One Christmas-eve, when Bessie was between seven and eight years of age, a wild little scheme came into her head, as she sat curled up on a sofa in the library, listening to her father, while he read to her sweet young mother a very sad account of the poor of New York, especially of the poor children, and of the n.o.ble efforts that were being made by a few good men and women to alleviate their wretched condition, to clothe them, teach them, and lift them into a better life.

"Ah, Charles," said Mrs. Raeburn, "what a sad, comfortless Christmas many of those poor little creatures will have,--children as dear to their parents as our little girl is to us. Only to think of it! cold, hungry, ignorant, helpless, and hopeless. It is dreadful."

"Why, mamma," exclaimed Bessie, "won't they have any Christmas gifts?"

"No, darling; I fear many must be without all the good and pleasant things by which we remind one another that our dear Lord's birthday has come round again."

"What, mamma! No toys, no nuts, no candies?"

"None, my child."

"Why, then, how can they wish one another a _merry_ Christmas? I should think they would all have a _crying_ Christmas together. I should think they would feel as though _they_ had no Lord Jesus; as though he only belonged to the rich people. And yet, mamma, he was dreadful poor, and spent the first day of his life in a manger, with cows and things; though, to be sure, he had beautiful presents, those the wise old gentlemen that came from down East brought him, you know."

"Yes, dear, he was very poor, and in remembering him we should not forget the poor around us, and should always be ready to a.s.sist, as far as we can, the worthy and honest unfortunates who need our help. But it is your bedtime. You will wish to be up bright and early to-morrow."

Bessie sprang up promptly, and kissed her father good night. At the foot of the stairs she paused, and called him in her pretty imperious way, and he came to her, like the good, obedient papa that he was.

Bessie kissed him again, and called him "a dear, handsome old darling,"

and then, with another last coquettish kiss through the bal.u.s.ters, she bounded laughingly past her mamma, up the stairs, into her little room and behind the door, from which point of vantage she emerged with a terrific "boo!" intended to startle her mamma out of her senses,--but I don't think it did.

Mrs. Raeburn, having heard her daughter repeat her simple prayer, kissed her and returned to the library; and soon after the maid, having seen her nicely in bed, and put everything in order for the morning, left her quite alone. And then the wonderful scheme that had flashed into her brain down stairs was thought over and resolutely arranged, and a famous little plot of mischievous benevolence it was, as you shall see.

Amid all the joyful excitement and merry confusion of Christmas morning, Bessie found time to think over her plan; and she would set her red lips very firmly whenever she felt her courage giving way the least in the world. She _would_ be a heroine for once,--would have a real adventure of her own to relate to a wondering and admiring circle, that very Christmas night.

While mamma and servants were occupied in preparations for a large dinner-party, Bessie found opportunities for packing a little basket with tiny tarts, apples, nuts, and candies; then she put on her pretty winter coat, trimmed with fur, and her new velvet hat, with a long scarlet plume, the pride of her heart, and her warm tippet and soft gloves and high Balmoral boots. Then she took from her drawer a dainty _porte-monnaie_, well filled with bright new pennies and small silver coin, and containing a little compartment lined with crimson satin, wherein two gold dollars dwelt together in state, like a Mongolian king and queen. Then taking her basket on her arm, and thrusting her hands into her little m.u.f.f, she stole down stairs on tiptoe, and made her escape from the house, unperceived by any one.

Mr. Raeburn lived in the aristocratic part of the city of New York; and Bessie, thinking that she could not there carry out her plan in a perfectly satisfactory manner, hailed a down-town stage. Driver and pa.s.sengers looked surprised to see a child taking a trip all alone; but Bessie had such an old, authoritative manner, that they supposed that all was right. After a long, long ride, she alighted somewhere in the neighborhood of the poorest and least respectable part of the city. I may as well tell you now, if you have n't guessed it, Bessie was bound on a mission, a charitable visit to the poor,--the miserably poor, of whom she had heard her father read. She anxiously looked around her for a beggar-child, who should act as her guide to some home of unmerited misfortune, where virtuous poverty pined, and wept, and waited. Alas! there were plenty of sad little mendicants on the streets that day, but Bessie was not easily satisfied. "It must be a little girl," she said to herself, "very, very poor,--pale, and thin, and ragged, and sorrowful, but still pretty, and mild-looking. And she must have a pretty name too, like the little girls that beg in magazine stories, or sell matches, and are stolen by gypsies, and sing ballads for dreadful organ-grinders, and all that." It was a long time before she found one at all to her mind, but finally she was accosted by a little girl, who looked wretched enough, to be sure,--tattered, and sickly, and starved. She was not quite up to the mark as to prettiness, though she had soft, sorrowful eyes and a delicate mouth.

Hunger, cold, and ill-treatment are not very favorable to beauty. Then the name she gave was decidedly unromantic,--_Molly Magee_. But the poor child told a piteous story, which soon brought tears to Bessie's gentle eyes,--how her father was dead of fever, and her mother a suffering invalid; how she was obliged to beg in the streets, from morning till night, to obtain food for that poor dear mother, three darling little brothers, and two sisters, twins and _blind_! It was a hard case, surely, and Bessie offered at once to go home with her pet.i.tioner, to see what she could do towards alleviating the family distress. The little mendicant hesitated at first, and attempted to dissuade her, but at last, as Bessie obstinately insisted on her own plan of benevolence, she yielded, and rather sullenly led the way homeward. Ah, what a way it was! down one dirty street and up another,--through vile courts and alleys reeking with filth, swarming with idle, loud-voiced men, wretched-looking women, slatternly girls, and forlorn children. Bessie's heart grew sick and her courage failed her. If she had known the way back, she would gladly have made an inglorious retreat!

The guide at last conducted her down a flight of slippery steps, leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt of a squalid old tenement-house, in the five stories of which more than as many families were packed, layer on layer, and Bessie found herself in the very bosom of the distressed family of her humble little friend. This home of virtuous poverty was not exactly what she looked for. It was darker, dirtier, more confused and noisy; it smelt worse. There were the "three darling little brothers," to be sure, and they were quite satisfactorily ragged. But Bessie looked in vain for the twin-sisters, whose blindness had so engaged her sympathies. But she said to herself, "Perhaps they, too, have gone out begging, with a pair of twin dogs to lead them." The invalid mother was surely on the mend, for she looked quite stout, and her face was flushed, though that might be from fever. She sat by an old stove, smoking a short black pipe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bessie]

"Well, Molly, what have you brought us?" exclaimed this interesting invalid, in a voice by no means agreeable.

"_I_ have n't got anything," was the reply; "but here's a rich little miss, as says she has got something for us; she _would_ come herself, instead of giving it to me."

The woman took her pipe from her lips, and fixing a pair of hard, hungry eyes upon Bessie, as she stood smiling kindly, with her basket on her arm, like a dear little Red Ridinghood, broke out with, "And what put it into the head of such a fine lady to come anear the likes of us the day?"

"I wanted to see how poor people live," replied Bessie, honestly, "and I have brought you something for Christmas," she continued, stepping up a little timidly, and offering her basket.

The woman caught it eagerly, and turned its contents into her lap.

"And is this all?" she growled. "A pretty dinner, _indade_, for a starving family; nuts and candies and the like! No bread, not the _laste_ taste of b.u.t.ter or _mate_."

"O, I thought you would have such common things," said Bessie; "but I have some money to buy them with."

At this, a tall figure sprang up from a heap of rags in a dark corner, and came forward,--a very dirty, disreputable-looking man. Bessie, who had taken him for a sick man, was surprised to see that he also had a fine color in his cheeks, and even in his nose, but she noticed that he seemed very weak in his legs. "h.e.l.lo! my little angel," he cried; "give _me_ the money," and rudely caught the _porte-monnaie_ from Bessie's hand.

His right to it was disputed by the woman, and they two quarrelled over pennies, dimes, and dollars, as "the three darling little brothers"

quarrelled over apples, nuts, and candies.

"Who is that man?" asked Bessie, beginning to be frightened.

"It's father," replied Molly.

"Why, you told me your father was dead. What makes you tell such stories?" exclaimed Bessie, greatly shocked.

"_She_ makes me," said Molly. "May be you would tell stories, rather than be beaten half to death."

At last the disreputable-looking man, having secured the lion's share of the money, s.n.a.t.c.hed up an old hat and staggered towards the door.

He stopped a moment beside Bessie, saying, "I 'm obliged to you, darling. This will get me something good for Christmas."

"Some new clothes?" asked Bessie.

"No, miss; something better nor clothes."

"Food?"

"No; something better nor food."

As he held a big bottle in his hand, Bessie next suggested "Medicine?"

"Why, bless your swate sowl, do I look like a sick man?"

"No, sir; but I thought you walked as though something was the matter with your legs."

Patrick Magee gave a loud, foolish laugh, as he stumbled up the slippery steps, and reeled down the dirty alley. When he was gone, Bessie proposed to take leave of her pensioners, saying, "I must go home now, or I shall miss my dinner, and they will be troubled about me. Will you show me as far as Broadway, Molly?"

"Not so fast, if you plase, miss," said Mrs. Magee. "You have _seen_ how poor people live; now I want you to _feel_ how they are clad, this biting winter weather. Take off your fine clothes, just, and change with Molly there."

"O please, madam, I would rather go home," cried poor Bessie. "Do let me go! Mamma has often said, that, if I could be poor for one hour even, I would know better how to pity the poor; but I really think I have _seen_ enough to-day. I am very sorry for you, indeed. I 'll ask papa to help you, and give you all you want; only let me go home."

"So you shall, my pretty bird, but you must drop your fine feathers first. Off with them! And, Molly, take off all thim lovely holiday clothes of yours. Sure, exchange is no robbery."

Poor Bessie saw it was vain for her to resist, to plead, or to cry. In a very short time she found herself divested of every article of her nice warm apparel, and clad in the dirty, coa.r.s.e, tattered street clothes of Molly Magee.

To do the beggar-child justice, she seemed shocked at this cruel proceeding, this wicked outrage, and pleaded for Bessie as long as she dared. But Bridget Magee, a bad-tempered woman at the best, had been drinking bad whiskey all the morning, and the brutal rage of drunkenness blazed in her hard black eyes. Molly was evidently in mortal fear of her, and could only give Bessie stolen glances of regret and sorrow. Very pretty she looked in Bessie's beautiful dress, though her face was far sadder than before. In the midst of her trouble, Bessie noticed this, and thought how different was the poor child from all the rest of the household of Magee. When the change was completed, Mistress Bridget whispered for a minute or two to the eldest of the three little boys, and then, turning to her victim, said, with a horrible laugh, "There now, ye poor little simpleton, follow where Larry will _lade_ ye. Be off wid ye! I 'm thinking ye know a little more about poor folk than you did a bit ago, when ye came prancing into a _dacent_ house to show off yer grand airs and yer finery. It's an adventure as will be good for your proud young stomach, miss."

As Bessie, too much frightened and shocked to speak, was hastening out after Larry, Molly sprang forward, caught her hand, kissed it, and sobbed out, "O, forgive me! forgive me! I did n't think they would treat you so, or I wouldn't have let you come!"

The next instant the poor girl was dashed backwards by a sudden blow from her mother's heavy hand, and Bessie saw her no more.

Master Larry Magee, a sharp-eyed and fleet-footed little vagabond, hurried Bessie off in a different direction from that in which she had come, and by many different and devious ways, for his object evidently was to confuse her, so that it would be impossible for her to act as a guide to the den of thieves in which she had been robbed. There was little danger. Poor child, she had not even thought to take note of the name of the miserable little alley to which she had been conducted by the melancholy Molly.

At first, in her joy at having escaped alive from that dreadful Irish ogress, Bessie was hardly sensible of the cold; but at length it pierced through her thin and ragged garments, and struck chills to her very heart. It seemed to clutch at her bare throat, and to snip her ears, under the old cotton handkerchief which covered her head. Her hands, m.u.f.fless and gloveless, grew stiff, and the rosy tips of her fingers changed to a dismal purple; while her poor little toes, peering through great holes in shoes and stockings, looked as piteous as little baby birds, left unbrooded to the storm, in dilapidated nests.

After a long, bewildering, winding walk, or rather run, the two children reached a wide, respectable-looking street, when they came suddenly upon a policeman, at sight of which officer Master Larry halted, wheeled, and executed a brilliant retreat down a dark alley.

But Bessie, who in her innocence believed in a policeman, as a sort of street guardian-angel, went confidently up to this one, the star on his breast shining as the star of hope to her, related to him her wonderful Christmas adventure, and begged him to conduct her home. To her surprise and grief, he refused to believe a word of the story, but, taking her for the little vagrant she seemed, gruffly ordered her to "move on," adding, "You can't gammon _me_: I 've heard too many such yarns."

My private opinion is, that that policeman was a crusty old bachelor, with not a chick nor child,--not even a little sister to his name.