The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

"Lot's drunk," one door-keeper whispered to another.

"No; the Devil's in her, though, like a tiger, to-night."

Yet there was a certain grace and beauty in her face, as she looked at the manager, and spoke low and sudden.

"I'm not a beggar. I want money,—honest money. It's Christmas eve. They say you want a voice for the chorus, in the carols. Put me where I'll be hid, and I'll sing for you."

The manager's hand fell from his watch-chain. Storrs, a young lawyer of the place, touched his shoulder.

"Don't look so aghast, Pumphrey. Let her sing a ballad to show you. Her voice is a real curiosity."

Madame – looked dubiously across the room: her black maid had whispered to her. Lot belonged to an order she had never met face to face before: one that lives in the suburbs of hell.

"Let her sing, Pumphrey."

"If"–looking anxiously to the lady.

"Certainly," drawled that type of purity. "If it is so curious, her voice."

"Sing, then," nodding to the girl.

There was a strange fierceness under her dead, gray eye.

"Do you mean to employ me to-night?"

Her tones were low, soft, from her teeth out, as I told you. Her soul was chained, below: a young girl's soul, hardly older than your little daughter's there, who sings Sunday-school hymns for you in the evenings. Yet one fancied, if this girl's soul were let loose, it would utter a madder cry than any fiend in hell.

"Do you mean to employ me?" biting her finger-ends until they bled.

"Don't be foolish, Charlotte," whispered Storrs. "You may be thankful you're not sent to jail instead. But sing for him. He'll give you something, may-be."

She did not damn him, as he expected, stood quiet a moment, her eyelids fallen, relaxed with an inexpressible weariness. A black porter came to throw coals into the stove: he knew "dat debbil, Lot," well: had helped drag her drunk to the lock-up a day or two before. Now, before the white folks, he drew his coat aside, loathing to touch her. She followed him with a glazed look.

"Do you see what I am?" she said to the manager.

Nothing pitiful in her voice. It was too late for that.

"He wouldn't touch me: I'm not fit. I want help. Give me some honest work."

She stopped and put her hand on his coat-sleeve. The child she might have been, and never was, looked from her face that moment.

"God made me, I think," she said, humbly.

The manager's thin face reddened.

"God bless my soul! what shall I do, Mr. Storrs?"

The young man's thick lip and thicker eyelid drooped. He laughed, and whispered a word or two.

"Yes," gruffly, being reassured. "There's a policeman outside. Joe, take her out, give her in charge to him."

The negro motioned her before him with a billet of wood he held. She laughed. Her laugh had gained her the name of "Devil Lot."

"Why,"—fires that God never lighted blazing in her eyes,—"I thought you wanted me to sing! I'll sing. We'll have a hymn. It's Christmas, you know."

She staggered. Liquor, or some subtler poison, was in her veins. Then, catching by the lintel, she broke into that most deep of all adoring cries,—

"I know that my Redeemer liveth."

A strange voice. The men about her were musical critics: they listened intently. Low, uncultured, yet full, with childish grace and sparkle; but now and then a wailing breath of an unutterable pathos.

"Git out wid you," muttered the negro, who had his own religious notions, "pollutin' de name ob de Lord in yer lips!"

Lot laughed.

"Just for a joke, Joe. My Redeemer!"

He drove her down the stairs.

"Do you want to go to jail, Lot?" he said, more kindly. "It's orful cold out to-night."

"No. Let me go."

She went through the crowd out into the vacant street, down to the wharf, humming some street-song,—from habit, it seemed; sat down on a pile of lumber, picking the clay out of the holes in her shoes. It was dark: she did not see that a man had followed her, until his white-gloved hand touched her. The manager, his uncertain face growing red.

"Young woman"—

Lot got up, pushed off her bonnet. He looked at her.

"My God! No older than Susy," he said.

By a gas-lamp she saw his face, the trouble in it.

"Well?" biting her finger-ends again.

"I'm sorry for you, I"—

"Why?" sharply. "There's more like me. Fifteen thousand in the city of New York. I came from there."

"Not like you, child."

"Yes, like me," with a gulping noise in her throat. "I'm no better than the rest."

She sat down and began digging in the snow, holding the sullen look desperately on her face. The kind word had reached the tortured soul beneath, and it struggled madly to be free.

"Can I help you?"

No answer.

"There's something in your face makes me heart-sick. I've a little girl of your age."

She looked up quickly.

"Who are you, girl?"

She stood up again, her child's face white, the dark river rolling close by her feet.

"I'm Lot. I always was what you see. My mother drank herself to death in the Bowery dens. I learned my trade there, slow and sure."

She stretched out her hands into the night, with a wild cry,—

"My God! I had to live!"

What was to be done? Whose place was it to help her? he thought. He loathed to touch her. But her soul might be as pure and groping as little Susy's.

"I wish I could help you, girl," he said. "But I'm a moral man. I have to be careful of my reputation. Besides, I couldn't bring you under the same roof with my child."

She was quiet now.

"I know. There's not one of those Christian women up in the town yonder 'ud take Lot into their kitchens to give her a chance to save herself from hell. Do you think I care? It's not for myself I'm sorry. It's too late."

Yet as this child, hardly a woman, gave her soul over forever, she could not keep her lips from turning white.

"There's thousands more of us. Who cares? Do preachers and them as sits in the grand churches come into our dens to teach us better?"

Pumphrey grew uneasy.

"Who taught you to sing?" he said.

The girl started. She did not answer for a minute.

"What did you say?" she said.

"Who taught you?"

Her face flushed warm and dewy; her eyes wandered away, moistened and dreamy; she curled her hair-softly on her finger.

"I'd—I'd rather not speak of that," she said, low. "He's dead now. He called me—Lottie," looking up with a sudden, childish smile. "I was only fifteen then."

"How old are you now?"

"Four years more. But I tell you I've seen the world in that time."

It was Devil Lot looked over at the dark river now.

He turned away to go up the wharf. No help for so foul a thing as this. He dared not give it, if there were. She had sunk down with her old, sullen glare, but she rose and crept after him. Why, this was her only chance of help from all the creatures God had made!

"Let me tell you," she said, holding by a fire-plug. "It's not for myself I care. It's for Benny. That's my little brother. I've raised him. He loves me; he don't know. I've kept him alone allays. I don't pray, you know; but when Ben puts his white little arms about me 't nights and kisses me, somethin' says to me, 'God loves you, Lot.' So help me God, that boy shall never know what his sister was! He's gettin' older now. I want work, before he can know. Now, will you help me?"

"How can I?"

The whole world of society spoke in the poor manager.

"I'll give you money."

Her face hardened.

"Lot, I'll be honest. There's no place for such as you. Those that have made you what you are hold good stations among us; but when a woman's once down, there's no raising her up."

"Never?"

"Never."

She stood, her fair hair pushed back from her face, her eye deadening every moment, quite quiet.

"Good bye, Lot."

The figure touched him somehow, standing alone in the night there.

"It wasn't my fault at the first," she wandered. "Nobody teached me better."

"I'm not a church-member, thank God!" said Pumphrey to himself, and so washed his hands in innocency.

"Well, good bye, girl," kindly. "Try and lead a better life. I wish I could have given you work."

"It was only for Benny that I cared, Sir."

"You're sick? Or"—

"It'll not last long, now. I only keep myself alive eating opium now and then. D' ye know? I fell by your hall to-day; had a fit, they said. It wasn't a fit; it was death, Sir."

He smiled.

"Why didn't you die, then?"

"I wouldn't. Benny would have known then, I said,—'I will not. I must take care o' him first.' Good bye. You'd best not be seen here."

And so she left him.

One moment she stood uncertain, being alone, looking down into the seething black water covered with ice.

"There's one chance yet," she muttered. "It's hard; but I'll try,"—with a shivering sigh; and went dragging herself along the wharf, muttering still something about Benny.

As she went through the lighted streets, her step grew lighter. She lifted her head. Why, she was only a child yet, in some ways, you know; and this was Christmas-time; and it wasn't easy to believe, that, with the whole world strong and glad, and the True Love coming into it, there was no chance for her. Was it? She hurried on, keeping in the shadow of the houses to escape notice, until she came to the more open streets,—the old "commons." She stopped at the entrance of an alley, going to a pump, washing her face and hands, then combing her fair, silky hair.

"I'll try it," she said again.

Some sudden hope had brought a pink flush to her cheek and a moist brilliance to her eye. You could not help thinking, had society not made her what she was, how fresh and fair and debonair a little maiden she would have been.

"He's my mother's brother. He'd a kind face, though he struck me. I'll kill him, if he strikes me agin," the dark trade-mark coming into her eyes. "But mebbe," patting her hair, "he'll not. Just call me Charley, as Ben does: help me to be like his wife: I'll hev a chance for heaven at last."

She turned to a big brick building and ran lightly up the stairs on the outside. It had been a cotton-factory, but was rented in tenement-rooms now. On the highest porch was one of Lot's rooms: she had two. The muslin curtain was undrawn, a red fire-light shone out. She looked in through the window, smiling. A clean, pure room: the walls she had whitewashed herself; a white cot-bed in one corner; a glowing fire, before which a little child sat on a low cricket, building a house out of blocks. A brave, honest-faced little fellow, with clear, reserved eyes, and curling golden hair. The girl, Lot, might have looked like that at his age.

"Benny!" she called, tapping on the pane.

"Yes, Charley!" instantly, coming quickly to the door.

She caught him up in her arms.

"Is my baby tired waiting for sister? I'm finding Christmas for him, you know."

He put his arms about her neck, kissing her again and again, and laying his head down on her shoulder.

"I'm so glad you've come, Charley! so glad! so glad!"

"Has my boy his stocking up? Such a big boy to have his stocking up!"

He put his chubby hands over her eyes quickly, laughing.

"Don't look, Charley! don't! Benny's played you a trick now, I tell you!" pulling her towards the fire. "Now look! Not Benny's stocking: Charley's, I guess."

The girl sat down on the cricket, holding him on her lap, playing with the blocks, as much of a child as he.

"Why, Bud! Such an awful lot of candies that stocking'll hold!" laughing with him. "It'll take all Kriss Kringle's sack."

"Kriss Kringle! Oh, Charley! I'm too big; I'm five years now. You can't cheat me."

The girl's very lips went white. She got up at his childish words, and put him down.

"No, I'll not cheat you, Benny,—never, any more."

"Where are you going, Charley?"

"Just out a bit," wrapping a plain shawl about her. "To find Christmas, you know. For you—and me."

He pattered after her to the door.

"You'll come put me to bed, Charley dear? I'm so lonesome!"

"Yes, Bud. Kiss me. One,—two,—three times,—for God's good-luck."

He kissed her. And Lot went out into the wide, dark world,—into Christmas night, to find a friend.

She came a few minutes later to a low frame-building, painted brown: Adam Craig's house and shop. The little sitting-room had a light in it: his wife would be there with the baby. Lot knew them well, though they never had seen her. She had watched them through the window for hours in winter nights. Some damned soul might have thus looked wistfully into heaven: pitying herself, feeling more like God than the blessed within, because she knew the pain in her heart, the struggle to do right, and pitied it. She had a reason for the hungry pain in her blood when the kind-faced old cobbler passed her. She was Nelly's child. She had come West to find him.

"Never, that he should know me! never that! but for Benny's sake."

If Benny could have brought her to him, saying, "See, this is Charley, my Charley!" But Adam knew her by another name,—Devil Lot.

While she stood there, looking in at the window, the snow drifting on her head in the night, two passers-by halted an instant.

"Oh, father, look!" It was a young girl spoke. "Let me speak to that woman."

"What does thee mean, Maria?"

She tried to draw her hand from his arm.

"Let me go,—she's dying, I think. Such a young, fair face! She thinks God has forgotten her. Look!"

The old Quaker hesitated.

"Not thee, Maria. Thy mother shall find her to-morrow. Thee must never speak to her. Accursed! 'Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.'"

They passed on. Lot heard it all. God had offered the pure young girl a chance to save a soul from death; but she threw it aside. Lot did not laugh: looked after them with tearless eyes, until they were out of sight. She went to the door then. "It's for Benny," she whispered, swallowing down the choking that made her dumb. She knocked and went in.

Jinny was alone: sitting by the fire, rocking the baby to sleep, singing some child's hymn: a simple little thing, beginning,—

 
  "Come, let us sing of Jesus,
    Who wept our path along:
  Come, let us sing of Jesus,
    The tempted, and the strong."
 

Such a warm, happy flush lightened in Charley's heart at that! She did not know why; but her fear was gone. The baby, too, a white, pure little thing, was lying in the cradle, cooing softly to itself. The mother—instinct is nearest the surface in a loving woman; the girl went up quickly to it, and touched its cheek, with a smile: she could not help it.

"It's so pretty!" she said.

Jinny's eyes glowed.

"I think so," she said, simply. "It's my baby. Did you want me?"

Lot remembered then. She drew back, her face livid and grave.

"Yes. Do you know me? I'm Lot Tyndal. Don't jerk your baby back! Don't! I'll not touch it. I want to get some honest work. I've a little brother."

There was a dead silence. Jinny's brain, I told you, was narrow, her natural heart not generous or large in its impulse; the kind of religion she learned did not provide for anomalies of work like this. (So near at hand, you know. Lot was neither a Sioux nor a Rebel.)

"I'm Lot,"—desperately. "You know what I am. I want you to take us in, stop the boys from hooting at me on the streets, make a decent Christian woman out of me. There's plain words. Will you do it? I'll work for you. I'll nurse the baby, the dear little baby."

Jinny held her child tighter to her breast, looking at the vile clothes of the wretch, the black marks which years of crime had left on her face. Don't blame Jinny. Her baby was God's gift to her: she thought of that, you know. She did not know those plain, coarse words were the last cry for help from a drowning soul, going down into depths whereof no voice has come back to tell the tale. Only Jesus. Do you know what message He carried to those "spirits in prison"?

"I daren't do it. What would they say of me?" she faltered.

Lot did not speak. After a while she motioned to the shop. Adam was there. His wife went for him, taking the baby with her. Charley saw that, though everything looked dim to her; when Adam came in, she knew, too, that his face was angry and dark.

"It's Christmas eve," she said.

She tried to say more, but could not.

"You must go from here!" speaking sharp, hissing. "I've no faith in the whinin' cant of such as you. Go out, Janet. This is no place for you or the child."

He opened the street-door for Lot to go out. He had no faith in her. No shrewd, common-sense man would have had. Besides, this was his Christmas night: the beginning of his new life, when he was coming near to Christ in his happy home and great love. Was this foul worm of the gutter to crawl in and tarnish it all?

She stopped one instant on the threshold. Within was a home, a chance for heaven; out yonder in the night—what?

"You will put me out?" she said.

"I know your like. There's no help for such as you"; and he closed the door.

She sat down on the curb-stone. It was snowing hard. For about an hour she was there, perfectly quiet. The snow lay in warm, fleecy drifts about her: when it fell on her arm, she shook it off: it was so pure and clean, and she——She could have torn her flesh from the bones, it seemed so foul to her that night. Poor Charley! If she had only known how God loved something within her, purer than the snow, which no foulness of flesh or circumstance could defile! Would you have told her, if you had been there? She only muttered, "Never," to herself now and then, "Never."

A little boy came along presently, carrying a loaf of bread under his arm,—a manly, gentle little fellow. She let Benny play with him sometimes.

"Why, Lot!" he said. "I'll walk part of the way home with you. I'm afraid."

She got up and took him by the hand. She could hardly speak. Tired, worn-out in body and soul; her feet had been passing for years through water colder than the river of death: but it was nearly over now.

"It's better for Benny it should end this way," she said.

She knew how it would end.

"Rob," she said, when the boy turned to go to his own home, "you know Adam Craig? I want you to bring him to my room early to-morrow morning,—by dawn. Tell him he'll find his sister Nelly's child there: and never to tell that child that his 'Charley' was Lot Tyndal. You'll remember, Rob?"

"I will. Happy Christmas, Charley!"

She waited a minute, her foot on the steps leading to her room.

"Rob!" she called, weakly, "when you play with Ben, I wish you'd call me Charley to him, and never—that other name."

"I'll mind," the child said, looking wistfully at her.

She was alone now. How long and steep the stairs were! She crawled up slowly. At the top she took a lump of something brown from her pocket, looked at it long and steadily. Then she glanced upward.

"It's the only way to keep Benny from knowing," she said. She ate it, nearly all, then looked around, below her, with a strange intentness, as one who says good-bye. The bell tolled the hour. Unutterable pain was in its voice,—may-be dumb spirits like Lot's crying aloud to God.

"One hour nearer Christmas," said Adam Craig, uneasily. "Christ's coming would have more meaning, Janet, if this were a better world. If it wasn't for these social necessities that"–

He stopped. Jinny did not answer.

Lot went into her room, roused Ben with a kiss. "His last remembrance of me shall be good and pleasant," she said. She took him on her lap, untying his shoes.

"My baby has been hunting eggs to-day in Rob's stable," shaking the hay from his stockings.

"Why, Charley! how could you know?" with wide eyes.

"So many things I know! Oh, Charley's wise! To-morrow, Bud will go see new friends,—such kind friends! Charley knows. A baby, Ben. My boy will like that: he's a big giant beside that baby. Ben can hold it, and touch it, and kiss it."

She looked at his pure hands with hungry eyes.

"Go on. What else but the baby?"

"Kind friends for Ben, better and kinder than Charley."

"That's not true. Where are you going, Charley? I hate the kind friends. I'll stay with you,"—beginning to cry.

Her eyes sparkled, and she laughed childishly.

"Only a little way, Bud, I'm going. You watch for me,—all the time you watch for me. Some day you and I'll go out to the country, and be good children together."

What dawning of a new hope was this? She did not feel as if she lied. Some day,—it might be true. Yet the vague gleam died out of her heart, and when Ben, in his white night-gown, knelt down to say the prayer his mother had taught him, it was "Devil Lot's" dead, crime-marked face that bent over him.

"God bless Charley!" he said.

She heard that. She put him into the bed, then quietly bathed herself, filled his stocking with the candies she had bought, and lay down beside him,—her limbs growing weaker, but her brain more lifeful, vivid, intent.

"Not long now," she thought. "Love me, Benny. Kiss me good-night."

The child put his arms about her neck, and kissed her forehead.

"Charley's cold," he said. "When we are good children together, let's live in a tent. Will you, Sis? Let's make a tent now."

"Yes, dear."

She struggled up, and pinned the sheet over him to the head-board; it was a favorite fancy of Ben's.

"That's a good Charley," sleepily. "Good night. I'll watch for you all the time, all the time."

He was asleep,—did not waken even when she strained him to her heart, passionately, with a wild cry.

"Good bye, Benny." Then she lay quiet. "We might have been good children together, if only–I don't know whose fault it is," throwing her thin arms out desperately. "I wish—oh, I do wish somebody had been kind to me!"

Then the arms fell powerless, and Charley never moved again. But her soul was clear. In the slow tides of that night, it lived back, hour by hour, the life gone before. There was a skylight above her; she looked up into the great silent darkness between earth and heaven,—Devil Lot, whose soul must go out into that darkness alone. She said that. The world that had held her under its foul heel did not loathe her as she loathed herself that night. Lot.

The dark hours passed, one by one. Christmas was nearer, nearer,—the bell tolled. It had no meaning for her: only woke a weak fear that she should not be dead before morning, that any living eye should be vexed by her again. Past midnight. The great darkness slowly grayed and softened. What did she wait for? The vile worm Lot,—who cared in earth or heaven when she died? Then the Lord turned, and looked upon Charley. Never yet was the soul so loathsome, the wrong so deep, that the loving Christ has not touched it once with His hands, and said, "Will you come to me?" Do you know how He came to her? how, while the unquiet earth needed Him, and the inner deeps of heaven were freshening their fairest morning light to usher in the birthday of our God, He came to find poor Charley, and, having died to save her, laid His healing hands upon her? It was in her weak, ignorant way she saw Him. While she, Lot, lay there corrupt, rotten in soul and body, it came to her how, long ago, Magdalene, more vile than Lot, had stood closest to Jesus. Magdalene loved much, and was forgiven.

So, after a while, Charley, the child that might have been, came to His feet humbly, with bitter sobs. "Lord, I'm so tired!" she said. "I'd like to try again, and be a different girl." That was all. She clung close to His hand as she went through the deep waters.

Benny, stirring in his sleep, leaned over, and kissed her lips. "So cold!" he whispered, drowsily. "God—bless—Charley!" She smiled, but her eyes were closed.

The darkness was gone: the gray vault trembled with a coming radiance; from the East, where the Son of Man was born, a faint flush touched the earth: it was the promise of the Dawn. Lot's foul body lay dead there with the Night: but Jesus took the child Charley in His arms, and blessed her.

Christmas evening. How still and quiet it was! The Helper had come. Not to the snow-covered old earth, falling asleep in the crimson sunset mist: it did not need Him. Not an atom of its living body, from the granite mountain to the dust on the red sea-fern, had failed to perform its work: taking time, too, to break forth in a wild luxuriance of beauty as a psalm of thanksgiving. The Holy Spirit you talk of in the churches had been in the old world since the beginning, since the day it brooded over the waters, showing itself as the spirit of Life in granite rock or red sea-fern,—as the spirit of Truth in every heroic deed, in every true word of poet or prophet,—as the spirit of Love as–Let your own hungry heart tell how. To-day it came to man as the Helper. We all saw that dimly, and showed that we were glad, in some weak way. God, looking down, saw a smile upon the faces of His people.

The fire glowed redder and cheerier in Adam's little cottage; the lamp was lighted; Jinny had set out a wonderful table, too. Benny had walked around and around it, rubbing his hands slowly in dumb ecstasy. Such oranges! and frosted cakes covered with crushed candy! Such a tree in the middle, hung with soft-burning tapers, and hidden in the branches the white figure of the loving Christ-child. That was Adam's fancy. Benny sat in Jinny's lap now, his head upon her breast. She was rocking him to sleep, singing some cheery song for him, although that baby of hers lay broad awake in the cradle, aghast and open-mouthed at his neglect. It had been just "Benny" all day,—Benny that she had followed about, uneasy lest the wind should blow through the open door on him, or the fire be too hot, or that every moment should not be full to the brim with fun and pleasure, touching his head or hand now and then with a woful tenderness, her throat choked, and her blue eyes wet, crying in her heart incessantly, "Lord, forgive me!"

"Tell me more of Charley," she said, as they sat there in the evening.

He was awake a long time after that, telling her, ending with,—

"She said, 'You watch for me, Bud, all the time.' That's what she said. So she'll come. She always does, when she says. Then we're going to the country to be good children together. I'll watch for her."

So he fell asleep, and Jinny kissed him,—looking at him an instant, her cheek growing paler.

"That is for you, Benny," she whispered to herself,—"and this," stooping to touch his lips again, "this is for Charley. Last night," she muttered, bitterly, "it would have saved her."

Old Adam sat on the side of the bed where the dead girl lay.

"Nelly's child!" he said, stroking the hand, smoothing the fair hair. All day he had said only that,—"Nelly's child!"

Very like her she was,—the little Nell who used to save her cents to buy a Christmas-gift for him, and bring it with flushed cheeks, shyly, and slip it on his plate. This child's cheeks would have flushed like hers—at a kind word; the dimpled, innocent smile lay in them,—only a kind word would have brought it to life. She was dead now, and he—he had struck her yesterday. She lay dead there with her great loving heart, her tender, childish beauty,—a harlot,—Devil Lot. No more.

The old man pushed his hair back, with shaking hands, looking up to the sky. "Lord, lay not this sin to my charge!" he said. His lips were bloodless. There was not a street in any city where a woman like this did not stand with foul hand and gnawing heart. They came from God, and would go back to Him. To-day the Helper came; but who showed Him to them, to Nelly's child?

Old Adam took the little cold hand in his: he said something under his breath: I think it was, "Here am I, Lord, and the wife that Thou hast given," as one who had found his life's work, and took it humbly. A sworn knight in Christ's order.

Christmas-day had come,—the promise of the Dawn, sometime to broaden into the full and perfect day. At its close now, a still golden glow, like a great Peace, filled the earth and heaven, touching the dead Lot there, and the old man kneeling beside her. He fancied that it broke from behind the dark bars of cloud in the West, thinking of the old appeal, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." Was He going in, yonder? A weary man, pale, thorn-crowned, bearing the pain and hunger of men and women vile as Lot, to lay them at His Father's feet? Was he to go with loving heart, and do likewise? Was that the meaning of Christmas-day? The quiet glow grew deeper, more restful; the bell tolled: its sound faded, solemn and low, into the quiet, as one that says in his heart, Amen.

That night, Benny, sleeping in the still twilight, stirred and smiled suddenly, as though some one had given him a happy kiss, and, half waking, cried, "Oh, Charley! Charley!"