Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Mr. Haddock said he did not drink intoxicating liquors, and wished heartily they would follow his "example." Mr. Savage took a sling on principle. He thought it wrong to decline an invitation from one man, and accept from another -- it looked selfish and partial. Squire Ben seldom drank any thing but ale, (and little of that,) but "town-business" always "wore on him," and his education had led him to put confidence in invigorating beverages at such times; they spurred up the system to its full energy, and, in his case, always seemed to possess the exact virtues of a tonic.

The selectmen adjourned their session, and the paupers of Crampton remained at Bunce's.

CHAPTER VII.
The Haddocks.

AN hour had not passed after Harnden's departure, before a gentleman on horseback rode up to the poorhouse, and pulling up as he saw some of the people in the yard, exclaimed, "Good morning all, good morning! It's a fine cold air to-day."

"It's ruther too cold for a Carolina nigger like Bill, there," responded a gruff old fellow in a tattered drab coat and a slouching apology for a hat.

"Bill don't care fur dat two levies. When I was in de West Indies wid massa Col. Rathburn, the weather make no diff'rence wid Bill; hot and cold all like, so guess Bill can stand a little snap like a dis October grit, without much a grumble."

"Bill's pluck," screamed a wasted hag on the chips, whose garments were sadly torn and soiled, and whose face was wrinkled and disfigured. "Bill's pluck!" screamed she, "he's none of your craven, chicken-blooded scamps like Dan Barnes."

"Mind your lying tongue, Mag, or I'll heave at you!" retorted the gruff old fellow who first spoke, balancing a brick in his hand.

"Hold up! hold up, my good people," said the stranger, "no cause of quarrel here -- why get up one? Better be on good terms."

"Dan wants his grog," shouted the hag, and just then the heavy brick went whizzing over her head, and tore off the bark of a tree, which, luckily for Mag, it encountered instead of her form. Before he could repeat it, she leaped to her feet, and rushed behind the house. The stranger dismounted, determined to stop the affray.

"This won't do, Dan; we shan't allow it, you know better," said he, "than to flare up in this manner; you might have killed her with that brick."

"Wish to --- I had," grumbled he, "she'd gone then with Joe to 'tother world."

"Joe!" said the stranger, in an inquiring and surprised way.

"Yes, old Joe Harnden."

"What of him? What's he doing?"

"They're laying him out, now -- you knew Joe was dead and gone?"

The stranger turned away with a surprised and sorrowful expression towards the house. Directly he encountered a slovenly looking boy, grown out of his pants very nearly, with no hat on his head, and his long hair dangling uncombed over his neck and ears. The boy made a low bow and stopped.

"It's too late, sir, Joe's gone too," said he.

"Jims," said Mr. Haddock, for it was he, "why did you not run over and inform me of his sickness?"

"I was going tur; but, you see, the Cap'n sent me to git the doctor, and Joe died so thunderin' quick there warn't no time; it's the way, you know, with the poor folks!"

Mr. Haddock groaned as he stood over the body of the departed one, meditating on that life of sorrow, sin, and disappointment, now ended in the society and under the roof of paupers. And he said to his wife on his return home, "Once, Joe Harnden would have knocked a man down who told him he would die in any other condition than that of those who deem themselves worthy of the best lots in Greenwood or Mount Auburn. See, in his case, the work of intemperance and 'fast living.' It is a terrible life they pass, too, in the poor-house; it is sad and wretched in the extreme -- still, we must not give them up."

"Oh, no," said she; "let us hope to benefit them in some form, and especially that the public mind will, by-and-bye, be aroused to reform these places, and give the poor a more proper care. I do think there will yet be a change in Crampton."

As for the paupers, they must be classed as among the rubbish of this world's humanity. They have no property; few relations and friends, have feeble constitutions and poor health, very little ambition, less calculation; the lines of their faces show no beauty, nor their forms symmetry or grace. They look out of ugly eyes, they breathe a hateful atmosphere, are ragged, uncouth, and are often very vicious and sinful. Well, there they are. You must look at them. See what a piece of brother humanity can come to. Reflect that these disagreeable beings are in this degeneracy by reason, mainly, of outside pressure. Originally, they had a good start; but they fell behind in the life-race, and finally pitched headlong into the great slough of Poverty. Here they are -- so poor, so poverty-stricken, that they are ashamed of themselves; cringing, ragged, fearful creatures. But they owe it to poverty that they are so despicable now. They might retain the same souls; if their bodies were better clothed, they would pass for better stuff. It seems to be an outside pressure, in more senses than one, that they go into the pauper class. And what a class! Very well, there they are. Now consider them actually despised, and as far as possible, forgotten and neglected. We want the line drawn fairly between them and the rich, and to show them most grudgingly supported, and no concealment of the grudge. Now if we can't easily love that which is in itself no longer lovely and loveable, we may truly pity and befriend it. And this is duty, especially if applied to man. The suffering and the poor we ought to relieve, and so put in our relief that it will not only gladden, but elevate the subjects of it. If we do this, we show that we work for the poor out of real principle, from true pity, not to say love.