JULIA ANTRIM, AND OTHER OLD ACQUAINTANCES.
"Should old acquaintance be forgot?""There is a lost sheep returned to the fold."
If those who would reform the vicious, knew the power of love and kind words towards the poor fallen creatures who abound in our city, and how much stronger they are than prison bars, how much more powerful than handcuffs, fetters and whip lashes, we should soon see the spirit of reformation hovering over us like the guardian angel sent to save a city that should be found to contain only five righteous persons.
My readers may remember the slight glimpse they had of the face of Julia Antrim, on two occasions—once as a street walker, only thirteen years old, dressed in borrowed clothes, or rather in garments furnished by one of the beldams who keep the keys of our numerous city pandemoniums, where innocence is entrapped, and virtue sold at a discount; and again a year or two later, when the fiend who said "our trade," laughed to see her dragged out of one of the underground dens where demons dwell, where rum is sold and souls destroyed, on her way to prison, and the termination of a career, to which one half, at least, arrive at, who take the first step—false step—in the same road.[387]
In the morning she was "sent up:" a short phrase which means imprisonment for six months in the city penitentiary. Penitentiary!! What is a penitentiary? A place of repentance and reformation.
Ours is a place to harden young offenders, or rum-made criminals—to make them worse rather than better. It made Julia Antrim worse. It was the work of the missionary, and the benevolent heart of Mr. Lovetree, and the kind words of Mrs. May and Stella, that effected what dungeons, fetters whips, and harsh language could not.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Morgan to me one evening, "such a story as my uncle has been telling me; do tell him, uncle, about one of those 'Five Point girls,' rescued from one of those miserable dens."
"You remember the girl," said he, "that you saw dragged out of the cellar for picking her paramour's pocket? Come with me and you shall see her and hear her own story. Athalia, come put on your hat and go with us. You know how glad Mrs. May and Stella always are to see you."
They were so this evening. Stella was in the front shop busy with her pins and needles, threads and tapes, and all the numerous little articles of necessity which go to make up an assortment, for which she had a demand that not only kept her busy, but also a fine bright active little boy. He is on the road to wealth and manhood now. He was on the road to ruin once. He was the son of a drunken father, who taught him to "prig" and sell the stolen articles for rum. The reader has seen him before. Would you like to know[388] where? Turn back to page 30—look at that picture of the fireman rescuing two children from the flames. This bright boy is the child of drunken Bill Eaton. How Stella's eyes did sparkle as she saw us enter; far more than they would to see her best customer, for now she saw her best friend, her kind patron, who gave her the means to gain good customers.
"Oh, mother, mother, here is Mr. Lovetree and Mrs. Morgan, and that other gentleman!"
Then Mrs. May's eyes sparkled, for "she was so glad to see us"—she was always glad to see us. She was very busy in the little back shop, working away, and she had two very neat-looking industrious girls at work with her. We have seen both of them before. One of them for the first time on the steps of the Bank of the Republic, clothed in a poor dirty ragged dress, with that same little boy, sickly and pale, leaning upon his sister for support, and keeping her company as the two wandered through the streets, making midnight melodious with that ever pealing summer cry, of, "Hot corn, hot corn, here's your nice hot corn, smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot, all hot, hot, hot!"
She will sing, it no more. She is in a better situation now for a little girl than midnight street rambling; that is not the best school for young girls—we have seen how near the brink of ruin it led Sally Eaton.
She was rescued just in time—just before she was lost. Two great calamities fell upon her in one night. Her father was killed, and her mother's house was burned, leaving the[389] poor widow and her two children in the street, naked, except one garment, amid the crowd that came to look upon what she then thought the wreck of all hope. It proved her greatest blessing; for in that crowd were those who took her in, and clothed and fed, and sent her children to school, and taught her girl how to work; and, finally, placed her as a help to another widow, where she will soon learn and earn enough to help herself. The other girl, who is now working with her old companion, was once her street associate in rags and wretchedness; afterwards, her envied, because better clothed, acquaintance. We saw her too, upon the same evening that we first saw the little Hot Corn girl driven away from her hard seat upon those cold stone steps—less cold than the heart of the great world towards its outcast population. We saw her again, just where we then knew that her course of life would lead her—to intoxication,—wretchedness—crime—prisons, and—no, she stopped just short of death, and returned to virtue, industry, and happiness.
After the heartfelt, happiness-giving congratulations of Mrs. May, Stella, Sally Eaton, and "Brother Willie," were over, I turned to a nice, modest-looking young girl and said, "and who is this? What is your name?"
"Julia Antrim, sir."
Did I dream? No, I did not dream, I looked upon sober reality. It was the poor outcast, whom I had seen dragged away from the underground abode of all that is bad, to "the Tombs," and from whence she went to "the Island," and as I heard, from there, at the expiration of her noviciate, to one[390] of the lowest, most degraded, worse than beastly, abodes of those who have only the form of humanity remaining. So I told her I had heard, and she replied,
"True—where else could I go? I could go nowhere but there. I came out of prison with only the clothes they gave me there, with my hair cropped—branded, to tell all the world to beware of me—that I was a 'prison bird.' If I desired, and I really did, to return to a virtuous life, the door was for ever closed against me. I went back to Mrs. Brown's, the woman who had first tempted me, with fine clothes and jewelry, to sin—to that house where I lost all that a poor girl has on earth—her virtue—where I had sinned and profited, as the term is, by sinning; where I had left piles of rich clothing, and pretended friends. I knocked at the door, once so ready to open for my first admission, and that too was closed in my face with an oath, a horrid, wicked woman's oath, bidding me to go away or she would send a policeman—I knew the policeman would do her bidding—to take me away as a common street vagrant, coming there to disgrace a 'respectable house.' I went away, dispirited, broken-hearted, and sunk down into that wretched abode in Anthony street, where I was found by Mr. Pease, and actually compelled, much against my will, to go to the Five Points House of Industry, where I was washed, and clothed, and fed, and sobered, furnished with work, and, above all else, taught to love God and pray, and, for the first time in more than two years, to feel one moment of happiness.
"When I was with those wretches in that miserable hole[391] where Mr. Pease found me, I really thought that my heart had got so bad, that it could not, would not, ever be good again.
"How I did use to curse and hate everybody that was good. That good man who saved me at last, I hated worse than all others. All who are like what I was then, hate him and fear him more then they do all the prisons and police in the city. If somebody would publish the truth, or only half the truth, of what I alone know of the crime and misery about the Five Points of New York, and how much good all the good men have done who have devoted themselves to the reformation of those wretched human beings, I do think that everybody with a good heart would buy the book, and thus contribute a mite to aid the good work—a work that saves from a life worse than death, scores of children and young girls, lost to every virtuous thought or action; lost to all hope in life or eternity.
"Oh, sir," and she seized me by the hands in her energy, "you can write—Stella has told me how you can write—that you have written some powerful stories; pray write more, more, more; the world will read, and it will do a world of good."
"Well, Julia, if I write, I must have characters and names, to fill up the incidents of my Life Scenes, shall I use yours?"
"Yes, yes, if it will do good, and save others."
"And mine." "And mine." "And mine." "I think," said Mrs. May, "that the incidents connected with Athalia's life, would alone make quite a volume; would you have any[392] objection to having them written out and published, Mrs. Morgan?"
"Perhaps I might consent, if it was well done, if it would serve as a beacon to save others from being shipwrecked upon the same desolate shore where I came so near being totally lost; only escaping by the smallest chance, and by one of the most singular interpositions of Providence, and through the efforts of one of the weakest instruments. It is to Stella, first of all that I owe my present happiness. It was through her that all my friends became interested for me. In fact, if it had not been for her, my dear uncle would never have known where to find me."
"Rather give the credit to a higher power; that power which gave him the kind benevolent heart that beats in his breast; that disposition to watch over the young and guard the innocent, which led him to take an interest in my poor child. Let us be grateful to all the humble instruments of Him who giveth every good and perfect gift to man, but to Him to whom we owe all of our present happiness, be the final praise."
Now there was a little space of silence; a time for reflection; all were too full of thought, holy, happy thought, to speak. It is good to think. The world is generally too much given to act without thinking. Mr. Lovetree was not. He thought that we had agreed to visit Mrs. De Vrai, on our way home, "but before I go," said he, "I want to invite you all to dine with us next Sabbath. I want to see our little party of friends all together, for a certain purpose."[393]
"Uncle always has a little surprise to play off upon his friends. I am afraid this is not a pleasant one, or else he would not have chosen Sunday."
"I chose that," said he, "because I know how difficult it is for the laboring poor to give a day from their working time, for any kind of recreation. I assure you that this will be a pleasant surprise, though not an inappropriate one for the day, for I intend to have a minister with us to ask a blessing upon our food."
"Oh," said Stella, "I can guess it."
Young girls are always ready to guess as she did. She guessed it was to be a wedding. She guessed that Mrs. Morgan was going to be married. Then the others guessed so too. Mrs. Morgan guessed not. She was sure she could not get married without somebody to have her. Of course not. But Stella thought that "somebody" would not be very hard to find. She knew a gentleman that liked her well enough to marry her.
At any rate, that the party was to be a wedding one was pretty well settled. Whether the bride will be Athalia or not we shall see. So then, after lots of "good night" and "do come again soon," we parted, and went on our way to visit the sick and dying victim of fashionable dissipation, which led her through a rapid career of a few happy months, and then through years of woe, from wine at dinner, to "cobblers" at late suppers, and bitters in the morning; till an appetite was acquired which could only be satisfied by constant libations of anything that would intoxicate, procured by[394] any means, however debasing, till she ceased to be a lady; almost ceased to be a woman; quite forgot that she was a mother; else how could she have driven that poor little innocent child out upon the streets, murky and damp, with her cry of "Hot Corn, hot corn, all smoking hot!" while the poor child was chilly, cold, and starving?
Poor girl—poor little Katy! Thy mother loves thee now. Look down from thy blest abode—it is thy mother calls, it is thy voice she hears, and she answers, "Yes, yes I will come."
"She is better, sir," said Phebe, as we entered the door. "She has been sitting up a good deal, and she talks of going over to your house to-morrow, Mrs. Morgan; she says she must go out, and take the air, or she never will get well."
This was pleasant news, and it quite elated Mrs. Morgan. Mr. Lovetree gave one of his peculiar expressions of countenance as soon as he saw her, which told as plain as though he had spoken it, that she never would go out again but once, that would be a ride which all must, none are willing, to take.
We were all very much delighted to find Mrs. Meltrand and Agnes, with Mrs. De Vrai. Mrs. Meltrand, ever since she had first seen her, had fallen in love with little Sissee, the sweet little Adaleta, and this evening Mrs. De Vrai, had made her a final promise, that if she should not get well, Mrs. Meltrand should have her for her own; and she had promised to adopt her and make her as much her child as though she was really so.
"But what is the use of talking? I don't feel any more like dying than you do. I am almost well. My cough has quite gone."[395]
But a bright crimson spot upon each cheek had not gone, and that told its own tale. Adaleta was delighted with sister Agnes. She could hardly bear to part with her. She will not, but her mother must. How little any one would have thought, as we parted that evening, leaving the invalid so cheerful and full of hope, that we had parted for the last time. No! not the last time—may we hope for one more meeting? Let us now retire to our chambers and prepare for that meeting. Let us say to the reader, as we said to the poor sufferer, "Good night. God be with you!"[396]