The Daughter of a Republican Part 3

"Business appointments must be kept. The storm was not considerate enough to leave town before 'the man' came, and 'the man' cannot wait for the storm to take its departure, so what is to be done?"

"Does James know?"

"I do not want the horses tonight."

Jean stepped out and returned with his wraps. She held the great coat while he thrust his long arms into it. Then she tied his m.u.f.fler around his neck.

"Father, while you are out, if you run across any lonely reformer, put in for Jean an application for the position of first a.s.sistant," laughed Vivian.

Judge Thorn left the room, and these two daughters of fortune settled themselves for a comfortable evening.

Before it seemed possible that an hour had gone they heard a vehicle drive up to the side gate.

The carriage stopped for several minutes, then rattled away over the hard ground, and presently the judge re-entered the room.

"Ugh! This is a tough night. Fire feels good," and he rubbed his hands briskly.

"I brought home company, girls. Not exactly the reformer Vivian was speaking of; perhaps someone to reform."

"What do you mean?"

"Whom have you found?"

"I think I may be able to explain what I mean, but until the girl thaws out a little we will not know who she is," said the judge mysteriously.

"What in the world do you mean, father? But tell us about it."

"Well, as usual on a night of this sort, there was a missing man. The search for him took me a couple of blocks out of my way and in coming back I pa.s.sed a saloon of a low order and found the girl lying in the sleet. I thought more than likely she was drunk, and stepped into the saloon to advise them to look after their productions. Here I found her father in a state of beastly intoxication and learned that she had been there, a short time before, begging him to go home with her to a sick wife and some hungry children, but I could not find out where this home was. Just as I left the saloon a cab came along, and I had the driver put the girl in it. This is all. Where are you going, Jean?"

"Going to see the object of your charity."

Judge Thorn placed his hand on Jean's shoulder and pushed her gently back into her chair.

"Possess your soul in patience. You could be of no possible service if you were to go. Mrs. Floyd has her in charge and will do all that is necessary. I am not sure that it was wise to bring her here. I am almost sorry that I did so, but I hated to leave her and there was not a policeman in sight; there never is.

"It is a shame such places as the place at which I stopped tonight are allowed to exist. Two-thirds of the crime and misery of our entire nation can be traced directly to their doors. They are a public nuisance, an outrage to civilization. Temperance people must see to it that license is raised so high that this sort cannot obtain it."

"Would that shut them up?" said Jean.

"Certainly it would."

"Not all the saloons?"

"All the poor, low ones."

"What about the rich ones?"

"It would make no difference with them, but they have not the bad effect on the morals of a community that the low ones have. They are patronized by a set of people who do not pour their last cent down their throats and employ their time beating their families."

Jean crossed one foot over the other, leaned slightly forward and with her head dropped a little to one side in the old-time way, sat studying the fire. She was trying to solve some knotty problem.

Her father smiled. It seemed she was the little Jean come back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Give me some, quick!_]

CHAPTER III.

JEAN THE ABOLITIONIST.

"Come in, father, and make yourself comfortable." It was Jean speaking, as she stood in the glow of the library lamp. "I have been waiting for you. You need not cast your eye around for the paper; you will not find it until my case has had a hearing."

Judge Thorn sank into the great easy chair before the fire with an air of forced resignation, and the young woman continued:

"It is quite necessary nowadays, you know, for women to have 'ideas.' I have ideas on social and moral questions, but I do not know just where I belong when it comes to politics."

The judge lifted his hands with a show of expostulation.

"So our Jean would be a politician," he cried. "Oh, the times! Oh, the customs!"

"Not quite so bad as that, father," replied the young woman, smiling but serious; "but I am in downright earnest. The making, the unmaking and the enforcing of law are politics, and every American woman should have an interest in these things. Every thinking woman must have an interest in them. I must know more of politics."

"You are right," said her father, thoughtfully; "you are right. I do not believe a woman should get out of her sphere, but a woman's influence is mighty, and inasmuch as all law and reform come through the ballot box, there can be no harm in her giving an intelligent hearing to politics."

"Then, father, please listen to me for a few minutes; I want to tell you what has set me to thinking along these lines. Two weeks ago you brought Maggie Crowley here. I went to see her in her room the next morning, and she told me her story. Her mother was sick, the children were hungry and cold, so she started out to find the father before he had spent his money for drink.

"When she finally found him, she found him in a saloon in the act of handing over his last dollar to pay for liquor that others had drunk as well as himself. She got the dollar some way and started home, when, as she said, she fell. The dollar rolled into the street and a pa.s.serby picked it up and pocketed it, in spite of the fact that she told him that it was hers, and that it was the last.

"I shall never forget the way she looked when she came to this part of her story. Her eyes brimmed with tears and her voice was lost in a great big sob. She begged me, for the love of heaven, to go to her mother, who must be half-crazed with grief because of her disappearance, and to take her something to eat.

"So Mrs. Floyd fixed a basket of lunch and we went. A lump rose in my throat when I went into that place. It was cold, very cold. Maggie's mother was lying on a bed in one corner of the room, with one thin quilt over her, and a tiny moaning baby at her breast. Sitting on a box near the bed were two children, a small boy and a girl. They were huddled under a fragment of blanket. The boy was crying for something to eat and his sister was trying bravely to comfort him.

"There was not a spark of fire nor a crumb of food about the place. When Mrs. Floyd opened the basket and the children saw what it contained, they bounded toward it like wolves, and the woman reached out her thin hand and said, eagerly: 'Give me some quick! I'm nearly starved, and the baby is so weak--my b.r.e.a.s.t.s are dry.'

"I took off my glove and felt her hand, and I really thought she must be frozen; but she said she had been that way so much she was growing used to it.

"We stopped on our way home and ordered some coal, and later made a raid on our closets and pantry and made up a load of stuff to take back. I sent some good blankets and quite an a.s.sortment of clothing, so that by night they were fairly comfortable.

"I went again the next day to see how they were getting along and to give them news of Maggie, and while I was there the father came home for the first time. He was over his spell of intoxication, but was weak, and tottered like an old man. His eyes were bloodshot, and on the whole he was not a very prepossessing looking gentleman, but I could not help feeling sorry for him. It seemed so sad to see a being, created in the image of G.o.d, such a miserable wreck.

"Casting his eye hurriedly around the room, he went to the bedside and asked for Maggie. His wife told him how she had gone for him, how she fell, and the rest of the story, and then he told his tale, and--can you believe it, father--that man kicked the girl out of the door--kicked his own daughter down the steps into the storm that night, and gave her the injury from which she lies here under our roof now.

"My blood boiled, fairly boiled. I could feel it bubbling. His wife turned her face to the tiny baby, and I could see her frame shake under the cover. The man knelt beside the bed and wept, too, and again I was sorry, with a sort of contempt mixed in, for the man.

"After a time his wife turned to him, and, resting her thin hand on his head, spoke kindly to him, and referred him to the Lord for the strength that he so sorely lacked. The man did pray, and I am sure he was in earnest; and he asked his wife's forgiveness and took a solemn oath that he would never touch another cursed drop."