Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-09-29
Tales and Sketehes.
THE LITTLE MATCH BOX MAKER.
4 Sketch Of London Life.

81 made 'em myself!-mySeI"
A bony, baby hand holds up the rude
box of matches-a fleshless, baby frame
shivers in its scanty rags, as the piping,
pleading little voice repeats,
II made em myself.'
The wan, pinched face is raised pit
eously to that of each passer by; such an
old, old face, that looks familiar with
care; eyes large, and hollow, and lustre-
less-and yet it is the tiny face of a child
of four years. She stands at the corner of
a crowded street Of London suburb.
Again and again. and still again is the
thin, small hand extended; again and
again the shrlll, supplicating voice reiter-
ates the sad statement that this little mite
made the wares she offers for sale herself
But the moving current of life, upon
which she is an insignificant item, rolls on
without needing her. The silken gar
ments of lady, as she rapidly turns the
corner, sweep against the fragile vender,
and almost brush the box from her feeble
hands. The lady draws her rich dress
from the contact, and hurres on Yet
she is mother-about her fireside rosy
boys and girls are shouting and gambol-
ing; in her hand, at this very moment,
she is carrying jewel case, with coral
necklace, for the last, chubby nursing OF
| her household-a necklace the cost OF
which would have fed and housed and
clothed the little matchbox vender
through more than one winter and
summer; yes, that lady is a mother, and
she could see without noting, the aged
baby face-the frail, extended hands
| could hear the tremor of that beseeching
baby voice, and could fit by unmoved.
Preoccupied men-idle or busy women
-gaily dressed, laughing children, with
meek-looking governesses or sturdy
nurses, pass without word, without a
| look, and the poor little match-vender has
stood shivering at her post since morn
ing; her thin, bloodless lips framing, ever
and anon, those four words that tell such
a solemn history.
! They did reach one heart at last. A
young seamstress, poorly clad and pale
faced, has, at least, a sorrowful look to
bestow; she half pauses as her eye rests
on the child-she tries to go on, but can
not. How can she give anything whose
every farthing is needed for daily food
and shelter?
II made 'em myself" repeats the
childish voice.
Il dare say! Poor little dear."
How many, glancing at that small waif
of humanity, would have doubted the
story; the pale-faced seamstress did not :
she knew too much of poverty and of the
London poor. With a sigh, she draws a
penny from her pocket, lays it gently on
the box of matches, without taking the
latter, and passes on. The sigh was for
the child, but, perhaps, little for herself
also that penny was to have bought the
bunn to break her midday fast-she will
go without her luncheon to-day.
The child closed her little fingers over
the copper eagerly. questioningly, as
though she doubted its reality. Then
putting back the box, which was sold not
taken, drew the tattered bit of faded
finery which served for shawl more
closely around her. and with an unchild-
like expression coming into her old, little
face, the look of making up ones mind.
turned down the narrow street, tottering
along with numb limbs, until she came to
still narrower, darker, tilthier street,
where the houses were all huddled to-
gether, regardless of shape and size.
Entering one of the poorest, she climbed
up to the top story. There was Il straw
mattress upon the floor of the small room
and on it lay scarcely animate female
form.
"Only this, Minnie :" And the little
girl laid the copper on the bed. II came
back soon as / got anything. Nobody
wanted matches-l couldn't sell EN-"
The mother opened her mourntul eyes
at the childs voice-but the heavy lids
quickly dropped again. Her long illness
| had been the result of sorrow, want, ex-
posurc, almost famine, and was followed
| by that seldom-recogniz blessing, Il half
stupor, free from the dreaming ills of
sleep.
The child put the copper carefully in
her pocket, laid aside her ragged shawl
and shapeless bonnet, and sat down noise
lessly upon an old candle-box, placed in
front of board raised on rude props which
served as legs. A broken pair of scis-
sors, pot of paste, and some bits of card
board were spread before her. and in a
few moments the busy fingers were at
work making match-boxes, and making
them so neatly and deity that it was easy
to believe those fingers, small and tender
as they We're, must have fashioned hund-
reds. And they had. not hundreds bu,
thousands By making thirty-two boxes
she earned Just one half-penny (sterling)
She could make two hundred in day
there were long summer days in which
she had made three hundred; and this
baby worker earned the rent of the room
which she and her mother occupied.
These are actual facts, not tiction,-not
even colored, dressed-up truths,-but bare
and most solemn facts.
This babe had slipped from her mothers
breast that yielded her scanty sustenance
from her mothers knee that could not
cradle her softly, upon her feeble feet, to
become-a worker-her mothers milk
was almost the only food she had not
earned by toll. And she was only one
among many of class. There were 9TH
er children, residing in the same house,
whose little lives Were passed from baby
hood, like hers, in constructing match
boxes. Oh most unnatural thing in ma
ture Children who were taught to work
before they had learned to play! who
knew what paste and scissors and card
| board meant, but not what daisies and
buttercups and green fields mean to
whose ears ''toy" and "play" We're unfa'
/ 10 thara