Con O'Regan : or, Emigrant life in the New World

Preface

** Con O' Regan'' is not new to the Irish Catholics, at least, of the New World. It appeared first in the American Celt, a weekly paper, conducted by my friend, Hon. T. D. McGee, in this city, and was recently re-published in the columns of the New York Tablet. The “ plain unvarnished tale” which “ blots the leaves” of this volume was meant to point a moral that is well wormy the attention of Irish emigrants to these western shores of the Atlantic. It was written in connection with a movement which it is pleasant even to remember — the Buffalo Convention, one of the best-conceived plans ever brought before the American-Irish for the permanent advantage of theii newlyarrived compatriots: a plan which, if it had been generally adopted and carried out, might have been of incalculable benefit to many thousands of the Irish race, by removing them from the overcrowded cities of our Atlantic seaboard to the safer, calmer, and more healthful pursuits of agricultural life, whether on the smiling prairies of the West, or by the great waters of the North. But although the Buffalo Convention, for want of public encouragement, failed in doing what it was meant to do for Irish emigrants, a day may come when its wise provisions iv

'’REFACE will be eagerly adopted to meet the wants of the multitudes who are hurrying all too fast from the Old Land which we all love, but which many of us, alas ! shall see never more. Should that day come, it will be well for the old race in America, but should it not come, and should posterity forever ignore the noble effort that was once made to turn the tide of emigration into a safe and saving channel, I desire here to place on record, once for all, the high-souled generosity, the noble disinterestedness, and the entire devotedness of the hundred gentlemen, some of them ecclesiastics, venerable in years and in high repute for wisdom and virtue, all of them more or less distinguished, who met, some eight years ago, in the border city of Buffalo, on the confines of British America, to deliberate on the best means of promoting the permanent interests of Irish emigrants to the New World. If the Convention did not do all the good they hoped and expected from it, the fault, assuredly, was not theira,

CON O’REGAN;

OR,

EMIGRANT LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD.

Chapter 1

One cold, bleak morning, in the fall of 1844, a young woman timidly approached the fateful halfdoor in the Post Office of a Hew England city.

“ Have you e’er a letter, if you please, sir, for Winny O’Regan ?”

“ Ho, my good girl, nothing for you to-day.” And the dry, official response of the Post Office clerk was unconsciously changed to a softer tone, for the speaker was an Irish Protestant, and he did feel, at times, more sympathy than people would imagine, for the quiet, civil-spoken emigrants who daily and hourly addressed him in home-accents, anxiously seeking news from hie own land. Besides, he had noticed this same Winny O’Regan almost every day for the last fortnight, asking, but in vain, the sane

CON O^RFGAN ; OR, question, and his brief negative was everyday chronicled in deeper sadness on her pale, care-worn features. There was something touching, too, in Winny’s appearance when one came to examine her closely. She was a tall, thin girl, of some three or four-aiid-twenty years, with a soft dark eye and a pensive cast of countenance. Sorrow had evidently chilled the warm glow of youth in Winny’s temperament, and chastened her down to the sedate gravity of more mature years. Her dark hair was smoothly and carefully arranged on either side of her high, pale brow, taking something from its breadth, which would otherwise have been remarkable. Her hands were small and well-formed, though much discolored and intersected in every direction by those unseemly hcLcks in the skin which denote labor of the hardest kind. It was late in the fall, and yet Winny was Bcantly clothed, and looked, on the whole, rather woe-begone. All this the clerk had noticed, and somehow, with all her apparent poverty, it struck him that the girl had seen better days. She seemed so anxious, moreover, about the letter from Ireland, that it went to the young man’s heart, for he, too, was, at times, eagerly expectant of “news from home,” where he had left an aged mother and two young sisters close by “ pastoral Bann,” in the verdant holmes of Dowm. But he had no time to question Winny, for scores of others were demanding his attention in the quick, authoritative style peculiar to bustling, self-important Yankees. So Maicolmson was fain to put the sad-looking Irish girl out of his head, and with her the white cottage on the sweet Ban-side which the sight of her wistful face had somehow conjured up.

As for Winny O’Regan, she turned away with a sickening sense of despondency, and a tear found its way unhidden to her eye, as, gathering her woollen shawl around her, she retraced her steps towards her present dwelling — home it was not. All at once she was reminded by the basket on her arm that she had to go to market. Having turned down a side-street which was her nearest way to the market, she was hurrying on with a rapid pace, intending to make up for the few minutes she had lost, but was suddenly brought to a dead pause by the apparition of a young man in a gray frieze coat and corduroy breeches, who, starting out of a shopdoor, accosted her with —

“ Winny ! Winny O’Regan ! is this yourself ? Can’t you take time to speak to a body ?”

Dropping the basket from her arm, Winny took hold of the stranger with both hands, and looked into his frank, love-breathing face, with eyes full of joyful tears, her color changing and her lip quivering. As soon as she could speak, she exclaimed in smothered accents —

“ The Lord be praised, Con dear ! Is it yourself that’s in it ? I was beginnin’ to be afeard that something had happened you. Oh ! sure, sure, but I’m glad to see you ! An’ how did you leave all at home? How are Biddy and the children, an’— an’ — ” her voice trembled, “ an’ my poor mother ? Con, darlin’ ! how are they all? and did you get my last letter ?”

“ If I didn’t how would I be here, you foolish girl ?” said Con, trying hard to keep in his tears, although half forgetting where he was in his joy at finding VVinny. “An’ sure they’re all well an’ hearty at home, barrin’ — ” he stopped, looked hard at Winny, and then bit his lip, as though determined at all hazards to keep in what was just coming out.

“ Barrin’ who. Con ?’’ inquired his sister, anxiously.

“ Oh ! Mary Malone — my uncle J ohn’s Mary. She died last May was a year, of decline.”

“ The Lord be good to her soul !” said Winny, with deep feeling, “ an’ so she’s gone at last. Poor Mary ! well, thank God, it’s no one else, for somehow it was my mother I was thinkin’ of. IIow does she look, Con ? Is age beginnin’ to show on her?”

“Well, no!” said Con, with a sort of hesitation that Winny could not well account for ; “ the last time I saw her, Winny, she looked as young, ay 1 an’ younger than she did the day you left home.” That was true enough, for the widowed mother was then laid out in her brown habit, a fair and “ comely corpse,” as the neighbors all declared. The sorrows of long years had vanished at the moment of death, and a smile of ineffable joy rested on the thin, pals

EMIGRANT LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD.

lips, announcing that the weary had at length found rest. But it would never do to tell Winny all at once that the mother she so loved was cold in the clay. At least so Con thought, and Con was right, for such tidings would have broken Winny’s faithful heart, had they come upon her without due preparation.

“ But where do you live, Winny dear ?” said Con,

I forgot the name of the street that you mentioned ill your letter, an’ I just went into this shop here abroad to look over the letter again, when, as good luck would have it, I was standin’ near the door, an’ seen you passin’ by.”

“ I’m sorry I haven’t a place of my own to take you to, Con,” said Winny, sadly, “ but if you’ll just step down with me to the market (for I’m in a great hurry). I’ll leave you at Paul Bergen’s on my way back. You remember Paul, don’t you ?’

“ Is it Paul Bergen ?” cried Con, with sudden animation ; “ why, then, to be sure I do, Winny, an’ rinlit fflad I’ll be to see him. How is he doin’ out here ?”

“ Only middling, Con, only just middling,” said Winny, as they walked quickly along side by side. “ He might be better than he is, if he wasn’t so fond of the drop, He has a long family, an’ his wife’s health is none of the best. She’s wearin’ away fast, poor woman !”

There was a short silence, during which Con’s meditations seemed rather of a sombre character.

At last he said, as if pursuing the same train of thought, “ An’ yourself, Winny dear ? — how do you make out?” The words were not much in themselves, but the glance that accompanied them touched Winny’s heart, for it said as plain as could be : “ You are not so well off as I expected to find you.”

Winny’s eyes filled with tears, but she tried to answer cheerfully : “ How could I send so much money home if 1 wasn’t doin’ well ? You mustn’t mind my clothes, Con, for you know I’m about my business now. Wait till Sunday, and you’ll see how fine I’ll be.”

But Con’s eyes were fixed on her gloveless hands, and bis cheek reddened as he said : “ I see its not at the dressmaking you are, after all ; your poor hands are redder and coar&er than they used to be ; an’ your face, too, is paler and thinner — oh, Winny, Winny ! I’m afeard you earned that money you sent us harder than we thought.” There was a guttural sound in his voice, as if something choked his utterance, and the light faded from his full blue eye. ' He was moved even to tears, but he dared not weep where so many cold, strange eyes were upon him. Winny saw her brother’s emotion, and somehow it was very soothing to her heart, so long unused to home sympathies.

‘‘Ho matter how it was earned,” said she briskly, “ it just went the road it ought to go. What do I Want with money only to make you all comfortabl®?

i wasn’t long here till I found that I could earn more at housework, as they call it, than I could at sewing, so it was all one to me, you know.”

They had by this time reached the market, and Con was so lost in wonder at the novelty of the sight, that all other thoughts were suspended for the time being. He used to think the shambles in his market-town at home presented a magnificent display of meat, but what was it to this? Surely there could never be people found to buy half that meat. Winny laughed, and said he would soon change his mind when he had lived a few years, or even months, in a city like that.

Winny having made the necessary purchases, made the best of her way home, stopping at Paul Bergen’s, to introduce her brother. Paul had latterly taken up his abode in a cellar some eight or ten feet under ground. The damp was oozing out through the floor, and the place had a cold, cheerless look, for although there was a stove right in the middle of the floor, opposite the bedroom door, it seemed to send forth but little heat. Round it were gathered three young children, crouching on the boards, while in front sat a pale, sickly-looking woman, wrapped in a faded plaid shawl, nursing an infant as pale and ghastly as herself. The cold seemed to have seized on the poor mother’s heart, for ever and anon she trembled like an aspen, and leaned forward towards where warmth ought to be, but, unhappily, was not. Alas! for poor Nora Bergen — pale and cold, and poverty-stricken as she sat there, she had been once the envy of many a maiden, and the pride of many a loving heart. Nora Bergen had been for years the rustic belle of ‘'a country side,” and though it was hard to recognize any trace of beauty in the squalid misery of her present appearance, there were still certain lineaments that marked her identity, otherwise doubtful.

Con could hardly believe his eyes that the figure before him was an old acquaintance; but conviction forced itself upon him, however reluctantly, when he heard Winny say :

“Good morning Mrs. Bergen; how do you feel to-day, ma’am?”

“ Why, not much better, Winny ; I have the chills very bad on me the day, an’ we have hardly a spark of fire, you see, for Paul was to send home some coal to us before goin’ to his work, an’ I think he must have forgot all about it. But who is this you have with you?”

“Ah, then, don’t you know him, Mrs. Bergen, dear? — sure isn’t it our Con, all the way from Ballymullen ; why I thought you’d know him if you met him in Africa, let alone here.”

“ Why, the Lord bless me. Con O’Regan, is it you that’s in it ? Come over here an’ give me your hand, for I’m not able to stand up off o’ my seat. Sure enough, I heard you were cornin’ out, but somehow I was in hopes you wouldn’t. Ah, then, Con, I wish you had stayed at home. I’m glad to

EMIGRANT LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD.

see you, an’ I'm sorry to see you. But, my goodness, Winny, isn’t it all like a drame? — oh! oh! but it’s the weary, weary world. But won’t you sit down, Winny ? — run, children, an’ get a couple of chairs !”

Thus she ran on, endeavoring to hide her confusion under a show of cheerful animation that made it still more conspicuous. Winny had barely time to commend her brother to Mrs. Bergen’s hospitality for the present, and then hurried away, leaving that poor woman much distressed in mind on account of her inability to entertain Con O’Regan as her kind heart would wish. Calling to her a little boy of some six or seven years, the eldest of those who were lounging round the stove, she whispered to him to try if there wasn’t e’er a bit of coal or anything to make a fire. Off went the little brightfaced fellow diving into a sort of hole in the wall, and, after some search, he was so fortunate as to find a little coal, which he proceeded to put in the stove, his mother’s face assuming a more cheetful expression as she saw it beginning to burn.

“Now, Patsey, my son, since you have done so well, will you just put some water in the kettle and set it on the fire till we make a cup of tea for Con O’Regan ?”

Con protested that he had no need of anything, but he might as well have kept silent, for Mrs. Bergen was only sorry she had nothing better to offer him, but sure a warm cup of tea would do him no harm that cold raw morning.

wonder what’s keeping Jane, children,” said the mother ; “ I told her not to stay on any account.” Just as she spoke, the door opened, and down the steps came a little girl about twelve years old, with a pretty, intelligent-looking face, but poorly and meanly clad.

“Well, Jane, did you see your father?” was the first question.

“ I did, mother, but he wouldn’t go ; he said we had coal enough till the evening.” And then she whispered something to her mother, who blushed deeply, and said, “ Husht ! husht !”

The little girl was then introduced as Mrs. Bergen’s eldest daughter, and having taken a bashful, stealthy look at the stranger from Ireland, she set about getting the tea, which she did in a neat, tidy way, that showed her well accustomed to such little offices. Whilst the simple repast was in preparation, Mrs. Bergen kept asking a thousand questions about places and persons long unseen, but never to be forgotten. JMemory was busy with the poor heart-broken woman, and the present was all but forgotten in the bright reminiscences of the past. Con all the time observing her with painful interest. Presently there came a loud knock to the door, and Mrs. Bergen’s faint “ come in,” was followed by the appearance of a tall young man, in a round jacket and a low-crowned tarpaulin hat, such as sailors are wont

EMIGRANT LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD.

to wear. His face was flushed with an unnatural glow, and there was a swaggering, blustering air about him which was anything but prepossessing.

Mrs. Bergen seemed in no haste to greet the newcomer, but the children all gathered around him as he coolly took possession of a chair with the air of one who is determined to make himself at home. The presence of our friend Con was quickly noticed by this personage, who, after leisurely surveying the stranger, squirted a mouthful of tobacco-spittle over the floor, and turning to Mrs. Bergen who had only noticed his entrance by a silent nod, asked who the greenhorn might be.

“ Why, that’s Con O’Regan from our place at home. I thought you knew him, Tom, but sure it’s hard for you to remember anything now.”

“ Con O’Regan, from Ballymullen 1” repeated the young man ; “ the deuce it is ! Give me your hand. Con, and let me have a proper look at you. Why, sure enough, you do look something like a little fellow of that name that used to go to school to old Yinegar-face.”

“ You mean Master O'Connor, I suppose,” said Con, with a heightened color.

“ To be sure I do, the old rascal ! who else should I mean ? And so you’re little Con O’Regan — that was,” he added, as he took in at a glance the sinewy though slender proportions of the other. “By jingo ! I’m confounded glad to see you. And what news from the old sod ?”

Nothing worth speaking of,” said Con, very coolly, for he was by no means taken with his new companion ; “ may I make so free as to ask who you are, now that you know who I am ?”

“ All right, old fellow. It seems you don’t keep spite, or you’d remember Tom Derragh

The glow deepened on Con’s face, for he had been gradually calling forth from the storehouse of memory certain disagreeable reminiscences of his schooldays, in which this same Tom Derragh had borne a prominent part. He had been the bully of the school, and poor Con being much younger than he, had often suffered from his arbitrary and oppressive sway. Yet in those early days Tom had not been without some good traits, and with all his faults he had many friends. Observing Con’s change of countenance, Tom burst into a loud laugh, and slapping him on the shoulder, bade him forget and forgive.

“ Don’t you know what old Father Ilalligan used to say; eh, Con?” another slap on the shoulder. “ Is the old fellow living or dead — which ? He was a great hand at talking, and used to come it over us slick. By George, I used to tliink him a great man all out! Ha! ha' ha! weren’t we green in those days, Con?”

“It respect for Father Ilalligan, or any other priest, made us green, as you call it, I’m just as green st ill,” said Con O’Regan, “ and I tell you plainly, Tom Derragh, that I won’t sit by and hear you, or any

EMIGRANT LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD IT

one else, making little of them that ought to be respected.”

“ There now,” said Tom, turning to Mrs. Bergen, with another of his coarse laughs, “ they’re all so touchy about religion when they come out first. There’s my hand on it. Con, I didn’t mean any harm. I was just like you in that respect when I came here, but I soon got over my pettishness, and so will you, by japers !”

“ With the help of God, I never will,” replied Con, firmly; “ I hope I’ll never see the day when I'll forget the respect due the clargy.”

“ Well ! well ! never mind,” cried Tom ; “ let’s see if we can’t make it up.” Then thrusting his hand into his breeches pocket, he drew out the solitary coin which still remained after his last night’s revel, and calling to him little Patsey Bergen, he told him to fetch a half pint of brandy or gin — he didn’t care which.

“ If it’s for me you mean the treat, Tom,” observed Con, as, arresting the boy in his progress towards the door, and taking the money from him, he gave it back to Tom, “you may spare yourself the trouble of sendin’ out. I thank you all the same, but I’m a eetotaller.”

“ The deuce you are,” cried Tom, with real vexation ; “ and so you’ll not take anything ?”

“ N’othing of that kind, Tom. Mrs. Bergen is gettin’ some tea made, an’ I’ll take a cup of it, with all the pleasure in life.” Mrs. Bergen could not do

CON O^REGAN J 05,

less than ask Tom to have a cup of the tea which •Fane just then placed on a small table near her mother. But Tom said he wouldn’t give a fig for all the tea in America, and pulling out his pipe, prepared for a smoke, while Con partook of Mrs. Bergen’s humble fare, which she offered with many apologies for not having better.

Meanwhile, Tom sat leaning back in his chair, with his long legs stretched to the utmost, and his stolid eyes fixed on vacancy, as he puffed out volume after volume of dense smoke, which gradually enveloped him as in a cloud. Ever and anon he would put some question to Con, relating to sundry individuals whom he had known “ in the old country,” his voice issuing ever from the midst of the cloud, in a way that made Con smile. At last. Con tired of being catechized, and thought it was time to turn the tables ; so setting down his cup and saucer with a preliminary “ hem !” he began to examine the evidence.

You have fine easy times of it here, Tom. You seem to bo a sort of a walkin’ gentleman. I suppose you have your fortune made long ago. They say fortunes are not hard to make here.”

This leading observation elicited a scoflang laugh from out the cloud, and a heavy sigh from the pale hostess, who was endeavoring to hush her infant to repose with a mournful croon.

“ I hope you’ll find it easier to make a fortune than most folks do,” said Tom, still laughing. “ As for me, you know I always scorned to tell a lie, and

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ni not begin now, for you’d soon find out the truth ; I ha’nt got one shilling between me and death but that same two shilling piece that you sent back to keep the old boy out of my pocket.”

“And how do you manage to live at all ?” inquired Con, in downright amazement. “ Why, I thought you must be well off by this time.”

“ IIo ! ho ! how do I manage ! why I help to unload ships and such like jobs, down at the wharf. I earn plenty of money, old fellow; but it goes as fast as I make it. There are a jolly set of fellows, all free-and-easy like myself, and we stand to each other like bricks. As we make we spend, and we hardly ever know the want of a shilling, for when one’s locker is empty, another’s is full, and the rich pay the reckoning for the poor till luck turns again. That’s the way we live, and if you have nothing better in view, you may come and take a hand with us ; there’s no scarcity of work.”

“Many thanks to you,” said Con, very composedly, “ but that sort of life w^ouldn’t answer me at all. I have a wife and two little ones at home in Ireland, and I’ll have to keep every penny I can make together till I send for them. I’m in hopes that Winny will be able to find out some employment for me.”

“ God mark you with grace, Con,” said Mrs. Bergen, suddenly raising her head ; “ while you keep to them notions you’ll be sure to do well. Och ! och ! if Paul Bergen had only shunned bad company, and kept his earnings together, it’s not as we are we’d be now, for he made a power o’ money. Con, one way an’ another since he came here. But God’s will be done ! I suppose this was all before me, or I wouldn’t have it to go through.”

Before any one could reply, the door again opened and Paul Bergen made his appearance. He was a stout, coarse-featured, broad-shouldered man, with a regular “ brandy-face,” and a thick head of lightcolored hair, approaching to red. Yet Paul had been once a good-looking, rollicking fellow, a favorite with all the girls, because of his off-handed bearing, backed by never-failing good humor. Con remembered him well before he left Ireland, and a deep sigh escaped from him as he looked on the sottish, ungainly figure that hard living had made him.

Paul’s first salutation was to Tom Derragh, of whom he affectionately inquired “ Where the mischief he had got such a face ?”

‘‘ I guess I got it where you got yours, my hearty,” returned the rough ’longshoreman, with his usual horse-laugh. “ What happened you that you weren’t at the raflle at Pat Finnerty’s last night ?”

“I couldn’t be in two places at once, coaid I?” was the quick rejoinder. “There was a dance at Bill Dempsey’s, here abroad, and Bdl would never forgive me if I didn’t go. But, I say, Nora,” to his wife, “who have we here?” — turning hi*s eye for the first time on our friend Con, w ho began by this time to wish himself safe back in BallymuUea.

EMIGRANT UFE IN THE NEW WORLD. 21

“It’s a’most time for you to ask, Paul,'* said Nora, reproachfully. She then proceeded to introduce Con, and to do Paul justice, he was right glad to see him.

“You're heartily welcome here. Con,” said Paul, taking a seat near him, and slipping some money to one of the children, which was, however, noticed by Nora, who called out with more animation than usual :

“ Never mind the drink, !Paul, for Con O’Regan wouldn’t touch a drop of it; send for some meat, though, till we get the dinner. It won’t take long to cook.”

The money was given as freely as though Paul had a pocketful of that valuable commodity, and then he asked where was Peter? Now Peter was the eldest son of the family, being next to Jane, and his father was not a little proud of Peter’s good looks, which he inherited from his mother. The boy was clever, too, and could take up “ the learning,” whether right or wrong, as fast as any boy of his age.

“ Did Con O’Regan see Peter yet ?” demanded the father.

“No, indeed, then, Paul, he did not. I haven’t seen a sight of Peter myself since he got his breakfast with you this morning. He’s on the streets, as usual, God look to him and them that has the rearin’ of him ! Oh Con, dear, it’s an awful place this k* bring up children in — it is, indeed !”

“ Hold your foolish tongue, woman,” said her hus* band, angrily, “ and put that squalling brat to sleep. Stir yourselves and get us some dinner, and don’t be botherin’ us with your groans and your moans. Have you seen Winny since you came, Con ?’*

Con answered in the affirmative, whereupon Tom grinned a dubious smile. “ Winny’s one of the saints, I’m thinking. Con. She’s as modest as a nun, and wouldn’t look a fellow in the face on any account. They say she’s gathering money fast ; is it true. Con ?”

The subject was by no means pleasing to Con, who gave an evasive answer, and then put some question to Paul relating to some other acquaintances of theirs who had emigrated during the previous year. Paul gave a history of each person, as far as he knew, with occasional episodes from Tom, which were in general anything but satisfactory. By this time Jane had some ham and eggs on the table, with some bread and potatoes, and Paul would not consent to eat a morsel, unless both Tom and Con would “ sit over and have share of what was going on.” In vain did Con declare that he had just been eating and drinking — Paul cut him short with :