Lost Gip

by Hesba Stretton

Sandy returned home one evening very low and down-hearted. It had been a rainy day, and nobody had stopped in their hurried tramp about their business to look at his damp fusee boxes. They were completely soaked, though he had done his best to keep them covered under his jacket. But then he was quite wet through himself, and the water was dripping from his thick, uncombed hair, and trickling coldly down his face and neck. Night had set in; yet still the rain fell in torrents, driven along the streets by a strong westerly wind. The light from the lamps glistened in pools of water lodging on the pavement, through which he splashed heedlessly with his bare feet. The pipes that drained the roofs leaked, and poured down in waterfalls upon him, as he hurried along, keeping close to the houses for as much shelter as they could give.

Gip could not be waiting and watching for him such a night as this; and it was very well she could not, for he had brought nothing for her—positively nothing—not even one of the stale buns which he begged for her sometimes. It was harder than anything else, worse than the rain, to think that perhaps she would be forced to go to sleep hungry—crying for food, while he had none to give her.

No; Gip was not at the corner. He looked closely into the doorway, where she often sat, as he passed, and felt his heart sink a little lower, as if he were disappointed not to find her there.

For once the alley was quiet and deserted; not a creature who had a home was out that night. Two or three of the windows twinkled dimly with the light of a candle in the room within, and so helped him to avoid the gutter, where the water was running as noisily as a brook. But the room where his mother lived was all blank and dark—not a gleam of light in it, either of fire or candle.

He lifted the latch, and went in, calling softly in the darkness, "Gip! Little Gip!"

Not a sound answered him; Gip's dear shrill voice was silent. Perhaps she was still with her mother in the spirit-vault. Or, perhaps, she was only keeping quiet in fun; for it was one of her pretty tricks to hide, and be as still as a mouse when he came in, while he pretended to search for her everywhere: in their empty cupboard, and under their mother's bed, and even up the chimney, as if Gip could be there! till she would break out suddenly into a burst of laughter, and run at him from her fancied hiding-place, where he had seen her all the time.

Sandy stole carefully across the dark room to the candle, which stood in the neck of a bottle on the chimney-piece, and tried to strike a light with some of his damp fusees. But they sputtered and glimmered only for an instant, leaving him in the darkness of the quiet and perhaps empty room.

But at length he succeeded in getting a match to burn long enough to light the candle. He could see at a glance everything in the small bare room. There was his mother's old flock bed on the floor; and there was his mother herself lying upon it in a dead sleep, her face swollen and red, and her ragged gown drawn over her; for long since the only blanket and old counterpane had gone to the pawnbroker's shop, and there was no chance of their being redeemed.

But was Gip there? Sandy could see plainly enough there was no little Gip under his mother's gown, or beside her on the bed. She was not there; she was not anywhere in the room. He stood motionless in his bewilderment; his eyes wandering round the bare walls, and his heart beating painfully. If little Gip was not at home, where could she be?

He could not bear his pain and dread long. He ran to his mother's side, and shook her roughly by the shoulder, shouting as loudly as he could in her ear.