The Old Homestead. Ann S. Stephens

He felt that no occupation could degrade an honorable man, and that gentlemanly habits, integrity and intelligence were certain to shine out with greater lustre when found in the humbler spheres of life.

      Chester possessed both education and refinement, but having no better means of support, accepted that which Providence presented, not with grumbling condescension, but with that grateful alacrity which was a sure proof that his duties would be faithfully performed; and that, though capable of higher things, he was not one to neglect the most humble, when they became duties.

      To a man like Chester, the solitude of his night watches was at times a luxury. When the great city lay slumbering around him, his mind found subjects of deep thought in itself and in surrounding things. Even on the night when we present him to the reader, the cold air, while it chilled his body, seemed only to invigorate his mind. Instead of brooding gloomily over his own position, certainly very inferior to what it had been, he had many a compassionate thought for those poorer than himself, without one envious feeling for the thousands and thousands who would have deemed his small income of ten dollars a week absolute poverty.

      The ward in which he was stationed exhibited in a striking degree the two great extremes of social life. Blocks of palatial buildings loomed imposingly along the broad streets. Each dwelling, with its spacious rooms and luxurious accommodations, was occupied by a single family, sometimes of not more than two or three persons. Here plate glass, silver mounted doors, and rich traceries in bronze and iron, gave brilliant evidence of wealth; while many small gardens thrown together, rich with shrubbery and vines in their season of verdure, threw a fresh glow of nature around the rich man's dwelling. Resources of enjoyment were around him on every hand. Each passing cloud seemed to turn its silver lining upon these dwellings, as it rolled across the heavens.

      You had but to turn a corner, and lo! the very earth seemed vital and teeming with human beings. Poor men and the children of poor men, disputed possession of every brick upon the sidewalks. Every hole in those dilapidated buildings swarmed with a family; every corner of the leaky garrets and damp cellars was full of poverty-stricken life. Here were no green trees, no leaf-clad vines climbing upon the walls; empty casks, old brooms, and battered wash-tubs littered the back yards, which the sweet fresh grass should have carpeted. Ash pans and tubs of kitchen offal choked up the areas. The very light, as it struggled through those dingy windows, seemed pinched and smoky.

      All this contrast of poverty and wealth lay in the policeman's beat. Now he was with the rich, almost warmed by the light that came like a flood of wine through some tall window muffled in crimson damask. The smooth pavements under his feet glowed with brilliant gas-light. The next moment, and a few smoky street lamps failed to reveal the broken flagging on which he trod. Now and then the gleam of a coarse tallow candle swaling gloomily away by some sick bed, threw its murky light across his path. Still, but for the cold moonlight, Chester would have found much difficulty in making his rounds in the poor man's district. Yet here he remained longest; here his step always grew heavy and his brow thoughtful. Surrounded by suffering, shut out from his eyes only by those irregular walls, and clouded, as it were, with the slumbering sorrow around him, this dark place always cast him into painful thought. That cold night he was more than usually affected by the suffering which he knew was close to him, and only invisible to the eye.

      The night before, he had entered one of those dismal houses and had taken from thence a woman who, squalid and degraded as she was, had evidently once been in the higher walks of life. As he passed her dwelling, the remembrance of this woman sent a thrill of mingled pity and disgust through his heart. The miserable destitution of her home, the glimpses of refinement that broke through her outbursts of passion, the state of revolting intoxication in which she was plunged—all arose vividly to his mind. He paused before the house with a feeling of vague interest. The night before, a scene of perfect riot greeted him as he approached the door. Now the inmates seemed numbed, silent and torpid with cold.

      As Chester stood gazing on the house, he saw that the door was open, and fancied that some object was moving in the hall. It seemed at first like a lame animal creeping down the steps. As it came forth into the moonlight, Chester saw that it was a child with a singular, crouching appearance, muffled in an old red cloak that had belonged to some grown person. With a slow and painful effort the child dragged itself along the pavement, its face bent down, and stooping, as if it had some burden to conceal. The old cloak brushed Chester's garments, yet the child seemed quite unconscious of his presence, but moved on, breathing hard and shuddering with the cold, till he could hear her teeth knock together. Chester did not speak, but softly followed the child.

      The Mayor of New York at that time lived within Chester's beat, and toward his dwelling the little wanderer bent her way. As she drew near the steps, the child lifted her face for the first time, and reaching forth a little wan hand, held herself up by the railing. She was not seeking that particular house, but there her strength gave way, and she clung to the cold iron, faint and trembling, with her eyes lifted wildly towards the drawing-room windows.

      The plate glass was all in a blaze from a chandelier that hung within, and the genial glow fell upon that little frost-bitten face, lighting it up with intense lustre. The face was not beautiful—those features were too pale—the eyes large and hollow, while black lashes of unusual length gave them a wild depth of color that was absolutely fearful. Still there was something in the expression of those wan features indescribably touching—a look of meek suffering and of moral strength unnatural in its development. It was the face of a child, suffering, feeble, with the expression of a holy spirit breaking through, holy but tortured.

      The child clung to the railing, waving to and fro, but holding on with a desperate grasp. She seemed struggling to lift herself to an upright position, but without sufficient strength. Chester advanced a step to help her, but drew back, for, without perceiving him, she was creeping feebly up the steps, with her face shrouded in darkness again. She reached the bell with difficulty, and drew the silver knob.

      Scarcely had the child taken her hand from the cold metal, when the shadow of a man crossed the drawing-room window, and his measured step sounded along the oilcloth in the hall. The door was unfastened, and the Mayor himself stood in the opening. The child lifted her eyes, and saw standing before, or rather above her, a tall man with light hair turning grey, and a cast of features remarkable only for an absence of all generous expression. He fixed his cold eyes on the little wanderer with a look that chilled her worse than the frost. As he prepared to speak, she could see the corners of his mouth curve haughtily downward, and when his voice fell upon her ear, though not particularly loud, it was cold and repelling.

      "Well, what are you doing here? What do you want?" said the great man, keeping his eyes immovably on the shivering child, enraged at himself for having opened the door for a miserable beggar like that.

      He was in the habit of extending these little condescensions to the voters of his ward; it had a touch of republicanism in it that looked well; but from that wretched little thing what was to be gained? Still the child might have a father, and that father might be a citizen, one of the sovereign people, possessed of that inestimable privilege—a vote. So the Mayor was cautious, as usual, about exhibiting any positive traces of the ill-humor that possessed him. He had not groped and grovelled his way to the Mayoralty, without knowing how and when to exhibit the evil feelings of his heart. Those that were not evil he very prudently left to themselves, knowing that they could never obtain strength enough in his barren nature to become in the slightest degree troublesome.

      Had kindly feelings still lived in his bosom, they must have been aroused by the sweet, humble voice that answered him.

      "They have turned me out of doors. I am hungry, sir. I am very cold."

      "Turned you out of doors! Where is your father? Can't he take care of you?"

      "I have no father—he is dead."

      No father, no vote! The little beggar had not the most indirect claim for sympathy or forbearance from the Mayor of New York. He could afford to be angry with her; nay, better, to seem angry also, and that was an uncommon luxury with him.

      "Well, why didn't you go to the basement?"

      "It was dark there—and through