Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

HOW SHE ACQUIRED THE NAME OF BLADE-O'-GRASS

Thus, whilst one little babe was tended and watched by benevolent hands and eyes, the fate of the other-the prettier one, she with the unfortunate dimple-was intrusted to the shapeless hands of chance. To such tender care as had happily fallen to its lot, the fortunate one may be left for a time. Turn we to the other, and watch its strange bringing-up.

Proverbially, too many cooks spoil the broth; and this forlorn babe was left to the care of too many cooks, who, however, in this instance, did not spoil the broth by meddling with it, but by almost utterly neglecting it. The landlady's declaration that 'We'll look after her between us; one'll take her one day, and one another,' although uttered in all sincerity, turned out badly in its application. What is everybody's business is nobody's business, and for the most part the babe was left to take care of herself. For a little while Mrs. Manning was the child's only friend; but in the course of a couple of months she fulfilled her husband's apprehension, and added another bantling to his already overstocked quiver. This new arrival (which, it must be confessed, was not received with gratitude by its father) was so fractious, and so besieged by a complication of infantile disorders, that all Mrs. Manning's spare moments were fully occupied, and she had none to devote to other people's children. The motherless child threatened to fare badly indeed. But now and again a mother who had lost her offspring came to the little stranger and suckled her; so that she drew life from many bosoms, and may be said to have had at least a score of wet-nurses. And thus she grew up almost literally in the gutters, no one owning her, no one really caring for her; and yet she throve, as weeds thrive-while her sister, not a mile away, throve, in the care of kind friends, as flowers thrive. Born in equality, with the same instincts for good and evil, with the same capacity for good and evil, equally likely to turn out good or bad, should it have been left entirely to chance that one might live to prove a blessing, and the other a curse, to society? But so it was.

One of the most curious circumstances connected with the little outcast was, that she was not known by any settled name. It grew to be a fashion to call her by all sorts of names-now Polly, now Sally, now Young Hussy, now Little Slut, and by a dozen others, not one of which remained to her for any length of time. But when she was three years of age, an event occurred which played the part of godmothers and godfathers to her, and which caused her to receive a title by which she was always afterwards known.

There was not a garden in Stoney-alley. Not within the memory of living man had a flower been known to bloom there. There were many poor patches of ground, crowded as the neighbourhood was, which might have been devoted to the cultivation of a few bright petals; but they were allowed to lie fallow, festering in the sun. Thought of graceful form and colour had never found expression there. Strange, therefore, that one year, when Summer was treading close upon the heel of Spring, sending warm sweet winds to herald her coming, there should spring up, in one of the dirtiest of all the backyards in Stoney-alley, two or three Blades of Grass. How they came there, was a mystery. No human hand was accountable for their presence. It may be that a bird, flying over the place, had mercifully dropped a seed; or that a kind wind had borne it to the spot. But however they came, there they were, these Blades of Grass, peeping up from the ground shyly and wonderingly, and giving promise of bright colour, even in the midst of the unwholesome surroundings. Our little castaway-she was no better-now three years of age, was sprawling in this dirty backyard with a few other children, all of them regular students of Dirt College. Attracted by the little bit of colour, she crawled to the spot where it shone in the light, and straightway fell to watching it and inhaling, quite unconsciously, whatever of grace it possessed. Once or twice she touched the tender blades, and seemed to be pleased to find them soft and pliant. The other children, delighted at having the monopoly of a gutter, that ran through the yard, did not disturb her; and so she remained during the day, watching and wondering; and fell asleep by the side of the Blades of Grass, and dreamed perhaps of brighter colours and more graceful forms than had ever yet found place in her young imagination. The next day she made her way again to the spot, and seeing that the blades had grown a little, wondered and wondered, and unconsciously exercised that innate sense of worship of the beautiful which is implanted in every nature, and which causes the merest babes to rejoice at light, and shapes of beauty, and harmony of sound. What is more wonderful, in the eyes of a babe, than vivid colour or light, however kindled? what more sweet to its senses than that perfect harmony of sound which falls upon its ears as the mother sings softly and lulls her darling to sleep? This latter blessing had never fallen to the lot of our child; but colour and light were given to her, and she was grateful for them. She grew to love these emerald leaves, and watched them day after day, until the women round about observed and commented upon her strange infatuation. But one evening, when the leaves were at their brightest and strongest, a man, running hastily through the yard, crushed the blades of grass beneath his heel, and tore them from the earth. The grief of the child was intense. She cast a passionate yet bewildered look at the man, and picking up the torn soiled blades, put them in the breast of her ragged frock, in the belief that warmth would bring them back to life. She went to bed with the mangled leaves in her hot hand, and when she looked at them the next morning, they bore no resemblance to the bright leaves which had been such a delight to her. She went to the spot where they had grown, and cried without knowing why; and the man who had destroyed the leaves happening to pass at the time, she struck at him with her little fists. He pushed her aside rather roughly with his foot, and Mrs. Manning, seeing this, and having also seen the destruction of the leaves, and the child's worship of them, blew him up for his unkindness. He merely laughed, and said he wouldn't have done it if he had looked where he was going, and that it was a good job for the child that she wasn't a Blade-o'-Grass herself, or she might have been trodden down with the others. The story got about the alley, and one and another, at first in fun or derision, began to call the child Little Blade-o'-Grass, until, in course of time, it came to be recognised as her regular name, and she was known by it all over the neighbourhood. So, being thus strangely christened, Little Blade-o'-Grass grew in years and in ignorance, and became a worthy member of Dirt College, in which school she was matriculated for the battle of life.

THE LEGEND OF THE TIGER

At a very early age indeed was Blade-o'-Grass compelled to begin the battle of life. Her greatest misfortune was that, as she grew in years, she grew strong. Had she been a weakly little thing, some one might have taken pity on her, and assumed the responsibility of maintaining her. The contingency was a remote one; but all chance of benefiting by it was utterly destroyed, because she was strong and hardy. She may be said to have had some sort of a home up to the time that she attained the age of nine years; for a corner for her to sleep in was always found in the house in which she was born. But about that time certain important changes took place, which materially affected her, although she had no hand in them. The landlady gave up the house, and some one else took it, and turned it into a shop. The lodgers all received notice to leave, and went elsewhere to live. A great slice of luck fell to the share of Mr. Manning. An uncle whom he had never seen died in a distant land, and left his money to his relatives; and a shrewd lawyer made good pickings by hunting up nephews and nieces of the deceased. Among the rest, he hunted up Mr. Manning, and one day he handed his client a small sum of money. Mr. Manning put his suddenly acquired wealth to a good purpose-he got passage in a government emigrant ship, and with his wife and large family, bade good-bye for ever to Stoney-alley. He left the country, as hundreds and thousands of others have done, with a bitter feeling in his heart because he was not able to stop in it, and earn a decent livelihood; but, as hundreds and thousands of others have done, he lived this feeling down, and in his new home, with better prospects and better surroundings, talked of his native land-meaning Stoney-alley-as the 'old country,' in terms of affection and as if he had been treated well in it. It will be easily understood that when Blade-o'-Grass lost Mrs. Manning, she lost her best friend.

To say that she passed an easy life up to this point of her career would be to state what is false. The child was in continual disgrace, and scarcely a day passed that was not watered with her tears. Blows, smacks, and harsh words were administered to her freely, until she grew accustomed to them, and they lost their moral force. She deserved them, for she was the very reverse of a good little girl. In a great measure her necessities made her what she was, and no counteracting influence for good approached her. If she were sent for beer, she would stop at corners, and taste and sip, and bring home short measure. There was something fearful in her enjoyment; but she had no power nor desire to resist the temptation. No tragedy queen, before the consummation of the final horror, ever looked round with more watchful, wary, fearsome gaze than did Blade-o'-Grass, when, having nerved her soul to take a sip of beer, she stopped at a convenient corner, or in the shadow of a dark doorway, to put her desire into execution. And then she was always breaking things. The mugs she let fall would have paved Stoney-alley. But there was a greater temptation than beer: Bread. If she were sent for a half-quartern loaf, she would not fail to dig out with liberal fingers the soft portions between the crusts, and eagerly devour them. Even if she had not been hungry-which would have been a white-letter day in her existence-she would have done from habit what she almost invariably was urged to do by the cravings of her stomach. And about that unfortunate stomach of hers, calumnies were circulated and believed in. So persistent an eater was Blade-o'-Grass, so conscientious a devourer of anything that, legitimately or otherwise, came in her way-quality being not of the slightest object-that a story got about that she had 'something' in her inside, some living creature of a ravenous nature, that waited for the food as she swallowed it, and instantly devoured it for its own sustenance. Such things had been known of. At some remote period a girl in the neighbourhood-whose personality was never traced, but whom everybody believed in-had had such an animal-a few called it a 'wolf,' but the majority insisted that it was a 'tiger'-growing inside of her, and this animal, so the story went, grew and grew, and fed upon the girl's life till it killed her. The 'tiger' had been found alive after the girl's death, and having been purchased of some one for a fabulous price, was embalmed in a bottle in a great museum, of which nobody knew the name or the whereabouts. As an allegory, this 'tiger' might have served to illustrate the mournful story of the lives of Blade-o'-Grass and thousands of her comrades-it might have served, indeed, to point a bitter moral; but there was nothing allegorical about the inhabitants of Stoney-alley. They only dealt in hard matter-of-fact, and the mythical story was fully believed in; and being applied to the case of Blade-o'-Grass, became a great terror to her. Many persons found delight in tormenting the helpless child about her 'tiger,' and for a long time the slightest allusion to it was sufficient to cause her the most exquisite anguish, in consequence of certain malevolent declarations, that she ought to be cut open and have the tiger taken out of her. Indeed, one miserable old fellow, who kept a rag-shop, and who had in his window two or three dust-coated bottles containing common-place reptiles preserved in spirits-of-wine, took a malicious pleasure in declaring that the operation ought to be really performed upon Blade-o'-Grass, and that, in the interests of science, she ought not to be allowed to live. It was the cruelest of sport thus to torture the poor child; for the simple fact was, that Blade-o'-Grass was nearly always hungry. It was nature tugging at her stomach-not a tiger.

The very first night of Mrs. Manning's departure, Blade-o'-Grass found herself without a bed. With a weary wretched sense of desolation upon her, she lingered about the old spot where she used to sleep, and even ventured to enter at the back of the house, when the sharp 'Come, get out o' this!' of the new proprietor sent her flying away. She belonged to nobody, and nobody cared for her; so she wandered and lingered about until all the lights in the shops and houses were out. She had gleaned some small pleasure in watching these lights; she had found comfort in them; and when they were all extinguished and she was in darkness, she trembled under the impulse of a vague terror. She did not cry; it was not often now that she called upon the well of tender feeling where tears lay; but she was terrified. There was not a star in the sky to comfort her. She was in deep darkness, body and soul. How many others are there at this present moment in the same terrible condition?

Too full of fear to stand upright, she crept along the ground slowly, feeling her way by the walls, stopping every now and then to gather fresh courage, at which time she tried to shut out her fears by cowering close to the flagstones and hiding her face in her ragged frock. She had a purpose in view. She had thought of a refuge where she would find some relief from the terrible shadows. Towards that refuge she was creeping now. It was a long, long time before she reached her haven-a crazy old lamp-post, the dim light of which was in keeping with the general poverty of its surroundings. At the foot of this lamp-post, clasping it as if it were the symbol of a sacred refuge, Blade-o'-Grass looked up at the light in agony of speechless gratitude, and then, wearied almost to a state of unconsciousness, coiled herself up into a ball, like a hedgehog, and soon was fast asleep.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE

What followed? Remorseless Time pursued his way, and the minutes, light to some, heavy to some, leaving in their track a train of woe and joy, and grief and happiness; the leaden minutes, the golden minutes, flew by until daylight came and woke the sleeping child. Unwashed-but that was her chronic condition, and did not affect her-forlorn, uncared-for, Blade-o'-Grass looked round upon her world, and rubbed her eyes, and yawned; then, after a time, rose to her feet, and cast quick eager glances about her. The tiger in her stomach was awake and stirring, and Blade-o'-Grass had no food to give it to satisfy its cravings. She prowled up and down, and round and about the dirty courts, in search of something to eat; anything would have more than contented her-mouldy crust, refuse food; but the stones of Stoney-alley and its fellows were merciless, and no manna fell from heaven to bless the famished child. She would have puzzled the wisest philosopher in social problems, if he were not utterly blinded by theory; for, looking at her from every aspect, and taking into account, not only that she was endowed with mental, moral, and physical faculties, but that she was a human being with a soul 'to be saved,' he could have produced but one result from her-a yearning for food. He could have struck no other kind of fire from out of this piece of flint. What resemblance did Blade-o'-Grass bear to that poetical image which declared her to be noble in reason, infinite in faculty, express and admirable in form and bearing; like an angel in action; like a god in apprehension? The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! Perhaps it will be best for us not to examine too curiously, for there is shame in the picture of this child-girl prowling about for food. Poor Blade-o'-Grass! with every minute the tiger in her stomach grew more rabid, and tore at her vitals tigerishly. In the afternoon she found a rotten apple in the gutter, and she stooped and picked it up, joy glistening in her eyes. It was a large apple, fortunately, and she devoured it eagerly, and afterwards chewed the stalk. That was all the food she got that day; and when night came, and she had watched the lights out, she coiled herself up into a ball by the side of her lamp-post again and slept, and awoke in the morning, sick with craving. Yesterday's experience whispered to her not to look about for food in Stoney-alley; and she walked, with painful steps into the wider thoroughfare, and stopped for a few minutes to recover herself from her astonishment at the vast world in which she found herself. She would have been content to stop there all the day, but that the tiger cried for food, and she cried for food in sympathy with the tiger. Keeping her eyes fixed upon the ground, and never once raising her pitiful face to the faces that flashed past her, hither and thither, she faltered onwards for a hundred yards or so, and then, in a frightened manner, retraced her steps, so that she should not lose herself. 'Give me food!' cried the tiger, and 'Give me food!' cried Blade-o'-Grass from the innermost depths of her soul. At about ten o'clock in the morning, her cry was answered; she saw a cats'-meat man with a basket full of skewered meat hanging upon his arm. Instinctively she followed him, and watched the cats running to the doors at the sound of his voice, and waiting with arched backs and dilating eyes for his approach. Blade-o'-Grass wished with all her heart and soul that she were a cat, so that she might receive her portion upon a skewer; but no such happiness was hers. She followed the man wistfully and hungeringly, until he stopped at the door of a house where there were evidently arrears of account to be settled. He placed his basket upon the doorstep, and went into the passage to give some change to the woman of the house. Here was an opportunity for Blade-o'-Grass. She crept stealthily and fearfully towards the basket, and snatching up two portions of cats'-meat, ran for her life, with her stolen food hidden in her tattered frock-ran until she reached Stoney-alley, where she sank to the ground with her heart leaping at her throat, and where, after recovering her breath, she devoured her ill-gotten meat with unbounded satisfaction. She had no idea that she had done a wrong thing. She was hungry, and had simply taken food when the opportunity presented itself. The fear by which she had been impressed had not sprung from any moral sense, but partly from the thought that the man would hurt her if he caught her taking his property, and partly from the thought (more agonising than the other) that she might be prevented from carrying out her design. The next day she watched for and followed the cats'-meat man again, and again was successful in obtaining a meal; and so on for a day or two afterwards. But the food was not over nice, and the tiger whispered to her that a change would be agreeable. Success made her bold, and she looked about her for other prey. Her first venture, after the cats'-meat man lost her patronage, was an old woman who kept an apple-stall, and who went to sleep as regularly as clockwork every afternoon at three o'clock and woke at five. But even in her sleep this old apple-woman seemed to be wary, and now and then would mumble out with drowsy energy, 'Ah, would yer? I sees yer!' as if the knowledge that she was surrounded by suspicious characters whose mouths watered for her fruit had eaten into her soul. But as these exclamations to terrify poachers were mumbled out when the old woman really was in an unconscious state, she fell an easy victim to Blade-o'-Grass. She was a great treasure to the little girl, for she dealt in nuts and oranges as well as apples. Then there was a woman who sold a kind of cake designated 'jumbles,'-a wonderful luxury, price four a penny. She also fell a victim, and between one and another Blade-o'-Grass managed to pick up a precarious living, and in a few months became as nimble and expert a little thief as the sharpest policeman would wish to make an example of. She was found out, of course, sometimes, and was cuffed and beaten; but she was never given in charge. The persons from whom she stole seemed to be aware of the hapless condition of the child, and had mercy upon her; indeed, many of them had at one time or another of their lives known what it was to suffer the pangs of hunger.

Incredible as it may sound, Blade-o'-Grass still had one friend left. His name was Tom Beadle. He was some five years older than Blade-o'-Grass, but looked so delicate and sickly, and was of such small proportions, that they might have been taken for pretty nearly the same age. Delicate and sickly as he looked, he was as sharp as a weasel. He had a mother and a father, who, when they were not in prison, lived in Stoney-alley, but they-being a drunken and dissolute pair-did not trouble themselves about their son. So he had to shift for himself, and in course of time became cunningest of the cunning. Between him and Blade-o'-Grass there had grown a closer intimacy than she had contracted with any other of her associates, and whenever they met they stopped to have a chat Blade-o'-Grass had a genuine affection for him, for he had often given her a copper, and quite as often had shared his meal with her.

A few months after the change for the worse in the prospects of Blade-o'-Grass, Tom Beadle, lounging about in an idle humour, saw her sitting on the kerb-stone with her eyes fixed upon the old apple-woman, who had begun to nod. There was something in the gaze of Blade-o'-Grass that attracted Tom Beadle's attention, and he set himself to watch. Presently the girl shifted a little nearer to the fruit-stall-a little nearer-nearer, until she was quite close. Her hand stole slowly towards the fruit, and a pear was taken, then another. Tom Beadle laughed; but looked serious immediately afterwards, for Blade-o'-Grass was running away as fast as her legs could carry her. Assuring himself that there was no cause for alarm, Tom Beadle ran after her, and placed his hand heavily on her shoulder. She had heard the step behind her, and her heart almost leaped out of her throat; but when she felt the hand upon her shoulder, she threw away the stolen fruit, and fell to the ground in an agony of fear.

'Git up, you little fool,' exclaimed Tom Beadle. 'What are you frightened at?' Before he said this, however, he picked up the pears and put them in his pocket.

'O, Tom!' cried Blade-o'-Grass, the familiar tones falling upon her ears like sweetest music; 'I thought it was somebody after me.'

Then Tom told her that he ran after her to stop her running, and instructed her that it was the very worst of policy, after she had 'prigged' anything, to run away when nobody was looking. And this was the first practical lesson in morals that Blade-o'-Grass had received.

'But, I say, Bladergrass,' observed Tom, 'I didn't know as you'd taken to prig.'

'I can't help it, Tom. The tiger's always at me.'

Tom implicitly believed in the tiger story.

'Well, that's all right,' said Tom; 'only take care-and don't you run away agin when nobody's a-lookin'.'

Months passed, and Blade-o'-Grass lived literally from hand to mouth. But times grew very dull; her hunting-ground was nearly worked out, and she was more often hungry than not. One day she hadn't been able to pick up a morsel of food, and had had insufficient for many previous days. The day before she had had but one scanty meal, so that it is not difficult to imagine her miserable condition. Her guardian angel, Tom Beadle, discovered her crouching against a wall, with fear and despair in her face and eyes. He knew well enough what was the matter, but he asked her for form's sake, and she returned him the usual answer, while the large tears rolled down her cheeks into her mouth.

It so happened that Tom Beadle had been out of luck that day. He hadn't a copper in his pocket. He felt about for one, nevertheless, and finding none, whistled-curiously enough, the 'Rogues' March'-more in perplexity than from surprise.

'Ain't yer had anythink to eat, Bladergrass?'

'Not a blessed bite,' was the answer.

It was about five o'clock in the evening; there were at least a couple of hours to sunset. An inspiration fell upon Tom Beadle, and his countenance brightened.

'Come along o' me,' he said.

Blade-o'-Grass placed her hand unhesitatingly in his, and they walked towards the wealthier part of the City, until they came to a large space surrounded by great stone buildings. In the centre of the space was a statue. Blade-o'-Grass had never been so far from her native place as this. The crowds of people hurrying hither and thither, as if a moment's hesitation would produce, a fatal result; the apparently interminable strings of carts and cabs and wagons and omnibuses issuing from half-a-dozen thoroughfares, and so filling the roads with moving lines and curves and angles, that it seemed to be nothing less than miraculous how a general and disastrous crash was avoided, utterly bewildered little Blade-o'-Grass, and caused her for a moment to be oblivious of the cravings of the tiger in her stomach.

'Now, look 'ere, Bladergrass,' whispered Tom Beadle: 'you keep tight 'old of my 'and; if anybody arks yer, I'm yer brother a-dyin' of consumption. I'm a-dyin' by inches, I am.'

Forthwith he called into his face such an expression of utter, helpless woe and misery, that Blade-o'-Grass cried out in terror,

'O, what's up, Tom? O, don't, Tom, don't!' really believing that her companion had been suddenly stricken.

'Don't be stoopid!' remonstrated Tom, smiling at her to reassure her, and then resuming his wobegone expression; 'I'm only a-shammin'.'

With that he sank upon the bottom of a grand flight of stone steps, dragging Blade-o'-Grass down beside him. There they remained, silent, for a few moments, and perhaps one in a hundred of the eager bustling throng turned to give the strange pair a second glance; but before sympathy had time to assume practical expression, a policeman came up to them, and bade them move on. Tom rose to his feet, wearily and painfully, and slowly moved away: a snail in its last minutes of life could scarcely have moved more slowly, if it had moved at all. He took good care to keep tight hold of the hand of Blade-o'-Grass, lest she should be pushed from him and be lost in the crowd. A notable contrast were these two outcasts-she, notwithstanding her fright and the pangs of hunger by which she was tormented, strong-limbed and sturdy for her age; and he drooping, tottering, with a death-look upon his face, as if every moment would be his last. You would have supposed that his mind was a blank to all but despair, and that he was praying for death; but the cunning and hypocrisy of Tom Beadle were not to be measured by an ordinary standard. He was as wide awake as a weasel, and although his eyes were to the ground, he saw everything that surged around him, and was as ready to take advantage of an opportunity as the sharpest rascal in London. As he and his companion made their way through the busy throng, they attracted the attention of two men-both of them elderly men, of some sixty years of age; one, well-dressed, with a bright eye and a benevolent face; the other, poorly but not shabbily dressed, and with a face out of which every drop of the milk of human kindness seemed to have been squeezed when he was a young man. When he looked at you, it appeared as if you were undergoing the scrutiny of two men; for one of his eyes had a dreadfully fixed and glassy stare in it, and the other might have been on fire, it was so fiercely watchful.

Now, overpowered as Tom Beadle might have been supposed to be in his own special ills and cares, he saw both these men, as he saw everything else about him, and a sly gleam of recognition passed from his eyes to the face of the odd-looking and poorly-dressed stranger; it met with no response, however. The next moment Tom raised his white imploring face to that of the better-dressed man, whose tender heart was stirred by pity at the mute appeal. He put his hand in his pocket, but seemed to be restrained from giving; some impulse within him whispered, 'Don't!' while his heart prompted him to give. But the struggle was not of long duration. The words, 'Indiscriminate charity again,' fell from his lips, and looking round cautiously as if he were about to commit a felony, he hastily approached close to the two children, and, with an air of guilt, slipped a shilling in Tom Beadle's hand. After which desperate deed, he turned to fly from the spot, when he saw something in the face of the odd-looking man (who had been watching the comedy with curious interest) which made him first doubtful, then angry. Although they were strangers, he was impelled to speak, and his kind nature made him speak in a polite tone.

'Dreadful sight, sir, dreadful sight,' he said, pointing to the creeping forms of Tom Beadle and Blade-o'-Grass. 'A penny can't be thrown away there, eh?'

The odd-looking man shrugged his shoulders. The shrug conveyed to the benevolent stranger this meaning: 'You are an imbecile; you are an old fool; you are not fit to be trusted alone.' It was the most expressive of shrugs.