Little Fishers: and Their Nets

  CHAPTER I.

  THE DECKERS' HOME.

  JOE DECKER gave his chair a noisy shove backward from the table, overthe uneven floor, shambled across the space between it and the kitchendoor, a look of intense disgust on his face, then stopped for hisgood-morning speech:

  "You may as well know, first as last, that I've sent for Nan. I'vestood this kind of thing just exactly as long as I'm going to. Thereain't many men, I can tell you, who would have stood it so long. Such ameal as that! Ain't fit for a decent dog!

  "Nan is coming in the afternoon stage. There must be some place fixedup for her to sleep in. Understand, now, that has _got_ to be done, andI won't have no words about it."

  Then he slammed the door, and went away.

  Yes, he was talking to his wife! She could remember the time when heused to linger in the door, talking to her, so many last words to say,and when at last he would turn away with a kind "Well, good-by, Mary!Don't work too hard."

  But that seemed ages ago to the poor woman who was left this morningin the wretched little room with the door slammed between her and herhusband. She did not look as though she had life enough left to makewords about anything. She sat in a limp heap in one of the brokenchairs, her bared arms lying between the folds of a soiled and raggedapron.

  Not an old woman, yet her hair was gray, and her cheeks were faded, andher eyes looked as though they had not closed in quiet restful sleepfor months. She had not combed her hair that morning; and thin andfaded as it was, it hung in straggling locks about her face.

  I don't suppose you ever saw a kitchen just like that one! It washeated, not only by the fierce sun which streamed in at the twouncurtained eastern windows, but by the big old stove, which couldsmoke, not only, and throw out an almost unendurable heat on a warmmorning like this, when heat was not wanted, but had a way at alltimes of refusing to heat the oven, and indeed had fits of sullennesswhen it would not "draw" at all.

  This was one of the mornings when the fire had chosen to burn; it hadswallowed the legs and back of a rickety chair which the mistress indesperation had stuffed in, when she was waiting for the teakettle toboil, and now that there was nothing to boil, or fry, and no need forheat, the stump of wood, wet by yesterday's rain, had dried itself andchosen to burn.

  The west windows opened into a side yard, and the sound of children'svoices in angry dispute, and the smell of a pigsty, came in together,and seemed equally discouraging to the wilted woman in the chair.

  The sun was already pretty high in the sky, yet the breakfast-tablestill stood in the middle of the room.

  I don't know as I can describe that table to you. It was a square one,unpainted, and stained with something red, and something green, andspotted with grease, and spotted with black, rubbed from endless hotkettles set on it, or else from one kettle set on it endless times;it must have been that way, for now that I think of it, there was butone kettle in that house. No tablecloth covered the stains; there was acracked plate which held a few crusts of very stale bread, and a teacupabout a third full of molasses, in which several flies were struggling.More flies covered the bread crusts, and swam in a little mess of whathad been butter, but was now oil, and these were the only signs of food.

  It was from this breakfast-table that the man had risen in disgust.You don't wonder? You think it was enough to disgust anybody? Thatis certainly true, but if the man had only stopped to think that thereason it presented such an appearance was because he had steadilydrank up all that ought to have gone on it during the months past,perhaps he would have turned his disgust where it belonged--on himself.

  The woman had not tried to eat anything. She had given the best she hadto the husband and son, and had left it for them. She was very willingto do so. It seemed to her as though she never could eat anothermouthful of anything.

  Can you think of her, sitting in that broken chair midway between thetable and the stove, the heat from the stove puffing into her face; theheat from the sun pouring full on her back, her straggling hair silveryin the sunlight, her short, faded calico dress frayed about the ankles,her feet showing plainly from the holes of the slippers into which theywere thrust, her hands folded about the soiled apron, and such a lookof utter hopeless sorrow on her face as cannot be described?

  No, I hope you cannot imagine a woman like her, and will never see oneto help you paint the picture. And yet I don't know; since there aresuch women--scores of them, thousands of them--why should you not knowabout them, and begin now to plan ways of helping them out of thesekitchens, and out of these sorrows?

  Mrs. Decker rose up presently, and staggered toward the table; a dimidea of trying to clear it off, and put things in something like order,struggled with the faintness she felt. She picked up two plates, stickywith molasses, and having a piece of pork rind on one, and set theminto each other. She poured a slop of weak tea from one cracked cupinto another cracked cup, her face growing paler the while. Suddenlyshe clutched at the table, and but for its help, would have fallen.There was just strength enough left to help her back to the ricketychair. Once there, she dropped into the same utterly hopeless position,and though there was no one to listen, spoke her sorrowful thoughts.

  "It's no use; I must just give up. I'm done for, and that's the truth!I've been expecting it all along, and now it's come. I couldn't clearup here and get them any dinner, not if he should kill me, and I don'tknow but that will be the next thing. I've slaved and slaved; ifanybody ever tried to do something with nothing, I'm the one; and nowI'm done. I've just got to lie down, and stay there, till I die. I wishI _could_ die. If I could do it quick, and be done with it, I wouldn'tcare how soon; but it would be awful to lie there and see things go on;oh, dear!"

  She lifted up her poor bony hands and covered her face with them andshook as though she was crying. But she shed no tears. The truth is,her poor eyes were tired of crying. It was a good while since any tearshad come. After a few minutes she went on with her story.

  "It isn't enough that we are naked, and half-starved, and thingsgrowing worse every day, but now that Nan mast come and make one moretorment. 'Fix a place for her to sleep!' Where, I wonder, and whatwith? It is too much! Flesh and blood can't bear any more. If ever awoman did her best I have, and done it with nothing, and got no thanksfor it; now I've got to the end of my rope. If I have strength enoughto crawl back into bed, it is all there is left of me."

  But for all that, she tried to do something else. Three times she madean effort to clear away the few dirty things on that dirty table, andeach time felt the deadly faintness creeping over her, which sent herback frightened to the chair. The children came in, crying, and shetried to untie a string for one, and find a pin for the other; but herfingers trembled so that the knot grew harder, and not even a pin wasleft for her to give them, and she finally lost all patience with theircross little ways and gave each a slap and an order not to come in thehouse again that forenoon.

  The door was ajar into the most discouraged looking bedroom that youcan think of. It was not simply that the bed was unmade; the truth is,the clothes were so ragged that you would have thought they could notbe touched without falling to pieces; and they were badly stained andsoiled, the print of grimy little hands being all over them. Partlypushed under, out of sight, was a trundle-bed, that, if anything,looked more repulsive than the large one. There was an old barrel inthe corner, with a rough board over it, and a chair more rickety thaneither of those in the kitchen, and this was the only furniture therewas in that room.

  The only bright thing there was in it was the sunshine, for there wasan east window in this room, and the curtain was stretched as high asit could be. To the eyes of the poor tired woman who presently draggedherself into this room, the light and the heat from the sun seemedmore than she could bear, and she tugged at the brown paper curtain sofiercely that it tore half across, but she got it down, and then shefell forward among the rags of the bed with a groan.

  Poor Mrs. Decker! I wonder if you have not imagined all her sorrowful
story without another word from me!

  It is such an old story; and it has been told over so many times, thatall the children in America know it by heart.

  Yes; she was the wife of a drunkard. Not that Joe Decker called himselfa drunkard; the most that he ever admitted was that he sometimes took adrop too much! I don't think he had the least idea how many times in amonth he reeled home, unable to talk straight, unable to help himselfto his wretched bed.

  I don't suppose he knew that his brain was never free from the effectsof alcohol; but his wife knew it only too well. She knew that he wasalways cross and sullen now, when he was not fierce, and she knew thatthis was not his natural disposition. No one need explain to her howalcohol would effect a man's nature; she had watched her husband changefrom month to month, and she knew that he was growing worse every day.

  There was another sorrow in this sad woman's heart. She had one boywho was nearly ten years old, when she married Mr. Decker; and peoplehad said to her often and often, "What a handsome boy you have, Mrs.Lloyd; he ought to have been a girl." And the first time she had feltany particular interest in Joe Decker was when he made her boy a kite,and showed him how to fly it, and gave him one bright evening, suchas fathers give their boys. This boy's father had died when he wasa baby, and the Widow Lloyd had struggled on alone; caring for him,keeping him neatly dressed, sending him to school as soon as he was oldenough, bringing him up in such a way that it was often and often saidin the village, "What a nice boy that Norman Lloyd is! A credit to hismother!" And the mother had sat and sewed, in the evenings when Normanwas in bed, and thought over the things that fathers could do for boyswhich mothers could not; and then thought that there were things whichmothers could do for girls that fathers could not, and Mr. JosephDecker, the carpenter, had a little girl, she had been told, only a fewyears younger than her Norman. And so, when Mr. Decker had made kites,not only, but little sail boats, and once, a little table for Norman toput his school books on, with a drawer in it for his writing-book andpencil, and when he had in many kind and manly ways won her heart, thisrespectable widow who had for ten years earned her own and her boy'sliving, married him, and went to keep his home for him, and planned asto the kind and motherly things which she would do for his little girlwhen she came home.

  Alas for plans! She knew, this foolish woman, that Mr. Decker sometimestook a drink of beer with his noon meal, and again at night, perhaps;but she said to herself, "No wonder, poor man; always having to eat hisdinner out of a pail! No home, and no woman to see that he had thingsnice and comfortable. She would risk but what he would stay at home,when he had one to stay in, and like a bit of beefsteak better than thebeer, any day."

  She had not calculated as to the place which the beer held in hisheart. Neither had he. He was astonished to find that it was not easyto give it up, even when Mary wanted him to. He was astonished at firstto discover how often he was thirsty with a thirst that nothing butbeer would satisfy. I have not time for all the story. The beer was notgiven up, the habit grew stronger and stronger, and steadily, though atfirst slowly, the Deckers went down. From being one of the best workmenin town, Mr. Decker dropped down to the level of "Old Joe Decker,"whom people would not employ if they could get anybody else. The littlegirl had never come home save for a short visit; at first the newmother was sorry, then she was glad.

  As the days passed, her heart grew heavier and heavier; a horrible fearwhich was almost a certainty, had now gotten hold of her--that herhandsome, manly Norman was going to copy the father she had given him!Poor mother!

  I would not, if I could, describe to you all the miseries of that longday! How the mother lay and tossed on that miserable bed, and burnedwith fever and groaned with pain. How the children quarreled and cried,and ran into mother, and cried again because she could give them noattention, and made up, and ran out again to play, and quarreled again.How the father came home at noon, more under the influence of liquorthan he had been in the morning; and swore at the table still standingas he had left it at breakfast time, and swore at his wife for "lyingin bed and sulking, instead of doing her work like a decent woman," andswore at his children for crying with hunger; and finally divided whatremained of the bread between them, and went off himself to a saloon,where he spent twenty-five cents for his dinner, and fifty cents forliquor. How Norman came home, and looked about the deserted kitchenand empty cupboard, and looked in at his mother, and said he was sorryshe had a headache, and sighed, and wished that he had a decent homelike other fellows, and wished that a doctor could be found, who didn'twant more money than he was worth, to pay him for coming to see asick woman, and then went to a bakery and bought a loaf of bread, anda piece of cheese, and having munched these, washed them down withseveral glasses of beer, went back to his work. Meantime, the playingand the quarreling, and the crying, went on outside, and Mrs. Deckercontinued to sleep her heavy, feverish sleep.

  Several times she wakened in a bewilderment of fever and pain, andgroaned, and tried to get up, and fell back and groaned again, and losther misery in another unnaturally heavy sleep, and the day wore awayuntil it was three o'clock in the afternoon. The stages would be due ina few minutes--the one that brought passengers over from the railroadjunction a mile away. The children in the yard did not know that oneof them was expected to stop at their house; and the father when hecame home at noon had been drinking too much liquor to remember it; andNorman had not heard of it, and for his mother's sake would have beentoo angry to have met it if he had; so Nan was coming home with nobodyto welcome her.

  If you had seen her sitting at that moment, a trim little maiden in thestage, her face all flushed over the prospect of seeing father, and therest, in a few minutes, you would not have thought it possible that shecould belong to the Decker family.

  She had not seen her home in seven years. She had been a little thingof six when she went away with the Marshall family.

  It had all come about naturally. Mrs. Marshall was their neighbor, andhad known her mother from childhood; and when she died had carried themotherless little girl home with her to stay until Mr. Decker decidedwhat to do; and he was slow in deciding, and Mrs. Marshall had a familyof boys, but no little girl, and held the motherless one tenderly forher mother's sake; and when the Marshalls suddenly had an offer ofbusiness which made it necessary for them to move to the city, theyclung to the little girl, and proposed to Mr. Decker that she should gowith them and stay until he had a place for her again.

  Apparently he had not found a place for her in all these seven years,for she had never been sent for to come home.

  The new wife had wanted her at first, to be mother to her, as shefancied Mr. Decker was going to be father to her boy. But it did nottake her very many months to get her eyes open to the thought thatperhaps the girl would be better off away from her father; and of lateyears she had looked on the possible home-coming with positive terror.Her own little ones had nothing to eat, sometimes, save what Normanprovided; and if "he"--and by this Mrs. Decker meant her husband; hehad ceased to be "Mr. Decker" to her, or "Joseph," or even Joe--if"he" should take a notion to turn against the girl, life would be moreterrible to them in every way; and on the other hand, if he shouldfancy her, and because of her, turn more against the wife, or Norman,what would become of them then?

  So the years had passed, and beyond an occasional threat when JoeDecker was at his worst, to "send for Nan right straight off," nothinghad been said of her home-coming. The threat had come oftener of late,for Joe Decker had discovered that there was just now nothing that hiswife dreaded more than the presence of this step-daughter; and hispresent manly mood was to do all he could for the discomfort of hiswife! That was one of the elevating thoughts which liquor had given him!

  Three o'clock. The stages came rattling down the stony road. Few peoplewho lived on this street had much to do with the stage; they couldnot afford to ride, and they did not belong to the class who had muchcompany.

  So when the heavy carriages kept straight on, instead o
f turning thecorner below, it brought a swarm of children from the various dooryardsto see who was coming, and where.

  "It's stopped at Decker's, as true as I live!" said Mrs. Job Smith,peeping out of her clean pantry window to get a view. "I heard thatJoe had sent for little Nan, but I hoped it wasn't true. Poor Nan! ifthe Marshalls have treated her with any kind of decency, it'll be adreadful change, and I'm sorry enough for her. Yes, that must be Nangetting out. She's got the very same bright eyes, but she has grown asight, to be sure!" Which need not have seemed strange to Mrs. Smith,if she had stopped to remember that seven years had passed since Nanwent away.

  The little woman got down with a brisk step from the stage, and watchedher trunk set in the doorway, and got out her red pocket-book, and paidthe fare, and then looked about her doubtfully. Could this be home!