Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880

"That cured her for a year. She was afraid of my father, for at first, in his fury, he swore he'd give her up to the officers; an' then she cried so, an' went on day after day, till he couldn't but be sorry for her ag'in. An' then I come along—many's the time I've cursed the day—an' till I was four all was well enough. Then it came. She'd been takin' a little slyly a good while, but nobody knew till it got to be too much for her ag'in. It was partly trouble, I will say, for my father was weakly an' goin' with consumption, an' she was fond of him. But this time there was no stoppin' her. She'd pawn everything: she's taken the jacket off me in a winter's day an' sent me with it to the pawnbroker's, an' I not darin' not to go. To the last minute my father did what he could. I was six when he died, an' he'd dress me himself an' try to keep me decent. She was drunk the very night he died, an' not a soul near. I sat on the bed an' looked at him. 'Jack,' he said, 'hate whiskey long as you live: it's killed me, an' it'll kill your mother. It's a devil.'

"There was a saloon under us then. We had got lower and lower, for, fix up as father might, there was never any surety he wouldn't find things smashed or sold out; an' at last there wasn't anything to sell. An' when he was gone I can't remember as I ever see her sober. I got to hate the smell of it so it sickened me. It does now, though it was my trade to sell the stuff, an' I never minded that.

"I lost track of her. I was a newsboy an' lookin' out for myself when I was eight, an' sometimes I'd hunt her up, an' she'd hug me an' go on over me if she wasn't too drunk; but mostly I didn't. I might ha' been respectable enough, for I liked my work, but I got in with a set of boys that had learned to pick pockets. It was good fun. I had quick ways, an' the first time I ever hauled out a handkerchief I thought it about the smartest game anybody could play. It's more for the excitement of it, half the time, than from real native cussedness, that boys begin; an' I didn't think one way or another. But the time come when I did think. I was caught with fellows that had been up half a dozen times, an' because I was little they sent me to the house of refuge.

"Now, I ain't goin' to say more'n I can help about that, for there was one man I sha'n't ever forget. He's dead now, but he meant work with them boys, an' he did it. I believe he loved 'em every one just because they had souls. But what I do say is, that, far's I know, eight boys out o' ten come out worse'n when they went in. Why not? They're mostly the worst sort, an' it's a kind of rivalry amongst them which'll tell the most deviltry. There ain't a trick nor turn you can't be put up to, an' I learned 'em every one. I learned some other things too. We had to study some, an' I was quick, an' I learned Bible-verses so well they thought I was a crack scholar; an' we all laughed, thinkin' how easy you can humbug a teacher. But the last year I was wild to get away an' try my hand at some of the new kinks I'd learned. I was fourteen and full grown, so't I was always taken for twenty; an' I thought I was a man, sure. I run away twice, an' was brought back, an' it went hard with me, for they flogged me each time so't I couldn't stir for a week.

"At last time was up. I'd made up my mind what to do: I'd settled it by that time that everybody was ready to humbug, an' the pious-talkin' ones worst of all, for I'd seen some that I'd spotted in lies many a time. The first thing I did was to chuck away the Bible they'd given me an' make straight for Micky Hagan's. You don't know what that means? I'll tell you. Micky Hagan's was one of the receivin'-places for river-thievin'. He had boats to let, an' bought out an' out or advanced on the swag, just as you pleased; an' mostly you're in his debt, because you get into the way of swappin', an' he sets his own price on the thing you fancy.

"Now, I've thought it all out, ma'am, many a time. If there'd been anybody to take hold of us in the right way I don't believe we should have come out as we did. I wasn't bad all through then: I mean, I was ready to do a good turn if I could, an' bound for a lark anyhow. But we'd smuggled in novels and story-papers till our heads was full of what fine things we'd do. They didn't give us better things. There was books—yes, plenty of 'em—but mostly long-winded stuff about fellers that died young, bein' too good for this world. There wasn't anybody to tell us we'd a right to some fun, and the Lord meant us to enjoy life, nor to get us busy in some way that would take our minds off real wickedness. These preachers hadn't ever been boys: they'd been born in their white chokers, I believe, an' knew no more of real human nature than they did of common sense. If I had a boy growin' up I'd keep him hard at something, an' try an' have him like it, too. A boy don't mind work if there's anything he can see to be got by it. Why, see how I did. At fifteen out all night long, up an' down the river, schemin' all ways to circumvent the watchmen, for they're that 'cute it needs all your brains an' more to get ahead of 'em. You see, a ship'll come in an' unload partly, an' there's two or three days they're on the keen lookout till they're nigh empty; an' then's the best time for light plunder—ropes an' such. But I went in for reg'lar doin's—bags of coffee or spice, or anything goin'. We had a dodge for a good while they couldn't make out—goin' along soft, oars muffled, hardly drawin' a long breath, till we'd got under the dock, where I'd seen the coffee-bags lie, an' a man on 'em with pistol cocked. Then, slow an' easy, bore with a big auger up through them beams and straight into the bag, an' the coffee'd pour down into the bag we held under. Went off with seven bags that very way one night, an' I was that full of laugh! I walked back down the dock when we'd landed 'em, an' saw the watchman jest dancin' an' swearin', he was so mad.

"'What's up?' I says, innocent as could be, goin' up to him.

"'It's them d– river-thieves,' he says, 'with a new kink,–'em! I'll be even with 'em yet. Here's seven holes right up through, an' the Lord only knows how they could do it an' I not hear 'em. They're that thick I believe there's one to every bag of coffee on ship or off; but I'll get 'em yet.' He looked at me sharp as a rat, but I kept my face straight till I'd walked off, an' then I believe I laughed a day without stoppin'.

"That went on three years. I'd got to think no man alive could take me, for I'd been grabbed a dozen times, an' always slipped out somehow. I'd been shot at, an' hit twice; been knocked overboard, an' swum under the dock—'most froze an' stiff with ice before I could get out. An' then to think that it was only a coil of rope took me at last! I thought 'twas spices, but the captain'd been too quick for us, an' every bag was in the government storehouse. I crawled up the side like a cat an' felt round, mad enough to find only that rope; an' I'd just dropped it over the side when there was a light, an' three men on me. I dropped, but they had me. I fought like mad, but the handcuffs were on, an' I was marched off quicker'n I can tell it. An' one was the very man that had sworn to be even with us, an' he knew me on the spot. That trial didn't take long. 'In consideration of my youth,' the judge said, I was to have 'only ten years.' Only ten years! He didn't know how it looked to me, that loved my own life an' freedom so't I couldn't bear a house over me even a day, but must be out in the air. I swore I'd kill whoever took me, an' I fought with the keeper till they chained me like a wild beast; an' that's the way I went to Sing-Sing, an' all warned they'd got the devil's own to deal with.

"There was six months I fought: there wasn't a week I wasn't up for punishment. Do you know what that means? It's better now, they say. Then it meant the shower-bath till you fainted dead, an' when you came to, put back to have it ag'in. It meant the leather collar an' jacket, an' your head wellnigh cut off when, half dead, you had to let it drop a bit. It meant kicks an' cuffs an' floggin's an' half rations. I was down to skin an' bone. 'You're goin', sure, Jack,' I said; an' then I said, 'What's the use? Behave yourself an' maybe you'll get pardoned out, or, better yet, maybe you'll get away.'

"It was tough work. I hated that keeper so't I could have brained him joyfully any minute. I'd set my teeth when he came near, for the murder'd run down my arms till my hands twitched an' tingled to get at him. I swore I'd kill him if I ever got a chance to do it quietly, for he'd treated us worse than dogs. But I mended my ways. It took a year of hard work before I could hold on to myself. I'd get a sight at the sky when we crossed the yard, an' my heart was up in my throat every time. Oh, to be out! If only I could be on the river ag'in an' smell the salt an' feel the wind! I've lain on my floor in the cell many a night an' cried like a baby for only ten minutes' freedom. I'm that way yet: there's wild blood in me from somewhere, an' I'd make a better Indian than white man any day."

Jack's restless motions were the best proof of his theory. As his story began he had sat quietly in the little mission-parlor, but now he was walking hastily up and down, stopping a moment at some special point, then starting again—a tall, lean figure, with characteristic New England face, very thin now, and with a hectic flush on the sunken cheeks, but shrewd and kindly—the narrow chin and high cheek-bones, prominent nose and soft thin hair, seeming to belong wholly to the type of New England villager, and by no possibility to the rough and desperate native of the Fourth Ward. Born in his own place on some quiet inland farm, he would have turned peddler, or, nearer the sea, have chosen that for his vocation; but it was impossible to look upon him as an ex-convict or to do away with the impression of respectability which seems part of the New England birthright.

"At last," he went on, "things changed. A new chaplain came, for one thing, an' I'd got so quiet they changed my cell an' put me on the other side the buildin'. I went on in a kind of dream. I worked like two, an' they begun to take notice of me. The chaplain 'd come an' talk to me, an' he worked over me well; but he might as well have talked to the dead. But my very keepin' still made him think he'd half got me, an' he'd fetch books an' papers; an' things got easier that way. I read an' studied: I was bound now to know something, an' I worked at that hard as I did at everything else; an' there come a time when I was recommended for pardon, an' five years an' a day after I went in he brought it to me. I couldn't speak: I could have gone on my knees to him, an' he had sense to know how I felt.

"'Jack,' he said, 'you're very young yet, an' now is your chance. Try to be an honest man an' pray for help. I wish I knew if you will pray.'

"'You'd make me if any one could,' I says, 'but I ain't sure of the use of it yet: I wish I was.'

"He just looked at me sorrowful, for I hadn't said even that much before, an' I went off.

"An' I did mean to keep straight. I'd had enough of prison; but when I went round askin' for work, not a soul would have me. A jail-bird!—well, they thought not. I grew mad ag'in, an' yet I wouldn't take to the river, for, somehow, I'd lost my courage. Then I met an old pal, an' he took me round to Micky's saloon. The barkeeper'd just been stuck in a fight. I'd been a profitable one for Micky, an' maybe he thought, beginnin' there, I'd go back to the river once more. An' there I was three years, an' fights nigh every night of the year. I could stop 'em when no one else could, for I was always sober.

"'Why don't you drink?' they'd say, an' I'd tell 'em I wanted what brains I had unfuddled. But I hated it worse an' worse. I'd have stopped any minute if there'd been one alive to take me by the hand an' say, 'Here's honest work.' I looked at folks when I went out, to see if there was one that could be spoken to. An' at last I made up my mind for another try. I'd saved some money an' could live a while, an' one Saturday night I just left when Micky paid me. 'Get another man,' I said: 'I'm done;' an' I walked out, with him shoutin' after me.

"Then I waited three months. I answered advertisements, an' I put 'em in. I went here an' I went there, an' always it was the same story, for I answered every one square. An' at last I was sick of it all: I had nothing to live for. 'I'm tired of living with rascals,' I said, 'an' good folks are too good to have anything to do with me. I've had all I want. If work don't come in a week I'll get out of this the easiest way.'

"It didn't come. My money was gone: I'd gone hungry two days. I'd been on half rations before that, till my strength was all gone: I'd pawned my clothes till I wasn't decent. Then I hadn't a cent even for a place on the floor in a lodgin'-house, an' I sat in the City Hall Park long as they would let me. Then, when I was tired of bein' rapped over the head, I got up an' walked down Beekman street to the river—slow, for I was too far gone to move fast. But as I got nearer something seemed to pull me on: I began to run. 'It's the end of all trouble,' I said; an' I went across like a shot an' down the docks. It was bright moonlight, an' I had sense to jump for a dark place where the light was cut off; an' that's all I remember. I must have hit my head ag'inst a boat, for when they took me out it was for dead. Two of my old pals hauled me out, an' worked there on the dock to bring me to, till the ambulance come an' took me to Bellevue.

"I wouldn't have lived, but I didn't know enough not to, bein' in a fever a month. Then I come out of it dazed an' stupid, an' it wasn't till I'd been there six weeks that I got my senses fairly an' knew I was alive after all.

"'I'll do it better next time,' I said, bein' bound to get out of it still; but that night a man in the bed next me began to talk an' ask about it. I told him the whole. When I got through he says, 'I don't know but one man in New York that'll know just what to do, an' that's McAuley of Water street. You go there soon's you can stir an' tell him.'

"I laughed. 'I'm done tellin',' I said.

"'Try him,' he says; an' he was that urgent that I promised. I'd ha' given a hand if I hadn't, though.

"I went out, tremblin' an' sick, an' without a spot to lay my head; an' right there I stood by the river an' thought it would come easier this time. But I'd never go back on my word, an' so I started down, crawlin' along, an' didn't get there till meetin' had begun. I didn't know what sort of a place it was.

"It was new then, in an old rookery of a house, but the room clean an' decent, an' just a little sign out, 'Helping Hand for Men.' I sat an' listened an' wondered till it was over, an' then tried to go, but first I knew I tumbled in a dead faint an' was bein' taken up stairs. They made me a bed next their own room. 'You'd better not,' I said: 'I'm a jail-bird an' a rascal, an' nobody alive wants to have anything to do with me.'

"'You be quiet,' says Jerry. 'I'm a jail-bird myself, but the Lord Jesus has forgiven me an' made me happy; an' He'll do the same by you.'

"They kept me there a week, an' you'd think I was their own, the way they treated me. But I stuck it out: 'When I see a man that's always been respectable come to me an' give me work, an' say he's not afraid or ashamed to, then maybe I'll believe in your Lord Jesus Christ you talk about; but how am I goin' to without?'

"An' that very night it came. You know him well—the gentleman that looks as if the wind had never blown rough on him, an' yet with an eye that can't be fooled.

"'You don't need to tell me a word,' he says: 'I believe you are honest, an' you can begin to-morrow if you're strong enough. It's light work, an' it shall be made easier at first.'

"I looked at him, an' it seemed to me something that had frozen me all up inside melted that minute. I burst out cryin', an' couldn't stop. An' then, first thing I knew, he was down on his knees prayin' for me. 'Dear Lord,' he said, 'he is Thy child, he has always been Thy child. Make him know it to-night: make him know that Thy love has followed him and will hold him up, so that his feet will never slip again.'

"These words stayed by me. I couldn't speak, an' he went away. He knew what he'd done.

"That's all. Some of the men shake their heads: they say it wasn't regular conversion. All I know is, the sense of God come into me then, an' it's never left me. It keeps me on the watch for every soul in trouble. I'm down on the docks o' nights. I know the signs, an' now an' then I can help one that's far gone. I'm goin' myself, you see. There ain't much left of me but a cough an' some bones, but I shall be up to the last. God is that good to me that I'll go quick when I do go; but, quick or slow, I bless Him every hour of the day for the old mission an' my chance."

Helen Campbell.

WESTBROOK

Ruth looked very warm and tired as she came up the path in the strong sunlight; and in striking contrast to her sat Miss Custer in the sheltered veranda, with her cool gray draperies flowing about her in the most graceful folds that could be imagined, as though a sculptor's hand had arranged them. Her dress was cut so as to disclose her white throat rising, swan-like, above a ruffling of soft yellow lace; and her sleeves, flaring a little and short enough to reveal a good deal of the exquisitely-moulded arms, were edged with the same costly trimming, throwing a creamy shadow on the white skin and giving it a tinge like ivory.

Miss Custer liked being considered a brunette, and directed all the arts of her toilette to the bringing out of that idea. She had not much to commence with, however. Her eyes were brown, it is true, but they were a sort of amber-brown, large and serene, with dusky, long-fringed lids drooping over them; and her hair, which was dark in the shadow of the veranda, all hemmed in with trees in thick foliage, was bright gold in certain lights.

She was an amply-framed, finely-proportioned person, and rejoiced in her physique, having a masculine pride in her breadth of shoulders and depth of chest. But in all other respects she was exquisitely feminine: she never displayed either strength or agility. Westbrook was a country place, and in the young folks' rambles about town and out over the hills she was more often fatigued than anybody else, and obliged to accept support from some one of the gentlemen, all of whom were eager enough to offer their services.

She had been in Westbrook only two weeks—she had come to rest herself from the burdens of fashionable life—but she was already very much at home with the place and the people. She was one of those persons who immediately interest the whole neighborhood, and of whom people say, "Have you met her? Have you been introduced to her?"

She was not an entire stranger: there were a good many people in Westbrook who had known her parents years before, and who took her at once upon the credit of her family.

Ruth looked tired and warm, I say, as she came up the path. It was after four o'clock, and school was just out. She was the teacher of the grammar department in the ugly red-brick school-house down at the other end of the town, and she had had a tiresome walk through the heat.

Miss Custer dropped her work, some delicate embroidery, in her lap and folded her white hands upon it, and smiled down at her. She liked Ruth, and was glad to see her coming: the afternoon had been rather dull because she was alone, and she was not constituted for solitude.

Doctor Ebling had said at the dinner-table that, with Ruth's permission—at which Ruth blushed and said something rather saucy, for her—he would read The Spanish Gypsy to Miss Custer out in the shade.

"It is so confoundedly healthy at this particular season," he said, "especially up among these Connecticut hills, that a physician's occupation's gone."

First, however, he went down town—going part of the way with Ruth—to make sure that no orders were awaiting him at his office, intending to come back immediately.

Miss Custer stepped across the hall from the dining-room into the sitting-room, made cool by having the blinds closed, and struck a few chords on the piano. Herbert Bruce, a young attorney of some wealth and some renown, and bosom friend of Doctor Ebling, followed her, and stood, hat in hand, with his shoulder against the door-jamb. "So you have never read The Gypsy?" he remarked.

Miss Custer turned quickly and came a step toward him. "Oh yes, I have read it," she returned. "Or, rather, a good many people have read it to me. But one can stand hearing a poem a good many times, you know."

"By Jove! that's a cooler!" thought Bruce. "No doubt she has been bored to death by that wretched Gypsy, and now Ebling is going to martyrize her again, and make a fool of himself into the bargain."

"Won't you be seated?" Miss Custer asked, "and let me play you something?"

In the shaded room, with her languid eyes intensified, she was a decided brunette, and a very brilliant and beautiful one. Mr. Bruce, pleading business, although he knew there was not a soul stirring down street, and nothing more to be done in his office than in that of Mortimer Lightwood, Esq., declined rather ungraciously and stalked off.

"A born coquette!" he muttered with his hat pulled over his eyes. "Ebling's a fool: Ruth Stanley is worth a dozen of her."

Miss Custer went up stairs and made her afternoon toilette, then got out her embroidery and came down to her accustomed rustic arm-chair, smilingly conscious of the perfection of all that pertained to herself, from the soft ringlets on her broad forehead, so different from the stiff, frowsy crimps of the country-girls, to the small Newport ties with their cardinal-red bows, the only bright color about her. She was just beginning to wonder what kept the doctor so long, when, raising her eyes from a reverie which had been almost a nap, she saw him driving by at a fast trot, with a farm-boy galloping on horseback beside him. He waved his hand to her.

Just then Hugh, son and heir of Aunt Ruby, mistress of this Westbrook boarding-establishment, who had been sent down town after dinner to do some marketing, came in at the gate with a basket on his arm, eating an apple. He paused when he came up, and rested himself by putting one foot on the lower step and settling his weight upon the other. "There's a man out east bin awfully cut up in a mowin'-machine," said he, glancing up at Miss Custer sideways from under his broad-brimmed straw hat, sure that she would appreciate the news, he being the first to tell it; for he had a boyish conceit that Miss Custer had a very high opinion of him, and even indulged the fancy that if he were a man—say twenty-one—instead of a youth of seventeen, he could cut out all them downtown fellers that hung round her.

"Oh! poor man!" said Miss Custer with a sweetness of sympathy that must have comforted the wounded person immensely had he heard it.

"Burnses' boy came in for Doc Ebling," continued Hugh. "They don't know whether they can patch him up again or not."

"I suppose the doctor will find out," said Miss Custer complacently; and Hugh flung away his apple-core and walked on around the house.

Miss Custer hardly knew what to do with herself. She went back to her room, and was tempted to lie down, but then it would rumple her dress and spoil her hair. She thought of the invalid lady, Mrs. Tascher, whose room was at the other end of the hall, but she had an uncomfortable intuition that Mrs. Tascher disliked her. For herself, she disliked nobody: there were people who were not congenial to her, but she never took the trouble to get up a feeling against them. But it seemed to her Mrs. Tascher had not only clearly defined but conscientious likes and dislikes. She had tried to overcome the opposing current so far as it concerned herself, because it was unpleasant; and, although not wholly unaccountable—for she was conscious of some weaknesses, as most mortals are—so far as Mrs. Tascher was affected by her shortcomings the prejudice seemed unfounded. She had never injured her—never, except in that large sense in which all good souls are injured by wrong-doing; which large sense Miss Custer, perhaps, had but a dim consciousness of even when stung—for she was very susceptible—by the criticism, open or implied, of certain high, discriminating natures.

After a while she went down to the back regions, and glided in upon the white kitchen-floor with her sweeping skirts.