Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1872-10-11
THE STORY OF LUCY.

on the lives of large class of our readers
than even the national debt, or the choice
of our next President.
About twenty years ago girl baby was
born to carr Iter and his wife, who
had five boys I'll, ody sWarming and squab-
bling about t23 threo-rOomed house. The
baby shared the fate of solitary girls among
brothers. She was the something rare and I
which had never come into their
common life before she was the bit of |
porcelain among rough crockery !; her faith
er and the bigger boys dubbed her " little |
lady :" carried her ont proudly on Sunday |
afternoons, when their own clothes were |
coarse and patched enough; but she never |
lacked bit of embroidery or a feather in I
her cap. She, unlike myriads of other |
children, was born to no memorable inheri- |
lance of poverty, or dirt, or crime. The |
carpenter was hard-working, honest, do
meStic old man whose highest ambition |
was to give each of his boys a steady trade, |
I" that they might never need to take |
to shifty ways to earn meal" For
Lucy, of course, he hoped for some |
thing better. His wife was thrifty,
Scotch-Irish woman, who had lived
in one house at service for fifteen years be-
fore her marriage, and could command a
high salary at any time now as house
keeper. Girls in the old country" she
said, ''Were set to work from the time they
could walk. They did not need to drudge
So here. There were chances for them IN
a free country" She never passed rich
maI's daughter, delicately dressed, that
she did not think of these chances"
chances that numbered not only easy
living and refnements, but eaupaSes, vel
vets, diamonds. Education placed all men
on a level. Her mothers heart was sore
and tender. Why should not her little girl
enter into that high unknown world of
luxury from which she had been shut out?
God had made no life SO full Of blessings
that it ought not to be possible to Lucy
with her loving blue eyes and wonderful
bright hair. 1t was quite true that God
had made no life OF happy womanhood
which was not possible to the child. She.
had practical, n:mb e intellect, was frank,
earnest, atfectiCnate; bushes and tears
came quickly, signs u a delicate nature
| and teuder conscience, betting to SER
want as a queen, both Of them being Gods
children. One would have said the girl
WAS born to he III time a pure maiden,
| loving wife, faithful mother.
She went to school years after her broth
! ers were at work but learned little more
! than to read aud write; whatever ability
! she had assuredly did not lie in the path of
! book knowledge; the boys bought her
cheap piano at auction, on which she
| q L
noticed the girls readiness and winning
manner, told her mother it was time she
was making some provision for her, and
! offered to take her into their houses as SER
! want. But mental work was a certainty
| which to Lucy's vague chances was an in
suit. Even drudgery at home was spared
her that she might run with her school
companions, or read the cheap papers of
the day. GRADUALLY he fine delicacy faded
out of her face her voice grew loud the
quick step dragged lazily; It became a mat
ter of course tor her to watch her old faith
er WOlk for her while she sat idle. At last
! the turn came the elder brothers married;
the old man and his wife died a
deformed brother kept the house with
! Lucy, but it was necessary that she should
earn her own living. There were half a
dozen homes open to her, where she would
have had light work which would have fit
ted her for her duties when she married,
high wages, and the protection and seclus-
ion of refined Christian family, but this
girl, whose Master was born i'll stable,
was indignant at being asked to take the
place of a servant. She went into a mill.
The wages were good. She had her am
bitlon. Velvets and diamonds made the
lady. She could at least flaunt i'll Terry
and Milton gold. She had the imagina
ton of other young grlS-the Zest for love,
adventure. No knights or gentlemen
came about the mills, of lovers to the
house, but there was the chance COM
pliment from young men on the streets
the encounter on the street-cars going
home at night.
The story is told. There came day
when the deformed brother, who had
watched over her since she was a baby
with SOrer tenderness because no other
woman could ever be near or dear to him
cursed her and drove her from the door,
She went gladly. The street life suited
her now for the change i'll the giIl did
IOt begin in dress or face voice, it worked
out from within. Year by year her train,
ing had corIHpted soul and brain. 1t mat
tered little when tue symptoms of decay
showed themselves to the world. Fo1
years she had tasted the street life. Last
week it ended. In the bright sunlight a
hlOated, filthy woman crept out of the prison
van into the stone archway Of the city
prison, and the iron gates with their heavy
clang shut on her, not to open for two
years. "LItcy -, sentenced Tor grand
larceny Whether when they open, her
ruined body will be there to drag itself out
into the sunlight a gain, matters little. 1t
may live until Old age. But Lucy, honest,
unselfish, pure in thought, died long ago
If it had been only to sleep with her mother
on yonder hillside, We mi 5ht have made
the grass green above her, knowing that
the child would come ag in. But she still
/ living, went down into grave from which
there is no place of resurrection, though
we seek it carefully ard with tears. Per-
haps it is a story without a mOral-at least
it has none, if mothers 10 not find it for
| Observation-Disclosures.
-~%-
In his able and eloquent address at New