The House in Town Part 45

"I saw her at her crossing one day. Isn't she a good girl?"

"She _is_ a good girl, I think. What do you think?"

"O I think so," said Matilda; "I thought so before; but--Mr.

Wharncliffe--I am afraid she is very poor."

"I am not afraid so; I know it."

"She will not tell me where she lives," said Matilda rather wistfully.

"Do you want to know?"

"Yes, I wanted to know; but I think she did not want I should."

"Did you think of going to see her, that you tried to find out?"

"I would have liked to go, if I could," said Matilda, looking perplexed. "But she seemed to think I wouldn't like it, or that I ought not, or something."

"She is right," said Mr. Wharncliffe. "You would not take any pleasure in seeing Sarah's home; and you cannot go there alone. But with me you may go. I will take you there, if you choose."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, sir. I would like it."

Truth to tell, Matilda would have liked a walk in any direction and for any purpose, in company with that quiet, pleasant, kind, strong face.

She had taken a great fancy and given a great trust already to her new teacher. That walk did not lessen either. Hand in hand they went along, through poor streets and in a neighbourhood that grew more wretched as they went further; yet though Matilda was in a measure conscious of this, she seemed all the while to be walking in a sort of spotless companions.h.i.+p; which perhaps she was. The purity made more impression upon her than the impurity. And, withal that the part of the city they were coming to was very miserable, and more wicked than miserable, Matilda saw it through an atmosphere of very pure and sweet talk.

She drew a little closer to her guide, however, as one after another sight and sound of misery struck her senses. A knot of drunken men wrestling; single specimens, very ugly to see; voices loud and brutal coming out of drinking shops; haggard-looking, dirty women, in dismal rags or finery worse yet; crying children; scolding mothers; a population of boys and girls of all ages, who evidently knew no Sabbath, and to judge by appearances had no home; and streets and houses and doorways so squalid, so enc.u.mbered with garbage and filth, so morally distant from peace and purity, that Matilda felt as if she were walking with an angel through regions where angels never stay.

Perhaps Mr. Wharncliffe noticed the tightening clasp of her fingers upon his. He paused at length; it was before a large, lofty brick building at the corner of a block. No better in its moral indications than other houses around; this was merely one of mammoth proportions.

At the corner a flight of stone steps went down to a cellar floor.

Standing just at the top of these steps, Matilda could look down and partly look in; though there seemed little light below but what came from this same entrance way. The stone steps were swept. But at the bottom there was nothing but a mud floor; doubtless dry in some weathers, but at this time of enc.u.mbering snow it was stamped into mud.

Also down there, in the doubtful light, Matilda discerned an overturned broken chair and a brown jug; and even caught a glimpse of the corner of a small cooking stove. People lived there! or at least cooked and eat, or perhaps sold liquor. Matilda looked up, partly in wonder, partly in dismay, to Mr. Wharncliffe's face.

"This is the place," he said; and his face was grave enough then.

"Would you like to go in?"

"This?" said Matilda bewildered. "_This_ isn't the place? She don't live _here?_ Does anybody live here?"

"Come down and let us see. You need not be afraid," he said. "There is no danger."

Very unwillingly Matilda let the hand that held her draw her on to descend the steps. If this was Sarah's home, she did not wonder at the girl's hesitation about making it known. Sarah was quite right; it was no place fit for Matilda to come to. How could she help letting Sarah see by her face how dreadful she thought it?

Meanwhile she was going down the stone steps. They landed her in a cellar room; it was nothing but a cellar; and without the clean dry paving of brick or stone which we have in the cellars of our houses.

The little old cooking stove was nearly all the furniture; two or three chairs or stools were around, but not one of them whole; and in two corners were heaps, of what? Matilda could not make out anything but rags, except a token of straw in one place. There was a forlorn table besides with a few specimens of broken crockery upon it. A woman was there; very poor though not _bad_-looking; two bits of ragged boys; and lastly Sarah herself, decent and grave, as she had just come from Sunday school, sitting on a box with her lesson book in her hand. She got up quickly and came forward with a surprised face, in which there shone also that wintry gleam of pleasure that Matilda had seen in it before. The pleasure was for the sight of Mr. Wharncliffe; perhaps Sarah was shy of her other visiter. However, Mr. Wharncliffe took the conversation upon himself, and left it to n.o.body to feel or shew awkwardness; which both Matilda and Sarah were ready to do. He had none; Matilda thought he never could have any, anywhere; so gracious, so free, his words and manner were in this wretched place; so pleasant and kind, without a trace of consciousness that he had ever been in a better room than this. And yet his boot heels made prints in the damp earth floor. The poor slatternly woman roused up a little to meet his words of cheer and look of sympathy; and Sarah came and stood by his shoulder. It was an angel's visit. Matilda saw it, as well as she knew that she had been walking with one; he brought some warmth and light even into that drear region; some brightness even into those faces; though he staid but a few minutes. Giving then a hearty hand grasp, not to his scholar only but to the poor woman her mother, whom Matilda thought it must be very disagreeable to touch, he with his new scholar came away.

Matilda's desire to talk or wish to hear talking had suddenly ended.

She threaded the streets in a maze; and Mr. Wharncliffe was silent; till block after block was pa.s.sed and gradually a region of comparative order and beauty was opening to them. At last he looked down at his little silent companion.

"This is a pleasanter part of the city, isn't it?"

"O Mr. Wharncliffe!" Matilda burst forth, "why do they live there?"

"Because they cannot live anywhere else."

"They are so poor as that?"

"So poor as that. And a great many other people are so poor as that."

"How much would it cost?"

"For them to move? Well, it would cost the rent of a better room; and they haven't got it. The mother cannot earn much; and Sarah is the chief stay of the family."

"Have they nothing to live upon, but the pennies she gets for sweeping the crossing?"

"Not much else. The mother makes slops, I believe; but that brings in only a few more coppers a week."

"How much _would_ a better room cost, Mr. Wharncliffe?"

"A dollar a week, maybe; more or less, as the case might be."

There was silence again; until Mr. Wharncliffe and Matilda had come to Blessington avenue and were walking down its clean and s.p.a.cious sideway.

"Mr. Wharncliffe," said Matilda suddenly, "why are some people so rich and other people so poor?"

"There are a great many reasons."

"What are some of them? can't I understand?"

"You can understand this; that people who are industrious, and careful, and who have a talent for business, get on in the world better than those who are idle or wasteful or self-indulgent or wanting in cleverness."

"Yes; I can understand that."

"The first cla.s.s of people make money, and their children, who maybe are neither careful nor clever, inherit it; along with their business friends, and their advantages and opportunities; while the children of the idle and vicious inherit not merely the poverty but to some extent the other disadvantages of their parents. So one set are naturally growing richer and richer and the other naturally go on from poor to poorer."

"Yes, I understand _that_," said Matilda, with a perplexed look. "But some of these poor people are not bad nor idle?"

"Perhaps their parents have been. Or without business ability; and the one thing often leads to another."

"But"--said Matilda, and stopped.

"What is it?"

"It puzzles me, sir. I was going to say, G.o.d could make it all better; and why don't he?"

"He will do everything for us, Matilda," said her friend gravely, "except those things he has given _us_ to do. He will help us to do those; but he will not prevent the consequences of our idleness or disobedience. Those we must suffer; and others suffer with us, and because of us."

"But then"--said Matilda looking up,--"the rich ought to take care of the poor."