University of Virginia Library

9. IX.

They were sitting together, Helph and Jenny, with the twilight
deepening around them, speaking little, thinking much,
and gazing through the long vistas open to the sunshine, and
brighter than the western clouds. But they did not think of
the night that was falling, they did not hear the wind soughing
among the hot walls and roofs, and prophesying storm and
darkness.

Suddenly appeared before them a miserably clad little boy,
the one mentioned in a previous chapter as coming for money,
and now, after a moment's hesitation, on seeing a stranger, he
laid his head in the lap of Jenny, and cried aloud. Stooping
over him, she smoothed back his hair and kissed his forehead;
and in choked and broken utterances he made known his mournful
errand: little Willie was very sick, and Jenny was wanted
at home.

Few preparations were required. Helph would not hear of
her going alone; and in the new and terrible fear awakened
by the message of the child, all her pride vanished, and she did
not remonstrate, though she knew the wretchedness of poverty
that would be bared before him. Folding close in hers the
hand of her little brother, and with tears dimming her eyes,
she silently led the way to the miserable place occupied by her
family.

It was night, and the light of a hundred windows shone down
upon them, when, turning to her young protector, she said, in
a voice trembling with both shame and sorrow, perhaps, “This
is the place.” It was a large dingy building, five stories high
and nearly a hundred feet long, very roughly but substantially
built of brick. It was situated in the meanest suburb of the
city, on an unpaved alley, and opposite a ruinous graveyard,
and it had been erected on the cheapest possible plan, with
especial reference to the poorest class of the community.
Scarcely had the wealthy proprietor an opportunity of posting

bills announcing rooms to let, before it was all occupied; and
with its miserable accommodations, and crowded with people
who were almost paupers, it was a perfect hive of misery.
Porch above porch, opening out on the alley, served as dooryards
to the different apartments—places for the drying of
miserable rags—play-grounds for the children—and look-outs,
for the decrepit old women, on sunny afternoons.

Dish-water, washing suds, and every thing else, from tea and
coffee grounds to all manner of picked bones and other refuse,
were dashed down from these tiers of balconies to the ground
below, so that a more filthy and in all ways unendurable spectacle
can scarcely be imagined, than was presented in the vicinity
of this money-making device, this miserable house refuge.

Leaning against the balusters, smoking and jesting, or quarreling
and swearing, were groups of men, who might be counted
by tens and twenties; and the feeble and querulous tones of
woman, now and then, were heard among them, or from within
the wretched chambers. A little apart from one of these
groups of ignorant disputants sat an old crone combing her
gray hair by the light of a tallow candle, other females were
ironing or washing dishes, while others lolled listlessly and
gracelessly about, listening to, and sometimes taking part in,
the vile or savage or pitiable conversations.

Children, half naked, were playing in pools of stagnant
water, and now and then pelting each other with heads of fishes,
and with slimy bones, caught up at random; and one group,
more vicious than the others, were diverting themselves by
throwing stones at an old cat that lay half in and half out of a
puddle, responding, by feeble struggles, as the rough missiles
struck against her, and here and there were going on such fierce
contests of brutish force as every day illustrate the melancholy
truth that the poor owe so much of their misery to the indulgence
of their basest passions, rather than to any causes necessarily
connected with poverty.

Depravity, as well as poverty, had joined itself to that miserable
congregation. Smoke issued thick from some of the
chimneys, full of the odors of mutton and coffee, and as these
mixed with the vile stenches that thickened the atmosphere

near the scene, Helph, who had been accustomed to the free
air of the country, fresh with the scents of the hay-fields and
orchards, found it hard to suppress the exclamation of disgust
and loathing that rose to his lips, when he turned with Jenny
into the alley, and his senses apprehended in a twinkling what
I have been so long in describing.

Up the steep and narrow wooden stairs, flight after flight, they
passed, catching through the open doors of the different apartments
glimpses of the same squalid character—greasy smoking
stoves, dirty beds, ragged women and children, with here and
there dozing dogs, or men prostrate on the bare floors—either
from weariness or drunkenness—and meagerly-spread tables,
and cradles, and creeping, and crying, and sleeping babies, all
in close proximity.

From the third landing they turned into a side door, and such
a picture presented itself as the young man had never seen
hitherto: the windows were open, but the atmosphere was close,
and had a disagreeable smell of herbs and medicines; a single
candle was lighted, and though the shapes of things were not
distinctly brought out, enough was visible to indicate the extreme
poverty and wretchedness of the family.

It was very still in the room, for the children, with instinctive
fear, were huddled together in the darkest corner, and spoke in
whispers when they spoke at all; and the mother, patient and
pale and wan, sat silent by the bed, holding the chubby sunburned
hands of her dying little boy.

“Oh, mother,” said Jenny, treading softly and speaking low.
Tears filled the poor woman's mild blue eyes, and her lips
trembled as she answered, “It is almost over—he does not
know me any more.”

And forgetting, in the blind fondness of the mother, the
darkness and the sorrow and the pain, and worst of all, the contagion
of evil example, from which he was about to be free,
she buried her face in her hands, and shook with convulsive
agony. All the deprivation and weariness and despair, that
had sometimes made her, with scarce a consciousness of what
she was doing, implore the coming of death, or annihilation, were
in this new sorrow as nothing: with her baby laughing in her

arms, as he had been but the last week, she would be strong to
front the most miserable fate.

Tie after tie may be unbound from the heart, while our steps
climb the rough steep that goes up to power, for the sweet
household affections unwind themselves more and more as the
distance widens between aspiration and contentment, and over
the tide that sweeps into the shining haven of ambition there
is no crossing back. The brow that has felt the shadow of the
laurel, will not be comforted by the familiar kisses of love;
and struggling to the heights of fame, the rumble of clods
against the coffin of some mate of long ago, comes softened of
its awfulest terror; but where the heart, unwarped from its
natural yearnings, presses close, till its throbbings bring up
echoes from the stony bottom of the grave, and when, from
the heaped mound, reaches a shadow that darkens the world
for the humble eyes that may never look up any more—these
keep the bleeding affections, these stay the mourning that the
great cannot understand. Where the wave is narrow, the
dropping of even a pebble of hope sends up the swelling circles
till the whole bosom of the stream is agitated; but in the
broader sea, they lessen and lessen till they lose themselves
in a border of light. And over that little life, moaning itself
away in the dim obscurity of its birth-chamber, fell bitterer
tears, and bowed hearts aching with sharper pains, than they
may ever know whose joys are not alike as simple and as few.
“Oh, Willie, dear little Willie,” sobbed Jenny, folding her
arms about him and kissing him over and over, “speak to me
once, only once more!” Her tears were hot on his whitening
face, but he did not lift his heavily-drooping eyes, nor turn towards
her on the pillow. The children fell asleep, one on
another, where they sat. In the presence of the strong healthy
man they were less afraid, and nestling close together, gradually
forgot that little Willie was not among them—and so came
the good gift which God giveth his beloved in nights of sorrow.

In some chink of the wall the cricket chirped to itself the
same quick short sound, over and over, and about the candle
circled and fluttered the gray-winged moths, heedless of their
perished fellows, and on the table stood a painted bucket half

filled with tepid water, and beside it a brown jug and broken
glass.

Now and then the mother and daughter exchanged anxious
looks, as a footstep was heard on the stairs, but when it turned
aside to some one of the adjoining chambers, they resumed
their watching, not speaking their hopes or fears, if either had
been awakened.

From the white dome of St. Peter's sounded the silvery
chime of the midnight; the sick child had fallen asleep an
hour before, but now his eyes opened full on his mother, and
his white lips worked faintly; “Jenny,” she said, in a tone of
low but fearful distinctness—for with her head on the bedside
she was fast dozing into forgetfulness—“he is going—going
home.”

“Home,” he repeated, sweetly, and that was the last word
he ever said.

The young man came forward hastily—the soft light of a
setting star drifted across the pillow, and in its pale radiance
he laid the hands together, and smoothed the death-dampened
curls.