University of Virginia Library

ROSENGLORY.

Jerry Gray and his sister Susan were the children
of a drunken father, and of a poor woman, who saved
them from starvation by picking up rags in the street,
and washing them for the paper-makers. In youth,
she had been a rustic belle, observable for her neat
and tasteful attire. But she was a weak, yielding
character; and sickness, poverty, and toil, gradually
broke down the little energy with which nature had
endowed her. “What's the use of patching up my
old rags?” she used to say to herself; “there's nobody
now to mind how I look.” But she had a kind,
affectionate heart; and love for her children preserved
her from intemperance, and sustained her in toiling
for their daily bread.

The delight she took in curling her little daughter's
glossy brown ringlets was the only remaining indication
of early coquetish taste. Though often dirty
and ragged herself, Susan was always clean and tidy.
She was, in fact, an extremely lovely child; and as
she toddled through the streets, holding by her mother's
skirts, Napoleon himself could not have been
more proud of popular homage to his little King of
Rome, than was the poor rag-woman of the smiles
and kisses bestowed on her pretty one. Her large
chestnut-coloured eyes had been saddened in their
expression by the sorrows and privations of her
mother, when the same life-blood sustained them
both; but they were very beautiful; and their long
dark fringes rested on cheeks as richly coloured as a
peach fully ripened in the sunshine. Like her mother,
she had a very moderate share of intellect, and
an extreme love of pretty things. It was a gleam in
their souls of that intense love of the beautiful, which
makes poets and artists of higher natures, under more
favourable circumstances.

A washerwoman, who lived in the next room,
planted a Morning-Glory seed in a broken tea-pot;
and it bore its first blossom the day Susan was three
years old. The sight of it filled her with passionate
joy. She danced, and clapped her hands; she returned
to it again and again, and remained a long
time stooping down, and looking into the very heart
of the flower. When it closed, she called out, impatiently,
“Wake up! wake up, pretty posy!” When
it shrivelled more and more, she cried aloud, and refused
to be comforted. As successive blossoms opened

day by day, her friendship for the vine increased,
and the conversations she held with it were sometimes
quite poetic, in her small way.

One day, when her mother was hooking up rags
from the dirty gutters of the street, with the little
ones trudging behind her, a gentleman passed with a
large bouquet in his hand. Susan's eyes brightened,
as she exclaimed, “Oh, mammy, look at the pretty
posies!”

The gentleman smiled upon her and said, “Would
you like one, my little girl?”

She eagerly held out her hand, and he gave her a
flower, saying, “There's a rose for you.”

“Thank the good gentleman,” said her mother.
But she was too much occupied to attend to politeness.
Her head was full of her pet Morning-Glory,
the first blossom she had ever looked upon; and she
ran to her brother shouting joyfully, “See my Rosenglory!”

The gentleman laughed, patted her silky curls,
and said, “You are a little Rosenglory yourself; and
I wish you were mine.”

Jerry, who was older by two years, was quite
charmed with the word. “Rosenglory,” repeated
he; “what a funny name! Mammy, the gentleman
called our Susy a Rosenglory.”

From that day, it became a favourite word in the
wretched little household. It sounded there with
mournful beauty, like the few golden rays which at
sunset fell aslant the dingy walls and the broken
crockery. When the weary mother had washed her

basket of rags, she would bring water for Susan's
hands, and a wooden comb to smooth her hair, and
gazing fondly in that infant face, her only vision of
beauty in a life otherwise all dark and dreary, she
would say, “Now kiss your poor mammy, my little
Rosenglory.” Even the miserable father, when his
senses were not stupified with drink, would take the
pretty little one on his knee, twine her shining ringlets
round his coarse fingers, and sigh deeply as he
said, “Ah, how many a rich man would be proud to
have my little Rosenglory for his own!”

But it was brother Jerry who idolized her most of
all. He could not go to bed on his little bunch of
straw, unless her curly head was nestled on his
bosom. They trudged the streets together, hand in
hand, and if charity offered them an apple or a slice
of bread, the best half was always reserved for her.
A proud boy was he when he received an old tatter-demalion
rocking-horse from the son of a gentleman,
for whom his father was sawing wood. “Now Rosenglory
shall ride,” said he; and when he placed
her on the horse, and watched her swinging back
and forth, his merry shouts of laughter indicated
infinite satisfaction. But these pleasant scenes occurred
but seldom. More frequently, they came
home late and tired, every body was hungry and
cross, and they were glad to steal away in silence to
their little bed. When the father was noisy in his
intoxication, the poor boy guarded his darling with
the thoughtfulness of maturer years. He patiently
warded off the random blows, or received them himself;

and if harm accidentally came to her, it was affecting
to see his tearful eyes, and hear his grieved
whisper, “Mammy! he struck Rosenglory!”

Poor child! her young life was opening in dark
and narrow places; though, like the vine in the
broken tea-pot, she caught now and then a transient
gleam of sunshine. It would be well if men could
spare time from the din of theological dispute, and
the drowsiness of devotional routine, to reflect whether
such ought to be the portion of any of God's little
ones, in this broad and beautiful earth, which He
created for the good of all.

Many a hungry day, and many a night of pinching
cold, this brother and sister went struggling through
their blighted youth, till the younger was eight years
old. At that period, the father died of delirium tremens,
and the mother fell into a consumption, brought
on by constant hardship and unvarying gloom. The
family were removed to the altushouse, and found it
an improvement in their condition. The coarse food
was as good as that to which they had been accustomed,
there was more air and a wider scope for the
eye to range in. Blessed with youthful impressibility
to the bright and joyous, Jerry and Susan took more
notice of the clear silvery moon and the host of
bright stars, than they did of the deformity, paleness,
and sad looks around them. The angels watch over
childhood, and keep it from understanding the evil
that surrounds it, or retaining the gloom which is its
shadow.

The poor weak mother was daily wasting away,
but they only felt that her tones were more tender,

her endearments more fond. One night, when they
were going to bed, she held them by the hand longer
than usual. The rough hireling nurse felt the eloquence
of her sad countenance, and had not the heart
to hurry them away. No one knew what deep
thought, what agony of anxious love, was in the soul
of the dying one; but she gazed earnestly and tearfully
into their clear young eyes, and said, with a
troubled voice, “My children, try to be good.” She
kissed them fervently, and spoke no more. The next
day, the nurse told them their mother was dead.
They saw her body laid in a white pine coffin, and
carried away in a cart to the burying ground of the
poor. It was piled upon a hundred other nameless
coffins, in a big hole dug in the sandy hill side. She
was not missed from the jostling crowd; but the orphans
wept bitterly, for she was all the world to them.

In a few days, strangers came to examine them,
with a view to take them into service. Jerry was
bound to a sea-captain, and Susan to a grocer's wife,
who wanted her to wait upon the children. She was,
indeed, bound; for Mrs. Andrews was entirely forgetful
that anything like freedom or enjoyment might be
necessary or useful to servants. All day long she
lugged the heavy baby, and often sat up late at night,
to pacify its fretfulness as she best could, while her
master and mistress were at balls, or the Bowery.
While the babe was sleeping, she was required to
scour knives, or scrub the pavement. No one talked
to her, except to say, “Susy do this;” or “Susy, why
didn't you do as I bade you?”

Now and then she had a visit from Jerry, when his

master was in port. He was always very affectionate,
and longed for the time when he should be a man,
and able to have his sister live with him. But after a
few years, he came no more; and as neither of them
could write, they had no means of communication.

When Susan grew older, and there were no more
babes to tend, she was mostly confined to the cellar
kitchen, from which she looked out upon stone steps
and a brick wall. Her mistress had decided objections
to her forming acquaintances in the neighbourhood,
and for several years the young girl scarcely
held communion with any human being, except the
old cook. Even her beauty made her less a favourite;
for when company came in, it was by no means
agreeable to Mrs. Andrews to observe that the servant
attracted more attention than her own daughter. Her
husband spent very little of his time at home, and
when there, was usually asleep. But one member of
the family was soon conscious of a growing interest
in the orphan. Master Robert, a year older than herself,
had been a petulant, over-indulged boy, and was
now a selfish, pleasure-seeking lad. In juvenile days,
he had been in the habit of ordering the little servant
to wash his dog, and of scolding at her, if she did not
black his shoes to his liking. But as human nature
developed within him, his manners toward her gradually
softened; for he began to notice that she was
a very handsome girl.

Having obtained from his sister a promise not to
reveal that he had said anything, he represented that
Susy ought to have better clothes, and be allowed to
go to meeting sometimes. He said he was sure the

neighbours thought she was very meanly clad, and he
had heard that their servants made remarks about it.
He was not mistaken in supposing that his mother
would be influenced by such arguments. She had
never thought of the alms-house child in any other
light than as a machine for her convenience; but if
the neighbours talked about her meanness, it was certainly
necessary to enlarge Susy's privileges. In answer
to her curious inquiries, her daughter repeated
that Mrs. Jones's girl had said so and so, and that
Mrs. Smith, at the next door, had made a similar remark
to Mrs. Dickson. Whether this gossip was, or
was not, invented by Robert, it had the effect he desired.

Susan, now nearly sixteen years of age, obtained
a better dress than she had ever before possessed, and
was occasionally allowed to go to meeting on Sunday
afternoon. As Mrs. Andrews belonged to a very genteel
church, she could not, of course, take a servant
girl with her. But the cook went to a Methodist
meeting, where “the poor had the gospel preached to
them,” and there a seat was hired for Susan also.
Master Robert suddenly became devotional, and was
often seen at the same meeting. He had no deliberately
bad intentions; but he was thoughtless by nature,
and selfish by education. He found pleasant
excitement in watching his increasing power over the
young girl's feelings; and sometimes, when he queried
within himself whether he was doing right to
gain her affections, and what would come of it all, he
had floating visions that he might possibly educate
Susan, and make her his wife. These very vague

ideas he impressed so definitely on the mind of the
old cook, aided by occasional presents, that she promised
to tell no tales. Week after week, the lovers sat
together in the same pew, and sang from the same
hymn-book. Then came meetings after the family
had retired to rest, to which secresy gave an additional
charm. The concealment was the only thing that
troubled Susan with a consciousness of wrong; and
he easily persuaded her that this was a duty, in order
to screen him from blame. “Was it his fault that he
loved her?” he asked; “he was sure he could not
help it.”

She, on her part, could not help loving him deeply
and fervently. He was very handsome, and she delighted
in his beauty, as naturally as she had done in
the flower, when her heart leaped up and called it a
Rosenglory. Since her brother went away, there was
no other human bosom on which she could rest her
weary head; no other lips spoke lovingly to her, no
other eye-beams sent warmth into her soul. If the
gay, the prosperous, and the flattered find it pleasant
to be loved, how much more so must it be to one
whose life from infancy had been so darkened? Society
reflects its own pollution on feelings which nature
made beautiful, and does cruel injustice to youthful
hearts by the grossness of its interpretations. Thus
it fared with poor Susan. Late one summer's night,
she and Robert were sitting by the open window of
the breakfast-room. All was still in the streets; the
light of the moon shone mildly on them, and hushed
their souls into quiet happiness. The thoughtless

head of sixteen rested on the impressible heart of
seventeen, and thus they fell asleep.

Mrs. Andrews had occasion for some camphor, in
the course of the night, and it chanced to be in the
closet of that room. When she entered in search of
it, she started back, as if she had heard the report of
a pistol. No suspicion of the existing state of things
had ever crossed her mind; and now that she discovered
it, it never occurred to her that she herself was
much to blame. Her own example, and incidental
remarks not intended as education, but which in fact
were so, had taught her son that the world was made
for him to get as much pleasure in as possible, without
reference to the good of others. She had cautioned
him against the liability of being cheated in money
matters, and had instructed him how to make the
cheapest bargains, in the purchase of clothing or
amusement; but against the most inevitable and most
insidious temptations of his life, he had received no
warning. The sermons he heard were about publicans
and pharisees, who lived eighteen hundred years
ago; none of them met the wants of his own life, none
of them interpreted the secrets of his own heart, or
revealed the rational laws of the senses.

As for Susan, the little fish, floated along by the
tide, were not more ignorant of hydrostatics, than she
was of the hidden dangers and social regulations, in
the midst of which she lived. Robert's love had
bloomed in her dreary monotonous life, like the Morning-Glory
in the dark dismal court; and she welcomed
it, and gazed into it, and rejoiced in it, much
after the same fashion.

All these thoughts were, however, foreign to the
mind of Mrs. Andrews. She judged the young
couple as if they had her experience of forty years,
and were encased in her own hard crust of worldly
wisdom. The dilemma would have been a trying
one, even for a sensible and judicious mother; and
the management of it required candour and delicacy
altogether beyond her shallow understanding and artificial
views. She wakened them from their dream
with a storm of indignation. Her exaggerated statements
were in no degree adapted to the real measure
of wrong doing, and therefore, instead of producing
humility and sorrow, they roused resentment against
what was felt to be unjust accusation. The poor
heedless neglected child of poverty was treated as if
she were already hardened in depravity. No names
were too base to be bestowed upon her. As the angry
mistress drove her to her garret, the concluding
words were, “You ungrateful, good-for-nothing hussy,
that I took out of the alms-house from charity! You
vile creature, you, thus to reward all my kindness by
trying to ruin and seduce my only son!”

This was reversing matters strangely. Susan was
sorely tempted to ask for what kindness she was expected
to be grateful; but she did not. She was
ashamed of having practised concealment, as every
generous nature is; but this feeling of self-reproach
was overpowered by a consciousness that she did not
deserve the epithets bestowed upon her, and she
timidly said so. “Hold your tongue,” replied Mrs.
Andrews. “Leave my house to-morrow morning,
and never let me see you again. I always expected

you'd come to some bad end, since that fool of a painter
came here and asked to take your likeness, sweeping
the side-walk. This comes of setting people up
above their condition.”

After talking the matter over with her husband,
Mrs. Andrews concluded to remain silent about Robert's
adventure, to send him forthwith into the country,
to his uncle the minister, and recommend Susan
to one of her friends, who needed a servant, and had
no sons to be endangered. At parting, she said, “I
shall take away the cloak I gave you last winter.
The time for which you were bound to me isn't up by
two years; and the allowance Mr. Jenkins makes to
me isn't enough to pay for my disappointment in
losing your services just when you are beginning to
be useful, after all the trouble and expense I have had
with you. He has agreed to pay you every month,
enough to get decent clothing; and that's more than
you deserve. You ought to be thankful to me for all
the care I have taken of you, and for concealing your
bad character; but I've done expecting any such thing
as gratitude in this world.” The poor girl wept, but
she said nothing. She did not know what to say.

No fault was found with the orphan in the family
of Mr. Jenkins, the alderman. His wife said she was
capable and industrious; and he himself took a decided
fancy to her. He praised her cooking, he praised
the neatness with which she arranged the table, and
after a few days, he began to praise her glossy hair
and glowing cheeks. All this was very pleasant to
the human nature of the young girl. She thought it
was very kind and fatherly, and took it all in good

part. She made her best courtesy when he presented
her with a handsome calico gown; and she began to
think she had fallen into the hands of real friends.
But when he chucked her under the chin, and said
such a pretty girl ought to dress well, she blushed
and was confused by the expression of his countenance,
though she was too ignorant of the world to
understand his meaning. But his demonstrations
soon became too open to admit of mistake, and ended
with offers of money. She heard him with surprise
and distress. To sell herself without her affections,
had never been suggested to her by nature, and as yet
she was too little acquainted with the refinements of
high civilization, to acquire familiarity with such an
idea.

Deeming it best to fly from persecutions which she
could not avoid, she told Mrs. Jenkins that she found
the work very hard, and would like to go to another
place as soon as possible. “If you go before your
month is up I shall pay you no wages,” replied the
lady; “but you may go if you choose.” In vain the
poor girl represented her extreme need of a pair of
shoes. The lady was vexed at heart, for she secretly
suspected the cause of her departure; and though she
could not in justice blame the girl, and was willing
enough that she should go, she had a mind to punish
her. But when Susan, to defend herself, hinted that
she had good reasons for wishing to leave, she brought
a storm on her head, at once. “You vain, impertinent
creature!” exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins, “because my
husband gave you a new gown, for shame of the old
duds you brought from Mrs. Andrews, do you presume

to insinuate that his motives were not honourable?
And he a gentleman of high respectability, an alderman
of the city! Leave my house; the sooner the
better; but don't expect a cent of wages.”

Unfortunately, a purse lay on the work table, near
which Susan was standing. She had no idea of
stealing; but she thought to herself, “Surely I have
a right to a pair of shoes for my three weeks of hard
labour.” She carried off the purse, and went into the
service of a neighbour, who had expressed a wish to
hire. That very evening she was arrested, and was
soon after tried and sentenced to Blackwell's Island.
A very bold and bad woman was sentenced at the
same time, and they went in company. From her
polluting conversation and manners, poor Susan received
a new series of lessons in that strange course
of education, which a Christian community had from
the beginning bestowed upon her. Her residence on
the Island rapidly increased her stock of evil knowledge.
But she had no natural tendencies to vice;
and though her ideas of right and wrong were inevitably
confused by the social whirlpool into which she
was born, she still wished to lead a decent and industrious
life. When released from confinement, she tried
to procure a situation at service; but she had no references
to give, except Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Jenkins.
When she called a second time, she uniformly
met the cold reply, “I hear you have been on Blackwell's
Island. I never employ people who have lost
their character.”

From the last of these attempts, she was walking
away hungry and disconsolate, doubtful where to obtain

shelter for the night, when she met the magistrate,
who had sentenced her and the other woman. He
spoke to her kindly, gave her a quarter of a dollar,
and asked her to call upon him that evening. At parting,
he promised to be a friend to her, if she behaved
herself, and then murmured something in a lower
tone of voice. What were his ideas of behaving herself
were doubtless implied by the whisper; for the
girl listened with such a smile as was never seen on
her innocent face, before he sent her to improve her
education on the Island. It is true she knew very
little, and thought still less, about the machinery of
laws, and regulations for social protection; but it puzzled
her poor head, as it does many a wiser one, why
men should be magistrates, when they practise the
same things for which they send women to Blackwell's
Island. She had never read or heard anything
about “Woman's Rights;” otherwise it might have
occurred to her that it was because men made all the
laws, and elected all the magistrates.

The possible effect of magisterial advice and protection
is unknown; for she did not accept the invitation
to call that evening. As she walked away from
the tempter, thinking sadly of Robert Andrews, and
her dear brother Jerry, she happened to meet the
young man who had gained her first youthful love,
unmixed with thoughts of evil. With many tears,
she told him her adventures since they parted. The
account kindled his indignation and excited his sympathy
to a painful degree. Had he lived in a true
and rational state of society, the impulse then given

to his better feelings might have eventually raised his
nature to noble unselfishness and manly frankness.
But as it was, he fell back upon deception and false
pride. He hired apartments for Susan, and, by some
pretence, wheedled his mother out of the means of
paying for them. Those who deem the poor girl unpardonable
for consenting to this arrangement, would
learn mercy if they were placed under similar circumstances
of poverty, scorn, and utter loneliness.

* * * * *

Ten years passed since Jerry last parted with his
blooming sister, then fourteen years old. He had
been shipwrecked twice, and returned from sea in
total blindness, caused by mismanagement of the small
pox. He gained a few coppers by playing a clarinet
in the street, led by a little ragged boy. Everywhere
he inquired for his sister, but no one could give him
any tidings of her. One day, two women stopped to
listen, and one of them put a shilling into the boy's
hand. “Why, Susy, what possesses you to give so
much to hear that old cracked pipe?” said one.

“He looks a little like somebody I knew when I
was a child,” replied the other; and they passed on.

The voices were without inflexions, rough and
animal in tone, indicating that the speakers led a
merely sensual existence. The piper did not recognise
either of them; but the name of Susy went
through his heart, like a sunbeam through November
clouds. Then she said he looked like somebody she
had known! He inquired of the boy whether the
woman called Susy was handsome.

He replied, “No. She is lean and pale; her
cheek-bones stand out, and her great staring dark
eyes look crazy.”

The blind man hesitated a moment, and then said,
“Let us walk quick and follow them.” They did go,
but lost sight of the women at the turning of a dirty
alley. For six weeks, the blind piper kept watch in
the neighbourhood, obviously a very bad one. In
many houses he inquired if any one knew a woman
by the name of Susan Gray; but he always received
an answer in the negative. At last an old woman
said that a girl named Susan Andrews boarded with
her for a while; that she was very feeble, and lived
in a street near by. He followed the directions she
gave, and stopped before the house to play. People
came to the door and windows, and in a few minutes
the boy pressed his hand and said, “There is the
woman you want to find.”

He stopped abruptly, and exclaimed, “Susy!”
There was an anxious tenderness in his tones, which
the bystanders heard with loud laughter. They
shouted, “Susy, you are called for! Here's a beau
for you!” and many a ribald jest went round.

But she, in a sadder voice than usual, said, “My
poor fellow, what do you want of me?”

“Did you give me a shilling a few weeks ago?”
he asked.

“Yes, I did; but surely that was no great thing.”

“Had you ever a brother named Jerry?” he inquired.

“Oh, Heavens! tell me if you know any thing of
him!” she exclaimed.

He fell into her arms, sobbing, “My sister! My
poor sister!”

The laughter hushed instantly, and many eyes
were filled with tears. There were human hearts
there also; and they felt at once the poor piper was
Susy's long-lost brother, and that he had come home
to her blind.

For an instant, she clasped him convulsively to her
heart. Then thrusting him away with a sudden
movement, she said, “Don't touch me, Jerry! Don't
touch me!”

“Why not? dear sister,” he asked. But she only
replied, in a deep, hollow tone of self-loathing, “Don't
touch me!”

Not one of the vicious idlers smiled. Some went
away weeping; others, with affectionate solicitude,
offered refreshments to the poor blind wanderer. Alas,
he would almost have wished for blindness, could he
have seen the haggard spectre that stood before him,
and faintly recognised, in her wild melancholy eyes,
his own beloved Rosenglory.

From that hour, he devoted himself to her with the
most assiduous attention. He felt that her steps trembled
when she leaned on his arm, he observed that her
breath came with difficulty, and he knew that she
spoke truly when she said she had not long to live.
A woman, who visited the house, told him of a charitable
institution in Tenth Avenue, called the Home,
where women who have been prisoners, and sincerely
wish to reform, can find shelter and employment. He
went and besought that his sister might be allowed to
come there and die.

There, in a well ventilated room, on a clean and
comfortable bed, the weary pilgrim at last reposed in
the midst of true friends. “Oh, if I had only met
with such when my poor mother first died, how different
it might all have been,” she was wont to say.
The blind brother kissed her forehead, and said,
“Don't grieve for that now, dear. It was not your
fault that you had no friends.”

One day, a kind sympathizing lady gave him a
bunch of flowers for his sister. Hitherto an undefined
feeling of delicacy had restrained him, when he
thought of using the pet word of their childhood. But
thinking it might perhaps please her, he stepped into
the room, and said, cheerfully, “Here, Rosenglory!
See what I have brought you!” It was too much for
the poor nervous sufferer. “Oh, don't call me that!”
she said; and she threw herself on his neck, sobbing
violently.

He tried to soothe her; and after awhile, she said
in a subdued voice, “I am bewildered when I think
about myself. They tell me that I am a great sinner:
and so I am. But I never injured any human being; I
never hated any one. Only once, when Robert married
that rich woman, and told me to keep out of his
way, and get my living as others in my situation did
—then for a little while, I hated him; but it was not
long. Dear Jerry, I did not mean to be wicked; I
never wanted to be wicked. But there seemed to be
no place in the world for me. They all wronged me;
and my heart dried up. I was like a withered leaf,
and the winds blew me about just as it happened.”

He pressed her hand to his lips, and hot tears fell

upon it. “Oh, bless you, for your love!” she said.
“Poor outcast as I am, you do not think I have sinned
beyond forgiveness. Do you?”

Fervently he embraced her, and answered, “I too
have sinned; but God only knows the secret history of
our neglected youth, our wrongs, sufferings, and temptations;
and say what they will, I am sure He will not
judge u so harshly as men have done.”

He knelt down by the bed-side in silent prayer, and
with her hand clasped in his, they both fell asleep.
He dreamed that angels stood by the pillow and smiled
with sad pitying love on the dying one. It was the
last night he watched with her. The next day, her
weary spirit passed away from this world of sin and
suffering. The blind piper was all alone.

As he sat holding her emaciated hand, longing
once more to see that dear face, before the earth
covered it forever, a visitor came in to look at the
corpse. She meant to be kind and sympathizing; but
she did not understand the workings of the human
heart. To the wounded spirit of the mourner, she
seemed to speak with too much condescension of the
possibility of forgiveness even to so great a sinner.
He rose to leave the room, and answered meekly,
“She was a good child. But the paths of her life
were dark and tangled, and she lost her way.”