University of Virginia Library

3. III.
THE STORY OF BLIND ALICE.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 027. In-line Illustration. Image of a man and child walking. They are standing in front of a road sign.]

SNAPPISHLY and briskly crackled
the fire; and presently the sullen
stove uttered a low, musical roar,
like a sentient animal, deeply grateful
for such comforting cheer. In
half an hour the room was warm,
and, the stove-door being thrown
open, the blazing wood cast a pleasant flickering glow upon the
floor, the table, the rows of desks and the wall beyond. Cheesy
then lounged about on the benches, studying hieroglyphics carved
thereon with school-boy knives, — tomahawks, houses, ships, rude
profiles and ruder letters, — and seemed to enjoy the novelty of
his discoveries in a high degree.

Meanwhile Martin assisted his new acquaintance to prepare a
resting-place for himself and child. Having turned down a chair
before the stove, the wanderer rested his back against it, sitting
upon the floor. He then spread down a garment, taken from
his pack, for the girl to lie upon, and took her head affectionately
upon his lap. “Are you comfortable, my child?” he asked.

“Dear father, you are so good!” she murmured, weeping
gently, and pressing his hand upon her heart. She smiled sweetly,
and the fire-light painted her fair young face with a mellow glow.

“She must be very weary,” said Martin, in a low tone. “How
have you managed to get over so much ground with her to-day?
You could not have travelled very far last night.”

“We got a chance to ride on a load of grain in the morning,”
replied the man. “Afterwards a gentleman in a chaise helped us
over four or five miles of the road.”

“An old gentleman, in a rather dilapidated chaise?”

The man replied in the affirmative, and inquired if he was not
the person the old gentleman had spoken of, who was going to Boston
to publish a Romance. Martin, glowing with unusual heat
about the face, pleaded guilty to the charge. The beggar could
not repress a smile. Thereupon the young author, convinced that
his new companion possessed an intelligent and discerning mind
to recognize the merits of his Romance, proposed to read a few
pages thereof, to show that his literary schemes were not quite so
extravagant as the old gentleman in the chaise had supposed.

“Don't think I 'm vain,” he observed, with charming ingenuousness,
undoing his bundle. “And, if I bore you, say so.”

“Read that 'ere last chapter,” spoke up Cheesy, tumbling over
the benches and landing by the stove. “I han't heard that yit.”

Martin cleared his throat, and, perching himself on a bench,
assumed a position favorable to receiving the fire-glow on his
manuscript. After a few preliminary remarks, he began with the
opening chapter; while Cheesy, who could have listened to
fifty consecutive readings of the same pages with unwearied interest,
sprawled himself out on the seat beside him, grinning and
glowing in the light, and chuckling with pleasure. The beggar
seemed less susceptible to the beauties of fine writing; for,
after hearing Martin read a few paragraphs, in an eloquent manner,
peculiarly adapted to the flowery style of the composition, he

relapsed into an abstracted mood, and studied the sweet face of his
child, and smoothed her brow, and played tenderly with her soft,
warm hair, as she lay smiling faintly on his lap. At length
Martin paused, to observe the effect of a fine passage on his audience;
and the beggar, looking up with a face overshadowed by
grief, remarked that it appeared to be a story of a beggar.

“That 's the title,” cried Cheesy; “The Beggar of Bagdad.”

Martin had purposely suppressed the title, to avoid giving
offence; but Cheesy's indiscretion exposed him; and, stammering
a little with confusion, he inquired how his new friend liked the
subject. The latter looked down again, fingering the blind girl's
hair, and answered, in a tone of indifference, that it would do.

“O, it was so beautiful!” said the gentle voice of the child.

Martin's heart swelled with pleasure and pride.

“What was so beautiful?” her father inquired.

“What I saw,” she replied, smiling and pressing his hand again
upon her heart. “I think I must have been dreaming.”

Martin bit his lip, and put up his manuscript, notwithstanding
Cheesy's earnest protestation against such a proceeding.

“There were seven girls, — O, so beautiful!” the child went
on, after a pause. “They were dressed in white and sitting on
beds of flowers. They were sewing garments for the poor, and
weeping. I felt so sorry for them! but, after a while, I saw that
their tears made them pure and bright, and that the flowers were
scattered there by poor people who came to thank them. Then
the flowers all grew to be little angels, — O, so little and pretty!
And they flew up, carrying the girls with them, on a cloud. I
tried to see more; but the cloud dazzled me, and I woke up.”

The light of the cloud seemed still to linger on the radiant face
of the child. Martin regarded her with deepening interest, quite

forgetful of the slight his Romance had received, and asked if
she often had such dreams.

The beggar's tears were falling on her hair; his lips quivered,
and his fingers shook. He looked up soon, however, with a face
full of emotion, and pointed to Martin's bundle.

“I don't like it,” said he, with a sad shake of the head. “You
go too far for your hero. Homely truth is stronger and better
than all your fine fictions. Let me tell you a story.”

Martin smiled and nodded, as much as to say, “Criticism is
what I like; I don't feel hurt; go on.”

“Once there was a man named Caleb Thorne. He had for a
wife a woman who was all love and devotion; and they had a
child, — a darling girl, — they called Alice. Until that child was
a year old, the parents were happy as ever mortal pair could be.
But Caleb had a demon. That demon was an appetite for strong
drink. He came honestly by it, as people say. He inherited it,
— for children inherit such things to the third and fourth generation.
His father had been a moderate drinker, — at least, he was
called so; but Caleb's love of liquor was a species of insanity,
a taint in the blood. Three times had he descended into the pit
of drunken degradation, and been three times restored, before
marriage. But, when his child was a year old, he fell again.
The ruin which followed him was terrible and complete. He lost
his property. His wife — that noble and devoted woman —
clung to him, trying to hold him up, until the demon dragged his
feet over her crushed form. The child was eight years old when
the mother went to her grave. Enraged against his demon, Caleb
Thorne turned upon him, and drove him down into the bottomless
pit. Sorrow gave him strength. He worked — he vowed before
God to work with his life — for the motherless child. But the demon

watched him. Once more, in an hour of temptation, he seized
him — by the throat,” added the speaker, with a hollow laugh.
“Caleb Thorne was drunk in a tavern. The child — instinct told
her what had happened. The spirit of her mother was within her.
Four miles among rocks and thickets she walked, tearing her tender
feet, to find her drunken father and bring him home. She
sought him out in the midst of fumes and smoke which would have
polluted one less pure. Consternation at seeing her in such a
place mastered his senses for the moment, and he suffered her to
lead him away. She took him back across the fields, to avoid
exposing their disgrace and shame. But he staggered and
fell oftentimes, dragging the child down with him, and bruising
her limbs, so that night and a storm overtook them on their way.
Such a storm of wind, and rain, and sleet! It was in December —”

The speaker sat silent for some seconds, with his head bowed
down above the gently-heaving bosom of the child, who appeared
sleeping again, and smiling in her sleep; then resumed his story.

“When that wretch recovered his consciousness, after the wild
scenes through which he passed that night, he was lying on his
own bed, in his own ruined home. How he got there he could not
tell. The child had led him on; but the child — she did not
know when it was morning, — it was night to her still, when the
sun arose, — she was blind.” He pressed his daughter's temples
with his hands, and rained hot tears upon her face.

“Caleb Thorne fought back the demon once again,” he went on;
“the perjured man vowed solemnly to God, — and vowed to keep
his vow, — that he would devote life and soul to the child,
whose mother he had killed, and whose sight had been sacrificed
to his demon. Her eyes had always been delicate. Her mother
had been blind before her, when a girl; but she had been cured.

And it now became the sole desire of Caleb's heart to save money
enough out of his poverty to travel to Boston with his child, and
see the old physician who had restored the mother's sight years
before. But sickness sapped his efforts. He could barely support
life in himself and child. And at length, despairing of ever
seeing better times, he set out to walk with her to Boston.”

“But,” cried Martin, who had become intensely interested,
“there are asylums for the blind —”

The beggar interrupted him. “Since this calamity befell the
child, Caleb Thorne has never once suffered her out of his sight.
He cannot now be separated from her for a moment Her presence
is his life. What do you say, Alice?” he inquired, as the
child smiled again, and moved her lips.

“Mother says she forgives you. O, she loves you so much!”

“You have been dreaming, child,” articulated the beggar.

“O, yes! but I saw my mother, — I know her smile!” That
smile seemed reflected in the child's face as she spoke. “And
she says I need not weep because I am blind. If I am good, and
love everybody, she says, I shall have such dreams as I had
just now. I dream, but I am not asleep. And the skies, and the
flowers, and the faces I see, look more beautiful than anything I
ever saw with my eyes. O, I am so happy, dear father!”

“By gracious!” burst forth Cheesy, who had listened to the
beggar's story with open eyes and mouth. “You ought 'er bring
that into the Romance, somehow, Mr. Mer'vale. Call it in Bagdad,
and it 'll sound fust-rate.”

Martin bent silently over his bundle, arranging the manuscript
sheets, which were afterwards found to have been blistered here
and there with tears. Having told his story, the beggar manifested
little disposition to converse. He bent over and kissed his

child good-night, then reclined his head against his pack, as if to
sleep. But, long after Martin had lain down upon the bench, with
his bundle for a pillow, — while Alice dreamed and smiled, and
Cheesy snored by the stove, — Caleb Thorne was awake, watching
the fire with haggard eyes, and listening to the rain upon the
panes. At length he too fell asleep; but in unquiet dreams he
started oft, and groaned, and sometimes cried aloud, and flung his
arms about him, and knotted up his face in agony and terror.

On the following morning the storm had ceased; the sun shone
brightly, and the wayfarers left the school-house in company.
Caleb, silent and reserved, seemed jealous of Martin, whom Alice
had asked, with sweet simplicity, to walk beside her, because she
liked to feel that he was near. He could not bear that any other
hand than his should touch his child; and the young man, unwilling
to give him pain, walked on with Cheesy, telling Alice, kindly,
that he would not leave her far behind. This deference to
his whim quite humbled Caleb, who came out of his reserve,
begged Martin's pardon, and let him further into his confidence
than he had done before. Afterwards the two parties travelled
side by side, Alice next to Martin, whom she could tell from
Cheesy as well as if she saw him, though he never spoke; and so
kept on, beguiling the way with stories and friendly talk, until the
city, with its heaped-up roofs around the State-house dome, and
windows flashing back the sunset rays like walls of fire, appeared in
view. Then Martin began to dilate with thoughts of literary
glory; Cheesy burst out of himself, more than ever, with wonder,
talking largely; blind Alice seemed more meek and timid than
before, and drooped her head; while Caleb Thorne, with deepening
shadows on his face, looked darkly down upon the ground, and
often sucked in his hissing breath 'twixt firm-set teeth.

“I shall keep my vow that I have vowed before God; shall I
not, Alice?” he muttered, in a strange tone.

“Yes, dear father! you will — I know you will!”

“I will! — to be sure I will! God help your father, Alice!
You know how I have all along avoided spots where rum is sold;
but the town is full of temptations. Don't be afraid, though. I
shall keep my vow; shall I not, my child?”

The blind girl said again she knew he would; yet drooped her
head more sadly than before. And thus the party crossed a long
bridge, and entered Boston just at dusk. They went up into the
town, where vehicles thundered around them, and people passed
and repassed them, and gas-lights flared thus early on the streets,
and everything was new, unnatural and strange.

“Does Boston look as you expected, Cheesy?” asked Martin.

“I had no ide' 't was settled so clust here,” was the boy's
reply. “By gracious! now all I want to see is a fire!”

And, with his facial organs extended with a drinking-in expression
of wonder, he elbowed his way along in his tight jacket-sleeves,
treading high, and grinning good-naturedly at every
supposed friend who laughed at his ludicrous figure.

Meanwhile the beggar walked fast, and seemed to hold his
breath between his teeth. “Dear father,” said Alice, bewildered,
“what is the matter? O, father, I am afraid!”

“Don't let me go!” he muttered hoarsely. “Hold me, Alice,
— hold me fast!” A passion worked upon his face and burned in
his eyes, as if the demon of his life were torturing him again.

“O, father! I am afraid!” repeated Alice, clinging closer
still. “Something makes my head go round and round. Is it the
noise of the street? Do you feel it, father? Why does your
arm shake so!”

“Hold fast, my child!” gasped Caleb Thorne. “Never let go
my arm, or we are lost. — We might not find each other easily in
the crowd, you know,” he added, quickly. “That is all. Don't
be afraid; yet hold tight, my Alice!”

Elate with hope, and excited by the novel scenes he saw, Martin
did not observe the change which had come over Caleb. He
walked before with Cheesy, who was extremely diffident about
meeting his step-mother's relations, and discussed a plan for communicating
with that young gentleman in the morning. But, before
any arrangement was agreed upon, a dire commotion took place in
the street. There was a tremendous rush of feet, with cries of fire,
and bells began to ring out wild alarms. Then an engine rattled
along the street, dragged on by shouting men and screaming boys.
Cheesy's mind was wrought up to a high pitch of excitement by
this startling event. He ran out under the very hoofs of a span
of horses, and, recoiling suddenly with the instinct of self-preservation,
flung himself into the stomach of a fireman in oil-cloth cape
and helmet, who kicked him out of the way with a muttered curse.
Cheesy fell upon his side, with a jar; but, nothing daunted by
these mischances, he scrambled to his feet, looking after the
engine, and yelling fire; then stripped off his jacket and short
vest with enthusiasm, holding his bundle between his knees.
“Hurra, boys!” he cried to his companions. “Come on!”
Thereupon Martin, who had more discretion than the boy, notwithstanding
a lively curiosity he felt about the fire, requested him
not to make a fool of himself, but to keep close to his side while
the crowd rushed by. The noise was such, however, that Cheesy
did not hear; but, understanding from Martin's gestures that he
would wait for him there, he twisted his jacket and vest round his
bundle, tossed them at his head, and darted away. A pair of

tight fustian trousers, cotton shirt-sleeves, and leather suspenders,
crossed behind, might then have been seen mingling with the
crowd; until, seizing the engine-rope, Cheesy hurried with it
round the corner, losing himself as completely, amid the clash and
clamor of the alarm, as if he had been suddenly dropped in the
streets of Bagdad, — with which, by the way, he was far more
familiar than with the streets of Boston.

Martin took up the boy's personal property, which had fallen
into the gutter, and watched those crossed suspenders disappearing
in the distance with flying legs and arms, until they were no
longer to be seen. Then, with considerable disgust, he turned to
look for his other companions. To his astonishment, he saw that
they too had disappeared. Excited by such a strange crushing
together of confusing events, he ran out in the street and
glanced hurriedly up and down; when, standing upon a corner,
some rods below, he saw blind Alice, alone, and almost frantic
with terror, crying and holding her clasped hands tight upon her
face. In a minute he was at her side.

“Where is your father?” he asked, hurriedly.

“O, sir, find him!” she exclaimed, clinging to him in her
wild despair. “He said he would come right back, and left me
here. O, find him! — find him for me!”

“Where shall I look for him, my poor child?” replied Martin.

O, dear! she did not know. And Martin, all unused to city
scenes and ways, did not guess that the hand he had had a glimpse
of lifting a half-filled glass to eager lips, in the sallow gas-light of
a low cellar in the alley close by, was the hand of Caleb Thorne;
and that the money which paid for that, and other drams that followed,
was the same himself had placed in the beggar's palm, with
a blessing on his now forsaken child, two nights before.