The unpardonable sin

Front matter

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Shelf

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Dedication

TO THOSE FRIENDS, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP HAS WITHSTOOD THE TEST OF POVERTY, THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.

ARTHUR DUDLEY VINTON.

New York, June, 1889.

Chapter I. What Happened In A Street Car

At a quarter past midnight, on the morning of February 15th, in the year 18 — , John Foerster, an errand boy in a down town office, boarded car No. 307 of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company, just as it left Fulton Ferry on its last trip eastward. The night was intensely disagreeable. The snow, which had begun to fall about two hours before, was damp and soggy, and the sharp wind from the northwest was just cold enough to keep it from melting, and just strong enough to pile it up in drifts at the street corners and in front of vacant lots.

There were several passengers on the car — six, in fact, including the driver, conductor and John Foerster — and at the City Hall three more got in, raising the total to nine. Fortunately, the car was provided with one of those small stoves which about this time were being introduced by the horse-car companies.

The car rolled slowly along, over tracks which the snow covered again almost as soon as the sweeper cleared them. The tired horses wearily pulled it, up the tedious slopes, as far as Classon Avenue. As block after block was passed, the houses grew more and more sparse, and the wind took a fiercer and freer sweep over larger expanses of open ground. As yet, none of the passengers had alighted ; they were evidently, like John Foerster, all dwellers in that inaccessible suburb of Brooklyn, known as East New York.

Beyond Classon Avenue the road ran for about two miles past vacant lots, and when the driver reached that point upon his route he saw ahead of him a smooth,

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.

unbroken expanse of snow, stretching' from cuib to curb, and more than a foot deep. He shook his head despondingly, as he looked through the clouds of steam that arose from his horses’ flanks, and gave a savage jerk to the reins.

The passengers in the car had, in the meantime, adopted as comfortable positions as possible under the circumstances, and had mostly endeavored to while away the tedium of the trip by catching a few winks of sleep. In one corner near the door was a stout, red-faced man, whose slumbers were evidenced now and then by a deep, rumbling snore. He had entered the car at Fulton Ferry, staggering from the effects of too much conviviality, and the conductor had meditated upon the expediency of ejecting him. But he paid his fare, and beyond fixing his gaze upon the pasteboard sign and murmuring the haunting jingle which it suggested :

‘ ‘ A pink trip slip for a tkree-cent fare,

“ A blue trip slip for a five-eeut fare,

“ A green trip slip for an eight-cent fare,

“ Punch ! punch ! punch w ith care,

“ Punch ! in the presence of the passengair

he had remained orderly and had soon gone to sleep, so the conductor allowed him to remain.

Opposite to this fellow was a big, robust Dutchman, enveloped in a huge, shaggy overcoat, with bulging pockets and a peculiar odor suspiciously like Limburger cheese. On the same seat, and close by the stove, was a young woman, with a baby some eighteen months old ; both of them asleep. At the other side of the stove was our acquaintance, John Foerster, with a red, woolen comforter wound around his ears and neck and with his hat pulled down over his eyes. He seemed to be blissfully unconscious of his surroundings.

The corners at the front were respectively occupied by a medium-sized, vouthful-faced man, whose bundle of papers tied up with red tape, proclaimed him to be a lawyer, or a lawyer’s clerk ; and by a tall, thin man, whose appearance gave no clue to his profession, and who might have been either an actor, returning from the scene of his histrionic triumphs, or a merchant taking- a late trip homewards from his store.

These six had all been in the car when it started from the ferry. The three passengers who sat upon the seat opposite the stove were those who had entered at the City Hall. Two of these were women ; one was an elderly spinster-like female with a hatchetface, sour-looking mouth, and sharp, keen grey eyes. She carried a newspaper parcel which seemed to contain something soft and pudgy, and which she had carefully placed on the seat by her side. Regardless of her maiden modesty, Sleep had clasped her in his arms, and her head drooped lower and lower, until her chin rested on her breast. At intervals she would start, look around her, and feel for the precious parcel; then assured of its safety, she would close her eyes and sink again into slumber. The two other passengers — one a fidgety little physician with his case of instruments, and the other a timid young girl — were the only ones who remained awake. The little doctor was too restless to sleep, and fidgetted about on his seat, perpetually scraping the hoar-frost from the window, that he might make an observation of the outside world and note his progress. He had tried to strike up a conversation with the young girl, who seemed to be kept awake by fear or anxiety, but beyond informing him that she had been visiting at her friend’s house and had been. forced to come home alone because her brother, who had expected to escort her, had not arrived, she had nothing to say. So the car had been silent for a long while, save for .a stray sentence or two which the tipsy man had muttered in his sleep, and the scarcely audible ejaculations of the little doctor.

In response to the driver’s jerk upon the reins, the horses plunged into the snow and the car followed them slowly, until finally a deeper drift than ordinary, blocked their way, and they came to a standstill.

The cessation of motion roused the passengers, and with one accord they raised their heads and looked about them. The little doctor was already on his feet, and had the front door open expostulating with the driver.

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“ Vere ve vas, er ?” queried tlie fat Dutchman.

“ Is this East New York ?” asked the spinster, gathering her bundle in her arms, as if preparing to alight.

“ Hello ! what’s the racket ?” interrogated the lawyer’s clerk.

Above this chorus of voices was heard the querulous voice of the little doctor complaining :

“ Indeed, driver, you must go faster! I have a patient waiting for me, and I ought to be there now. Really, if you don’t go on, I shall report you at the office.”

“ Ye’d bether repporrut the 'osses an’ the shnow, while yer ’bout it,” replied the driver, who had tied the reins to the brake handle, and was now stamping his feet and swinging his arms in an energetic endeavor to restore his circulation. “ Sure, don’t ye see thet the ’osses is clean tuckered out, an’ thet they can’t pull no more till they’ve had a rist.”

“ Oh, shut the door !” growled the tall passenger, over whose knees the cold draughts had been blowing. “ Come in, or go out if you want to, but anyhow shut the door.”

“What’s the matter, conductor?” cried all the passengers in a chorus as that functionary entered.

“ Nawthin’,” responded that official. “ Sure, let the hosses git their breaths an’ they’ll go on in a minute.”

“ It’s disgraceful !” remonstrated the little doctor who had yielded to the importunities of the tall man and closed the door. “Perfectly disgraceful ! I shall write to the Eagle to-morrow. Where’s the sweeper that the tracks are not cleaned. They ought to have doubled up teams on a night like this !”

The tipsy passenger who had all this while been stupidly gazing about him, getting his wits together now set up a song, of which could be distinguished only such fragments as, “ landlord,” “ flowing-bowl,” “merry, merry be,” “to-morrow,” and “get sober,” interspersed with numerous hic-coughs.

“Ugh !” exclaimed the prim spinster. “ Conductor, turn that drunken brute out.”

“ Wha’ ?” ejaculated the “ drunken brute,” gazing around with tipsy astonishment. “Wlia’I don’ yer

WHAT HAPPENED IN A STREET CAR.

like mer (Iiic) sing-in’? Enutlier lady or gentleman objec’ ?” And meeting with no response he began again

“ When other li (hie) ips an’ oth (liic)er hearts Their (hie) tales of love shall tell (hie),

In lan-(hie) whose language whose ex hie) cess imparts The '(hie) power they feel (hie) s’ well,

There (hie) may per (hie) ’aps in such (hie) a scene,

Some recol (hie) ’ections be Of clays (hie) that have so ha-ap-py been (hie)

An’ you (hie)’ll remember me,

An’ you’ll (hie) remem (hie) remember me.”

“ Come, come !” said the conductor, tapping him on the shoulder, “ you must be quiet.”

“ ’S all ri’ ’ductor ! ’S all ri’ ! I aint drunk, ’s only a lillul full — ge’ full yessel somsti’ — do same by you when ’er full — I’se rode on sis car fourteen years, ’ductor — grandsfarzer was ’ductor — you’re mi’hy good ’ductor — mos’ good ’s yer gransfarzer — ’member yer gransfarzer ’ductor — gransf arzm^d uctor — gransfarzar was ’ductor sis car when I’se t*p” He rose from his seat to embrace the conductor who pushed him back exclaiming,

“ Oh, you shut up, do yer hear ! I was born in Tiffin, Ohio, an’ haven’t been on this road six weeks.”

“ Mus’er been yer grandsfarzer, ’ductor. Mus’er been yer grandsfarzer,” murmured the tipsy man as he sank back into the corner.

“ He’ll be all right, madam,” the conductor remarked to the spinster. “ He won’t hurt nobody, an’ if lie gets troublesome I’ll put him out.”

’S all ri,’ lady. ’S all ri.’ Won’t hurt nobody. Won’t hurt a hair of yer head !” and he beamed with drunken benevolence upon all the passengers, while the conductor went on to the front platform to interview the driver.

“ Confound this delay !” said the tall man. “ One could almost indulge in strong language.”

“ It would be tall swearing if you did,” said Foerster.

“ You’re mistaken,” rejoined the tall man, jingling the change in his pocket. “ I’m a short cuss to-night.”

“ O, think how bad that pun was !” cried the doctor.

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“ D' you rattle on always in this style ?” asked the passenger wjtli the law papers.

“ Some one ought to dam this stream of talk,” said the doctor.

“ Say, where are you going to stop?” exclaimed Foerster.

“ When he can find proof an ’ it is admitted !” replied the lawyer clerk.

“ Wha’ ’s yer fellows talkin’n ’bout?” interposed the tipsy passenger.

“ You’ll have to get out an’ start her up, gentlemen,” said the conductor returning from his survey of the situation.

Without demur the passengers buttoned up their overcoats, turned up the bottoms of their trousers and filed out into the snow.

“ Where ’s yer goin’ ?” asked the tipsy passenger, as the tall man passed him.

“Out to shove,” an s^fl&r ed that passenger briefly, as he passed on.

“ ’S I’ll go too ! Set ’em up ’gen !” and the tipsy man followed him out, tumbling into the snow, as he stepped from the platform.

“ Snow, snow, boo’ful snow,” he ^exclaimed as he picked himself up. “ Say, ’ductor, d’ye know I’se se auser Boo’ful Snow ?”

A general laughter followed and the passengers put their shoulders to the car and rammed it up against the recalcitrant horses. They progressed this way for about a hundred feet, and then one\>f the horses refused to move further.

“ Wha’ se masser now?’' queried the tipsy passenger.

“ Balky horse,” the conductor answered laconically.

The passengers went forward and ranged themselves about the stubborn animal, the drunken man standing near his head, profoundly regarding him.

“ Horses drunk !” he exclaimed finally.

A peal of laughter arose from the other men and the tipsy passenger, finding the labor of maintaining an upright position irksome, quietly sat down in the snow.

Then it was discovered that each man had a remedy for balking 1 . The physician rubbed the horse’s spine the wrong way with a stick, the lawyer’s clerk twisted the horse’s ears, Foerster made a ball of snow and stuck it into the horse’s mouth, the conductor whipped him on the forelegs, the Dutchman prodded him on the funny bone with an umbrella, and the tall man twisted the scant tail.

It had become a regular frolic, and, as if their merriment was contagious, even the horse did not seem to be ill-natured, though he stubbornly refused to go on.

“It’s besser to laugh zan be sighin’ !” quoted the tipsy passenger, as from his seat in the snow he calmly regarded the performance.

Finding, however, that all their efforts were of no avail, the passengers returned to the car to debate upon their future course. As they entered it the tipsy passenger made a grab for the strap, but missing it sat down in the fat Dutchman’s lap.

“ Ach mein goot gracious! Vat for you do tat?” cried the Dutchman; and as he spoke he drew from his capacious pocket a brown paper parcel, which he began to open heedless of the profuse apologies of the tipsy man who had struggled to his feet. A strong, penetrating odor permeated the car as the covering of the parcel was unrolled and there disclosed to the view of all the passengers a fragrant piece of Limburger cheese, which had been crushed out of its proper shape by the tipsy man’s weight.

“ Ach mein Gott !” the Dutchman cried as he viewed the mangled form of his dainty tie! -bit. “ See, vat you haf tone !” he continued, shaking the cheese at the author of the mischief.

“ Put it on the roof of the car and we’ll have the health department here in an hour,” said the tall man.

“ Neiii ! I vas keep him for mein breakfast,” answered the Dutchman as he slowly rolled it up again and restored it to his pocket.

“ And as for you,” said the conductor to the tipsy man, putting him into his corner, “you sit there till I tell you to get up.”

“ ’S* all ri’, ’ductor ! ’S all ri’ ! Knew yer gransfarzer — rode on sis car wiz er gransfarzer fifteen year, n

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’ductor,” and lifting up his voice he began to sing again:

Gransfarzer’s clock (hie) ’s too tall for ze shelf,

So it stood for (liic) ty years on ze door, (hie)

It was taller by half zan (hie) ze ol’ man hisself,

But it (hie) weighed not a pennyweight more—'

Say (hie) ’ductor, waser pennyweight?

Twas bought on (hie) ze morn of ze day he was born

Guess I lef (hie) out suthin.’ Tick, tick tick, tick

tick, (hie) tick tick ”

Nobody had paid him any attention as long as he had been singing, but now as his words died away in monotonous 4 4 tick tick/’ all with one accord turned

their eyes toward him. He had risen to his feet and was vainly endeavoring to open the door.

The conductor sprang for him and forced him back into his seat, but the tipsy man struggled to get up, exclaiming, “ Lemme out! Lemme out! I’se got ’em ’gen ! Got ’em ’gen !

The passengers looked in the direction of his gaze, and their eyes fell upon the bundle upon the seat next to the spinster. What they saw was astounding. The bundle seemed to have grown to twice its normal size, and the paper was pushed up around the strings as if to buiy them from sight, while from tiny cracks were slowly oozing thin, curling streams of a tenacious, whitey-brown substance, squirming and twisting like so many worms, or bulging out like warts or blisters. The whole parcel seemed to be alive with these animated excrescences and was actually forced into motion by the movement of those between it and the seat.

44 Great heavens, madam ! what have you got there ? ” exclaimed the physician.

To the horror of everyone, the spinster immediately grabbed the repulsive thing, and plucking off the excrescences, crushed them in a ball in her hand, and when that was accomplished she searched for the knot, and having found and untied it, began to remove the string.

44 Reckon you men don’t know much about housekeeping,” she said calmly, as she removed the paper coverings. 44 It’s only a hunk of dough , and ain’t going to pisen any one, 1 guess.”

“ Dough !” said Foerster. “ What a curious way to carry it?”

“Well,” the spinster replied, “ I guess one way’s good’s another. You see, gentlemen, I was down visitin’ Anna Mariah— she’s my niece— an’ Anna Mariah had some yeast that she set a great store by, an’ she jest give me a lump o’ dough to kerry home. I kalkilated thet as the night was so cold ’twouldn’t rise none till I got hum, but I reckon the heat of thet ere stove must ha’ started it.”

It certainly had started, and so effectually that there was no stopping it, so it was put to one side to work away at its own sweet will.

The prolonged period of unseasonable wakefulness had fretted the baby, and its whimpers now turned into yells, which its young mother ineffectually tried to hush. In vain she danced and patted it ; the more she tried to hush it the more it cried.

Now if there is one thing which is particularly irritating* to the masculine temper it is a crying child, and the good humor with which the belated travelers had accepted their unpleasant predicament was rapidly being exchanged for morose impatience. The poor, young mother, herself tired and fatigued, redoubled her endeavors as she saw the gathering frowns, but her efforts were still unavailing.

The tipsy man, who after the explanation of the dough had fallen into a doze, now roused himself and remarked gravely that the baby was “drunk,” but the remark, which a little while ago might have elicited merriment, now served only to deepen the gloom. There is no telling what unpleasantness might have followed if the tall man had not reached forward and quietly taken the child from its mother’s arms.

Now everyone acquainted with the habits of young children knows that when a stranger takes a baby to his arms the youngster either redoubles its uproar, or else becomes perfectly quiet from sheer astonishment. Fortunately this child adopted the latter alternative, and seated on the tall passenger’s knee, gazed at him with amazement. He tossed it up and down, held it out at arm’s length, and when it showed signs

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of beginning* its wails again, he pulled out his watch and let it play with it.

So the baby grew quite amiable again, and even went so far in condescension as to call the tall passenger, “ Popper a proceeding which elicited certain sly winks and smiles from the male passengers and restored good nature. Still they were stuck in the snow, and that was, of itself, by no means a provocative of merriment.

The doctor gravely proposed that the conductor should proceed to the stables at the end of the line and procure a fresh team of horses ; but that official, not desiring the long, cold walk of two miles through the snow, promptly replied that he coutd not leave the car, and had no other suggestion to offer than that they should wait where they were until they were sent after. The passengers themselves had similar objections to proceeding on foot, and as long as the supply of fuel for the stove held out, preferred the warm car to the cold, windy street.

Fortunately at this juncture there came the well-known sound of the gong of a fire-engine, and lookingout of the rear windows, the passengers saw the machine approaching them. The balky horse, likewise, pricked up his ears at the sound, and calmly turned his drooping head around and surveyed the approaching monster. Whether the incident caused him to forget his former reluctance to proceed, or whether the appearance of the fiery apparition convinced him that he had better get out of its way is uncertain, but, whatever the reason, the fact is that he suddenly started and joined with his mate in making wild plunges ahead, starting the car with such a sudden jerk that the passengers found themselves piled into a heap at the rear end. They picked themselves up with several iokes about the mishap, almost forgetting to grumole in the delight of being once more in motion.

The engine, pouring clouds of black smoke and showers of sparks from its chimney, came tearing after them, the strong Norman horses plunging through the drifts and straining every muscle as they pursued the horse-car. So they proceeded until with

LILLIAN.

1 « a sudden jerk and swerve that nearly threw the driver oh his feet, the car turned into the stables and the journey was ended.

One by one the passengers alighted and departed to their homes — the old maid with her bundle of dough, the young mother and her baby, and the fat Dutchman with his Limburger cheese. The doctor was speedily ploughing his way to his waiting patient, and the timid young maiden had consented to be escorted to her home by the lawyer’s clerk. The tipsy passenger alone remained , and as he finally disappeared in the driving snow, the wind bore back the refrain :

“ ’S all ri’, ’ducter ! ’S all ri ’ ! I ’member yer gransfarzer !”

John Foerster and the tall man still lingered. The latter was interrogating the conductor :

“ So thece is no hotel hereabout, conductor ?”

“Navv.”

“ And no car back to the city before six o’clock ?”

“ Raw.”

“ Well, then, my boy,” said the tall traveler turning to John Foerster, “ since you say that your landlady keeps a boarding-house, I shall have to trespass upon her hospitality. So lead on, I’ll follow.”

This was the first meeting between John Foerster and Douglas Egerton — a lucky one for the former, since Egerton never thereafter lost track of him, but assisted him to push his way in the world until the fortunes of the two were intertwined, as shall appear further on.

What Douglas Egerton was doing in this out-of-theway part of the world was never known. Later on the reader may be able to make a shrewd surmise of the nefarious business which led him thither.

Chapter II. Lillian

They called her Lillian, but she might as well have been called “Poor Thing,” for those were the words which greeted her when she was ushered into the

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world, the words which were applied to her frequently while she lived, and. men spoke them over her, as it were, in requiem, when she was dead. Everyone within this world must hear his share of woe, but sometimes it has seemed as if the sum of sorrows which she bore was greater than her portion.

Her father, John Riching, was a clerk in the employ of the United States. There had been a change of administration shortly before she was born, and on the day when first she saw the light, John Riching had found upon his desk the fatal envelope that enclosed his dismissal. Poor man ! its color told him its message before he tore it open, and his heart, already downcast, sank lower as he beheld it. What can be heavier than a heavy heart ! What more cruel than a blow which strikes through us at those whom we love !

No wonder he was downcast, for he knew that before he returned at night another child might be added to the number of sickly little ones at home. Five delicate children and a sickly wife to support, and only the meagre salary of a clerkship in the Custom House to pay the landlord, and the butcher, and the baker, and to provide for the multitudinous needs of a large family ! Even the severest economy had heretofore barely compassed the task, and now there was added another mouth to feed, and another form to clothe just as the overstrained income stopped entirely — for the end of the month would witness the last payment which the Government would make to him, and after that he must find some other employment, or he and his must starve. When he thought of this, John Riching placed his hands over his eyes as if to shut out some terrible vision.

Oh rich people — oh people of “ moderate means” — do you realize what it is to starve ! You men who think yourselves hardly used if a pressure of business induces you to go without a lunch, or a fit of economy leads you to dine at a cheaper restaurant than usual — do you know what starvation is — to go day after day haunted by the grim gnawing of hunger that weakens body and mind and soul— to hear the wailings of children as they beg for food which you cannot give them —

LILLIAN.

to see them growing- day by day more pinched, more wan and more emaciated and to know all the while that they are starving? You read of such things and a tear moistens your eye and you praise the art of the writer. You hear of such things and you smile incredulously and say they cannot be ! But the stern, sad, terrible reality you have never known, and you will not contemplate ! Keep your hearts locked if you will, but open your purses and you will find starving children in every street of this great city !

Yet such a picture arose, as if by magic, before the eyes of John Riching when his glance fell upon that fatal envelope lying on his desk. Such a picture lingered in his mind through the day as he wearily wrote down column after column of figures, and such a picture took more definite shape and form when he reached his home at evening and found a wee, small girl in the old cradle and his wife lying lifeless on the bed.

“ Poor thing !” he said as he looked at her, and despite his heavy heart, he bent down and kissed her. Oh wonderful, wonderful parental love — the one thing common alike to beasts and men and God !

The motherless little one, who had entered the world at so inopportune a time, and to whom the mother had indeed imparted her very life, was baptized by the name of Lillian — the mother’s name — and grew up, amid all the adverse circumstances of poverty, until she reached the age of fourteen years. Long before that period, however, the other Riching children had ceased to struggle with the world, and had yielded them selves as victims to the vicissitudes of life. One by one their little lives had flickered and gone out like tapers in a storm, and one by one" the lifeless bodies in wooden coffins were borne away and laid in nameless graves in the paupers’ burial ground.

There is but little which excites deep feeling in a pauper’s burial. Poverty robs death of its pathos and its pageantry. Scant ceremony is performed, few prayers are said over these superfluous scions of humanity. A shabby coach, the plain deal box in front with the driver, the windows filled with eager faces of children — watching the sights, forgetful of their grief in the pleasure of the unaccustomed ride — this was all

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the pomp that death yielded to Poverty as he carried oil the Etching children. A few kind-hearted neighbors had come in to take their last look at the dead, to utter their few unpolished phrases of sympathy to the bereaved father, and to pat the little girl upon the head, remarking to each other as they did so, “ She -too will go soon, poor thing !”

So Lillian and her father — the little child old be3 T ond her years, the feeble man aged by his misfortunes, shrunken and bent by his burden of sorrows — were left at last alone to keep each other company. The father gained a precarious livelihood from clerkships, changing from one house to another, sometimes suffering all the privations of poverty and at other times — more few, alas — enjoying comparative affluence.

She was a f rail, wee, stunted thing, looking more like a child of four years old than her true age, which was double that, — as if nature with her divine faculty of adaptation had suited the child’s body to the nourishment it would receive. As the years went by her character began to develop. She was ever quiet and subdued and patient so that it seemed as if the same beneficent power that regulated her growth had given her a mind fitted to bear the burdens of her life unquestioningly and without complaining. When the days were warm' she would patiently await her father’s return in their own dingy, cheerless room — when the season was cold a small payment secured her a waiting place in the warmer room of a scarcely less poor neighbor.