CHAPTER XIII
AS for Edith, all doubts and questionings as to her baby’s fate were merged into a settled conviction that it was alive, and that her mother knew where it was to be found. From her mother’s pity and humanity she had nothing to hope for the child. It had been cruelly cast adrift, pushed out to die; by what means was cared not, so that it died and left no trace.
The face of Mrs. Bray had, in the single glance Edith obtained of it, become photographed in her mind. If she had been an artist, she could have drawn it from memory so accurately that no one who knew the woman could have failed to recognize her likeness. Always when in the street her eyes searched for this face; she never passed a woman of small stature and poor dark clothing without turning to look at her. Every day she went out, walking the streets sometimes for hours looking for this face, but not finding it. Every day she passed certain corners and localities where she had seen women begging, and whenever she found one with a baby in her arms would stop to look at the poor starved thing, and question her about it.
Gradually all her thoughts became absorbed in the condition of poor, neglected and suffering children. Her attendance at the St. John’s mission sewing-school, which was located in the neighborhood of one of the worst places in the city, brought her in contact with little children in such a wretched state of ignorance, destitution and vice that her heart was moved to deepest pity, intensified by the thought that ever and anon flashed across her mind: “And my baby may become like one of these!”
Sometimes this thought would drive her almost to madness. Often she would become so wild in her suspense as to be on the verge of openly accusing her mother with having knowledge of her baby’s existence and demanding of her its restoration. But she was held back by the fear that such an accusation would only shut the door of hope for ever. She had come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness. Pressed to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue.
Week after week and month after month now went on without a single, occurrence that gave to Edith any new light. Mrs. Dinneford wrought with her accomplice so effectually that she kept her wholly out of the way. Often, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it into her mind that the woman called Mrs. Gray lived somewhere in this locality.
One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.
“How old is the baby?” asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“It’s a little thing,” answered the child. “I don’t know how old it is; maybe it’s six months old, or maybe it’s a year. It can sit upon the floor.”
“Why does your mother think it has been stolen?”
“Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of it. It doesn’t belong to them, she knows. Mother says it would be a good thing if it died.”
“Why does she say that?”
“Oh she always talks that way about babies—says she’s glad when they die.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy baby,” answered the child.
“Does the woman take good care of it?”
“Oh dear, no! She lets it sit on the floor ‘most all the time, and it cries so that I often go up and nurse it. The woman lives in the room over ours.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Grubb’s court.”
“Will you show me the way there after school is over?”
The child looked up into Edith’s face with an expression of surprise and doubt. Edith repeated her question.
“I guess you’d better not go,” was answered, in a voice that meant all the words expressed.
“Why not?”
“It isn’t a good place.”
“But you live there?”
“Yes, but nobody’s going to trouble me.”
“Nor me,” said Edith.
“Oh, but you don’t know what kind of a place it is, nor what dreadful people live there.”
“I could get a policeman to go with me, couldn’t I?”
“Yes, maybe you could, or Mr. Paulding, the missionary. He goes about everywhere.”
“Where can I find Mr. Paulding?”
“At the mission in Briar street.”
“You’ll show me the way there after school?”
“Oh yes; it isn’t a nice place for you to go, but I guess nobody’ll trouble you.”
After the school closed, Edith, guided by the child, made her way to the Briar st. mission-house. As she entered the narrow street in which it was situated, the aspect of things was so strange and shocking to her eyes that she felt a chill creep to her heart. She had never imagined anything so forlorn and squalid, so wretched and comfortless. Miserable little hovels, many of them no better than pig-styes, and hardly cleaner within, were crowded together in all stages of dilapidation. Windows with scarcely a pane of glass, the chilly air kept out by old hats, bits of carpet or wads of newspaper, could be seen on all sides, with here and there, showing some remains of an orderly habit, a broken pane closed with a smooth piece of paper pasted to the sash. Instinctively she paused, oppressed by a sense of fear.
“It’s only halfway down,” said the child. “We’ll ‘go quick. I guess nobody’ll speak to you. They’re afraid of Mr. Paulding about here. He’s down on ‘em if they meddle with anybody that’s coming to the mission.”
Edith, thus urged, moved on. She had gone but a few steps when two men came in sight, advancing toward her. They were of the class to be seen at all times in that region—debased to the lowest degree, drunken, ragged, bloated, evil-eyed, capable of any wicked thing. They were singing when they came in sight, but checked their drunken mirth as soon as they saw Edith, whose heart sunk again. She stopped, trembling.
“They’re only drunk,” said the child. “I don’t believe they’ll hurt you.”
Edith rallied herself and walked on, the men coming closer and closer. She saw them look at each other with leering eyes, and then at her in a way that made her shiver. When only a few paces distant, they paused, and with the evident intention of barring her farther progress.
“Good-afternoon, miss,” said one of them, with a low bow. “Can we do anything for you?”
The pale, frightened face of Edith was noticed by the other, and it touched some remnant of manhood not yet wholly extinguished.
“Let her alone, you miserable cuss!” he cried, and giving his drunken companion a shove, sent him staggering across the street. This made the way clear, and Edith sprang forward, but she had gone only a few feet when she came face to face with another obstruction even more frightful, if possible, than the first. A woman with a red, swollen visage, black eye, soiled, tattered, drunk, with arms wildly extended, came rushing up to her. The child gave a scream. The wretched creature caught at a shawl worn by Edith, and was dragging it from her shoulders, when the door of one of the houses flew open, and a woman came out hastily. Grasping the assailant, she hurled her across the street with the strength of a giant.
“We’re going to the mission,” said the child.
“It’s just down there. Go ‘long. I’ll stand here and see that no one meddles with you again.”
Edith faltered her thanks, and went on.
“That’s the queen,” said her companion.
“The queen!” Edith’s hasty tones betrayed her surprise.
“Yes; it’s Norah. They’re all afraid of her. I’m glad she saw us. She’s as strong as a man.”
In a few minutes they reached the mission, but in those few minutes Edith saw more to sadden the heart, more to make it ache for humanity, than could be described in pages.
The missionary was at home. Edith told him the purpose of her call and the locality she desired to visit.
“I wanted to go alone,” she remarked, “but this little girl, who is in my class at the sewing-school, said it wouldn’t be safe, and that you would go with me.”
“I should be sorry to have you go alone into Grubb’s court,” said the missionary, kindly, and with concern in his voice, “for a worse place can hardly be found in the city—I was going to say in the world. You will be safe with me, however. But why do you wish to visit Grubb’s court? Perhaps I can do all that is needed.”
“This little girl who lives in there, has been telling me about a poor neglected baby that her mother says has no doubt been stolen, and—and—” Edith voice faltered, but she quickly gained steadiness under a strong effort of will: “I thought perhaps I might be able to do something for it—to get it into one of the homes, maybe. It is dreadful, sir, to think of little babies being neglected.”
Mr. Paulding questioned the child who had brought Edith to the mission-house, and learned from her that the baby was merely boarded by the woman who had it in charge, and that she sometimes took it out and sat on the street, begging. The child repeated what she had said to Edith—that the baby was the property, so to speak, of two abandoned women, who paid its board.
“I think,” said the missionary, after some reflection, “that if getting the child out of their hands is your purpose, you had better not go there at present. Your visit would arouse suspicion; and if the two women have anything to gain by keeping the child in their possession, it will be at once taken to a new place. I am moving about in these localities all the while, and can look in upon the baby without anything being thought of it.”
This seemed so reasonable that Edith, who could not get over the nervous tremors occasioned by what she had already seen and encountered, readily consented to leave the matter for the present in Mr. Paulding’s hands.
“If you will come here to-morrow,” said the missionary, “I will tell you all I can about the baby.”
Out of a region where disease, want and crime shrunk from common observation, and sin and death held high carnival, Edith hurried with trembling feet, and heart beating so heavily that she could hear it throb, the considerate missionary going with her until she had crossed the boundary of this morally infected district.
Mr. Dinneford met Edith at the door on her arrival home.
“My child,” he exclaimed as he looked into her face, back to which the color had not returned since her fright in Briar street, “are you sick?”
“I don’t feel very well;” and she tried to pass him hastily in the hall as they entered the house together. But he laid his hand on her arm and held her back gently, then drew her into the parlor. She sat down, trembling, weak and faint. Mr. Dinneford waited for some moments, looking at her with a tender concern, before speaking.
“Where have you been, my dear?” he asked, at length.
After a little hesitation, Edith told her father about her visit to Briar street and the shock she had received.
“You were wrong,” he answered, gravely. “It is most fortunate for you that you took the child’s advice and called at the mission. If you had gone to Grubb’s court alone, you might not have come out alive.”
“Oh no, father! It can’t be so bad as that.”
“It is just as bad as that,” he replied, with a troubled face and manner. “Grubb’s court is one of the traps into which unwary victims are drawn that they may be plundered. It is as much out of common observation almost as the lair of a wild beast in some deep wilderness. I have heard it described by those who have been there under protection of the police, and shudder to think of the narrow escape you have made. I don’t want you to go into that vile district again. It is no place for such as you.”
“There’s a poor little baby there,” said Edith, her voice trembling and tears filling her eyes. Then, after a brief struggle with her feelings, she threw herself upon her father, sobbing out, “And oh, father, it may be my baby!”
“My poor child,” said Mr. Dinneford, not able to keep his voice firm—“my poor, poor child! It is all a wild dream, the suggestion of evil spirits who delight in torment.”
“What became of my baby, father? Can you tell me?”
“It died, Edith dear. We know that,” returned her father, trying to speak very confidently. But the doubt in his own mind betrayed itself.
“Do you know it?” she asked, rising and confronting her father.
“I didn’t actually see it die. But—but—”
“You know no more about it than I do,” said Edith; “if you did, you might set my heart at rest with a word. But you cannot. And so I am left to my wild fears, that grow stronger every day. Oh, father, help me, if you can. I must have certainty, or I shall lose my reason.”
“If you don’t give up this wild fancy, you surely will,” answered Mr. Dinneford, in a distressed voice.
“If I were to shut myself up and do nothing,” said Edith, with greater calmness, “I would be in a madhouse before a week went by. My safety lies in getting down to the truth of this wild fancy, as you call it. It has taken such possession of me that nothing but certainty can give me rest. Will you help me?”
“How can I help you? I have no clue to this sad mystery.”
“Mystery! Then you are as much in the dark as I am—know no more of what became of my baby than I do! Oh, father, how could you let such a thing be done, and ask no questions—such a cruel and terrible thing—and I lying helpless and dumb? Oh, father, my innocent baby cast out like a dog to perish—nay, worse, like a lamb among wolves to be torn by their cruel teeth—and no one to put forth a hand to save! If I only knew that he was dead! If I could find his little grave and comfort my heart over it!”
Weak, naturally good men, like Mr. Dinneford, often permit great wrongs to be done in shrinking from conflict and evading the sterner duties of life. They are often the faithless guardians of immortal trusts.
There was a tone of accusation and rebuke in Edith’s voice that smote painfully on her father’s heart. He answered feebly:
“What could I do? How should I know that anything wrong was being done? You were very ill, and the baby was sent away to be nursed, and then I was told that it was dead.”
“Oh, father! Sent away without your seeing it! My baby! Your little grandson! Oh, father!”
“But you know, dear, in what a temper of mind your mother was—how impossible it is for me to do anything with her when she once sets herself to do a thing.”
“Even if it be murder!” said Edith, in a hoarse whisper.
“Hush, hush, my child! You must not speak so,” returned the agitated father.
A silence fell between them. A wall of separation began to grow up. Edith arose, and was moving from the room.
“My daughter!” There was a sob in the father’s voice.
Edith stopped.
“My daughter, we must not part yet. Come back; sit down with me, and let us talk more calmly. What is past cannot be changed. It is with the now of this unhappy business that we have to do.”
Edith came back and sat down again, her father taking a seat beside her.
“That is just it,” she answered, with a steadiness of tone and manner that showed how great was the self-control she was able to exert. “It is with the now of this unhappy affair that we have to do. If I spoke strongly of the past, it was that a higher and intenser life might be given to present duty.”
“Let there be no distance between us. Let no wall of separation grow up,” said Mr. Dinneford, tenderly. “I cannot bear to think of this. Confide in me, consult with me. I will help you in all possible ways to solve this mystery. But do not again venture alone into that dreadful place. I will go with you if you think any good will come 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.”