Edgar Fawcett.
STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.
IV.—JACK.
"I've never told the whole straight ahead, ma'am. The Lord knows it all, an' there've been times I couldn't ha' done it, an' wouldn't ha' done it if I could ha' helped it. For, you see, in spite of the deviltry I never quite got rid of the sense that God sat lookin' at me, an' that, I do suppose, came from what stuck to me, whether or no, in the school. An' you'd wonder that anything stuck or could.
"I'll begin at the beginnin'. Drink? No, it wasn't my drinkin'. You'd think that must ha' been it, but it wasn't, for all I came up in the Fourth Ward—the only sober bartender the ward ever see, or ever will see, I reckon.
"The very first thing that ever I remember is my mother dead drunk on the floor. I thought it was dead without the drunk, an' stood screamin'; an' my father come up an' some of the neighbors. We was all respectable then, an' one of them says, 'The Lord help you, Mr. Brown! She's begun ag'in.' He didn't speak, but just lifted her up an' put her on the bed, and then he sat down and covered up his face with his hands, an' was so still I thought he was dead too. I crawled up to him whimperin', an' he lifted me up.
"'Jack,' he says, 'my heart's broke. It's no use: she's bound to go to the bad, an' maybe you'll take after her.'
"I screamed ag'in, though I didn't know what that meant, but he hushed me. 'Jack,' he said, 'you're a little fellow, an' your troubles ain't begun yet. I'd give my life this minute to take you with me.' He held me up to him tight an' took my breath, so 't I couldn't ask him where; an' then he cried.