MIDGET’S BABY.
BY MARY D. BRINE.
“O MY SAKES!” It was early in the morning when Midget stood on tiptoe, peeping behind a large ash-barrel, and, with wide-open eyes, uttered this exclamation. So early that only a few enterprising milkmen and extra smart market-men were about the street, and nobody but Midget had heard the feeble cry which startled her and led to an inquisitive peep behind the barrel.
It was in an alley-way where piles of rubbish, all sorts of odds and ends, and much that was impure and disagreeable, had it all their own way from dawn till night, that Midget was standing this chilly morning. And “O my sakes!” escaped her lips once again before she ventured to stop staring and begin work. No wonder she stared, for on the ground, surrounded by bits of broken crockery and discarded ale-bottles, half-choked with the dust of ashes, and carelessly wrapped in a dilapidated old shawl, a baby was lying, stretching little thin arms helplessly into the narrow space between the high brick wall and the barrel, and testifying by feeble wails its need of timely assistance. Midget was so shocked and surprised at first that she could only give vent to her favorite exclamation as above, but presently her small shoulder was pressed against the barrel, and after much tugging and some hard breathing it was shoved aside, and Midget had her arms around the forlorn and neglected baby in a moment.
It was just at that part of the fall season when early mornings and evenings are chilly and suggestive of shivers, and baby, who might have been all night on the ground, was blue with cold and quite savage with hunger. Midget’s shawl, ragged almost as that which was wrapped about the baby, was made to do double duty, as she folded the little waif in her arms, and realized the important fact that she was holding a real, live baby.
It was not possible to carry a bundle of wood and baby at the same time, so the bundle which was to help grandma get her cup of tea was unceremoniously dropped, and the little girl hurried home with her new-found treasure.
While she is hastening over the pavements, her blue eyes dancing with joy and excitement, we may learn something concerning her and her rather uncomfortable home.
Midget lived with her grandmother, who was both father and mother to the little thing who had never known the care or love of either parent. Her father had never, in his best days, been much of a man, and when, soon after his wife’s death, he was accidentally killed in the factory where he worked, poor little Midget was left totally unprovided for, and quite dependent, in her babyhood, upon grandma, who at least was able to pay the small monthly rent of the cellar home to which Midget was taken. The child, because of her small size, had earned from neighbors the nickname “Midget,” and had reached the age of eight years, still answering to the title, and almost forgetting her real name was Maggie. A wild, wilful, and not far from naughty little girl she was, but her heart was kindly disposed, and held a world of good intentions and affectionate thoughts, that somehow nobody, not even grandma, could often get a sight of. She didn’t understand why there was not a little sister with whom she might play all day, instead of having to go out early in the morning to pick up sticks and chips for the fire which cooked their scanty meals.
Midget much preferred a game of “ring around a rosy” with the other children, properly called “Les Miserables,” who swarmed about the side street where she had lived so long, than to work for her daily bread and blue milk, according to granny’s directions. And poor old granny herself, possessing not much of the virtue called patience, was called upon by her idea of training a child the way she should go, to give little Midget many a “cuff on the ear,” and a shaking which roused all that was naughty in the lassie’s heart, and made the blue eyes snap very angrily. As for school, Midget had no time for education, but in some way, she, with several other children, had learned their letters, and could spell cat and dog as well as any school girl. During the day she earned a little by selling papers on the street, and yet I’m sorry to say most of her pennies went in sticks of candy down her little throat, unknown to granny. “If I only had a little sister,” she would think, excusing herself, “if granny would only buy babies, as other women do, why I’d be as good as anything, and help her take care of it! I would!”
“Eh! what’s that?”
But granny didn’t buy babies, and Midget still hated work, and sometimes there were clouds and sometimes sunshine, and on this very morning when Midget found the baby she had been saucy to grandma, and grandma had boxed the little ears, and so it had begun a very cloudy day indeed.
But we must return to Midget, who, ere this, has reached home.
How glad she was, and at the same time how frightened, poor little Midget! What should she do with the baby, that was the question; and when at last the cellar was reached, and Midget laid her burden in grandma’s lap, she asked the question over again.
“Eh! what’s this?” asked the old woman, lifting her hands and brows together, while baby, who, in all its life of eighteen months had never beheld such a queer thing as granny’s broad-frilled cap, opened its mouth and screamed a terrified answer.
“’Tain’t only a baby, granny,” exclaimed Midget, patting the wee stranger’s hands, and trembling lest her grandmother should rise and drop it. “Only nothin’ but just a baby, and I’m so glad I found it, ain’t you, granny? ’Cause you see it’s a kind of sister, you know, and you won’t have to buy one.”
“Glad?” repeated the old woman, “that I ain’t!” But the rather snappish answer was quite out of keeping with the impulsive kiss laid on the little one’s velvety cheek. Midget brightened when she saw granny do that.
“I say, do you think it’s got any mamma, granny?” she asked.
“Did have, most likely, but reckon her ma wa’n’t good for much,” was the reply, while the baby, amused by Midget, began to laugh.
“I shouldn’t have thought any mother would chuck her baby behind a barrel,” said Midget, thoughtfully. Then she began to plead with her grandmother that it might be allowed to stay with them, promising such wonderful things, and such care of it, that granny, who loved babies, and didn’t really know but what a reward might be offered for the child, at last yielded, and promised to keep it at least a few days. And Midget, delighted beyond measure, seemed to feel two years older as she rocked the little stranger to sleep, and laid it in her own little straw bed. “I was a stranger and ye took me in,” kept somehow repeating itself in granny’s mind all that day. She had read it in her Bible long ago, and had heard it from the pulpit once, but never before had it come back so forcibly as to-day. “Well! well! The Lord will provide, I dare say. And goodness knows, if he don’t, the child will starve along with Midget and her old granny.”
No advertisement appeared in reference to the lost baby, and at the end of a week the little one had grown so dear to the two who had taken her in, that granny decided to keep her “a little longer.”
But what had come over Midget? The frowsy head began to look smooth as the clustering curls would permit, the little, active body, always bent upon mischief, had busied itself in new ways, and began to look tidy and neat as the unavoidable rags would allow. Hands and face were clean as soap and water could make them, and Midget actually kept her boots laced since baby’s advent into the family. Granny also noticed that Midget grumbled less at having to go out in the early dawn for sticks,—in fact, the grumbling in course of time ceased altogether; for Midget was bent upon fattening the baby and making it grow. And how could a baby grow fat unless she kept it nice and warm, and gave it plenty of food? Granny’s cup of tea would not do for baby, but Midget drank cold water most of the time, and baby had the blue milk all to her hungry, healthy little self.
By-and-by, after the little one had been in her new home about three weeks, and all the children had kissed it and admired it to their hearts’ content, and all the old crones of the neighborhood had speculated as to how granny would be able to provide for it, Midget found pleasant work to do in selling cut flowers on the street for a florist near by. Such an important little Midget had never before been heard of in that neighborhood, and it was wonderful how long it had been since granny had found it necessary to punish her. No more saucy words, or frowns on the child-face, because there was baby always watching her little Midget-mamma with wide eyes, and once, just once, Midget saw the baby kick out its tiny foot just as she had naughtily kicked a little playmate who ventured to provoke her anger. And as Midget was determined her baby should excel all others, of course she was careful of her influence. Then, too, she continued to be neat and tidy, lest the baby might turn her sweet face away when a kiss was wanted, and that would almost have broken Midget’s heart.
The mornings were daily growing colder, and our little girl’s shawl grew no thicker or warmer, sad to say, as she started early each day for the flower-stand on Broadway. But Midget kept up a brave heart, and was glad for the little custom she found. How closely she stuck to business, and how patiently she looked forward to the hour when, released from duty, she would scamper home for a frolic with baby, we have neither time nor space to describe minutely, but we may say that with this new happiness in her heart, and with the importance of taking good care of her baby constantly in her mind, no wonder our little Midget grew gentle and good, and found the sunshine oftener than she used to.
“Midget and her Baby.”
And all this time the wee stranger grew pretty and strong, and granny began to fear lest somebody should claim this bright treasure, which made the old cellar so happy a place, despite its scanty furniture and lack of home comfort. But nobody came for it, and finally the winter had slipped by and spring made its appearance.
Midget had laid up a few dollars—think of it, children who read this, a few dollars! probably the sum that some of you spend in candy and toys during one day and think nothing of—for a new dress for baby and some trifles for granny and herself. She was eight years old, old enough to feel very grand and important when planning her shopping expedition; and indeed, the little girl sadly needed something to wear, if she would still make herself bright and attractive to baby.
When the days grew warm she used to take her baby to the flower-stand, and people passing paused often, as well to admire this bright little nurse and her charge as to purchase the dainty blossoms offered for sale. Then in an hour or so granny would come for the baby, and, taking her home, leave the small flower vender free to attend to business.
Didn’t Midget get tired of selling her flowers all day on the street? O yes, very tired; but the day’s hard work only made her evenings merrier; and the bed-time frolics with baby made Midget grow fat from laughing, if the old adage is true, “Laugh and grow fat.” There had been so many bright days, in Midget’s opinion, since baby came; that the little girl quite forgot that there were such thing as clouds. And so one day, when she went home, it gave her a dreadful shock to find poor old granny faint and ill upon the low bed, and two of the neighbors watching beside her.
Midget looked around. Where was her baby? There was granny, so white, and grown so suddenly older than Midget had ever noticed before, but baby was crying in the arms of a girl-neighbor, who had volunteered to “kape the spalpeen quiet” till Midget’s return.
It didn’t take our little mother a minute to secure within her own tender arms the frightened baby, and then Midget sat patiently down beside granny, who neither stirred nor opened her dim eyes until midnight. If I had time I could tell you how, after days of watching and sadness, grandma made Midget understand that her sickness could not be cured on earth. But the end came, after all, too suddenly for little Midget’s comprehension, and when the kind neighbors had laid the old woman away, to rest forever from labor, our little heroine had only her laughing, crowing baby to comfort and cheer her.
She went to live with a kind woman who had known granny for years, and was but little better off in worldly goods than the old grandmother had been. Still, Midget could not starve; and she and her baby were made welcome in the new home. And after that she took the little one with her to the flower-stand, and brought her home at noon herself each day for two weeks.
And then another thing happened, which, for a brief time, almost broke the child’s heart.
It was a beautiful day late in the summer, and baby, a big, fat girl, was crowing and laughing in Midget’s lap, when a gentleman paused to buy flowers. While Midget was giving him change baby reached out her hand to touch the gentleman’s cane, and he looked at the baby face first with indifference, then more earnestly, and finally with a startled look on his own face which puzzled Midget.
Then he questioned her about the child, and asked if it had, under the soft golden curls, on the back of the neck, a small red mark.
Midget innocently replied: “O, I’ve seen it whenever I’ve dressed my baby; why, sir?”
Poor little Midget! Little she knew that with her own lips she was giving away her baby, for the gentleman, raising the curls that fell about the fat little neck, saw himself the mark which gave him back his own lost child.
It would be too long a story to relate how, just as he and his wife, so long ago, were going on board a European steamer, followed by nurse and baby, the nurse, carrying out a well-laid plot, slipped behind and sold for a large sum (promised) her little charge to an accomplice, who hoped to claim the reward which he thought would be offered, when, too late, the child’s loss was discovered; and, from that day until now, both parents had mourned for their baby. The nurse, failing to receive her promised share of money, worried and frightened the accomplice until he deserted the baby, and when the nurse would have sought it, Midget had taken her treasure home. The reward was offered, but, as it happened, granny had not seen it, and thus the child of aristocratic birth became indebted for life to Midget’s care.
All this the gentleman explained afterwards to Midget, after he had bidden her return to the florist her flowers and come with him. And then, in the presence of baby May’s mother Midget told her story, with many sobs and tears.
But the sunshine was coming to our heroine again,—the clouds were only for a little while. And when Mr. and Mrs. —— engaged at a good price the services of faithful Midget, as nurse for the baby she loved, and took both baby and Midget away to the beautiful country-house, where were birds and flowers and hanging leaves and grasses, which made the fall so cheery a season as it never had been for Midget before—why, then, the little girl wondered if it were not all a dream, and if the beautiful house and charming meadows would not suddenly change into dismal streets and old cellars and she a poor little flower-merchant again.
Little Midget is still nurse to baby May, still a bright, tidy, well-shod little girl, and best of all, baby still calls her “sissy Mid’it” and loves her as dearly as when, in the old times, Midget fed her on blue milk and crackers.