“Oh, my children!” cried Mrs. Mitchel, bending over the
huddled sleepers, and calling them one by one to awake—
“your poor little brother is dead—he will never play with you
any more.”

“Let them sleep,” said Jenny, whose grief was less passionate,
“they cannot do him any good now, and the time will
come soon enough that they cannot sleep.'

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

I know it, oh, I know it!” she sobbed, “but this silence
seems so terrible; I want them to wake and speak to me, and
yet,” she added, after a moment, “I know not what I want.
I only know that my little darling will not wake in the morning—
oh,” she continued, “he was the loveliest and the best of
all—he never cried when he was hurt, like other children,
nor gave me trouble in any way;” and then she recounted
(feeding her sorrow with the memory) all his endearing little
ways, from the first conscious smiling to the last word he had
spoken; numbered over the slips he had worn and the color
of them, saying how pretty he had thought the blue one was,
and how proud he had been of the pink one with the ruffled
sleeves, and how often she had lifted him up to the broken
looking-glass to see the baby, as he called himself, for that he
always wanted to see the curls she made for him.

Sometimes she had crossed him, she wished now she had
never done so, and sometimes she had neglected him when she
had thought herself too busy to attend to his little wants; now
that all was irreparable, she blamed herself harshly, and
thought how much better she might have done.

The first day of his sickness she had scolded him for being
fretful, and put him roughly aside when he clung about her
knees, and hindered the work upon which the bread depended;
she might have known that he was ailing, she said, for that he
was always good when well, and so have neglected every
thing else for him; if she had done so in time, if she had tried
this medicine or that, if she had kept his head bathed one
night when she chanced to fall asleep, and waked with his
calling her “mother,” and saying the fire was burning him; in
short, if she had done any thing she had not done, it might
have been better, her darling Willie might have got well.

“The dear baby,” she said, taking his cold, stiffening feet

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

in her hand, “he never had any shoes, and I promised so often
to get them.”

“They are warm enough now,” interposed Jenny.

“I know it, I know it,” she answered, and yet she could not
subdue the grief that her boy was dead, and had never had
the shoes that he thought it would be so fine to have.

“Oh, mother, do not cry so,” Jenny said; “I will come home
and we will love each other better, we who are left, and work
together and try to live till God takes us where he has taken
the baby, home, home,” she said; but in repeating his dying
utterance, her accent faltered, and hiding her face in the lap
of her mother, she gave way to the agony that till then she
had kept down.

But, alas, it was not even their poor privilege to weep uninterrupted,
and shuddering they grew still, when slowly and
heavily climbing the narrow and dark stairs, sounded the
well-known step of the inebriate husband and father. A minute
the numb and clumsy hand fumbled about the door-latch,
and then with a hiokup and a half articulate oath, the man,
if man he might be called, staggered and stumbled into the
room.

His thick, maudlin brain apprehended but imperfectly, and
seeing his wife, he supposed her to be waiting for him, as he
had found her a thousand times before; and mixing something
of old fondness with the coarse and disgusting familiarity of a
drunkard, he put his arm about her neck, saying, “What the
hell are you waiting for me for, Nancy, when you know them
fellers won't never let me come home. Daughter,” he continued,
addressing Jenny, “just hand me that jug, that's a
good girl, I feel faint like,” and putting his hand to his temple,
where the blood was oozing from a recent cut, he finished his
speech with an oath.

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

“Hush, father, hush,” said the girl, pointing to the bed; but
probably supposing she meant to indicate it as a resting-place
for him, he stumbled towards and half fell upon it, one arm
thrown across the dead child, and the blood dripping from his
bruised and distorted face, muttering curses and threatening
vengeance on the comrades who, he said, deprecatingly, made
him drink when he told them he wanted to go home, G—d
d—n them.

In muttering imprecations and excuses he fell into dreadful
unconsciousness. Not knowing whom else to call, Helphenstein
summoned Aunt Kitty, and with the aid of his arm and
a crutch, but more than all, leaning on her own zeal to do
good, she came, and in her kindly, but rude fashion, comforted
the heavy mourners, partly by pictures of the glory
“ober Jordan,” and partly by narratives of the terriblest sufferings
she had known, as taking the child on her knees she
dressed it for the grave, decently as might be.

“She had lost a baby too,” she said, “and when her breasts
were acning with the milk, she felt as if she wanted to be
gwine to it wharever it were, for that she couldn't resist without
it no ways, but she did, and arter a while she got over it.
Another son,” she said, “was sparred to grow up and do a heap
of hard work; he was away from her a piece down the river,
and kep a liberty stable, and at last, when he had saved
a'most money enough, a vile-tempered critter kicked out his
brains, and dat ar was his last. And so,” said Aunt Kitty,
“it was wust for de one dat growed up, arter all.”

The stars grew motionless among the clouds, and blank and
weary the night went by; gray began to dilute the heavy
darkness, and adown the gaps of the thick woods away over
the eastern hills, the chilly river of morning light came
pouring in.

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

The funeral was over, and it was almost night when Mr.
Randall returned from the country, having availed himself
more largely of the horse and buggy than he at first intended,
by taking several widely separate points, where errands called
him, in his route. Mrs. Randall came too, and with her the
great basket, but not empty, as she had taken it.

The poor animal had been driven mercilessly, and gladly
turned to his young master and rubbed his face against his
caressing hand, dripping with sweat; and breathing hard the
while.

It was no very cordial greeting which the son gave the
parents, and they in turn were little pleased with him, for any
special liking is not to be concealed even from the commonest
apprehension, and the attachment of Helph and Jenny had
lately become a felt fact.

“What in the devil's name are we to do with that girl,
mother, she don't earn her salt,” said Mr. Randall.

Their first inquiries on entering the house had been for
Jenny, and Helph, with provoking purpose, had simply said
she was not at home. Words followed words sharper and
faster, until Mr. Randall, with an affirmation that I will not
repeat, said he would suffer his house to be her home no longer;
if she could not be trusted with the house for a day, she was
not worthy to have any better place than the pig-sty in which
her parents lived.

“I always told you,” interposed the wife, “that girl was a
mean, low-lived thing; and it was none of my doings, the
taking her from the washing-tub, where she belongs, and
making her as good as any of us. I tell you them kind of
folks must be kept down, and I always told you so.”

“You always told me great things,” said the husband, col

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

oring with rage; “what in the devil's name is there you don't
know, I wonder.”

“Well, sir,” she answered, speaking very low and calmly—
“there is one thing I didn't know till it was too late.”

With all his blustering, Mr. Randall was a coward and
craven at heart, and turning to the sideboard he imbibed a
deeper draught of brandy than usual, diverting his indignation
to Jenny, whom he called a poor creep-louse, that had
infested his house long enough.

“If you were not my father,” answered Helph, who had
inherited a temper capable of being ungovernably aroused,
“I'd beat you with as good a will as I ever beat iron to a
horseshoe.”

“What in the devil's name is the girl to you, I'd like to
know,” Mr. Randall said.

“Before you are a month older you will find out what she
is to me,” replied the youth, drawing himself up to his full
height, and passing his hand across his beard proudly.

“My son, your father has a great deal to irritate him, and
he is hasty sometimes, but let by-gones be by-gones; but what
business had the girl away?”

And with a trembling hand Mr. Randall presented a glass
of brandy as a kind of peace-offering to his son. But for
the first time in his life the young man refused; he had
seen its brutalizing effects the night past, saw it then, and
had determined to be warned in time. But in answer to
the allusion to Jenny, he related briefly and simply the melancholy
event which had called and still detained her from
home.

“A good thing,” said Mr. Randall, “one brat less to be
taken care of, but that's no reason the girl should stay away;

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

if the young one is dead, she can't bring it to life, nor dig a
hole to put it in, either.”

Mrs. Randall, having adjusted her lace cap, and ordered
Aunt Kitty to keep the basket out of the reach of the big
boys, and to remember and not eat all there was in it herself,
ascended the stairs to ascertain how Jenny had progressed
with her shirt making.

Such family altercations as we have recorded may be
thought exceedingly rare—I sincerely hope they are, but I
have not exaggerated the truth in reference to the people I
write of.

Ignorant, passionate, vulgar—nothing redeemed them from
the lowest grade of society but money, and a tremendous
influence it was in their favor.

In all public meetings, especially those having any reference
to the poor, Mr. Randall was a prominent personage. Upon
more occasions than one he had set down large figures for
charitable purposes; in short, his position was that of an eminent
and honorable citizen, when, in fact, a man guilty of
more little meanness and niggardliness, a man in all ways so
debased, might scarcely anywhere be found. The drunkard
whom he affected to despise, had often a less depraved appetite
than he, for though he did not reel and stagger and lie in
the gutter, it was only habitual indulgence in strong drinks
which rendered him impervious to their more debilitating
effects. He lay on the sofa at home, and swore and grumbled
and hickuped, and drank, and drank, and drank. His children
did not respect him, and how should they, when the whole
course of his conduct was calculated to inspire disgust and
abhorrence in every heart naturally endowed with any notions
of right. The two bullying, beardless sons, who had grown
up under his immediate influence, were precociously depraved,

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

and possessed scarcely a redeeming quality, and the younger
ones were treading close in their footsteps. Helph, however,
possessed some of the ennobling attributes of manhood. Blunt
and plain and rustic he was, to be sure, but he was frank and
honest and sincere; industrious, sober, and affectionate, alike
averse to the exactions and impositions of his mother, and the
niggardly withholdings of his father.

He was neither ashamed of the toil-hardened hands that
earned his daily bread, nor proud for that his mother's earrings
dangled to her shoulders, and that her dress was gay and
expensive, or that his father was president of a bank, and
lived in a fine house.

Independent and straightforward, and for the most part
saving enough—indeed he might give himself some pains to
find a lost shilling, yet where he saw real need he would give
it with as much pleasure as he found it.

Towards evening Jenny returned home, pale and sad and
suffering, but there were no little kindnesses, no softness of
word or manner towards her—she was required at once to re
sume work, and admonished to retrieve lost time, for that
crying would only make herself sick, and do no good. Helph,
however, subdued his bluff kindness into tenderness never
manifested towards her before, and an occasional smile through
tears was an over payment.

Mr. Randall and lady began to be seriously alarmed, lest a
hasty marriage should bring upon them irretrievable disgrace.
A long consultation was held in which it was resolved to postpone,
by pretended acquiescence, any clandestine movement,
until time could be gained to frustrate hopelessly the design
evidently meditated by the son.

We have been talking of our own love, said they, how hard
we should have thought it to be parted, and seeing that you

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

really are attached to each other, we oppose no obstacle; a
little delay is all we ask: Jenny shall go to school for a year,
they said, and you, Helphh, will have more experience, and
more means, perhaps, at your command.

Much more they said in this conciliatory way, and the ruse
was successful; and that night, instead of stealing away together
as they had proposed, Helph slept soundly in his country
home, and Jenny dreamed bright dreams of the coming
years.

Deep midnight overspread the city; the clouds hung low
and gloomy, and the atmosphere was close and oppressive,
when stealthily threading through by-ways and alleys, now
stopping and looking noiselessly backward and forward, and
then with trembling and unsteady steps sliding forward, a man
past the prime of life, miserably clad, might have been seen.
He wore no hat, his gray hair was matted together, and over
one eye there was a purple and ghastly cut from which he
seemed to have torn the bandage, for in one hand he held a
cloth spotted with blood.

He apparently thought himself pursued by some enemy
from whom he was endeavoring to escape, and now and then
huddled in some dark nook whence his eyes, bright with insanity,
peered vigilantly about. So, by fits and starts, he made
his way to the old graveyard mentioned in the previous chapter.
The trees stood still together, for there was scarcely a
breath of air, and noiselessly moving among the monuments
and crosses and low headstones, the man went, pausing not
till he came to a little, new grave; the mound smooth-heaped
and fresh.

“Here,” he said, squatting on the ground and digging
madly into the earth with his hands, “here, by h—ll, is the
very place they put him, d—n them! but his mother shall

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

have him back, I ain't so drunk that I can't dig him up,” and
pausing to listen now and then he soon flattened the mound.

“In God's name, what are you doing,” exclaimed an authoritative
voice, and a club was struck forcibly against the
board fence hard by. Howling an impious imprecation in the
name of the Redeemer, the frightened wretch rushed blindly
headlong across the graves, leaped the fence like a tiger, and
disappeared in the hollow beyond. An hour afterwards he had
gained the valley which lies a mile or two to the northwest of
the city, and along which a creek, sometimes slow and sluggish,
and sometimes deep and turbulent, drags or hurries itself
towards the brighter waters of the Ohio.

The white-trunked sycamores leaned towards each other across
the stream, the broad faded leaves dropping slowly slantwise
to the ground, as the wind slipped damp and silent from bough
to bough. Here and there the surface of the water was darkened
by rifts of foliage that, lodged among brushwood, gave
shelter to the checky blacksnake and the white-bellied toad.
Huge logs that had drifted together in the spring freshet, lay
black and rotting in the current, with the toadstools springing
rank from their decay.

Towards the deepest water the wretched inebriate seemed
irresistibly drawn, and holding with one hand to a sapling that
grew in the bank, he leaned far out and tried the depth with
a slender pole. He then retreated, and seemed struggling as
with a fierce temptation, drew near again and with his foot
broke off shelving weights of earth and watched their plashing
and sinking—a moment he lifted his eyes to heaven—there
was a heavier plunge, and the man was gone from the bank.
A wild cry rose piercing through the darkness; the crimson
top of a clump of iron weeds that grew low in the bank was
drawn suddenly under the water. as if the hand reached for

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

help—then the cry and the plashing was still, and the waves
closed together. A week afterwards the swollen corpse of
Jenny's father was drawn from the stream.