 | Chapter II.
The Giant and the Dwarfs. The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone |  |
2. Chapter II.
The Giant and the Dwarfs.
IN cells under sidewalks, and caverns hollowed beneath
city streets, a powerful and subtle spirit is confined by
strong bars and bands of iron that baffle his efforts to
escape. This imprisoned spirit, in whose ethereal nature
the elements of fire and water are mingled, has been
made the servant of human skill and wisdom, so that he
bears heavy burdens, draws great ships and vehicles
through seas and lands, and whirls the axles of intricate
machines, obeying the will and performing the work of
mankind. Steam! the giant spirit, by whose aid nations
draw near to nations, knowledge becomes a thousand-fold,
thoughts wax numberless in the world, fast and silently
falling, like flakes of midnight snow!
The giant toiled mightily during the long hours—writhing
in iron cells beneath ice-bound pavement—swelling
against copper walls, and urging steel shafts before him,
to drive the whirling wheels of presses, stamping the news
of a world. His hot breath rose in clouds through
gratings in the walk above, melting the snow as it fell,
and warming the wintry air. And wherever those clouds
of hot moisture escaped through iron gratings, there
garb, with half-shod feet, and fingers cramped by
cold. Snow swept gustily on either side, but the gratings
were warm with ascending vapor, and there the shivering
children crept together, clinging to the damp bars, and
cowering away from the cruel storm. Like giant Steam
himself, they were slaves of the Press, which clanged and
thundered near. Their task was to watch for earliest
printed sheets, and scatter them far and wide through
city streets; crying, meanwhile, in childish treble, the
news of a mighty world—that world of which, too oft,
their own poor share was cold and hunger. It was sad to
behold those children—the dwarfs of the Press, as Steam
was its giant—crouching at such an hour in the streets of
a Christian city; and it was sadder still to think that for
them no mother's lullaby might thrill—no little sister's
prayer be lisped to heaven.
Yet, at this hour, amid the beating storm, there came a
seeker for one of that trembling group surrounding those
iron bars where rose the clouds of steam. Out from the
blasting drifts that swept unceasingly along the highway,
there suddenly crept a diminutive figure, with head and
body covered by an old plaid shawl, white with congelated
snow. This figure advanced slowly to the grating, and
lifting its thin arms, blue with cold, removed the shawl
from a face pale as alabaster, but very sweet and infantile
in feature.
“Is this Nassau street?”
The startled dwarfs rose quickly, as these words, murmured
by a gentle voice, fell upon their ears. They
who stood before them, shivering with cold, weighed down
by the snow that clung to her scanty garments, and
frightened, apparently, at her own boldness in addressing
them.
“Wot yer want, little girl?” at last demanded one of
them. “Wot yer doin' out in the snow, this time o'
night?”
“I want to find Robert Morrison. He's a newsboy,
and” —
“Ain't no newsboy o' that name here, little girl. Yer
better go home, or yer'll be took up.”
“O dear!” exclaimed the child, “what shall I do? He
said it was Nassau street. Isn't this Nassau street?”
“Wot yer say his name was?” asked another urchin.
“Robert Morrison,” said the child, sobbing.
“Ain't no sich feller round, I tell yer,” cried the dwarf
who had spoken first; but his curly-pated companion
interrupted him.
“I knows who yer mean,” he said, nodding encouragingly
to the weeping girl. “It's Bob the Weasel.”
“O, no,” cried the child, shaking her head, sorrowfully;
“it's Robert Morrison.”
“Well, what o' that? Bob the Weasel he's Rob
Morrison, an' Rob Morrison he's Bob the Weasel—
nothin' shorter.”
The urchins laughed at this sally of their comrade, who
thereupon began to brush the snow from their strange
visitor's threadbare cloak.
“Look, sissy, yer all kivered,” he said kindly. “Guess
where Bob the Weasel is! He's yer brother, ain't he?”
“No; I haven't any brother,” murmured the child.
“Wot yer want o' Bob?”
“Oh, dear, oh! My mother is dying, and Robert
knows her,” cried the little girl, wildly sobbing, and
hiding her face with her thin hands.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed the dwarf, regarding the weeping
child with wondering sympathy, while his companions
gathered near, in silence. “Is that so? Come along,
poor little sis, an' I'll take yer right away to Bob—I
mean Rob Morrison. He's close by! Don't cry; I'll
find Bob the—I mean Rob Morrison—in jes' one
minute!”
Saying this, the ragged urchin gave his hand kindly to
the stranger child, conducting her away from the grating,
out into the thick drifts that filled the air beyond.
And as she followed, her little feet sank in the dank
snow, tracking the impress of a child's travel—one, two,
three—even as they had tracked that night a thousand
footprints, alone, through the fearful storm.
Crossing the street, followed by the urchins whose sympathy
(poor dwarfs) rendered them careless of exposure,
the two children reached another sidewalk, where an iron
railing protected passers-by from stumbling down a dozen
steep steps which descended to the basement of a large
building. On this sidewalk the snow had gathered in
uneven drifts, momently changing as the wind caught up
its surface in fantastic wreaths. Pausing here, the dwarf,
who still held the hand of his new acquaintance, whistled
response, approached the railing and called loudly, “Bob!
Bob!—Weasel!” The girl peered timidly down the steps
that were dimly visible in the faint light of a corner lamp,
and beheld a movement of some dark object in the area
beneath. She drew closer then, and, bending over the
railing, saw what is common enough in that locality, yet
very sad to see.
Partially shielded by the masonry of the steps and
lintels of a vault door below, several boys had nestled
together for warmth and protection from the tempest.
They were doubled and locked in each other's arms, and
sleeping calmly—dreaming, it might be, of green fields
and sunny waters, through the long hours of that inclement
night. One lying upon another, in layers of two and
three, those young outcasts—homeless and friendless, save
in mutual destitution—were slumbering peacefully, like
happier children who, on downy beds, were lulled with
prayers and sweet “good-nights.” And, by the flickering
gas-light, it could be seen that, upon the sordid garments
of those who lay uppermost, the snow-flakes, blown between
the railing, were collected in white bars, just as they had
fallen on the motionless bodies.
“W-e-a-sel!”
Another movement was perceptible in the heap of life
below, and then a fragment disengaged itself, and emerged
upward. It was a very small boy, whose puny proportions
were more than hinted at in the name applied by his
companions. He was narrow-shouldered, with spare frame
and delicate limbs, and a face that was childish, yet
his nap, he muttered sulkily, rubbing his eyes—
“Wot makes yer wake a feller up for?” But, noticing
the little girl among the rest, his tone altered at once,
and he caught her cold hand within his own, saying—
“Fanny! O poor Fanny! how is your mother?”
“Oh! Robert,” responded the child, breaking into
quick sobs, as she clung convulsively to the ragged
urchin, “Oh! dear Robert—mother is all cramped, and
can't speak.”
The wind swept up sharply from the rivers, bearing
new clouds of bleaker snow; but it seemed to moan for
the poor babe, even while piercing icily through her thin
garments. Bob the Weasel tightened the shawl about
her shoulders, and spoke low and soothingly. Presently,
she became calm as before, and then the Weasel drew
her tenderly by the hand, leading her away into the darkness,
whilst his comrades, the dwarfs, crept back to the
grating where rose the breath of their fellow-slave, the
giant Steam. Here, with much marvelling, they talked
together of the scene just witnessed, and of the strange
child who had come to seek the Weasel. Meantime, that
small creature himself toiled up through the drifted street,
supporting his shivering little friend; up to silent Broadway,
where, during the last hour, the snow had been
blown into great hillocks, high almost as the children's
heads, and making barriers across the pavements. Here
the Weasel stopped, and said—
“O Fanny! What a hard place! But I can carry
you, if you'll let me.”
“Oh, no, Robert—I can walk!”
“Jes' le' me try! You're so tired, poor Fanny, and
I'm famous strong.”
Then the old-faced urchin, lifting a form that was yet
smaller and lighter than his own, put forth all his strength,
and carried Fanny through the drift, many times staggering
beneath his fragile burden.
“Don't any more, Robert! you'll hurt yourself.”
“Nary bit! Let's go on,” said the Weasel, breathing
hard. “I could carry you all the way home.”
But Fanny slid from the feeble arms that sustained her,
and then, hand in hand, the wandering ones struggled
forward.
“I wonder you wasn't lost, Fanny,” said the Weasel.
“How in the world could you find your way in all this
snowy night?”
“I was afraid to stay alone,” answered Fanny; “and
you said, if mother”—. A fresh burst of tears checked
her words.
“Yes—I said, if your mother got worse, to come and
find me. But, O Fanny, I didn't believe it would snow so!”
“I couldn't get lost, 'cause I remembered where the
Park was; and when I got to it, I heard the presses
going.”
“Oh! that's the way you found me! My! what a
bright girl you are!” the Weasel said, admiringly. “But
it's too bad a night for a feller to be out, let alone a little
girl like you!” Bob straightened himself, as he said this,
endeavoring to look taller than usual; but his poor
weazen face was not much higher than Fanny's.
“I was so frightened, Robert, and cried so much!
And then I thought I'd go for you.”
“All right, Fan! you knew I wasn't afeard! But it
was too far for you.”
“Ah! Robert,” sobbed the little girl, “I didn't know
anybody else to go for.”
A gust of wind swept by, seeming to take up those
words of the lonely child, and whistle them wildly to the
night. Nobody to go for—no one to seek, in all the
great city, but—Bob the Weasel!
And then the little feet plodded on; and their prints—
one, two, three—became marked in the snow of Broadway.
But drifts followed fast, soon covering up, and
effacing for ever, those slight tracks of infant travel. Will
the footprints of their lives be so easily hidden? Does
not every human foot impress, for good or ill, its pathway
through the world—pathway which the drifts of eternal
winters have no power to cover or obliterate?
| Chapter II.
The Giant and the Dwarfs. The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone | |