Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-08
1.-THE ECnO."
aCome along, Billy, and don't cry we'N

Some along and gl' me your hand.
Billy placed his pinched, benumbed fin
gers in his sisters palm, and the two
ragged little figures hurried across the
dull, dimly lighted street, while the cut
ting winds blew the fast-fallirg snow right
in their faces and made them shiver in
every limb. Mary was just as cold as
Billy, but she had had a longer ex-
perience of life and its hardships, and she
knew it was useless to murmur thereat
Beside granny had told her not to come
back that night without shilling and
they had only got tenpence. Only ten
pence! 1t doesn't seem much; yet they
had been out for more than three hours,
and they had sung about home, sweet
home, oh, SO many times, to get that ten
pence. Sometimes they sung this, their
only song, three or four times in success
sion without obtaining single coin. Peo-
pie would stop for moment and stare at
the two ill-clad children, then they would
move on, filled with some sort of pity, per-
haps, but not remembering of how much
more benefit copper, however small,
would be than mere empty-handed sympa-
thy; or, if remembering, seeking to forget
the fact that they carried purse. And
often when Billy-lifted up for the pur-
pose in Mary's arms-had rung door bell,
the door would be opened and shut again
in their faces with the words. "Be off, at
once p
So they had sung their song over and
over and over to earn ten pence, and there
was still twopence to be made. Their
poor little Threats were dry and sore, and
their feet were very cold and weary. for
nearly all the houses had been shut up
for the night about an hour ago and more,
and the children had had to traverse long
stretches of streets in order to find houses
in which lights betokened that the occu-
pants had not yet gone to bed.
No wonder that little Billy began to cry
at last his sister felt inclined to cry, too,
only she knew she must not give way
while there was twopence wanting to
make up her shilling. Granny's beatings
and curses were harder to bear than the
bitter wind and the drifting snow. For
herself size would not have minded the
blows and harsh words SO very much
either, but there was Billy, he was SO
small and so pinched that Mary could not
bear to see him beaten, and granny was
always worse on cold night; her affec-
ton for the gin bottle always increased in
proportion to the badness of the weather.
Mary bravely gulped down the sob which
ward the house with the light She sat
Billy down on the doorstep out of the way
of the drifting snow, and she stood up
alone by the side of the foot pavement and
sang the old familiar song. The soughing
wind drowned her notes, and the white
hurricane almost took her breath away,
but she struggled on to the very end.
"Now, Billy, git up and ring tie bell"
Billy did not hear; he had fallen fast
asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Billy" she shouted, giving him shake;
Chilly, here's the policeman coming" as
she heard the tramp, tramp close at hand,
and caught sight of the yellow CLEAN of a
lantern glinting through the mist of snow.
"Pse SO tired, Mary" feebly answered
the child, trying to rise.
"Now, then, move onw said the merci-
less policeman, turning his bulfs-eye on
the children.
Mary raised her little brother in her
arms, and wrapping the corner of her
threadbare shawl around him, obeyed in
silence.
Slowly enough, on account of her bur-
den, she made her way through two or
three streets until she came to a brilliantly
lighted gin-shop, and in front of it she
stopped and once more began her song, still
clasping Billy in her arms. Presently half
dozen men lounged out of the door and
stared at her with dazed, drunken looks;
they walked off with unsteady gait, one of
them throwing her the metal cap Of bot
tie to mock her with its clink and glitter.
Inside the light disappeared, one by one,
the doors were banged and barred, and
Mary knew there was no chance of any
more money that night; the gin-shops
were always the last places to close
There's no place like home," she ended
sadly, and little Billy half whispered, half
sang the words with her. She pressed his
curly head closer to her shoulder and
wrapped bigger corner of her shawl
about him, he was SO cold, and, with a
sigh that came from her very heart, she
turned her footsteps toward home-her
home, what mockery it was Ia wretched
garnet In back street, near a mile away.
When she reached the house she could
scarce drag herself up the four flights of
narrow, creaking stairs, her little legs
were so weary and her whole body SO
racked with pain and shivering with cold.
As for Billy, he was asleep, so fast asleep
that her attempts to waken him were
fruitless.
Granny was sitting half asleep by an
old rickety table, a bottle at her elbow and
an empty glass in her hand In another
bottle small bit of tallow candle
was stuck awry. gave feeble light and
wasted most of its substance on the impro-
vised candlestick. When Mary opened
the door the old woman awoke, starting.
"Much-a-much d. you git?" she asked
in thick voice.
"Tenpence."
"Tenpence! you lazy brat. I'll"
swat till | put Billy down." She
lodged the old woman and went over to
the heap of rags in the corner-Billy's bed
and her own. Granny had mattress and
a blanket for herself in another corner.
"Gim-Gimme it ~ shouted the old
WOudu. LII ucH duAltty W possess the
money, she staggered after Mary, candle in
hand, when her eyes fell on Billy lying
motionless on the rag heap; she gave a
kind of chuckle.
"Wot luck she cried, bending down to
peer into his white face, and taking his
cold hand in her rough grasp.
"Wot luck A mouth less to feed-and
Billy wasn't no use. Gimme the tenpence;
L can have some more gin tonight, for I'll
be gettin' the buryin' money. Wot luck
know'd | wouldn't pay in long. Wot
luck p
Not until Mary had seen him laid in a
tiny grave two days later did she realize
how lonely she was without Billy. She
had nobody now in all the big world to
care for-nobody to care for her. "Gran-
ny" was not her granny at all; but only
an old woman she and Billy had lived
with ever since their mother died. Mary
remembered her mother quite well, and
she often cried because she was dead, yet
she missed Billy far more than she had
ever missed her mother When her mother
died there was Billy left-now Billy was
gone, and there was nobody. "Billy wasn't
no use" granny had said. That was true,
in sense. He didn't make money like
Mary, for he couldn't sing unless she was
with him, and, even then, very badly.