by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER VII.
THE SOLDIER'S FAMILY.
Fanny stood on the platform in front of the station-house, waiting forthe return of Kate. She had no suspicion that her friend had desertedher, and was at that moment running away as fast as she could. Thetrain was approaching, and with the nervousness of one not accustomedto travelling, she feared they might be left. The cars stopped, andKate did not return. Fanny rushed into the station-house in search ofher. She was not there! she was not in the building; she was not to beseen from the open door.
Then Fanny realized that her companion's courage had failed, and thatshe had deserted her. The bell on the locomotive was ringing, and thetrain was in the act of starting. Fanny was quick and decisive in hermovements, and she bounded out of the building, and stepped upon thetrain after it was in motion. She was angry and indignant at thedefection of Kate, and, taking a seat in the car, she nursed her bitterfeelings until her wrath had expended itself.
Kate's desertion affected the plans of the runaway, for in a few hours,at most, what she had done, and what she intended to do, would be knownat Woodville. Mr. Long would take one of the afternoon trains for thecity, and the whole police force of the great metropolis would be onthe lookout for her before dark. Constables and policemen were now morethan ever Fanny's especial horror, and she trembled at the very thoughtof being arrested for the crime she had committed.
Fanny was a girl of quick, bright parts. She had read the newspapers,and listened to the conversation of her elders. She was better informedin regard to the ways of the world than most young persons of her agewith no more experience. She knew all about the telegraph, and the usesto which it was put in the detection and arrest of rogues. Though itwas hardly possible for Kate to reach Woodville, and inform the peoplethere where she had gone, yet circumstances might conspire against herso as to render the telegraph available. Mr. Long might have discoveredin what direction the fugitives had gone, and followed them down toPennville. He might have met Kate there, and learned her destination.It was possible, therefore, that a despatch might reach the city beforeshe did, and an officer be waiting for her at the railroad station.
She was too cunning to be entrapped by any such expedients; and whenthe train stopped at Harlem, she got out, with the intention of walkinginto the city. Deeming it imprudent to follow the principal street, inwhich some of the terrible policemen might be lying in wait for her,she made her way to one of the less travelled thoroughfares, in whichshe pursued her way towards the city. The street she had chosen led herthrough the localities inhabited by the poorer portions of thepopulation. The territory through which she was passing was in atransition state: broad streets and large squares had been laid out, inanticipation of vast improvements, but only a little had beenaccomplished in carrying them out. There were many tasty little houses,and many long blocks of buildings occupied by mechanics and laborers,and occasionally a more pretentious mansion.
In some of the most ineligible places for building, there were houses,or rather hovels, constructed in the roughest and rudest manner,apparently for temporary use until the march of improvement shoulddrive their tenants into still more obscure locations. Fanny passednear one of these rude abodes, which was situated on a cross street, ashort distance from the avenue on which she was journeying to the city.In front of this house was a scene which attracted the attention of thewanderer, and caused her to forget, for the time, the great wrong shehad committed, and the consequences which would follow in its train.
In front of the house lay several articles of the coarsest furniture,and a man was engaged in removing more of the same kind from the hovel.He had paused for a moment in his occupation, and before him stood awoman who was wringing her hands in the agonies of despair. Fanny couldhear the profane and abusive language the man used, and she could hearthe piteous pleadings of the woman, at whose side stood a little boy,half clothed in tattered garments, weeping as though his heart wouldbreak.
Fanny was interested in the scene. The woman's woe and despair touchedher feelings, and perhaps more from curiosity than any other motive,she walked down the cross-street towards the cottage. Being resoluteand courageous by nature, she had no fear of personal consequences. Shedid not comprehend the nature of the difficulty, having never seen atenant forcibly ejected from a house for the non-payment of rent.
"You'll kill my child! You'll kill my child!" cried the poor woman, insuch an agony of bitterness that Fanny was thrilled by her tones.
"Isn't it a whole year I've been waiting for my rint?" replied the man,coarsely. "Didn't ye keep promisin' to pay me for a twelvemonth, andniver a cint I got yet?"
"I would pay you if I could, Mr. O'Shane."
"If ye could! What call have I to wait any longer for me money?"
"My husband has gone to the war, and I haven't heard a word from himfor a year; but I'm sure he will send me some money soon--I know hewill."
"What call had he to go to the war? Why didn't he stay at home and takecare of his childer? Go 'way wid ye! Give me up me house!"
Mr. O'Shane broke away from her, and, rushing into the house, presentlyreturned bearing a dilapidated table in his hands.
"Have mercy, Mr. O'Shane. Pity me!" pleaded the woman, when heappeared.
"I do pity ye; 'pon me sowl, I do, thin; but what can a poor man likeme do?" replied the landlord. "I live in a worse house nor this, andwork like a mule, and I can't make enough, for the high prices, to takecare of me family. Didn't I wait month after month for me rint, andsorra a cint I iver got? Sure it isn't Mike O'Shane that would do thelikes of this if he could help it."
"But I will pay you all I owe, Mr. O'Shane."
"That's what ye been sayin' this twelvemonth; and I can't wait anylonger. Why don't ye stir yoursilf, and go among the rich folks?"
"I can't beg, Mr. O'Shane."
"But ye better beg than chate me out of me honest dues. Go 'way wid ye!Pay me the rint, or give me the house; and sorra one of me cares whichyou do."
"I would move if I could. You know that my poor child is very sick. Forher sake don't turn me out of the house to-day," added the woman, inthe most beseeching tones.
"Didn't I wait six months for the child to die, and she didn't die? Shewon't die. Sure, don't she sit in the chair all day? and what harmwould it do to move her?"
"I have no place to move her to."
"That's what's the matter! Now go 'way wid your blarney, and don't betalking to me. It's Mike O'Shane that has a soft spot in his heart, buthe can't do no more for ye. That's the truth, and ye must move to-day."
The landlord went into the house again, for more of the furniture. Ashe had represented, it was, doubtless, a hard case for him; but it wasinfinitely harder for the poor woman, and Fanny was too deeplyinterested now to leave the spot. What she had known of human miserywas as nothing compared with the suffering of this poor mother.
"What's the matter, ma'am?" asked Fanny of her, when the harsh landlordhad gone into the house.
"This man is my landlord, and he is turning me out of the house becauseI cannot pay him the rent," sobbed the woman. "I wouldn't care, if itwasn't for poor Jenny."
"Who is Jenny?"
"She is my daughter. She has been sick, very sick, for nearly a year,and she cannot live much longer. The doctor gave her up six monthsago."
"How old is Jenny?"
"She is fourteen; and she is such a patient child! She never complainsof anything, though I am not able to do much for her," replied theafflicted mother, as her tears broke forth afresh at the thought of thesufferer.
"Haven't you any place to go if this man turns you out of the house?"asked Fanny.
"No, no!" groaned the woman, bursting out into a terrible paroxysm ofgrief.
"I know it's hard for you, Mrs. Kent, but it's harder for me to do itthan it is for you to have it done," continued Mr. O'Shane, as he cameout of the house with a rocking chair in his hands.
"O mercy! that is poor Jenny's chair!" almost screamed Mrs. Kent. "Whathav
e you done with her?"
The mother, in her agony, rushed into the house to ascertain if anyharm had come to her suffering daughter, who had been deprived of theeasy chair in which she was accustomed to sit. Fanny was moved to thedepths of her nature--moved as she had never been moved before. Shecouldn't have believed that such scenes were real. She had read of themin romances, and even in the newspapers; but she had never realizedthat a man could be so hard as Mr. O'Shane, or that a woman couldsuffer so much as Mrs. Kent. Between her grief and indignation she wasalmost overwhelmed.
"You are a cruel man," said she, with something like fierceness in hertones.
"That's very foine for the likes of you to say to the likes of me; butit don't pay me rint," replied Mr. O'Shane, not as angry as might havebeen expected at this interference.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a mean thing!" addedFanny, her black eyes snapping with the living fire of her indignation.
"Shall I let me own childer starve for another man's childer?" answeredthe landlord, who, we must do him the justice to say, was ashamed ofhimself.
"How much does the woman owe you?" demanded Fanny.
"A matther of a hundred dollars--for a whole year's rint. Sure, miss,it isn't many min that would wait a twelvemonth for the rint, and notget it thin."
"And her daughter is sick?"
"Troth she is; there's no lie in that; she's got the consoomption, andshe's not long for this world," replied the landlord, moving towardsthe door of the house, again to complete the work of desolation he hadbegun.
THE CRUEL LANDLORD. Page 103.]
"Stop, sir!" said Fanny, in tones so imperative that the man could nothelp obeying her.
"What would I stop for?" asked Mr. O'Shane, rather vacantly.
"You shall not do this cruel thing."
"The saints know how it breaks me heart to do it, but I can't help it."
"Now you put all these things back into the house just as you foundthem."
"Faix, I'd like to do it, miss," said the man, taking off his hat andrubbing his tangled hair.
"You must do it."
"And not git me rint?"
"You shall have your money--every cent of it. Put the furniture back,and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it," saidFanny, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.
Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified withastonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, heregarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied byMrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two otherfamilies, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he wasobliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainlycould not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly entitled. Hehad indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparenthopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruelproceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify alandlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. Helooked at Fanny with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but hewas sceptical.
"Why don't you put back the furniture?" demanded Fanny, impatiently.
"It's meself that would be glad to do that same," replied he. "Wouldyou let me see the color of your money, miss?"
"Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you havedone it," added Fanny, moving down the street. "I will be back in a fewmoments."
The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, butthere was something about the girl so different from what he had beenaccustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was stronglyimpressed by her words. Fanny sat down on a rock in the shade of a lonetree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obeythe haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energythan he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back intothe house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of thegrief-stricken mother.
Fanny counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in herpocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this timecompleted his work, and was awaiting the result.
"They be all put back, miss," said he, doubtfully.
"There is your money," replied Fanny, proudly.
Mr. O'Shane's eyes opened, and he fixed them with a gloating stare uponthe bills. He counted them; there was a hundred dollars.
"God bless you, miss, for a saint as ye are!" ejaculated he, as he putthe money in his pocket. "Ye saved me from doing the worst thing I everdid in me life. I'll send the receipt to Mrs. Kent to-day;" and hewalked away towards his own house.