Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 20, Number 26, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 21 December 1889 — Page 2

CHRISTMAS MORNING.

OWN the Rtalrs tbe maiden leaps. Down the polished, oaken stairs, Leaves tbe chamber where she sleeps,

Undisturbed by Christina* cares.

Down the stairs the maiden spring*.

Not

a

doubt beclouds her brow.

Joyously her young voice rings, "What has Santa brought me nowf*

Down the stairs the maiden creeps, Down the cold and barren stairs. Loaves tbe room In which she sleeps,

Full of childish. Christmas cares.

On the stairs the maiden stands, Fearing further down to go,

Trembling aro her Hps and hands, "Has Old Santa been below?" E. H. EATON

FOUND AT FIVE POINTS.

A CHRISTMAS STORY OF REAL LIFE, BY DAVID A. CUKTIS.

(Copyright, 1889, by American Press Association.]

O THE younger generation who know New York only as it has boon for twenty years past, growing better all the time despite the sneers of pessimists, it

is impossible to realise that only a few years farther back there was such a place in the center of the city as the Five Points, Nowadays it docs not take unusual courage for a moderately athletic man to walk alone in broad daylight through any public street in the city. Then it was not safe to do so, and even policemen rarely ventured alone after dark into the region known by the old name. Now the horse cars run through the center of it. Broad streets have boon cut through, and old buildings replaced with new. Factories and stores stand where were formerly tumble down rookeries. that lihd stood since the last century, and that were swarming with the most degraded jx*r and the most desperate criminals. "When the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, with a few friends as earnest antf determined as himself, lirst started a mission school within the borders of this valley of the shadow of crime, he was repeatedly warned Ivy the policc of the dangers he incurred, and it was some time after the work was started before be dared to take, even undor escort, in the middle of the day. the ladies who were anxious to aid by teaching in the school. It seems now like a story of a foreign land and another age. but I saw I In ISM or ISvM a party of a dozen ladies *»d gentlemen mobbed as they started homeward from the school one Sunday noon, hustled into the street sand assailed Uvilh volleys of obscene oaths and rotten Iregetables, and «o beset by a horde of [half drunken men and women that thoy reereglad to escape with who!# bones knd .ruined garments. And the police ^ieemed powerless to prevent or punish S iuct outrage, for this was no unusnal ilctntrrence. kl The region about what Is now Paradise ftquare. for the distance of a couple of pocks in every direction,

WJUI

honey-

ftotuhed wish bUnd alley* and secret pas* ,fcg.«s some of them running underground from one block to another. It

was a city of refuge for criminals, and, though they warred and preyed upon one another with entire lawlessness, they combined as a unit to protect any one among them from the processes of the law. Aside from the criminals the population consisted almost entirely, if not quite so. of the poverty stricken, for dire poverty and desperate crime then, as very often in history, went hand in hand.

The children, who were coaxed one by one into the mission schoolroom, were a crowd of little savages. Their ignorance was something amazing. It was not very uncommon to find among them boys and girls of 6 or 7 years old who did not know their full names, but who stoutly declared that "Sally" or "Bill" was the only name they had, and once or twice children were found Who actually did not know whether they had ever had fathers and mothers. Some had no homes. God only knows how they kept alive, for they slept in holes and corners, and fed like vagrant cats and dogs on whatever they could beg, find or steaL Impossible? Certainly it is. but it is true, nevertheless.

Among the wildest and shyest of all who came in was a boy who was the originator of at least one famous joke, though without intention. The teacher asked him his name and he said it was George. Being asked what his last name was he said that was his last name. •'But you must have another name," urged the teacher. "Is it George Smith, or George Johnson, or George What?" "Nope." he said, shortly. "'Taint George What, nor George Nothin', it's George. I hain't got no oder name."

But the joke came when the teacher, wishing to know whether he had learned anything at all, asked him, "Do you know who made you?"

At the same instant a fcov behind him stuck a pin into George. Such tricks were very common among the little savages, but it did not hurt any the less because it was not unusual. George jumped from his seat and shouted at the top of his voice "Goddemitey," •Well, that's right," said the teacher, who had not noticed the trick. "But don't shout so." The story was told afterwards, with enlargements, until it became a "chestnut" many yearr, ago.

It was along time—some months—before the teachers could learn much about the boy, for he was distrustful to the last degree. He kicked the Re^. Mr. Van Meter on the shins very violently, and twisted himself away like an eel when that gentleman, according to his habit, laid his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder. George thought he was going to be beaten, and took his usual precaution of eluding the preliminary hold. He had, it seemed, never known what it was to have anybody take hold of him in kindness, and was no more to be handled than a young bird or a squirrel. There was hardly anything, in fact, that he did know, as the good mission people reckoned knowledge. He knew how to swear fluently, as his accidentally correct answer as to his Maker indicated, but he did not know, and it was a long time before he could be made to understand, that swearing was wrong. In fact, he did not know what wrong was. So far as his experience of life went, everybody did precisely what seemed at the moment desirable to do, unless prevented by superior physical force, or by liodily fear. Stealing was to him a perfectly legitimate mode of acquiring anything that he might happen to want, and the only reason why it should be done secretly was that too much ostentation alout "the act was apt to provoke interference on the part of tho owner, who might and probably would want the article himself. Lying was simply the easiest way of concealing anything that he did not care to reveal, and tho only inkling he had of the objectionable character of the act was that anybody to whom he told a lie would beat him savagely if he did not lie cleverly enough to escape detection. As to the Sabbath, the first knowledge he had of the difference between one day and another came from his noticing that once in a while these people who had whole clothes on and who spoke gently came into tho neighborhood and opened the little mission room and tried to get the children to go into it.

George was among those who were coaxed in with much difficulty, but after going once he went regularly. The room was clean and pleasant, and as the autumn days came on there was a stove put in and a fire made it warm. That was a novelty to him—being allowed to sit undisturbed in a warm room. The story the good teacher obtained from him after winning his confidence was appalling by its very absence of detail: but it was only one of many like stories, and she could do very little to alleviate the misery that was all around her.

George lived with a woman whom he had been taught to call Aunt Sally. Whether

she

was his aunt, who his

a

OEORGE 4CXPKD FROM tOS SEAT,

mother or father was, whether they were alive, or whether. Indeed, he hat* ever had a mother or a father, were matters concerning which he absolutely knew nothing, even by hearsay. Aunt SiUly was negatively good to him, it appeared. She did not heal him, excepting wheat she was dnifik, which was,

GEORGE LIVED WITH AUNT SALLY,

"My wife." said Mr. Harrison, "is painfully, almost morbidly, anxious to do everything she can for poor children, especially for orphans. And about Christmas time she seems especially nervous about it. There is a story about it, of course, but it is too long and too

it, of course but it ,8 too long ana too

Before long the story was known. Mrs. Harrison's father was a wealthy manufacturer, whose two daughters were the children of different mothers, and developed as they grew to womanhood strikingly different characteristics. The elder one, Sarah, was the daughtei .of his first wife, who had deserted bim and her infant child to rim away with one of his clerks. He knew little of het story after her flight, but in the course of a year and a half he learned that she had been forsaken by her lover and had plunged into such a terrible course oi dissipation that death had been mercifully speedy in overtaking her. A year later he married the second time.

utter

spond

but

rERRB: HAUTE SAT EVENING A 1U

@HRI5TMA^ben

il\9e S

15 day tt\e i^Way aK

Again a daughter was bom to him, and as the two children grew up they were treated, as nearly as possible, exactly alike. Everything that money could buy, or affection dictate, was at' their command, and every Influence of refinement and education was exerted to fit them for a high place in society, but whether it was some taint in tbe blood, or a morbid brooding over a mother's can and shame, something led tbe elder daughter to turn away from good and seek evil from her early youth. The father sought In every way possible to see®

avert the misery which he foifesaw for the kidnapper was,

are i\$mg

Mp bon\. ,ouq 5 of $a&\es5

gaKourir\«of lappy, Ippy n\on\.

however, much of the time. She let him tifeuire closely for fear of shameful dissleep in her room, and when she had

and again, even in these days. Who Aunt"

She was a fact, and her interest, faint

cTSures.

food she gave him some. When she was jj jy painful way.' Among the gentledrinking heavily she did not botheT

^Lj

The climax came in a pecu-

lio visited at the

about eating, and George had learned, as mrriSOn, and it happened that, while the young as he was, to keep away from her, yXnger daughter was the one he sought and get his food for himself. How or inf marriage, both the girls fell in love when he got it, only God's ravens could hjm Sarah's passion was none have told. Such cases are not as common ]eS3 violent because of its lawless in New York as they were twenty-five or character and its utter hopelessness, and thirty years ago, but they are found now^wjien

house

she

marry

Sally was, or why she took any interest n10mefinally, after a terrible scene whatever in him, he knew nothing about,

nu

though it was, was a fact, and he had}father mother and sister.'.'" not come to the age of reasoning about I p0r three years nothing was heard of facts. He only recognized them. ——,, y_ ~u.

One day—and it chanced to be Christ- ^er ^a

mas eve—a lady and gentleman appeared in the little room as visitors. They had read of the mission work, the gentleman explained, and had come from their home in a nearby city to see it and to give what little liplp wao There was 'a story back of it, but this Btory was not told till afterward. Their name was not Harrison, so I may call them that.

was Mr.

iearned that her sister was to

the man she herself loved, she left

which

]ie

S

\vore vengeance, defied a

tli0ritv, and spurned the love of her

0

sorrow, mourned for her truly, and wo'uld at any time have received her back- with open arms, but no word came, he knew too well the futility of ng to track her or to lure her home

and tiviug

that

painful to tell now. This to Mr. Van Harrison that ber bov had been Mrs. Harrison that her boy had been stolen.

Meter, whose earnestness in bis chosen work made him rejoice in every new found friend, and whose enthusiasm was contagious.

himself and for her, but it was of no a sufficient start-to get on a train far avaiL A wayward youth was followed New York, and all effort! to trace her by

recklessness as the unhappy were

a &!$» portion of

then? were

At last one evening she pvoeootod

horSctf -atia aematiaea" &n interview, which was readily granted. It was behind closed doors, and no one but the father ever knew just what passed between them. He told his wife and daughter, however, the substance of it. Sarah had demanded a portion of his fortune, and had offered for it to hide herself from him forever, to take another name and lead her own life in her own way. "I told her," said the sorrowing man, "that she should always have a home with me, no matter when she came to claim it, and that I would never see her want for anything if she would come back to me, but that, if she persisted in the life she plainly said she proposed to live, I would do nothing for her before or after my death. And then she left me, saying it was forever, and cursing me—cursing me, her father, who even now would die for her if need be."

For a time after this nothing was heard of the prodigal. Then one Christmas eve she wreaked her hate, or vengeance, as she chose to call it, in an awful crime. Mrs. Harrison's only child, a boy not quite three years old, was in one of the public parks of the city, in charge of a nurse, when Sarah approached, and, by pretending a violent fancy for the child, threw the careless servant off her guard. Whether she bribed the girl, or really succeeded in tricking her, was never known, but it was two hours later when

frightened individual reported to

It would be impossible to describe the agony of the parents, and useless to detail all the circumstances of the search that was Jnade. The servant gave a sufficiently accurate description of the strange' woman, whom she had never seen before, for the family to know who

a CHRISTMAS.

bat

Sarah had had

ineffectual.

girl became a woman. She still made I even at that time kaw i»cd tbe particulars her fathers house her home, and would tbe story it would hare become as fa-

her time there

Had

the newspapers

mous as the Charlie Ross case, but the

prolonged absences which family shrank from the exposure that

the fatailv Btrove in everv wav to con- would hate been inettftaWe, and though and into which they dared not all the detective skill that could be pro-

--'k-Kizm -iii**:.

cured was employed, no publication was made in the press. Six years had passed from tbe day the boy was stolen when Mr. and Mrs. Harrison entered rhe little mission school in the Five Points. It was her own loss that had made her so peculiarly anxious to benefit poor children: but. though she was forever searching for her awn little one. both she and her husband had almost given up the hope of ever finding hi in. Whili" Mr. Harrison was talking with Mr. Van Meter, however, her eager ey6S were scanning the faces of all the boys in the room

Suddenly she MMd pale. "Oh, George!" she said: or gasped, rather, and without another word she flew rather than ran to the other end of the room Dropping on her knees in front of the poor little w*iiif who had drifted in so strangely, she seized him with both hands and looked eagerly, almost wildly, into his eyes. "What is your name?" she said to the startled child. 'George." he said. •'George what?" "I dunno," he answered, beginning to cry, for he had developed a sensitiveness about his lack of a proper compliment of names, and, moreover, he was half frightened by the now frantic woman's strange behavior.

Suddenly she tore open his jacket and the poor, ragged shirt he had on, and looking on his breast found the birthmark she sought. Then, quick as a flash —the whole thing happened so quickly that it was over before her husband reached her side—she gathered him into her arms, dirt, rags and all, and kissed him until it seemed as if she were trying to devour him.. Then, of course, she fainted.

It did not take long, though, for the other ladies in the room to bring her back to consciousness, and then such a scene as is rarely witnessed in this world put an end to anything like the usual order of exercises. Mr. Harrison was naturally a little slower than his wife to recognize the child, but only a little, and the bewildered boy was shortly embraced and kissed as few children in this world ever have been.

Such a prayer as Mr. Van Meter uttered, while the tears streamed down his cheeks and every person in the room dropped on his knees, has seldom been heard even from his eloquent lips, and in a few more minutes Mr. Harrison proposed to leave. It was obvious enough to him that he had to take his child home, but the good missionary was too well acquainted with the neighborhood to let him go unattended. "You would be mobbed before you had gone a block, if the people saw you carrying away the child," ho said, and it was presently arranged that a policeman should be summoned to escort the party up to Broadway, and a carriage should be taken there.

This was done as quickly as possible, for there was real danger of trouble if the news had been spread through the neighborhood before they got away. As it happened, however, all passed off quietly, and little George had seen such a Christmas as he had never dreamed of. "Aunt Sally" was found, and every effort was made to induce her to reform. She consented to go home, but whether she remained there or not I dq not know. .?,

Sensational as anything In fiction, is it not? Yet, excepting in some few details, it is a true story.

A Moneyless CliriKtinaa.

A Christmas without spending money I Midwinter holidays without dolls or picture books, tops, toy cannon or jumping jacks, colored candies or any "store presents", of any kind whatsoever! Christ's nativity celebrated without a Christmas tree or a Christmas carol or a gathering of the children—no evergreen shrub sparkling with glass, no Santa Claus and no pantomime. Could such a thing be in a Christian land?

Yea, verily. And it is not so very long ago that just such a Christmas was the rule in three-fourths of the United States—nay, it is the rule now in considerable sections where there are no large towns. So easily do we get accustomed to what is, and so naturally do children believe that the system they first noticed has always been the system, that most people do not know, and even the older ones are forgetting, that the Christmas of today is comparatively a new thing.

But what was the old time Christmas, and with what sights and sounds was it ushered in? Well, in the first place, it was—in all the rural regions at any rate —a time when no money could be "wasted." Children must have their fun without extra expense, save as each child had carefully saved his pennies. As to deliberately handing out a half dollar to a boy for Christmas—the average father would as soon have thought of giving him a deed for the farm. It was a season for rabbit hunting and sledding if there was snow enough, and for sliding if there was ice, for at good dinner and an extra piece of pie. and then, perhaps, for some home made present*.

A little later toys began to come in— say about 1850—In the central west, and such toys! Bloeky horses, square cornered cows, dogs made of clay and burnt black in the fire, and so forth aud no forth: a collection of them now would throw a group of children it!to convulsions of laughter. Be it remembered that less than fifty years ago Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis were the only cities renT known to the great mass of people living west of Ohio and north of Tennessee, and nine-tenths of the people under SO years of age had never seen a citv of 10.000 inhabitants. And in those days rural America celebrated Christmas literally without money and without (cash) price.

Plenty of people who do not like to be called old can recall the time when, in all the book stores of the rural regions, only two or three kinds of "story books" could be foundrknd as to holiday books and holiday goods as such—well, they could be found in the cities, probably, but sot one ahild in a hundred, taking, the country through, ever saw one of them. t&sta&M.

TP*

mm

FOOD FOR REFLECTION.

Yes, Mister Turkey-cock, own You iqake a gallant showAs tn fud tig you strut about

Majestically slow

|gpH

But would It, in your puffed out state. Give you too great a shock To know e'en swino look down onyoct

Vain Mister Turkev-eockT

Yet so it Is for by their eyes, Aud guttural parts of speech, I know they scold you for your pride,

Aud humbler thoughts would teach.

"You silly bird (they seem to say). Pray don't make such a clatter, You're kept so well that you may look

Well on a Christmas platter." —London Graphic.

Romance and Facts.

Swipcsy What did Santer Claus bring ver. Misery? Misery—Oh. I got a brand new warm overcoat, and a pair o' dandy pants, and a lot o' candy and s'ni'other little things I can't jest remember. Whaju git? •i Swipesy—Oh, I got a sealskin cap, an* some warm cloze as goes on under these, ali' fourteen dinner tickets, aud lots o' candy an' things. Now, Misery, straight —wha'd' yer git?

Misery (voice just a little shaky)—Say, Swipesy, I hunged up ray stock in' all right, and, do yer know, I never got a bloomin tiling!

Swipesy (also shaky as to voice)—Nor me, neither.—Smith, Gray & Co.'s Illustrated Monthly. ..

ITow Ho Would Slide.

Mrs. Smitem (to her son)—Which would you rather have for Christmas, Robbie, a pair of skates or a sled?

Robbie—Can't I have both? Mrs. Srnitem—No, I don't think Santa Claus would consent to that.

Robbie—Then give me the skates. Tommy Slimson's got a sled5 and I can lick him,

A Wl»« IJIrd.

"Why don't you eat, Mr. Gobbler?" "Because I don't wish to be eaten, my friend. Are you not aware that Christinas is coining'/'—Harper's Young People. V.- ..... ..

Krtj* Are IJuTtiaii, if Conrvw.

The boy who finds his stockings well filled on Chrfetma# morning doesn't care what the other fellow got,—.Judge,

Cl*ri«H*nit*'r{fi

J-

A STUDY IJ? BLACK AND WHITE.