The Old Homestead Part 32

CHAPTER XX.

THE FATHER'S PROPHECY--THE DAUGHTER'S FAITH.

Oh, faith, how beautiful thou art!

Like some pure, snowy-breasted dove, Nested within that gentle heart, Ye filled its softest pulse with love.

Just where the banks of the East River are the most broken and picturesque on the New York sh.o.r.e, and the sunny slopes of Long Island are most verdant in their Arcadian beauty, the river opens its bright waters, and Blackwell's Island rises, green and beautiful, from its azure bosom. Years ago, when this gem of the East River was a private estate, with only one dwelling-house to break its entire seclusion, it must have seemed like a mile's length of paradise dropped into the water. Then, its hollows were fragrant with wild roses, haunted by blackbirds and thrushes. Its sh.o.r.es were hedged in by the snow-white dogwood, wild cherry and maple trees, laced together with native grape-vines and scarlet creepers, that, even a year or two back, hung along its sh.o.r.es, like torn banners left upon a battle-field.

Blackwell's Island had other inhabitants than the singing birds and the sweet wild blossoms, when the orphans first landed there. Then its extremities were burdened to the very water's edge, with edifices of ma.s.sive stone, where human crime and human misery were crowded together in ma.s.ses appalling to reflect upon.

On one end of the island, naturally so quiet and beautiful, rose the rugged walls of the Penitentiary, flanked by outhouses, hospitals and offices, every stone of which was eloquent of human degradation. Here, a thousand wretched men, bowed with misery and branded with crime, were crowded together. All the day long, herds of these degraded beings might be seen in their coa.r.s.e and faded uniform, burrowing in the earth, blasting and shaping the rocks that were to form new prison-walls, and filling the sweet air with groans and curses, which once thrilled only to the songs of summer-birds.

At the other extremity of the island stood the Insane Asylum, a beautiful pile, towering over a scene of misery that should fill the heart with awe. There is, perhaps, no spot of its size, throughout the length and breadth of our land, where every variety of human suffering is so closely condensed as it has been for years on this island. The moment your foot touches the sh.o.r.e you feel oppressed with feelings that seem inexplicable. Pity, horror, and a painful blending of both, crowd upon the heart with every breath you draw. Nothing but the air seems free; nothing but the blue sky above seems pure, as you walk from one scene of distress to another. You feel the more oppressed because human effort seems so powerless to alleviate the misery you witness; for who can minister to a mind diseased? What can take away the deformity and sting of guilt? Where lies the power to lift poverty from the degradation that the haughty and evil spirit of man has flung around it? The very heart grows faint as it beats in this wilderness of woe, and finds no fitting answer to questions like these.

But at the time these events happened there was one remnant of beautiful nature left on Blackwell's Island--one spot where the flowers were permitted to bloom in the pure breath of heaven--where the trees were yet rooted to the earth, and filled as of old, with the music of summer birds. On the very centre of the island stood an old mansion house, the residence of its proprietor before the paradise became city property. It was a rambling old building, with wings of unequal length shaded with magnificent willows, and surrounded by shrubbery, and pretty lawns, interspersed with fine old trees.

Terraces beautifully lifted from the water's edge; and gravel walks, bordered with the thickest and heaviest box-myrtle, with here and there a grape arbor spanning them with its leafy arch, sloped with picturesque beauty to the river which washed both sides of the island.

A neglected and rude old place it was, but perhaps the more lovely for that. Neglect only seemed to give richer luxuriance to every thing around; the hedges and rose-thickets were tangled together. Great snow-ball trees, trumpet vines and honeysuckles seemed to shoot out more rigorously from want of pruning, and the trees had become majestic with age.

From the broad hall you might see the river on either hand, gleaming through the spreading branches. Now and then a snow-white sail glided by, and at sunset the water seemed heaving up waves of gold wherever your eye turned.

This was the Children's Hospital. In the low chambers, and the fine old fas.h.i.+oned rooms, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred children lay upon their little cots, in all stages of suffering to which infancy is subject. It was a painful scene--those helpless little creatures, orphaned, or worse than orphaned, in the morning of life, wearing such looks of pain, and yet so patient. G.o.d help them!

It was a touching sight to watch the brightening of those little faces, whenever the good matron pa.s.sed into the wards ministering to their comfort--poor things--by a kind look and soothing word, where medicine might often less avail. Strange manifestations of character might be witnessed among those little creatures--fort.i.tude that might shame a warrior--patience the most saintlike; and again--but why dwell upon the evil that sometimes exhibits itself fullgrown, in the heart of an infant?

If cries of bitter pa.s.sion sometimes arose from those little couches they came, alas! from hearts that had never learned that unrestrained pa.s.sion was a sin. If fierce words were wrung from those infant lips, it was that anger, not kindness had been showered on them from the cradle. To some of these little creatures oaths had been familiar as caresses are to the infancy of others. Such was their household language.

To this place, so beautiful in itself, so full of painful a.s.sociations, Isabel Chester was brought in less than a week after her mother's burial. Since that day she had drooped like a broken lily. The terrible grief to which her delicate nature had bent and swayed like a reed; the sudden change from a home of quiet and tranquil love, to the most bitter solitude known to the human heart--that of a crowd--had completely prostrated the orphan. A slow fever preyed upon her; she could not speak without feeling the hot tears gush from her eyes.

In this state she came under the observation of the Children's physician, and, touched with compa.s.sion, he took her to the Infant Hospital. Mary went also, for she too, was ailing, and the doctor saw that it would be cruelty to part them. At the hospital these helpless creatures had better food and more comfort than could be allowed them among the seven or eight hundred healthy children with which the nurseries on the Long Island sh.o.r.e were crowded. For days and weeks Isabel lay prostrate on her little cot. She had no settled disease.

The child only seemed quietly fading away.

Mary Fuller never left her bed-side. She, too, was broken down with grief, and her wearied frame had lost all its power of endurance; but though the hand which held Isabel's drink trembled with weakness, the little creature never complained, nor ever acknowledged that she was ill enough to be in bed. Patient and sweet-tempered as an angel, she watched by the child of those who had done so much for her. The love and grat.i.tude of her whole being seemed centered in that pale, but still lovely orphan.

At length all this patient love had its reward. Isabel was well enough to walk in the grounds, and with their feeble arms around each other, these children might be seen from morning till night, wandering along the sh.o.r.e, or sitting quietly beneath the grape-arbors that overlooked the water. To the other children they were always gentle and kind, but they had no companions, and they clung together with the deep trust and holy love of sisters. They had no future--those hopeless children.

Chester had left no relatives that his child ever heard of, and his gentle wife had been an orphan. Mary Fuller possessed only her wretched, wretched mother.

But their gentleness, and Isabel's singular beauty, were sure to win them friends. The Physician and the matron began to love the little girls, and after a time they became the pets of the establishment.

While the locks of the other children were cut close to the head, Isabel still possessed her long and flowing tresses. Day by day her exquisite beauty deepened into health again, and the pensive cast which grief had given to her features rendered them ideal as they were lovely.

But as Isabel grew better, Mary Fuller seemed to sink and droop in all her being. She was often found amid the shrubbery, weeping bitterly, and alone. Toward nightfall, and at early morning, she might have been detected stealing softly up the Hospital stairs, and away to a dim corner of the garret, with a handful of berries or a fragment of cake which the matron had given her during the day. Sometimes her voice, low and sweet, as if in tearful entreaties, floated along the garret, and then might have been heard another voice, sometimes rude, sometimes querulous, but very feeble, answering her with sharp reprimands. After this the child would come down in tears and steal away, as we have described, to weep alone.

Thus they entered upon sweet June, literally a month of roses at the Infant's-Hospital. The pale little invalids grew better that month, and were gathered beneath the huge old trees with their nurses, forgetting their pain in the sweet breath of the flowers; but that month, though the b.u.t.terflies were numerous, and humming-birds came and went through the thickets like flashes from a rainbow, Mary Fuller was seldom abroad with the rest. More and more of her time was spent in the low, dim garret; but when she did come forth, those who observed her saw a new and tranquil light upon her face. She was sometimes seen to smile, as if a pleasant thought possessed her mind.

Just before this, Mary had asked permission to carry away a little Bible from the matron's table. It was not brought back, but the matron only smiled, and never inquired the reason. She had learned to love and trust Mary Fuller.

There was a clergyman stationed at Blackwell's Island, to whose spiritual charge was given from four to seven hundred persons at the Penitentiary, four or five hundred of the insane, and nearly a thousand children, at the nursery and its hospital. The welfare of all these souls was entrusted to this meek Christian, and most faithfully has he performed the solemn duties of his office from that day to this. Always busy in behalf of the unhappy creatures, who, amid all their degradation, loved and respected him, always cheerful, always ready with his gentle word and consoling advice, he made this holy mission with the helpless and the prisoner the one great business of his life.

This good clergyman had a family to support on his miserable salary of three hundred dollars a year, voted him by a Common Council that spent ten thousand carousing in their tea-room. Had any one of those city fathers ever been up so early, they might often have seen this good man at daybreak toiling on foot to the city, or perchance miles away to some country town, in search of a service place for some repentant prisoner, or to carry a message from a sick child to its friends. In his gentle humility the good man never complained, never said that the pay awarded to his labors by the Common Council of our most wealthy city, was too little for his wants. You saw it in his garments. You might have read it in his meek sigh, when some object of compa.s.sion presented unusual claims to his charity; but in his speech and deportment he seemed ever grateful for the little that was given him.

This true-hearted Christian remains upon his post to this day. If a single hundred dollars has been added to his yearly means of support, it was through the intercession of others, and from no discontent expressed by himself. Surely the reward of such men must be hereafter, or in the heaven of their own souls.

It was pleasant to see the eyes of those little children brighten, when the good clergyman entered the hospital. They were fatherless, and he was better than a father to them. They were sick, and he comforted them, even as our Lord comforted little children when they were brought to Him. His hand touched their pale foreheads caressingly; his mild voice sunk into their little hearts like dew upon a bruised flower. His very tread upon the stairs was a blessing to them; when they heard it, all unconsciously the little creatures would smile upon their pillows, and murmur over fragments of the Lord's Prayer, for with its holy language, his own lips had rendered most of them familiar.

To this brave Christian little Isabel and her friend had become greatly attached. He sat with them in the grape arbors; he helped them arrange bouquets for the sick children, and while they were busy at their sweet task, he, in his gentle way, would lead their thoughts from the flowers to the G.o.d who gives them to beautify the earth. At such times he would go quietly away, leaving the children happier and better, but without the slightest consciousness that they had been receiving religious instruction.

This was the man to whom Mary Fuller appealed one night, as he paused to speak with her in the garden-path that leads along the water.

"Oh! sir, I have been waiting for you here; I thought you would come this way," cried the child, placing her little hand in his, "I have something to tell you--something that makes me happy as a bird?"

"You look happy, my child, and you look good, too," said the clergyman, shaking her hand with a smile. "Come, now, tell me what it is."

"It is a long story, and one that would make you cry if you knew all.

You are not in a hurry sir?"

"No, no! I am never in a hurry, my dear little girl, so if you have much to say come in here, and I will listen an hour if you like."

There was an old summer-house on the bank, dilapidated, and threatening to tumble over the declivity with the first rough wind.

The clergyman led his little friend into this open building, and sat down upon the only entire seat that it contained.

The child sat by his side awhile, thoughtful and evidently striving to arrange her ideas.

"Do you remember, sir, a long time ago, when we first came here, you asked me about my father and mother? I told you that my father was dead, but I did not say much of my mother. Sir, she was a prisoner then, and I did not like to mention it; that perhaps was wrong, but I couldn't help being ashamed."

"There was nothing wrong in that feeling," answered the clergyman, gently.

"I am glad you think so," replied the child, "for now I am sure you will not want me to tell you all that has ever happened--how she took to drink when I was a little, little girl. She was not used to it, and I don't know how she was led away--for my poor father never talked of these things to me, but they killed him, sir--it broke his heart at last. One day--I was only seven years old then, but I remember it, oh!

how well--she had been drinking, oh, she was dreadful always at those times. I don't know what I did, but I believe that I was only in her way as she crossed the floor--all that I can remember is, that she struck at me with her hand and foot. It seemed as if she had crushed me to the floor. The breath left my body--I was the same as dead for a long, long time."

"Poor child," murmured the clergyman, gazing upon the little creature with a look of profound compa.s.sion.

"When I came to myself, people thought I would never be good for anything again, and, sometimes, I thought so too, for after that I almost stopped growing, and all that was bright about me died away.

I believe, after that, she hated me, sir."

Mary paused a moment, and went on.

"But my father, oh, he loved me better and better; he only wanted to live for my sake, he told me so many a time. My poor father was a good man, sir; as good as you are, as good as Mr. Chester was; but he was so unhappy that G.o.d was very kind not to let him live only for my sake. But, oh, sir, I was all alone when he went. I need not tell you how we lived. We were poor. You never, in your life, saw any persons so poor as we were, after father died. She would not work, and when I did not have enough to eat I couldn't do much. Oh, sir, it was a miserable life; now when I have told you so much, you will not want me to say any more about it than I can help."

"Say only what you wish, my child; I will listen."

"One night--she had been drinking night and day, for a week--two or three women had been in, and while they drank I sat in a corner longing for them to go. They quarreled; my mother struck one of the women, and while they were swearing dreadfully, a policeman came in.

It was Mr. Chester--that was the first time I ever saw him. I have told you about him, and how his child, poor, beautiful Isabel, came here with me; but I did not tell you that the nurse at Bellevue was my own mother. The doctors found out that she had been drinking, and sent her away after that night. A few weeks ago she came up here to work for the children. n.o.body knew that she was my mother, but, oh! sir, she looked very ill, and I said to myself when she pa.s.sed me without a word, only with black looks--I said, she is ill, I will take care of her; I will go to her at night with nice things that the matron gives me to eat--I will do without them myself, and, perhaps, this will make her love me.

"I went up into the garret the first night, but she drove me away. I would not give up, but went again. She was very ill that night--living among that fever so long had poisoned all the pure breath she had left. She was crying when I went up to the bed; I knelt down by the bed and began to cry, too. She did not send me away. She did not strike me, though I thought it was for that when she lifted her hand, but she laid the hand on my head. Indeed she did, sir, and then I felt she might be my mother yet!"

The child paused; the big tears that welled up from her heart were choking her.

"I went to see her very often after that, for she was growing worse.

I carried her nice things, and tried every way to make her love me.

She was not always kind, but I didn't mind a little crossness now and then, for great hopes were in my heart. My father loved his wife, and I thought of him, and what a joy it would be if I, the poor thing he wanted to live for, could do something toward making her good enough to see him once more when she dies.