 | Chapter III.
Kolephat College. The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone |  |
3. Chapter III.
Kolephat College.
THE glittering garniture of snow which covered old
roofing, and concealed dilapidated walls, in the square
of tottering tenant houses of which Mordecai Kolephat
was proprietor, and Peleg Ferret “agent” and collector
of rents, did not and could not hide the squalid misery
contained within its gloomy precincts. Already, though
it was yet early morning, and the grocery at the corner
not open to its poverty-tricken customers, there were
evidences of life stirring in the purlieus of “Kolephat College.”
There was a dirty track in the snow, leading from
the street to an open front door, and thence up a narrow
staircase, dark and steep, conducting to small, confined
apartments, ventilated only by broken panes of glass.
This track had been made by the passing of many feet
since daylight—feet of rag-pickers and bone-gatherers,
sallying out to root and dig under the snow for cast-a-way
scraps which were to them the material of existence;
feet of beggar-children and old men, going forth to plod
through drifted snow to the areas of rich men's kitchens,
there to solicit a customary dole—barrier between them
and starvation; feet of night-toilers or unhappy drunkards
shiver into scant-covered beds; feet of hard-working
shop-girls, and seamstresses, and washer-women, hurrying
to labor, with a single crust to stay their hungry stomachs.
Yes! long before Peleg Ferret opened his grocery-door
and took down his window-shutters, a well-beaten pathway,
begrimed by dirty feet, had marked the ingress and
egress of Kolephat College tenants.
Peleg Ferret was tolerably well-to-do in the world, and
looked-up-to, accordingly, as a thriving chandler and good
citizen. His “store” was very dirty, and extensively
patronized, not only by the promiscuous population under
his peculiar charge, but by a variety of nondescript customers,
who dwelt in several blind lanes and crooked
passages which intervened between his particular locality
and the jurisdiction of a Dutchman, who kept an opposition
grocery at a square's distance. Peleg was known as
a stirring politician of his ward, and likewise as a hard
creditor: attending primary meetings punctually, and
presenting weekly bills promptly. He prided himself upon
being a “blunt man,” and quoted freely from the ancients
such aphorisms as “Be just before you are generous,” and
“Charity begins at home.” He was the resident agent
of Mr. Kolephat's property in and around “Kolephat
College,” and it was, in fact, his own delicate fancy which
had bestowed this name upon the square of tumblingdown
tenements that his equally happy satire dignified
with the name of “dwelling-houses,” forming a dingy close
from end to end of a brick-paved alley, running beside his
corner-store. Mr. Ferret rented these tenements, to be
when jocose—being only particular upon one essential
point, namely, that every applicant should exhibit the
possession of sufficient goods, chattels, etc., as might warrant
security for the payment of one month's rent, expense
of “settling” included. In consequence of this “wise
precaution,” which Mr. F. aphoristically declared to be
“the parent of security,” as well as from the fact that his
method of “settling” was to the last degree summary
(comprising the prompt ejectment of tenant and locking
up of tenant's domicil, goods secured), this provident
grocer and faithful agent seldom suffered by delinquent
debtors. Moreover, being a bachelor, he “lived in chambers,”
occupying a couple of rooms framed in a loft above
his grocery, and thus established a sort of reconnoitring
post, whence a constant surveillance could be exercised
over the vagabond denizens of Kolephat College and its
rickety surroundings. By this means, he contrived to
gain timely notice of any movement betokening bad faith
on the part of a tenant; no vagrant chair, bench, or stool
being allowed to pass the corner barrier without watchful
observation and prompt detention by himself or the moon-faced
shop-boy, who was kept on the lookout; for Mr.
Ferret estimated every item of miserable furniture used by
tenants to be inventoried solely for the landlord's ultimate
benefit, representing so much collateral, not to be interfered
with by insatiate pawnbrokers. Seldom did a week
elapse without witnessing the transfer of some last pauper
comfort, from a suddenly-vacated apartment to the capacious
storeroom of the grocer, there to be appraised and
seek shelter, where shelter alone could be found—in the
poorhouse. Occasionally, indeed, a spirit of obstinacy, or
perhaps a slight inkling of legal points, on the part of
debtors, constrained Peleg to “due course of law;” but,
in general, he encountered little difficulty in impressing his
evil-doing lodgers with such wholesome terror, that they
were glad to escape his justice, even with the loss of all
their wretched possessions.
Mr. Peleg Ferret enjoyed another strategic pleasure by
reason of his proximity to Kolephat College—a pleasure
equally combined with profit, inasmuch as it enabled him
to learn the habits, means of life, and general domestic
history of his tenants. There was a passage leading from
the cellar of his store to damp vaults beneath the tenant-house,
by which, whenever he wanted, he could penetrate
into the dark entries above, and possess himself of much
valuable information, at a small expense of time in eavesdropping.
This innocent recreation acquainted the prudent
agent betimes with the condition of desponding
debtors, enabling him to detect incipient bankruptcy in
season for his own personal security.
The tenant-house itself was an interesting field of
exploration, being one of original construction and economical
apportionment, as well as wholly guiltless of “all
the modern improvements.” The primary portion of it
had been used as a church, in times when churches were
built of less costly materials than at present are used;
and the copings and clapboards, mildewed and worm-eaten,
which formed the ancient walls, had been afterwards
corridored and staircased with unhewn pine, to afford
means of climbing from base to roof. Within, cheap
floors and ceilings spanned the wide area, once occupied
by pews and gallery, and thin partitions of panels, or
laths and plaster, intersected each other, cutting up every
available foot of space into narrow rooms or cells, in
which human beings were expected to exist, without light
or air, save the niggard apology for those elements received
through cramped passages and dirt-obscured casements.
In this collection of wooden dens (as Mr. Peleg
Ferret knew by his tenant-book) there dwelt one hundred
and thirty odd families, comprising more than four hundred
individuals of all sexes, ages, and complexions, in a
matter of one hundred divisions, as they might be termed,
made by the board and lath partitions. In those dens,
moreover, ate and drank (when they had wherewith), slept
(when the cold or vermin permitted), suffered, fought,
revelled, blasphemed, toiled, prayed hopelessly, and died,
year by year, scores upon scores of human beings, in the
guise of men, women, and children, of whom the world
knew nothing, save through coroners' inquests, police-reports,
or pauper statistics, and of whom Mr. Kolephat
and Mr. Ferret cared nothing, save to collect of them
inexorably the monthly extortion of rent.
In the summer season, when flowers bloom and harvests
wax golden, and orchards rock with luxuriant fruitage—
when the merchant leaves his ledger, the mechanic his
bench, the student his books, to run out upon the hill-side
and catch short breaths of heaven's air—in such balmy,
wretched tenants “at home.”
At home! in the stifling, noisome dwelling-dens of
Kolephat College—at home, amid infection, fever-damp,
corruption; at home, with no blessed breeze of heaven,
no fragrance, no bloom, but only one horrible, life-wasting
malaria!
But in the winter months, Peleg Ferret did not always
find his tenants at home! Sometimes, when he entered
that crowded tenant-house, unwelcome even as the biting
wind, there came no response to his demand; for the fearful
inmates of some desolate room had crawled out, amid
frost and snow, to beg or steal, appalled at the approach
of hunger and darkness. Then Peleg would watch craftily,
or set his moon-faced shop-boy as scout to intercept the
returning wretch, and clamor for the rent. At other
times, the agent would get no answer to his demand, because
the lonely tenant within was dead. Then Peleg
would grumble, send for a policeman, and calculate his
profit and loss. But as a general thing, the grocer, as we
have said, did not lose much; for he tracked and worried
his tenants till they feared the sound of his creaking boot.
He was a faithful agent, this Peleg Ferret, and though he
saw his tenants dragging their weak bodies to soup-houses,
to struggle for scanty charity—though he encountered on
the stairs of Kolephat College hundreds of desperate-looking
people—lean children, and haggard-faced mothers,
and palsied old men—Peleg failed not to collect his rent.
He was a faithful steward!
Yet they were not all vile and vicious who dwelt in
mouldering roof, or in clammy vaults in the horrible basement—there
were dwelling pure souls and honest hearts;
pure and honest amid crime and misery surrounding
them. But Peleg Ferret, as a faithful agent, knew
no difference between the good and bad, save the difference
in rates of the dens, which he rented for the
sums of four, six, and eight dollars per month, respectively.
So, therefore, it was with a business-like air that his
creaking boots sounded on the thresholds of the various
doors of the tenant-house, about an hour after sunrise,
and a while, even, before his moon-faced clerk had fairly
removed the grocery-shutters, and placed that intricate
establishment in order for custom. It was a maxim of
Mr. Ferret, that “the early bird catches the worm,” and,
in illustration of its wisdom, he was always “up and
round,” as he expressed it, at the earliest hour of rent-day.
With leather-covered book, in which the immutable
accounts of landlord and tenant were scored, in figures
ominous to the latter, when poverty pressed hard, the
grocer entered each dingy passage, ascended each narrow
staircase, knocked at each shaking door, with a consciousness
of power and determination of executing it, that
none but a faithful agent, such as he, could feel. Then it
was that suppressed pleadings might be overheard by
listeners in Kolephat College—pleadings of distress, cut
short by abrupt rebukes and stern threatenings; then it
was that perishing women became faint, and Peleg said
they were “shamming;” and ghastly, half-starved men
drunk and lazy.
On the third story of the tenant-house, and at the
extremity of a long narrow, and dark passage, the agent
knocked at a door twice, without receiving any response,
and then pushing it rudely, caused the worm-eaten woodwork,
which held the inner hasp, to give way suddenly,
allowing him entrance. The room was damp, and so
dimly lighted by its single window, which opened within
five feet of a brick wall in the rear, that for a moment
Peleg found it difficult to distinguish any object within.
Presently, however, as he paused near the threshold, peering
curiously about, he caught sight of what appeared to
be a bundle of dirty clothing rolled up at the edge of the
hearth, upon which a pile of cold ashes rested between
two bricks that had served for andirons. Peleg advanced
toward this bundle, and discovered, what he suspected,
that it contained human life. Two children, clasped in
each other's arms, were wrapt in a tattered coverlid and
dirty piece of carpet, and sleeping so soundly that the
alarm and approach of Ferret did not awaken them. The
agent struck the bundle with his foot.
“Hillo, there!—what's all this? What are ye doing
here, young 'uns?” he said, as he kicked away the covering
from the two children. “Stir your stumps, vagabonds,
and let's know where your mother is!”
At the first tones of the man's voice, the little heads
had started suddenly from their recumbent position, and
the frightened eyes were lifted to encounter Peleg's scrutinizing
gaze. Then the youngest of the children burst
hands.
“Here! come, now, none o' that! where's your mother?
Don't she know her rent's due? I let her off a week
ago, when she couldn't pay in advance; but I can't let
her up no longer. Where's she gone so airly?—ch?”
“She's gittin' her purse out to pay yer,” here interposed
the other child, with a look of undisguised malice
levelled at the agent. “Look there, mister! don't you
see her?” With these words, he pointed a bony arm
towards a sort of recess in the darkest corner of the dingy
apartment.
Peleg Ferret looked in the direction indicated, and saw
a truckle-bed, on which a few shreds of covering were
apparently drawn together near its foot-board, but no
form was visible upon the straw mattress.
“Don't yer see her? she's a-waitin' to pay yer,” reiterated
the urchin, who had now risen from beside his weeping
companion, and stood, with his weasen face lifted
towards that of Ferret, who remained silent. Then, shuffling
over the floor, to the bed, the boy drew away a
portion of the rags at its foot, and disclosed the corpse
of a woman, not recumbent, as the dead should lie, but
with cramped limbs, drawn up, the knees almost in contact
with the chin, and the body half fallen from the low
bedside to the floor. Peleg Ferret, hardened as he was,
and accustomed to sights of misery, slarted at this frightful
spectacle, and uttered an exclamation of horror.
“D'yer want her to pay yer?” asked the boy, fixing
his small eyes upon the agent, with a glance that made
sordid soul. But the man of business recovered himself
instantly.
Such occurrences as death in a tenant-house were not
so rare as to impress Mr. Ferret with any long-continued
emotion; and though the sudden disclosure of the contorted
form, indicative as it was of a violent and painful
death, had for a moment agitated him, the purport of his
morning visit did not escape his mind. It was rent-day,
and he had come to collect his dues, like a faithful agent,
as he was. Consequently, his next impulse was a purely
mechanical one, suggesting a mental inventory of the
articles which constituted the wretched movables of the
apartment. Computation was not, indeed, difficult; for,
save the miserable truckle-bed and sordid mattress, no
other furniture but a deal table, a pine stool, and child's
small chair, with a few domestic utensils, and an old chest,
were to be discovered in the poor apartment. On the
table, stuck in a broken bottle, was the last fragment of a
tallow candle, which had flickered its dying rays upon the
closing convulsions of the poor woman—its light going
out with hers.
Peleg Ferret, as he glanced hurriedly upon the corpse,
on whose white brow the trace of agony was yet visible,
did not trouble himself to fancy how terrible must have
been the moment of dissolution, when that departing
mother looked last upon her orphan child, left to a cold
world's neglect; he did not annoy himself with reflecting
how, through the long dark hours, those little ones had
cowered tremblingly in the death-chamber, crouching
with watching, they had sunk to slumber on the cold
floor.
Peleg Ferret was not given to sentiment, and he had
witnessed poverty, and disease, and death in tenant-houses
before. Nevertheless, as he peered calculatingly over the
apartment, the agent began to experience an uncomfortable
sensation, becoming aware that every motion of
his eye was watched by the quick glance of the boy who
had so jeeringly called his attention to the truckle-bed.
There was an oldish, precocious meaning in the lad's eye,
and a pertinacity in his regards, which so aroused Mr.
Ferret's temper, that he turned abruptly on the weazenfaced
urchin:
“Ye young vagabond,” he cried, catching him by the
collar of his threadbare jacket, “come, now, what are ye
up to?”
The boy replied only with a leer, that served to exasperate
the agent, who shook him roughly a moment, and
then recoiled, with a muttered expletive, from a well-directed
kick which the youngster dealt upon the tenderest
portion of his knee-joint. At the same instant, a
movement on the part of the other child diverted Ferret's
attention. Still sobbing bitterly, the little girl had risen,
and was reaching for a broken tea-cup which stood upon
a jutting edge of the fire-place. As she lifted it, the
agent's quick ear caught the chink of silver, and he hastily
released his hold of the boy's collar.
“Well, sis—what's that? Something to pay the rent?
Eh, sis?”
“My mother put it away, for to pay the rent,” sobbed
the child.
“Ah, you don't say so! That's right! Come, now,
your mother was right honest, wasn't she, sis?” said Peleg,
blandly, as he possessed himself of the broken tea-cup
which the girl held out to him; but the boy rushed
forward, and snatched it suddenly from his hand.
“Don't let him have it, Fan! It's yours, and yer ain't
got nothin' else,” he cried, transferring the few silver
coins which the vessel contained to his own hand; “you've
got more right to it than old Ferret has.”
Fanny remained silent and trembling, amazed at the
temerity of her companion, and impressed with a doubt as
to her own correctness in yielding the tea-cup with its
contents to Peleg Ferret. That worthy himself could with
difficulty credit his senses, in witnessing the hardihood of
the diminutive urchin, who so boldly confronted him.
“Yer ought ter be ashamed, yer mean old thief!” muttered
the latter. “Yer want ter take a poor orphan
child's last shillin', yer do.” Then, turning reassuringly
to the girl: “But he shan't do it, Fan—ye needn't be
afeard.”
“Oh, Robert—it was for the rent, mother said,” exclaimed
the child, with a new burst of tears.
“I know'd that,” replied the newsboy, shaking his
head. “I know'd how your poor mother tried to scrape
all she could together, last week—a wearin' her eyes out,
an' gettin' cramp colic, workin' all night on them ile-cloth
pantaloons an' shirts at four cents a-piece. I know'd all
about that, Fanny,” —
Here Bob the Weasel brushed away a mist from his
eyes with one hand, while he held the silver change tightly
in the other.
“Look here, youngster,” interrupted Peleg Ferret,
“you aren't one o' the family? You aren't brother to
this ere little 'un!”
“No! I ain't, but I'm goin' to be,” rejoined Bob the
Weasel, straightening his slight form. “She ain't got no
one to purtect her—and I'll purtect her.”
The agent glanced a moment from the small, old-faced
child, whose eyes flashed as he uttered the last words, to
the yet smaller orphan, of whom, with a spirit worthy of
ancient knighthood, he avowed himself the champion,
and who testified her appreciation of such a defender by
another gush of tears. To Peleg Ferret, the scene began
to present puzzling features, and he gave expression to
his astonishment in a prolonged whistle.
“Be you witches?” the agent half-muttered between
his teeth, as he surveyed the two children. Then, with an
effort at temporizing, as the best means of proceeding, he
continued: “Did your mother die last night, sis? She
was right honest, wasn't she, to tell you to pay the
rent?”
“I say, now, yer ain't goin' to get it,” cried Bob the
Weasel, fiercely. “Ye're tryin' to coax that little girl,
but it ain't no go. Her mother died o' cramp colic, 'cause
she was hungry, and a'most friz, too; and now yer want
to take a few shillin's she's left. Yer ain't no man, or
yer wouldn't think o' sich mean business.”
This last appeal of the Weasel, delivered in vehement
of shame or sympathy, in the agent's bosom; for he
hastily shifted his position, and muttered:
“If the woman was so poor, why didn't she say so?
It can't be helped now, rent or no rent. What's to come
o' this little girl, youngster?”
“Yes jes' let the little girl alone, will yer?” returned
the newsboy.
“Who's to bury her mother?” suggested the agent.
“Potter's Field, I s'pose!” said Bob the Weasel, at
which rejoinder Peleg Ferret emitted another expressive
whistle.
“Well, if you ain't one of 'em,” he cried, surveying the
small newsboy, with a wondering stare. “What do you
know about Potter's Field?”
“Ain't I poor? say!” was the reply of Bob the
Weasel. “Oughtn't poor folks to know where they're
goin' to!”
“You're too much for me—that's so,” said the agent,
soliloquizingly, as he turned away. “Well, you take care
o' this little girl, and I'll send for the coroner. That's
the quickest way to fix it.” Saying this, Peleg left the
children to themselves.
The orphan Fanny listened tearfully, as Peleg Ferret's
heavy boots tramped, step by step, away from the apartment,
and down the narrow stairs, which he descended in
search of a policeman. Bob the Weasel took her kindly
by the hand, and tried, in his quaint way, to comfort her,
by renewed assurances of his protection.
“Old Ferret shan't hurt yer—don't be afeard, Fanny,”
her blinding tears, and murmured:
“Oh, Rob! what's Potter's Field? Must mother be
put in Potter's Field?”
“That's where they put poor folks! But don't cry,
Fanny.”
“Must my mother be put there?” asked the orphan,
sobbing bitterly.
“Don't cry—don't cry, Fanny!” said the newsboy,
striving to appear very stout-hearted; but as he uttered
the cheering sentence, a sob came up in his throat, and
choked the last word.
“O robert—you are crying yourself!” exclaimed the
orphan, with renewed grief; and at the discovery, her
head fell heavily on the boy's coarse jacket, which smothered
the quick sobs breaking thickly from her breast; while
tears, that could no longer be checked, gushed from the
Weasel's eyes, and fell fast upon the poor little forehead
that hid itself in his bosom. Still, however, the newsboy
whispered soothing words, and presently, with an instinct
of sympathy that was strangely delicate, lifted his desolate
little charge across the damp floor, and placed her by
her mother's lifeless form. The grey light of morning
crept dimly through the discolored window panes, and
painted ashy hues upon the rigid features of the dead;
but, as the children's eyes fell upon them, it almost seemed
as if the stamp of agony which had impressed the cold
lips gave place, for the moment, to a placid smile for the
orphan. Fanny clasped her thin hands together, as the
newsboy supported her, and said to him, suddenly—
“Robert! I want to pray.”
“What for?” asked the Weasel.
“I want to ask the Lord to help us, Robert.”
“That ain't no good. The Lord don't know us.”
“O Robert! don't you ever pray to the Lord?”
“No? what for?”
“Not to be put in Potter's Field,” exclaimed the orphan,
with a new burst of grief. “O Robert! I don't want
poor mother to be put in Potter's Field.”
“Don't you cry, Fanny! You and me is both orphans
now! We ain't nu'ther of us got any father or mother—
have we, Fanny?”
“No, Robert,” returned the child; then, looking timidly
in his face, she added, “Yes, Robert, I think we have
a Father!—God is our Father!”
“Who says so?”
“My mother told me so! Mother said God was the
Father of orphan children, and we're both orphan children,
Robert—you said so, just now.”
“That's so, Fanny.”
“Oughtn't we to pray a little, Robert?”
“I dunno how.”
“Don't you know `Our Father which art in Heaven?”'
“No! I never heard anybody pray! How should I
know?”
“Please say `Our Father' with me, Robert! I think
I'll feel better if I do. Say, `Our Father which art in
heaven,”' —
“`Father which art in heaven!”'
“`Hallowed be thy name!”'
“`Hallowed be thy name!' What's that mean, Fan?”
“I don't know, exactly, Robert—but it's good! Mother
used to pray so.”
“Well, go on, Fan.”
“Blowed if them children ain't a playin' on the bed,”
cried a rough voice, as a burly man, in the garb of a
police-officer, appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
Mr. Ferret and the coroner. “Hillo, youngsters! aren't
ye ashamed to he making sport o' your poor dead
mother?”
At this untimely interruption, the frightened girl slid
from the bedside, on which the Weasel had lifted her, and
shrank weeping into the corner. The newsboy stood his
ground, with a glare of defiance at the intruders.
“Here, you—just you give up that money you stole!”
said the policeman, looking sternly at the boy.
“What money?”
“The money that was in the tea-cup,” interrupted
Ferret.
“It's hers,” answered the Weasel, with a significant
jerk of his head towards the corner where Fanny had
taken refuge.
“Just you give it up, and no gammon,” said the policeman.
“We'll settle who it belongs to.”
“He's a cute 'un,” whispered Ferret, as the newsboy
appeared to hesitate. “Reg'lar `old head on young
shoulders.”'
“Jes' you shet up, yer old thief!” muttered the Weasel.
“Will you give it up, or go to the station-house?”
asked the policeman, sententiously, winking alternately, to
eye.
“I won't do nu'ther,” suddenly ejaculated the newsboy;
and then, springing forward like a cat, he darted under
the uplifted arm of the representative of law, and bounding
against Mr. Ferret with such force as to destroy that
individual's equilibrium entirely, disappeared in the dark
passageway beyond, and the next moment was heard
jumping down the staircase.
“Stop thief!” yelled the policeman; and “Stop thief!”
echoed the agent, as he recovered from his overthrow;
and immediately there rose from the entry below, and the
alleyway without, a confusion of discordant cries, followed
by a rush of squalid men and women to the open door of
the death-chamber.
Then the inquest went on; and neighbors who dwelt in
poverty, and filth, and darkness, on every floor of the
tenant-house, beneath, around, and above, gathered about
the bed of a tenant who had paid her last debt. The
little child, terrified and sorrowing, was interrogated by
the pompous coroner, and related how her mother had died
from cramps, in the night, speechless and agonized; how,
during a week previous, she had stitched clothing for oil-suits,
working all the days and most of the nights, to earn
sufficient to pay her week's rent; how they had shivered
from cold, and eaten only crust and water; until the night
before, when “mother was taken with cramps,” and the
child had gone for a penny's worth of tea, and mixed a cup
for her mother; how the poor woman had suffered afterwards,
without fire or medicine, because her week's earning
morning; how, finally, the child had become frightened,
and gone out in the storm to seek her only acquaintance,
Robert Morrison.
“And who was this Robert Morrison?” the coroner
asked.
He was a newsboy who had found a penny which the
child had lost in the street, when going for milk one day,
and, on the strength of a few weeks' acquaintance, had
become somewhat of a protector. Robert had told her to
come for him, if her mother grew worse, and she had
sought and brought him home; but only in time to see
her poor mother die.
“He's not so bad a boy, after all,” said the policeman,
rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand; while Mr.
Ferret went on to testify that he had known deceased five
weeks; she had paid her first month's rent in advance,
but had begged off on the second, and he had “let her
up” a week; and the week was just passed, but that boy
had run away with the rent-money; didn't know anything
else about deceased; wasn't in the habit of inquiring
about tenants, only as to ability to meet rent: a good
many tenants had cramps and rheumatism in Kolephat
College.
“Whose daguerreotype was that which was found
clasped in the hand of deceased?” the coroner inquired.
Mr. Ferret said it was of no value—an old one, in a
broken case; the child said it was a picture of her mother,
and begged that it might be given to her. “Mother gave
it to me,” she said. At this juncture, the burly policeman
force, and exclaimed vehemently—
“Blowed if the child shan't have that picter, any how.”
So the inquest went on, and a permit was made out
for burial in Potter's Field.
| Chapter III.
Kolephat College. The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone | |