Cast Adrift

“What’s to be done about it?” asked Mrs. Bray. “I don’t want that baby to die.”

“Would its mother know it if she saw it?” asked Pinky.

“No; for she never set eyes on it.”

“Then, if it dies, get another baby, and keep track of that. You can steal one from a drunken mother any night in the week. I’ll do it for you. One baby is as good as another.”

“It will be safer to have the real one,” replied Mrs. Bray. “And now, Pinky that you have put this thing into my head, I guess I’ll commission you to get the baby away from that woman.”

“All right!”

“But what are we to do with it? I can’t have it here.”

“Of course you can’t. But that’s easily managed, if your’re willing to pay for it.”

“Pay for it?”

“Yes; if it isn’t begged with, and made to pay its way and earn something into the bargain, it’s got to be a dead weight on somebody. So you see how it is, Fan. Now, if you’ll take a fool’s advice, you’ll let ‘it go to the almshouse, or let it alone to die and get out of its misery as soon as possible. You can find another baby that will do just as well, if you should ever need one.”

“How much would it cost, do you think, to have it boarded with some one who wouldn’t abuse it? She might beg with it herself, or hire it out two or three times a week. I guess it would stand that.”

“Beggars don’t belong to the merciful kind,” answered Pinky; “there’s no trusting any of them. A baby in their hands is never safe. I’ve seen ‘em brought in at night more dead than alive, and tossed on a dirty rag-heap to die before morning. I’m always glad when they’re out of their misery, poor things! The fact is, Fan, if you expect that baby to live, you’ve got to take it clean out of the hands of beggars.”

“What could I get it boarded for outright?” asked Mrs. Bray.

“For ‘most anything, ‘cording to how it’s done. But why not, while you’re about it, bleed the old lady, its grandmother, a little deeper, and take a few drops for the baby?”

“Guess you’re kind o’ right about that, Fan; anyhow, we’ll make a start on it. You find another place for the brat.”

“‘Greed; when shall I do it?”

“The sooner, the better. It might die of cold any night in that horrible den. Ugh!”

“I’ve been in worse places. Bedlow street is full of them, and so is Briar street and Dirty alley. You don’t know anything about it.”

“Maybe not, and maybe I don’t care to know. At present I want to settle about this baby. You’ll find another place for it?”

“Yes.”

“And then steal it from the woman who has it now?”

“Yes; no trouble in the world. She’s drunk every night,” answered Pinky Swett, rising to go.

“You’ll see me to-morrow?” said Mrs. Bray.

“Oh yes.”

“And you won’t forget about the policies?”

“Not I. We shall make a grand hit, or I’m a fool. Day-day!” Pinky waved her hand gayly, and then retired.

CHAPTER VI

A COLD wet drizzling rain was beginning to fall when Pinky Swett emerged from the house. Twilight was gathering drearily. She drew her thin shawl closely, and shivered as the east wind struck her with a chill.

At hurried walk of five or ten minutes brought her to a part of the town as little known to its citizens generally as if it were in the centre of Africa—a part of the town where vice, crime, drunkenness and beggary herd together in the closest and most shameless contact; where men and women, living in all foulness, and more like wild beasts than human beings, prey greedily upon each other, hurting, depraving and marring God’s image in all over whom they can get power or influenced—a very hell upon the earth!—at part of the town where theft and robbery and murder are plotted, and from which prisons and almshouses draw their chief population.

That such a herding together, almost in the centre of a great Christian city, of the utterly vicious and degraded, should be permitted, when every day’s police and criminal records give warning of its cost and danger, is a marvel and a reproach. Almost every other house, in portions of this locality, is a dram-shop, where the vilest liquors are sold. Policy-offices, doing business in direct violation of law, are in every street and block, their work of plunder and demoralization going on with open doors and under the very eyes of the police. Every one of them is known to these officers. But arrest is useless. A hidden and malign influence, more potent than justice, has power to protect the traffic and hold the guilty offenders harmless. Conviction is rarely, if ever, reached.

The poor wretches, depraved and plundered through drink and policy-gambling, are driven into crime. They rob and steal and debase themselves for money with which to buy rum and policies, and sooner or later the prison or death removes the greater number of them from their vile companions. But drifting toward this fatal locality under the attraction of affinity, or lured thither by harpies in search of new supplies of human victims to repair the frightful waste perpetually made, the region keeps up its dense population, and the work of destroying human souls goes on. It is an awful thing to contemplate. Thousands of men and women, boys and girls, once innocent as the babes upon whom Christ laid his hand in blessing, are drawn into this whirlpool of evil every year, and few come out except by the way of prison or death.

It was toward this locality that Pinky Swett directed her feet, after parting with Mrs. Bray. Darkness was beginning to settle down as she turned off from one of the most populous streets, crowded at the time by citizens on their way to quiet and comfortable homes, few if any of whom had ever turned aside to look upon and get knowledge of the world or crime and wretchedness so near at hand, but girdled in and concealed from common observation.

Down a narrow street she turned from the great thoroughfare, walking with quick steps, and shivering a little as the penetrating east wind sent a chill of dampness through the thin shawl she drew closer and closer about her shoulders. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than the rows of handsome dwellings and stores that lined the streets through which she had just passed, and the forlorn, rickety, unsightly and tumble-down houses amid which she now found herself.

Pinky had gone only a little way when the sharp cries of a child cut the air suddenly, the shrill, angry voice of a woman and the rapid fall of lashes mingled with the cries. The child begged for mercy in tones of agony, but the loud voice, uttering curses and imprecations, and the cruel blows, ceased not. Pinky stopped and shivered. She felt the pain of these blows, in her quickly-aroused sympathy, almost as much as if they had been falling on her own person. Opposite to where she had paused was a one-story frame house, or enclosed shed, as unsightly without as a pig-pen, and almost as filthy within. It contained two small rooms with very low ceilings. The only things in these rooms that could be called furniture were an old bench, two chairs from which the backs had been broken, a tin cup black with smoke and dirt, two or three tin pans in the same condition, some broken crockery and an iron skillet. Pinky stood still for a moment, shivering, as we have said. She knew what the blows and the curses and the cries of pain meant; she had heard them before. A depraved and drunken woman and a child ten years old, who might or might not be her daughter, lived there. The child was sent out every day to beg or steal, and if she failed to bring home a certain sum of money, was cruelly beaten by the woman. Almost every day the poor child was cut with lashes, often on the bare flesh; almost every day her shrieks rang out from the miserable hovel. But there was no one to interfere, no one to save her from the smarting blows, no one to care what she suffered.

Pinky Swett could stand it no longer. She had often noticed the ragged child, with her pale, starved face and large, wistful eyes, passing in and out of this miserable woman’s den, sometimes going to the liquor-shops and sometimes to the nearest policy-office to spend for her mother, if such the woman really was, the money she had gained by begging.

With a sudden impulse, as a deep wail and a more piteous cry for mercy smote upon her ears, Pinky sprang across the street and into the hovel. The sight that met her eyes left no hesitation in her mind. Holding up with one strong arm the naked body of the poor child—she had drawn the clothes over her head—the infuriated woman was raining down blows from a short piece of rattan upon the quivering flesh, already covered with welts and bruises.

“Devil!” cried Pinky as she rushed upon this fiend in human shape and snatched the little girl from her arm. “Do you want to kill the child?”

She might almost as well have assaulted a tigress.

The woman was larger, stronger, more desperate and more thoroughly given over to evil passions than she. To thwart her in anything was to rouse her into a fury. A moment she stood in surprise and bewilderment; in the next, and ere Pinky had time to put herself on guard, she had sprung upon her with a passionate cry that sounded more like that of a wild beast than anything human. Clutching her by the throat with one hand, and with the other tearing the child from her grasp, she threw the frightened little thing across the room.

“Devil, ha!” screamed the woman; “devil!” and she tightened her grasp on Pinky’s throat, at the same time striking her in the face with her clenched fist.

Like a war-horse that snuffs the battle afar off and rushes to the conflict, so rushed the inhabitants of that foul neighborhood to the spot from whence had come to their ears the familiar and not unwelcome sound of strife. Even before Pinky had time to shake off her assailant, the door of the hovel was darkened by a screen of eager faces. And such faces! How little of God’s image remained in them to tell of their divine origination!—bloated and scarred, ashen pale and wasted, hollow-eyed and red-eyed, disease looking out from all, yet all lighted up with the keenest interest and expectancy.

Outside, the crowd swelled with a marvelous rapidity. Every cellar and room and garret, every little alley and hidden rookery, “hawk’s nest” and “wren’s nest,” poured out its unseemly denizens, white and black, old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen, alert and self-protective, running to see the “row” side by side with the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way. Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, rag-pickers and the like, with the harpies who prey upon them, all were there to enjoy the show.

Within, a desperate fight was going on between Pinky Swett and the woman from whose hands she had attempted to rescue the child—a fight in which Pinky was getting the worst of it. One garment after another was torn from her person, until little more than a single one remained.

“Here’s the police! look out!” was cried at this juncture.

“Who cares for the police? Let ‘em come,” boldly retorted the woman. “I haven’t done nothing; it’s her that’s come in drunk and got up a row.”

Pushing the crowd aside, a policeman entered the hovel.

“Here she is!” cried the woman, pointing toward Pinky, from whom she had sprung back the moment she heard the word police. “She came in here drunk and got up a row. I’m a decent woman, as don’t meddle with nobody. But she’s awful when she gets drunk. Just look at her—been tearing her clothes off!”

At this there was a shout of merriment from the crowd who had witnessed the fight.

“Good for old Sal! she’s one of ‘em! Can’t get ahead of old Sal, drunk or sober!” and like expressions were shouted by one and another.

Poor Pinky, nearly stripped of her clothing, and with a great bruise swelling under one of her eyes, bewildered and frightened at the aspect of things around her, could make no acceptable defence.