The Old Homestead Part 29

"Go," she said, in a more kindly tone than she had hitherto used when addressing the gentle girl, "go and bring that little curly-headed doll in, if she wants to kiss her mother again to-night--I suppose she would like to see her fast asleep, as she is now!"

Mary arose, dissatisfied, she knew not why, with the tone of cajoling kindness in which she had been addressed. But Mrs. Chester slept, and during the next ten minutes would not require her attendance. Isabel had been drooping like a strange bird, since she came to the Alms House, and Mary knew that it would cheer her to see her poor mother in that calm sleep. Still the child went forth with unaccountable reluctance. The moment she was out of sight, that wretched woman pounced like a bird of prey upon those tin-cups, and poured three-fourths of their contents into a dark earthern pitcher that she carried under her ap.r.o.n. Then she hastily filled the cups with water, leaving just enough of the original contents to color the whole.

The next and next patient was robbed in like manner; then with her black pitcher reeking with the life she had plundered from those poor creatures, the wretch went out, comparing with a chuckle her horrid spoil, with the jar half-full of brandy, which the younger nurse had gathered from her end of the ward.

"Hurry, hurry, or we shan't get through before the young c.o.c.katrice comes back to catch us at work! She has got the eye of a hawk, I can tell you," cried the woman, emptying her pitcher into the jar, which was carried away to a safe corner by her accomplice.

"Come, bring the water and fill up after me. There is twenty beds left yet. I gave the right sort of symptoms to the doctor, and he left the kind of medicine that we like best for almost the whole lot."

The young woman followed her ruthless leader into the ward, carrying the water-pitcher in her unsteady hand, for she had not reached the hardened audacity of her preceptress, and there was something in the scene to make even a debased nature tremble.

"Don't, don't take more than half; they will die before morning if we do!" she whispered, as the eyes of a patient, full of heart-rending reproach, was turned upon their work. "See, this one is so feeble."

"Poh, a little brandy, more or less, what does it signify?" cried Mrs.

Fuller.

"The wine, then leave the wine. I did not take a drop!"

"More fool, you!"

"Hush!" said the young woman, "I hear her coming. Leave the rest; we shall be found out."

"Take this and give me the water. Out of the way, now, and see that you don't drink any till I come!"

The young woman hurried out of the room, meeting Mary Fuller and little Isabel in the pa.s.sage.

"They want water. I am going for more water. It is wonderful how they keep us running night and day!" she said, hoping to draw off their attention with a gratuitous falsehood.

Neither of the little girls answered, but pa.s.sed gently into the ward.

Mrs. Fuller was by a cot near the door, holding her water-pitcher to the lips of a patient; nothing could appear more kind than her demeanor. "Ah, here you are," she said, nodding to the children, "she is asleep yet! Don't make any more noise than you can help."

Isabel went up to her mother's cot, and kneeling by it looked earnestly upon the pale and languid features.

"_Is_ she better?--see how white she is, how her eyes are sunken. She hardly breathes at all. Oh, Mary, _is_ she better?"

"Yes, the Doctor says so--and she does not mutter to herself or seem so restless as she did. I think, Isabel that she _is_ better!"

The tears gushed into Isabel's eyes. She bent down and softly kissed the pale hand of her mother. Mrs. Chester started and opened her eyes; they fell upon her child, and instantly that full gaze was blended with tears.

"Isabel, my child." The words were very, very faint, but oh, how sweetly they fell upon those young hearts.

"She knows me--oh, Mary, she knows me!" cried the child, and her beautiful face grew radiant amid the tears that covered it, like a flower struck with sunshine when the dew is heaviest on its petals.

"Mamma, oh, my own mamma, this is Mary, our Mary Fuller!"

The sick woman turned her eyes toward her little nurse. She tried to lift her hand, but it only shook on the checked quilt.

"Mary, my good, good Mary!"

Mary knelt down softly by her friend, and bowing her head wept in sweet and grateful joy.

"Where am I? Where have I been?" asked the invalid, still more faintly.

"You are with us, this is our home!" answered Mary, almost catching her breath, for she dared not tell the poor lady where she really was.

Mrs. Chester was now quite exhausted, her eyes closed, and she scarcely breathed. Mary started up and poured out a spoonful of what she supposed to be wine.

"Every ten minutes--every ten minutes we must give her this, with the beef tea when she can take it."

"Let me--oh, let me give it to her this one time," pleaded Isabel.

Mary resigned the pewter spoon with a faint smile, and Isabel held the colored water to her mother's pale lips. Then Mrs. Chester slept again while the two girls sat watching her with their hopeful eyes. Once every ten minutes these little creatures would steal up to the pillow and pour the mockery of strength between those white and parted lips, hoping each time that she would open her eyes and speak to them again--but no, she slept on and each moment her breath grew fainter.

While the two girls sat with their arms interlinked watching that beloved face, the nurses stole out from the ward, and crept, each with an earthen pitcher in her hand, down the Hospital stairs, and out into the open grounds.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MIDNIGHT REVEL--MARY AND HER MOTHER.

Time stole into eternity, And they stood wondering by, Breathless, and oh, how silently To watch the lov'd one die.

Between that portion of Bellevue occupied as an hospital and the main building lay several enclosures spa.r.s.ely cultivated with flowers, but altogether possessing a barren and dismal aspect. Scattered through these enclosures were offices and shanties, some occupied by favored paupers, and others used as work-shops and for the culinary purposes of the Hospitals.

In one of these shanties a shocking scene presented itself that night.

The signal for a secret carouse had been given, and the orderlies and nurses crept stealthily from their posts by the sick, and came through the midnight darkness towards the shanty. Some came slowly and at once; while others stole like gaunt wild beasts, by the high wall that sweeps parallel with the western front of the main Hospital, sheltering themselves beneath the willow trees and the deep shadow cast by the building, while with their hands they groped eagerly along the wall. They found, after some trouble, the cords for which they were seeking, each with a piece of iron at the end, that had been cast over the wall by an accomplice outside the gate. Three of these cords lay tightened across the wall, their iron ballast sunk into the turf, and with breathless haste they were drawn over each with a bottle at the end, which, as it reached the top of the wall, fell into the foul hands grasping at it.

One bottle was broken in the fall, for the man stationed to receive it was very old, and he could not see like the others. When the vessel was dashed against the stones bespattering the aged drunkard with its contents, he fell upon the gra.s.s wringing his hands and bemoaning his hard fate. The others met his grief with muttered curses, and one of them spurned the grovelling creature with his foot, showering fierce reproaches upon his carelessness.

They drove this miserable being back to his lair in the shanties, but he crawled abjectly toward them, begging to join the carouse notwithstanding his great misfortune. They would still have rejected him, but the old man had learned craft with his age, and when pleading was of no avail, betook himself to threats, which proved more effectual than his tears. Fearing that he might expose them in the morning, they consented that the old man should have a portion of their spoils, and he followed them through the darkness like a lame old hound that takes his food greedily, though beaten by the hand that gives it.

A cooking-stove stood in the shanty, with a pine table and some stools. Upon the stove was a metal lamp burning dimly and emitting a cloud of smoke. One end of the table held a tin candlestick, where a meagre tallow-candle swaled away in the socket, and the table was littered with fragments of food in little round pans. An iron spoon or two, with three or four tin cups, lay amid this confusion. Around this table hovered half a dozen women nearly intoxicated with brandy supplied by the nurses, from number ten.

In this state was the shanty when the two orderlies came in, hugging the great black bottles to their bosoms, followed by the old pauper, who still muttered discontentedly at his loss.

Then began the carouse in earnest! The tin cups were filled again and again--the earthen pitchers circulated from lip to lip--like wild animals, they devoured the fragments stolen from the convalescent patients, and swallowed the stimulants, of which they had plundered the dying not a stone's throw off; pipes and tobacco were produced, the women smoking fiercely like the men; while ribald jests and muttered curses rose through the foul smoke.

And these were the persons provided by a law of New York City for the sick poor--these fierce women, reeling to and fro like fiends amid the smoke, making sport of pain, joking about coffins--laughing with drunken glee over the death throes they had witnessed. These were the nurses a great and rich city gave to its poor--merciful economy--sweet, beautiful humanity!

And there sat those gentle children in the fever wards so wickedly deserted. From time to time Isabel parted the violet lips of her poor mother, and forced through them the liquid fraud that was so cruelly deceiving them. Mary went from bed to bed administering to the dying poor, as she had done the night before; but with a heavy heart, for all that she gave them imparted no strength. She could see the helpless creatures droop and sink from minute to minute; one or two were benefited, but the rest only seemed worse from all her tending.

Mary was giving a draught of water to a young woman, who in her delirium clamored constantly for drink, when Isabel stole softly to her side. The child was very pale, and her large eyes dilated with terror. She took hold of Mary's dress and pulled it.

"Mary, oh, Mary, she did not swallow the last. Come, come and help me!"

Mary sat down the water pitcher and went to Mrs. Chester. She bent down close to the motionless face, listening. You could see her cheek grow pale in the dim light, as she held her own breath, hoping to catch one flutter from those white and parted lips. She lifted her head at last, and turned her mournful eyes on Isabel.