BED-TIME.
“Just half an hour; only just half an hour more, mother.”
“Not one minute, Tommy—you have been saying ‘just half an hour more,’ these two hours; I think you would keep on saying so till daybreak, if I would let you set up all night; little boys should go to bed early, that they may get up early.”
“I wish there was no such thing as bed,” muttered Tommy, as he picked up his playthings, and followed his mother up-stairs.
“I am sorry to hear you say that, my boy; bring me your night-gown, and while I am undressing you, I will tell you a little story.
“The other night I was lying in my bed awake; it was between eleven and twelve o’clock; it was a damp, chilly night, but there are always plenty of people about the New York streets, long after twelve o’clock. I lay there listening to a hand-organ beneath my window;I don’t like hand-organs much, but this was a very good one, and the tunes were sweet, mournful tunes, such as I like best to listen to. The organist played as long as he could get any pennies, and then strapping his organ across his back trudged off. Lulled by the sweet music, I was just falling asleep, when I heard a child’s scream beneath the window—then another—then another; then the words ‘Oh—don’t! oh—don’t! let me go—oh, dear—oh, dear!’ What could a little child be doing out in the street at that time of night? and who could be hurting it? I flew to the window and opened it. There was a great crowd beneath the window, for the little girl had screamed so loud that every body had run, as I did, to know what was the matter. At first I could not make out what it all meant; it seemed so strange that not one of all those people who were looking on, should take the little girl away from that great tall man, who was holding her so tight, while she still kept on screaming, ‘Oh, don’t! oh, let me go!’
“Not only did they not take hold of him, but they moved on one side to let him go off with the little girl, who was throwing herself about in his arms, as if she were wild with fear. Presently the man who had the child, passed under a bright gas-light, and as he did soI saw astarglitter upon his broad breast. A policeman! that was why nobody meddled with him then; but what naughty thing could a little girl like that have done, that she must be carried off by a policeman at twelve o’clock at night? Surely—surely—so young a child as that could not have done any thing soverybad.
“But the policeman carried her off, still shrieking, and as her voice died away in the distance, I could still hear ‘Oh don’t! oh let me go!’ and then the crowd scattered, and every body went home; and I went back to bed, and dreamed that the little girl was going to be hung, and that I saved her. Not till the next morning, could I find out what was the cause of the trouble. The little girl’s name was Ann Mahon. Her father and mother were Irish, and lived in a cellar, with a great many people, black and white, who were all very bad and idle. Little Ann had never lived in any other way than this; she was born in a cellar; and had been beaten and starved and abused, till she was not more than half the size of children of her own age. Her father and mother were both drunkards; they were too idle to work for a living, so they sent poor little Ann out into the streets at nine o’clock at night, to beg money; thinking that people would pity a little girl so much for being all alone at that time of night, that they would certainlygive her something. But to make sure of her getting it, they told little Ann, when they pinned the thin ragged dirty shawl over her little brown head, that if she sat down on the steps anywhere, and went to sleep, or did not bring some money when she came back, they would whip her, till she was almost dead. So the poor little thing went out, and pattered up and down the cold pavements, with her bare, weary feet, hour after hour, never daring to sit down a moment to rest herself, running up to the gentlemen who were hurrying home, with ‘A penny please sir? a penny please sir?’ Now, a lady would come along, a bright beautiful lady, with a gay cloak, just from the theater or opera, leaning on a gentleman’s arm, her eyes flashing like the diamonds in her bosom; she would hear little Ann’s ‘A penny please,’ as she stepped into her carriage, and gathering up her beautiful clothes in her snowy fingers, lest Ann should soil them, would turn away and pass on, and the gentleman with her, would say, ‘What a pest these beggars are.’ Sometimes some gentlemen who had little girls at home like Ann, would put their hands in their pockets, and give her a penny, and say kindly, ‘Run home, my dear, out of the street,’ but the poor child did not dare to go, till she had more pennies, and so she wandered on.
‘By-and-by little Ann heard the organ under my window; she liked the music, it sounded like kind words to her, and poor Ann had heard so few of those, in her little lifetime; so she drew closer to the crowd to listen still saying, in a low voice, ‘Penny please, penny please,’ to the people who stood there; for she did not dare to stop saying it on account of what her mother had told her, and because it was getting late, and she had as yet only two pennies.
“Presently little Ann felt a heavy hand on her shoulder; she started, and turned round—there was a tall policeman! Little Ann screamed; she knew well enough what a policeman was—poor little girl, she had seen the bad people among whom she was forced to live, hide away from them, many a time; and she had seen them, when the policeman caught them, struggle, and kick, and scream, to keep from being carried to prison; no wonder that little Ann screamed out, ‘Oh, don’t—let me go—oh, don’t!’ as the policeman lifted her up in his arms, just as he would a feather, to carry her off, as she thought, to jail.
“But that was not what the policeman was going to do; he was only going to take her to the watch-house, and keep her safely till morning, and then have her show him where her parents (who sent the poor thingout nights) lived; that he could take them and have them punished for doing it; that was what the policeman was going to do with little Ann; but the poor child did not know that, nor if she had, would it have comforted her any to have been told that her father and mother were to be sent to jail, and she to the almshouse; for bad as they were, they were all she had to care for; and so the poor little friendless thing clung to them. No, Ann did not know where she was going or what for, and the policeman being used to seeing misery, did not take any trouble to explain, or to quiet her, as he should have done; so when poor Ann had screamed till she was all tired out, she fell asleep in the dreary watch-house, with the policemen.
“What do you think that little girl would have given, Tommy, for a nice safe home like this; a clean warm little bed, and a kind mother to undress her every night, and put her into it? Think of that, my boy, when you scowl, and pout, and wish that ‘there never was such a thing as a bed.’”