Cast Adrift by T. S. Arthur (page 4)

of it.”

“I must see Mr. Paulding in the morning,” said Edith, with calm decision.

“Then I will go with you,” returned Mr. Dinneford.

“Thank you, father;” and she kissed him. “Until then nothing more can be done.” She kissed him again, and then went to her own room. After locking the door she sank on her knees, leaning forward, with her face buried in the cushion of a chair, and did not rise for a long time.

CHAPTER XIV.

_ON_ the next morning, after some persuasion, Edith consented to postpone her visit to Grubb’s court until after her father had seen Mr. Paulding, the missionary.

“Let me go first and gain what information I can,” he urged. “It may save you a fruitless errand.”

It was not without a feeling of almost unconquerable repugnance that Mr. Dinneford took his way to the mission-house, in Briar street. His tastes, his habits and his naturally kind and sensitive feelings all made him shrink from personal contact with suffering and degradation. He gave much time and care to the good work of helping the poor and the wretched, but did his work in boards and on committees, rather than in the presence of the needy and suffering. He was not one of those who would pass over to the other side and leave a wounded traveler to perish, but he would avoid the road to Jericho, if he thought it likely any such painful incident would meet him in the way and shock his fine sensibilities. He was willing to work for the downcast, the wronged, the suffering and the vile, but preferred doing so at a distance, and not in immediate contact. Thus it happened that, although one of the managers of the Briar street mission and familiar with its work in a general way, he had never been at the mission-house–had never, in fact, set his foot within the morally plague-stricken district in which it stood. He had often been urged to go, but could not overcome his reluctance to meet humanity face to face in its sadder and more degraded aspects.

Now a necessity was upon him, and he had to go. It was about ten o’clock in the morning when, at almost a single step, he passed from what seemed paradise to purgatory, the sudden contrast was so great. There were but few persons in the little street; where the mission was situated at that early hour, and most of these were children–poor, half-clothed, dirty, wan-faced, keen-eyed and alert bits of humanity, older by far than their natural years, few of them possessing any higher sense of right and wrong than young savages. The night’s late orgies or crimes had left most of their elders in a heavy morning sleep, from which they did not usually awaken before midday. Here and there one and another came creeping out, impelled by a thirst no water could quench. Now it was a bloated, wild-eyed man, dirty and forlorn beyond description, shambling into sight, but disappearing in a moment or two in one of the dram-shops, whose name was legion, and now it was a woman with the angel all gone out of her face, barefooted, blotched, coarse, red-eyed, bruised and awfully disfigured by her vicious, drunken life. Her steps too made haste to the dram-shop.

Such houses for men and women to live in as now stretched before his eyes in long dreary rows Mr. Dinneford had never seen, except in isolated cases of vice and squalor. To say that he was shocked would but faintly express his feelings. Hurrying along, he soon came in sight of the mission. At this moment a jar broke the quiet of the scene. Just beyond the mission-house two women suddenly made their appearance, one of them pushing the other out upon the street. Their angry cries rent the air, filling it with profane and obscene oaths. They struggled together for a little while, and then one of them, a woman with gray hair and not less than sixty years of age, fell across the curb with her head on the cobble-stones.

As if a sorcerer had stamped his foot, a hundred wretched creatures, mostly women and children, seemed to spring up from the ground. It was like a phantasy. They gathered about the prostrate woman, laughing and jeering. A policeman who was standing at the corner a little way off came up leisurely, and pushing the motley crew aside, looked down at the prostrate woman.

“Oh, it’s you again!” he said, in a tone of annoyance, taking hold of one arm and raising her so that she sat on the curb-stone. Mr. Dinneford now saw her face distinctly; it was that of an old woman, but red, swollen and terribly marred. Her thin gray hair had fallen over her shoulders, and gave her a wild and crazy look.

“Come,” said the policeman, drawing on the woman’s arm and trying to raise her from the ground. But she would not move.

“Come,” he said, more imperatively.

“Nature you going to do with me?” she demanded.

“I’m going to lock you up. So come along. Have had enough of you about here. Always drunk and in a row with somebody.”

Her resistance was making the policeman angry.

“It’ll take two like you to do that,” returned the woman, in a spiteful voice, swearing foully at the same time.

At this a cheer arose from the crowd. A negro with a push-cart came along at the moment.

“Here! I want you,” called the policeman.

The negro pretended not to hear, and the policeman had to threaten him before he would stop.

Seeing the cart, the drunken woman threw herself back upon the pavement and set every muscle to a rigid strain. And now came one of those shocking scenes–too familiar, alas! in portions of our large Christian cities–at which everything pure and merciful and holy in our nature revolts: a gray-haired old woman, so debased by drink and an evil life that all sense of shame and degradation had been extinguished, fighting with a policeman, and for a time showing superior strength, swearing vilely, her face distorted with passion, and a crowd made up chiefly of women as vile and degraded as herself, and of all ages, and colors, laughing, shouting and enjoying the scene intensely.

At last, by aid of the negro, the woman was lifted into the cart and thrown down upon the floor, her head striking one of the sides with a sickening _thud_. She still swore and struggled, and had to be held down by the policeman, who stood over her, while the cart was pushed off to the nearest station-house, the excited crowd following with shouts and merry huzzas.

Mr. Dinneford was standing in a maze, shocked and distressed by this little episode, when a man at his side said in a grave, quiet voice,

“I doubt if you could see a sight just like that anywhere else in all Christendom.” Then added, as he extended his hand,

“I am glad to see you here, Mr. Dinneford.”

“Oh, Mr. Paulding!” and Mr. Dinneford put out his hand and grasped that of the missionary with a nervous grip. “This is awful! I am sixty years old, but anything so shocking my eyes have not before looked upon.”

“We see things worse than this every day,” said the missionary. “It is only one of the angry boils on the surface, and tells of the corrupt and vicious blood within. But I am right glad to find you here, Mr. Dinneford. Unless you see these things with your own eyes, it is impossible for you to comprehend the condition of affairs in this by-way to hell.”

“Hell, itself, better say,” returned Mr. Dinneford. “It is hell pushing itself into visible manifestation–hell establishing itself on the earth, and organizing its forces for the destruction of human souls, while the churches are too busy enlarging their phylacteries and making broader and more attractive the hems of their garments to take note of this fatal vantage-ground acquired by the enemy.”

Mr. Dinneford stood and looked around him in a dazed sort of way.

“Is Grubb’s court near this?” he asked, recollecting the errand upon which he had come.

“Yes.”

“A young lady called to see you yesterday afternoon to ask about a child in that court?”

“Oh yes! You know the lady?”

“She is my daughter. One of the poor children in her sewing-class told her of a neglected baby in Grubb’s court, and so drew upon her sympathies that she started to go there, but was warned by the child that it would be dangerous for a young lady like her to be seen in that den of thieves and harlots, and so she came to you. And now I am here in her stead to get your report about the baby. I would not consent to her visiting this place again.”

Mr. Paulding took his visitor into the mission-house, near which they were standing. After they were seated, he said,

“I have seen the baby about which your daughter wished me to make inquiry. The woman who has the care of it is a vile creature, well known in this region–drunken and vicious. She said at first that it was her own baby, but afterward admitted that she didn’t know who its mother was, and that she was paid for taking care of it. I found out, after a good deal of talking round, and an interview with the mother of the child who is in your daughter’s sewing-class, that a girl of notoriously bad character, named Pinky Swett, pays the baby’s board. There’s a mystery about the child, and I am of the opinion that it has been stolen, or is known to be the offcast of some respectable family. The woman who has the care of it was suspicious, and seemed annoyed at my questions.”

“Is it a boy?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“Yes, and has a finely-formed head and a pair of large, clear, hazel eyes. Evidently it is of good parentage. The vicious, the sensual and the depraved mark their offspring with the unmistakable signs of their moral depravity. You cannot mistake them. But this baby has in its poor, wasted, suffering little face, in its well-balanced head and deep, almost spiritual eyes, the signs of a better origin.”

“It ought at once to be taken away from the woman,” said Mr. Dinneford, in a very decided manner.

“Who is to take it?” asked the missionary.

Mr. Dinneford was silent.

“Neither you nor I have any authority to do so. If I were to see it cast out upon the street, I might have it sent to the almshouse; but until I find it abandoned or shamefully abused, I have no right to interfere.”

“I would like to see the baby,” said Mr. Dinneford, on whose mind painful suggestions akin to those that were so disturbing his daughter were beginning to intrude themselves.

“It would hardly be prudent to go there to-day,” said Mr. Paulding.

“Why not?”

“It would arouse suspicion; and if there is anything wrong, the baby would drop out of sight. You would not find it if you went again. These people are like birds with their wings half lifted, and fly away at the first warning of danger. As it is, I fear my visit and inquiries will be quite sufficient to the cause the child’s removal to another place.”

Mr. Dinneford mused for a while:

“There ought to be some way to reach a case like this, and there is, I am sure. From what you say, it is more than probable that this poor little waif may have drifted out of some pleasant home, where love would bless it with the tenderest care, into this hell of neglect and cruelty. It should be rescued on the instant. It is my duty–it is yours–to see that it is done, and that without delay. I will go at once to the mayor and state the case. He will send an officer with me, I know, and we will take the child by force. If its real mother then comes forward and shows herself at all worthy to have the care of it, well; if not, I will see that it is taken care of. I know where to place it.”

To this proposition Mr. Paulding had no objection to offer.

“If you take that course, and act promptly, you can no doubt get possession of the poor thing. Indeed, sir”–and the missionary spoke with much earnestness–“if men of influence like yourself would come here and look the evil of suffering and neglected children in the face, and then do what they could to destroy that evil, there would soon be joy in heaven over the good work accomplished by their hands. I could give you a list of ten or twenty influential citizens whose will would be next to law in a matter like this who could in a month, if they put heart and hand to it, do such a work for humanity here as would make the angels glad. But they are too busy with their great enterprises to give thought and effort to a work like this.”

A shadow fell across the missionary’s face. There was a tone of discouragement in his voice.

“The great question is _what_ to do,” said Mr. Dinneford. “There are no problems so hard to solve as these problems of social evil. If men and women choose to debase themselves, who is to hinder? The vicious heart seeks a vicious life. While the heart is depraved the life will be evil. So long as the fountain is corrupt the water will be foul.”

“There is a side to all this that most people do not consider,” answered Mr. Paulding. “Self-hurt is one thing, hurt of the neighbor quite another. It may be questioned whether society has a right to touch the individual freedom of a member in anything that affects himself alone. But the moment he begins to hurt his neighbor, whether from ill-will or for gain, then it is the duty of society to restrain him. The common weal demands this, to say nothing of Christian obligation. If a man were to set up an exhibition in our city dangerous to life and limb, but so fascinating as to attract large numbers to witness and participate therein, and if hundreds were maimed or killed every year, do you think any one would question the right of our authorities to repress it? And yet to-day there are in our city more than twenty thousand persons who live by doing things a thousand times more hurtful to the people than any such exhibition could possibly be. And what is marvelous to think of, the larger part of these persons are actually licensed by the State to get gain by hurting, depraving and destroying the people. Think of it, Mr. Dinneford! The whole question lies in a nutshell. There is no difficulty about the problem. Restrain men from doing harm to each other, and the work is more than half done.”

“Is not the law all the while doing this?”

“The law,” was answered. “is weakly dealing with effect–how weakly let prison and police statistics show. Forty thousand arrests in our city for a single year, and the cause of these arrests clearly traced to the liquor licenses granted to five or six thousand persons to make money by debasing and degrading the people. If all of these were engaged in useful employments, serving, as every true citizen is bound to do, the common good, do you think we should have so sad and sickening a record? No, sir! We must go back to the causes of things. Nothing but radical work will do.”

“You think, then,” said Mr. Dinneford, “that the true remedy for all these dreadful social evils lies in restrictive legislation?”

“Restrictive only on the principles of eternal right,” answered the missionary. “Man’s freedom over himself must not be touched. Only his freedom to hurt his neighbor must be abridged. Here society has a right to put bonds on its members–to say to each individual, You are free to do anything by which your neighbor is served, but nothing to harm him. Here is where the discrimination must be made; and when the mass of the people come to see this, we shall have the beginning of a new day. There will then be hope for such poor wretches as crowd this region; or if most of them are so far lost as to be without hope, their places, when they die, will not be filled with new recruits for the army of perdition.”

“If the laws we now have were only executed,” said Mr. Dinneford, “there might be hope in our legislative restrictions. But the people are defrauded of justice through defects in its machinery. There are combinations to defeat good laws. There are men holding high office notoriously in league with scoundrels who prey upon the people. Through these, justice perpetually fails.”

“The people are alone to blame,” replied the missionary. “Each is busy with his farm and his merchandise with his own affairs, regardless of his neighbor. The common good is nothing, so that his own good is served. Each weakly folds his hands and is sorry when these troublesome questions are brought to his notice, but doesn’t see that he can do anything. Nor can the people, unless some strong and influential leaders rally them, and, like great generals, lead them to the battle. As I said a little while ago, there are ten or twenty men in this city who, if they could be made to feel their high responsibility–who, if they could be induced to look away for a brief period from their great enterprises and concentrate thought and effort upon these questions of social evil, abuse of justice and violations of law–would in a single month inaugurate reforms and set agencies to work that would soon produce marvelous changes. They need not touch the rottenness of this half-dead carcass with knife or poultice. Only let them cut off the sources of pollution and disease, and the purified air will do the work of restoration where moral vitality remains, or hasten the end in those who are debased beyond hope.”

“What could these men do? Where would their work begin?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“Their own intelligence would soon discover the way to do this work if their hearts were in it. Men who can organize and successfully conduct great financial and industrial enterprises, who know how to control the wealth and power of the country and lead the people almost at will, would hardly be at fault in the adjustment of a matter like this. What would be the money influence of ‘whisky rings’ and gambling associations, set against the social and money influence of these men? Nothing, sir, nothing! Do you think we should long have over six thousand bars and nearly four hundred lottery-policy shops in our city if the men to whom I refer were to take the matter in hand?”

“Are there so many policy-shops?” asked Mr. Dinneford, in surprise.

“There may be more. You will find them by scores in every locality where poor and ignorant people are crowded together, sucking out their substance, and in the neighborhood of all the market-houses and manufactories, gathering in spoil. The harm they are doing is beyond computation. The men who control this unlawful business are rich and closely organized. They gather in their dishonest gains at the rate of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and know how and where to use this money for the protection of their agents in the work of defrauding the people, and the people are helpless because our men of wealth and influence have no time to give to public justice or the suppression of great social wrongs. With them, as things now are, rests the chief responsibility. They have the intelligence, the wealth and the public confidence, and are fully equal to the task if they will put their hands to the work. Let them but lift the standard and sound the trumpet of reform, and the people will rally instantly at the call. It must not be a mere spasmodic effort–a public meeting with wordy resolutions and strong speeches only–but organized work based on true principles of social order and the just rights of the people.”

“You are very much in earnest about this matter,” said Mr. Dinneford, seeing how excited the missionary had grown.

“And so would you and every other good citizen become if, standing face to face, as I do daily, with this awful debasement and crime and suffering, you were able to comprehend something of its real character. If I could get the influential citizens to whom I have referred to come here and see for themselves, to look upon this pandemonium in their midst and take in an adequate idea of its character, significance and aggressive force, there would be some hope of making them see their duty, of arousing them to action. But they stand aloof, busy with personal and material interest, while thousands of men, women and children are yearly destroyed, soul and body, through their indifference to duty and ignorance of their fellows’ suffering.”

“It is easy to say such things,” answered Mr. Dinneford, who felt the remarks of Mr. Paulding as almost personal.

“Yes, it is easy to say them,” returned the missionary, his voice dropping to a lower key, “and it may be of little use to say them. I am sometimes almost in despair, standing so nearly alone as I do with my feet on the very brink of this devastating flood of evil, and getting back only faint echoes to my calls for help. But when year after year I see some sheaves coming in as the reward of my efforts and of the few noble hearts that work with me, I thank God and take courage, and I lift my voice and call more loudly for help, trusting that I may be heard by some who, if they would only come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, would scatter his foes like chaff on the threshing-floor. But I am holding you back from your purpose to visit the mayor; I think you had better act promptly if you would get possession of the child. I shall be interested in the result, and will take it as a favor if you will call at the mission again.”

CHAPTER XV.

_WHEN_ Mr. Dinneford and the policeman sent by the mayor at his solicitation visited Grubb’s court, the baby was not to be found. The room in which it had been seen by Mr. Paulding was vacant. Such a room as it was!–low and narrow, with bare, blackened walls, the single window having scarcely two whole panes of glass, the air loaded with the foulness that exhaled from the filth-covered floor, the only furniture a rough box and a dirty old straw bed lying in a corner.

As Mr. Dinneford stood at the door of this room and inhaled its fetid air, he grew sick, almost faint. Stepping back, with a shocked and disgusted look on his face, he said to the policeman,

“There must be a mistake. This cannot be the room.”

Two or three children and a coarse, half-clothed woman, seeing a gentleman going into the house accompanied by a policeman, had followed them closely up stairs.

“Who lives in this room?” asked the policeman, addressing the woman.

“Don’t know as anybody lives there now,” she replied, with evident evasion.

“Who did live here?” demanded the policeman.

“Oh, lots!” returned the woman, curtly.

“I want to know who lived here last,” said the policeman, a little sternly.

“Can’t say–never keep the run of ’em,” answered the woman, with more indifference than she felt. “Goin’ and comin’ all the while. Maybe it was Poll Davis.”

“Had she a baby?”

The woman gave a vulgar laugh as she replied: “I rather think not.”

“It was Moll Fling,” said one of the children, “and she had a baby.”

“When was she here last?” inquired the policeman.

The woman, unseen by the latter, raised her fist and threatened the child, who did not seem to be in the least afraid of her, for she answered promptly:

“She went away about an hour ago.”

“And took the baby?”

“Yes. You see Mr. Paulding was here asking about the baby, and she got scared.”

“Why should that scare her?”

“I don’t know, only it isn’t her baby.”

“How do you know that?”

“‘Cause it isn’t–I know it isn’t. She’s paid to take care of it.”

“Who by?”

“Pinky Swett.”

“Who’s Pinky Swett?”

“Don’t you know Pinky Swett?” and the child seemed half surprised.

“Where does Pinky Swett live?” asked the policeman.

“She did live next door for a while, but I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Nothing beyond this could be ascertained. But having learned the names of the women who had possession of the child, the policeman said there would be no difficulty about discovering them. It might take a little time, but they could not escape the vigilance of the police.

With this assurance, Mr. Dinneford hastened from the polluted air of Grubb’s court, and made his way to the mission in Briar street, in order to have some further conference with Mr. Paulding.

“As I feared,” said the missionary, on learning that the baby could not be found. “These creatures are as keen of scent as Indians, and know the smallest sign of danger. It is very plain that there is something wrong–that these women have no natural right to the child, and that they are not using it to beg with.”

“Do you know a woman called Pinky Swett?” asked the policeman.

“I’ve heard of her, but do not know her by sight. She bears a hard reputation even here, and adds to her many evil accomplishments the special one of adroit robbery. A victim lured to her den rarely escapes without loss of watch or pocket-book. And not one in a hundred dares to give information, for this would expose him to the public, and so her crimes are covered. Pinky Swett is not the one to bother herself about a baby unless its parentage be known, and not then unless the knowledge can be turned to advantage.”

“The first thing to be done, then, is to find this woman,” said the policeman.

“That will not be very hard work. But finding the baby, if she thinks you are after it, would not be so easy,” returned Mr. Paulding. “She’s as cunning as a fox.”

“We shall see. If the chief of police undertakes to find the baby, it won’t be out of sight long. You’d better confer with the mayor again,” added the policeman, addressing Mr. Dinneford.

“I will do so without delay,” returned that gentleman.

“I hope to see you here again soon,” said the missionary as Mr. Dinneford was about going. “If I can help you in any way, I shall do so gladly.”

“I have no doubt but that you can render good service.” Then, in half apology, and to conceal the real concern at his heart, Mr. Dinneford added, “Somehow, and strangely enough when I come to think of it, I have allowed myself to get drawn into this thing, and once in, the natural persistence of my character leads me to go on to the end. I am one of those who cannot bear to give up or acknowledge a defeat; and so, having set my hand to this work, I am going to see it through.”

When the little girl who had taken Edith to the mission-house in Briar street got home and told her story, there was a ripple of excitement in that part of Grubb’s court where she lived, and a new interest was felt in the poor neglected baby. Mr. Paulding’s visit and inquiries added to this interest. It had been several days since Pinky Swett’s last visit to the child to see that it was safe. On the morning after Edith’s call at the mission she came in about ten o’clock, and heard the news. In less than twenty minutes the child and the woman who had charge of it both disappeared from Grubb’s court. Pinky sent them to her own room, not many squares distant, and then drew from the little girl who was in Edith’s sewing-class all she knew about that young lady. It was not much that the child could tell. She was very sweet and good and handsome, and wore such beautiful clothes, was so kind and patient with the girls, but she did not remember her name, thought it was Edith.

“Now, see here,” said Pinky, and she put some money into the child’s hand; “I want you to find out for me what her name is and where she lives. Mind, you must be very careful to remember.”

“What do you want to know for?” asked the little girl.

“That’s none of your business. Do what I tell you,” returned Pinky, with impatience; “and if you do it right, I’ll give you a quarter more. When do you go again?”

“Next week, on Thursday.”

“Not till next Thursday!” exclaimed Pinky, in a tone of disappointment.

“The school’s only once a week.”

Pinky chafed a good deal, but it was of no use; she must wait.

“You’ll be sure and go next Thursday?” she said.

“If Mother lets me,” replied the child.

“Oh, I’ll see to that; I’ll make her let you. What time does the school go in?”

“At three o’clock.”

“Very well. You wait for me. I’ll come round here at half-past two, and go with you. I want to see the young lady. They’ll let me come into the school and learn to sew, won’t they?”

“I don’t know; you’re too big, and you don’t want to learn.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because I do.”

Pinky laughed, and then said,

“You’ll wait for me?”

“Yes, if mother says so.”

“All right;” and Pinky hurried away to take measures for hiding the baby from a search that she felt almost sure was about being made. The first thing she did was to soundly abuse the woman in whose care she had placed the hapless child for her neglect and ill treatment, both of which were too manifest, and then to send her away under the new aspect of affairs she did not mean to trust this woman, nor indeed to trust anybody who knew anything of the inquiries which had been made about the child. A new nurse must be found, and she must live as far away from the old locality as possible. Pinky was not one inclined to put things off. Thought and act were always close together. Scarcely had the woman been gone ten minutes, before, bundling the baby in a shawl, she started off to find a safer hiding-place. This time she was more careful about the character and habits of the person selected for a nurse, and the baby’s condition was greatly improved. The woman in whose charge she placed it was poor, but neither drunken nor depraved. Pinky arranged with her to take the care of it for two dollars a week, and supplied it with clean and comfortable clothing. Even she, wicked and vile as she was, could not help being touched by the change that appeared in the baby’s shrunken face, and in its sad but beautiful eyes, after its wasted little body had been cleansed and clothed in clean, warm garments and it had taken its fill of nourishing food.

“It’s a shame, the way it has been abused,” said Pinky, speaking from an impulse of kindness, such as rarely swelled in her evil heart.

“A crying shame,” answered the woman as she drew the baby close against her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the large brown eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal.

The real motherly tenderness that was in this woman’s heart was quickly perceived by the child, who did not move its eyes from hers, but lay perfectly still, gazing up at her in a kind of easeful rest such as it had never before known. She spoke to it in loving tones, touched its thin cheeks with her finger in playful caresses, kissed it on its lips and forehead, hugged it to her bosom; and still the eyes were fixed on hers in a strange baby-wonder, though not the faintest glinting of a smile played on its lips or over its serious face. Had it never learned to smile?

At last the poor thin lips curved a little, crushing out the lines of suffering, and into the eyes there came a loving glance in place of the fixed, wondering look that was almost a stare. A slight lifting of the hands, a motion of the head, a thrill through the whole body came next, and then a tender cooing sound.

“Did you ever see such beautiful eyes?” said the woman. “It will be a splendid baby when it has picked up a little.”

“Let it pick up as fast as it can,” returned Pinky; “but mind what I say: you are to be mum. Here’s your pay for the first week, and you shall have it fair and square always. Call it your own baby, if you will, or your grandson. Yes, that’s better. He’s the child of your dead daughter, just sent to you from somewhere out of town. So take good care of him, and keep your mouth shut. I’ll be round again in a little while.”

And with this injunction Pinky went away. On the next Thursday she visited the St. John’s mission sewing-school in company with the little girl from Grubb’s court, but greatly to her disappointment, Edith did not make her appearance. There were four or five ladies in attendance on the school, which, under the superintendence of one of them, a woman past middle life, with a pale, serious face and a voice clear and sweet, was conducted with an order and decorum not often maintained among a class of children such as were there gathered together.

It was a long time since Pinky had found herself so repressed and ill at ease. There was a spiritual atmosphere in the place that did not vitalize her blood. She felt a sense of constriction and suffocation. She had taken her seat in the class taught usually by Edith, with the intention of studying that young lady and finding out all she could about her, not doubting her ability to act the part in hand with perfect self-possession. But she had not been in the room a minute before confidence began to die, and very soon she found herself ill at ease and conscious of being out of her place. The bold, bad woman felt weak and abashed. An unseen sphere of purity and Christian love surrounded and touched her soul with as palpable an impression as outward things give to the body. She had something of the inward distress and pain a devil would feel if lifted into the pure air of heaven, and the same desire to escape and plunge back into the dense and impure atmosphere in which evil finds its life and enjoyment. If she had come with any good purpose, it would have been different, but evil, and only evil, was in her heart; and when this felt the sphere of love and purity, her breast was constricted and life seemed going out of her.

It was little less than torture to Pinky for the short time she remained. As soon as she was satisfied that Edith would not be there, she threw down the garment on which she had been pretending to sew, and almost ran from the room.

“Who is that girl?” asked the lady who was teaching the class, looking in some surprise after the hurrying figure.

“It’s Pinky Swett,” answered the child from Grubb’s court. “She wanted to see our teacher.”

“Who is your regular teacher?” was inquired.

“Don’t remember her name.”

“It’s Edith,” spoke up one of the girls. “Mrs. Martin called her that.”

“What did this Pinky Swett want to see her about?”

“Don’t know,” answered the child as she remembered the money Pinky had given her and the promise of more.

The teacher questioned no further, but went on with her work in the class.

CHAPTER XVI.

_IT_ was past midday when Mr. Dinneford returned home after his fruitless search. Edith, who had been waiting for hours in restless suspense, heard his step in the hall, and ran down to meet him.

“Did you see the baby?”‘ she asked, trying to keep her agitation down.

Mr. Dinneford only shook his head,

“Why, not, father?” Her voice choked.

“It could not be found.”

“You saw Mr. Paulding?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t he find the baby?”

“Oh yes. But when I went to Grubb’s court this morning, it was not there, and no one could or would give any information about it. As the missionary feared, those having possession of the baby had taken alarm and removed it to another place. But I have seen the mayor and some of the police, and got them interested. It will not be possible to hide the child for any length of time.”

“You said that Mr. Paulding saw it?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?” Edith’s voice trembled as she asked the question.

“He thinks there is something wrong.”

“Did he tell you how the baby looked?”

“He said that it had large, beautiful brown eyes.”

Edith clasped her hands, and drew them tightly against her bosom.

“Oh, father! if it should be my baby!”

“My dear, dear child,” said Mr. Dinneford, putting his arms about Edith and holding her tightly, “you torture yourself with a wild dream. The thing is impossible.”

“It is somebody’s baby,” sobbed Edith, her face on her father’s breast, “and it may be mine. Who knows?”

“We will do our best to find it,” returned Mr. Dinneford, “and then do what Christian charity demands. I am in earnest so far, and will leave nothing undone, you may rest assured. The police have the mayor’s instructions to find the baby and give it into my care, and I do not think we shall have long to wait.”

An ear they thought not of, heard all this. Mrs. Dinneford’s suspicions had been aroused by many things in Edith’s manner and conduct of late, and she had watched her every look and word and movement with a keenness of observation that let nothing escape. Careful as her husband and daughter were in their interviews, it was impossible to conceal anything from eyes that never failed in watchfulness. An unguarded word here, a look of mutual intelligence there, a sudden silence when she appeared, an unusual soberness of demeanor and evident absorbed interest in something they were careful to conceal, had the effect to quicken all Mrs. Dinneford’s alarms and suspicions.

She had seen from the top of the stairs a brief but excited interview pass between Edith and her father as the latter stood in the vestibule that morning, and she had noticed the almost wild look on her daughter’s face as she hastened back along the hall and ran up to her room. Here she stayed alone for over an hour, and then came down to the parlor, where she remained restless, moving about or standing by the window for a greater part of the morning.

There was something more than usual on hand. Guilt in its guesses came near the truth. What could all this mean, if it had not something to do with the cast-off baby? Certainty at last came. She was in the dining-room when Edith ran down to meet her father in the hall, and slipped noiselessly and unobserved into one of the parlors, where, concealed by a curtain, she heard everything that passed between her husband and daughter.

Still as death she stood, holding down the strong pulses of her heart. From the hall Edith and her father turned into one of the parlors–the same in which Mrs. Dinneford was concealed behind the curtain–and sat down.

“It had large brown eyes?” said Edith, a yearning tenderness in her voice.

“Yes, and a finely-formed bead, showing good parentage,” returned the father.

“Didn’t you find out who the women were–the two bad women the little girl told me about? If we had their names, the police could find them. The little girl’s mother must know who they are.”

“We have the name of one of them,” said Mr. Dinneford. “She is called Pinky Swett, and it can’t be long before the police are on her track. She is said to be a desperate character. Nothing more can be done now; we must wait until the police work up the affair. I will call at the mayor’s office in the morning and find out what has been done.”

Mrs. Dinneford heard no more. The bell rang, and her husband and daughter left the parlor and went up stairs. The moment they were beyond observation she glided noiselessly through the hall, and reached her chamber without being noticed. Soon afterward she came down dressed for visiting, and went out hastily, her veil closely drawn. Her manner was hurried. Descending the steps, she stood for a single moment, as if hesitating which way to go, and then moved off rapidly. Soon she had passed out of the fashionable neighborhood in which she lived. After this she walked more slowly, and with the air of one whose mind was in doubt or hesitation. Once she stopped, and turning about, slowly retraced her steps for the distance of a square. Then she wheeled around, as if from some new and strong resolve, and went on again. At last she paused before a respectable-looking house of moderate size in a neighborhood remote from the busier and more thronged parts of the city. The shutters were all bowed down to the parlor, and the house had a quiet, unobtrusive look. Mrs. Dinneford gave a quick, anxious glance up and down the street, and then hurriedly ascended the steps and rang the bell.

“Is Mrs. Hoyt in?” she asked of a stupid-looking girl who came to the door.

“Yes, ma’am,” was answered.

“Tell her a lady wants to see her;” and she passed into the plainly-furnished parlor. There were no pictures on the walls nor ornaments on the mantel-piece, nor any evidence of taste–nothing home-like–in the shadowed room, the atmosphere of which was close and heavy. She waited here for a few moments, when there was a rustle of garments and the sound of light, quick feet on the stairs. A small, dark-eyed, sallow-faced woman entered the parlor.

“Mrs. Bray–no, Mrs. Hoyt.”

“Mrs. Dinneford;” and the two women stood face to face for a few moments, each regarding the other keenly.

“Mrs. Hoyt–don’t forget,” said the former, with a warning emphasis in her voice. “Mrs. Bray is dead.”

In her heart Mrs. Dinneford wished that it were indeed so.

“Anything wrong?” asked the black-eyed little woman.

“Do you know a Pinky Swett?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, abruptly.

Mrs. Hoyt–so we must now call her–betrayed surprise at this question, and was about answering “No,” but checked herself and gave a half-hesitating “Yes,” adding the question, “What about her?”

Before Mrs. Dinneford could reply, however, Mrs. Hoyt took hold of her arm and said, “Come up to my room. Walls have ears sometimes, and I will not answer for these.”

Mrs. Dinneford went with her up stairs to a chamber in the rear part of the building.

“We shall be out of earshot here,” said Mrs. Hoyt as she closed the door, locking it at the same time. “And now tell me what’s up, and what about Pinky Swett.”

“You know her?”

“Yes, slightly.”

“More than slightly, I guess.”

Mrs. Hoyt’s eyes flashed impatiently. Mrs. Dinneford saw it, and took warning.

“She’s got that cursed baby.”

“How do you know?”

“No matter how I know. It’s enough that I know. Who is she?”

“That question may be hard to answer. About all I know of her is that she came from the country a few years ago, and has been drifting about here ever since.”

“What is she doing with that baby? and how did she get hold of it?”

“Questions more easily asked than answered.”

“Pshaw! I don’t want any beating about the bush, Mrs. Bray.”

“Mrs. Hoyt,” said the person addressed.

“Oh, well, Mrs. Hoyt, then. We ought to understand each other by this time.”

“I guess we do;” and the little woman arched her brows.

“I don’t want any beating about the bush,” resumed Mrs. Dinneford. “I am here on business.”

“Very well; let’s to business, then;” and Mrs. Hoyt leaned back in her chair.

“Edith knows that this woman has the baby,” said Mrs. Dinneford.

“What!” and Mrs. Hoyt started to her feet.

“The mayor has been seen, and the police are after her.”

“How do you know?”

“Enough that I know. And now, Mrs. Hoyt, this thing must come to an end, and there is not an instant to be lost. Has Pinky Swett, as she is called, been told where the baby came from?”

“Not by me.”

“By anybody?”

“That is more than I can say.”

“What has become of the woman I gave it to?”

“She’s about somewhere.”

“When did you see her?”

Mrs. Hoyt pretended to think for some moments, and then replied:

“Not for a month or two.”

“Had she the baby then?”

“No; she was rid of it long before that.”

“Did she know this Pinky Swett?”

“Yes.”

“Curse the brat! If I’d thought all this trouble was to come, I’d have smothered it before it was half an hour old.”

“Risky business,” remarked Mrs. Hoyt.

“Safer than to have let it live,” said Mrs. Dinneford, a hard, evil expression settling around her mouth. “And now I want the thing done. You understand. Find this Pinky Swett. The police are after her, and may be ahead of you. I am desperate, you see. Anything but the discovery and possession of this child by Edith. It must be got out of the way. If it will not starve, it must drown.”

Mrs. Dinneford’s face was distorted by the strength of her evil passions. Her eyes were full of fire, flashing now, and now glaring like those of a wild animal.

“It might fall out of a window,” said Mrs. Hoyt, in a low, even voice, and with a faint smile on her lips. “Children fall out of windows sometimes.”

“But don’t always get killed,” answered Mrs. Dinneford, coldly.

“Or, it might drop from somebody’s arms into the river–off the deck of a ferryboat, I mean,” added Mrs. Hoyt.

“That’s better. But I don’t care how it’s done, so it’s done.”

“Accidents are safer,” said Mrs. Hoyt.

“I guess you’re right about that. Let it be an accident, then.”

It was half an hour from the time Mrs. Dinneford entered this house before she came away. As she passed from the door, closely veiled, a gentleman whom she knew very well was going by on the opposite side of the street. From something in his manner she felt sure that he had recognized her, and that the recognition had caused him no little surprise. Looking back two or three times as she hurried homeward, she saw, to her consternation, that he was following her, evidently with the purpose of making sure of her identity.

To throw this man off of her track was Mrs. Dinneford’s next concern. This she did by taking a street-car that was going in a direction opposite to the part of the town in which she lived, and riding for a distance of over a mile. An hour afterward she came back to her own neighborhood, but not without a feeling of uneasiness. Just as she was passing up to the door of her residence a gentleman came hurriedly around the nearest corner. She recognized him at a glance. It seemed as if the servant would never answer her ring. On he came, until the sound of his steps was in her ears. He was scarcely ten paces distant when the door opened and she passed in. When she gained her room, she sat down faint and trembling. Here was a new element in the danger and disgrace that were digging her steps so closely.

As we have seen, Edith did not make her appearance at the mission sewing-school on the following Thursday, nor did she go there for many weeks afterward. The wild hope that had taken her to Briar street, the nervous strain and agitation attendant on that visit, and the reaction occasioned by her father’s failure to get possession of the baby, were too much for her strength, and an utter prostration of mind and body was the consequence. There was no fever nor sign of any active disease–only weakness, Nature’s enforced quietude, that life and reason might be saved.

CHAPTER XVII.

_THE_ police were at fault. They found Pinky Swett, but were not able to find the baby. Careful as they were in their surveillance, she managed to keep them on the wrong track and to baffle every effort to discover what had been done with the child.

In this uncertainty months went by. Edith came up slowly from her prostrate condition, paler, sadder and quieter, living in a kind of waking dream. Her father tried to hold her back from her mission work among the poor, but she said, “I must go, father; I will die if I do not.”

And so her life lost itself in charities. Now and then her mother made an effort to draw her into society. She had not yet given up her ambition, nor her hope of one day seeing her daughter take social rank among the highest, or what she esteemed the highest. But her power over Edith was entirely gone. She might as well have set herself to turn the wind from its course as to influence her in anything. It was all in vain. Edith had dropped out of society, and did not mean to go back. She had no heart for anything outside of her home, except the Christian work to which she had laid her hands.

The restless, watchful, suspicious manner exhibited for a long time by Mrs. Dinneford, and particularly noticed by Edith, gradually wore off. She grew externally more like her old self, but with something new in the expression of her face when in repose, that gave a chill to the heart of Edith whenever she saw its mysterious record, that seemed in her eyes only an imperfect effort to conceal some guilty secret.

Thus the mother and daughter, though in daily personal contact, stood far apart–were internally as distant from each other as the antipodes.

As for Mr. Dinneford, what he had seen and heard on his first visit to Briar street had aroused him to a new and deeper sense of his duty as a citizen. Against all the reluctance and protests of his natural feelings, he had compelled himself to stand face to face with the appalling degradation and crime that festered and rioted in that almost Heaven-deserted region. He had heard and read much about its evil condition; but when, under the protection of a policeman, he went from house to house, from den to den, through cellar and garret and hovel, comfortless and filthy as dog-kennels and pig-styes, and saw the sick and suffering, the utterly vile and debauched, starving babes and children with faces marred by crime, and the legion of harpies who were among them as birds of prey, he went back to his home sick at heart, and with a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness out of which he found it almost impossible to rise.

We cannot stain our pages with a description of what he saw. It is so vile and terrible, alas, so horrible, that few would credit it. The few imperfect glimpses of life in that region which we have already given are sad enough and painful enough, but they only hint at the real truth.

“What can be done?” asked Mr. Dinneford of the missionary, at their next meeting, in a voice that revealed his utter despair of a remedy. “To me it seems as if nothing but fire could purify this region.”

“The causes that have produced this would soon create another as bad,” was answered.

“What are the causes?”

“The primary cause,” said Mr. Paulding, “is the effort of hell to establish itself on the earth for the destruction of human souls; the secondary cause lies in the indifference and supineness of the people. ‘While the husband-men slept the enemy sowed tares.’ Thus it was of old, and thus it is to-day. The people are sleeping or indifferent, the churches are sleeping or indifferent, while the enemy goes on sowing tares for the harvest of death.”

“Well may you say the harvest of death,” returned Mr. Dinneford, gloomily.

“And hell,” added the missionary, with a stern emphasis. “Yes, sir, it is the harvest of death and hell that is gathered here, and such a full harvest! There is little joy in heaven over the sheaves that are garnered in this accursed region. What hope is there in fire, or any other purifying process, if the enemy be permitted to go on sowing his evil seed at will?”

“How will you prevent it?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“Not by standing afar off and leaving the enemy in undisputed possession–not by sleeping while he sows and reaps and binds into bundles for the fires, his harvests of human souls! We must be as alert and wise and ready of hand as he; and God being our helper, we can drive him from the field!”

“You have thought over this sad problem a great deal,” said Mr. Dinneford. “You have stood face to face with the enemy for years, and know his strength and his resources. Have you any well-grounded hope of ever dislodging him from this stronghold?”

“I have just said it, Mr. Dinneford. But until the churches and the people come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, he cannot be dislodged. I am standing here, sustained in my work by a small band of earnest Christian men and women, like an almost barren rock in the midst of a down-rushing river on whose turbulent surface thousands are being swept to destruction. The few we are able to rescue are as a drop in the bucket to the number who are lost. In weakness and sorrow, almost in despair sometimes, we stand on our rock, with the cry of lost souls mingling with the cry of fiends in our ears, and wonder at the churches and the people, that they stand aloof–nay, worse, turn from us coldly often–when we press the claims of this worse than heathen people who are perishing at their very doors.

“Sir,” continued the missionary, warming on his theme, “I was in a church last Sunday that cost its congregation over two hundred thousand dollars. It was an anniversary occasion, and the collections for the day were to be given to some foreign mission. How eloquently the preacher pleaded for the heathen! What vivid pictures of their moral and spiritual destitution he drew! How full of pathos he was, even to tears! And the congregation responded in a contribution of over three thousand dollars, to be sent somewhere, and to be disbursed by somebody of whom not one in a hundred of the contributors knew anything or took the trouble to inform themselves. I felt sick and oppressed at such a waste of money and Christian sympathy, when heathen more destitute and degraded than could be found in any foreign land were dying at home in thousands every year, unthought of and uncared for. I gave no amens to his prayers–I could not. They would have stuck in my throat. I said to myself, in bitterness and anger, ‘How dare a watchman on the walls of Zion point to an enemy afar off, of whose movements and power and organization he knows but little, while the very gates of the city are being stormed and its walls broken down?’ But you must excuse me, Mr. Dinneford. I lose my calmness sometimes when these things crowd my thoughts too strongly. I am human like the rest, and weak, and cannot stand in the midst of this terrible wickedness and suffering year after year without being stirred by it to the very inmost of my being. In my intense absorption I can see nothing else sometimes.”

He paused for a little while, and then said, in a quiet, business way,

“In seeking a remedy for the condition of society found here, we must let common sense and a knowledge of human nature go hand in hand with Christian charity. To ignore any of these is to make failure certain. If the whisky-and policy-shops were all closed, the task would be easy. In a single month the transformation would be marvelous. But we cannot hope for this, at least not for a long time to come–not until politics and whisky are divorced, and not until associations of bad men cease to be strong enough in our courts to set law and justice at defiance. Our work, then, must be in the face of these baleful influences.”

“Is the evil of lottery-policies so great that you class it with the curse of rum?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“It is more concealed, but as all-pervading and almost as disastrous in its effects. The policy-shops draw from the people, especially the poor and ignorant, hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. There is no more chance of thrift for one who indulges in this sort of gambling than there is for one who indulges in drink. The vice in either case drags its subject down to want, and in most cases to crime. I could point you to women virtuous a year ago, but who now live abandoned lives; and they would tell you, if you would question them, that their way downward was through the policy-shops. To get the means of securing a hoped-for prize–of getting a hundred or two hundred dollars for every single one risked, and so rising above want or meeting some desperate exigency–virtue was sacrificed in an evil moment.”

“The whisky-shops brutalize, benumb and debase or madden with cruel and murderous passions; the policy-shops, more seductive and fascinating in their allurements, lead on to as deep a gulf of moral ruin and hopeless depravity. I have seen the poor garments of a dying child sold at a pawn-shop for a mere trifle by its infatuated mother, and the money thrown away in this kind of gambling. Women sell or pawn their clothing, often sending their little children to dispose of these articles, while they remain half clad at home to await the daily drawings and receive the prize they fondly hope to obtain, but which rarely, if ever, comes.

“Children learn early to indulge this vice, and lie and steal in order to obtain money to gratify it. You would be amazed to see the scores of little boys and girls, white and black, who daily visit the policy-shops in this neighborhood to put down the pennies they have begged or received for stolen articles on some favorite numbers–quick-witted, sharp, eager little wretches, who talk the lottery slang as glibly as older customers. What hope is there in the future for these children? Will their education in the shop of a policy-dealer fit them to become honest, industrious citizens?”

All this was so new and dreadful to Mr. Dinneford that be was stunned and disheartened; and when, after an interview with the missionary that lasted over an hour, he went away, it was with a feeling of utter discouragement. He saw little hope of making head against the flood of evil that was devastating this accursed region.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_MRS. HOYT_, _alias_ Bray, found Pinky Swett, but she did not find the poor cast-off baby. Pinky had resolved to make it her own capital in trade. She parleyed and trifled with Mrs. Hoyt week after week, and each did her best to get down to the other’s secret, but in vain. Mutually baffled, they parted at last in bitter anger.

One day, about two months after the interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Hoyt described in another chapter, the former received in an envelope a paragraph cut from a newspaper. It read as follows:

“A CHILD DROWNED.–A sad accident occurred yesterday on board the steamer Fawn as she was going down the river. A woman was standing with a child in her arms near the railing on the lower deck forward. Suddenly the child gave a spring, and was out of her arms in a moment. She caught after it frantically, but in vain. Every effort was made to recover the child, but all proved fruitless. It did not rise to the surface of the water.”

Mrs. Dinneford read the paragraph twice, and then tore it into little bits. Her mouth set itself sternly. A long sigh of relief came up from her chest. After awhile the hard lines began slowly to disappear, giving place to a look of satisfaction and comfort.

“Out of my way at last,” she staid, rising and beginning to move about the room. But the expression of relief and confidence which had come into her face soon died out. The evil counselors that lead the soul into sin become its tormentors after the sin is committed, and torture it with fears. So tortured they this guilty and wretched woman at every opportunity. They led her on step by step to do evil, and then crowded her mind with suggestions of perils and consequences the bare thought of which filled her with terror.

It was only a few weeks after this that Mrs. Dinneford, while looking over a morning paper, saw in the court record the name of Pinky Swett. This girl had been tried for robbing a man of his pocket-book, containing five hundred dollars, found guilty, and sentenced to prison for a term of two years.

“Good again!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with satisfaction. “The wheel turns.”

After that she gradually rose above the doubts and dread of exposure that haunted her continually, and set herself to work to draw her daughter back again into society. But she found her influence over Edith entirely gone. Indeed, Edith stood so far away from her that she seemed more like a stranger than a child.

Two or three times had Pinky Swett gone to the mission sewing-school in order to get a sight of Edith. Her purpose was to follow her home, and so find out her name and were she lived. With this knowledge in her possession, she meant to visit Mrs. Bray, and by a sudden or casual mention by name of Edith as the child’s mother throw her off her guard, and lead her to betray the fact if it were really so. But Edith was sick at home, and did not go to the school. After a few weeks the little girl who was to identify Edith as the person who had shown so much interest in the baby was taken away from Grubb’s court by her mother, and nobody could tell where to find her. So, Pinky had to abandon her efforts in this direction, and Edith, when she was strong enough to go back to the sewing-school, missed the child, from whom she was hoping to hear something that might give a clue to where the poor waif had been taken.

Up to the time of her arrest and imprisonment, Pinky had faithfully paid the child’s board, and looked in now and then upon the woman who had it in charge, to see that it was properly cared for. How marvelously the baby had improved in these two or three months! The shrunken limb’s were rounded into beautiful symmetry, and the pinched face looked full and rosy. The large brown eyes, in which you once saw only fear or a mystery of suffering, were full of a happy light, and the voice rang out often in merry child-laughter. The baby had learned to walk, and was daily growing more and more lovable.

But after Pinky’s imprisonment there was a change. The woman–Mrs. Burke by name–in whose care the child had been placed could not afford to keep him for nothing. The two dollars week received for his board added just enough to her income to enable her to remain at home. But failing to receive this, she must go out for day’s work in families at least twice in every week.

What, then, was to be done with little Andy, as the baby was called? At first Mrs. Burke thought of getting him into one of the homes for friendless children, but the pleasant child had crept into her affections, and she could not bear the thought of giving him up. His presence stirred in her heart old and tender things long buried out of sight, and set the past, with its better and purer memories, side by side with the present. She had been many times a mother, but her children were all dead but one, and she–Alas! the thought of her, whenever it came, made her heart heavy and sad.

“I will keep him a while and see, how it comes out,” she said, on getting the promise of a neighbor to let Andy play with her children and keep an eye on him whenever she was out. He had grown strong, and could toddle about and take care of himself wonderfully well for a child of his age.

And now began a new life for the baby–a life in which he must look out for himself and hold his own in a hand-to-hand struggle. He had no rights that the herd of children among whom he was thrown felt bound to respect; and if he were not able to maintain his rights, he must go down helplessly, and he did go down daily, often hourly. But he had will and vital force, and these brought him always to his feet again, and with strength increased rather than lost. On the days that Mrs. Burke went out he lived for most of the time in the little street, playing with the children that swarmed its pavements, often dragged from before wheels or horses’ hoofs by a friendly hand, or lifted from some gutter in which he had fallen, dripping with mud.

When Mrs. Burke came home on the evening of her first day out, the baby was a sight to see. His clothes were stiff with dirt, his shoes and stockings wet, and his face more like that of a chimney-sweep than anything else. But this was not all; there was a great lump as large as a pigeon’s egg on the back of his head, a black-and-blue spot on his forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm’s about her neck quite overcame Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or put him in one of the homes.

The fresh care and anxiety felt by Mrs. Burke drew little Andy nearer and made her reject more decidedly the thought of giving him up. She remained at home on the day following, but did not find it so easy as before to keep the baby quiet. He had got a taste of the free, wild life of the street, of its companionship and excitement, and fretted to go out. Toward evening she put by her work and went on the pavement with Andy. It was swarming with children. At the sight of them he began to scream with pleasure. Pulling his hand free from that of Mrs. Burke, he ran in among them, and in a moment after was tumbled over on the pavement. His head got a hard knock, but he didn’t seem to mind it, for he scrambled to his feet and commenced tossing his hands about, laughing and crying out as wildly as the rest. In a little while, over he was knocked again, and as he fell one of the children stepped on his hand and hurt him so that he screamed with pain. Mrs. Burke caught him in her arms; but when he found that she was going to take him in the house he stopped crying and struggled to get down. He was willing to take the knocks and falls. The pleasure of this free life among children was more to him than any of the suffering it brought.

On the next day Mrs. Burke had to go out again. Another neighbor promised to look after Andy. When she returned at night, she found things worse, if anything, than before. The child was dirtier, if that were possible, and there were two great lumps on his head, instead of one. He had been knocked down by a horse in the street, escaping death by one of the narrowest of chances, and had been discovered and removed from a ladder up which he had climbed a distance of twenty feet.

What help was there? None that Mrs. Burke knew, except to give up the child, and she was not unselfish enough for this. The thought of sending him away was always attended with pain. It would take the light out of her poor lonely life, into which he had brought a few stray sunbeams.

She could not, she would not, give him up. He must take his chances. Ah, but they were hard chances! Children mature fast under the stimulus of street-training. Andy had a large brain and an active, nervous organization. Life in the open air gave vigor and hardness to his body. As the months went by he learned self-reliance, caution, self-protection, and took a good many lessons in the art of aggression. A rapidly-growing child needs a large amount of nutritious food to supply waste and furnish material for the daily-increasing bodily structure. Andy did not get this. At two years of age he had lost all the roundness of babyhood. His limbs were slender, his body thin and his face colorless and hungry-looking.

About this time–that is, when Andy was two years old–Mrs. Burke took sick and died. She had been failing for several months, and unable to earn sufficient even to pay her rent. But for the help of neighbors and an occasional supply of food or fuel from some public charity, she would have starved. At her death Andy had no home and no one to care for him. One pitying neighbor after another would take him in at night, or let him share a meal with her children, but beyond this he was utterly cast out and friendless. It was summer-time when Mrs. Burke died, and the poor waif was spared for a time the suffering of cold.

Now and then a mother’s heart would be touched, and after a half-reluctantly given supper and a place where he might sleep for the night would mend and wash his soiled clothes and dry them by the fire, ready for morning. The pleased look that she saw in his large, sad eyes–for they had grown wistful and sad since the only one he had known as a mother died–was always her reward, and something not to be put out of her memory. Many of the children took kindly to Andy, and often supplied him with food.

“Andy is so hungry, mamma; can’t I take him something to eat?” rarely failed to bring the needed bread for the poor little cast-adrift. And if he was discovered now and then sound asleep in bed with some pitying child who had taken him in stealthily after dark, few were hard-hearted enough to push him into the street, or make him go down and sleep on the kitchen floor. Yet this was not unfrequently done. Poverty is sometimes very cruel, yet often tender and compassionate.

One day, a few months after Mrs. Burke’s death, Andy, who was beginning to drift farther and farther away from the little street, yet always managing to get back into it as darkness came on, that he might lay his tired body in some friendly place, got lost in strange localities. He had wandered about for many hours, sitting now on some step or cellar-door or horse-block, watching the children at play and sometimes joining in their sports, when they would let him, with the spontaneous abandon of a puppy or a kitten, and now enjoying some street-show or attractive shop-window. There was nothing of the air of a lost child about him. For all that his manner betrayed, his home might have been in the nearest court or alley. So, he wandered along from street to street without attracting the special notice of any–a bare-headed, bare-footed, dirty, half-clad atom of humanity not three years old.

Hungry, tired and cold, for the summer was gone and mid-autumn had brought its chilly nights, Andy found himself, as darkness fell, in a vile, narrow court, among some children as forlorn and dirty as himself. It was Grubb’s court–his old home–though in his memory there was of course no record of the place.

Too tired and hungry for play, Andy was sitting on the step of a wretched hovel, when the door opened and a woman called sharply the names of her two children. They answered a little way off. “Come in this minute, and get your suppers,” she called again, and turning back without noticing Andy, left the door open for her children. The poor cast-adrift looked in and saw light and food and comfort–a home that made him heartsick with longing, mean and disordered and miserable as it would have appeared to your eyes and mine, reader. The two children, coming at their mother’s call, found him standing just on the threshold gazing in wistfully; and as they entered, he, drawn by their attraction, went in also. Then, turning toward her children, the mother saw Andy.

“Out of this!” she cried, in quick anger, raising her hand and moving hastily toward the child. “Off home with you!”

Andy might well be frightened at the terrible face and threatening words of this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman’s face as she advanced upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked the woman’s purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust him out into the damp street, nevertheless, though not roughly, and shut the door against him.

Andy did not cry; poor little baby that he was, he had long since learned that for him crying did no good. It brought him nothing. Just across the street a door stood open. As a stray kitten creeps in through an open door, so crept he through this one, hoping for shelter and a place of rest.

“Who’re you?” growled the rough but not unkindly voice of a man, coming from the darkness. At the same moment a light gleamed out from a match, and then the steadier flame of a candle lit up the small room, not more than eight or nine feet square, and containing little that could be called furniture. The floor was bare. In one corner were some old bits of carpet and a blanket. A small table, a couple of chairs with the backs broken off and a few pans and dishes made up the inventory of household goods.

As the light made all things clear in this poor room, Andy saw the bloodshot eyes, and grizzly face of a man, not far past middle life.

“Who are you, little one?” he growled again as the light gave him a view of Andy’s face. This growl had in it a tone of kindness and welcome to the ears of Andy who came forward, saying,

“I’m Andy.”

“Indeed! You’re Andy, are you?” and he reached out one of his hands.

“Yes; I’m Andy,” returned the child, fixing his eyes with a look so deep and searching on the man’s face that they held him as by a kind of fascination.

“Well, Andy, where did you come from?” asked the man.

“Don’t know,” was answered.

“Don’t know!”

Andy shook his head.

“Where do you live?”

“Don’t live nowhere,” returned the child; “and I’m hungry.”

“Hungry?” The man let the hand he was still holding drop, and getting up quickly, took some bread from a closet and set it on the old table.

Andy did not wait for an invitation, but seized upon the bread and commenced eating almost ravenously. As he did so the man fumbled in his pockets. There were a few pennies there. He felt them over, counting them with his fingers, and evidently in some debate with himself. At last, as he closed the debate, he said, with a kind of compelled utterance,

“I say, young one, wouldn’t you like some milk with your bread?”

“Milk! oh my I oh goody! yes,” answered the child, a gleam of pleasure coming into his face.

“Then you shall have some;” and catching up a broken mug, the man went out. In a minute or two he returned with a pint of milk, into which he broke a piece of bread, and then sat watching Andy as he filled himself with the most delicious food he had tasted for weeks, his marred face beaming with a higher satisfaction than he had known for a long time.

“Is it good?” asked the man.

“I bet you!” was the cheery answer.

“Well, you’re a little brick,” laughed the man as he stroked Andy’s head. “And you don’t live anywhere?”

“No.”

“Is your mother dead?”

“Yes.”

“And your father?”

“Hain’t got no father.”

“Would you like to live here?”

Andy looked toward the empty bowl from which he had made such a satisfying meal, and said,

“Yes.”

“It will hold us both. You’re not very big;” and as he said this the man drew his arm about the boy in a fond sort of way.

“I guess you’re tired,” he added, for Andy, now that an arm was drawn around him, leaned against it heavily.

“Yes, I’m tired,” said the child.

“And sleepy too, poor little fellow! It isn’t much of a bed I can give you, but it’s better than a door-step or a rubbish corner.”

Then he doubled the only blanket he had, and made as soft a bed as possible. On this he laid Andy, who was fast asleep almost as soon as down.

“Poor little chap!” said the man, in a tender, half-broken voice, as he stood over the sleeping child, candle in hand. “Poor little chap!”

The sight troubled him. He turned with a quick, disturbed movement and put the candle down. The light streaming upward into his face showed the countenance of a man so degraded by intemperance that everything attractive had died out of it. His clothes were scanty, worn almost to tatters, and soiled with the slime and dirt of many an ash-heap or gutter where he had slept off his almost daily fits of drunkenness. There was an air of irresolution about him, and a strong play of feeling in his marred, repulsive face, as he stood by the table on which he had set the candle. One hand was in his pocket, fumbling over the few pennies yet remaining there.

As if drawn by an attraction he could not resist, his eyes kept turning to the spot where Andy lay sleeping. Once, as they came back, they rested on the mug from which the child had taken his supper of bread and milk.

“Poor little fellow!” came from his lips, in a tone of pity.

Then he sat down by the table and leaned his head on his hand. His face was toward the corner of the room where the child lay. He still fumbled the small coins in his pocket, but after a while his fingers ceased to play with them, then his hand was slowly withdrawn from the pocket, a deep sigh accompanying the act.

After the lapse of several minutes he took up the candle, and going over to the bed, crouched down and let the light fall on Andy’s face. The large forehead, soiled as it was, looked white to the man’s eyes, and the brown matted hair, as he drew it through his fingers, was soft and beautiful. Memory had taken him back for years, and he was looking at the fair forehead and touching the soft brown hair of another baby. His eyes grew dim. He set the candle upon the floor, and putting his hands over his face, sobbed two or three times.

When this paroxysm of feeling went off, he got up with a steadier air, and set the light back upon the table. The conflict going on in his mind was not quite over, but another look at Andy settled the question. Stooping with a hurried movement, he blew out the candle, then groped his way over to the bed, and lying down, took the child in his arms and drew him close to his breast. So the morning found them both asleep.

CHAPTER XIX.

_MR. DINNEFORD_ had become deeply interested in the work that was going on in Briar street, and made frequent visits to the mission house. Sometimes he took heart in the work, but oftener he suffered great discouragement of feeling. In one of his many conversations with Mr. Paulding he said,

“Looking as I do from the standpoint gained since I came here, I am inclined to say there is no hope. The enemy is too strong for us.”

“He is very strong,” returned the missionary, “but God is stronger, and our cause is his cause. We have planted his standard here in the very midst of the enemy’s territory, and have not only held our ground for years, but gained some victories. If we had the people, the churches and the law-officers on our side, we could drive him out in a year. But we have no hope of this–at least not for a long time to come; and so, as wisely as we can, as earnestly as we can, and with the limited means at our control, we are fighting the foe and helping the weak, and gaining a little every year.”

“And you really think there is gain?”

“I know it,” answered the missionary, with a ringing confidence in his voice. “It is by comparisons that we are able to get at true results. Come with me into our school-room, next door.”

They passed from the office of the mission into the street.

“These buildings,” said Mr. Paulding, “erected by that true Christian charity which hopeth all things, stand upon the very site of one of the worst dens once to be found in this region. In them we have a chapel for worship, two large and well ventilated school-rooms, where from two to three hundred children that would not be admitted into any public school are taught daily, a hospital and dispensary and bathrooms. Let me show you the school. Then I will give you a measure of comparison.”

Mr. Dinneford went up to the school-rooms. He found them crowded with children, under the care of female teachers, who seemed to have but little trouble in keeping them in order. Such a congregation of boys and girls Mr. Dinneford had never seen before. It made his heart ache as he looked into some of their marred and pinched, faces, most of which bore signs of pain, suffering, want and evil. It moved him to tears when he heard them sing, led by one of the teachers, a tender hymn expressive of the Lord’s love for poor neglected children.

“The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost,” said the missionary as they came down from the school-room, “and we are trying to do the same work. And that our labor is not all in vain will be evident when I show you what this work was in the beginning. You have seen a little of what it is now.”

They went back to the office of the missionary.

“It is nearly twenty years,” said Mr. Paulding, “since the organization of our mission. The question of what to do for the children became at once the absorbing one. The only building in which to open a Sunday-school that could be obtained was an old dilapidated frame house used as a receptacle for bones, rags, etc.; but so forbidding was its aspect, and so noisome the stench arising from the putrefying bones and rotting rags, that it was feared for the health of those who might occupy it. However it was agreed to try the effect of scraping, scrubbing, white-washing and a liberal use of chloride of lime. This was attended with such good effects that, notwithstanding the place was still offensive to the olfactories, the managers concluded to open in it our first Sabbath-school.

“No difficulty was experienced in gathering in a sufficient number of children to compose a school; for, excited by such a novel spectacle as a Sabbath-school in that region, they came in crowds. But such a Sabbath-school as that first one was beyond all doubt the rarest thing of the kind that any of those interested in its formation had ever witnessed. The jostling, tumbling, scratching, pinching, pulling of hair, little ones crying and larger ones punching each other’s heads and swearing most profanely, altogether formed a scene of confusion and riot that disheartened the teachers in the start, and made them begin to think they had undertaken a hopeless task.

“As to the appearance of these young Ishmaelites, it was plain that they had rarely made the acquaintance of soap and water. Hands, feet and face exhibited a uniform crust of mud and filth. As it was necessary to obtain order, the superintendent, remembering that ‘music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,’ decided to try its effects on the untamed group before him; and giving out a line of a hymn adapted to the tune of ‘Lily Dale,’ he commenced to sing. The effect was instantaneous. It was like oil on troubled waters. The delighted youngsters listened to the first line, and then joined in with such hearty good-will that the old shanty rang again.

“The attempt to engage and lead them in prayer was, however, a matter of great difficulty. They seemed to regard the attitude of kneeling as very amusing, and were reluctant to commit themselves so far to the ridicule of their companions as to be caught in such a posture. After reading to them a portion of the Holy Scriptures and telling them of Jesus, they were dismissed, greatly pleased with their first visit to a Sabbath-school.

“As for ourselves, we had also received a lesson. We found–what indeed we had expected–that the poor children were very ignorant, but we also found what we did not expect–namely, such an acute intelligence and aptitude to receive instruction as admonished us of the danger of leaving them to grow up under evil influences to become master-spirits in crime and pests to society. Many of the faces that we had just seen were very expressive–indeed, painfully so. Some of them seemed to exhibit an unnatural and premature development of those passions whose absence makes childhood so attractive.

“Hunger! ay, its traces were also plainly written there. It is painful to see the marks of hunger on the human face, but to see the cheeks of childhood blanched by famine, to behold the attenuated limbs and bright wolfish eyes, ah! that is a sight.

“The organization of a day-school came next. There were hundreds of children in the district close about the mission who were wholly without instruction. They were too dirty, vicious and disorderly to be admitted into any of the public schools; and unless some special means of education were provided, they must grow up in ignorance. It was therefore resolved to open a day-school, but to find a teacher with her heart in such a work was a difficulty hard to be met; moreover, it was thought by many unsafe for a lady to remain in this locality alone, even though a suitable one should offer. But one brave and self-devoted was found, and one Sunday it was announced to the children in the Sabbath-school that a day school would be opened in the same building at nine o’clock on Monday morning.

“About thirty neglected little ones from the lanes and alleys around the mission were found at the schoolroom door at the appointed hour. But when admitted, very few of them had any idea of the purpose for which they were collected. The efforts of the teacher to seat them proved a failure. The idea among them seemed to be that each should take some part in amusing the company. One would jump from the back of a bench upon which he had been seated, while others were creeping about the floor; another, who deemed himself a proficient in turning somersaults, would be trying his skill in this way, while his neighbor, equally ambitious, would show the teacher how he could stand on his head. Occasionally they would pause and listen to the singing of a hymn or the reading of a little story; then all would be confusion again; and thus the morning wore away. The first session having closed, the teacher retired to her home, feeling that a repetition of the scenes through which she had passed could scarcely be endured.

“Two o’clock found her again at the door, and the children soon gathered around her. Upon entering the schoolroom, most of them were induced to be seated, and a hymn was sung which they had learned in the Sabbath-school. When it was finished, the question was asked, ‘Shall we pray?’ With one accord they answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘And will you be quiet?’ They replied in the affirmative. All were then requested to be silent and cover their faces. In this posture they remained until the prayer was closed; and after resuming their seats, for some minutes order was preserved. This was the only encouraging circumstance of the day.

“For many weeks a stranger would scarcely have recognized a school in this disorderly gathering which day after day met in the old gloomy building. Very many difficulties which we may not name were met and conquered. Fights were of common occurrence. A description of one may give the reader an idea of what came frequently under our notice.

“A rough boy about fourteen years of age, over whom some influence had been gained, was chosen monitor one morning; and as he was a leader in all the mischief, it was hoped that putting him upon his honor would assist in keeping order. Talking aloud was forbidden. For a few minutes matters went on charmingly, until some one, tired of the restraint, broke silence. The monitor, feeling the importance of his position, and knowing of but one mode of redress, instantly struck him a violent blow upon the ear, causing him to scream with pain. In a moment the school was a scene of confusion, the friends of each boy taking sides, and before the cause of trouble could be ascertained most of the boys were piled upon each other in the middle of the room, creating sounds altogether indescribable. The teacher, realizing that she was alone, and not well understanding her influence, feared for a moment to interfere; but as matters were growing worse, something must be done. She made an effort to gain the ear of the monitor, and asked why he did so. He, confident of being in the right, answered,

“‘Teacher, he didn’t mind you; he spoke, and I licked him; and I’ll do it again if be don’t mind you.’

“His services were of course no longer required, although he had done his duty according to his understanding of the case.

“Thus it was at the beginning of this work nearly twenty years ago,” said the missionary. “Now we have an orderly school of over two hundred children, who, but for the opportunity here given, would grow up without even the rudiments of all education. Is not this a gain upon the enemy? Think of a school like this doing its work daily among these neglected little ones for nearly a score of years, and you will no longer feel as if nothing had been done–as if no headway had been gained. Think, too, of the Sabbath-school work in that time, and of the thousands of children who have had their memories filled with precious texts from the Bible, who have been told of the loving Saviour who came into the world and suffered and died for them, and of his tender love and perpetual care over his children, no matter how poor and vile and afar off from him they may be. It is impossible that the good seed of the word scattered here for so long a time should not have taken root in many hearts. We know that they have, and can point to scores of blessed instances–can take you to men and women, now good and virtuous people, who, but for our day-and Sabbath-schools, would, in all human probability, be now among the outcast, the vicious and the criminal.

“So much for what has been done among the children. Our work with men and women has not been so fruitful as might well be supposed, and yet great good has been accomplished even among the hardened, the desperate and the miserably vile and besotted. Bad as things are to-day–awful to see and to contemplate, shocking and disgraceful to a Christian community–they were nearly as bad again at the time this mission set up the standard of God and made battle in his name. Our work began as a simple religious movement, with street preaching.”

“And with what effect?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“With good effect, in a limited number of cases, I trust. In a degraded community like this there will always be some who had a different childhood from that of the crowds of young heathen who swarm its courts and alleys; some who in early life had religious training, and in whose memories were stored up holy things from Scripture; some who have tender and sweet recollection of a mother and home and family prayer and service in God’s temples. In the hearts of such God’s Spirit in moving could touch and quicken and flush with reviving life these old memories, and through them bring conviction of sin, and an intense desire to rise out of the horrible pit into which they had fallen and the clay wherein their feet were mired. Angels could come near to these by what of good and true was to be found half hidden, but not erased from their book of life, and so help in the work of their recovery and salvation.

“But, sir, beyond this class there is small hope, I fear, in preaching and praying. The great mass of these wretched beings have had little or no early religious instruction. There, are but few, if any, remains of things pure and good and holy stored away since childhood in their memories to be touched and quickened by the Spirit of God. And so we must approach them in another and more external way. We must begin with their physical evils, and lessen these as fast as possible; we must remove temptation from their doors, or get them as far as possible out of the reach of temptation, but in this work not neglecting the religious element as an agency, of untold power.

“Christ fed the hungry, and healed the sick, and clothed the naked, and had no respect unto the persons of men. And we, if we would lift up fallen humanity, must learn by his example. It is not by preaching and prayer and revival meetings that the true Christian philanthropist can hope to accomplish any great good among the people here, but by doing all in his power to change their sad external condition and raise them out of their suffering and degradation. Without some degree of external order and obedience to the laws of natural life, it is, I hold, next to impossible, to plant in the mind any seeds of spiritual truth. There is no ground there. The parable of the sower that went forth to sow illustrates this law. Only the seed that fell on good ground brought forth fruit. Our true work, then, among this heathen people, of whom the churches take so little care, is first to get the ground in order for the planting, of heavenly seed. Failing in this, our hope is small.”

“This mission has changed its attitude since the beginning,” said Mr. Dinneford.

“Yes. Good and earnest men wrought for years with the evil elements around them, trusting in God’s Spirit to change the hearts of the vile and abandoned sinners among whom they preached and prayed. But there was little preparation of the ground, and few seeds got lodgment except in stony places, by the wayside and among thorns. Our work now is to prepare the ground, and in this work, slowly as it is progressing, we have great encouragement. Every year we can mark the signs of advancement. Every year we make some head against the enemy. Every year our hearts take courage and are refreshed by the smell of grasses and the odor of flowers and the sight of fruit-bearing plants in once barren and desolate places. The ground is surely being made ready for the sower.”

“I am glad to hear you speak so encouragingly,” returned Mr. Dinneford. “To me the case looked desperate–wellnigh hopeless. Anything worse than I have witnessed here seemed impossible.”

“It is only by comparisons, as I said before, that we can get at the true measure of change and progress,” answered the missionary. “Since we have been at work in earnest to improve the external life of this region, we have had much to encourage us. True, what we have done has made only a small impression on the evil that exists here; but the value of this impression lies in the fact that it shows what can be done with larger agencies. Double our effective force, and we can double the result. Increase it tenfold, and ten times as much can be done.”

“What is your idea of this work?” said Mr. Dinneford. “In other words, what do you think the best practical way to purify this region?”

“If you draw burning brands and embers close together, your fire grows stronger; if you scatter them apart, it will go out,” answered the missionary. “Moral and physical laws correspond to each other. Crowd bad men and women together, and they corrupt and deprave each other. Separate them, and you limit their evil power and make more possible for good the influence of better conditions. Let me give you an instance: A man and his wife who had lived in a wretched way in one of the poorest hovels in Briar street for two years, and who had become idle and intemperate, disappeared from among us about six months ago. None of their neighbors knew or cared much what had become of them. They had two children. Last week, as I was passing the corner of a street in the south-western part of the city in which stood a row of small new houses, a neatly-dressed woman came out of a store with a basket in her hand. I did not know her, but by the brightening look in her face I saw that she knew me.

“‘Mr. Paulding,’ she said, in a pleased way, holding out her hand; ‘you don’t know me,’ she added, seeing the doubt in my face. ‘I am Mrs.–.’

“‘Impossible!’ I could not help exclaiming.

“‘But it’s true, Mr. Paulding,’ she averred, a glow of pleasure on her countenance. ‘We’ve turned over a new leaf.’

“‘So I should think from your appearance,’ I replied. ‘Where do you live?’