I am Mr. Willsup's little girl—Mr. Willsup that is dead, you know. I suppose you think I ought to wear black; and so I would, but mother says we are too poor, and we must only mourn in our hearts. I do mourn in my heart, oh! so much, I can't tell you. I don't like to acknowledge it, and it gives me an ugly pain and a dreadful sinking about my heart when I think of it, but it was on a Christmas night that we lost poor father, and I'm afraid he wasn't right, you understand, at the time.
There was a time when father was such a nice, good man, and when we weren't poor, as we are now. We didn't always live up in this cold, bare garret. We used to live in a fine, large house, all to ourselves; and we had a nice garden in front, full of pretty flowers, and a long back porch with a buying running over it; and we had a beautiful parlor where we talked to the visitors only—not to sleep in and cook in as we do here, when we have any fire; and I had the cosiest little bedroom you ever saw, with a little altar in the corner, and on it a statue of the Blessed Virgin, white as snow; and Chip, that's a canary-bird, hung in his cage in the window when it was fine weather, and cat sugar like a good fellow; and then we had silver forks and spoons; and Zephyr, that's the horse, and Dash, our dog, and Pussy, and oh! so many nice things, I never could tell you all in a long time. But we haven't got any of them now, for we are poor, and father's dead, and we must only mourn in our hearts.
I hardly know how to tell you all about it, for though I am little I've seen a good deal; so much bad and trouble that my mind goes quite round and round sometimes thinking over it. If you ever saw poor father after we got to be poor, that wouldn't tell you how he looked as I recollect him. Oh! he was so much changed! I used to be so proud of him, and delighted to go out to walk with him in the street or across the fields; and I used to love him so much—not that I didn't always love him just as much as ever, only I didn't get so much chance to love him, you understand, when he got to stay away from home and be—oh! my heart, how it aches!
Father was a handsome-looking man once, and so smart. Everybody bowed to him in the street. But he got rough and careless, I know, and it made me feel sorry to see him go out without brushing his hat, or asking me to do it for him, as he used to do. And then his face turned to such a different look from old times. It got puffed up and red, and his eyes that I remember were so bright and so deep, for I used to climb up on his knee often, and look 'way down into them, and then he would laugh and ask me if I could see his thoughts, and I almost fancied I could sometimes, and give me a sweet kiss, and call me his darling Susy; but when he changed, you know, his eyes seemed to be, how shall I say it? so flat and soft, and he never seemed to be looking anywhere in particular half the time.
You see it was business and appointments that changed him. When I wished him to stay home and we would all enjoy ourselves—for we had the pleasantest times together, father, mother, and me, and baby, that's dead; and perhaps Dash and Pussy too sometimes, you know—then he would be obliged to excuse himself on account of business and appointments, which I fear were not always with the best of people, for when he said he was going out mother would sigh so deep and so long; and then when he came home late at night I often woke up and heard mother coaxing him and soothing him, and I am sure frequently crying and sobbing, and that would make me cry too, all alone by myself; and so the time went on, till father began to take less and less notice of either mother or of me. As for dear little baby, even when she sickened and died, I don't think he seemed to understand it, and he stood by the grave and looked at the little coffin being let down as if he were dreaming.
It was not long before father left off doing almost any business in the daytime, and only went out at night. I noticed then that we began to sell some of our nice furniture, and our silver forks and spoons. I suppose, as we scarcely ever had any visitors now, we did not need them; but the house began to look bare and desolate and strange, as if it wasn't our house; and the servant quarrelled with mother and left us, and we didn't get another, but mother did the work herself, and it made her sick, for she wasn't used to it. Sam, our man, went away, because after the horse and carriage was sold he had nothing to do. I recollect hearing him say to mother:
"I'd stand by you and Susy, miss, as I've always stood by you, and it's not wages, but times is changed, and I know you ain't able to have me." And then he pulled his hat down over his eyes so far that he had to lift it up again before he could see his way out of the front door; and then ran across the garden and down the street, as if he were running away from somebody. I cried a good deal when mother told me he was not going to come back, for I loved Sam very much, and I'm not I ashamed of if either, though Pinkey Silver said I ought to be, for he was just like a brother to me, and a better brother than Pinkey Silver's brother ever was.
Once, on a Christmas eve, I was going to hang up my stocking, as I had always done, for good Santa Claus to put something in it, when mother burst out into such a violent fit of crying that I was afraid she would die. When she could speak to me she wanted me to let Santa Claus go to some other children this year; but I determined to give him a chance to leave me, say, a doll, if he happened to have one left over, and so I slipped down-stairs in my night-gown, after mother had gone to her room, and hung my stocking up in the old place. Just as I had done it, father came staggering in. He was very bad, and fell over several things. The noise brought mother down-stairs, and father looking at me said so savagely that it sent all the blood to my heart:
"What devilish nonsense is the girl about?"