See that little minstrel in front of the store, staggering under the weight of a hand-organ. What a crowd of little beggar-boys surround him, petitioning “for just one tune.” Now, I wonder if the rough school that boy has been in, has hardened his heart? Has he grown prematurely worldly-wise and selfish? Will he turn gruffly away from that penniless, Tom Thumb audience, or will he give them a gratuitous tune? God be thanked, his childish heart yet beats warm and true under that tattered jacket. He smiles sweetly on the eager group, and strikes up “Lang Syne.” Other than mortal ears are listening! That deed, unnoticed by the hurrying Broadway throng, is noted by the Recording Angel. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.”
Sunshine again! dripping awnings and sloppy pavements. There’s a man preaching an out-door temperance sermon: what a bungling piece of work he makes of it! If he would lend me that pro tem barrel-pulpit I’d astonish him, and take the feather out of “Miss Lucy Stone’s” bonnet.
Let us cross the Park. There’s an Irishman seated on the withered grass, with his spade beside him, leaning wearily against that leafless tree. I wonder is he ill? I must walk that way and speak to him. What a sudden change comes over his rough face! it looks quite beautiful. Why do his eyes kindle? Ah, I see: a woman approaches from yonder path; now she seats herself beside him, on the grass, and drawing the cover from a small tin kettle, she bends over the steaming contents, and says, with a smile, that is a perfect heart-warmer, “Dear Dennis!” Oh, what a wealth of love in those two simple words; what music in that voice! Who says human nature is all depravity? Who says this earth is but a charnel-house of withered hopes? Who says the “Heart’s Ease” springs never from the rock cleft? Who says it is only on patrician soil the finer feelings struggle into leaf and bud and blossom? No—no—that humble, faithful creature has traveled weary miles with needful food, that “Dennis” may waste no unnecessary time from labor. And there they sit, side by side, happy and blessed in each other, deaf to the ceaseless tide of business and pleasure flowing past, blind to the supercilious gaze of the pompous millionaire, the curious stare of pampered beauty, the derisive laugh of “Young America,” and the little romance they have set my brain a-weaving! What a pretty episode amid all this Babel din! What a delicious little bit of nature midst this fossil hearted Gotham!
How true—how beautiful the words of Holy Writ! “Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.”
What an immensely tall man! he looks like a barber’s pole in those serpentine pants. Why does he make those gyrations? Why does he beckon that short man to his side? Well, I declare! everything comical comes to my net! He has taken out a slip of paper, and using the short man’s head for a writing-desk, is scribbling off some directions for a porter in waiting! The lamb-like non-resistance of the short man is only equalled by the cool impudence of the scribe! What a picture for Hogarth!
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER TWO.
The fashionables are yet yawning on their pillows. Nobody is abroad but the workies. So much the better. Omnibus drivers begin to pick up their early-breakfast customers. The dear little children, trustful and rosy, are hurrying by to school. Apple women are arranging their stalls, and slyly polishing their fruit with an old stocking. The shopkeepers are placing their goods in the most tempting light, in the store windows; and bouquet venders, with their delicious burthens, have already taken their stand on the saloon and hotel steps.