Chapter V

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK.—AUNT ESTHER, THE IMMIGRANT.

"MADAM, can I assist you in any way? You seem to be a stranger, and in trouble."

Mrs. Willard was naturally retiring, and withal distrustful of strangers. She glanced scrutinizingly at the speaker. His frank, open, manly face, instantly disarmed suspicion.

"Fearing, from your conversation on the boat with the porter," he continued, "that a serious calamity had befallen you, I succeeded in getting off at this landing to aid you, if you need assistance."

"O, sir," she wailed, "I know not what dreadful thing has happened. My husband disappeared in the night; and my little boy, here, says he saw two men throw him overboard. Can it be that my poor Walter is murdered, sir? It seems as if my heart would burst, I am so terrified and wretched!" And the ghastly face, and clasped hands, and piteous tones, might melt adamant. "Georgie, darling, tell the gentleman about it."

"It is not necessary, madam; it would only distress you," answered the young man. "I overheard the story. It may not be so bad as he thinks. Perhaps an accident happened to your husband, and he will yet make his appearance. It is always well to look on the bright side, madam."

"But what shall I do?" she inquired. "Mr. Willard was taking us to Minnesota. He had the money with him. What can be done to ascertain what has become of him, and if all is indeed well,—" and she spoke more cheerily,—"to let him know where we are. He'll be worried about us. And," she added, hesitatingly, "if he has been injured, I shall want to take care of him. Do—you—really—think—sir," and the words now faltered and dragged as if the horror-palsied tongue refused its office, "that—he—was—robbed—and 'thrown into the river?'"

Her pleading eyes were fixed on his, as if she would read his inmost thoughts.

"Ah, yes, you think so!" she cried, wringing her hands.

Her listener turned away to hide his emotion.

"You believe my Walter was murdered. My dear 'husband!' The 'father of these boys!' Cast into the river! Children, we are now alone! Alone in the far west! Without friends! Without home! Without money! And he murdered!"

The bitter agony concentrated in accent, look, and attitude cannot be portrayed.

"Woman," abruptly interposed the young man, "for your own sake, for your husband's sake, should he still survive, for your children's sake, be calm. This is no time to abandon yourself to grief and despair. God is alive. He will not forsake you. Rouse yourself for action. These boys look up to and depend in this hour wholly on you. For their sake, I repeat, be calm."

This timely exhortation, uttered with magnetic force, was not without effect.

"You are right," she meditatively replied. "I must not selfishly yield to sorrow. Counsel me. What course ought I to pursue in these fearful circumstances?"

A few rods up the shore stood a tavern. A servant lingered near. Calling him, they young man said,—

"Take this lady's baggage to the house."

And when he had seen it all safely conveyed there, he led the stricken group after.

"Now," said he, as they seated themselves in the "Ladies' Room," "you need, madam, to summon all your resolution to consider your position and duty as composedly as possible. Because of your family, you must even be heroic. A true mother will hold up her offspring when affliction comes, teaching them by her own sublime example how to meet the storm."

"True, sir, true," remarked the lady, quietly weeping.

"It would be wrong to disguise the painful fact that circumstances appear to indicate that your husband has been foully dealt with, that your boy's conclusions concerning his father may be correct. Scoundrels of the deepest dye take passage in the immigrant trains and on the Mississippi steamers for the purpose of finding out who has money or jewelry, and, when opportunity favors, of plundering them. Your husband may have made dangerous acquaintances on his journey, and paid the sad penalty. But, even if he was thrown into the river, he may have been picked up by some boat, or gained the shore. It was farther down stream that the affair happened,—if it did occur,—and we must make inquiries at various places, and see if any intelligence can be gained concerning him. I will with pleasure attend to this. Remain here till I report results. There's a down steamer's bell, now; keep up good courage, madam, till I return."

And running to the rude pier, he sprang into the boat.

And now that the young man has gone, let us notice more in detail the little company he has felt so much interest to serve.

Besides Mrs. Willard, at a discreet remove from her, is her maiden sister, "aunt Esther." She is of light complexion and hair,—the latter very abundant,—natural; is somewhat stoutish; has a large, firmly-carried head, an ample forehead, and a fine face. Each article of her apparel, from neck-ribbon to gaiter-boot, fits nicely, showing her to be orderly and exact. She rarely speaks, but when she does, it is to the point. She makes no demonstrations towards any one—not even towards a baby. If obliged to notice such a morsel of humanity, it is in a tenderly stately style, without lullaby or petting.

When Mr. Willard broached the subject of immigrating, she lifted her neatly-arched eyebrows in lofty surprise. And when at last she expressed her opinion, it was decidedly against the scheme.

"If Mr. Willard wishes to banish himself to the world's end, he may do so. 'I' shall not stir an inch on such a wild-goose chase, and his wife is foolish if she does."

But when the Willards started, without previously hinting her intention of doing so, she descended from her room clad in a tidy travelling suit, rode to the depot, had her trunk checked, and seated herself in the cars. She did not even bid adieu to her acquaintances; perhaps her lips were too firmly closed to open for so slight a civility. Her face was, however, unusually pale.

"O, Esther," exclaimed Mrs. Willard, as the reticent maiden sank into the next seat, "are you to accompany us? How glad I am!"

"I did not say so," was the unbending rejoinder. The maiden lady's ear-drops grew pendulous from some smothered emotion. "I shall go a little way, to see that you and the children are properly cared for. Men are so inefficient!"

The boys, however, noticed that their single relative had "coupon" tickets in her reticule—though each was secretly torn off in succession for the conductor.

"Little pitchers" have sharp eyes and wits as well as "big ears," and the lads drew a pleasing inference from what they saw. For odd and uncommunicative as was aunt Esther, they loved and respected her. She had done them too many cross-good turns for it to be otherwise, and they very well knew that her judgment was golden.

"I bet aunt Esther is going all the way with us," gleefully said Georgie to his mother. "I peeped over her shoulder into her' carpet-bag, and she had a string of tickets a mile long."

"Hush, child," answered the mother; "she will overhear you. But I must think you exaggerate a trifle."

"And then her trunk is big as all out doors."

"Not quite," quietly said the mother.

But the self-reliant, cool-headed, authoritative maiden lady, in the emergencies of the journey, was worth her weight in diamonds.

When the hackman at Boston demanded, with oaths and threats, an exorbitant fare of Mr. Willard, the latter, to avoid a quarrel, would have acceded to the unjust charge had not aunt Esther, majestically confronting the bully, bade Mr. Willard put up his purse, saying,—

"I'll settle this bill, sir," tendering the astonished Jehu the legal amount. Eying her an instant, he pocketed the money without a syllable of protest.

Farther on, a baggage-master would have collected three dollars and a half for his private benefit, had not aunt Esther come to the rescue.

At Buffalo, the hackman who had engaged to take them directly to the waiting steamer, landed them instead at a hotel, saying the boat had gone. But while trunks and bandboxes were with markable rapidity being conveyed into the over-hospitable house, the urbane proprietor standing smiling on the steps, waiting to bow them in also, aunt Esther, leaning from the carriage, inquired by whose authority they were brought there.

"Too late for the boat, to-night," answered the driver. "Step along, madam," taking hold of Mrs. Willard's arm.

"Sir," exclaimed aunt Esther, "you contracted to put us aboard the steamer in season. You shall do so, or pay the damage to us of our detention, or I'll report you to the police."

Hackmen are quick at reading character—and landlords no less so. The twain whispered together, the baggage was ill-naturedly restored, the vehicle whizzed for the wharf, and they were aboard the boat a full hour before it sailed.

You are now introduced to the "old maid."

If we slight the boys, we shall offend the mother. Georgie you are slightly acquainted with. He is a bright, active lad, his leading weaknesses being a disposition to fret for the sake of a scene, and an inordinate love of peppermint and sugar in hot water—indulged in for his "stomach's sake and often infirmities," a very handy boy at almost anything.

Ferdinand, the eldest, in his seventeenth year, manly, smart, and muscular, somewhat vain of his extreme age, and also of his handsome face and figure and personal prowess, slightly too fond of dress also.

Between these is Frankie, "going on" to thirteen, nicknamed Little Hunchy, because of a spinal curvature with which he is deformed.

Frankie is a character. When about five, he was playing on the ice, when a drunkard came reeling by, pelted with snowballs by rude boys, and, I am sorry to add, girls. Too much intoxicated to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty, seeing little Frankie, he seized him in his blind rage, and dashed him to the frozen ground, and staggered on.

The child did not appear to be seriously hurt at the time, but a year afterwards, it was observed that his back was bent, and in spite of medical skill, intelligent nursing, and carefully adjusted gymnastics, the vertebræ kept pushing outwards. As is the case in such affections, the "sternum" (breast-bone) also curved outwards. This double crooking sadly interfered with his bodily development otherwise.

Ten years after the cruel concussion, his legs and arms were singularly slender and feeble, his height much that of youth at his age, while the disproportionate humped back and chest gave him the appearance of "old head" and shoulders "on young" legs.

Frankie's head was a study. Long from the frontal region to the lateral, and widening in its sweep; a prominent perceptive forehead; calm, reflective, dark-gray eyes; the upper lashes singularly long, and curling boldly upward; heavy eyebrows extending nearly to the ears; a picked snub-nose, the incomplete nostrils causing the end of the organ to set up the more decidedly; hair abnormally coarse, erect, and bristling, in a line from neck to forehead, imparting a belligerent aspect; face serious, depressed, sagacious, defiant. Such is a rough portrait of the deformed child-man.

Child-man I say, for in stature and physical ability so almost infantile, but the surmounting so very, very old! Then his voice. Then his voice! You would expect from that massive, sage-like, impressive head, deep bass tones. On the contrary, from the perked-up, compressed chest issued marvellously thin, yet slightly harsh, piping sounds.

A sad life had Frankie's been since rum laid its bloated, blasting hand upon him. Strangers saw him only to cry out, "What a deformity!" Neighbors exclaimed, "If he had been my child, I had rather he had died than live to be so unshapely." Wherever he went, he attracted attention, and few guarded, even in his presence, their thoughtlessly expressed commiseration. He had heard thousands of lips declare him a monstrosity—a being only to be exclaimed at and shocked by. Yet he was possessed of an exquisite delicacy of feeling, and was too sensitive, even had he remained well-formed.

Consider his condition. He was little; the large looked down on him. He was weak; the strong could assail him. He was distorted; the compliments paid to the comely were condemnation to himself.

At school he was unable to join in boyish sports, and could, therefore, contribute little to the general stock of amusement; and being so queerly made up, so different from his mates, like a speckled bird all the rest picked at him. Alas for the poor, the unfortunate, the deformed, in this superficial world!

So, poor, unfortunate Frankie, as the years wore on, came to look on mankind as so many social foes. When a new comer opened his lips, Frankie expected him to make some stinging criticism on his bodily infirmities. He had experienced small consideration for his feelings, and he did not anticipate much. And as "self-preservation is the first law of nature," it became a habit to be always mentally on the defensive, ready to return glance for glance, or, it need be, word for word. Although, for the most part, he endured the criticisms of the rude with a sort of savage contempt.

As a result of all this, Frankie seldom smiled, talked little, and as his reliable means of protection lay in his looks and oral remonstrances, his precociously mature face assumed more and more an antagonistic, forbidding, consequential expression, which inarticulately said to the starer, "Mind your business!" And to those tempted to undue familiarity, "Hands off, or take the consequences!"

And when he rebuked impertinence, his countenance expressed terrible things—a method of defence harmless, it is true, yet often more effective than if, with less repelling power of physiognomy, he had possessed more executive ability.

I alluded to the peculiar appearance of Frankie's hair. The effect of the emotions on the human hair is well-known. Excessive terror causes it to rise—to "stand on end," as the common phrase is. Grief or anxiety turns it white. Is it improbable, then, that the hair on Frankie's cranium grew stiffly perpendicular because of his life-long unhappiness? Disappointed, suspicious, resentful, incessantly irritable,—might not these feelings, so deep, perpetual, controlling, have changed the structural character of his hair? We propound the query for others to answer.

Yet, let us repeat, Frankie was exquisitely sensitive and tenderly affectionate. He loved those he did love deeply, strongly, undyingly. His mother knew this. His brothers intuitively had glimpses of the fact, gruff as his manner was towards them, and boyishly inconsiderate as they too frequently were of his happiness.

Ferdinand and Georgie were blessed with an exuberance of animal life. They inherited a good constitution, and were sound in health. To run, climb, leap, wrestle, swim, were much easier than not to. Praised for their fine figures, by acquaintances, in the same breath that Frankie was pitied, it was natural that they appreciated their physical superiority to their unfortunate brother.

With infinite longing, he would watch them at their games and their light tasks. O, were he only like them! And how familiar became their reiterated question, natural, yet triumphant,—

"Don't you wish you could do this, Frankie?"—as they displayed before him their strength and agility!

How Mrs. Willard wept one day, when, hearing some lady callers having in his hearing complimented Ferdie and Georgie, and pitied him for being distorted and dependent, after they left, the little hunchback, sad-eyed, pale, yet tearless, his shrill, minute voice tremulous, said,—

"Mother, do you wish I was dead?"

"Why, no, child," she replied; "what makes you ask such a question?"

"Everybody pities you on my account," he answered, adding, with a pain too poignant for tears, "I don't see of what use I can ever be to you."

But does a mother ever love a crippled or malformed child less than the more favored? Mrs. Willard pressed the dwarf to her heart, the big old-young head strained to her throbbing bosom, and exclaimed,—

"Wish you dead, my darling Frankie? No; better they all die than you. You are the dearest child I have."

From that moment Frankie never doubted her, but increasingly distrusted the carping world.