HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times, 1892-12-15, Page 4CHERRITEN'S CRICK.
A. CHRISTMAS STORY.
Cherriten and I were boys together
in a big establishment where the wages
were quite as large as our services de-
served. On this sebject Cherriten dis-
agreed with me, and he made up his
/deficiencies by borrowing to. such an
extent that he . found it necessary to
disappear just after he received his
pay one Saturday afternoon. As I
was his creditor to the extent of eight
cents, which was a large sum of money
in those days, 1 declined to recognize
him next we met, and our relations
remained strained for two or three
years afterwards, he having made sev-
eral involuntary visits to the jail for
reasons which police justices thought
sufficient. Both of us enlisted when
the civil war broke out, and although
I escaped being in the same regiment
with him, I chanced to'hear from time
to time that he was bravely living up
to his old reputation and making oe-
easional business for courts martial.
Our ways diverged after this, and for
years I had forgotten Cherriten's ex-
istence, but one day when I chanced
to give my seat in a street car to a lady
I was thanked in a voice which I rec-
ognized as that of Cherriten.
" You needn't he afraid to .speak to
story you'd like to tell your wife, if
I'm not greatly mistaken. 'Tisn't
every duy that you meet men that's
gone through whatl have—and got as
much good out of it. Can't you come
along with us and see how I live —how
she: lives, too 1 Maybe you may run
against some of the other boys that we
used towork with -never know who
you'll meet iiext in a big city like this
and I'd like you to pass the word along
that Cherriten isn't what he used to be
and that lie couldn't go back if he tried.
We get out the next street but one."
Then he bent over the girl and said,
"Chick, I'm trying to coax Jr. Bloggs
to come in afew minutes. Can't you
help me?"
The young woman smiled and added
her invitation to Cherriten's. As I
had half an hour to spare before my
WA dinner time I assented and with-
in ten minutes was seated in as cosey
a room as I had ever seen anywhere,
and Cherriten and I were beginning to
burn some very good cigars.
" Well," said nay host, proceeding at
once to business, "I needn't, go over
old times very much. I was a pretty
tougn lot when you knew me, and I
got about ten times worse each year
"noNn' Ter COT SENSE To
nee, Mr. Bloggs," said he, as our recog-
nition
econnition became mutual. " I'zei not the
sort of a fellow I used to be." Then
he whispered, "That's my chick—she
that you gave your seat to."
I was not sure what " chick" might
mean in the vocabulary of the claw to
whieli Cherriten had belonged when I
knew him, but I venturee to say, sy
way of congratulation, that aay mai
with so pretty a wife ought to think
himself remarkably lucky.
"Wife? No more my wife thee she.
is yours. She's my chick—nay child.
I'm her dad—the only one she ever
knew, though there's no relation be-
tween. us. Let me introduce you."
Then, before I could suggest that a
crowded horse car was scarcely the
place to introduce any one to a young
woman, he leaned forward and said:—
" Chick, this is Mr. Bloggs, that
used to work in the same plaeo with
ine when I was a boy, and beginning
to he a reguler tough, like I've told
yea §p often,"
A face that was really charming
turned toward me as I raised my hat,
and a well modulated voice said :—
" Papa never loses an opportunity to
tell me that he used to be dreadfully
bad when he was young. It really
seems to gave him pleasure to give him-
self a bad character."
"I do it so as to heep her in mind
pf the great lot of good she leas done
-"''ane," Cherriten explained, as both of
us resumed, erect positions, " She's
been the making of me. She puts it
the other way—she hasn't cost me any-
thing but money, and goodness knows
that's easy enough to get if a man is
willing to work, but she has had to
spend enough patience on me to set
old Job up in business.. Honest,' now,
Mr. Bloggs—I'm not fishing for cons-
plianents, but from what you can see
offhand don't I seem something of an
improvement on what I used to be as
you remember me 1"
I was glad to answer in the affirm-
ative. Cherriten never could have been
a beauty ; he was born of s; ery bad
stock, according to his early accounts
of himself, avid he had large features
under e small brow, but the old dom-
inant expression of lawlessness had ere
tirely departed and there was a, health-
ful glow in his eyes and cheeks which
told of good physical habits. He was
as well dressed as any man in .the car,
and he wore good clothing with the air
of a man accustomed to that sort of
thing ; he was neatly gloved even, and
carried a stick without seeming embar-
rassed by 'it. • .
"She did it all," he said. He could
see that I was looking him aver. " I
wish you'd lot me come to see , you,
whereveryour place of business'is, and
tell you the whole story. I'n' sure
,,,you'd enjoy hearing it.; Besides, it's a
whenever I tried to. drop her she woke knew of where they sold coffee and
up and hung tighter, What .do you ' cakes and milk and that sort of a thing,
suppose happened at last 1 Why, she' and I gave Chick a good feed before I
got ro tiredthat she slept soundly, and: ate anything myself. The woman that
her arms unloosed and I put her down! ran the place was a rough creature,
on a seat, making a sort of pillow 'that could outswear a tramp if he made
with the ragged coat I had, and then her mad—I'd heard her do it, but she
--I felt lonesome ! Yes, sir ! I'd got' had a heart like other folks, and she
so used to the feeling of that child's' told nee 'twos a shame I didn't take
arms around my neck that I couldn't, better care of my child. My child 1
wait for her to wake up again. I•The mere mention of it made me feel
couldn't understand it, so 1 swore about .-,well, as I'd never felt before. I told
it, and when that didn't do any good Ther that the mother was dead and the
went to thinking about it, I never;youngster• had run down some in rep -
had any brothers or sisters, and as to,pearance, but if I could get it started
my father and mother—well, I sup -:right I thought I could keep it so
pose they didn't find me very interest- The upshot of it was that she told eie
ing when I was a young one. Any -,.where I could get it some cheap new
how I sat there awake in the ear all clothes with what money was left from
night long, waiting for the child to:what I'd begged at the ferry, and she'd
waken, and every once in a while I'degiye it a cleaning up for me in the
feel of its arms to see what there was little kitchen behind the shops as soon
about them that—oh, I was puzzled as 1 got back. She evas as good as her
enough to be clean daft, {word. .After it was over Chick put
"When it did awake, though, I was out her arms again for me to take her,
woese off. .Flow it did howl l It hug-' but, do you know, I was ashamed to 1
ged me just the seine as before, but It seemed insulting and shameful for
once in a while it would stop long me to touch a sweet, clean, innocent
enough to lookup at ine as if I'd been. little thing like that, and I told the
real unkind to it, At last a ratan,woman just how 1 felt.
whose wife put him up to it,came over1 " `Good,' she said, you'll be a man
to me and said 1yet, if you stick to that! Then she
"'Don't you got sense to know dab, asked me how muck money I had and
shild hungry 1' old me where 1 could buy a clean cot=
"No, 1 hadn't, and when it cameto ton jumper for afew dimes that would
me I wasn't muck better off, for I make hie look a good deal decenter,
!hadn't anything to feed it with, and I and then she hinted that if I'd leave
didn't know whether it, ever had been the child with her a while and take a
fed except in the first way. And still swim on the sly off the docks some -
the child kept on howling and I kept where I might be allowed in the free
on being sorry for it. Queer, wasn't baths afterward and take a genuine
it? I'd heard thousands of young ones' wash. I took her advice, but every -
cry in my time -1'd teased dozens of thing seemed like a dream. I'd never
them just to make them cry—yet this lead baths or clean clothes in my life I think that trick of snaking school ter look so unlike. It's positively
one's voice tore my heart all to pieces, except the few times I'd been sent to child ren sit in class rooms dive hours a funny that we haven't a single feature
and just as I was beginning to find the island. The woman at the coffee day and then study at home two or in common. I've been .noticing it a
out that I had such a thing as a heart' and cake shop told me where I could three boors afterward is rank brutal- great deal since 1 began to study dra*-
in me. Iget decent lodgings for Chick and me ity, but in the old times it was great ing.'
" At last I stood up in the car, feel-: fortwenty-five cents a night,and where fun to ine to get her lessons with her "I thought a moment, and then -1
ing real desperate, and I shouted out z 1 could have Chick taken care of far and then recite to her, while she look don't think I would have done it if I
---
!ten cents aday while I was off at ed as grave as a cage full of owls, and hadn't been sick and weekend babyish
"'Say! Ain't there a mother to' work. gave nae reproofs, and corrections, and --I told. her the story of aur first meet-
ing and what happened afterward. It
broke her up ; it broke nee up too, but it
brought her heart out a, hundred times
more than it had been, though she al•
ways bad been all that was loving.
She looked at ine as T never had seen
her look before at any one, except
when she was saying her prayers.
From that hour she was a woman --a
woman before leer time, though all her
life bad been leading up to it. She
lead long times of sitting at my feet
and crying- -not unhappily, for she
said it comforted her a great deal to
think bow good. Pd been to her. I
was afraid she would grow nihrbid and
IiNONV DOT nAur's uo\artY P"
for . five or six years. I got taken in
by the police three or foar tithes, and
by righte ought to have spent most of thatpassed looked at us fungi.
my tune emend. Cather and mother we y,
a decent family that had no children.
of their town, and where the woman
was very motherly to Chick, but the
little thing never took any of her heart
away from ine, bless lier 1
" nines went on well with us for
two or three years after that: I kept
so straight and worked so hard that I
got a steady job and put all my savings
in the bank, Other men that knew
ine and Clhick would say I ought to
marry again --they dicln.'t know I was
a bachelor—so as to have a mother for
the child. I rather thought myself
that the little thing ought to have a
better chance and I talked with her
about it, for she was about four years
old, and seemed about four hundred
whenever we talked seriously about
anything. Beit she said, ' Don't want
any mothers ; don't want nobody but
papa: Now, just imagine --but pshaw 1
you can't --nobody can.
"Meanwhile she picked up some
very strange expressions, or made them
up, I don't know which. I suppose
you know how young ones get a notion
here and another one there and then know there wasn't any relationship
between us. I'd been careful not to
tell other people anything about the
way I came by her, for I was afraid
there might be a law of some kind by
which somebody might take her away
from me. There was no reason why
they should do so, but people are al-
ways fearful about their treasures, you
know. One day when I was sick at
home, and lying in bed, and Chick sat
on my bedside saying loving and funny
things to cheer ine, and looking like
the beautiful angelic hearted thing she
is, she suddenly said :--
"I never knew a father and date glr-
put them together in a way that a
grown person never would think of.,
One day, when she was about six years.
old, she paralyzed me by saying :---
"'Now, papa, I'm going to take you
in hand. I think you need a mother's
care.' She was as good as her word ;
she's had ine in hand ever since, I
thought Ira made a great improvement
in myself in the first two or three years
of our acquaintance, but'twas nothing
to what she put me up to. She began
to go to school, and nothing ,would do
but that she and I should study the
lessons together. Now that she's older,
lend here somewhei e— one of the; ",Work l I wanted to laugh at her
kind that can give a baby something when sl e said that, for I hadn't done
to eat1"Jany work in years except loafing,
" Nobody answered ; there weren} t'though that's the very hardest kind.
many awake, but at last an emigrant:I thought about the luck Pd had in
woman came over and looked at the,beg ing at the ferry house, but I
child, and then brought a little cup of!eouldn't work that racket again unless
marks, and report cards, and every-
thing that the teachers at school gave
her.
"'Twee tough, though, when she got
further along and put one into fractions
and grammar. Did you ever study
grammar ? Of all infernal --but that's
milk and a spoon and fed it two are put both of ue back into our dirty neither here nor there. She bad to
three mouthfuls and left me to finish rags again, and Pd rather have killed study it, and what leerlittle head could
the job. I was pretty awkward, ns you I uiy self than done that. Strange,what take in I wasn't going to dunk at, so I
may imagine, but Chick got there sudden changes come over a roan some- sweated my way through it, and I got
every time I gave leer a fair show with times, isn'tit 1 I told the woman 1 fractions into my head so solidly that
the spoon. hadn't any regular job, and she said I I've never been able to got them out
"When we got to Toronto some of could get plenty of odd jobs right near again, though I wish I could,
the emigrants explained to a kind her place by hanging around for them In the course of time 1 was troub-
looking old man ---a city missionary, I and keeping honest and sober. Work led about Chick. Maybe'twasbecause
believe—about chiek and me, and he —honest—sober—why, it sounded a' she was mine that I thought here great
told me of a place where they'd take hundred times worse than 'Ten dollars deal better and smarter than any of
it in, and I walked there, ford hadn't or ten days: the other children I saw, and that she
the price of a ear fere. Lots of folks it did, though. 'Twas hard and ought to have better chances and better
the pay -was small, but I had Chick to company. The man of the family we
go back to every night, and she paid lived with died, enol his wife was pretty
nae -until I felt richer than any man ire old and had no family, so I told her
Wall street. She was allays good that if she'd kesp house for me we'd
natured as a kitten and a puppy rolled move into a better neighborhood. I'd
into one,aud when she fell asleep'twas hire e little flat instead of apartments
always with her oxen around any neck. in a tenement house, and she and Chick
In the course of time I found out that could live like ladies. Sho took to the
the only ugly faces she ever made was notion, for she had good stuff in her
because she didn' t like the smell of and her manners had always been a
tobacco, so I stopped chewing. Did mile above most of the folks in the
you ever try to stop chewing 1 No 1 house where we'd lived, though it's a
Well it's harder than starving. I ought great mistake to suppose all the poor
to know, for I've tried both. are rough and coarse. We came here
"Well, everything went better and five or six years ago. I've worked up
better, until one Christmas Eve I took to be foreman in a pretty big business,
a drink and then another, and some ancl though I can't make much of a
more after that, and when I went for show of myself 1 stand well with every -
Chick and she saw me she wouldn't body that knows nee, and Chick has
dome to me, and the woman who took any number of nice friends whom she's
care of her by daylight called me a slowly picked up at school and church,
brute. I started for the river to drown and she takes pains to make all of them
myself, but that wouldn't do, for wbo understand that her papa is the great -
would take care of Chick when I was est, smartest, dearest, funniest, best
gone 1 I walked the streets till I was man in the world. Some of them have
sober, and I was praying and swearing opinions of the same mind about their
all the time; I didn't exactly know own fathers, but Chick makes no allow -
where the praying left off and the ances for any one, althouele I've tried
swearing began, but to this clay I think to teach her that children have a right
they were part and parcel of the same
thing, whichever it was. Christmas
morning I went for Chick and she took
to me again, and she and. event house
hunting, for by that time I bad saved
up a few dollars. We got board with
both died.; nadn't any friends, which and a good many of them looked dis-
was good for the friends. I was loafer, gusted. I suppose we weren t a pretty
thief, wharf rat, fighter and everything !pair ; but the meaner anybody looked
else that was bad ; I was so tough that the tighter I held Chick and the tighter
other fellows of my own kind wouldn't she held me. She seemed to know,
stand me, so at last I had to fleck by somehow, when I was being made to
myself. My boarding house was a feel bad, bless her'.—she's been that
lumber heap, and sometimes I was 1 way ever since. At last I got to the
hounded out of even that by gangs of asylum and rang the bell, and then•I
boys ---a dozen against one. thought to myself that in nminute or
"At last I went ori the tramp-- I two I'd have seen the last of her. Well,
thought I'd get to some place where 1 sir,what dict f do but take to my heels
wasn't known so well. A good deal of and run as if the police were after me.
the time I followed the railroad tracks, I suppose you don't know how that
as most tramps do, and one day I reach- feels 1 No ? Well, it puts wings on
ed a place where an emigrant train the feet of the laziest tramp in the city.
had been wrecked half an hour before Away I went till I got out of sight
and a lot of people killed. Maybe you of that building ; then I walked
won't believe it, but I was so low down slowly,for I wash t• any too strong my -
that I went prowling about the rocks, self, not having had anything to eat
on the lower side of the road, to see for about twenty-four hours, besides
if anything had been lost from the
wreck that 1 could steal. Well, some-
thing lead rolled down there and been
overlooked by the people that were
searching. Well, I found something nights. It -was waren weather, and
—it was Chick. She was only about, the air from the water freshened me.
a year old then, judging by the usual ! I tried to think, but I tumbled asleep,
signs, and she was about as dirty and and when I woke up it was because
shabby as the man that found her, and Chick was patting my face—the cun-
she didn't look any better for a cut or Hing young one! I don't see how she
two on her head and face. But she brought herself to do it. iry face.
was somebody's young one, 1 raid to isn't much to speak of now, but then
myself, and her folks would lie glad to —Well, never mind. I sat up and be-
having been awake all night.
" Without intending to I went down
to the river, and on the shady side of
the lumber heap where I used to sleep
get her back. They couldn't be worth gan thinking, Chick sat he my lap and
looked at meas hard as if she was won-
dering what was on my mind. At last
I said to myself, 'Old man, sometimes
you've tried to keep a dog, but some -
As near as anybody could telhtlm man body always stole it—somebody that
much money, judging by the ci'ild's
clothes,but they might stand the vice
of a drink out of gratitude.
"Well, I couldn't find the owners.
and woman that she'd been with were could steal more grub for it than you
among the killed. You know how could. Sttppose you keep this thing?
things are at such times every -body's 'Tam't as good looking as a• dog—I
rattled. Some folks told ine to do one was talking of how she looked then—
thing with her and 'oane another. I
tried to dive her away, but nobody'd take
her, x..,te was another reason. why I
couldr't get rill of her -she hacl both of
he little arms around my neck; and I`
eruldn't get them off. One of the
iromr-n that had been in the accident
a ri ie' as because the little thing was
sr scared; said;sho looked as if she was
toofrightened to breathe straight,
which is likely enough, seeing where
and how .['d found her. The railroad
folks eouldn'tdo anything about the
young one, except to say that if I'dgo
back to the city with other emigrants
—they thought l was one of the crowd
that. they, guessed they'd find some
way of disposing of it there.
"All the way down to Toronto that
young one kept throttling ane. She'd
dropasleep once in a while and I'd try
to lay her down; seemed to be so infer-
nal foolish for a fellow like inc to
have a young one in his 'arms.. But
and it'll snake more trouble,soiio'body'll
think of hooking it!' Then I said,.
'What do you think of the . notion,
Chick 1' and she put up both arms to
me. Great Lord! Wild horses couldn't
have dragged her from me' after that.
But what was I to do 1 I hadn't any
home—and I didn't know how soon
she might get htmgryagain. Besides,
I was all gone inside myself. 1: re-
membered seeing women with children,
begging in the streets and at the .fer-
ries; as for that, I'c1 clone begging on
my own amount many and many a
time, and got up lies big 'enough to
squeeze out money to get drunk on.
So I went to the nearest ferry and
watched my chances, and stood on the
elide of the orowd where the policeman:
wasn't and held., oat my hat. It fetch-
ed a good many of the women. I was
astonished at what I took in from one
single boatful and I didn't wait for
any more, but put out for a shanty I
looney, so I made lightaf all I'd done,
and dtolcl her that I'd been repaid a
thousand times, which was true. She '
was thoughtful for a few days, and then
announced that she was going to be
everything to me that I'd been to her ;
she was going to take it a in hand
again and give me everything I had
given her.
"i� ell, she's been at it ever since.
She's twenty years old now, and being
very smart naturally and having had
every advantage of education that good
advisers could sugge.tancl money could
buy, she knows a great deal --and I'in
being taught it all. I have to take
music lessons, with her for teacher;
she makes nee practice only an hour
an. evening, as I have a long day in
business. Pm obliged to practice
drawing and study languages while
riding to and from home, and practice
on her while at home. I've got a good
grip on German, having plenty of
chance to use it as fast as I learn it;;
but French well, I've my opinion of
the people who got up such chatter. I
won't show you any of my sketches,.
but she will if you stay long enough.
•We were on our way home from: the
fall exhibition at the Academy when
you met us, and I'd been obliged to
weed out the pictures with my own
to their own opinions in family matters eyes and tell her which were the dozen
of that kind. best, and to leer great delight—and
" Well, that ought to be the end of mine, too, as to that—I was right in
the story, but it isn't. All the years most cases, according to the experts'
Chick and I had been together it had reports that slie had clipped from the
never occurred to me that she didn't newspapers. As I said, there's none
of my sketches that I would think of
sheaving you, but" there's one picture
in • the house that I want you
to see, for a certain reason. A
few years ago I found myself for-
getting what I had been and I didn't
`want to—I wanted to keep my grati-
tude very lively as long as I lived. So
I asked my employer, whom I knew
was'zvell up about pictures, who was'a
good artist in lowlife characters this
was before' Chick went into art. He
gave me a name and I put in part of
my summer vacation in having a pic-
ture painted -a picture of a tramp
holding a shabby child whose arms
were around his neck. I'u as the model
for the tramp. It took a long tinge to
M _ find a child that would do, though, till
the artist explained that tho child's
face -would not showanyway. 1 brought.
the picture home and hung it on the
wall, and Chick would gaze at it by
the hour. I never told her the story
of it until the night -when she learned
she was not my daughter ; oven then I
told her only to quiet her, and show
her, •by comparison, what she had done,
for me. here's the picture"
As Cherriten spoke he rose and
drew a curtain which I hadnotiioecl on
entering the room. The picture was.
a threeluarter length,' by a very cicv-
" TEBIts is No hex a FUNNY A?3011T: THAT. "
1Conttnued On page S.