University of Virginia Library

1. LIVE AND LET LIVE;
OR,
DOMESTIC SERVICE ILLUSTRATED

1. CHAPTER I.
SIN THE PARENT OF WANT.

It was one of the coldest days felt in New-York,
during the winter of 182-, that a baker's cart made
its accustomed halt before a door in Church-street.
It was driven by Charles Lovett, the baker's son,
whose ruddy cheeks, quick movement, and beaming
eye bespoke health, industry, and a happy
temper. This latter attribute seemed somewhat
too severely tested by the tardiness of his customer,
for in vain had he whistled, clapped his
hands, stamped, and repeated his usual cry of
“Hurry! hurry!” He at last leaped from his cart
on to the broken step of the wretched dwelling,
when the upper half of the door was slowly opened,
and a thinly-clad girl appeared, who, in answer to
his prepared question, “Why, what ails you? are

you all asleep?” replied, “Mother does not wish
any bread this morning.”

“Don't wish any! then she's easily served;”
and, thus huffily answering, he was turning away,
when another look at the girl touched his kind
heart. “Tell me honestly,” he added, “what is
the reason your mother don't wish the bread.”

The little girl's voice was choked, and the tears
gushed from her eyes as she answered, “She has
not a shilling to pay for it.”

“That's blamed hard this cold morning, besides
being tough—but take the loaf—we can trust you.”

“No—mother had rather not—father is sick, and
it takes all she can earn, every penny, to buy
things for him and Jemmie.”

“Well, take it for a gift, then,” said the boy;
“I'll speak to my father about it;” and, thrusting
the loaf into her hands, he jumped into his cart and
rattled off. For a month after Charles Lovett
called daily at that house of want, and left a shilling
loaf. This is no fiction, but one of those beautiful
facts that deserve to be rescued from obscurity.

The little girl ran up to her mother's apartment,
a back-room on the second floor. “Lucy, my
child!” exclaimed her mother, reprovingly, on seeing
the loaf of bread. Lucy explained in a low
voice, to avoid her father overhearing her, who
was lying ill in his bed. Mrs. Lee brushed
away a tear. “Did not I always tell you so,
mother?” asked Lucy.

“Tell me what?”

“I mean, did not I tell you that boy always looked
so kind, and spoke so civil! I knew he was

good.” Children have an instinct as infallible as
a chymical test in detecting the presence of certain
qualities.

Mrs. Lee prepared some toast and tea for her
husband and a little deformed boy in the cradle,
and then sat down with her three girls to a breakfast
on rye-mush.

The parents of Lucy Lee, our humble heroine,
were married some fifteen years before our story
begins. Richard Lee was then a young lawyer in
a country town in New England. His wife had
no near kindred, but she had been kindly cared for,
and well nurtured in the family of a distant relation;
and having a small fortune and a good education,
in the best sense of the word, that is, having had
her faculties well developed and prepared for the
uses of life, she had a rational prospect of prosperity
and happiness. Her husband was an only
son, who had talents, ardent feelings, amiable manners,
and a small but sufficient fortune to begin
life upon in a country where the current sets to
prosperity. Such a beginning would have secured
pecuniary independence, unless singular misfortune
had intervened, or vice had appeared to counteract
and destroy the operation of the laws of Providence.
Vice it was. Six months after her marriage, Mrs.
Lee discovered that her husband was in the habit
of intemperate drinking. How the seeds of this
habit were sown in his childhood, by his parents'
foolish indulgence of the cravings of his appetite
for whatever tasted good—how appetite, combining
with the selfishness that is nurtured by low animal
gratifications, obtained so early the mastery over
his better nature, it is not our purpose to describe.

We would only add this to the thousand examples
before the eyes of parents, to admonish them that
to secure to the future man temperance and health,
the child's appetites must be subdued to obedience.

When Mrs. Lee discovered her husband's weakness,
she was inexperienced and hopeful. She remonstrated
and supplicated, he promised and she
believed. For years they went on, he sinning
and she sheltering him and enduring in silence.
But love and fidelity have no shelter broad enough
to conceal such habits—they betray themselves—
Richard Lee forfeited the confidence of the community.
He lost his business, and his property
melted away. He moved from place to place, and
finally went to the city of New-York, where, during
one of those episodical reforms that occur in every
drunkard's life, he resolved to turn over a new leaf.
He obtained copying from a prosperous lawyer
who had been a college contemporary. For a while
the stimulus of a new position operated favourably,
and the wants of his family were supplied by his
labour. But excess soon followed abstinence.
Returning home late in a cold evening from a grogshop,
he fell on the ice, broke his leg, and lay exposed
to the inclemency of the weather till rescued
and conveyed to his home by a watchman. A
long and fatal illness followed.