Edith and John: A Story of Pittsburgh

by Franklin Smith Farquhar

"To sell it, too, s'pose," said the mother unconcernedly.

"Yep," replied the ten-year-old; "said he'd bring me a pair of shoes."

"I see you gettin' a pair of shoes from him, Liz," retorted the mother, without the least concern whether the child had any or no, as she rolled the fried potatoes and dough-bread between her gums.

Thus the mother and the children talked about "pap," the father, who had that day wandered out of his beaten course, the one that he had learned to travel in so regularly for twenty years or more. This course lay between his squalid home and the tempting saloons that lined the streets of old Birmingham farther up the river way. Billy Barton was a man with an unconquerable appetite for strong drink as might be judged from what has been said heretofore. All his unvarying life before this memorable day he had but one thought, but one ambition, but one predominating idea, and that was to get drink—either by buying, begging, stealing, or trading for it. But when his wife left him this morning, with the parting word that she would fetch home the things that he had sold the day before, he, too, left shortly after her departure, taking with him an old rusty overcoat.

As he departed from his door, with his flock of half-starved children standing in it watching him leave, he went with a new resolution in his mind, a new determination formed, a new purpose in view. This was that he would go away and find work—away from his old environments, away from his drunken associates. With this new resolve burning feebly in his irresolute breast, he struck a course for the mills in the Soho district.

That night he did not return; nor the next day; nor the next night; nor the following day. Mrs. Barton and the family thought little of his failure to return in the space of time, for they had been used to his absence on a spree for almost a whole week at a stretch. But when a week had gone by, and when ten days had gone by, and two weeks had finally passed, they began to feel uneasy at his prolonged absence. When a third week had passed and he did not put in an appearance in the hilarious condition they anticipated to behold him wheeling down upon them, the mother thought it time to make some concerted attempt to ascertain the cause of his disappearance.

She took the matter very calmly, consoling herself with the reflection that her spouse was safe somewhere, or otherwise she would have heard about him through the police department, or through the gossips of her disreputable neighborhood. Little by little she began to inquire cursorily among the neighbors, then among the keepers of the saloons, then of the policeman of the district. She got no tidings of him. A month passed; no news. Another month passed; no news. He was gone.

So Kate Barton, with her twelve children, was left alone to fight against starvation, or go to the poor house, or have her family broken up, and scattered among the charitable, who are very often among the worst as saviors of the outcasts.

Alone, alone! What if we, who live in gilded halls, had to take her place! Ah, we would call on a merciful God to deliver us! For there are things in this life, mind you, my good keepers of the loaves and fishes, that are even worse than death—worse than death.

Alas, too often, men of piety are prone to shun their christian duty. Millions of beings, such as she, vegetate from the cradle to the grave and never see the ministering hand of the followers of that Christ who taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Millions go up and down the obscure pathways of this world, within the sacred sound of the clanking bells of religion, and never receive the helping meed that was promised them. Millions live like the rioting motes invisible in the air about us as if all the philanthrophy of Christendom were set aside for the chosen few. The successful gloat over and glory in their achievements, and extend a cursory hand to those below as if they were fulfilling the ten commandments as a great finale of their extravaganza. But, do they do any good? There are many Kate Bartons all around us, the natural among the unnatural, who deserve more compassion from those preachers of the Good Will than they ever receive. It is not believed by all that only the chosen few shall answer the call. It is not believed by all that the doctrine of the Christ should prevail one day in the week and be sunk in oblivion for the other six. No, not by all.