Lizzy Glenn; Or, The Trials of a Seamstress. Arthur Timothy Shay
you shall be paid for these, and something on the old account," said the recipient, as she took them and hurried from the shop.
"Why not give up at once, instead of trying to keep soul and body together by working for the slop-shops?" muttered Mrs. Grubb, as her customer withdrew. "She'd a great sight better go with her children to the poor-house than keep them half-starving under people's noses at this rate, and compelling us who have a little feeling left, to keep them from dying outright with hunger. It's too bad! There's that Berlaps, who grinds the poor seamstresses who work for him to death and makes them one-half of their time beggars at our stores for something for their children to eat. He is building two houses in Roxbury at this very moment: and out of what? Out of the money of which he has robbed these poor women. Fifteen cents for a pair of trowsers with pockets in them! Ten cents for shirts and drawers! and every thing at that rate. Is it any wonder that they are starving, and he growing rich? Curse him, and all like him! I could see them hung!"
And the woman set her teeth, and clenched her hand, in momentary but impotent rage.
In the meantime, Mrs. Gaston hurried home with the food she had obtained. She occupied the upper room of a narrow frame house near the river, for which she paid a rent of three dollars a month. It was small and comfortless, but the best her slender means could provide. Two children were playing on the floor when she entered: the one about four, and the other a boy who looked as if he might be nearly ten years of age. On the bed lay Ella, the sick child to whom the mother had alluded, both to the tailor and the shopkeeper. She turned wishfully upon her mother her young bright eyes as she entered, but did not move or utter a word. The children, who had been amusing themselves upon the floor, sprang to their feet, and, catching hold of the basket she had brought in with her, ascertained in a moment its contents.
"Fish and taters! Fish and taters!" cried the youngest, a little girl, clapping her hands, and dancing about the floor.
"Won't we have some dinner now?" said Henry, the oldest boy, looking up into his mother's face with eager delight, as he laid his hands upon her arm.
"Yes, my children, you shall have a good dinner, and that right quickly," returned the mother in a voice half choked with emotion, as she threw off her bonnet, and proceeded to cook the coarse provisions she had obtained at the sacrifice of so much feeling. It did not take long to boil the fish and potatoes, which were eaten with a keen relish by two of the children, Emma and Harry. The gruel prepared for Ella, from the flour obtained at Mrs. Grubb's, did not much tempt the sickly appetite of the child. She sipped a few spoonfuls, and then turned from the bowl which her mother held for her at the bedside.
"Eat more of it, dear," said Mrs. Gaston. "It will make you feel better."
"I'm not very hungry now, mother," answered Ella.
"Don't it taste good to you?"
"Not very good."
The child sighed as she turned her wan face toward the wall, and the unhappy mother sighed responsive.
"I wish you would try to take a little more. It's so long since you have eaten any thing; and you'll grow worse if you don't take nourishment. Just two or three spoonfuls. Come, dear."
Ella, thus urged, raised herself in bed, and made an effort to eat more of the gruel. At the third spoonful, her stomach heaved as the tasteless fluid touched her lips.
"Indeed, mother, I can't swallow another mouthful," she said, again sinking back on her pillow.
Slowly did Mrs. Gaston turn from the bed. She had not yet eaten of the food, which her two well children were devouring with the eagerness of hungry animals. Only a small portion did she now take for herself, and that was eaten hurriedly, as if the time occupied in attending to her own wants were so much wasted.
The meal over, Mrs. Gaston took the unfinished pair of trowsers, and, though feeling weary and disheartened, bent earnestly to the task before her. At this she toiled, unremittingly, until the falling twilight admonished her to stop. The children's supper was then prepared. She would have applied to Mrs. Grubb for a loaf of bread, but was so certain of meeting a refusal, that she refrained from doing so. For supper, therefore, they had only the salt fish and potatoes.
It was one o'clock that night before exhausted nature refused another draft upon its energies. The garment was not quite finished. But the nerveless hand and the weary head of the poor seamstress obeyed the requirements of her will no longer. The needle had to be laid aside, for the finger had no more strength to grasp, nor skill to direct its motions.
CHAPTER II
HOW A NEEDLEWOMAN LIVES
IT was about ten o'clock on the next morning, when Mrs. Gaston appeared at the shop of Berlaps, the tailor.
"Here is the other pair," she said, as she came up to the counter, behind which stood Michael, the salesman.
That person took the pair of trowsers, glanced at them a moment, and then, tossing them aside, asked Mrs. Gaston if she could make some cloth roundabouts.
"At what price?" was inquired.
"The usual price—thirty cents."
"Thirty cents for cloth jackets! Indeed, Michael, that is too little. You used to give thirty-seven and a half."
"Can't afford to do it now, then. Thirty cents is enough. There are plenty of women glad to get them even at that price."
"But it will take me a full day and a half to make a cloth jacket, Michael."
"You work slow, that's the reason; a good sewer can easily make one in a day; and that's doing pretty well these times."
"I don't know what you mean by pretty well, Michael," answered the seamstress. "How do you think you could manage to support yourself and three children on less than thirty cents a day?"
"Haven't you put that oldest boy of yours out yet?" asked Michael, instead of replying to the question of Mrs. Gaston.
"No, I have not."
"Well, you do very wrong, let me tell you, to slave yourself and pinch your other children for him, when he might be earning his living just as well as not. He's plenty old enough to be put out."
"You may think so, but I don't. He is still but a child."
"A pretty big child, I should say. But, if you would like to get him a good master, I know a man over in Cambridge who would take him off of your hands."
"Who is he?"
"He keeps a store, and wants just such a boy to do odd trifles about, and run of errands. It would be the very dandy for your little follow. He'll be in here to-day; and if you say so, I will speak to him about your son."
"I would rather try and keep him with me this winter. He is too young to go so far away. I could not know whether he were well or ill used."
"Oh, as to that, ma'am, the man I spoke of is a particular friend of mine, and I know him to be as kind-hearted as a woman. His wife's amiability and good temper are proverbial. Do let me speak a good word for your son; I'm sure you will never repent it."
"I'll think about it, Michael; but don't believe I shall feel satisfied to let Henry go anywhere out of Boston, even if I should be forced to get him a place away from home this winter."
"Well, you can do as you please, Mrs. Gaston," said Michael in a half offended tone. "I shall not charge any thing for my advice; But say! do you intend trying some of these jackets?"
"Can't you give me some more pantaloons? I can do better on them, I think."
"We sha'n't have any more coarse trowsers ready for two or three days. The jackets are your only chance."
"If I must, suppose I must, then," replied Mrs. Gaston to this, in a desponding tone. "So let me have a couple of them."
The salesman took from a shelf two dark, heavy cloth jackets, cut out, and tied up in separate bundles with a strip of the fabric from which they had been taken. As he handed them, to the woman he said—
"Remember, now, these are to be made extra nice."
"You shall have no cause