Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1888-03-23
A NIGHTS LODGINGS.

She seemed to have lost her identity.
She could not have told how she came
In that sinuOus, serpent line, creeping
through the driving storm TO a reptiles
shcltering stone. When she started she
didn't know she would fall in a company
like this.
No matter. Who was she, anyway?
Only a moving vertebra in the disor-
derby column dragging it's wretched
length to Oak Street Station house. An
ugly beldame nudged her, with Ieering
glance:
"What you goin' this way for, We
goose! Better lodgin's for face like
yours, girl. ,
She shrank little, drawing her head
covering more closely over her face. The
peltIng storm was excuse enough for chat.
There was kind of protection in the
old home shawl that she would not have
exchanged for the smart hat which went
for last nights lodgings. In view of the
tattered, tawdry finery of some of her
companions, she was ut sorry that the
cocks plumes from the old farmyard
were not dropping over her disgrace
What bleared, bruti h wrecks Of hui
mainly were these on either side of the
river-in the river alone. But, then,
there would have been the terrorS of the
Judgment after such a watery sleep.
She remembered still, with a shudder,
the pi ture painted on her childish i'm
agination of the dreadful Day of Judg-
ment
Yet, oh, heaven how like the damned
these creatures looked but there was no
smell of fire and birthstone like that
which Parson Adams had blown from
his warning trumpet in the village
church at home
At the gate she glanced up at the long
line of men filing in-blear-eyed, vi
cious-looking, yet not, after all, so repel-
lent as the women. She even marked
one, with face close muff1ed from the
storm like her own, who bore an air of
rough responsibility. To her benumbed
fancy-though she could have given ex-
preston to no conscious thought of this
kind-he was like one of the dead russell
leaves that she had seen driven on the
wild winter wind.
But the press of the crowd bore her
within the station, and, sinking in
dark corner, she waited stolidly the dis
position to be made of her by the author
tiles in charge.
Groans, laments, profane and vulgar
CALCULATIONS smote her dull ears, but she
had thought of little beyond her own
misery.
comm in, an I've got leaf to speak to
ye."
The voice was hoarse and gruff as with
cold, and she did not see the speaker
clearly in her dim corner, but she
thought this the man she had noticed at
the gate.
somehow It seems t. me yer in the
wrong place. 'Taln't no nights lodgin'
fer likely young gal sech as L take you
to be. What dye come here fer?"
Because She turned away from
the intruder as if she would have dis
missed him.
"'Hey?" he insisted.
because l amt got nowhere else to
60"
$50. Well-well-nor I nuther," was
the cheering response. but yew-why,
yew hadn't orto be comm to sech
place s this. Why don't We try t. git in
the country where folks s respectable?
Nothin' but wick'dnlss in this dretful,
turrybul bad city. / came here tother
day arter my daughter-yew make me
think on her, some way 'nother-an' I
run a-foul of blasted pickpocket the
very fust thing, an he took every blest
cent l had, luther wallet an ali. l
tore round like mad when foun' t out,
an knocked down the Teller that l
reckoned TUX it-knocked him hard,
too. But 'twa'n't him tall, an I got
rested for Whence an marched off down
here an tried fer reg'ler salt an battry,
an was cast int Jaime, deacon o.
tn church in NIapletaown an respect
BILE, likely man till l come daown to this
dumb heather city an got robbed an
cast int jail, instid O. the thief that's
prancin' round somers havin' a good
time with my money"
The deacon" stamped his heavy foot
upon the floor with religious zeal that
would have sunk the modern Gomorrah,