“How old? I do not justly remember; but there is my age set down in our family Bible, as my father called it, by his own honored hand, on the day he got through, as I have heard him say, his fourth term of service at the state-castle.”
Mr. Sackville took from the child's hand a filthy little dream-book, on the title-page of which was scrawled, and scarcely legible,—“Tristram McPhelan, born in the Bridewell, city of New-York, on Friday—bad luck to him—March 1807.”
“You are then but eleven years old.”
“Yes sir; and in that time I have seen more of life than many of my betters twice my age. I have been in every state in the Union, and in every city of every state. I have been in six alms-houses, two workhouses, and ten jails, on my own account, besides the privilege of visiting my father in two different state prisons. While my father lived we travelled in company, and now I am obliged (he concluded, bowing to Mr. Sackville,) to put up with what company chance throws in my way.”
Mr. Sackville took Edward by the hand, and turned away, grieved and disgusted. His eye fell on his daughter, who was sitting beside Mrs. Barton, carefully sheltering the sick child from the sun with her parasol, while she nicely prepared an orange and offered it to her. The little sufferer seized it eagerly and devoured it, and then fixed her eyes on Julia and smiled. The first smile of a sick child is electrifying.
“Oh! miss,” said the mother, “does not she seem to say, ‘God bless you,’ though she cannot speak it?”
Julia was delighted with the revival of the child, and with the mother's gratitude, which was even more manifest in her brightened countenance than in her words.
“My medicine,” said Julia, “has worked wonders; if I could but find one more orange, I should quite cure my little patient;” and she zealously ransacked the carriage, and turned out every basket and bag in the hope of finding another, but all in vain. Disappointed, she turned to her mother,—“Cannot we, mama,” she said, “do something more for this poor woman before we leave her?”
“I do not see that we can, my dear,” replied Mrs. Sackville, “I have offered to pay her stage fare hence to Newark, but she says she has money, and declines receiving any thing.”
“Oh, then she is not obliged to go on foot—I could not endure to think of the child's being exposed to this hot sun.”