It did its perfect work with Athalia, and then the fiend who had accomplished the work, laughed at her, and told her how she had been fooled, thinking it would have the usual effect, to make her careless of what she did in future. It had an entirely different effect upon Athalia. It was this that produced the state of mind that Adelaide called the dumps, the blues, and the tears that Stella saw her shed. Stella had told her mother much that Athalia told her, much that the child did not understand, but the mother did, for she knew how girls were inveigled into those houses, and kept there as prisoners.
I have lately witnessed a scene, highly illustrative of this fact. It is one of the "Life Scenes of New York."
Coming up one of the streets west of Broadway, about one o'clock at night, I saw a fellow hovering near a house, whom I recognized as a Negro wood-sawyer that I had seen the day before, engaged at the same house, putting wood down the cellar grate. I knew him or thought I did, as a poor but honest man, and I felt pained with a fear that I had been deceived, that he had left the grate unfastened, and now was about to steal something from the cellar. I passed on around the next corner, out of sight, and then turned back and crossed over, where I could have a full view of his operations. There were no lamps burning, because there should, or might have been moonlight, if it had been clear; as it was, it was a fitting time for the burglar's trade. Directly, the fellow approached the grate, opened it carefully, and drew up a trunk. My heart beat with excitement, fear, and sorrow. I was just on the point of calling, "Watch," I must own with a view of letting the fellow escape, and saving the trunk, when I saw a bonnet, then a shawl, and then a full suit of woman's clothes follow the trunk up from that dark recess. My mind was somewhat relieved; my honest wood-sawyer might be honest still, though he was probably assisting a dishonest woman; else why did she leave that house, to all appearance, an honest house, for all that I had ever seen in passing it a hundred times, in such a clandestine manner. The Negro walked on with the trunk on his shoulder, and the woman followed. It was a scene of such frequent occurrence, that it would excite no suspicion or question from a policeman. He would think it was a passenger by the train, from Boston, or Albany, or the Erie railroad, all of which make midnight arrivals.
On they went, block after block, and I followed, till I thought the chase likely to prove a long one, and then I stepped up to the woman, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, said, "Stop!" She uttered a little cry of alarm, and said, "Oh, don't take me up, please don't."
The Negro stopped, looked round, and set down the trunk hastily, evidently supposing that a star had nabbed her, and that the better part of a fight consists in running away. There was a light here, for the lamp-lighters were just going their late rounds. He gave one glance back before he started, to be sure he had good cause to run, and instantly burst into a most merry fit of laughter, very unlike what might be supposed that of a caught burglar.
"'SPEC A BODY HAS A RIGHT TO STEAL OWN TRUNK."
"Ha! ha! ha! ki, missee, you don't know dat gemman? You nebber seed dat gemman 'fore? You tink him a star? Look at um. You tink he look so he hurt you? He wouldn't hurt a child, much more a woman. I know dat gemman. Ki, I mighty glad to see him. 'Spose tell him all about um? Spec he say a body has a right to steal he own trunk, and run away from such a house as dat."
"Such a house as that, Peter; is that not a good house?"
"Well, spec him house good enough, but spec he folks dat lib dare, not 'zactly straight up and down like dog hind leg."