New-York tribune., 1872-03-11
THE STORY or LUCY.


its meaning bears more nearly on the lives OF
large class of our readers than even the
national debt or the choice Of our next Presi-
dent.
About twenty years ago, girl-baby was
born to a carpenter and his wife who had hve
boys already swarming and squabbling about
the three-roomed house. The baby shared the
fate of solitary girls among brothers. She was
the something rare and unwOnted which had
never come into their common lie before;
she was the bit of porcelain among rough
crockery; her father and the bigger boys
dubbed her "little LADY," carried her out
proudly on Sunday afternoons, when their
own clothes were coarse and patched
enough but she never lacked bit Of en-
broidery or feather in her cap. She, unlike
myrads of other children, was born to no IN
exorable inheritance of poverty or dirt or
crime. The carpenter was hard-worklne,
honest, domestic old man, whose highest
ambition was to give each of his boys steady
trade, "that they might never need to take to
"sbifty WAYS to earn a meal" For Lucy, of
course. he hoped for something better. His
wife was thrifty Scotch-lrishwOman, who had
lived in one house at service for fifteen years
before her marriage, and could command
high salary at any time now as housekeeper.
Girls in the old country" she said, :" were
4" set TO work from the time they could walk.
"Tbev did not need to drudge 50 here. There
" we're chances for them in u free country"
She never passed rich mans daughter, deli
catcly dressed that she did not think of these
Z" chances :" chances that numbered not only
easy living and refinement, but equipages, 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 a practical, nimble
intellect, was frank, earnest, afectionate;
bushes and tears came quickly, signs of
delicate nature and tender conscience, befitting
to u servant as queen, both OF them being
Gods children. One would have said the girl
was born to be in time pure maiden,
loving wife, n faithful mother
She went to school years after her brothers
were at work, hut learned little more than to
read and write whatever ability she had
assuredly did not lie in the path of book
knowledge the boys bought her cheap
piano at auction ,7On which she strummed a
few street airs. People who 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 servant. But menial work was
a certainty which to LuCy's vague chances was
an insult Even drudgery at home was spared
her that she might run with her school COM
panions, or read the cheap papers of the day.
Gradually the fine delicacy faded out of her
face: her voice grew loud; the quick step
dragged lazily it became Il matter of course
for her to watch her old father work for her
while she sat idle. At last the turn came
the elder brothers married the old man and
his wife died defOrmed brother kept the
house with Lucy, but it was necessary that
she should earn her own living. There. were
half-a-dOzen bones open to her, where she
would have had light work, which would have
fitted her for her duties when she married, high
wages, and the protection and seclusion OF q
refined Christian family. But this girl, whose
Master was born in stable was indignant
at being asked To take the place of a servant.
She went into mill. The wages were good
She had her ambition. Nelvets and diamonds
| made the lady, She could at least tiAunt in
| Terry and Milton gold. She had the imagi-
nation of other young girls-the zest for love,
| adventure No knights or gentlemen came
about the mill, or lovers to the house, but
| there was the chance compliment from young
men ON the streets the encounter on the
street-ears 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 ten
! derness because no other woman could ever
| be pear or dear to him. cursed her and drove
her from the door. She went gladly. The
street life suited her now for the change in
the girl did not begin in dress or face or
| voice; it worked ont from within. Year by
year her training had corrupted soul and brain
| Ii mattered little when the symptoms OF
| decay showed themselves to the world. For
wears she has tested the street life. Last
week it ended. In the bright sunlight a
! bloated, filthy woman crcpt out of the prison
van into the stone archway of the city prison,
I and the iron gates with their heavy clang shut
on her not to open for two years. "l.acy
-, sentenced for grand larceny Whether,
when they open, her ruined body will be there
10 drag itself out into tho sunlight again. mat
tiers little. Ii may live until old age. But
! Lucy, honest. unsclish, pure in thought died
long ago. Ii ii had been only to sleep with
her mother on yonder hillside. We might have
made the grass reen above her, knowing that
the child would come again. bat she, sill
living. went down ilt0 grave from which