But the exterior of the shanty, dilapidated-looking though it was, gave no conception of the squalor and wretchedness which its walls confined. I will introduce my readers to the inmates.
Mrs. Flatt was an undersized, dark-complexioned little woman, who at one time possessed considerable personal beauty; but she had been so worn by toil, hard usage, and insufficient food, that she now appeared little else than skin and bone; in fact, she as much resembled a mummy as a being through whose veins throbbed the blood of life.
In different attitudes—on the clay floor, on the two miserable beds, and on the old broken chairs and benches of the hut—were distributed six children. They, if possible, were more squalid and wretched-looking than their mother; for though it was midwinter, not one of them was so fortunate as to possess a pair of shoes, but they had frequently to run out from the hut into the deep snow in their poor little bare feet, which were red, cracked, and bleeding from the cold. The miserable rags in which they were clothed did not serve to cover their nakedness; and their blue, pinched faces pathetically spoke of want and neglect.
The youngest of the number was a babe, some five or six months old; she was lying in a creaky old cradle, which squeaked when rocked as if uttering a discordant protest. She was a poor, pallid, little thing, that scarcely seemed to have strength to utter her low moan of pain, as she lay famishing for the nourishment which the now starved mother was unable to supply. The next older was barely able to toddle round on the clay floor; and they ranged up from that until the eldest of the six was reached, who was a bare-footed, bare-legged girl of eight. She was, however, so dwarfed through rough usage, insufficient food, and exposure, as to be little larger than an ordinary child of six.
"Mamma! I want a piece. I'se so hungry!" cried the third child from the youngest—a little boy, about four years of age. "Oh, mamma! I do want a piece."
"And so do I, mother," cried the next, a little girl of five. "Oh! why don't dad come with the bread?"
"Piece, mamma, piece!" whined out little Katie, the next to the youngest. "Piece, mamma, piece!" she cried out again piteously, as she toddled over to her mother, and, hanging on to the skirts of her dress, looked up with a famished longing that made the latter sob convulsively.
"Oh, children!" she said, "mother would give her darlings bread if she had any, but there is not a crumb in the house; no, dears, not one poor crumb, so I can't give my children any now; but I hope your father will come home and bring some bread with him; and if he does, then you shall all have some. Don't cry, now—you make mother feel so bad."
"Mamma," said Nannie, the eldest girl, "I wish father was dead."
"Hush, child," said the mother sharply; "you must not talk so." But in the mother's reproof there was an utter want of the emotion of horror at the astounding and unnatural wish of the child. It seemed as if she was reproved for giving utterance to her thoughts—not for entertaining them. In fact, the mother had often in her heart entertained similar sentiments, and wished that her drunken, brutal husband were dead.