Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1871-12-08
CHAPTER XXITI.
a CHARITABLE INST .TJTIoN.


When Ralph got back to Miss Nan
cy Sawyer's, Shoclly was sitting up in
he'd talking to Miss Nancy and Miss
Samantha. His cheeks were little
flushed with fever and the excitement
Of telling his story; theirs were wet
with tears,
Ralph,n Whispered Miss Nancy,
as she drew him into the kitchen. ~
want you to get buggy or sleigh,
and go right over to the pOor-house
and fetch that boys mother over here.
It'll do me more good than any SER
mon | ever heard, TO see that boy in
his mothers arms tomorrow. We
can keep the old lady over Sunday
Ralph was delighted, so delighted
that he came near Kissing good Miss
Nancy Sawyer whose plain face WAS
glorified by her generosity:
But he did not 90 to the pOOr-house
Immediately. lie waited until he saw
Bill Jones, the Superintendent of the
POor-House. and Pete Jones, the C0un
ty Commissioner, who was still shuck
up, ride up to the courthouse Then
he drove cut of the village, and pres
entity hitchCd his horse to the poor
house fence, and took survey of the
outside. Forty hogs, nearly ready for
slaughter, wallowed in pen in front
of the fOriorn and dilapidated house :;
for though the commissioners allowed
q claim for repairs at every meeting,
tie repairs were never made, and it
would not DO to scTutiniZe Mr.. Junes's
bills too closely unless you gave up all
hope of a denomination to Office. One
curious effect of political aspirations
in HoOpOle County, was to shut the
eyes that they could not see, to close
the ears that they could not hear, and
to destroy the sense of smell. But
Ralph, not being a politician, smelled
the hog-pen without and the stencil
within, and saw everywhere the trans
parent fraud, and heard the echo of
Jones's cruelty.
4 weak-eyed girl admitted him, and
as he did not wish to make his busi-
ness known at once, he affected sort
I of idle interest in the place, and asked
| to be allowed to look around. The
| weakened girl watched him. He
| found that all the women with chill
dEen, twenty persons in all were oblig-
! cd to sleep in one room, which, owing
to the hill-slopC, was partly under
! ground, and which had but half a
| window for light, and no ventilation,
except the chance draft from the door.
Jones had declared that the women
| with children must stay there" he
warn't goin' to have brats a-runnin'
| over the whole house, Here were
vicious women and good women with
their children, crowded like chickens
for market. And there were, as usual
in such places, helpless, idiotic wo-
men with illegitinate children. Oi
course this room was the scene of per
petual quarreling and occasional fight
ing.
In the quarters devoted to the insane
people slightly demented and raving
! maniacs were in the same rooms,
while there were also those utter
wrecks which sat in heaps on the floor
| mumbling and mutteTing unintelligi-
| bic words. the whole current of theiI
! thoughts hopelessly muddled. turning
around upon itself eddies never end,
ing.
.'That air woman" said the weak.
| eyed girl, FUSED to holler a heap when
she was brought in here. But par
knows how to subjue 'em. He slap
ped her in the mouth every time she
holIercd. She don't make no fuss now,
but list sets down that away all day
and keeps a whisperin'."
Ralph understood it. When she
| came in she was the victim of mania
! but she had been beaten into hopeless
idiocy. Indeed this state of incurab!e
imbccility seemed the end toward
which all travelled. Shut in these
bare rooms, with no treatment, no ex-
ercisc, no variety. and mcager food,
cases of slight arrangement soon grew
into chronic luaacy.
One young woman, called Phil, q
sweet-faced person, apparentlya farm
er's wife, came up TO Ralph and look
ed at him kindly, playing with the
] buttons on his coat i'm q child-like sim
| plicity. Her blue drilling dress was
| sewed all over with patches Of white,
representing ornamental buttons. and
! the womanly instinct toward adorn.
ment had in her taken this childish
turn.
Don't you think they ought to lei
me 90 home?' she said with a sweet
ness and a wistful, longing, home-sick
look. that touched Ralph to the heart
He looked at her, and then at the NUT