Only a farmer's daughter

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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Chapter 1

“ There was an old woman that lived in her shoe. Hi-yi ! hi-yi ! hi-yi ! ”

The old woman turned in a fit of senile petulance and glowered at the half-dozen urchins shouting at her heels.

“ Say, Billy, jes’ think of a shoe with old Mother Bush’s nose scragglin’ outer the top of it ! Ki-yi ! ”

And the boy put his hands on the top of a fire hydrant, and turned a somersault over it. The other gamin stood on the curb with legs wide stretched apart and hands in his trousers’ pockets— or rather, through the slit in the side of the legs, where the pockets had been when the trousers were owned by Billy’s elder brother. He cocked his head on one side and stared at the old woman, licking his chops as though over some delicate morsel.

“ O my, ain’t I handsome ! ” ejaculated Billy.

“ There was an old woman that lived in her—”

Like a flock of partridges they flapped their wings, and in the time that elapsed between the first glimpse of Roundsman Moloney’s nose from around the corner, and the glitter of the brass buttons on his blue coat-tails, every boy had vanished into the air.

“ Ivery mother’s son o’ them gon’ ! An’, be all the powers, w’ere do the little divvils betake themselves w’en Michael Moloney do beafther thim wid a shtick ? ”

The old woman stood leaning against the wall of the saloon. Moloney brushed his big frame so near her, and she was so frail, that the very breeze of his motion seemed to carry her along, and she clung to the wall for support.

“ An’ it be you thim little blaggards is ashoutin’ at, Mother Bush ! Sure an’ the likes o’ ye ’ud better be shtayin’ be yer own shtove, a-warmin’ yer thin fingers, than shiverin’ outen the Avenyi wid a lot o’ thim bloomin’ dirty little blaggards a-chasin’ yez all over into’irjely..’’ .

The old woman stared vacantly at the ’officer

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

and trembled from head to foot, as she rubbed her bony hands together. Her lips were parted, bringing into hideous prominence the sole remaining pair of teeth in her possession — one upper and one lower, in opposite corners of her mouth. The two teeth chattered — or would have chattered had there been anything for them to chatter on. The old withered lips were so like the parchment of a drumhead, that they seemed to be having a tattoo beaten on them by the two drumsticks.

“ An’, be the great an wonderful Mowses, Mother Bush, if I didn’t know ye fur a har-rmless old widdy woman, I’d be sayin’ that ye were not shiverin wid the cold, but quakin’ at the sight o’ the cop. Ha-ha-ha! ”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!”

What a ghostly cackle in reply to the great stout guffaw of Roundsman Moloney ! It was like the wiry rattle of a puppet in the grasp of a ventriloquist, or a voice heard through a telephone.

“ Be jabers, now, Mother Bush, laugh quite hearty now ! Laugh away down in your boots.”

“ Ha-ha-ha ! Ha-ha-ha ! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha” cackled the old woman, as she turned away. She began the laugh as though under effort, and then kept it up from sheer inertia, until it died s

OFLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

away into the echo of a laugh that might have begun somewhere in the dark ages, when she was young enough to be Moloney’s grandmother.

She was just beginning to toddle along, as the policemen laid his hand jokingly on her shoulder, when the blue-coated arm was thrust aside, and a young woman rushed in between them.

“ Ah, good avenin' Miss, beggin’ yer par-rdon!”

“ You needn't beg my pardon. Let the old woman alone. Here, mother, come out of this.”

Whereupon she took the old woman under the shoulder and almost carried her, so rapidly did she hurry her down the Avenue. The old woman nearly stumbled over the tatters of her gown, as she turned around once and again, arid looked with apprehension toward the policeman. But he stood very harmlessly on the pavement where they had left him, watching them till they turned down a side street, when he whirled his club around his arm by the red tassels, and went off to think about something else.

“ Mother Bush, don’t let me ever again see you looking at a policeman as if you thought he was going to march you down to Jefferson Market.”

ONLY A PALMER’ 8 LAUGHTER. 9

“ Is he coming after us ? ” trembled through the old woman’s lips, as she struggled to look behind her again-

“ No, he’s not. But he will be, if you cling to the side of the house and go into a tremble every time you get an eye on him.”

“ Ah, dearie, you are not enough afraid of ’em. We’ve not been doing this business all these years, and nobody to know or suspect anything.”

“ Whish-h-h ! Mother Bush, if you don’t want to get into trouble, talk about such matters when we’re in the house.”

They had reached a quiet part of 2 — th Street, a little to the west of Sixth Avenue. Most of the surrounding houses were of doubtful reputation- An occasional gas-jet flared faintly on various old carts backed up for the night against the sidewalk. A foot-pad might easily have lain among their wheels until you had gone past, and then felled you with a sand-bag.

The two women stopped before a gate that opened into a sort of tunnel under and between two houses. It was ajar an inch or two, and yielded readily as they pushed against it.

They then groped their way through the long, unlighted passage, until they came into a court-yard in which stood a second house.

These rear houses abound in many of the

ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

cheaper quarters of New York. They are of a type similar to that of the front houses, only worse of the kind. If the front house is out of repair, the rear is tumbling into ruin. If the front is full of drunken men, the rear howls with delirium tremens. If the sewer-gas escapes through bad plumbing in the front house^ the inhabitants in the rear have no plumbing whatever, and empty their refuse in the yard. If thieves dwell in front, in the rear is food for the gallows.

The house on the street under which was tunnelled this unlighted passage, was suspected by the police as a harbor of stolen goods. The two. women groped along without speaking a word, until they stood in the court-yard.

The main door of the rear house was open, as was evident from one feeble, tiny flame of gas in the hall. Except for the unbroken darkness around it, the gas-flame could scarcely have been discovered.

It was a very silent house. No one spoke or made a sound as the two women moved through the hall and clambered up the rickety staircase. Only a few steps at a time ; then came a landing with doors into tenements. Then another sharp turn, up to the next flight. But the two women turned, and turned, and turned, without

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. lj

ever bumping against the wall. They must have been familiar with this journey up through the darkness.

At last they came to the top floor, and turned a creaky key in a lock which seemed so frightened by the universal silence, that it fairly shrieked at the sound of its own voice.

“ Wait there, mother. You’ll fall down and smash something if you stir before I strike a light.”

As the flame of the match softened the tallow and gradually persuaded the wick to consent to its own destruction, the face of the young woman became a study.

At first there was only a vague form cowering over a burning match. Then as a cloud of long hair broke loose and floated over her shoulders, she flung it back with a gesture of impatience, and with it her cloak, disclosing a graceful and comely arm. Then there was only a strong face bent over a candle. But as the wick spluttered, and finally swelled out into a cone of flame, the face beamed out of the darkness and revealed a pair of full red lips, a ■|traight nose with nostrils wide at the base, and two eyes so black that they shone like black diamonds in the dancing light.

The old woman rubbed her hands as she stood by the door.

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

“ Beautiful, dearie ; beautiful ! Those black eyes and the long midnight hair would be a mint of money, rightly used, dearie — rightly used, rightly used, rightly used.”

The young woman flung a savage look in her face.

“ Mother Bush, if you stand there wringing your hands, and mumbling your jaws, and glaring as if you would eat me, I'll ”

Here she drew herself slowly up to her full height, which could not have been less than five feet seven, extended her long white arm from which the shawl had fallen, parted her lips as though to hiss, and ejaculated, while her fingers seemed to close around the old woman’s throat,

“ Kill you ! ”

“ Bravo, Katie ! Bravissimo ! Katie, dearie — ”

Here the old woman slunk along toward her, like some four-footed animal, as though about to spring at her, and said :

“ Katie, there is money in those eyes ; a hundred times more than in all this room besides.”

“ Mother Bush, if you were not my mother, I’d fell you to the floor!”

The old woman started back, as though she expected Katie to forget the filial relationship; And she smiled that deprecatory, wheedling

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

Smile of fear used by one who is weaker than another.

“ To think, Mother Bush, that you — you — could ever have been my mother. Not a day beyond twenty-five years am I old, and you are like some old gipsy hag of ninety. Beautiful ? Of course I am beautiful ! If I were the daughter of an empress, the whole round world would rave over my beauty. But I’m only Mother Bush’s daughter, and the few that ever notice my beauty in these old rags, insult me. Ugh-h-h ! ”

“ Don’t get excited, dearie, dearie. Don’t take offense at the old woman, dearie. Mother Bush wishes you well. Mother Bush is old now, and has nobody else to care for. And there is lots of money in all these things, dearie ; lots of money, money, dearie, money, money, money.”

The old woman edged her way up to the table where the candle stood, and then began a series of developments which proved her a walking storehouse.

First she unbuttoned her cloak, and as she swung it wide, it turned into a closet. A series of hooks ran all around the inside of it — hooks that shut with a clasp, so that articles once hung on them could never work themselves loose.

Most of these hooks were weighted with articles of clothing, which the old woman slowly unfastened and heaped on the table. Dainty handkerchiefs, some of them marked with embroidered initials ; two pairs of beautiful long black silk stockings ; three or four little shawls for the shoulders ; three watches, one of them with a valuable seal on a chain of gold : all these strangely associated valuables the old woman assorted on the table as she unhooked them, one by one, from her cloak.

“ Great mistake, dearie, to mark names on handkerchiefs. All these beautiful letters must be picked out. Strange, people will be so unaccommodating.”

“ I don’t wonder you were afraid Moloney would touch you, mother. Suppose he had given that cloak a lift ! ”

The old woman looked frightened and her teeth chattered again on her parchment lips ; but half in delight at her escape, and half in delight at seeing Katie once more look pleased, she laughed too — the same old, rattling cackle, that was the only laugh she had brought down with her out of her young days.

Then Katie’s face darkened again.

“ And it’s because of this life that I, who ought to be a queen, am worse than a ragpicker’s

ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

daughter. Curses on these slow ways of making money ! ”

“ Slow, dearie ? slow ? slow ? ”

The old woman gazed inquiringly at Katie, and then at the piles of valuables on the tables, and then back to Katie.

“ Slow, Katie ? Here, count them all up. Wait a moment, dearie, dearie. Wait a moment, moment, moment, dearie, Katie dearie.”

Mumbling these words, Mother Bush hobbled over to the wall, and rummaged about in a little closet, which was no more than a hole in the wall, with a shelf in it. With many a grunt and cackle, she tumbled over little cups, and tin basins, and bundles of rags, and a world of cast-off, useless rubbish, until, with a grunt somewhat louder than the rest, she tugged forth the remains of an old shawl, which she brought to the table.

“ There, dearie, there, there, there ! ”

She unfolded the musty bundle, and tumbled out a dozen greasy and broken-covered bank-books.

There, dearie Katie, dearie; there they all are : the Bleecker Street book, and the Dry Dock book, and the Bowery book, and the Greenwich book, and the Emigrant Savings book, and the Seaman’s Bank book, and all the rest

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

of ’em- There they all are, dearie ; and there’s gold in every one of ’em ; gold, gold, gold, dearie, Katie dearie, gold ! ”

Mother Bush chattered away in a submissive, wheedling tone, seeming almost to be talking to herself rather than to Katie ; for she never looked up, but went on turning the books over, reading the names on the outside of them, and muttering in a low monotone. The younger woman regarded her not, but stood in the same position as before, gazing with a look of contempt at the heap of handkerchiefs, stockings, jew’elry and what not on the table. Her hands were clenched ; she seemed endeavoring to restrain herself from doing some violence that she longed to do, yet despised herself for wanting to do. The old hag went on caressing the bank-books.

“ Gold, dearie, Katie dearie ; gold, gold. Dearie said the money came slow. So it has come slow, dearie. It began to come before you were born, long years before you were born. And it came very slow then. But I put it all in the banks, and now it comes faster and faster. Long years, dearie ; and the police never caught Mother Bush yet — never caught Mother Bush, — Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha ! ”

“ Mother ! ”

ONL Y A FARMER’ 8 1)A U OUTER, IT

The girl laid her hand on the old woman’s arm, and tightened the fingers till she shrunk away.

“ Katie, dearie, that hurts, dearie. Don’t, dearie ! ”

“ Then, tell me, quick — how much is there in all these piles of Savings’ Bank books.”

“ Wait, dearie. I’ll figure them up, dearie. Wait, now ; wait, wait, wait. Bieecker Street, two thousand three hundred and seven, ninetysix ; Emigrant, fourteen-hundred and — ”

The voice sank into a whisper, till it seemed only one long breathing and snorting, as she became lost to her surroundings. She was a hideous sight ; covered with rags, yet gloating over possessions that to her were wealth.

“ No, dearie, there’s not so very much after all — considering the long years of hard work which we’ve had to go through to get it all. Not so much, dearie, not so much, not so much.”

“ How much — quick ? ”

Katie made a motion as though to seize the books and make the computation for herself. But the long, gaunt arms were stretched over them like the claws of a vulture clutching its dead prey.

“No, dearie; don’t be in a hurry; I’ll tell you in a minute, dearie ; I’ll tell you, tell you,

ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER.

tell you. Yes, dearie, there isn't very much — only thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventeen dollars and forty-three cents, dearie, forty-three cents, forty-three cents.”

“ Then I reckon about seven thousand ’ll do . fer me. I ain’t no hog, yer know, to take more’n half away fr’m two innercent faymales.”

Katie screamed at the sound of the heavy voice. Mother Bush was so terrified that when she tried to scream, as she lay over the table striving to cover the books with her apron, she could only hiss.

“Yer don’t seem delighted with the sight o’ yer pal.”

“ O, Sam, is that you ? Why ever did you come in so silently, and frighten us here all alone ? ”

“ Aw, now, ye hadn’t oughter be frightened long o’ me, Katie. Why I’ve knowed you ever since we was three foot high, and used to dance around in the old garret down in MacDougal Street, and pick each other’s pockets, while the old woman give us p’ints. Hey, Mother Bush ? ”

“ Yes, Sammie, Sammie, oh yes, Sammie. We’re not afraid of you, Sammie.”

“ Now there’s a good girl, Katie ; why don’t you ask me to make myself to home.”

Whereupon the young Samuel made himself

ONLY A PALMER'S DAUGHTER.

id at home by sitting astride the table and chucking Katie under the chin. She instantly retorted by slapping his face.

“ Oh, now, Katie, yer shouldn’t do that.”

“ I know it. That was a rather dirty thing for me to do.”

She wiped her hand in the folds of her dress.

“You’n I oughter pair off, Katie. Say, Mother Bush, will ye give ’er to me ? I’m a likely cove. Can’t haul out the watches an’ handkerchiefs like you kin ; but, say, now, I be jest about the best feller in town to rope in the country gem’n from Hard Scrabble and take him ’roun’ the corner fur a real cosy chat about his son ’t I use ter know so well ter school. An’ w’en the old cove is well lickered up an’ begins to wonder how ’tis he never remembered me afore, we gets oncommon confidential an’ w’en he wakes up he ain’t got no money to go home ter Hard Scrabble, and the friend of his boy ’s jest gone aroun’ the corner ’thout leavin’ his address. Ha-ha!”

Whereat young Samuel slapped the leg of his trousers to rattle the coins.

“ So thout any jokin’, Mother Bush, I mean it w’en I say that Katie ’n me, that knows each other so well, oughter jine forces. Let’s go ter the priest to-night, Katie.”

ONLY A F Alt MSB’S DA UGHTER.

Her only reply was a glance that expressed more proud contempt than words could utter.

“ Aw, now, Katie, don’t be thinkin’ about him. I know all about that. He’ll never care any more about ye. An’ he ain’t worth carin’ no more about neither, and won’t be, if he gets out.”

Katie advanced a step and lifted her hand as though to strike. Samuel dodged around the other side of the table.

“ Don’t you dare mention yourself in the same breath with him, Sam Lavake. He was no pickpocket, nor common thief or swindler.”

“ No, he wa’n’t. An’ if he’d aimed a little straighter, Miss Katie, ’nstead o’ walkin’ round in a striped jacket up the river, his soul ’ud a walked right up inter glory, outer the Tombs yard.”

“ A great criminal is a man I can respect ; but you — pah ! ”

“ You think a heap o’ him jest because he didn’t care a copper cent fer you. An’ if he was out o’ Sing Sing he’d kill you for half the books Mother Bush is mutterin’ over.”

Katie’s eyes glared with a new and savage light, as she looked at her mother, following Sam’s gesture. Sam watched her motions.

ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

“ Hanged ef I don’t think you’d kill her yerself, fer a small consideration ! ”

“ I’d kill anybody, if he came back and asked me to. There’s no crime I wouldn’t commit — for him. But you — get out of here, Sam Lavake! A common thief !”

“ Wall, s’pose you think the ole woman’s an oncommon thief. An’ it is mighty oncommon to lay by thirteen thousand dollars outer pocket pickin’. Better kill the ole woman, Kate. Make more money in that way ’n yer ever will in any other — that is, so long as yer wait fer the Sing Sing feller, an’ let all the profitable chances go by. By the way, his time’s up this mornin’. Better kill the ole woman now an’ get the money all ready to run off with, ef he should come back in the mornin’.”

Katie stood looking out of her black eyes at the old woman, seeming not to hear a word that was addressed to her.

“ Wall, I’ll be goin’ ! ”

“ Don’t go, Sammie, Sammie,” chattered Mother Bush. “ Don’t go, there’s a good boy. Stay with old Mother Bush. Old Mother Bush needs you here. It’s a lonesome, quiet place, and we need you to enliven the evening, Sammie. Don’t go, Sammie, Sammie.”

Katie stood motionless,

ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER.

“ Why, Mother Bush,” said Sam, “ yer ain’t afeard to be left alone with this young lady, be yer ? ’Cause she has got long fingers, ye know an’ if she made up her mind to put ’em ’round yer throat — Lordy massy on ye, Mother Bush.”

He turned with a leer toward Katie. She stood motionless, as before. Mother Bush laughed a nervous laugh, and clutched her bank books tighter, as her gray eyes vibrated between Sam and Katie.

“ Nobody ’d ever know it, Katie. They’d say she died er old age. Sort o’ dried up, so to speak, and cracked to pieces.”

“ Don’t say such horrible things, Sammie, Sammie ! You say all these terrible things, just as though they were real, Sammie, dear. The old woman isn’t as strong as she used to be. She’s nervous, Sammie, and she doesn’t like to hear you talk about such awful things. Sammie, at the top of a house, on a lonely evening, when there’s nobody within call, Sammie. Don’t, Sammie ! Don’t, Sammie ! ”

“ Leave the room, Sam Lavake ! ”

It was the first time Katie had spoken, in several minutes. She uttered the words in a low, deep tone that would have done credit to a tragedy queen. But she never turned. She kept her eyes fixed on the old woman, as Sam closed the door behind him.

“ Thirteen thousand dollars,” said Kate, as though talking to herself, albeit she never looked away from Mother Bush as she spoke.

“ Yes, dearie ; thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventeen, forty-three cents. And I’m going to leave it all to you, Katie, when I am gone — all to you.”

“ But the deposits are all in your name.”

“ Yes, dearie, all in my name, all in my name. But whoever presents the pass-book, dearie, will get all the money ; and it doesn’t matter in whose name it is.”

Suppose you were dead to-morrow, could I go to the banks and get all that money ? ”

Katie, dearie, dearie, dont look at me so. Katie. Don’t look at your poor old grandma so, Yes, I am your grandma, though you never knew it before, I always let you think that I was your mother, because I couldn’t bear to have you ask about her. She died when you were born, Katie dearie, and she was all I had to lose in the world besides these dear little books, Katie. And she died when you were born. She had the same eyes. But don’t look at me so, Kate.”

The young woman had come nearer, and was sitting on the table with her hands entwined

ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

across her knee. Mother Bush cowered in the corner, clutching the bank-books all the while, and seemed to shrink within herself, as though she hoped, by becoming small, to escape observation.

“ So you are not my mother ! — all the more reason why you don’t deserve to live. Jim comes out of Sing Sing to-day. — All the more reason why that money would be useful to-morrow.”

“ Don’t talk so, Katie dearie. Don’t look at me so, dearie, dearie. Don’t look at me so — look at me so ! ”

“ Money is your god. Why shouldn’t it be mine ? With all that money we might start for the West to-morrow night. We might be a gentleman and lady. We might lead honest lives.”

“ I sha’n’t live long, dearie. Then you shall have it all, all, all.”

“ Thirteen thousand dollars the first day out of Sing Sing ! Why, that would be more than thirteen million dollars a week hence. Then the old associations will have got their grip on him. Now, he is free. I could do anything for him — anything ! ”

“ Katie, Katie, don’t! Don’t touch me. I will give you money. You shall go and leave your poor old grandma, if you will.”

“ He will want it all.”

A tall figure with close-cropped hair had stolen into the room during this conversation. His lips parted as he murmured, but not loud enough to be heard — “ All ! ”

“ O, Katie, O-o-o ! ”

There was a gurgling sound, a heavy gasping for breath, the overturning of a table.

Katie gathered the bank-books in her arms. She screamed in horror as a hand came down on her shoulder.

“ Jim ! ”

“ How much ? ”

“ Thirteen thousand dollars, — yours.”

And she swooned away.

ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER.

Chapter II

Of all the countries in the world, it may safely be said that none can show a worse climate than the little State of Massachusetts — at certain seasons of the year. The cold of the arctics, the heat of the tropics, and the mud of all creation, here revel, each in its appropriate time.

But there are times between times, when Italy itself could boast nothing fairer. Massachusetts is like a beautiful woman — very much more beautiful at some times than at others.

In the autumn, after the leaves have just made up their minds to turn, and have scarcely begun turning ; when the nights are cold, the mornings brisk and the daytimes balmy ; nothing could be more delicious. A farm-house, then, peering dimly out through the leaves that are soon to carpet the lawn in front of it, is suggestive of beatific repose — unless you live in the farm-house and have bitterly learned that the only rest within a mile is the hill-side where each occupant has his little home with a white stone at one end.

It was in the autumn, in the State of Massachusetts, before one of these peaceful farm-houses, with the autumn leaves quivering, and occasionally falling around it. The dusty road was dustier than ever, with all the dust of a long, hot summer accumulated in it and blown around it, whitening the walls and fences, dulling the green of the grass, choking the lungs of every unfortunate being that had to travel through it.

Up the long, dusty road, toward the farm-house, came a solitary pedestrian. He had in one hand a bag covered with glazed leather, the cracks of which had filled with dust which exhibited all their poverty the more conspicuously. In the other hand he grasped a stout cane. A solitary traveler, indeed, with little baggage : — A traveler on a road very like that of life itself — dirty and crooked, coming, no man could say whence, winding on, no man could say whither.

Nightfall w r as approaching. The farm-house was near. The pedestrian was footsore and weary. Should he enter the farm-house ? Many a destiny has turned on a simpler question.

Yes, he was very weary. That must have been, or he would not have stopped by the way and thrown himself on the grass, powdered as it was with dust. For he was a cleanly, almost delicate man. His hands were slender, and as he

ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

looked ruefully at them he saw that carrying the bag had raised blisters on one of them. And it was not a heavy bag.

He looked up at the trees, and seemed so lost in a dreamy contemplation that the farmer who rattled by in his wagon thought him asleep. But he was not asleep, for his eyes dropped out of the tree-tops as soon as the wagon had gone by, and he seemed to derive pleasure from watching the immense brim of the farmer’s straw hat flop up and down, like the wings of some big bird, as the wheels bounced over one stone after another.

As the farmer turned his team up a lane toward the farm-house, the wayfarer arose and tramped after him.