Cast Adrift

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"It's a shame, the way it has been abused," said Pinky, speaking
from an impulse of kindness, such as rarely swelled in her evil
heart.

"A crying shame," answered the woman as she drew the baby close
against her bosom and gazed down upon its pitiful face, and into the
large brown eyes that were lifted to hers in mute appeal.

The real motherly tenderness that was in this woman's heart was
quickly perceived by the child, who did not move its eyes from hers,
but lay perfectly still, gazing up at her in a kind of easeful rest
such as it had never before known. She spoke to it in loving tones,
touched its thin cheeks with her finger in playful caresses, kissed
it on its lips and forehead, hugged it to her bosom; and still the
eyes were fixed on hers in a strange baby-wonder, though not the
faintest glinting of a smile played on its lips or over its serious
face. Had it never learned to smile?

At last the poor thin lips curved a little, crushing out the lines
of suffering, and into the eyes there came a loving glance in place
of the fixed, wondering look that was almost a stare. A slight
lifting of the hands, a motion of the head, a thrill through the
whole body came next, and then a tender cooing sound.

"Did you ever see such beautiful eyes?" said the woman. "It will be
a splendid baby when it has picked up a little."

"Let it pick up as fast as it can," returned Pinky; "but mind what I
say: you are to be mum. Here's your pay for the first week, and you
shall have it fair and square always. Call it your own baby, if you
will, or your grandson. Yes, that's better. He's the child of your
dead daughter, just sent to you from somewhere out of town. So take
good care of him, and keep your mouth shut. I'll be round again in a
little while."

And with this injunction Pinky went away. On the next Thursday she
visited the St. John's mission sewing-school in company with the
little girl from Grubb's court, but greatly to her disappointment,
Edith did not make her appearance. There were four or five ladies in
attendance on the school, which, under the superintendence of one of
them, a woman past middle life, with a pale, serious face and a
voice clear and sweet, was conducted with an order and decorum not
often maintained among a class of children such as were there
gathered together.

It was a long time since Pinky had found herself so repressed and
ill at ease. There was a spiritual atmosphere in the place that did
not vitalize her blood. She felt a sense of constriction and
suffocation. She had taken her seat in the class taught usually by
Edith, with the intention of studying that young lady and finding
out all she could about her, not doubting her ability to act the
part in hand with perfect self-possession. But she had not been in
the room a minute before confidence began to die, and very soon she
found herself ill at ease and conscious of being out of her place.
The bold, bad woman felt weak and abashed. An unseen sphere of
purity and Christian love surrounded and touched her soul with as
palpable an impression as outward things give to the body. She had
something of the inward distress and pain a devil would feel if
lifted into the pure air of heaven, and the same desire to escape
and plunge back into the dense and impure atmosphere in which evil
finds its life and enjoyment. If she had come with any good purpose,
it would have been different, but evil, and only evil, was in her
heart; and when this felt the sphere of love and purity, her breast
was constricted and life seemed going out of her.

It was little less than torture to Pinky for the short time she
remained. As soon as she was satisfied that Edith would not be
there, she threw down the garment on which she had been pretending
to sew, and almost ran from the room.

"Who is that girl?" asked the lady who was teaching the class,
looking in some surprise after the hurrying figure.

"It's Pinky Swett," answered the child from Grubb's court. "She
wanted to see our teacher."

"Who is your regular teacher?" was inquired.

"Don't remember her name."

"It's Edith," spoke up one of the girls. "Mrs. Martin called her
that."

"What did this Pinky Swett want to see her about?"

"Don't know," answered the child as she remembered the money Pinky
had given her and the promise of more.

The teacher questioned no further, but went on with her work in the
class.

CHAPTER XVI.

_IT_ was past midday when Mr. Dinneford returned home after his
fruitless search. Edith, who had been waiting for hours in restless
suspense, heard his step in the hall, and ran down to meet him.

"Did you see the baby?"' she asked, trying to keep her agitation
down.

Mr. Dinneford only shook his head,

"Why, not, father?" Her voice choked.

"It could not be found."

"You saw Mr. Paulding?"

"Yes."

"Didn't he find the baby?"

"Oh yes. But when I went to Grubb's court this morning, it was not
there, and no one could or would give any information about it. As
the missionary feared, those having possession of the baby had taken
alarm and removed it to another place. But I have seen the mayor and
some of the police, and got them interested. It will not be possible
to hide the child for any length of time."

"You said that Mr. Paulding saw it?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?" Edith's voice trembled as she asked the question.

"He thinks there is something wrong."

"Did he tell you how the baby looked?"

"He said that it had large, beautiful brown eyes."

Edith clasped her hands, and drew them tightly against her bosom.

"Oh, father! if it should be my baby!"

"My dear, dear child," said Mr. Dinneford, putting his arms about
Edith and holding her tightly, "you torture yourself with a wild
dream. The thing is impossible."

"It is somebody's baby," sobbed Edith, her face on her father's
breast, "and it may be mine. Who knows?"

"We will do our best to find it," returned Mr. Dinneford, "and then
do what Christian charity demands. I am in earnest so far, and will
leave nothing undone, you may rest assured. The police have the
mayor's instructions to find the baby and give it into my care, and
I do not think we shall have long to wait."

An ear they thought not of, heard all this. Mrs. Dinneford's
suspicions had been aroused by many things in Edith's manner and
conduct of late, and she had watched her every look and word and
movement with a keenness of observation that let nothing escape.
Careful as her husband and daughter were in their interviews, it was
impossible to conceal anything from eyes that never failed in
watchfulness. An unguarded word here, a look of mutual intelligence
there, a sudden silence when she appeared, an unusual soberness of
demeanor and evident absorbed interest in something they were
careful to conceal, had the effect to quicken all Mrs. Dinneford's
alarms and suspicions.

She had seen from the top of the stairs a brief but excited
interview pass between Edith and her father as the latter stood in
the vestibule that morning, and she had noticed the almost wild look
on her daughter's face as she hastened back along the hall and ran
up to her room. Here she stayed alone for over an hour, and then
came down to the parlor, where she remained restless, moving about
or standing by the window for a greater part of the morning.

There was something more than usual on hand. Guilt in its guesses
came near the truth. What could all this mean, if it had not
something to do with the cast-off baby? Certainty at last came. She
was in the dining-room when Edith ran down to meet her father in the
hall, and slipped noiselessly and unobserved into one of the
parlors, where, concealed by a curtain, she heard everything that
passed between her husband and daughter.

Still as death she stood, holding down the strong pulses of her
heart. From the hall Edith and her father turned into one of the
parlors--the same in which Mrs. Dinneford was concealed behind the
curtain--and sat down.

"It had large brown eyes?" said Edith, a yearning tenderness in her
voice.

"Yes, and a finely-formed bead, showing good parentage," returned
the father.

"Didn't you find out who the women were--the two bad women the
little girl told me about? If we had their names, the police could
find them. The little girl's mother must know who they are."

"We have the name of one of them," said Mr. Dinneford. "She is
called Pinky Swett, and it can't be long before the police are on
her track. She is said to be a desperate character. Nothing more can
be done now; we must wait until the police work up the affair. I
will call at the mayor's office in the morning and find out what has
been done."

Mrs. Dinneford heard no more. The bell rang, and her husband and
daughter left the parlor and went up stairs. The moment they were
beyond observation she glided noiselessly through the hall, and
reached her chamber without being noticed. Soon afterward she came
down dressed for visiting, and went out hastily, her veil closely
drawn. Her manner was hurried. Descending the steps, she stood for a
single moment, as if hesitating which way to go, and then moved off
rapidly. Soon she had passed out of the fashionable neighborhood in
which she lived. After this she walked more slowly, and with the air
of one whose mind was in doubt or hesitation. Once she stopped, and
turning about, slowly retraced her steps for the distance of a
square. Then she wheeled around, as if from some new and strong
resolve, and went on again. At last she paused before a
respectable-looking house of moderate size in a neighborhood remote
from the busier and more thronged parts of the city. The shutters
were all bowed down to the parlor, and the house had a quiet,
unobtrusive look. Mrs. Dinneford gave a quick, anxious glance up and
down the street, and then hurriedly ascended the steps and rang the
bell.

"Is Mrs. Hoyt in?" she asked of a stupid-looking girl who came to
the door.

"Yes, ma'am," was answered.

"Tell her a lady wants to see her;" and she passed into the
plainly-furnished parlor. There were no pictures on the walls nor
ornaments on the mantel-piece, nor any evidence of taste--nothing
home-like--in the shadowed room, the atmosphere of which was close
and heavy. She waited here for a few moments, when there was a
rustle of garments and the sound of light, quick feet on the stairs.
A small, dark-eyed, sallow-faced woman entered the parlor.

"Mrs. Bray--no, Mrs. Hoyt."

"Mrs. Dinneford;" and the two women stood face to face for a few
moments, each regarding the other keenly.

"Mrs. Hoyt--don't forget," said the former, with a warning emphasis
in her voice. "Mrs. Bray is dead."

In her heart Mrs. Dinneford wished that it were indeed so.

"Anything wrong?" asked the black-eyed little woman.

"Do you know a Pinky Swett?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, abruptly.

Mrs. Hoyt--so we must now call her--betrayed surprise at this
question, and was about answering "No," but checked herself and gave
a half-hesitating "Yes," adding the question, "What about her?"

Before Mrs. Dinneford could reply, however, Mrs. Hoyt took hold of
her arm and said, "Come up to my room. Walls have ears sometimes,
and I will not answer for these."

Mrs. Dinneford went with her up stairs to a chamber in the rear part
of the building.

"We shall be out of earshot here," said Mrs. Hoyt as she closed the
door, locking it at the same time. "And now tell me what's up, and
what about Pinky Swett."

"You know her?"

"Yes, slightly."

"More than slightly, I guess."

Mrs. Hoyt's eyes flashed impatiently. Mrs. Dinneford saw it, and
took warning.

"She's got that cursed baby."

"How do you know?"

"No matter how I know. It's enough that I know. Who is she?"

"That question may be hard to answer. About all I know of her is
that she came from the country a few years ago, and has been
drifting about here ever since."

"What is she doing with that baby? and how did she get hold of it?"

"Questions more easily asked than answered."

"Pshaw! I don't want any beating about the bush, Mrs. Bray."

"Mrs. Hoyt," said the person addressed.

"Oh, well, Mrs. Hoyt, then. We ought to understand each other by
this time."

"I guess we do;" and the little woman arched her brows.

"I don't want any beating about the bush," resumed Mrs. Dinneford.
"I am here on business."

"Very well; let's to business, then;" and Mrs. Hoyt leaned back in
her chair.

"Edith knows that this woman has the baby," said Mrs. Dinneford.

"What!" and Mrs. Hoyt started to her feet.

"The mayor has been seen, and the police are after her."

"How do you know?"

"Enough that I know. And now, Mrs. Hoyt, this thing must come to an
end, and there is not an instant to be lost. Has Pinky Swett, as she
is called, been told where the baby came from?"

"Not by me."

"By anybody?"

"That is more than I can say."

"What has become of the woman I gave it to?"

"She's about somewhere."

"When did you see her?"

Mrs. Hoyt pretended to think for some moments, and then replied:

"Not for a month or two."

"Had she the baby then?"

"No; she was rid of it long before that."

"Did she know this Pinky Swett?"

"Yes."

"Curse the brat! If I'd thought all this trouble was to come, I'd
have smothered it before it was half an hour old."

"Risky business," remarked Mrs. Hoyt.

"Safer than to have let it live," said Mrs. Dinneford, a hard, evil
expression settling around her mouth. "And now I want the thing
done. You understand. Find this Pinky Swett. The police are after
her, and may be ahead of you. I am desperate, you see. Anything but
the discovery and possession of this child by Edith. It must be got
out of the way. If it will not starve, it must drown."

Mrs. Dinneford's face was distorted by the strength of her evil
passions. Her eyes were full of fire, flashing now, and now glaring
like those of a wild animal.

"It might fall out of a window," said Mrs. Hoyt, in a low, even
voice, and with a faint smile on her lips. "Children fall out of
windows sometimes."

"But don't always get killed," answered Mrs. Dinneford, coldly.

"Or, it might drop from somebody's arms into the river--off the deck
of a ferryboat, I mean," added Mrs. Hoyt.

"That's better. But I don't care how it's done, so it's done."

"Accidents are safer," said Mrs. Hoyt.

"I guess you're right about that. Let it be an accident, then."

It was half an hour from the time Mrs. Dinneford entered this house
before she came away. As she passed from the door, closely veiled, a
gentleman whom she knew very well was going by on the opposite side
of the street. From something in his manner she felt sure that he
had recognized her, and that the recognition had caused him no
little surprise. Looking back two or three times as she hurried
homeward, she saw, to her consternation, that he was following her,
evidently with the purpose of making sure of her identity.

To throw this man off of her track was Mrs. Dinneford's next
concern. This she did by taking a street-car that was going in a
direction opposite to the part of the town in which she lived, and
riding for a distance of over a mile. An hour afterward she came
back to her own neighborhood, but not without a feeling of
uneasiness. Just as she was passing up to the door of her residence
a gentleman came hurriedly around the nearest corner. She recognized
him at a glance. It seemed as if the servant would never answer her
ring. On he came, until the sound of his steps was in her ears. He
was scarcely ten paces distant when the door opened and she passed
in. When she gained her room, she sat down faint and trembling. Here
was a new element in the danger and disgrace that were digging her
steps so closely.

As we have seen, Edith did not make her appearance at the mission
sewing-school on the following Thursday, nor did she go there for
many weeks afterward. The wild hope that had taken her to Briar
street, the nervous strain and agitation attendant on that visit,
and the reaction occasioned by her father's failure to get
possession of the baby, were too much for her strength, and an utter
prostration of mind and body was the consequence. There was no fever
nor sign of any active disease--only weakness, Nature's enforced
quietude, that life and reason might be saved.

CHAPTER XVII.

_THE_ police were at fault. They found Pinky Swett, but were not
able to find the baby. Careful as they were in their surveillance,
she managed to keep them on the wrong track and to baffle every
effort to discover what had been done with the child.

In this uncertainty months went by. Edith came up slowly from her
prostrate condition, paler, sadder and quieter, living in a kind of
waking dream. Her father tried to hold her back from her mission
work among the poor, but she said, "I must go, father; I will die if
I do not."

And so her life lost itself in charities. Now and then her mother
made an effort to draw her into society. She had not yet given up
her ambition, nor her hope of one day seeing her daughter take
social rank among the highest, or what she esteemed the highest. But
her power over Edith was entirely gone. She might as well have set
herself to turn the wind from its course as to influence her in
anything. It was all in vain. Edith had dropped out of society, and
did not mean to go back. She had no heart for anything outside of
her home, except the Christian work to which she had laid her hands.

The restless, watchful, suspicious manner exhibited for a long time
by Mrs. Dinneford, and particularly noticed by Edith, gradually wore
off. She grew externally more like her old self, but with something
new in the expression of her face when in repose, that gave a chill
to the heart of Edith whenever she saw its mysterious record, that
seemed in her eyes only an imperfect effort to conceal some guilty
secret.

Thus the mother and daughter, though in daily personal contact,
stood far apart--were internally as distant from each other as the
antipodes.

As for Mr. Dinneford, what he had seen and heard on his first visit
to Briar street had aroused him to a new and deeper sense of his
duty as a citizen. Against all the reluctance and protests of his
natural feelings, he had compelled himself to stand face to face
with the appalling degradation and crime that festered and rioted in
that almost Heaven-deserted region. He had heard and read much about
its evil condition; but when, under the protection of a policeman,
he went from house to house, from den to den, through cellar and
garret and hovel, comfortless and filthy as dog-kennels and
pig-styes, and saw the sick and suffering, the utterly vile and
debauched, starving babes and children with faces marred by crime,
and the legion of harpies who were among them as birds of prey, he
went back to his home sick at heart, and with a feeling of
helplessness and hopelessness out of which he found it almost
impossible to rise.

We cannot stain our pages with a description of what he saw. It is
so vile and terrible, alas, so horrible, that few would credit it.
The few imperfect glimpses of life in that region which we have
already given are sad enough and painful enough, but they only hint
at the real truth.

"What can be done?" asked Mr. Dinneford of the missionary, at their
next meeting, in a voice that revealed his utter despair of a
remedy. "To me it seems as if nothing but fire could purify this
region."

"The causes that have produced this would soon create another as
bad," was answered.

"What are the causes?"

"The primary cause," said Mr. Paulding, "is the effort of hell to
establish itself on the earth for the destruction of human souls;
the secondary cause lies in the indifference and supineness of the
people. 'While the husband-men slept the enemy sowed tares.' Thus it
was of old, and thus it is to-day. The people are sleeping or
indifferent, the churches are sleeping or indifferent, while the
enemy goes on sowing tares for the harvest of death."

"Well may you say the harvest of death," returned Mr. Dinneford,
gloomily.

"And hell," added the missionary, with a stern emphasis. "Yes, sir,
it is the harvest of death and hell that is gathered here, and such
a full harvest! There is little joy in heaven over the sheaves that
are garnered in this accursed region. What hope is there in fire, or
any other purifying process, if the enemy be permitted to go on
sowing his evil seed at will?"

"How will you prevent it?" asked Mr. Dinneford.

"Not by standing afar off and leaving the enemy in undisputed
possession--not by sleeping while he sows and reaps and binds into
bundles for the fires, his harvests of human souls! We must be as
alert and wise and ready of hand as he; and God being our helper, we
can drive him from the field!"

"You have thought over this sad problem a great deal," said Mr.
Dinneford. "You have stood face to face with the enemy for years,
and know his strength and his resources. Have you any well-grounded
hope of ever dislodging him from this stronghold?"

"I have just said it, Mr. Dinneford. But until the churches and the
people come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, he cannot
be dislodged. I am standing here, sustained in my work by a small
band of earnest Christian men and women, like an almost barren rock
in the midst of a down-rushing river on whose turbulent surface
thousands are being swept to destruction. The few we are able to
rescue are as a drop in the bucket to the number who are lost. In
weakness and sorrow, almost in despair sometimes, we stand on our
rock, with the cry of lost souls mingling with the cry of fiends in
our ears, and wonder at the churches and the people, that they stand
aloof--nay, worse, turn from us coldly often--when we press the
claims of this worse than heathen people who are perishing at their
very doors.

"Sir," continued the missionary, warming on his theme, "I was in a
church last Sunday that cost its congregation over two hundred
thousand dollars. It was an anniversary occasion, and the
collections for the day were to be given to some foreign mission.
How eloquently the preacher pleaded for the heathen! What vivid
pictures of their moral and spiritual destitution he drew! How full
of pathos he was, even to tears! And the congregation responded in a
contribution of over three thousand dollars, to be sent somewhere,
and to be disbursed by somebody of whom not one in a hundred of the
contributors knew anything or took the trouble to inform themselves.
I felt sick and oppressed at such a waste of money and Christian
sympathy, when heathen more destitute and degraded than could be
found in any foreign land were dying at home in thousands every
year, unthought of and uncared for. I gave no amens to his
prayers--I could not. They would have stuck in my throat. I said to
myself, in bitterness and anger, 'How dare a watchman on the walls
of Zion point to an enemy afar off, of whose movements and power and
organization he knows but little, while the very gates of the city
are being stormed and its walls broken down?' But you must excuse
me, Mr. Dinneford. I lose my calmness sometimes when these things
crowd my thoughts too strongly. I am human like the rest, and weak,
and cannot stand in the midst of this terrible wickedness and
suffering year after year without being stirred by it to the very
inmost of my being. In my intense absorption I can see nothing else
sometimes."

He paused for a little while, and then said, in a quiet, business
way,

"In seeking a remedy for the condition of society found here, we
must let common sense and a knowledge of human nature go hand in
hand with Christian charity. To ignore any of these is to make
failure certain. If the whisky-and policy-shops were all closed, the
task would be easy. In a single month the transformation would be
marvelous. But we cannot hope for this, at least not for a long time
to come--not until politics and whisky are divorced, and not until
associations of bad men cease to be strong enough in our courts to
set law and justice at defiance. Our work, then, must be in the face
of these baleful influences."

"Is the evil of lottery-policies so great that you class it with the
curse of rum?" asked Mr. Dinneford.

"It is more concealed, but as all-pervading and almost as disastrous
in its effects. The policy-shops draw from the people, especially
the poor and ignorant, hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
There is no more chance of thrift for one who indulges in this sort
of gambling than there is for one who indulges in drink. The vice in
either case drags its subject down to want, and in most cases to
crime. I could point you to women virtuous a year ago, but who now
live abandoned lives; and they would tell you, if you would question
them, that their way downward was through the policy-shops. To get
the means of securing a hoped-for prize--of getting a hundred or two
hundred dollars for every single one risked, and so rising above
want or meeting some desperate exigency--virtue was sacrificed in an
evil moment."

"The whisky-shops brutalize, benumb and debase or madden with cruel
and murderous passions; the policy-shops, more seductive and
fascinating in their allurements, lead on to as deep a gulf of moral
ruin and hopeless depravity. I have seen the poor garments of a
dying child sold at a pawn-shop for a mere trifle by its infatuated
mother, and the money thrown away in this kind of gambling. Women
sell or pawn their clothing, often sending their little children to
dispose of these articles, while they remain half clad at home to
await the daily drawings and receive the prize they fondly hope to
obtain, but which rarely, if ever, comes.

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