I remember many of those that have been torn down. One or two of them were famous in Revolutionary history. The owners of such as remained in my father's time were glad to have him take charge of their gardens. He knew how to bud or graft a tree, to trim grapevines, and to raise the best and earliest vegetables. In all that was to be done in a gentleman's garden he was so neat, so successful, so quiet and industrious, that whatever time he had to spare from his own was always in demand, and at the highest wages.
When not otherwise occupied, my mother also worked at the art of net-making. At times she was employed in making up clothing for what some years ago were popularly called the slop-shops, mostly situated in the lower section of the city. These were shops which kept supplies of ready-made clothing for sailors and other transient people who harbored along the wharves. It was coarse work, and was made up as cheaply as possible. At that time the shipping of the port was much of it congregated in the lower part of the city, not far from our house.
When a little girl, I have often gone with my mother when she went on her errands to these shops, doing what I could to help her in carrying her heavy bundles to and fro; and more than once I heard her rudely spoken to by the pert young tailor who received her work, and who examined it as carefully as if the material had been silk or cambric, instead of the coarse fabric which constitutes the staple of such establishments. I thus learned, at a very early age, to know something of the duties of needle-women, as well as of the mortifications and impositions to which their vocation frequently subjects them.
My mother was a beautiful sewer, and I am sure she never turned in a garment that had in any way been slighted. She knew how rude and exacting this class of employers were, and was nice and careful in consequence, so as to be sure of giving satisfaction. But all this care availed nothing, in many cases, to prevent rudeness, and sometimes a refusal to pay the pitiful price she had been promised. Her disposition was too gentle and yielding for her to resent these impositions; she was unable to contend and argue with the rough creatures behind the counter; she therefore submitted in silence, sometimes even in tears. Twice, I can distinctly remember, when these heartless men compelled her to leave her work at less than the low price stipulated, I have seen her tears fall in big drops as she took up the mite thus grudgingly thrown down to her, and leave the shop, leading me by the hand. I could feel, young as I was, the hard nature of this treatment. I heard the rough language, though unable to know how harshly it must have grated on the soft feelings of the best mother that child was ever blessed with.
But I comprehended nothing beyond what I saw and heard,—nothing of the merits of the case,—nothing of the nature and bearings of the business,—nothing of the severe laws of trade which govern the conduct of buyer and seller. I did not know that in a large city there are always hundreds of sewing-women begging from these hard employers the privilege of toiling all day, and half-way into the night, in an occupation which never brings even a reasonable compensation, while many times the severity of their labors, the confinement and privation, break down the most robust constitutions, and hurry the weaker into a premature grave.
I was too young to reason on these subjects, though quick enough to feel for my dear mother. When I saw her full heart overflow in tears, I cried from sympathy. When we got into the street, and her tears dried up, and her habitual cheerfulness returned, I also ceased weeping, and soon forgot the cause. The memory of a child is blissfully fugitive. Indeed, among the blessings that lie everywhere scattered along our pathway, is the readiness with which we all forget sorrows that nearly broke down the spirit when first they fell upon us. For if the griefs of an entire life were to be remembered, all that we suffer from childhood to mature age, the accumulation would be greater than we could bear.
On one occasion, when with my mother at the slop-shop, we found a sewing-woman standing at the counter, awaiting payment for the making of a dozen summer vests. We came up to the counter and stood beside her,—for there were no chairs on which a sewing-woman might rest herself, however fatigued from carrying a heavy bundle for a mile or two in a hot day. And even had there been such grateful conveniences, we should not have been invited to sit down; and unless invited, no sewing-woman would risk a provocation of the wrath of an ill-mannered shopman by presuming to occupy one. Few employers bestow even a thought upon the comfort of their sewing-women. They seldom think how tired they become with overwork at home, before leaving it with a heavy load for the shop, nor that the bundle grows heavier and heavier with every step that it is carried, or that the weak and over-strained body of the exhausted woman needs rest the moment she sets foot within the door.
The woman whom we found at the counter was in the prime of life, plainly, but neatly dressed,—no doubt in her best attire, as she was to be seen in public, and she knew that her whole capital lay in her appearance. I judged her to be an educated lady. Though a stranger to my mother, yet she accosted her so politely, and in a voice so musical, that the gracefulness of her manner and the softness of her tones still linger in my memory. Looking down to me, then less than ten years old, and addressing my mother, she asked,—
"How many of them have you?"
"Only three, Ma'am," was the reply.