CHAPTER IV.

THE TEMPTATION.--THE FALL.

Eve was tempted of Satan, and fell. So have been her children.

About two months after the events of the last chapter, a few of the new friends of James Reagan joined together, procured a comfortable room in Mulberry street, and put in the necessary articles of furniture, and his wife, faithful to her promise, came to live with him. There was a great contrast between this and the home where we visited him in Centre street. Nolan and Elting stuck to him, and he stuck to the pledge. Margaret watched him, visited him, went with him and her mother to church and temperance meetings, and, finally, became satisfied and happy that her father had made a complete reformation, and that he had outlived all danger of relapse; so she accepted a good offer to go into the country, and live in a farmer's house, where she would learn house-work. It was her fortune, but his misfortune, thus to be separated. She was his ever-watchful guardian angel. His wife was affectionately kind, and they lived together, as of old, happily. And so, as of Adam and Eve in paradise, they might have lived, if there had been no serpents in New York. They beset him--waylaid him--tempted him--but no art could induce him to enter their sulphurous dens. Cale Jones swore that he would get him back; that he would have him among his old cronies again, or die in the attempt.

"Them ere cold water chaps aren't a going to crow over me that ere way, no how. I tell you what it is, boys, you must contrive some way to get Jim in here some night; he has got money now, and if he won't drink himself, he shall stand treat any how. We've treated him many a time."

"Dat am de fac," says Ring-nosed Bill.

"Shut your clapper, you drunken nigger, you; who axt you to put in your oar. If you want to do anything, just get Jim Reagan, by hook or crook, in here once more."

"And you will give him what you did Pedlar Jake."

"Shut pan, or I'll chuck your ivory into your bread-basket. What's in your wool, Snakey?"

"Dis nigger knows how to fix him. Make him come his self."

"Let her rip, Snakey; how'll you do it?"

"Jis go to work at right end foremost. 'Spose you the debble stick him forked tongue right out all at once to frighten Fader Adam? No, sir-ee; he creep round mighty sly, and wiggle him tail at Mudder Eve, and den she come it over de old man. Dat am the way. Aren't you got no gumption?"

"I understand. Who shall the Eve be, Snakey?"

"Smoky Sal. She is a pet of his. He got her in."

"I know it. She is in that old missionary's claws. How are you going to get her out?"

"Dat easy 'nuff, so you work him right. Gib us a drink, Cale. I isn't going to grab for you for nothing."

"I'll give you a gallon if you bring him in. How'll you do it?'

"Do you think this nigger am a fool, sure? 'Spose I gwine to tell you, and lose the gallon. Take notice, Ring-nose, it's a fair trade. So jis you git ready to-morrow night for business, case he'll be down then."

The next night the trap was set. Snakey went to One-eyed Angeline, and promised her a share in the gallon, if she would contrive a plan to get Smoky Sal out of the House of Industry, and get her over to Cale Jones's, and get her drunk.

These two had long been sisters in sin. One had reformed, or was trying to reform, for Reagan had got her into the House, and seemed very anxious for her, having, as he said, been the cause of her downfall. The other hated her for her reformation, and would drag her back, down, down, to the wretched life she had escaped from.

So she sent word to Sally that she was sick and almost dying, and begged her to come and see her. How could she refuse? So she went, and found her with her head tied up, and in dreadful pain. Directly in came Snakey Jo, with the first installment of the gallon. It was to bathe her head. Can an old inebriate put liquor upon the outside of the head without putting it in? Sally could not. She smelt--she tasted--she drank--was drunk--and then Angeline took her down to Cale Jones's grocery, and into his back room, and then that black imp of a worse than slave's master, watched for Reagan as he started for home, and with an air of honesty that might deceive the wariest old fox into a trap, he told him how "Angeline had coaxed Sally into the grocery, and he had been watching an hour"--that was the only truth he spoke--he watched for another victim--"and she hadn't come out yet, and he was afraid she was in trouble; and now, Mister Reagan, I is so glad I is fell in wid you, accidental like, case I didn't know as you was in the Points, case you can get her out, and get her back home."

With a natural impulse to do good, he determined, imprudently, to be sure, to do what he had not done since he signed the pledge--to enter a rum-hole. There he found the two women as the negro had told him. Sally was completely overcome, and lying in one corner of "the back room." Back it was, quite out of sight or hearing of the street, where many a victim had been robbed at a game of cards, or by more direct means. It was in this room that Pedlar Jake got his quietus.

"I had been in the room often before," said Reagan. "I knew the way, and I paid no heed to the hypocritically angry words I was greeted with as I entered, and told to clear out and mind my own business. I pushed my way through the crowd of loafers, and entered the door of death. That old witch, Angeline, took care to get out of my way as I went in. I sat down upon the bed and tried to rouse up the victim of this infernal plot, little thinking that I was the greatest one of the two. The room was very close and foul, and as I had been unused, lately, to breathe such air, it made me sick. 'Tom,' said I--let me stop and moralize a little upon this name. I would never call a child, Tom. There is something fatal in the word. I have known more drunken Toms than of all other names. It is a low-bred name. Bill, Jim, Joe, Sam, Ike, are all bad, but none equal to Tom." "Two of my drunkenest companions," said Reagan, "afterwards, my best friends, were Toms--now Thomas Elting and Thomas Nolan." Parents, don't nickname your children, it is a step down that may carry them to the bottom of the ladder.

Give your children good names; names they will not be ashamed of in after life, and never cut them short. Never call, William, Bill; or, Catherine, Kate; or, Mary, that most beautiful of all names, a name I love, Moll; it will, perhaps, be the direct cause of their ruin as they grow up. Who would think of speaking a foul word to Miss Mary Dudley? Who would speak with respect to Moll Dud? Parents, think of it.

Now, here was another Tom. A bright, active boy--Tom Top, whose proper name was, Thomas Topham. What if he had been called Charles? why, his nickname would have been an elongation to Charley, a name that everybody loves. At any rate, he would not have been, drunken Tom--a poor, neglected orphan boy, who, for want of some one to guide and keep him in the path of virtue, had strayed into the very worst of all paths of vice. From a home, where he received a fair education, and had a good mother, but a father who learned him to drink, and who thought it cunning to call him, Tom Top, he was come down to be a mere hanger-on around Cale Jones's grocery.

"God never works without an object," is an axiom of those who look every day to him for counsel. We shall see in time how the villain was defeated in his object of bringing Reagan into this place, and making use of Tom for an instrument of his ruin.

"'Tom,' said I, 'bring me a glass of water.' He did so, I tasted it and set it down a moment for the ice to melt. When I took it up again, I swallowed the whole tumbler full at a gulph. In a moment my throat, my stomach, my brain were on fire. I had drank half-a-pint of white whiskey. Those wicked wretches had hired Tom to substitute one glass for the other. What transpired for three days after, I know not."

The next morning, before sunrise, his wife came down to the Points in an agony of fear. "Was Reagan there?" was her hopeful inquiry. Hope sunk and almost carried her with it when told that he left there before ten to go home. "Then he is lost, lost, lost!"

All that day he was searched for up and down, high and low, but nobody had seen him. How the villains lied, for they were all the time gloating over their victory--double victory--two stray sheep won back--back to the wolf's den. All that day the pack were carousing upon the money robbed from Reagan.

"What a glorious haul, boys," says Cale Jones, "we must have Tom Elting and Nolan, next, and then hurrah, boys, we'll break up old Pease and drive him out of the Points yet."

How could human nature become so infernally depraved, as to rejoice over and glorify such deeds of darkness?

By Rum. The very parent of total depravity.

At night, after their day's work, Elting and Nolan came down and joined the search, looking into every hole that was most likely to have been used for his tomb, worse than tomb, for it was the burial-place of his soul. They did not look in Cale Jones's back room, for he "took his Bible oath that Jim Reagan had never entered his door in a three month."

Finally, after the pack had spent every cent of his money, and pawned every article of his clothing, they were ready to get rid of his company. But they were not quite satisfied with the misery they had made for his wife, and so they plotted a scheme so wicked that the most incarnate one of all the hosts of the infernal regions would blush to own the deed.

They knew that Sally had been a source of disturbance, a cause of jealousy to his wife in by-gone years, and so they laid their plan. Madalina, a little beggar girl, an Italian rag-picker's daughter, was promised a sixpence to go, as she would not be suspected, to tell Mrs. Reagan, that Tom knew where her husband was.

It was a faint hope, but drowning men catch at straws.

Tom was hunted up. He was easily found, for he had his instructions, "to bring the old woman along." Did they hope in her frenzy of despair and jealousy that she too would fall? Yes they did.

Could human ingenuity contrive anything more harrowing to the mind of a wife, searching for her absent husband, than an introduction into a room where he was in bed with another woman, folding her, in his drunken insanity, in his arms, protesting how he loved her, loved her better than he did--better than--his grog?

The monsters missed their aim. Mrs. Reagan spoke kindly to him as though in her own bed; begged him to get up and go home with her. No he would not. She might go back to her old missionary paramour. She might go to ---- no matter where, he was drunk. But he could not get up, for the villains had stripped him of every stitch of clothing; they had not even left him a shirt. So she went away, sorrowing.

"Tom," said she, "come, go home with me, that is a good boy, I feel so faint and weak." Tom was a good boy; who had ever said it though? One, one he remembered, and these words came like hers and nestled down in his heart. They will live there and drive out evil ones.

Tom went home with her, giving her his arm and telling her to lean upon it. Tom was not the best of guides, he made several missteps that day, for tears dimmed his eyes, but he made one good step, it was up the ladder of reform.

"Mrs. Reagan," said he, "let me stay here to-day, I have got no home, and I don't feel as though I wanted to go back to Cale Jones's."

No. He did not want to go back there. He had heard the sound of his dead mother's voice, saying, good boy. Nobody would say, good boy, if he went back there. Conscience too was doing her work; conscience told him what he had done to a woman who now said, "good boy."

So he stayed--he was a good boy--she was sick and he waited upon her all day. At night he was going to get Mr. Elting and Nolan to go with him and bring Reagan home. That would be his reward. He has his hand upon the door to go out, but waits a moment to see who comes. He opens it to a hurried footstep, and in bounds Wild Maggie, her face radiant with health, strength, and the lovely bloom of country life.

"Where's father? Mother sick? What's the matter?"

Her mother draws the clothes over her face. She would not have her daughter see her weep.

"Tom, my boy, tell me; come, Tom, that is a good boy--the truth, nothing but the truth--I must know it."

Good boy, again, and his heart overflowed. He could stand kicks, and cuffs, and curses, without a tear, but he could not hold out against, "good boy."

"Maggie, I will not lie to _you_, I could not; but I can't tell you the truth."

"Why?"

"I am 'fraid you won't call me good boy again."

"Yes, I will. I don't believe you are a bad one."

"And you won't hate me?"

"No, no; she cannot hate you, for you have been good to her mother, to-day."

"Mother! Oh! I know all about it. You need not tell me. Only, where is he? I will go and bring him home."

"Did Heaven ever give a mother such another child?"

Yes, many such. Many a flower would send its blossomed sweets to many a heart, but for blighting frosts in its young years.

"What sent you home, Maggie?"

"I don't know, mother; I felt as though I was wanted. Something told me so. I dreamed so for three nights, and so I came."

She was soon told everything. Tom made a full confession; and still she did not hate him. She told him how he could help her. He should go with her; she was going to bring her father home. She gave him a little bundle of clothes to carry; and away they went. She stopped on her way down, at the police office, made her complaint, and took an officer along with her, who arrested Cale Jones and the two women; the rest of the gang were prowling for prey somewhere else. The women were sent to the Island, next day, for they had no friends. The plotter of villainy had. The Alderman of the Sixth Ward, was his friend; political friend; him he sent for; and after being an hour in custody, he was discharged; and this was the end of his punishment.

Reagan, since his wife's visit in the morning, had steadily refused to drink any more, and had become in a measure sober. It was a sad meeting with his daughter. At first, he refused to see or speak to her. He was ashamed. Nature overcame him at last, and he got up and pulled off the dirty suit his robbers had put on him, preparatory to kicking him into the street, and put on the clean ones, which Maggie and Tom had brought him; and then they took him, each by an arm, and went home. It was a sad home; it never will be a happy one again. Then she went to work and got him some supper, spending of her own little store to buy some tea, and such things as he could eat.

"Now," says she, "I have got another thing to do to-night, for I must go back again in the morning. Tom, I am going to provide you with a home. You must go to the House of Industry, reform, and make a man of yourself."

Reader, do not forget. This ministering angel, is Wild Maggie.

Most willingly he went with her, and was most kindly received by the Superintendent. There we will leave him awhile. We shall see him again perhaps.

Maggie went back to her country home. Her father remained sick for some days, and then went to work, but his spirit was broken, he grew more and more uneasy, and finally, in a fit of despondency, met with one of his old cronies, and back he went, down, down, to his former degradation. Had he gone back and renewed his pledge, after his first fall, when he was dragged down, he might have been saved; but he would not; he said, he had proved himself incapable of ever being a man again, and so he sunk in despair. Week after week his clothes, his furniture, his wife's clothes, even her daughter's gift-Bible, went for rum. Nothing was left, but starvation. Yes, there was one thing left for her--one thing that that wife had never before received from her husband.

A blow, a black-eye, and a kick. It was one drop too much in her cup of affliction, and she parted with him for ever, and came back to her old home, the House of Industry.

Tom welcomed her with a smile; he was door-keeper now.

"It is better to be door-keeper," said he, "in the house--you know the rest. I will call Mr. P. I am sure, he will give you a home, he said as much yesterday. I shall write to Maggie now, and let her know all about it."

"You are very kind, Tom, to say that."

"Well, wasn't she kind to me? Where should I have been all this time, if it had not been for her? I think, we will get the old man in again, yet."

"No, no, he is passed everything, now. He never was so bad before, never struck me a blow before. A blow from him! Oh! it is dreadful. I never can forgive that."

"Don't say that. 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.'"

"True, my boy, you have taught me a lesson. I will forgive, but I don't think he will ever get over this bout; he is very violent."

"The most violent fires are soonest burnt out."

Tom had faith, she had none, she was a sad victim of despair--a despairing wife. But time will heal the deepest wounds. She went to work, grew cheerful, and contented there to spend the remainder of her life, which she said, would not be long. Of that she seemed to have a presentiment, and made all preparation which it becomes a reasonable mortal to make for such a prospective journey. She seemed to have but one wish.

"Oh! if I could see my husband as he was a few months ago, I should be willing to die then. But I cannot bear to die now with the thought upon my mind, that he would never shed a tear at my grave."

His time was coming. Tom was a philosopher. "Didn't I tell you," says he, "that the fire would soon burn out. He was here last night, walking up and down the pavement for hours, looking down into the kitchen when you were at work."

"Perhaps he wanted to strike me again."

"No, he was as sober as a judge."

"Oh, dear! then may be he was hungry, poor man."

"So I thought, and went and bought him a loaf of bread. When I gave it to him, he burst into tears, and walked away to a cart and sat down to eat it. He was hungry, and for fear he would be dry, and go to that cursed hole--"

"Don't swear, Tom."

"I can't help it; it is one, and why not call it so? I did not want him to go there, and so I went and got him a cup of water, and carried to him, and then I thought if everybody knew what a blessed thing it is to give these poor old drunkards bread and water instead of rum, how much happiness they might make in the world. And then I talked to him about taking the pledge again, but he said, 'no, Tom, I took it once, I don't want to break it again.' 'No,' said I, 'you did not break it, it was me that did it, I was the guilty one.' And then I told him all about it. He never knew before. The rascals there told him, that he and Sally came there together and called for whiskey, and then got drunk and went to bed together, and he believed it; his mind was so confused that he forgot all about the past, and he never knew till now that they had lied to him so shockingly. 'You don't know,' says he, 'Tom, what a load you have lifted off of my conscience.' Then I asked him where he was going to sleep that night?

"'Where? where should I? In the cart or under it. Anywhere I can find a hole. Me that have had a house of my own, and built a score of houses for others to sleep in, have not slept in one these two months. Perhaps never shall again.'

"'Yes you will,' says I; 'you will sleep in that one to-night.'

"'What! under the same roof with my wife once more; I don't know as I could stand it; it is more happiness than I deserve.'

"'No, it is not; and if you will go away in the morning, and stay away all day, and come back at night as sober as you are now, I will ask the Superintendent to take you in for good.'

"'I will, I will! I will go away and sweep the streets to-morrow; they will give me another loaf of bread, and that is more than I have had for a whole week.'

"So you see, he will come again to-night, and then it is temperance meeting, and we will get him in. Depend upon it, if he ever takes the pledge again he will never break it."

True to his word, Reagan came the next night sober.

"See," said he, "Tom, I have got a quarter of a dollar, and have not spent it for liquor. If some of the harpies knew I had it, how they would be after me."

He hesitated long about going into the meeting. He was afraid his wife would be there, and he could not bear to meet her. She was equally afraid to meet him. Finally, one of the assistants went out and talked with him.

"Do you think," he replied, "that I could ever be a man again? I am afraid there is not enough of me left to make one. Manhood is all gone. I feel as though I had made a beast of myself so long, that I must always be a beast. But if you think there is enough left of the old wreck--"

"Enough? Yes; come along."

This was a new voice, just come up on the other side. He looked around; it was Nolan.

"Nolan, my old friend--you were a friend to me; and I will try if Mr. Pease will agree to shut me up and keep me out of the way of these alligators. Look at them. Don't they lie about just like alligators in the mud and swamps, ready to snap up every poor dog that comes within reach of their tails or jaws?"

Well, he took the pledge, and in due time we will see how he kept it.

While I give my readers a little respite from the contemplation of such characters as have been introduced in the preceding chapters, I propose to introduce a little episode in the life of two of those which they have seen engaged in the noble work of reclaiming and sustaining a poor inebriate in his efforts to become a sober man. That they had reason to believe in the possibility of such reclamation, the reader will understand after reading the historical facts of the next chapter.