A Cry in the Wilderness

by Mary E. Waller

"Now, here is my dilemma: in the morning, I signed the death certificate and then went out of the city on a case that kept me forty-eight hours. On my return, the woman, who had rescued this poor girl,—a woman who took in washing and ironing in that basement—told me a man had appeared at the house to claim the body he said was his wife's. She gave me the man's name, but the name of this man was not the name of the husband according to a marriage certificate which I found in an envelope the young woman entrusted to me for her child. At any rate, he had claimed the body and taken it away.

"Now, ordinarily the living waves of existence close very soon over such an episode—all too common; and, so far as I am concerned, in such and other similar cases I forget; it is well that I can. But I 've never been permitted to forget this!"

He made this announcement emphatically, looking up suddenly from the fire, and glancing at each of us in turn.

"And, moreover, I don't believe I am ever going to be permitted to forget. Some one intends I shall remember!

"With me it was merely a charity case—one, it is true, that called forth my deepest sympathy. The circumstances were peculiar. The woman was young, rarely attractive in face, refined, well dressed. Her absolute silence concerning herself during all that weary time; her heroic endurance and, I may say, angelic acceptance of her martyrdom—and all this in such an environment! How could it help making a deep impression? Still, I am convinced I should have forgotten it, had it not been for a constant reminder.

"In the first week of the next February, I received a notification from a national bank in the city that five hundred dollars had been deposited to my credit. The woman who lived in that basement received during the first week of the New Year a draft on that bank—and mailed by the bank—for the same amount. She consulted me about accepting it. When I attempted to investigate at the bank, I found that no information would be given and no questions answered—only the statement made that the money was mine to do with what I might choose. Next December, and a year to a day from the death of that young woman, I received a similar notification, and the woman a draft for one hundred. Since that time, now over twenty-five years ago, no December has ever passed that the regular notification has not been mailed to me and to the woman. I wrote to the man who had claimed the body, and whose name and address the woman, who lived in the basement, remembered. The letter was never answered. I waited a year, and wrote the second time. The letter came back to me from the dead letter office. I invested the increasing amount after two years and let it accumulate at compound interest. As you will see, these donations have amounted now to a tidy sum. I believe it to be 'conscience money'—either from the man who claimed the body as that of his wife, or from the woman's husband according to the marriage certificate. Or are both men one and the same?

"I hired the farm of you, Gordon, merely telling you it was one of my many philanthropic plans that, thus far, I have been unable to carry out. As yet I have not used that money for any benefactions. Would you hold it longer, or would you apply it to my farm project which is to provide a home for the homeless, and for those whose home does not provide sufficient change for them? I have thought sometimes I would limit the philanthropy to those who need up-building in health.— What do you say, Gordon?"

He looked across the hearth to his friend who was leaning back in his chair, his arm resting on the arm, his hand shading his eyes from the firelight.

"I should like to think it over, John; it is a peculiar case. Have you ever thought of the child? Do you know anything about it? Was it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl. No, I never thought of the child—poor little bit of life's flotsam. We don't get much time to think of all those we help to float in on the tide. Now this is what I am getting, by looking at the matter through others' eyes—you mean she should be looked up, and the money go to her?"