Cast Adrift. Arthur Timothy Shay
appetite was the display inside, nor agreeable to the nostrils the odors that filled the atmosphere. But hunger like the swines’, that was not over-nice, satisfied itself amid these disgusting conglomerations, and kept off starvation.
Along this wretched street, with scarcely an apology for a sidewalk, moved Pinky and the queen, until they reached a small two-story frame house that presented a different aspect from the wretched tenements amid which it stood. It was clean upon the outside, and had, as contrasted with its neighbors, an air of superiority. This was the queen’s residence. Inside, all was plain and homely, but clean and in order.
The excitement into which Pinky had been thrown was nearly over by this time.
“You’ve done me a good turn, Norah,” she said as the door closed upon them, “and I’ll not soon forget you.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated Norah as she looked into Pinky’s bruised face; “Sal’s hit you square in the eye; it’ll be black as y’r boot by morning. I’ll get some cold water.”
A basin of cold water was brought, and Pinky held a wet cloth to the swollen spot for a long time, hoping thereby not only to reduce the swelling, but to prevent discoloration.
“Y’r a fool to meddle with Sal,” said Norah as she set the basin of water before Pinky.
“Why don’t you meddle with her? Why do you let her beat poor little Kit the way she does?” demanded Pinky.
Norah shrugged her shoulders, and answered with no more feeling in her voice than if she had been speaking of inanimate things:
“She’s got to keep Kit up to her work.”
“Up to her work!”
“Yes; that’s just it. Kit’s lazy and cheats—buys cakes and candies; and Sal has to come down on her; it’s the way, you know. If Sal didn’t come down sharp on her all the while, Kit wouldn’t bring her ten cents a day. They all have to do it—so much a day or a lickin’; and a little lickin’ isn’t any use—got to ‘most kill some of ‘em. We’re used to it in here. Hark!”
The screams of a child in pain rang out wildly, the sounds coming from across the narrow street. Quick, hard strokes of a lash were heard at the same time. Pinky turned a little pale.
“Only Mother Quig,” said Norah, with an indifferent air; “she has to do it ‘most every night—no getting along any other way with Tom. It beats all how much he can stand.”
“Oh, Norah, won’t she never stop?” cried Pinky, starting up. “I can’t bear it a minute longer.”
“Shut y’r ears. You’ve got to,” answered the woman, with some impatience in her voice. “Tom has to be kept to his work as well as the rest of ‘em. Half the fuss he’s making is put on, anyhow; he doesn’t mind a beating any more than a horse. I know his hollers. There’s Flanagan’s Nell getting it now,” added Norah as the cries and entreaties of another child were heard. She drew herself up and listened, a slight shade of concern drifting across her face.
A long, agonizing wail shivered through the air.
“Nell’s Sick, and can’t do her work.” The woman rose as she spoke. “I saw her goin’ off to-day, and told Flanagan she’d better keep her at home.”
Saying this, Norah went out quickly, Pinky following. With head erect and mouth set firmly, the queen strode across the street and a little way down the pavement, to the entrance of a cellar, from which the cries and sounds of whipping came. Down the five or six rotten and broken steps she plunged, Pinky close after her.
“Stop!” shouted Norah, in a tone of command.
Instantly the blows ceased, and the cries were hushed.
“You’ll be hanged for murder if you don’t take care,” said Norah. “What’s Nell been doin’?”
“Doin’, the slut!” ejaculated the woman, a short, bloated, revolting creature, with scarcely anything human in her face. “Doin’, did ye say? It’s nothin’ she’s been doin’, the lazy, trapsing huzzy! Who’s that intrudin’ herself in here?” she added fiercely, as she saw Pinky, making at the same time a movement toward the girl. “Get out o’ here, or I’ll spile y’r pictur’!”
“Keep quiet, will you?” said Norah, putting her hand on the woman and pushing her back as easily as if she had been a child. “Now come here, Nell, and let me look at you.”
Out of the far corner of the cellar into which Flanagan had thrown her when she heard Norah’s voice, and into the small circle of light made by a single tallow candle, there crept slowly the figure of a child literally clothed in rags. Norah reached out her hand to her as she came up—there was a scared look on her pinched face—and drew her close to the light.
“Gracious! your hand’s like an ice-ball!” exclaimed Norah.
Pinky looked at the child, and grew faint at heart. She had large hazel eyes, that gleamed with a singular lustre out of the suffering, grimed and wasted little face, so pale and sad and pitiful that the sight of it was enough to draw tears from any but the brutal and hardened.
“Are you sick?” asked Norah.
“No, she’s not sick; she’s only shamming,” growled Flanagan.
“You shut up!” retorted Norah. “I wasn’t speaking to you.” Then she repeated her question:
“Are you sick, Nell?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Norah laid her hand on the child’s head:
“Does it hurt here?”
“Oh yes! It hurts so I can’t see good,” answered Nell.
“It’s all a lie! I know her; she’s shamming.”
“Oh no, Norah!” cried the child, a sudden hope blending with the fear in her voice. “I ain’t shamming at all. I fell down ever so many times in the street, and ‘most got run over. Oh dear! oh dear!” and she clung to the woman with a gesture of despair piteous to see.
“I don’t believe you are, Nell,” said Norah, kindly. Then, to the woman, “Now mind, Flanagan, Nell’s sick; d’ye hear?”
The woman only uttered a defiant growl.
“She’s not to be licked again to-night.” Norah spoke as one having authority.
“I wish ye’d be mindin’ y’r own business, and not come interfarin’ wid me. She’s my gal, and I’ve a right to lick her if I plaze.”
“Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t,” retorted Norah.
“Who says she isn’t my gal?” screamed the woman, firing up at this and reaching out for Nell, who shrunk closer to Norah.
“Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t,” said the queen, quietly repeating her last sentence; “and I think maybe she isn’t. So take care and mind what I say. Nell isn’t to be licked any more to-night.”
“Oh, Norah,” sobbed the child, in a husky, choking voice, “take me, won’t you? She’ll pinch me, and she’ll hit my head on the wall, and she’ll choke me and knock me. Oh, Norah, Norah!”
Pinky could stand this no longer. Catching up the bundle of rags in her arms, she sprang out of the cellar and ran across the street to the queen’s house, Norah and Flanagan coming quickly after her. At the door, through which Pinky had passed, Norah paused, and turning to the infuriated Irish woman, said, sternly,
“Go back! I won’t have you in here; and if you make a row, I’ll tell John to lock you up.”
“I want my Nell,” said the woman, her manner changing. There was a shade of alarm in her voice.
“You can’t have her to-night; so that’s settled. And if there’s any row, you’ll be locked up.” Saying which, Norah went in and shut the door, leaving Flanagan on