University of Virginia Library

MIGGS'S JULIA.

"WELL, I declare, if the Miggses haven't got another young one!" observed Mrs. Melville to Mrs. Routon, who lived next door, one morning in November last.

"You don't say!" exclaimed Mrs. Routon in considerable amazement, which was heightened in effect by a mark of flour on her nose, as she was mixing bread when the information came to her.

Yes: my Henry just told me. It does beat all what poor people want of so many young ones. It seems as if, the less people had, the more mouths they got to fill. Now, them Miggses have all they can do to get bread and potatoes for what they have got; and now they've gone and got another mouth to fill. I have no patience with them at all."

It immediately transpired that what Mrs. Melville thought was just what Mrs. Routon thought.

And it came about very soon, that the entire neighborhood was of the same opinion. The Miggses had made an unhappy mistake.

Miggs's Julia came in the dawn of the day when Mrs. Melville communed with Mrs. Routon. All through that night the wind howled and shrieked and screamed, and the rain came in dashes so prolonged and fierce, as if it was pouring out the concentrated fury of five centuries upon the devoted earth. It was not a propitious night for taking a first view of this world; and perhaps that may have accounted for the tired look in the pair of eyes which lay staring upwards when the dawn came, and into which another pair of eyes, very large and very black, looked hungrily. If one so young, so very young, as Miggs's Julia undoubtedly was on this morning of its coming, could comprehend its surroundings, then it must have understood that it was a very unfortunate, if not a criminal, thing for it to have come at all. There can be no doubt but that it so comprehended, and that it so understood. There was certainly an expression on the blue and pinched face signifying that a mistake had been made, but that it was too helpless, if not too indifferent, to correct it.

It was not a strong child. Mrs. Miggs said this over and over again; while Mr. Miggs, although not equally frank, still made no denial of this state of the child's physical condition.

It certainly was not a strong child. Neither was it a nervous child. Day passed into night, and emerged again, as is its habit with every revolution of the earth; but it brought no change to Miggs's Julia: and it may be questioned if the puny, silent child took any note of the fact whatever. It lay on its back in the crib, with one very blue, and very thin, and very tiny hand clinched, and its eyes staring helplessly upward, as if in a chronic state of apology. It was not a healthy child, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, a handsome child: but the Miggses never spoke of these things; and perhaps they did not notice them. They called her Julia in deference to the aunt with the ponderous overshoes, who visited the Miggses in state two years ago, a report of which was faithfully rendered in these columns at the time. That was the name given to the blue-faced baby; and by it, in full, it was called. It was such an old baby, such a tired, unimpressible baby, that no one thought of abbreviating Julia into any thing childish and frivolous. The awful solemnity of the pinched face precluded any such liberty. And so all in the family called it Julia, round and full, but very tender.

Last Thursday morning, Mrs. Routon was mixing bread again, with a mark of flour on her nose, when Mrs. Melville came in, and immediately said, with an effort to suppress herself which was quite evident,—

"Have you heard the news?"

"No. What is it?"

"That baby of Miggs's is dead."

"What!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Melville, complacently smoothing the front of her dress. "It died this morning. It was only real sick for two or three days; but then it never did amount to any thing, you know."

"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Routon.

"And it's a mercy it's gone," remarked Mrs. Melville in the same complacent way. "They couldn't have brought it up as it ought to be; and it's a thousand times better off where it is."

"I suppose Mrs. Miggs feels badly about it," suggested Mrs. Routon after a pause.

"I don't see how she can," somewhat hastily maintained Mrs. Melville: "she's got a whole raft of children now, and has to pinch from morning to night to get them half clothed and fed. She ought to be thankful that this one is gone where it won't suffer any more."

Do you hear that, Matilda Miggs? You ought to be thankful that your baby is gone, and to realize that it is a mercy that it is gone. That's what you ought to be; but you don't look much like it, crouched up in a corner on the floor like a stricken beast, with your great eyes staring agonizingly at the clinched white hand and the pinched face

looking upward from the crib. Ah, Matilda Miggs! there are a score of neighbors far better informed than you are, who can tell you, and are anxious to tell you, that you ought to be thankful that the little clinched hand is a dead hand, and that the white face now set heavenward forever is a dead face. Never again will the tiny fingers loosen to pass softly over your face; never again will the closed eyes open to look wonderingly into yours: but you are not thankful for this. If you were in the least bit grateful, you would not crouch down there in the corner. Are you always going to remain there? Are you always going to stare like that? Won't you cry out? Won't you unclinch your hands? Don't you see that you are disturbing and distressing those who come and look into the crib, and go again, by your stony eyes and your ghastly face?

Don't you know that you are flying into the very face of society, and the very best society at that?

And you, John Miggs, with your great hulk of a frame, and white eyes that stare at every thing, and see nothing, standing at the back of the house, and chewing things, and spitting them out again, and kicking things you can't chew,—you are far from looking grateful, however grateful you may feel. Don't you hear what society says to you? You ought to be grateful that the white face is staring no more at your ceiling, that the tired eyes

are no more looking for bread, and that the pitiful mouth has grown close in death, and will never open again for you to fill it,—never again. Look up at the heavens, John Miggs, and see how ragged are the clouds which cover them. Look all about you over the earth with its decay, and its filth and debris, and bareness and rust, and then look upon yourself and your home, and see poverty and struggling everywhere. Ain't you glad that the pinched face is a dead face? If you ain't glad, you are a foe to society, and as much of an animal as the woman with the stricken face and the despairing eyes.

And as for you, Tommy Miggs, grovelling on the dirty slabs of the shed-floor, there is some excuse for you, because you are young. But even you have felt the grip of your lifetime foe; and even you ought to get up on your feet, and take the patched arms from over the aching head, and choke back that nameless feeling in your breast which makes your throat dry and your eyes lustreless, and try to look glad.

And there is the "whole raft" of Miggses, knuckling their aching eyes with their rebellious fists, and crying silently in darkened corners for the baby-face with its tired look and its pitiful eyes to come back to them.

There is not a spark of gratitude in all that house,—not one single spark of gratitude. It is awful.