"Out Of The Depths Have I Cried Unto Thee O Lord!"
A Christmas Sketch.
"Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!
And your purple shows your path,
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath."
"If wishes were horses, beggars might ride," says the proverb.
What a pity it is that wishes are not horses!—that at seasons when almost every tongue drops the words, "A merry Christmas!" "A happy New-Year!" the will should not rise and breathe the breath of life into those words; make them move, make them work; put bit and bridle on them, and direct them to go where they are most needed. Wishes might then be made into very excellent horses, and beggars might ride at least once a year; might be lifted for a day out of the mire of care and suffering that dulls the light of heaven to their eyes, and stops out the voices of heaven from their ears; lifted into a belief in the humanity of man and the mercy of God; might be given a little restful journey into that easy land where the rich dwell every day.
There is more truth than poetry in the line,
"Leave us leisure to be good."
One who has no time for thought will almost certainly go astray; and men and women whose lives are spent in fighting the wolf from their doors, will fight him with whatever comes to hand, and will sometimes catch up strange weapons.
So it might chance that these living wishes may have wings also, and the beggar's soul may rise as well as his body.
I should like to set a regiment of such wishes galloping down Grind street this coming Christmas, and stopping at every door.
That was a sorrowful street a few years ago, and I don't know that it has grown merry since. A tall block of tenement-houses walled the northern side from end to end, leaving off so abruptly that, had they been written words instead of brick houses, there would have been a —— after them. Indeed, if the reader has a fancy for a miserable pun, he might say that there was a dash after them, houses being scarce.
A very sensitive person, on looking at that block, would be likely to straighten himself up, draw his elbows close to his sides, and feel as though his nose was unnecessarily large. It is not impossible that he might "toe in" a little in walking, unless he reached the next street. Not a curve was visible in the whole block, horizontal and perpendicular reigning supreme. The mean brick front came to the very edge of the sidewalk, and the windows and doors were as flat as though they had been slapped in the face when in a soft state. Every house was precisely like every other house, and the only way of finding any particular one was by counting doors.
"These houses toe the mark," the builder had said when he looked on his completed work, standing complacently with his hands in his pockets, and his head a little on one side.
"Toe the mark" was the right phrase. The two meagre steps that led to each front door suggested the thought, and the whole had an air of soul obedience.
The tenants in this block were of that pitiable class called "decent," which generally means poor; too independent to beg, straining every nerve to live respectably, and making an extra strain to hide the first one; people whose eyes get a little wild at the prospect of sickness, who shudder at the thought of a doctor's bill and workless days, who sometimes stop their toil for a moment, and wonder what may be the meaning of such words as "ease," "contentment," "pleasure." There were clerks and book-keepers whose families burst out through their incomes in every direction; starving artists of all sorts; and the rest, people who toiled down in the dark, at the foundations over which soared the marble palaces of the rich, darkening heaven.
These people had got in a way of dressing alike; they had the same kind of curtains, and the same plants stretching beseeching shoots toward the tantalizing line of sunshine that let itself down, slow and golden, to the middle of the second floor windows, then drew back over the roofs of the houses opposite, while little flowers of all colors looked lovingly and reproachfully after it, cheated so day after day, but never quite losing faith that some day the bright-winged comforter would come quite down to their hearts.
Eyes of angels, to whom these roofs and walls were transparent, saw, doubtless, variety enough under the surface: aspirations that reached to the house-top and looked over; aspirations that soared even to the clouds and the stars, catching a heavenly likeness; aspirations that stopped not at the stars, but climbed so high that their flowers and fruitage hung in the unfailing sunlight of heaven beyond reach of earthly hands, but seen and touched by ineffable hopes ascending and descending. What dark desires crawling upon the earth and covering their own deeds those poor eyes looked upon, I say not; what hate, deep and bitter; what cankering envy and disappointment; what despair, that with two tears blotted the universe; what determination; what strongly rooted purpose; what careless philosophy eating its crust with a laugh. Let the angels see as they may, with human eyes we will look into one room, and find our story there.
This room is on the second floor, and consequently gets its windows half full of sunshine every pleasant afternoon. The furnishing of it shows that the occupants had seen better days; but those days are long past, as you can see by the shabbiness of everything. There are evidences of taste, too, in a hanging vase of ivy, a voluble canary, a few books and pictures; and everything is clean.
It was a bright gloaming in December of 186-, when a woman sat alone in this room. She was evidently an invalid, looking more like a porcelain image than a flesh-and-blood woman, so white and transparent was she, so frail the whole make of her. Soft light-brown hair faintly sprinkled with gray was dropped beside each thin cheek, dovelike eyes of an uncertain blue looked sadly out from beneath anxious brows, and the mouth, which once must have expressed resolution, now, in its comparison, showed only endurance. This was a woman who had taken up life full of hope and spirit, but whom life had turned upon with blow after blow, till finally both hope and spirit were broken. Her days of enterprise were over.
She sat there with her hands listlessly folded, her work fallen unnoticed to the floor, and her eyes flushed with weeping. She had been sitting so an hour, ever since a visitor had left her; but, hearing a step on the stair and a child's voice singing, she started up, wiped her eyes, and mended the fire, her back turned toward the door as it opened.
A little girl of eight years old came in and gave her school-books a toss upon the table, crying out, in a boisterous, healthy voice, "O mother! I am starved! Give me something to eat."
"Supper will soon be ready, Nell," the mother said gently, drawing out the table.
"I can't wait!" cried the child. "My stomach is so empty that it feels as if there was a mouse there gnawing. You know we had nothing but bread and butter for dinner, and I do think that's a mean dinner. Why don't you have roast beef? I know lots of girls who have it every day."
"We can't afford it," the mother said falteringly. "Beef is very high."
"Well, what have you got for supper?" demanded the child. "You promised us something good."
"I have nothing but bread and butter, dear. I couldn't get anything else."
"Well, Mother Lane, I declare if that isn't too bad!" And the child flung herself angrily into a chair. "We don't have anything fit to eat, and I wish I could go and live with somebody that wouldn't starve me. I won't eat bread and butter, there now! I'm so sick of it that it chokes me."
The mother's face took a deeper shade, and her lip trembled, but she made no reply; and Nell sat angrily kicking her heels against the chair, and pouting her red lips.
Mrs. Lane knew well how vain is the attempt to teach a child gratitude for the necessaries of life. Children are grateful only for that which is superfluous, taking the rest as a matter of course, and they are not to be blamed either. For gratitude is a fruit, and not a flower, and those budding natures know not yet what it means. After a little while, another and a louder step sounded on the stairs, this time accompanied by a whistle; and the door opened noisily to give admittance to a boy of ten years old, who also flung his books down, and opened his cry:
"Mother, give me some money, quick! The oysterman is just at the end of the street, and I can get oysters enough for our supper for thirty cents. Hurry up, mother, or he'll go away!" And the boy performed a double-shuffle to relieve his impatience.
"I can't spare the money," his mother said faintly.
"Well, what have you got for supper, then?" he asked fretfully.
The mother made no answer, and the boy turned to his sister for an explanation.
"Bread and butter!" said Nell, with an air of ferocious sarcasm.
"Well, if I ever!" pronounced her brother, standing still with his hands driven emphatically into the uttermost depths of his pockets, and looking at his mother with an air at once astonished and accusing. "If we live like this, I'll run away; see if I don't!"
She turned upon them with a look that was either desperate or angry.
"Children, wait till your sister comes home. Don't ask me for anything."
Frank gave the door a bang, pulled his cap still closer on to his head, since he ought to have pulled it off, and taking a seat by the window, sat kicking his chair in concert with his sister. The mother continued her preparations with the air of a culprit watched by her judges.
Unheard in this duet of heels, a softer step ascended the stairs, and a young lady opened the door and entered, a smile on her pretty face, her breath quickened and her color heightened by the run up-stairs, and waves of yellow hair drawn back from her white forehead. She tossed her hat aside, and sank into a chair.
"There, mother, I do feel tired and hungry," she said; then, catching a glimpse of her mother's face, started up, exclaiming, "What is the matter?"
"Mr. Sanborn has been here," Mrs. Lane answered unsteadily, without looking up.
The daughter's countenance showed her anticipation of evil news.
"And what of that?" she asked.
"He has raised the rent," was the faint answer.
"How much?"
"Eight dollars a month?"
"Impossible!" cried the daughter, flushing with excitement. "We pay now all that the three rooms are worth. He knows what my salary is, and that I cannot give any more."
"He says he can get that for the rooms," her mother said.
"Then we will go elsewhere!"
"We cannot!" whispered the mother despairingly, for the first time raising her woeful eyes. "Every place is full. They are going to tear down houses to widen two or three streets, and Mr. Sanborn says that people will have to go out of town to live."
"What are we to do!" exclaimed the girl, pacing excitedly to and fro. "We only just managed to get along before. Did you tell him, mother?"
"I told him everything, Anne; and he said that he was very sorry, but that his family was an expensive one, and it cost him a good deal to live; and, in short, that he must have the eight dollars more."
"He is a villain!" cried Anne Lane. "And I will tell him so. I should think his family was an expensive one. Look at their velvets, and laces, and silks! Look at their pictures and their curtains! One of my scholars told me to-day that Minnie Sanborn said they were going to have a Christmas-tree that will cost five hundred dollars. Think of that! And this is the way they pay for it!"
"Don't say anything to him, Anne," pleaded her mother, in a frightened tone. "Remember, he is one of the committee, and can take your school away from you."
The young teacher's countenance fell. It was true; her employment did, in some measure, depend on the good-will of this man.
She choked with the thought, then broke out again.
"The hypocrite! I have seen him at prayer-meetings, and heard him make long prayers and pious speeches."
The mother sighed, and remained silent. She had been wont to check her daughter's somewhat free animadversions, and to make an effort, at least, to defend them of whom Anne said, "Their life laughs through and spits at their creed;" but now the bitter truth came too near.
There was a moment of silence, the children sitting still and awed, the mother waiting despondently, while the fatherless girl, who was the sole dependence of the household, did some rapid brain-work.
"You think he really means it, mother?" she asked, without pausing in her walk.
"Yes, there is no hope. I almost went on my knees to him."
There the widow's self-control broke down suddenly, and, putting her hands over her face, she burst into a passion of tears.
It is a terrible thing to see one's mother cry in that way; to see her, who soothed our childish sorrows, who seemed to us the fountain of all comfort, herself sorrowing, while we have no comfort to give.
Anne Lane's face grew pale with pain, and it seemed for a moment that she, too, would lose courage. But she was a brave girl, and love strengthened her.
"There, there, mother!" she said. "Don't cry! I guess we can make out some way. Couldn't we do with two rooms? I could sleep with you and Nell, and Frank could have a pillow out here on the sofa."
"I thought of that," the mother sobbed drearily. "But he said that the rooms go together."
The girl's breath came like that of some wild creature at bay.
"Then we must draw in our expenses somewhere. We must give up our seats in church, and I will do the washing."
"I meant to do the washing, dear," her mother said eagerly. "And perhaps I might get some work out of the shops. You know I have a good deal of time to spare."
Even as she spoke, a sharp cough broke through her words, and her face flushed painfully.
"No, mother, no!" the daughter said, resolutely holding back her tears. "You are not able to work. Just leave that to me. Washing makes round arms, and I find my elbows getting a little sharp. I can save money and bring the dimples back at the same time."
There was a knock at the door, and their laundress came in, a sober, sensible-looking Irishwoman.
"Good-evening, ma'am! Good-evening, miss! No, I won't sit down. I must go home and take my young ones off the street, and give 'em a bit of supper. I just stepped in to see if you want your washing done to-morrow."
Mrs. Lane looked appealingly to her daughter to answer.
"We are sorry, Mrs. Conners," Anne said, "but we shall have to do our own washing, this winter."
"O Lord!" cried the woman, leaning against the wall.
"There is no help for it," the girl continued, almost sharply, feeling that their own distresses were enough for them to bear. "Our rent has been raised, and we must save all we can."
"Oh! what'll I do, at all?" exclaimed the woman, lifting both hands.
"Why, the best you can; just as we do," was the impatient reply.
Mrs. Conners looked at them attentively, and for the first time perceived signs of trouble in their faces.
"The Lord pity us!" she said. "I don't blame you. But my rent is raised, too. I've got to pay five dollars a month for the rooms I have, and I don't know where I'll get it. It's little I thought to come to this when Patrick was alive—the Lord have mercy on him! The last thing he said to me when he went away to California was, 'Margaret, keep up courage, and don't let the children on the street; and I'll send you money enough to live on; and I'll soon come back and buy us a little farm.' And all I ever heard of him, since the day he left me, is the news of his death. Now I'll have to take the children and go to the poor-house. All I could do last winter only kept their mouths full, let alone rent. I couldn't put a stitch on them nor me; and you wouldn't believe how cold I am with no stockings to my feet, and little enough under my rag of a dress. I couldn't buy coal nor wood. The children picked up sticks in the street, and after my work was over I had to go down to the dump, and pick coal till my back was broke."
"Who is your landlord?" Mrs. Lane asked.
"Mr. Mahan—Andrew Mahan, that lives in a big house in the square. And he asks five dollars for two rooms in that shanty, that's squeezed into a bit of a place where nothing else would go. Besides, the house is so old that the rats have ate it half up, and what's left I could carry off on my back in a day. When Mr. Mahan came to-day, his dog crawled through the door before it was opened. I said to him, says I, 'Sir, when the wind and the rain take possession of a house, it belongs to God, and no man has a right to ask rent for it.' You see, I was mad. And so was he, by that same token."
"But he is an Irishman, and a member of your own church," said Anne.
"And why not?" demanded the woman. "Do you think that Yankees are the only ones that grind the poor? Yes, Mr. Mahan is rich, and he lives in style, and sends his daughters to a convent school in Montreal. And often I've seen him in church, dressed in his broad-cloths, and beating his breast, with his face the length of my arm, and calling himself a sinner; and troth, I thought to myself, 'that's true for ye!'"
Anne Lane went into her school-room the next morning with a burning heart, and it did not soothe her feelings to see Mr. Sanborn, her landlord, appear at the door, a few minutes after, smilingly escorting a clerical-looking stranger, who had come to visit the school.
Mr. Sanborn, though not an educated man, chose to consider himself a patron of education; made himself exceedingly consequential in school affairs, and had now brought a distinguished visitor to see his pet school, the "Excelsior." Anne Lane had one of the show-classes, and he began the exhibition with her.
"Commence, and go on with your exercises just as if there were no one here," he said, with a patronizing smile, after they had taken their seats. "This gentleman wishes to see the ordinary daily working of our system."
The first exercise was a reading from the Bible, and a prayer by the teacher, and Anne's fingers were unsteady as she turned over the leaves for a chapter. Her eyes sparkled as she caught sight of one, and her pulses tingled as she read, her fine, deliberate enunciation and strong emphasis arresting fully the attention of her hearers:
"Times are not hid from the Almighty:
but they that know him, know not his days.
"Some have removed landmarks,
have taken away flocks by force, and fed them.
"They have violently robbed the fatherless,
and stripped the poor common people.
"They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them,
who after having trodden the wine-presses suffer thirst.
"Out of the cities they have made men to groan;
and God will not suffer it to pass unrevenged.
"Cursed be his portion upon the earth:
let him not walk by the way of the vineyards.
"Let him pass from snow-water to excessive heat,
and his sin even to hell.
"Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness;
let him be remembered no more,
but be broken in pieces like an unfruitful tree."
Closing the book then, Anne Lane dropped her face into her shaking hands, and repeated, almost inaudibly, the Lord's prayer.
Mr. Sanborn was not dull, but he was incredulous. It was almost impossible that this little school-mistress would dare to mean him. Yet that new sternness in the young face, ordinarily so smiling, the passion in her voice, with the remembrance of his last interview with Mrs. Lane, altogether made up a pretty strong case against her.
"She makes a strange selection from the Scriptures to read to children," whispered the stranger to him, as Anne hurriedly went through with the first recitations.
"Very strange, sir! very strange!" answered the other, stammering with anger. "And what is worse, it is intended as an insult to me. I have found it necessary to raise the rent of my houses. She is a tenant of mine, and this is her revenge. I hope, sir, that if you have anything to say on the subject, you will not hesitate to speak freely."
The Rev. Mr. Markham sat and considered the case, laying down certain points in his mind. Firstly, women should be sweet, humble, and modest. Secondly, sweetness, modesty, and humility, with firmness and patience, should especially characterize a teacher of youth. Thirdly, persons in authority, clergymen, school-committee men, etc., should be treated with scrupulous respect by all their subordinates.
The reverend gentleman put on his spectacles, the better to see this young woman who had so boldly vetoed his fundamental doctrines. She held herself very erect, no modest droop whatever; there was a little flicker of heat-lightning in her eyes, and a steady, dark-red spot on each cheek; moreover, she had red hair. Verdict for the plaintiff. She must have a reprimand, a warning, and, on repetition of the offence, must be informed that she is no longer considered a suitable person to mould the minds of youth.
Poor little Anne Lane! This great, stupid, conceited man did not dream that her aching heart was laden with sweetness as a hive with honey, and that what he called a sweet woman was a sugar-coated woman. He did not allow that there might be some exceptions to his third rule. The reprimand was delivered pitilessly, the warning made sufficiently plain then, the two gentlemen withdrew, leaving the teacher pale and stunned. The visitor had taken the coldest possible leave, and Mr. Sanborn had not noticed her at all.
"Oh! why did I yield to anger?" she thought, in terror and distress. "What right have the poor to feelings, to thoughts? How dare they denounce wrong, even when they die by it? What was I thinking of?"
A thrill of pain ran through her every nerve at this last question.
She had been thinking all the time of her mother's sobbing words, "I almost went on my knees to him!"
The month crept on toward Christmas. Unknown to her daughter, Mrs. Lane had spent day after day going about the shops and vainly soliciting work. She had not sufficient clothing to protect her from the weather; she was weakened by sorrow and anxiety, and the disease, which had long been threatening and reaching out for her, made a final grasp. With a terror, all the more terrible in that she could not speak of it, she felt her lungs give way and her breath grow shorter. What would her young children do without her? If she should be long ill, how were the doctor's bills to be paid? How were the funeral expenses to be met? What crushing burden, beside the sorrow, was she going to lay upon the already burdened shoulders of her poor little girl? She only prayed that the blow might fall swiftly. Poor people can't afford to die leisurely.
One day, about a week before Christmas, Anne came home and found her mother lying senseless upon the floor. Mrs. Lane had held up as long as she could, and now her powers of endurance were gone. But she had her prayer, for the blow fell swiftly. On Christmas morning all her troubles passed away.
Christmas evening came, and all was still in the house. The neighbors had kindly done what they could, and two of them sat with the lifeless form of what had once been the mother of these children. Frank and Nell had cried themselves to sleep, and Anne was left with the night upon her hands. She could not sleep, and she could not pray. The faith that comforts in sorrow she knew not. She had wept till her head reeled, and the air of the house stifled her.
"I must get out and take the air, or I shall go crazy," she thought. And, dressing hastily, she went out into the bright and frosty night. She wandered aimlessly about the streets, scarcely knowing where she went; not caring, indeed, so long as she walked and felt the wind in her face.
"Christ on earth?" she thought. "I don't believe it! It's all a fable."
On her way she met Mrs. Conners, weeping bitterly. She was going to the watch-house after her little girl. Biddy had stolen a turkey from a shop-window, and a policeman had caught her.
"It is the first thing the child ever stole," the poor woman said; "and what made her do it was hunger. We haven't had a taste of meat in the house this month, and poor Biddy heard the other girls tell what they had for dinner, and it made her mad."
Anne listened as one in a dream, and went on without a word. Presently she came into a sharp glare of light that fell across the sidewalk from a brilliantly illuminated window. She paused to look in, not because she cared what it was, but because she longed for distraction. There was a long suite of parlors, showily if not tastefully furnished, and filled with a gay company, many of them children. In the farthest end of the rooms stood a magnificent Christmas-tree, decked with colored candles, flowers, and fruits, and hanging full of presents. The company were all assembled about the tree, and, as she looked, a smiling gentleman stepped up, with the air of a host, and began to distribute the Christmas gifts.
Anne Lane's heart stood still when she recognized Mr. Sanborn.
"O you murderer!" she moaned, as she sank exhausted on the icy steps. "Your candles and your flowers are red with my mother's blood!"
When the Christmas angels looked down upon the earth that night to see how fared the millions, to whom in the morning they had sung their song of joy, their eyes beheld alike the rich man in his parlor and the stricken girl who lay outside his door.
Did they record of him that he had "kept the feast," and worthily remembered one who came that day "to fill the hungry with good things"?
Or did they write against him the fearful judgment which had once already sounded in his ears,
"Let mercy forget him:
Let him be remembered no more"?