`I would rather be the father than the
son, nevertheless,' said David.

`Yes, yes: I dare say, but I would'nt,'
chuckled the iron-monger. `But we've
got to the end o' the alley. What do
you find? Look sharp, David Dalton,
for if you slack your duty from pity, I'll
complain to the town. So you've got to
find the thief or lose your place.'

`Don't threaten me, Mr. Jarvey. I'll
find her don't fear,' answered David,
hardly able to suppress his indignation,
but feeling that he must find her or lose

his place; and when he thought of his
little family at home he nerved himself
anew to the search.

He had come to the end of the alley
where a narrow broken flight of steps
led to a sort of plank platform running
round the second story, of an old wooden
tenement on the alley. By lifting his
lantern above his head he could see that
a door opened from this loose platform
into the upper rooms of the house. The
stairs inclined so, that he thought no one
could ascend them in safety, until he discovered
upon the steps the tracks of the
pilferer of the shutter. The marks of
the shutter as it was dragged up after her,
were also visible.

`Here the poor wretched woman lives,'
said the humane watchman to himself.
`I would rather lose ten dollars out-right,
poor a man as I am, than follow her any
farther. But it must be done. I can't
lose my place, and I shall lose it, if Jarvey
makes oath that I let the thief go
without pursuing her. Nothing can save
me, but I shall be dismissed, and then I
may have to go and hunt up shutters to
burn; for in these hard times there is
five men to do one man's work, and the
four have to live as they can.'

`I see the tracks! Oh, see 'em!'
cried the little man pressing forward, as
David stood by the stairs reluctant to go
up. `She's gone up these steps! I see
the marks where she dragged my shutter!'

`Yes. I see them, too, Mr. Jarvey!'

`Hark! they are splitting it up. Don't
you hear 'em? What bold thieves!
Every soul of 'em in the house ought to
go to gaol, if they aint bigger than a baby
a week old. The whole hoard shall go.
Come, push on and stop 'em splitting it
up; coz I shan't get pay for it, and I
want to get it back whole. I can't afford
to lose my shutter. If they spoil it you
shall pay for it, David Dalton. Up! up!
Quick! You go first.'

David began to mount the steps, the
miser cowardly withdrawing behind, so
that if any danger menaced the worst of
it should fall upon the watchman. The
steps bent and creaked beneath the heavy
tread of David, and when he had gone
up five of them, he stopped fearing they
would give way. But shaking the frame
work strongly, and finding it stand the
shock he continued to mount up, followed
by the timid, but cruel and hard-hearted
iron-monger.

The platform on which they arrived,
was a narrow gallery such as is often
built along the sides of carpenters' and
other shops in country towns. It was
covered a foot deep with snow, and at the
farther end of it it had drifted to a level
with the window. A door and this window
were all the openings in the side of
the tenement, which was an old fashioned
gable, two and a half stories in height.
The eves were so low that David's hat
came even with them, and he could lay
his hand upon the roof.

There were no steps in the snow upon
the platform save those of the person
who bore the shutter. These though
half-drifted over again led directly to the
door; and by the side of the door was
visible the mark in the snow where she
had rested the shutter while she lifted
the latch.

`Softly, or she may take the alarm and
we shall lose her,' said old Jarvey laying
his hand upon the watchman's arm as he
was about to lift the latch.

`I have made up my mind old man to
arrest the woman, so do not plague me
with your doubts,' answered David angrily;
and in his heart, as he saw the miser
slip a little upon the snow and got his
foot through a crack between the boards,
he wished that he would tumble down
and break his neck.

A faint light now began to glimmer
through the window upon the snow
mouldings of the railings of the gallery,
and the sounds of breaking boards fell
upon the ears, while the light waxed
brighter, and then the cheerful crackle
of the flames were heard.

`Quick, quick! They will burn up
my shutter!' cried old `Feather-Few,'
such being his popular designatum in the
town, from a habit he had of giving short
weight in the feathers sold.

David, however, instead of opening
the door ot once, moved softly along to
look in at the window. Jarvey seeing
his object stepped along after him. The
window was much broken and filled up
with paper and rags, but between them
were many little openings by means of
which David got a peep into the interior
of the room.

He gazed a minute or two and then
removing his face from the aperture said
in a husky voice,

`Look in there, Mr. Jarvey.'

The old man stood on tiptoe and peered
in. They could not be seen from the
interior inasmuch as the snow and dirt
heaped upon the few remaining panes,
destroyed their transparency.

`I see the thief! She has half-burnt
up my shutter!' cried Jarvey, in a querulous,
angry tone. `You shall pay for it,
David Dalton. It is good for nothing
now. I'll have her in gaol, but you shall
pay for it.'

`Hist, I will pay for it. Look there
in silence awhile, and I will watch them
too, through this opening,' he said, finding
an aperture by softly drawing out the
sleeve of an old jacket.

The old man's eyes rested only upon
the blazing fragments of his shutter, as
they sparkled and crackled on the fire-place—a
wretched fire-place it was—
whose bleak and rude aspect the light
plainly revealed. It revealed also the
miserable apartment and furniture, if a
table, two or three chairs, a broken bedstead
covered with a straw pallet, and
three or four utensils for cooking could
be called furniture. The walls which
had once been plastered now revealed
the lathing in huge scathes along the
walls, while the ceiling was entirely divested
of it. The floor was of rough
boards and black with age, and the fireplace
of crude brick-work, the mantle
and all the carpenter-work having been
piece by piece taken down and consumed
in the fire-place by children of poverty,
either those who now crouched about
the burning shutter, or the former tenants
of the ruined room.

David turned his eyes from the wretched
walls and furniture, with the firelight
in all their barren poverty, to rest
them upon three figures hovering over
the flames upon the hearth.

Upon the side of the fire-place towards
the window, sat upon a broken stonejar,
a very large framed, broad-backed
woman, her head tied up in an old red
and blue cotton pocket-handkerchief, the
ends of which hung down her forehead,
even below her eyes. She sat down to
the fire from time to time, putting upon
the cheering warm flame, a piece of
Father Few's shutter, which lay by her,
and which she tore to pieces as the flame
needed feeding. She would then stretch
her hands out to warm them with the
additional heat. Her profile could only
be seen, and that but uncertainly, on account
of the corner of the low-falling
handkerchief, and a patch over the eye.

In front of the fire-place sat a small,
delicate, fragile woman, pouring from
a paper parcel, about a pint of beans into
a stew-pan, which was filled with snow.
David instantly recognised her as the person
who had taken the shutter. She was
about thirty seven or eight years of age,
with dark soft eyes, and the remains of

beauty destroyed by starvation and sorrow.

She was speaking to the other, but
David could not hear for the wind and
storm what she said, but he saw that she
looked glad and happy, as she raised
her eyes to the other's face, and continued
to prepare the mess of beans. He
then put his ear to the opening instead of
his eye, and heard her say the following
words, in a pleasant manner:

`Don't put on too much wood, dear,
for it is hot enough to melt the snow and
boil the beans! Oh, what a nice meal
we shall have after eating nothing since
morning, and then only a herring. God
sent that shutter for me!' she said, putting
the pan with the little mess of beans
on the fire, with an air of satisfaction as
if it was the nicest dish ever cooked for
a King's table.'

`Do you hear that, Feather-Few?'
asked David in his stout blunt way, for
he said that the Iron-monger following
his example had turned his ear to the
broken pane. `She says God sent for
the shutter, and I believe so too! I should
think it woold make your heart feel good
to see what happiness your old shutter
has produced. See! how they enjoy
the fire it makes! Bless them, how
warm they are getting! It is a good end
the old shutter has come too, Mr. Jarvey;
and as it is the first time any thing
belonging to you has done any body any
good, I would if I were you just let em
enjoy it, just to feel how a charitable act
makes a man feel about the heart. It
must be a new feeling to you Mr. Jarvey!'

`The women both shall go to jail,'
answered Feather-Few who could think
of nothing, heed nothing but the destruetion
of his property before his eyes.
`Come, ain't you goin' to break in upon
em,' I'm shiverin standin here!'

`Suppose we let 'em cook their mess,
Mr. Jarvey. It'll do em good! I don't
like to take em looking so starved. But
bless me, what is thst an angel!'

`A gal!—another jail bird! Three
on em!'

The person who had called forth the
exclamation of surprise and admiration
from David was a young girl of seventeen
or eighteen years, of exquisite beauty.
In feature and figure, she was faultless,
though her dress was of the most ordinary
description. She had just come
into view from behind the jam of the chimney
where she had been hitherto concealed
by it. In her hands she held a
flat piece of tin in which was spread a
corn cake, which from her bare arms
and the meal upon her hands she had
been mixing upon a sort of shelf the edge
of which was visible, protruding beyond
the chimney flue.

As the fire light shone upon her face,
as she stooped to place the cake so that
it might bake at the glowing coals of
Feather-Few's shutter, David thought
that he had never seen a face so beautiful,
not even that of his own daughter
whom in his paternal pride he believed
the handsomest lass high or low in Boston.

She spoke, and David substituted his
ear again for his eye. Her voice was
extremely musical.

`Do you not feel chilled quite through,
dear mother?' she said, looking up
fondly into the face of the female who
had taken the shutter from the street.
`It was a fearful night for you to go
out!'

`No, I am quite warm! The exertion
in bringing it here warmed me completely,
dear Anny. And then it made
me warm to think how we could have a
fire and have our meal cooked!'

`I feel that Providence directed you
to this shutter! I think we should have
perished without it, and poor Henry too!

He will have something to eat when he
wakes! Now he is getting better his
appetite is coming to him!'

`Poor dear boy! I wish I had something
to give him to eat whenever he
wants it! But we must not complain!
we shall always find food and shelter,
my child! God will not wholly desert
us!'

`To-morrow, now I can leave Harry,
I shall try and get some work, if it is to
make a shirt for three cents! Three
cents will keep us from starving, mother!
The employers at the shop will
give me that, though they said that for
every article they wanted made there
were a dozen applicants, ready to take it
at any price!'

`These are, indeed, periless hard
times! And then we have such a cloud
hanging over us on account of poor
John!'

`Mother! Anny!' called a voice from
the bed in the corner.

David turned his glance in that direction
and saw a boy, about twelve years
old, rise up on his elbow, and gaze bewildered
towards the group at the fire.
He looked wasted by sickness, but his
countenance was as handsome as that of
the maiden.

`I'm coming, dear mother,' responded
Annie; and as she hastened to the
bed-side, David saw, with a shock of
deep emotion, that she was lame. Lovely
in face and figure as she was, she
was after all a cripple! This at once
accounted to him for her remaining
within when the delicate mother braved
the storm to seek fire-wood.

`What a brave fire! Did God send
it?' he asked, in tones so touching, that
tears came into David's eyes.

`Yes, brother! And you shall have
something good to eat in a few minutes,'
she answered, patting him upon the temples
and kissing them. `Mother would
go out in the snow to find wood, and she
saw a shutter in the street and brought
it home!'

`Blessed shutter!' cried the little fellow.
`I shall eat and you will eat, and
we shall be warm and happy. Blessed
shutter!'

`Hear that, sir! Hear those words
Mr. Jarvey!' demanded David, in an im,
pressive tone.